Rand falls while ANC Government shuffles finance ministers

During the second week of December the Minister of Finance Nhanhla Nene was summarily dismissed by the African National Congress (ANC) government in South Africa under President Jacob Zuma.

Nene was replaced immediately by David van Rooyen prompting an even deeper drop in the confidence in the Zuma government to address the decline in the key economic indicators.

After less than a week, Rooyen was relieved and replaced by Pravin Gordhan, who had served in this position before from 2009-2014.

This decision comes amid a worsening economic crisis inside the country, Africa’s most industrialized, which has seen a sharp rise in unemployment, the decline of the rand, energy generation and water shortages.

Apparently in response to the political fallout in the aftermath of the removal of Nene and his replacement by Rooyen, the rand dropped even further from 14-to-1 against the United States dollar to nearly 16. Leading bond-rating agencies lowered the value of South Africa’s credit worthiness to a level just above junk status.

An article published by the Associated Press said “South Africa’s economy was already troubled. Just a week before, ratings agency Fitch downgraded the country to BBB-. Standard & Poor’s maintained South Africa’s BBB- foreign currency credit rating, but revised the outlook to negative. The country had narrowly missed entering a recession with less than 1 percent growth, said Statistics South Africa.” (December 14)

Leading financial publications such as the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) are asserting that the appointment of Gordhan is responsible for the slight increase in the value of the rand by December 14. However, there was almost no recognition of the need for a reorientation from a neo-liberal economic policy to one that is focused on the needs of the working people, farmers, youth and the jobless.

According to the WSJ, “Markets on Monday welcomed South African President Jacob Zuma’s decision to bring back a trusted finance minister in place of a widely denounced appointee, a rare political reversal that exposed his political vulnerability ahead of local elections and the contest in his party to succeed him. South Africa’s currency, the rand, rose around 5 percent to 15.10 against the dollar on Monday after Mr. Zuma said Pravin Gordhan would return as finance minister.” (Dec. 14)

Gordhan was quoted in the international media making statements designed to rebuild confidence by the global centers of finance capital in the ability of South Africa to halt the decline in the economy. He said during a press conference on December 14 that “I’m relatively familiar with the terrain we have to work with and its challenges.”

He went on to stress how “Our government is acutely aware of the financial impact this has had on those who are invested in our economy. Our humble appeal is [for you] to work with us as we continue to build a resilient economy and a better life for all South Africans.”

Political Response Inside and Out of the Ruling Alliance

Elements within the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), which is commemorating its 30th anniversary, criticized the decision to terminate finance minister Nene. COSATU, a key ally of the ANC, held its 12th National Congress recently calling for reforms in the national economy.

In a statement issued from its offices in Braamfontein on December 10 the trade union federation said “Currently, the economy is on its knees and it is hemorrhaging jobs across all sectors. The unemployment rate is going through the roof and the blight of capital flight is back in full swing. To maneuver this economic minefield and smooth transition, we needed the stability, continuity and the experience that Cde Nhlanhla Nene provided. COSATU also feels that what is wrong with treasury is that the mandarins and technocrats have too much power and they are neoliberal hardliners.”

South Africa’s ruling ANC party in their statement on December 14 about the situation in the finance ministry said “The ANC further appreciates the explanation provided by President Zuma on the reasons behind the initial reshuffle of Comrade Nhlanhla Nene who is the country’s nominee to serve as head of the African Regional Center of the New Development Bank/BRICS Bank. The decision underscores the importance of BRICS as a game changer in the world economy and the need for new trade patterns favoring developing economies. The ANC commends the public for vocal engagement of government on the appointment of the Minister of Finance. As an organization, the ANC values public activism on matters of public interest.”

The third key ally in the Tripartite ruling alliance, the South African Communist Party (SACP), spoke favorably about the government’s response to the widespread criticism over the changes within the ministry. A statement issued by the SACP on December 14 noted “This is very important, and the SACP welcomes it. Such important appointments, as with other strategic decisions taken to guide our shared national democratic revolution always require a wide ranging meaningful consultation particularly within the liberation alliance.”

Opposition parties, including the largest, the Democratic Alliance, utilized the reshuffling and the decline in the currency value and bond ratings as a political wedge against the Zuma government. Nonetheless, no real alternative economic policies are being advanced by these organizations who occupy the parliament in Cape Town along with the ruling ANC.

The appointment of successive finance ministers has been met with trepidation by the corporate interests while Anglo American mining conglomerate announced it would eliminate 85,000 jobs in a major restructuring plan. These developments represent an ongoing process of job losses in the extractive industry, a major source of employment and foreign exchange earnings within the South African and regional economies.

Anglo American’s announcement in preparation for shedding some of its assets and downsizing its workforce indicates that similar actions could follow within other coal and gold companies during 2016. The multi-national mining firm has plans to divide its coal divisions that export to other countries and those that provide resources to Eskom, the state-owned energy agency that has faced monumental challenges in recent months involving power outages and shortages of water.

In addition some publications are reporting that Anglo American could be considering the unloading of its Kumba Iron Ore Sishen mine, although confirmation of this may not be revealed until next year. (Eyewitness News, Dec. 8)

These decisions will intensify the already escalating class struggle inside the country. For the last four years, there have been numerous strikes within the mining industry impacting the financial crisis emanating from the unresolved necessity for the redistribution of wealth during the post-apartheid period.

Mamokgheti Molopyane, a labor relations and mining analyst, predicts that the long-term effects of Anglo American’s restructuring plans in the platinum, coal and gold sectors will become clearer during 2016.

“Anglo is not the only company that announced possible job cuts. The gold and coal sectors [will all be impacted], so you can rest assured that next year it’s going to be a battle between the employers and the workers,” he said. (Eyewitness News, Dec. 8)

The South African economic crisis is a reflection of the downturn among numerous emerging states which have experienced substantial growth over the last decade. A decline in commodity prices, including oil and other natural resources, has illustrated the continuing dependency on the existing capitalist dominance of the world system.

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The following text is a translation by Eric Zuesse of an article in deutsche-wirtschafts-nachrichten.de

The EU is in the surprising situation of needing to deal, at its upcoming summit meeting at the end of this week, with the question of whether to extend sanctions against Russia. It had been expected to be an automatic continuation on account of Angela Merkel’s routinely doing whatever Washington says. But some European nations are clenching their fists and resisting her leadership on this particular matter.

The EU summit this Thursday and Friday is consequently surprised to have to deal with the extension of economic sanctions against Russia. The EU foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, on Monday the 14th, at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels, stunned people by placing this question onto the agenda. She tried to downplay the matter by saying that doing this is routine in cases where any Member State might dissent from a consensus. Last week, Italy, in particular, said that it was opposed to extending sanctions, and therefore any extension would require high-level talks.

The sanctions are hated by many states: sanctions have increased European unemployment. However, economic reasons may not be formally stated as a reason for pressuring national politicians; but, suddenly, the EU now resists paying the economic price for its bondage to the U.S., and for doing the bidding of America’s key European agent Angela Merkel. Most EU member states had, in fact, already rejected these sanctions at the outset. US Vice President Joe Biden publicly admitted that the United States needed to force the EU to cooperate.

In fact, some European capitals clench fists in their pockets, because the penalties the individual economies suffer from the sanctions impose a significant competitive disadvantage: In Italy, the former EU President Romano Prodi warned early on, that they’d produce an economic disaster. The Greeks were always against the sanctions, and could bide time stalling for an extra deal on the bailouts. Justification now: The bankrupt state must now spend additional billions for refugee measures. Hungary is fighting against the EU because of the energy policy [especially gas]. Austria has taken serious damage, which even incited the prudent President of the Austrian Chamber of Commerce to a tantrum. The French have taken a two-pronged approach: They carry the sanctions officially, but deal unofficially with the Russians. Recently there was a French agreement with an aircraft carrier, and in Syria there is an unofficial Russian-French partnership. Even the German economy dares discreetly to be rambunctious against Angela Merkel: the Committee on Eastern European Economic Relations stands strictly against the sanctions. However, its chairman Ekkehard Cordes has resigned.Whether the resignation in connection with his criticism of Merkel stands is unclear.

The EU had imposed economic sanctions against Russia in 2014 after the downing of the passenger plane MH17 above Ukraine in July of last year. The sanctions depend on measures against Russian state-owned banks, the import and export of arms, as well as major Russian oil and gas firms.

According to the current situation, sanctions expire at the end of January 2016. The cited reason for the sanctions has been that Russia had shot down the MH17 plane. However, everything indicates that it was instead likely to have been an erroneous firing by the rebels in Ukraine’s east. That’s the basis for having imposed the sanctions. The EU-funded government in Kiev is at least partly to blame, however: They were obligated to close the airspace over the Donbass for civilian flights because of the fighting, but they didn’t do that. And yet the sanctions are only against Russia.

Then, the EU required that a full implementation of the Minsk Agreement would be needed before sanctions would end. This was supposed to occur by 31 December 2015. But recently, among other things the agreed ceasefire had become brittle and the preparations of regional elections that are also required under the Minsk agreement are several months in arrears. Ukraine has launched several provocations, such as the interruption of power supply in the Crimea by neo-Nazi attacks, but this has been ignored by the EU. Also not considered is that Russian President Vladimir Putin instructed the rebels vigorously in the early summer, to cease hostilities [despite continuation of attacks by the other side, which the EU also ignores].

Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentilioni is determined that despite the obvious resistance in individual EU member states, the Russian sanctions must be “on the table” at the summit on Thursday and Friday. He expects “no big discussion,” he said, according to AFP. Nobody was against the “punitive measures,” he said. But the summit was to assess where the issue of Minsk stands. If certain countries have additional needs for discussion, it was not a problem. These are rather “technical” issues.

Federal Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier (SPD) will inform his colleagues, according to diplomats on Monday, on the progress in the implementation of Minsk. After there had been in recent weeks, “significant setbacks” in securing the ceasefire, it was again quiet, he said in Brussels. “We are now focused on the preparation of the legal basis for elections, which will take place next spring.” That is clear, however, “very, very tedious work is ahead”. The sanctions issue was ignored by Steinmeier.

Basically, any EU country could block the sanctions with a veto. But this will probably not happen: In all EU member states either massive economic pressure is exerted, because they are net recipients; or else the states have very weak governments, such as Austria, whose Chancellor Faymann has his back up against the wall because of Austria’s embarrassing crisis management in the refugee issue. All other States will keep themselves covered so as not to fall into Angela Merkel’s firing-line. She is responsible for the renewal of sanctions.

The EU plays in this process an awkward role: it does what the US demands. This week, a traveling extraordinary commissioner is being sent through Europe to “help” persuade recalcitrant members of the EU.

EU President Jean-Claude Juncker lives up to his reputation yet again: using falsehoods as a legitimate weapon: A few weeks ago Juncker had said that the EU should aim for a normalization of relations with Russia. Probably he wanted, by this trick, to win time and lull his critics into a false sense of security.

The timing was chosen deliberately: A few days before Christmas, there are no revolutions in European politics. On several occasions important decisions have been made so that no more time for consultations would be available. Next Monday, the politicians in the EU and in the Member States say goodbye, closed for business during the Christmas holidays.

Concluding Remarks by Eric Zuesse

The December 31st deadline is thus pushed forward toDecember 18th. And, if there still remains a holdout, a veto, by Italy or any other nation, then something will be worked out, some price will be paid, someone will be bought off. The American aristocracy’s war against Russia will not tolerate resistance within the alliance. The members of the gang always stick together. No matter how much the real blame might happen to be on the U.S. and its Ukrainian stooges, and no matter how much Russia might actually be simply responding to their infractions, the gang will hold together. Because, if one member steps out, he’ll be shot. So, the European people are being impoverished, and even attacked by terrorists and flooded with refugees from America’s serial invasions, but Europe’s ‘leaders’ want above all to be ‘leaders’; so, they comply. And that’s the way the world works: it works top-down, nowadays.

The translator, investigative historian Eric Zuesse, is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010,and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.

Translated from: http://deutsche-wirtschafts-nachrichten.de/2015/12/14/merkel-unter-druck-eu-staaten-leisten-widerstand-gegen-russland-sanktionen/

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Liberal Extremism Disguised as Defense of Muslims

December 15th, 2015 by Matt Peppe

After 14 people were killed and 22 more injured in the San Bernardino massacre by a couple whom authorities claim were “radicalized” by Islamist ideology, Islamophobia among the American public has seemingly reached a fever pitch. But while many people are fighting back against hateful discrimination against Muslims, many are doing so with a liberal narrative of American values that rationalizes and perpetuates American state violence, while failing to recognize this violence as its own form of extremism. 

Since San Bernardino, hate crimes against Muslims have been widely reported across the country. In one week alone, a hijab-wearing woman was shot at and several mosques firebombed. Additionally, there have been attacks against storeownerscommunity centers, and civic organizations. Muslims have been intimidated outside their places of worship by armed, right-wing vigilantes.

Donald Trump, the current Republican front-runner for the Presidential nomination, whose racist demagoguery has prompted debate over whether he is a fascist, reacted with the most extreme policy proposal of any politician. Trump called for “a total and complete shutdown” of Muslims entering the United States because of the “dangerous threat” they pose.

One popular way people have been denouncing bigotry against Muslims is through seemingly-progressive stories of American and British soldiers who fought in Iraq or Afghanistan vocally embracing Muslims, despite their experiences on the battlefield and the loss of their friends and fellow servicemen.

In a post on Medium, former US Army soldier David Swan writes an open letter to Muslims in which he states, “I don’t hate you. I don’t fear you. I don’t want you to leave this country.” Swan goes on to say he would like to have Muslims over for a barbecue, to talk about fantasy football, and for their children to play together.

Swan differentiates Muslims that are willing to accept this type of assimilation from”the radical Islamist.” The moderates, he claims, share the American value of being “peace loving.” On the other hand, the Islamists who have been radicalized are “wolves” – irrational, barbaric and inherently violent – who “will not stop killing sheep until they are put down… Please do not blame us for using our staff to protect the flock.”

Radicalism is seen as a virus that can turn normal people into the equivalent of bloodthirsty zombies. The notion that someone’s beliefs – if taken too literally or too seriously – can turn them from a normal person deserving rights into a subhuman is problematic, to say the least. Though it is unsaid, this virus is implicitly understood as unique to Muslims. There is no such popular imagery of radical Christian, Jewish or Mormon death cults.

The United States and its imagined values are seen as impartial and neutral. Swan sees his own actions as purely reactive. The Army was forced to invade and occupy Iraq because the radical Islamists gave them no choice. “We take no joy in killing you, but we will do it because you have forced our hand,” he writes.

Rather than being an innocent bystander simply seeking a peaceful coexistence among nations, the United States has a long, sordid history of bloody interventions and human rights violations across Muslim countries in the Middle East and beyond.

For the last 70 years, the US government has been an active participant in dispossessing Palestinians from their lands, erasing their culture and endangering their very survival as a people. They have enabled the illegal occupation by giving Israel more than $100 billion in military aid, and vetoed 42 UN Security Council resolutions and countless more General Assembly resolutions seeking to hold Israel accountable for its violations of international law.

Starting in the early 1950s, the US government meddled in Syrian, Lebanese, Iraqi and Iranian politics to prevent moderate nationalist forces who sought to utilize their countries’ natural resources (primarily oil) for the social and economic benefit of their populations.

The US government recruited, armed and trained foreigners and sent them on a mission in the 1980s to go to Afghanistan and fight a Holy War against the “infidels.” Under the Carter Doctrine, the US government declared that the Persian Gulf region was of “vital interest” to the United States, thereby justifying a proliferation of bases in Saudi Arabia and across the Middle East to protect access to petroleum reserves.

The US government invaded Iraq twice, killing hundreds of thousands of people and reducing what was a modern nation with advanced highways, infrastructure, hospitals and cultural sites to crumbling ruins. In the 12 years between illegal invasions of sovereign Iraqi territory, the US enforced horrifyingly deadly sanctions that caused the deaths of 576,000 children. Two UN officials overseeing the sanctions regime resigned when their protests against the inhumanity of the program were ignored. Confronted with the shocking toll of lives lost, a Clinton administration official said “it was worth it.”

Groups like Al Qaeda and ISIS did not form in a vacuum but as a reaction to this historical context . They are not a manifestation of Islamic theology found in texts like the Quran, but of specific social, political and cultural conditions – conditions the United States played no small role in creating. Some people who feel powerless and desperate will inevitably resort to violence against those they see as responsible. While indiscriminate violence is not morally justifiable, it is also not irrational.

Swan’s metaphor of radical Islamists as wolves mercilessly attacking a flock of sheep, detached from any social or political objectives, evokes Edward Said’s description of Islam symbolizing among Westerners “terror, devastation, the demonic, hordes of hated barbarians.”

The argument, when reduced to its simplest form, was clear, it was precise, it was easy to grasp,” Said writes in Orientalism. “There are Westerners, and there are Orientals. The former dominate; the latter must be dominated, which usually means having their land occupied, their internal affairs rigidly controlled, their blood and treasure put at the disposal of one or another Western power.”

While America is imagined as being free of the toxic ideology infecting radical Islamists, the narratives driving the US’s many violent interventions across the Middle East can be seen as a manifestation of Said’s description of Orientalism. The assumption that Muslims acting without reason must be brought under control by more civilized nations is itself a highly ideological position.

As Arun Kundnani explains in The Muslims Are Coming!, the dominant discourse about Muslims has changed since the days after 9/11 when blanket fear of all Muslims was prevalent:

But now, liberals say, we have moved beyond that, and we understand that Muslims in America are just like the rest of us. However, just as in The Russians Are Coming!, the liberal caveat is that Muslims are acceptable when depoliticized: they should be silent about politics, particularly US foreign policy and the domestic national security system, and not embrace an alien ideology that removes them from the liberal norm.

In other words, Muslims should feel free to barbecue and talk about fantasy football. But speaking out against American imperial wars in Muslim countries like Iraq and Afghanistan, questioning whether they are really a battle of good versus evil, would indicate extremist ideology – which, in turn, would suggest a disposition for terrorism.

“Those defined as moderate Muslims can have their religious traditions valued within the parameters of Western tolerance,” writes Kundnani, “while the state focuses its powers on surveillance, coercion, and violence on those categorized as extremist.”

former British soldier who lost his leg in the Iraq war writes that despite people expecting him to hate Muslims because of what happened to him he refuses to hold an entire religion responsible for groups and individuals who sought him harm.

This is an admirable sentiment. But it presupposes that the violence against the soldier was more reprehensible than the violence he was himself responsible for. The soldier was a combatant taking part in an illegal war of aggression. The people who took up arms in resistance against him have a legal and moral right to do so, just as he would have a right to defend his own country from a foreign invasion. If people selectively condemn individual Muslims for violence, it should be no surprise that many people will use this to fuel racist stereotypes.

Murderous assaults on hospitalssadistic torture, “shock and awe” aerial bombardment, and assassinations against unknown targets are terrorism just as much as indiscriminate shooting sprees, suicide bombings or summary executions of hostages. Those seeking to defend Muslims would be well served to question whether their own their own nationalist doctrines help rationalize the plague of state terrorism that the War on Terror has normalized, and which is falsely portrayed as moderate and noble. 

Matt Peppe writes about politics, U.S. foreign policy and Latin America on his blog. You can follow him on twitter.

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Resultados en Venezuela: Sistema Electoral y la Democracia

December 14th, 2015 by Arnold August

El 6 de diciembre de 2015 las elecciones dieron lugar a una clara victoria de la oposición sobre la alianza bolivariana liderada por el Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (PSUV). La oposición ganó 112 escaños con 58% de los cerca de 74% del electorado que votó. La coalición Bolivariana ganó 55 escaños y obtuvo 42% de los votos. Esto proporciona a la oposición un escaño más que el mínimo necesario para ser declarado como una mayoría de dos tercios: 111. El bloque de 112 asientos tiene 20 escaños más que una mayoría simple. Este saldo propicia que la Asamblea Nacional esté controlada por la oposición.

Al conseguir los dos tercios de la Asamblea Nacional (AN), la oposición podrá aprobar leyes orgánicas, proponer reformas y enmiendas constitucionales, reemplazar a miembros del Tribunal Supremo de Justicia (TSJ), el propio Consejo Nacional Electoral y demás poderes públicos; pero únicamente con la aprobación de otros órganos legales. La AN, al instalarse en enero 2016, deberá atenerse a sus facultades y a lo refrendado en la Constitución. El sistema de Venezuela no es parlamentario, sino mixto, pues existe un contrapeso entre los cinco poderes del Estado. La Asamblea no puede remover a otros poderes si no existe un pronunciamiento previo del TSJ, el Poder Ciudadano o la instancia establecida para cada caso. Tampoco debe legislar en contra del principio conocido como progresividad de los derechos humanos, el cual establece que los derechos se mejoran o dejan igual, pero nunca se quitan o limitan.

Esta es la segunda vez desde la elección de Hugo Chávez en 1998 que las fuerzas chavistas pierden una elección. El 6 de diciembre fue el número 20 de las elecciones desde 1998. Hubo votación pacífica en las urnas el 6 de diciembre. Esto fue seguido por los resultados y la aceptación inmediata de ellos por Nicolás Maduro. El respeto por los resultados nunca estuvo en duda. ¿Qué indica esto? Indica una vez más que el sistema electoral venezolano, como tal, es justo y uno de los mejores del mundo. Es una prueba para que el mundo vea que el sistema electoral es sólido y transparente. En este sentido es una supuesta “victoria.”

Sin embargo, es una victoria pírrica. Esto es así porque parece que no se puede declarar que ha sido una victoria para la democracia. El sistema electoral como tal es un proceso legal. Eso es una cosa, mientras que el concepto de democracia es algo más. La democracia no se puede evaluar en abstracto. La democracia en el contexto venezolano significa el poder político del pueblo en una Venezuela soberana e independiente frente a los intentos imperialistas de Estados Unidos por controlar el país de Bolívar, una vez más.

¿Quién y qué fuerzas representan el poder político de este pueblo? Es la alianza política encabezada por el PSUV. Lo más importante, el poder popular surge del concepto de que el poder político reside en las manos del pueblo. De este emanan todos los demás poderes consagrados en la Constitución de Venezuela: “La soberanía reside intransferiblemente en el pueblo, quien la ejerce directamente en la forma prevista en esta Constitución y en la ley, e indirectamente, mediante el sufragio, por los órganos que ejercen el Poder Público. Los órganos del Estado emanan de la soberanía popular y a ella están sometidos” (Artículo 5). Por tanto, la situación es muy complicada para la oposición y para la revolución.

La democracia hoy día se basa en aproximadamente 42% del electorado. Se votó, en general, a favor de continuar la Revolución Bolivariana. Por otra parte, la jornada electoral es, por esta fuerza Bolivariana, un solo día en su continua y diaria lucha por los derechos sociales, económicos, culturales y políticos de los humildes y otros. El día de la votación es solo una parte de la democracia participativa que los líderes de Venezuela, Chávez y Maduro, se han esforzado por desarrollar. De hecho, es un éxito en la medida en que los nuevos experimentos en la democracia participativa en Venezuela constituyen una base para su desarrollo, incluso desde el 6 de diciembre. Esto es así a pesar de sus deficiencias, que la nueva situación tiene que enfrentar. Todavía ofrece lecciones para otros países también.

Sin embargo, esta fuerza en favor del poder popular o la democracia tiene en su contra a los que tratan de dar marcha atrás en la historia reciente de Venezuela desde diciembre de 1998. Por tanto, fue una gran derrota para la democracia. La oposición lo es ferozmente contra la Revolución Bolivariana y en favor de la oligarquía venezolana, y de mayor penetración y de control por parte de Estados Unidos. Esto es una violación flagrante de la democracia. No obstante, la oposición ganó fácilmente.

Sin embargo, la fuerza democrática de millones de revolucionarios venezolanos se ha convertido, incluso hoy día, en una fuerza material. En ciertas condiciones, la conciencia se puede convertir en una fuerza material. No son solo las ideas. La Revolución Bolivariana se ha convertido en una fuerza material detectable. A pesar de que sus números han caído drásticamente sigue siendo una fuerza sólida a pesar de ser la minoría. Muchos de los que están dentro y fuera de Venezuela que apoyan a la Revolución Bolivariana, no piensan muy bien de aquellos que entre los sectores más humildes de la sociedad votaron por la oposición. Este sentimiento es normal y justificado.

No obstante, existe la otra cara de la moneda. Mientras secciones importantes en la base fueron engañadas por la guerra mediática contra los chavistas, eso también pone de relieve otra cosa. Los que no fueron engañados, se pusieron de pie muy fuerte y resistieron al terrorismo mediático. Significa que esos millones de venezolanos, ahora en minoría, deben considerarse más sólidos que nunca. Tienen que ser apreciados más ahora que antes del 6 de diciembre. Su opción de ese día representa una resistencia heroica a todas las fuerzas venezolanas e internacionales que tienen como blanco la Revolución Bolivariana en un intento de enterrarla. El 6 de diciembre no es ni siquiera un clavo en el ataúd de la revolución. La revolución no está muerta.

La Revolución Bolivariana como portador de la democracia en Venezuela es una democracia en movimiento. Tiene sus altibajos. El 6 de diciembre la recesión grave desafió las fuerzas revolucionarias para innovar y mejorar aún más la idea de que la soberanía reside intransferiblemente en el pueblo. Su primera tarea es resistir todos los intentos de hacer retroceder las conquistas de su revolución, como Maduro ha señalado. En cuanto a los que votaron por la oposición, pero no debían haberlo hecho, también pueden aprender con el ejemplo positivo de la democracia en el movimiento en las calles, barrios, centros de trabajo y educativos. Esto está destinado a contrastar con su experiencia frente a las fuerzas de la oposición, que ahora controlan la Asamblea Nacional.

En comparación con esta fuerza material compacta, basada en una ideología clara templada en la batalla desde el año 1998, ¿qué representa hoy día la oposición? Es una mezcla de diferentes perspectivas y clases. Coalición inestable, se basa ante todo en los decididos esfuerzos de la oligarquía y de su ideología basada en el capitalismo y la dependencia de los EE.UU. Ese frentre es relativamente sólido y no va a cambiar de manera significativa hasta que finalmente sea derrocado por un mayor desarrollo de la Revolución Bolivariana.

Por otro lado, las fuerzas de la base que se adhirieron de forma tan masiva por primera vez a la oligarquía el 6 de diciembre, lo hicieron por varias razones, que provienen principalmente de la guerra económica y la guerra mediática, lideradas por los EE.UU. y sus aliados. Estas fuerzas probablemente no votaron todas a “castigar” al gobierno de Maduro. Muchos fueron bastante animados por una insatisfacción general resultante de la guerra económica, lo cual se materializó en una esperanza vaga, buscando alivio, por ejemplo, contra las siete y más horas de cola para satisfacer necesidades básicas y pagar precios cada vez más altos.

La oportunista alianza electoral no es rival a largo plazo para las fuerzas de la Revolución Bolivariana, que tiene una gran responsabilidad en este momento. Está, por supuesto, la situación interna. Sin embargo, el 6 de diciembre es también un desafío directo a mantener, o desarrollar aún más, la integración regional de América Latina y el Caribe, uno de los grandes legados de Hugo Chávez. También es una amenaza para la cooperación internacional, como PetroCaribe, que se basa en el uso de la industria petrolera para el pueblo de Venezuela y los países vecinos. Ante esto, es también un desafío para el nuevo desarrollo del mundo multipolar en la resistencia al mundo unipolar liderado por los EE.UU.

¿Puede la Revolución Bolivariana enfrentar con éxito estos grandes retos nacionales e internacionales? A largo plazo sí. Diecisiete años es un período relativamente corto en una revolución que se está desarrollando de forma continua. No se puede subestimar la base venezolana. Después de todo, aunque en condiciones complemente diferentes, esta incipiente democracia en movimiento fue en gran parte responsable de la derrota del golpe de Estado inspirado por Estados Unidos en 2002 contra Hugo Chávez. El Comandante fue llevado de vuelta al poder y la democracia reinstalada en su mayor parte por las masas en la calle.

Arnold August

 

En días recientes se anunció (ver nota  de prensa) que la Corte Internacional de Justicia (CIJ) dará a conocer su veredicto el próximo 16 de diciembre entre Costa Rica y Nicaragua (ver comunicado oficial  de la CIJ en inglés). Tratándose de un momento anhelado desde varios años por ambos ribereños del río San Juan, en particular por sus respectivos aparatos diplomáticos, nos ha parecido oportuno precisar brevemente el alcance así como las expectativas que genera este anuncio, no sin antes proceder a situar brevemente el origen de esta controversia entre Costa Rica y Nicaragua desde la perspectiva del derecho internacional. Recordemos que con la demanda interpuesta en febrero del 2014 por Costa Rica contra Nicaragua por la delimitación en ambos océanos, son tres las demandas ante la CIJ  acumuladas en tres años y medio (noviembre 2010- febrero 2014), lo cual constituye en sí un hito nunca alcanzado con anterioridad por dos Estados ante los estrados de la justicia internacional.

Mapa de la “trocha fronteriza” y rutas de acceso al río San Juan habilitados por Costa Rica. Documento oficial presentado en Casa Presidencial (Costa Rica). A la derecha, Isla Portillos (circulo en rojo realizado por el autor ya que no se distingue mayormente en razón de la escala usada)

Dos demandas en un fallo

El fallo de la CIJ a dictaminarse este próximo 16 de diciembre responde a dos demandas distintas: la demanda interpuesta por Costa Rica contra Nicaragua (en noviembre del 2010) y la de Nicaragua contra Costa Rica (presentada en diciembre del 2011).

La primera demanda encuentra su origen en un inédito error de posicionamiento de Nicaragua en Isla Portillos, el cual nunca fue asumido como tal por parte de Nicaragua, pese a la inmediata rectificación de Google Earth al percatarse del trazado equivocado del último segmento de la frontera en sus mapas digitales (ver  nota  de La Nación del 6/11/2010). La referencia a Google Earth reviste importancia en la medida en que fue la razón dada inicialmente por los encargados del dragado realizado por Nicaragua en el último segmento de este río fronterizo  para justificar su ubicación en Isla Portillos. Se leyó en medios de prensa (ver  nota de La Nación del 4/11/2010): “Vea la foto satelital de Google y ahí se ve la frontera. En los últimos 3.000 metros las dos márgenes son de Nicaragua”.

Cabe también señalar la negligencia de las autoridades costarricenses de la época con relación a advertencias hechas por diputados de oposición (ver por ejemplo intervención del diputado Claudio Monge citando varias cartas enviadas en agosto y en octubre del 2010 al Poder Ejecutivo sobre incursiones de Nicaragua en zonas aledañas a Finca Aragón, en acta de la Asamblea Legislativa del 24/09/2013, pp.27-31 disponible  aquí ). En noviembre del 2010, Costa Rica presentó oficialmente su demanda contra Nicaragua ante la CIJ (ver  texto  de la demanda).

Es la primera vez que un error cartográfico de Google Earth desata una crisis diplomática entre dos Estados. Y es la primera vez en la historia de la justicia internacional que un incidente fronterizo de esta naturaleza termina en manos de la CIJ, siendo examinado por esta última como una clásica controversia territorial entre dos Estados vecinos.

La segunda demanda, interpuesta por Nicaragua, se relaciona con la “Ruta 1856” denominada popularmente (y no tan popularmente según se puede apreciar escuchando a las autoridades de ambos Estados) como “trocha fronteriza”: se trata de una ruta de más de 154 kilómetros construida por Costa Rica a partir de mediados del 2011 sin estudios de ningún tipo, entre Puesto Delta y Los Chiles, y que bordea el río San Juan a escasos metros durante su recorrido. Como se recordará, a mediados del 2011, la prensa de Costa Rica se hizo eco de un proyecto de construcción de una ruta paralela al río San Juan y a parte de la frontera terrestre, en condiciones irregulares (Nota 1). Oficialmente, esta ruta se justificó como respuesta a la “invasión” y a la “agresión” sufrida por Costa Rica en octubre del 2010 (las comillas usadas por el autor obedecen al hecho que, desde la perspectiva del derecho internacional, lo ocurrido en Isla Portillos no califica sino como una incursión y una ocupación ilegal del territorio costarricense). La ausencia de estudios en materia ambiental se justificó por parte de las autoridades en razón de la “emergencia” decretada como tal en marzo del 2011 mediante Decreto Ejecutivo 36440 MP: este último fue objeto de un recurso de inconstitucionalidad ante la Sala Constitucional de Costa Rica en el 2012, por su carácter desproporcional e irracional, y fue rechazado “ad portas” de forma inusualmente expedita por un juez constitucional al parecer un tanto tembloroso (Nota 2).

En diciembre del 2011, Nicaragua presentó a la CIJ una demanda formal contra Costa Rica por la construcción de esta ruta paralela al Río San Juan y a parte de la frontera terrestre (ver texto de la demanda). Como tuvimos la oportunidad de precisarlo: “Esta demanda, presentada por Nicaragua el 21 de diciembre “viene a “acompañar” de una manera muy sutil la demanda inicial de Costa Rica contra Nicaragua, ante la CIJ, por el dragado del 2010, con una clara intención: la de desacreditar todos los argumentos esgrimidos por Costa Rica (en el caso del dragado) basados en consideraciones de tipo ambiental”.

En una entrevista realizada por el Semanario Universidad a reconocidos ecologistas  costarricenses, en enero del 2012, uno de ellos (ver  artículo ) advirtió: “Es claro que se le han dado armas a Nicaragua para que contraataque”, mientras que otro apunto que “nadie en el Gobierno está brindando información confiable sobre la construcción de la obra”.  Sobre este último punto, la nebulosa se ha mantenido  (y se sigue manteniendo, salvo error de nuestra parte) sobre los verdaderos responsables de sugerir la construcción de la denominada “trocha”, llamada a convertirse (según todo pareciera indicar) en una verdadera criatura sin padre (Nota 3). El Semanario Universidad “apuntó” según una nota de mayo del 2012 hacia el edificio de Casa Presidencial, pero sin lograr identificar a los funcionarios responsables de proponer esta peculiar iniciativa. En el 2013, los tribunales desestimaron una acción por presunta difamación interpuesta contra una periodista por dos altos funcionarios de la administración de Laura Chinchilla, quiénes se sintieron ofendidos al ver su nombre aparecer en un reportaje sobre la trocha (ver nota de prensa). En una obra colectiva publicada por la Universidad Nacional (UNA) en el año 2014 sobre cooperación transfronteriza (ver texto integral de esta  publicación ), nos permitimos escribir (p.121) que: “Estamos, por tanto, en presencia de un vasto proyecto denominado incluso como “prioritario” por la actual administración de la presidenta Laura Chinchilla, pero sin que, a la fecha, se tenga claridad sobre quién(es) ordenó(aron) su construcción, lo cual, en nuestra modesta opinión, no deja de sorprender profundamente”.

Como es sabido, a petición de Nicaragua, y pese a las objeciones de Costa Rica, la CIJ decidió en forma unánime unir ambos procedimientos contenciosos en uno solo en una ordenanza del mes de abril del 2013. Dicha ordenanza tampoco cuenta con precedente alguno en la jurisprudencia de la CIJ, ya que en casos anteriores, la unión de procedimientos se hizo siempre a petición de ambos contrincantes, y no de uno (Nota 4).

Un fallo precedido por una inédita batalla procesal

Con relación a aspectos propiamente procesales relacionados con estas dos demandas, Costa Rica y Nicaragua han recurrido a diversos incidentes procesales, librando una batalla que tampoco cuenta con precedentes en la historia de la justicia internacional. Para mejor apreciar la intensidad de esta justa procesal, la comparación con otro caso (igualmente devastador para las relaciones bilaterales) entre Argentina y Uruguay se impone: el caso de las plantas de celulosas en el Río Uruguay (2006-2010). En ese caso, la CIJ dictaminó un total de cuatro providencias, a saber: dos ordenanzas sobre plazos para presentación de escritos, una ordenanza con relación a medidas provisionales solicitadas por Argentina con fecha del 13 de julio del 2006 (ver  texto ) y una ordenanza con relación a medidas provisionales solicitadas por Uruguay del 23 de enero del 2007 (ver  texto ).

En cambio, Costa Rica y Nicaragua han protagonizado un ejercicio inédito entre el 2011 y el 2014, que ya tuvimos la oportunidad de detallar en una  nota  anterior publicada en abril del 2015 en el sitio de Derechoaldia, y que de manera muy sucinta quisiéramos recordar en cuanto al número de ordenanzas dictaminadas por la CIJ:

El 8 de marzo del 2011: la CIJ ordena medidas provisionales, en la que declara “zona en conflicto” el sector de Isla Portillos, solicitando a ambos Estados retirarse de ella y no agravar con su conducta la situación. Para mitigar daños ambientales, la CIJ autoriza a Costa Rica a ingresar en la zona informando a Nicaragua y bajo supervisión de la Secretaría Ramsar. La CIJ no ordena la suspensión de la operación del dragado a Nicaragua, tal como lo solicitaba Costa Rica (ver texto de la  ordenanza  del 8/3/2011).

El 5 de abril del 2011, la CIJ  fija el plazo de presentación de los escritos de cada una de las partes: Costa Rica sugiere que este plazo sea de 6 meses, Nicaragua de 12 meses, y la CIJ decide fijarlo a 9 meses, debiendo presentar su memoria Costa Rica el 5 de diciembre del 2011, y Nicaragua su contra memoria el 6 de agosto del 2012 (ver  texto  de ordenanza del 5/04/2011 de la CIJ).

En enero del 2012, y con la anuencia de ambos Estados, la CIJ  fija el plazo de presentación de los escritos para la segunda demanda, debiendo presentar su memoria Nicaragua el 19 de diciembre del 2012, y Costa Rica su contra memoria el 19 de diciembre del 2013 (ver  texto  de ordenanza del 23/1/2012 de la CIJ).

En abril del 2013, la CIJ adopta una ordenanza mediante la cual rechaza dos de las cuatro demandas reconvencionales presentadas por Nicaragua y acepta unir ambos procedimientos en uno solo (ver  texto  de ordenanza del 1/4/2013 de la CIJ sobre medidas reconvencionales solicitadas por Nicaragua y  texto  de ordenanza del 17/03/2013 de la CIJ sobre unión de ambos casos). 

En julio del 2013, la CIJ adopta una ordenanza en la que rechaza una solicitud hecha por Costa Rica y por Nicaragua de modificar, cada uno por razones distintas, el texto de la ordenanza del 8 de marzo del 2011 (ver   texto  de la ordenanza de la CIJ del 17/07/2013).

El 22 de noviembre del 2013, la CIJ  ordena a Nicaragua medidas provisionales con relación a  dos nuevos “caños” detectados en Isla Portillos  en setiembre del 2013 a partir de tomas satelitales brindadas por Colombia a Costa Rica (ver  texto  de ordenanza del 22/11/2013).

El 13 de diciembre del 2013, en virtud de las garantías dadas por Costa Rica de no reiniciar las obras de la “trocha fronteriza” hasta “finales del 2014 o en el transcurso del 2015” (Nota 5), la CIJ considera innecesario ordenar a Costa Rica medidas provisionales que solicitaba Nicaragua para suspender los trabajos en la denominada “trocha fronteriza” (ver  texto  de ordenanza del 13/12/2013).

El 3 de febrero del 2014, la CIJ  fija el plazo de una segunda ronda de escritos a cada una de las partes en el caso de la demanda de Nicaragua contra Costa Rica: mientras Nicaragua solicita 10 meses para elaborar su segundo escrito, Costa Rica considera innecesario una segunda ronda escrita. La CIJ decide establecer una segunda vuelta de alegatos escritos, otorgando 6 meses de plazo a cada una de las partes, debiendo presentar su réplica Nicaragua el 4 de agosto del 2014 y su dúplica Costa Rica el 2 de febrero del 2015 (ver  texto  de ordenanza del 3/02/2014 de la CIJ fijando estos plazos).

A esta larga lista habría que añadir las distintas audiencias orales celebradas en La Haya que precedieron varias de estas ordenanzas. Esta resumida lista puede explicar el cansancio observado en la mirada somnolienta de algunos jueces de la CIJ, al asistir de manera reiterada en un mismo año a audiencias entre Costa Rica y Nicaragua, al tener que elaborar (de forma igualmente reiterada) ordenanzas para intentar calmar los ánimos de ambos, sin observar mayor progreso en sus relaciones bilaterales. En algún momento de esta inusual contienda, la CIJ dejó ver su indisposición y hasta externó – a su manera- su enojo ante la conducta de ambos Estados (ver nuestra modesta  nota  publicada al respecto). Se trata de una apreciación del juez internacional que bien podría dejarse nuevamente entrever en el fallo sobre el fondo a leerse este próximo 16 de diciembre.

El plazo del “délibéré” de la CIJ

Tuvimos la oportunidad de analizar el momento procesal en el que se realizaron las últimas audiencias orales celebradas en el 2015 en el sitio jurídico de Derechoaldia (ver  nota ). Como es sabido, concluidas las audiencias orales, la CIJ se retira e inicia sus deliberaciones. No existen criterios claros para explicar la duración del plazo del délibéré, correspondiente al tiempo transcurrido entre el final de las audiencias orales y la lectura del fallo de la CIJ. Podemos inferir que depende en alguna medida del grado de dificultad del fallo a elaborar, del nivel de acuerdo (o de desacuerdo) imperante entre los tres miembros del Comité de Redacción de la decisión, y de la capacidad de este Comité de Redacción de recoger las opiniones de los quince jueces de la CIJ (cuyo número aumenta en caso de ser designados dos jueces ad hoc por cada una de las partes, como es el caso de las demandas pendientes de resolución entre Costa Rica y Nicaragua). La discordia interna del órgano colegial se deja usualmente entrever en las declaraciones y opiniones disidentes de los jueces, que vienen adjuntos al fallo de la CIJ. En algunas pocas ocasiones, un Presidente de la CIJ persuasivo pudo lograr que un fallo de la CIJ solo diera lugar al voto disidente o separado de los dos jueces ad hoc nombrados por cada Estado. No obstante,  la tendencia observada en años recientes es a externar de manera cada vez más ruidosa la disonancia interna del órgano colegial: así por ejemplo, el fallo del 27 de enero del 2014 entre Chile y Perú (ver  texto  de la sentencia de 73 páginas) viene acompañado, según se lee, de las siguientes opiniones y declaraciones, en la que participan, de manera individual o colectiva, nueve de los quince integrantes titulares de la CIJ, sin hablar de ambos jueces ad hoc (con un ejercicio bastante original realizado por parte del juez ad hoc chileno Francisco Orrego Vicuña): “MM. les juges TOMKA, président, et SEPÚLVEDA-AMOR, vice-président, joignent des déclarations à l’arrêt ; M. le juge OWADA joint à l’arrêt l’exposé de son opinion individuelle ; M. le juge SKOTNIKOV joint une déclaration à l’arrêt ; Mme la juge XUE, MM. les juges GAJA et BHANDARI ainsi que M. le juge ad hoc ORREGO VICUÑA joignent à l’arrêt l’exposé de leur opinion dissidente commune ; Mme la juge DONOGHUE et M. le juge GAJA joignent des déclarations à l’arrêt ; Mme la juge SEBUTINDE joint à l’arrêt l’exposé de son opinion dissidente ; M. le juge ad hoc GUILLAUME joint une déclaration à l’arrêt ; M. le juge ad hoc ORREGO VICUÑA joint à l’arrêt l’exposé de son opinion individuelle en partie concordante et en partie dissidente“.

La práctica del “délibéré” de la CIJ

Una breve lista de casos relativos a la región latinoamericana permite arrojar algunas luces sobre la delicada labor que significa redactar un texto en un órgano colegial tan complejo como la CIJ. Por ejemplo, la regla de los seis meses para elaborar, discutir y acordar una versión definitiva del fallo se dio para el fallo del 19 de noviembre del 2012 entre Nicaragua y Colombia (último día de audiencias el 4 de mayo del 2012), el fallo del 20 de abril del 2010 entre Argentina y Uruguay (último día de audiencias el 1 de octubre del 2009), el fallo entre Nicaragua y Honduras del 8 de octubre del 2007 (último día de audiencias el 23 de marzo del 2007). Al contrario, y por razones poco claras, la Corte recortó el plazo a cuatro meses para dar a conocer su decisión en el caso del fallo del 13 de julio del 2009 entre Costa Rica y Nicaragua (últimas audiencias celebradas el 12 de marzo del 2009): es el “délibéré” más corto en la historia de la CIJ, que ha dado a lugar, según especialistas, a una de las peores sentencias jamás redactadas por el juez internacional (Nota 6). En algunos casos, la disonancia interna puede explicar que, por ejemplo, peruanos y chilenos esperaran trece meses para leer las 74 páginas del antes mencionado fallo del 27 de enero del 2014.  En otros casos, con un nivel de complejidad mucho mayor, este plazo se extendió a quince meses, como en el caso del fallo de la CIJ entre Honduras y El Salvador del 11 de septiembre de 1992 (últimas audiencias celebradas el 14 de junio de 1991): cabe recordar que se trató de un fallo dictaminado por una Sala Ad Hoc de la CIJ compuesta por tan solo tres jueces titulares y dos jueces ad hoc. También podemos referir al plazo inusual de nueve meses para redactar el fallo del 27 de junio de 1986 entre Nicaragua y Estados Unidos (último día de audiencias celebrado el 20 de septiembre de 1985). En aquella oportunidad, la CIJ debió elaborar su fallo con base en lo escuchado y leído por una sola parte, ya que Estados Unidos optó por no comparecer después de que la CIJ se declarara competente en 1984: la redacción de este tipo de sentencias puede a veces resultar mucho más ardua para los jueces de la CIJ, en la medida en que deben intentar prever qué hubiera podido alegar el Estado que optó por no comparecer.

Las audiencias orales que constituyen la última etapa procesal entre Costa Rica y Nicaragua se celebraron entre el 14 de abril y el 1ero de mayo del 2015, por lo que el plazo del délibéré esta vez por la CIJ es un plazo de más de siete meses. Considerando el ejercicio intensivo al que ambos Estados sometieron al juez internacional en los últimos años, se puede considerar que se trata de un plazo que no tiene nada de inusual.

Las solicitudes hechas por cada Estado:

Al presentar la demanda inicial, el Estado  precisa cuáles son las peticiones que hace al juez internacional. En la contra memoria escrita, se aprecian los descargos sobre cada uno de ellas por parte del demandado, que concluye su escrito con sus propias peticiones. Concluida la fase escrita, en la que los Estados optan usualmente por mantener sus argumentos iniciales y ampliarlos, añadiendo algunos nuevos, se procede a la segunda etapa de  las audiencias orales. Esta etapa reviste mayor interés para los juristas y para los estrategas legales, ya que en ella se van distinguiendo con mucha mayor claridad los argumentos principales de los accesorios en forma definitiva (variando a veces la estrategia inicial en función de los contraargumentos oídos por el contrincante en esta etapa del procedimiento). A mayor variación, mayor es el riesgo asumido, ya que la inconsistencia es inmediatamente capitalizada por el adversario. En efecto,  como lo indicábamos en las conclusiones en una  modesta nota  editada con un juego de mapas en el sitio de  la Maestría de Derecho Ambiental de la Facultad de Derecho de la UCR, “…, la mecánica propia de la CIJ obliga a los Estados a un esfuerzo mucho mayor, que incluye no solamente el reunir argumentos legales sólidos, sino el constituir un equipo de asesores internacionales de renombre capaces de transmitir y de convencer a los jueces de la CIJ. Parte de la labor de estos asesores consiste también en detectar inconsistencias del contrincante: puede tratarse de inconsistencias entre las distintas posiciones defendidas durante el mismo procedimiento; o bien entre los argumentos jurídicos defendidos antes los jueces por los asesores legales y las declaraciones oficiales de las autoridades del Estado; o bien de contradicciones por parte de los peritos presentados a los jueces por el adversario; o bien de simples descuidos del contrincante que suelen ser aprovechados. A mayor inconsistencia detectada, mayor es la posibilidad de generar una duda y convencer a los jueces de la debilidad del argumento esgrimido por la otra parte“.

Con relación a la primera demanda, las pretensiones finales de Costa Rica se encuentran en las páginas 64 y subsiguientes del  acta  de las audiencias celebradas el 28/04/2015, mientras que las pretensiones finales de Nicaragua se encuentran en las páginas 59 y subsiguientes de la  última acta  de audiencias celebradas el 29/04/2015. Con relación a la segunda demanda, las pretensiones finales Nicaragua figuran en las páginas 64 y siguientes del  acta  del 30/04/2015 y las de Costa Rica figuran en páginas 47 y subsiguientes del  acta  de la audiencia celebrada el 1/05/2015. En el texto de la sentencia de la CIJ a ser leído este próximo 16 de diciembre, cada una de las distintas pretensiones invocadas por ambos Estados en sus conclusiones finales debería encontrar alguna respuesta por parte de la CIJ;  a menos que esta última no las considere pertinentes por alguna razón, y en ese caso, explique porqué las rechazó. Parte del trabajo de los equipos de cada Estado a cargo de comunicar los resultados del fallo a su opinión pública consiste en tabular el fallo de la CIJ en función de los argumentos presentados por la otra parte que fueron rechazados por el juez internacional, de manera a poner el acento en los logros obtenidos. Presentar ante la opinión las peticiones concedidas por la CIJ y no mencionar las que no lo fueron es otra técnica a la que se puede recurrir. Así por ejemplo, al recibir el fallo de la CIJ en el año 2009 por el asunto de los derechos de navegación en río Río San Juan, el comunicado oficial de Costa Rica (ver texto completo) indicaba: “Costa Rica recibe con suma complacencia el fallo histórico que favorece los derechos de navegación en el Río San Juan consagrados en instrumentos internacionales, según ratificó hoy la Corte Internacional de Justicia (CIJ). Costa Rica recibe con beneplácito la sentencia de la Corte que representa la plena recuperación de derechos que tendrán una clara y positiva incidencia en el quehacer diario de los habitantes de la zona. De los nueve puntos que en su demanda contra Nicaragua Costa Rica elevó a conocimiento, el Alto Tribunal concedió prácticamente la mayoría de ellos: siete”.

El balance del juez internacional

Con relación al contenido mismo del fallo a dictaminarse este próximo 16 de diciembre en La Haya, la CIJ usualmente busca siempre la manera de suavizar los efectos de su decisión, rechazando las pretensiones que considera abusivas, y estableciendo un sutil equilibrio entre todas las demás. Ello explica que ambos contendores ante sus respectivas opiniones públicas se declaren casi siempre “victoriosos” en las primeras horas y días. Se trata de una particularidad del juez internacional de La Haya, que se explica por el hecho que, además de interpretar y de aplicar una norma, busca la mejor manera de pacificar las relaciones entre los Estados.  No se trata solamente de evitar que el resultado final agrave la situación entre ambos Estados, sino también el de ofrecer a ambos un espacio de tiempo propicio para que se envíen señales en aras de normalizar sus relaciones. Este aspecto cobra mayor relevancia cuando se trata de asuntos territoriales entre Estados vecinos, y es usual que los mandatarios de ambos Estados se reúnan oficialmente semanas después de la lectura de un fallo de la CIJ. Así lo hicieron, por ejemplo, los Presidentes de Argentina y Uruguay en abril del 2010 (ver nota de prensa) o de Perú y Chile en febrero del 2014 (ver nota de prensa), entre muchos otros.

Declaraciones previas recientes

Mientras que en los últimos meses, no se ha escuchado mayor comentario por parte de las máximas autoridades de Nicaragua (siendo las últimas declaraciones registradas, salvo error de nuestra parte, las de su Canciller en abril del 2015, con ocasión de las audiencias orales – ver nota ), en Costa Rica, el tema sí ha sido objeto de declaraciones oficiales. Por ejemplo, 15 días después de concluidas las audiencias orales, se publicó una entrevista  en Costa Rica al jefe de su diplomacia con valoraciones sobre los argumentos presentados por Nicaragua. En declaraciones más recientes dadas a la prensa sobre la lectura del fallo, el Ministro de Relaciones Exteriores de Costa Rica indicó el pasado 10 de Noviembre del 2015 (ver nota) que: “Aquí vamos a tener una situación que si nosotros ganamos, frente a ellos perdemos, porque van a estar ‘majados’, pero si perdemos evidentemente va a ser negativo. Lo importante será como reaccionemos nosotros: tampoco tenemos una disposición de agarrar la sentencia y restregársela en la cara, tenemos que ser cautos pero también muy firmes“. Unos pocos días después de ser publicadas estas declaraciones, Nicaragua decidió cerrar el paso a migrantes cubanos en tránsito por Costa Rica en el puesto fronterizo de Peñas Blancas (ver  nota  de prensa), situación que, a la fecha, se mantiene como tal.

Expectativas diversas

Este 16 de diciembre constituye sin lugar a dudas una fecha esperada desde mucho tiempo por parte de Costa Rica y de Nicaragua. Extrañamente, y sin que hayan trascendido mayores detalles sobre la escogencia de la fecha, será precedido por un encuentro entre las selecciones de fútbol de ambos Estados (según se lee en esta  nota  de prensa), a realizarse en Costa Rica.

Para los académicos y los juristas, se trata de una esperada fecha en la que podrán apreciar si la estrategia seguida por cada Estado se ajusta o no a la interpretación que hará el juez internacional. Al tratarse además de un caso en el que los argumentos en materia ambiental fueron una y otra vez invocados por ambos contendores, la controversia entre Costa Rica y Nicaragua reviste especial interés, para todos los juristas especializados en esta área precisa del derecho internacional: la sentencia de la CIJ permitirá saber si el juez internacional supo aprovechar esta ocasión para reafirmar y consolidar como reglas consuetudinarias algunos de los principios evocados ante él y precisar sus alcances; también permitirá saber si la CIJ encontró la manera de saldar la deuda con las reglas en materia de protección del ambiente aplicables a dos Estados ribereños, adquirida con ocasión de su fallido fallo entre Argentina y Uruguay en el año 2010 (Nota 7).

Para los decisores políticos, se trata de una fecha que reviste una importancia mucho mayor: en ocasiones recientes, el nerviosismo se ha hecho evidente de cara a una decisión de la CIJ o incluso de audiencias orales. Recordemos por ejemplo que en las vísperas del inicio de las audiencias orales entre Bolivia y Chile en La Haya en el mes de mayo del 2015, las autoridades de ambos Estados intercambiaron duros mensajes con relación al calificativo de “agentes de inteligencia” a periodistas chilenos en La Paz por parte del Jefe de Estado boliviano (ver  nota de Telam). Este episodio trae a la memoria la innecesaria tensión entre Perú y Chile que provocaron insinuaciones (igualmente innecesarias) sobre la filtración del texto de la sentencia de la CIJ, días antes de darse lectura al fallo de la CIJ a inicios del año 2014: remitimos al lector a nuestra modesta  nota  editada en Tribuglobal al respecto publicada en enero del 2014.

Ante el nerviosismo que impera en los días que preceden la lectura de un fallo de la CIJ, la mesura y la cordura siempre se deberían considerar como las mejores consejeras, en aras de apreciar mejor el delicado balance y equilibrio que el juez internacional buscará posiblemente establecer en su fallo. Se trata de un espacio de tiempo que los Estados deben saber aprovechar en aras de recuperar paulatinamente sus relaciones bilaterales, profundamente deterioradas después de años de procedimientos en La Haya y de discursos enardecidos por parte de sus autoridades.

Conclusión

Desde la perspectiva del derecho internacional, el espectáculo protagonizado por ambos ribereños del río San Juan no cuenta con precedente Ninguna “dupla conflictiva”, por más conflictiva sea, ha hecho un uso tan recurrente a la justicia internacional como Costa Rica y Nicaragua: en tres años y medio, tres demandas planteadas. Si añadimos la demanda presentada por Costa Rica en el septiembre del 2005 contra Nicaragua sobre derechos de navegación y derechos conexos, cuyos resultados no fueron tan favorables para los cuerpos de policía de Costa Rica (Nota 8), sumamos 4 demandas en ocho años y medio, con un promedio de prácticamente una demanda cada dos años.  Si bien ambos Estados han externado (de manera aproximativa) que sus gastos no superan los 5 a 7 millones de US$  para cada demanda, un dato reciente del gasto ocasionado a las finanzas públicas en Chile por la única demanda peruana (ver  nota  de prensa) reviste un dato de más de 20 millones de US$ que tal vez incite a algunos a exigir mayores detalles sobre lo gastado en Costa Rica y en Nicaragua en estos últimos años. En Costa Rica, recientemente, se hizo saber que: “A lo largo del primer juicio, estos especialistas en materia limítrofe cobraron al país $1 por sus servicios profesionales” (ver  nota  de CRHoy) un dato verdaderamente curioso que nos ha parecido oportuno mencionar.

Más allá de los promedios alcanzados ante la CIJ y de las cifras sobre el costo real de cada demanda para cada Estado (Nota 9), esta recurrencia a remitir cualquier divergencia a la CIJ evidencia una total incapacidad para resolver mediante los canales diplomáticos y la negociación, asuntos de interés mutuo entre Estados vecinos. Desde este punto de vista, la lectura de un fallo de la CIJ también puede verse como una ocasión que ofrece el juez internacional para ambos aparatos diplomáticos. Tuvimos la oportunidad de sugerir (ver nuestra breve nota  publicada en La Nación) que la ordenanza dictaminada el 8 de marzo del 2011 por la CIJ ofrecía un espacio propicio para reanudar canales diplomáticos: “de cada lado del río San Juan se oyeron insistentes cantos de sirena mañaneros, consecuencia casi “natural” de las decisiones salomónicas de la CIJ. Sin embargo, una vez pasados unos días, ambos Estados deberán de buscar los mecanismos para reiniciar poco a poco una relación más armoniosa en sus deterioradas relaciones. Las declaraciones oficiales que busquen recuperar esta armonía serán, sin lugar a dudas, de gran ayuda en las próximas horas, en la que la mesura y la prudencia deberían prevalecer entre las autoridades de ambos Estados”. En aquella ocasión del 2011, ambos Estados desaprovecharon la oportunidad brindada por el juez internacional: a pocas horas de dictaminada la ordenanza de la CIJ del 8 de marzo del 2011, el Ministro de Seguridad  de Costa Rica refirió a “informes de inteligencia” (a la fecha no divulgados) sobre un posible minado en Isla Portillos por parte de Nicaragua (ver  nota  de prensa). Los analistas y observadores descubrirían días después que el 7 de marzo del 2011 (es decir, 24 horas antes de leerse la ordenanza por parte de la CIJ) se había publicado en el Alcance de la Gaceta Oficial de Costa Rica el “Decreto de Emergencia”, base legal para lo que se denominaría con posterioridad la “trocha fronteriza”.

 

Nota 1: Véase sobre les peculiaridades de esta denominada “obra” (las comillas usadas por el autor se deben al hecho que una obra presupone un diseño previo), nuestro modesto artículo, BOEGLIN N., “La denominada “Trocha Fronteriza” en Costa Rica desde una perspectiva internacional: breve análisis”, Revista Estudios, UCR 2012. Texto disponible aquí.

Nota 2: El decreto fue objeto de un recurso de inconstitucionalidad ante la Sala Constitucional en junio del 2012 (ver  nota  de CRHoy), en el que el recurrente, el profesor Alvaro Sagot, reconocido especialista en materia ambiental indicaba que: “el Decreto se fundamenta en el hecho de que existe una invasión militar de parte del gobierno de Nicaragua, lo cual cuestiona porque no hay una declaratoria de guerra, no se han roto las relaciones comerciales ni se ha cerrado la frontera. Refiere que el Decreto declara la emergencia en los seis cantones de la zona: La Cruz, Upala, Los Chiles, Sarapiquí, San Carlos y Pococí; cuando el conflicto fronterizo se reduce a un área de 3 kilómetros cuadrados, en el Caribe noroeste, cantón de Pococí, Isla Portillo-Isla Calero, por lo que estima que no hay justificación para crear un régimen de excepción en los 6 cantones. El Decreto señala que varios poblados se han quedado aislados y sin servicios básicos de salud, alimentación y educación, entre otros. Sin embargo, no explica la relación entre el aislamiento de los pueblos, la invasión en el sector Caribe noroeste y los problemas de alimentación o educación. Se indica que existen riesgos en la zona por inundaciones y fenómenos naturales, pero no se aprecia la relación entre riesgos de inundaciones y fenómenos naturales y el conflicto por la invasión al territorio. Como segundo aspecto, aduce que con la construcción de la trocha o carretera fronteriza, se han producido afectaciones al medio ambiente, a los principios de proporcionalidad y razonabilidad, irreductibilidad del bosque y precautorio” (ver Sala Constitucional de la Corte Suprema de Justicia, exp.: 12-007663-0007-CO, Res. N.º 2012008420 del 22 de junio del 2012).  La Sala Constitucional rechazó “ad portas”  este recurso, de manera inusualmente rápida el 22 de junio en su resolución 8420-2012 (ver  texto de dicho voto), con el voto en contra de la Magistrada Ana Virginia Calzada y del Magistrado Fernando Cruz.

Nota 3: En el mes de agosto del 2012, un  artículo  en el Semanario Universidad se tituló “Se mantiene interrogante de quién ordenó construir trocha fronteriza”; en enero del 2013, en un artículo de opinión, el entonces Ministro de Seguridad (ver  texto ) rechazó haber sugerido la construcción de la “trocha” y en abril del 2013, un  artículo  publicado en el Semanario Universidad se tituló: “Todos alabaron la trocha, pero nadie asumió la paternidad”.

Nota 4: Sobre esta decisión, véase AZARI H., “La jonction d´instances devant la Cour International de Justice – A propos de l´ordonnance du 17 avril 2013 dans l´affaire relative à la Construction d´une route au Costa Rica le long du fleuve San Juan, Nicaragua c Costa Rica », 59 AFDI (2014), pp. 85-99. El autor concluye su análisis con la siguiente frase: “En va-t-il de même en ce qui est la bonne administration de la justice? Le doute est permis”.  Remitimos de igual manera a nuestra breve  nota  también en francés sobre esta extraña decisión de la CIJ publicada en el Boletín Sentinelle de la Société Française pour le Droit International (SFDI), Numéro 347 (Mai 2013).

Nota 5: Leemos en el párrafo 33 de la  ordenanza  del 13/12/2013 que la CIJ refiere a un compromiso oficial de Costa Rica ante los jueces de no retomar los trabajos de construcción antes de finales del 2014 o inicios del 2015 en los siguientes términos: “33. During the second round of the oral proceedings, Costa Rica pointed out that the schedule publicly announced on 14 March 2013 by its Minister for Public Works and Transportation regarding the resumption of construction activities had been superseded. It explained that, under the updated version of the schedule, the resumption of construction works on the section of the road along the south bank of the San Juan River would not begin “before late 2014 or early 2015”, thereby further underscoring, in its view, the lack of any basis to Nicaragua’s arguments concerning urgency. The Court regrets that Costa Rica did not make this information available at an earlier stage“. Al revisar con detenimiento el compromiso de Costa Rica hecho durante las audiencias orales, leemos que la asesora de Costa Rica Kate Parlett (en lo que posiblemente constituye su primera participación ante los jueces de la CIJ) indicó ( audiencias  del 8/11/2013, p. 15) que “Construction in the other four sections which cover the only part of the road that Dr. Kondolf finds troubling will not be before late 2014 or early 2015. These works will not begin in days or weeks, or even months. This is a matter to which Mr. Ugalde will return, but it bears mentioning here that, if Nicaragua had genuinely been concerned about the schedule it discovered in January this year, it could have written to Costa Rica, in the ordinary way, and asked about this schedule”.

Nota 6: El Profesor Philippe Weckel (Francia), a cargo durante muchos años de la sección “Jurisprudence Internationale” en la prestigiosa Revue Générale de Droit International Public (RGDIP) calificó esta decisión del 13 de julio de la CIJ como una verdadera “tarea de vacaciones mal hecha »  (traducción de« devoir de vacances bâclé »). Sin mayor complacencia por esta tarea encomendada por Costa Rica al juez de La Haya en el 2005, escribió:  « on n’a jamais vu décision aussi mal rédigée ! Le constat est totalement inattendu et, à vrai dire, proprement incroyable. A la lecture des motifs on découvre que certaines conclusions ne sont même pas étayées ou alors qu’elles le sont d’une manière si sommaire ou elliptique qu’elles apparaissent fausses ». El profesor Weckel continua con una pregunta a la que el mismo contesta: « Que penser, que dire de ce devoir de vacances bâclé ? L’arrêt du 13 juillet 2009 ne mérite pas un commentaire » (Véase WECKEL Ph., Note, Sentinelle, SFDI, Bulletin Numéro 196 (Juillet 2009). Disponible  aquí . En un comentario crítico sobre esta decisión publicado también en Francia, la autora precisaba en el 2010 que, debido a la falta de motivación en varias partes del texto,  era poco probable que esta decisión de la CIJ resolviera definitivamente el tema de la navegación en el río San Juan: véase CASSELLA S., « Rééquilibrer les effets inéquitables d’une délimitation territoriale : l’arrêt de la Cour internationale de Justice du 13 juillet 2009 dans l’affaire du Différend relatif à des droits de navigation et des droits connexes (Costa Rica c. Nicaragua) », Volume 55 AFDI (2009), pp. 253-277, p. 254 y conclusiones en p. 277.  Artículo disponible aquí.

Nota 7: Véase por ejemplo TRIGEAUD L., « La (non)spécificité du droit international de l’environnement : à propos de l’affaire relative à des Usines de pâte à papier sur le fleuve Uruguay (CIJ, Argentine c. Uruguay, arrêt du 20 avril 2010) », Vol. 56, AFDI (2010), pp.249-275. Remitimos al lector al artículo de la Profesora Zlata Drnas De Clément (Argentina) del año 2003, titulado “Los recursos naturales compartidos entre Estados y el derecho internacional”,  disponible en la red,  a comparar con su análisis posterior al fallo de abril del 2010: DRNAS DE CLEMENT Z., “El fallo de la CIJ sobre las pasteras del Río Uruguay: lejos de la concepción de recurso natural compartido (sentencia de 20/04/2010)”, 2010, disponible en la red. La autora concluye que: “Bien ha indicado Vick que los principios básicos en los que se apoya el aprovechamiento de los recursos naturales compartidos son: notificación previa de los usos planificados, prevención y uso equitativo y razonable, todos ellos vinculados en su esencia a la soberanía e integridad de los Estados. Es de observar que los tres principios tienen idéntica entidad para sustentar o enervar los aprovechamientos lícitos de este tipo de recursos de conformidad al Derecho internacional general y al propio Estatuto del Río Uruguay de 1975, a pesar de haber sido calificados por la Corte “obligaciones de mero procedimiento” ”.

Nota 8: Cabe recordar que en 1998 Costa Rica y Nicaragua intentaron resolver mediante negociaciones diplomáticas el delicado tema de la portación de armas de policías de Costa Rica en tareas de operaciones de vigilancia y de abastecimiento de puestos fronterizos en las aguas del río San Juan. Costa Rica basaba este uso en las disposiciones del tratado de 1858 que refieren a competencias en materia de “guarda” del San Juan (artículo IV), mientras que Nicaragua objetaba el uso de armas de cierto calibre para estas tareas y cuestionaba que los policías de Costa Rica pudieran navegar con estas sin pedir autorización alguna. El acuerdo alcanzado conocido como el acuerdo Cuadra-Lizano suscrito en julio de 1998, en tan solo cuatro artículos (ver texto del acuerdo), logró plasmar una solución técnica a un problema técnico, en lo que pareciera ser el último ejercicio de negociación bilateral exitoso entre ambos Estados. Lamentablemente, Nicaragua desconocería días después este acuerdo debido a cuestionamientos en Nicaragua (ver nota de La Nación de agosto de 1998). Leemos en esta misma nota un detalle de cierto interés: “ /…/ el director de la Policía de Fronteras, coronel Max Cayetano Vega, circuló una nota entre los guardias civiles donde les notifica que podrán transitar el río siempre y cuando informen a los soldados nicaragüenses. La nota advirtió a los policías que “deberán observar una conducta adecuada, sin hacer alardes de prepotencia o exhibicionismo” /…/”. La denuncia posterior del acuerdo Cuadra-Lizano por parte de Nicaragua iniciaría una fase de incertidumbre y de turbulencia entre ambos Estados. Posteriormente, las buenas relaciones personales entre los mandatarios de ambos Estados llevarían a negociar un acuerdo para que Costa Rica no presentara demanda alguna durante 3 años (acuerdo Tovar-Caldera suscrito el 26 de septiembre del 2002). Vencido el plazo establecido, Costa Rica anunció que acudiría a la Corte Internacional de Justicia (CIJ) en el 2005 (ver nota de La Nación) para defender este y otros derechos de navegación. Pese a que se presentó como favorable para Costa Rica dado que la CIJ ordenó a Nicaragua no exigir visados para embarcaciones turísticas de Costa Rica,  obtuvo un fallo adverso sobre el uso de las aguas del San Juan por parte de sus policías (ver texto de la sentencia del 13 de julio del 2009 de la CIJ, y en particular el párrafo 156 inciso h, adoptado por unanimidad por los jueces de la CIJ): se trata de un interesante ejercicio ante la CIJ en el que un derecho de un Estado estipulado en un tratado de 1858 (cuyo ejercicio es aceptado de manera reticente por el otro Estado más no ignorado) finaliza ante los jueces de La Haya (a solicitud de su titular) con su negación. Un poco más de un año después de la decisión de a CIJ, la crisis de Isla Portillos en el 2010 desnudaría la total ausencia de mecanismos de vigilancia policiales de Costa Rica en el extremo noreste de su territorio y en parte de su frontera fluvial con Nicaragua.

Nota 9: Es de notar que en noviembre del 2010, se anunció que se presupuestarían  2 millones de US$ por parte del entonces canciller de Costa Rica por cada año para el caso de la ocupación ilegal de Isla Portillos (ver nota de prensa de La Nación titulada “País presupuesta 2 millones de US$ por año para juicio en La Haya“). De manera a ampliar el panorama, leemos en un artículo reciente sobre gastos en La Haya de Estados de América Latina que: “Tras el fallo el gobierno uruguayo transparentó las cifras manifestando que en tres años Uruguay gastó US$ 5.449.224 millones en honorarios de abogados y U$S 1.968.662 en viáticos, lo que daba un total de US$ 7.417.886. En tanto, la cancillería argentina precisó que en el mismo proceso los recursos totales afectados completaron los US$ 2.549.137“. Ex cancilleres de Nicaragua estimaron el costo para su país de la demanda de Costa Rica por la ocupación ilegal de Isla Portillos planteada en noviembre del 2010 a un monto situado entre 5 a 7 millones de US$ (ver  nota ). Colombia por su parte está innovando en este (y muchos otros ámbitos), puesto que sin bien no se sabe cuánto se gastó exactamente en el juicio que duró 11 años contra Nicaragua ante la CIJ (en parte gracias a incidentes procesales de la misma Colombia, como la presentación de excepciones preliminares), sí se sabe que ya lleva más de 2 millones de US$ en honorarios a firmas de abogados internacionales y nacionales que la asesoran “post” fallo de la CIJ de noviembre del 2012 (ver  artículo de prensa ).

 

Nicolás Boeglin : Profesor de Derecho Internacional Público, Facultad de Derecho, Universidad de Costa Rica (UCR).

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Turkey-Syria-Conflict (1)

By Stephen Lendman, December 14 2015

Turkey is allegedly complicit in the smuggled use of various types of banned chemical weapons for which the Assad government was wrongfully blamed. Turkish Republican People’s Party (CHP) opposition member Eren Erdem accused Ankara of covering up a major war crime.

Seasonally Strong Period For the Stock Market Begins

More Market Instability? The Highly Leveraged Nature of our Financial System is Teetering

By Bill Holter, December 14 2015

This week shapes up as one which could go down in the history books! Markets last week were tumultuous from weak equities, illiquid credit markets, FOREX markets in disarray and commodities hitting the skids.

San-Bernardino-21st-cent-wire

The San Bernardino Shooting – What Really Happened Behind The Scenes?

By Shawn Helton, December 14 2015

The latest media driven shooting attack said to have taken place in San Bernardino, California over a week ago now – and still there’s a growing list of details that don’t add up.

australian flag

Civil Rights and “Terrorism” in Australia

By Binoy Kampmark, December 14 2015

“Where people are a danger to society after they have served their time for conviction, as we do with sex and as we do with violent offenders… then they should be put into preventive detention.” -Dan Tehan, Intelligence and Security Committee, Australian Parliament, Dec 12, 2015

By Dady Chery, December 14 2015

According to the International News Safety Institute (INSI), over 100 journalists were killed in 2015, many of them by assassins. However shocking this number might be, it merely gives a glimpse into the savagery that has been unleashed against members of the press throughout the world.

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Skewed: Income Inequality in America. The American Dream has Gone…

December 14th, 2015 by Finance Degree Center

First published in December 2013

Income Inequality

 

Opportunity in America: It’s shrinking

Except for the few
[% wealth held by percentile][4]
0-50th: 1.1
50-90th: 24.3
90-99th:40
99-100th:34.5

Lowest 60% of earners are making < the wealthiest 400 Americans:
$1.22 trillion vs. $1.27 trillion [6]

To put that in context: The average wealth of one of the 400 richest Americans is equal to the average wealth of 510,000 people in the bottom 60%
With the 1%’s wealth much more tied to the real estate, stock market

Note: The SNAP (food stamp) budget of $78 billion is less than the investing budget of 20 wealthy Americans[8]

CEO vs. Worker inequality 
The Average CEO makes 354 times what the average worker makes[3]
[year: ratio between worker/CEO earnings]
1982: 42:1
1992: 201:1
2002: 281:1
2012: 354:1

Differences in expendable income are staggering

The average nationwide 1 adult living wage is $19546.17. Here’s how that breaks down per quintile:

Per month:

20%– -$3188
40%– +$12641
60%– +$37655
80%– +$77751
90%– +$134,584
99%– +$487,006

Or:

20%– -$61.3
40%– +$243.09
60%– +$724.13
80%– +$1495.21
90%– +$2588.15
99%– +$9365.5

Per week.

With Strong Racial Correlates
The Average White household in 2007 had a net worth of $143,600
14 TIMES the average net worth of Hispanic or black households[7]

Myth: rich Americans don’t pay their taxes
But at least the super rich pay their taxes.
With the top 400 earners paying $16 billion in taxes.[5]

But that doesn’t help the 21.4% of children who grow up in poverty. [7]

Without greater income equality democratic ideals are a sham.

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Turkey is allegedly complicit in the smuggled use of various types of banned chemical weapons for which the Assad government was wrongfully blamed.

Turkish Republican People’s Party (CHP) opposition member Eren Erdem accused Ankara of covering up a major war crime, likely direct high-level involvement in smuggling materials used to make deadly sarin gas to ISIS and other terrorists – US proxy foot soldiers waging war on Syria.

Various attacks occurred. The most notorious targeted the Damascus Ghouta suburb in August 2013, killing and injuring scores of civilians.

At the time, then Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexandr Lubkashevich said

“(w)e’re getting more new evidence that this criminal act was of a provocative nature.”

“(T)here are reports circulating on the Internet, in particular that the materials of the incident and accusations against government troops had been posted for several hours before the so-called attack. Thus, it was a pre-planned action.”

Syria’s government had nothing to do with it despite US-led false accusations otherwise.

Under a UN-brokered deal, Syria eliminated its entire chemical weapons stockpile. No evidence indicates it used any toxic agents throughout nearly five years of conflict. Plenty reveals terrorists’ use on numerous occasions, sarin and other banned substances.

On December 10, Erdem addressed Turkish parliamentarians, discussing criminal case number 2013/120, opened by Ankara’s General Prosecutor’s Office in Adana.

Evidence shows various Turkish nationals were involved in direct dealings with ISIS and other terrorist groups, supplying them with sarin gas.

Recorded wiretapped conversations exposed dealings with Al Qaeda terrorist Hayyam Kasap. RT International interviewed Erdem.

He explained

“(t)here is data in this indictment. Chemical weapon materials are being brought to Turkey and being put together in Syria in camps of ISIS which was known as Iraqi Al Qaeda during that time.”

“These are all detected. There are phone recordings of this shipment like ‘don’t worry about the border. We’ll take care of it,’ and we also see the bureaucracy is being used.”

According to Erden, once word got out, 13 arrests were made. Days later, suspects were released, charges dropped – after a new Adana public prosecutor replaced the original one. Individuals accused then moved cross-border unobstructed to Syria.

“The phone recordings in the indictment showed all the details from how the shipment was going to be made to how it was prepared, from the content of the labs to the source of the materials,”

Erden explained.

“Which trucks were going to be used, all dates etc. From A to Z, everything was discussed and recorded. Despite all of this evidence, the suspects were released,” the case closed, showing high-level coverup, perhaps ordered by Erdogan.

Materials to make sarin gas and perhaps other toxic chemicals moved freely cross-border from Turkey to Syria. Erden indicated a high-level regime coverup, evidence revealing Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag’s involvement.

Toxic chemicals were purchased from Europe,” he said. US-led Western countries “should question themselves about these relations. Western sources know very well who carried out the sarin gas attack in Syria.”

“They know these people. They know who (they) are working with. They know that these people are working for Al-Qaeda…Western (countries) are hypocrites about the situation.”

It bears repeating. No evidence showed Syrian use of chemical or other toxic substances throughout years of conflict.

Plenty shows CIA and US special forces train takfiri terrorists in chemical weapons use, perhaps directly supplying them with toxic agents.

Earlier, Saudi Arabia was caught red-handed providing them with chemical agents in containers marked “made in KSA (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia).”

In early November, Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) experts confirmed terrorists’ use of mustard gas and chlorine in Syria with “utmost confidence” – calling perpetrators “non-state actor(s).”

Blaming Assad for incidents of chemical weapons’ use is part of the US-led propaganda campaign to wrongfully vilify him.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.” http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com. Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network. It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PM Central time plus two prerecorded archived programs. 

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The latest media driven shooting attack said to have taken place in San Bernardino, California over a week ago now – and still there’s a growing list of details that don’t add up.

After a week of whitewashed reports, a media scripted ransacking of the alleged ‘shooters’ home (tampering with a potential crime scene) and eyewitness accounts that contradict the official narrative, we also learn that the very room where 14 people were reportedly killed (along with 21 injured) during a deadly shooting attack at the Inland Regional Center, there was an “active-shooter” training drill involving some of the victims almost a year before the attack.

Here’s what doesn’t add up…

The new information emerged casually in the mainstream media, prompting critics of such as sensationalized events to have even more reason to question the validity of the official story surrounding this latest ‘mass shooting’ incident.

In our previous articles on this subject, we pointed out multiple markers which clearly indicate ‘active shooter’ armed rehersal drills held at and around the Inland Regional Center location. Here’s another – another unbelievable development discussed recently by the LA Times:

“About a year ago, employees of San Bernardino County’s Environmental Health Services division underwent an “active-shooter training.”

“It was held at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino — in the very same room that would one day be a site of bloodshed and horror.”

“It was not clear if gunman Syed Rizwan Farook, an environmental health specialist for the county, attended the earlier training, but some of the victims of Wednesday’s mass shooting were likely to have participated, said a county spokeswoman.”

One must consider that statistically speaking, the chances of a real shooting event taking place in the exact same room where a multi-agency ‘active shooter’ drill took place approximately one year ago – has to be close to zero. Furthermore, this strange and unlikely coincidence should highlight the suspicious nature of the shooting event itself.

More than any other entity, the mainstream media are playing the central role in managing the official version of events in San Bernardino…


Image: ‘DESTROYING EVIDENCE’ –  Why would authorities allow members of the press and victims families to trample into a potential crime scene? (Photo leoaffairs)

Official Story Under Fire

As 21WIRE  previously reported when this story first broke:

“THREE shooters are said to have opened fire with ‘long guns’ [AR15 model rifle] inside a conference venue, in the Inland Regional Center, a government-run disabled services office complex, located in San Bernardino. Police gave chase to suspects and claim that 3 assailants were masked (therefore could not be ID’d at the scene), heavily armed and possibly wearing body armor.”

In fact, authorities did apprehend a third suspect but that aspect of the case, has seemingly  gone down the memory hole, as has the very detailed eye-witness testimony from Sally Abdelmageed, (an Inland Regional Center employee) in a CBS interview with Scott Pelley, which clearly states that there were three white men in tactical gear dressed in black involved in the shooting event.

Abdelmageed’s account, echoed that of Juan Hernandez, who was interviewed shortly after the shooting incident by a local NBC affiliate, where it was described that “three white men in military fatigues,” had fled the scene in black Chevy Impala or SUV.

Despite all of this, CNN, ABC, FOX and all other media outlets on the scene – all pivoted, in unison, to validate authorities’ (the FBI) revised official ‘Jihadi Bonnie & Clyde’ story of “only 2 shooters – a husband and wife”.

We were then told, that the suspected shooters died in a dramatic shootout with police. However, immediately following the televised chase/shootout, the public was offered up only a few blurry ‘still’ photographs of the two dead suspects, in addition to inconclusive wide-angle camera shots from a distance. The entire shootout unfolded like a multi-agency drill, as police methodically approached the suspect’s SUV with several armored MRAPs.

Prior to law enforcement slowly closing in, 23 officers fired a combined total of approximately 380rounds according to a police spokesman. The vehicle’s damage was beyond anything that would be considered a normal engagement. The scene was also captured on a cell phone video by a local eyewitness who appeared to start filming right as shots began ringing out during the dramatic car chase.


Image: ‘SAN BERNARDINO KILLERS?’ – An apparent image of Tashfeen Malik, along with her husband, Syed Farook at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago. Notice that Farook and his wife appear to look different than other photographs released by the press. ( Photo cbc.ca)

In addition to the questionable information outlined above, it was reported that the alleged gunman in the San Bernardino shooting, Syed Farook, received $28,500 in his bank account some two weeks prior to the events of December 2nd.

A recent FOX News release disclosed the origin of the deposit:

“The deposit came via Utah-based WebBank.com, which describes itself as “a leading provider of national consumer and commercial private-label and bank card financing programs” on a nationwide basis.”

Those in mainstream media appeared to be in a frenzy over the bank deposit transaction, citing the new detail as further “proof” that somehow Farook and his wife Tashfeen Malik, had premeditated an attack – never stopping to consider how Farook obtained such a large loan or who might really be behind the transfer of money in the first place. An anonymous loan? This supports many narratives; that of a patsy, a man in debt, as well as potential ‘terrorist’.

Only 24 hours later, Farook was said to have acquired the loan through the crowd sourced online lender named ‘Prosper’.

Unfortunately, we’re told that the suspects are dead, and therefore no longer available for cross examination.

‘Divide & Rule’ Politics

Another troubling aspect to this case, is that the public has been force-fed a massive amount of propaganda in the aftermath of the apparent shooting in San Bernardino, most recently from GOP front-runner Donald Trump, with his polarizing and xenophobic calls for a unilateral immigration ban on all Muslims entering the United States this last week.

Rather than discuss his recent plan unveiled in the fall for nationwide gun concealed carry program, or the restrictive gun legislation currently upheld in California and in particular San Bernardino, we see that the reality TV star and real estate mogul has instead chosen to feed into blind hysteria following an apparent terror incident by proposing a ban on all Muslims entering the US, while also recently taking a shot at free speech on the internet due to ISIS postings on social media. On all fronts, Trump appears to be cherry-picking various positions in order to gather poll percentage points.

San Bernardino, along with staged-managed events like the sensational Garland Shooting in April 2015, and the highly engineered Paris Attacks (January & November of 2015) and many othershootings this year and year’s past – have conveniently opened the door for sweeping ‘national security’ changes, while at the same time reigniting the old War on Terror meme, rebranded as the‘War on Radical Islam’, for new audiences to be politically seduced by western media and politicians alike.


Image: ‘BOTCHED GETAWAY’ – Although authorities obtained a paper trail for the rented SUV above – but there are still many questions surrounding those said to be driving the vehicle. Why isn’t there footage of the alleged ‘terror couple’ leaving the SUV? ( Photo Twitter)

Security Linked to Terror

Unbeknownst to the average media consumer, the international background information released regarding wife Tafsheen Malik, and her husband Farook, appears to shine a light on clandestine activities that might exist within Pakistan.

Readers should note Malik’s murky connection to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, a place which has long been implicated as one of the largest financiers of terror globally – as acknowledged in this passage from Huffington Post, in an article about the Paris attacks last January:

“Exact numbers are not known, but it is thought that more than $100 billion have been spent on exporting fanatical Wahhabism to various much poorer Muslim nations worldwide over the past three decades.”

Relatives of Malik, claim that she spent most of her life in Saudi Arabia before studying as a pharmacy student at Bahauddin Zakariya University in Multan, Pakistan between 2007 and 2012, but Saudi officials are insisting that Malik had only visited twice for a few months in total. This is in stark contrast to a faculty member in Pakistan, who referred to her as the “Saudi girl.”

Interestingly, both Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are in damage control mode, politically speaking, as neither country wants to be associated with what is now being dubbed “the deadliest terror attack on US soil since 9/11.”

The San Bernardino shooting joins the Chattanooga shooting in July, an event that failed to provide a solid motive or believable timeline, with an All-American appellation added to the Muslim-American, thus dispensing wide-spread subliminal fear and Islamophobia.

In a recent Daily Mail release, we’re also told that supposedly Pakistani-born Mali, had ties to The Red Mosque in Pakistan, a well-known Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) linked mosque:

“Sources have told Daily Mail Online that US officials handed over information to their Pakistani counterparts about links between Tashfeen Malik and the Red Mosque in Islamabad. The mosque is infamous for its links to violence and authorities in Pakistan are now considering taking action against its preacher, Maulana Abdul Aziz, after the disclosures by US officials.”

If Malik was inspired by ISIS, as claimed by authorities (via social media) then why does her background suggest a Pakistani/ISI/CIA/Al-Qaeda connection, if she was in fact radicalized’ as US plot writers insist? Her affiliations should suggest that she may be involved with one of the intelligence agencies active in the exact location she resided in Pakistan.

The UK’s Telegraph states that the part of Pakistan where Malik was staying is “known as a recruiting ground for Al-Qaeda-linked Islamist groups, including Lashkar al-Taiba, responsible for a bloody attack in Mumbai, India’s financial capital, in 2008.”

If true, this new twist in the media hyped San Bernardino shooting, could display a startling link between the Al Qaeda/ISI affiliated Red Mosque and other Western-backed black ops in Pakistan.

In May of 2011, The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) outlined the ISI’s material support for various militant groups, including the formation of Al-Qaeda – giving historical context to recent events:

“The ISI’s first major involvement in Afghanistan came after the Soviet invasion in 1979, when itpartnered with the CIA to provide weapons, money, intelligence, and training to the mujahadeen fighting the Red Army.”

The CFR further stated, “Pakistan’s government has repeatedly denied allegations of supporting terrorism, citing as evidence its cooperation in the U.S.-led battle against extremists.”

The CIA and ISI, have had a long, sometimes contentious relationship on the surface but the reality is that their collective footprint is all over many tribal areas in Pakistan and places like Afghanistan – where extremism continues to grow to this day.

How could this be, considering both agencies have such heavy surveillance in Pakistan?

Perhaps we should consider a historical perspective…

In the years following 9/11, a covert training facility run by the CIA, called Penny Lane, was setup and in use until 2006, as a location to train terrorists to become double agents. These agents were to be trained and released back out in the field to work with other officials within the agency.

However, the CIA ‘lost touch’ with many of its newly trained agents, even though the public had been told that this operation had been successful in its scope. The money to pay the informants and double agents was provided for by the CIA under the codename ‘Pledge.’

The shadowy dealings of the CIA, immediately recall the many hatched plots by the FBI, in addition to the FBI’s involvement in the suspicious events surrounding an international Moldova bust recently, following Russia’s airstrikes on ISIS targets in Syria.

Time and time again, we see terror linked back to security in one shape or another.

As Western foreign policy engineers in Washington have been desperate for a deeper conflict in Syria and Iraq, we’ve seen a series of terror related incidents unveiled around the globe, as the security and oil business has also been in the forefront since NATO member Turkey, downed a Russian Su-24 Fighter Bomber near the Syria-Turkish border less than a month ago – sparking claims that ISIS and Turkey perhaps has an oil partnership, along with the Kurdish Regional Government’s (KRG) advantageous oil dealings.

Additionally, the US has continued to back the so-called FSA rebels whose members have knownties to ISIS and other Sunni extremists, including members of Al-Qaeda and al-Nusra Front – causing major concern for those observing the escalation of violence in Iraq and Syria over the last several years.

Co-conspirator or Patsy?

As the San Bernardino shooting story continues to unfold, the FBI has been drip feeding the public with bits and pieces of new information, telling the public they’ve known that the ‘terror couple’ was radicalized for sometime, while also disappearing Farook and Malik’s neighbor Enrique Marquez for further questioning after he was said to have legally purchased two AR-15s allegedly used in the shooting.

Now authorities say that Marquez could be brought up on additional charges and are now suggesting that Farook and himself may have considered plotting to target other places in 2012 – but this appears to be based on several photographs of various schools seen allegedly seen on Farook’s cell phone.

Interestingly, Marquez was said to have checked himself into a mental health facility shortly after the shooting attack but authorities have been murky on most of the details.

Marquez has not been seen in public since being questioned after the San Bernardino event. This has prompted some to wonder if the National Defense Authorization Act has been invoked (NDAA), a bill passed back in 2012 that authorizes the executive branch the ability to indefinitely detain any American citizen on suspicion alone, without the burden of proof and without a trial.

Mainstream media is now referring to Marquez as the ‘third suspect’ arrested whitewashing the early reports of a person apprehended near the scene of the incident.

But if media continues to present Marquez as the third suspect they will have totally contradicted eyewitness testimony at the crime scene, as multiple witnesses claim seeing “three tall white,” (as listed at the top of the article) males fleeing the area after the apparent attack.


Image: ACCOMPLICE? – An easy-going Enrique Marquez seen on KTLA back in April of 2015. (PhotoTwitter)

A recent CNN report, added to the mystery surrounding Marquez:

“Investigators are still trying to corroborate information provided by Marquez and haven’t verified details of the alleged plot. Officials caution that Marquez’s claim of a 2012 attack could turn out to be false and an attempt to deflect his role in helping buy weapons that Farook later used in the San Bernardino shootings last week.”

“Marquez, 24, has not been charged with any crime and has told investigators he didn’t know about the plans for the San Bernardino attack. Since the shootings, he has waived his Miranda rights, cooperated with investigators and provided information, according to the officials.”

“Marquez could not be reached for comment. No attorney has come forward.”

Witnesses have come forward stating that there was “nothing” alarming about Marquez or he authorities would have been notified according to the Islamic Center of Riverside.

Spy Games, Drills & Red Herrings?

While the FBI has apparently been on the hunt for Farook’s missing hard drive in a lake near the San Bernardino shooting – it was also revealed that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) deployed a sophisticated spy plane above San Bernardino for several days after the apparent attack.

The Daily Mail, recently discussed the details of the hi-tech equipment in use:

“Sofrep, which first reported the plane’s use, said the use of the spy plane showed that law enforcement was ‘actively searching for other members of a terrorist cell.”

The article continued by adding that,

“Spy planes have been deployed by the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI before, such as over the protests in Baltimore in August in the wake of the death of Freddie Gray.”

“A story by the Wall Street Journal described in detail how the two foot wide ‘Dirtbox’ allows an astonishing level of surveillance once it is up and running.”

“The device works by pretending to be a cell phone tower – mobiles automatically connect to the nearest one so latch onto the box – and can sweep up data on tens of thousands of phones in one go.”

There appears to have been quite a roll out of law enforcement equipment so quickly after the apparent shooting in San Bernardino, prompting critics to suggest the entire event may have been a multi-agency ‘fusion’ drill. And in fact, there was evidence of an active shooter drill on the very same day as the Inland Regional Center shootings, according to the LA Times:

“The day of the mass shooting in San Bernardino, my son’s high school was placed on a short lockdown.”

“I listened attentively as he explained the difference in lockdown levels: A Level One is when an active shooter is in the town or city; a Level Two is when the shooter is in the neighborhood; and a Level Three is when the shooter is actually on campus.”

The FBI’s special agent David Bowdich, has been in charge of the San Bernardino investigation and he was also in charge of the investigation into the LAX shootings in November of 2013, a highly theatrical event that displayed many inconclusive anomalies, along with what appeared to be an emergency related drill. The shooting followed an airport active shooter drill in outlining an identical scenario almost exactly a month prior.

As we examine the spy games and drills on display following San Bernardino, it would be remiss to not at least mention that there were several strange media reports and some hoaxing following the attack, including GOP candidate Carly Fiorina‘s comments regarding the gun purchase details in the San Bernardino case. Fiorina stated the following, as she appeared on the Morning Joe Show recently:

“the ATF believes that someone purchased this gun on behalf of the police department and somehow that gun ended up in the hands of this guy.”


Image: ‘WHO WATCHES THE WATCHMEN?’ –  Social media propaganda went global following the Paris attacks this past January, centering the public’s focus on ‘freedom of speech’ while alarming details of the case were glossed over. ( Photo link rediff.com)

Staged Crisis: From Paris to San Bernardino 

The reality designers that exist within media and other curious creatures of the intelligence community would have the public believe that the Paris attacks this year were the work of a smaller terror cell infiltrating Paris surreptitiously. But based on the reportage in days after the carefully staged and synchronized attacks, it was revealed that French authorities had prior knowledge of terror linked individuals inside of its borders.

Indeed, as critical pieces of this latest global puzzle have come together – evidence suggests ahighly organized and coordinated event involving many players. Those players have shaped the three dimensions of this event – carrying out the event are as follows: members of the police and security services, and most crucially, members of the global media. The last and most important group provides the fourth dimension of this reality, and that is you the public.

How you perceive any questionable event – is the ultimate prize for the architects of any impressive psy-op.

The fifth dimension of Paris is based on the fourth, which is how the architects and social engineers observe your reactions to the event. From this, data is collected, social media is monitored, then metered, opinions are analysed, and public reactions are measured. The conclusions will be used to form the baseline and design of future ‘shock and awe’ operations.

US authorities claimed that, a US database for terrorists called the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, or TIDE, had been tracking the apparent shooters said to be involved in the Charlie Hebdo “magazine murders,” and had been placed on a no-fly-list for to the United States.

It’s worth noting that the TIDE database sounds identical to how many experts and whistleblowers have described ‘al Qaeda’, itself translated as “the base”. In fact one whistleblower who did not live long after admitting to the public what he knew, former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, who said that al Qaeda was “a database” used to track and manage Islamic fighters used by western intelligence agencies to carry out covert operations and false flag attacks world-wide.

Sky News outlined the discovery by investigators at the time:

“On Thursday (January 8th, 2015) night, helicopters buzzed overhead in the region as the hunt continued.”

“Witness Benoit Verdun told Sky News he believes the suspects are in a large forest near Longpont, which he said is “bigger than Paris” – measuring some 13,000 hectares, or 50 square miles.”

“It comes as a US official confirmed the brothers were both flagged as terrorists in a US database, and were also on the no-fly list, meaning they were barred from travelling to the United States.”

The apparent failure in the intelligence was blamed on the system being “overburdened” and a “lack of coordination”, or fusion, with US authorities. This phenomenon is something the public sees over and over in media without ever questioning that the various figureheads on TV and so-called ‘security experts’ have deep ties to the intelligence community themselves.

The media provides adequate cover for security agencies the world over – whether it’s Paris, San Bernardino or any other seemingly manufactured event.

Here’s a YouTube clip depicting CNN’s Anderson Cooper interviewing a family affected by the San Barnardino tragedy. Critics of this video believe that these people may be crisis actors – decide for yourself…

There’s so much to question regarding the San Bernardino shooting story, as it echoes many stage-manged shooting events in recent history.

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According to the International News Safety Institute (INSI), over 100 journalists were killed in 2015, many of them by assassins. However shocking this number might be, it merely gives a glimpse into the savagery that has been unleashed against members of the press throughout the world. For one, journalists who work for small community radio stations rather than national news organizations tend to be omitted from such international counts. For another, journalists in countries with poor human rights records suffer numerous abuses, death being only the final blow.

In Haiti, where freedom of the press has been grudgingly tolerated for the last two decades or so, the latest assault on journalism began with verbal insults, like so many other abusive relationships.

The signs had been there, like the orders to shut up and veiled threats of retribution for posing the wrong questions, but on October 3, 2011 the overt public insult against a Haitian could not be ignored. Journalist Etienne Germain, of Port-au-Prince’s Scoop FM radio, a 24/7 news station, asked Michel Martelly, Haiti’s president of five months who had been handpicked by Hillary Clinton, to report his progress on forming a higher judiciary council (CSJP). First Martelly ignored the question while he answered a foreign reporter in English. Later, when Mr. Germain repeated himself and pointed out that the president had favored a foreigner over a compatriot, Martelly thundered: “Look, if you persist, I’ll insult you and your mama!” Far from regretting his behavior, a few days later, when offered a chance to explain himself, Martelly told the press: “I didn’t like the way I was approached. That’s my answer. That’s all.”

By early 2012, Martelly’s vulgar outbursts had become so commonplace that many journalists joined the other marchers in Haiti’s streets to demand, among other things, respect for the press. The insults did not stop. Martelly sank to yet new lows when confronted with questions from ordinary Haitian citizens, whom he apparently considers to be even farther beneath him.

During an election campaign rally for his political party in the city of Miragoane on July 28, 2015, when a young woman reminded him that he had not kept his previous campaign promises to the town, he rebuked her: “I came to talk to you; you must listen,” and then he added: “W$%re! If you want to have s*x, find yourself a man to !@ck you behind the wall! I’m ready to !@ck you on the podium!” as he gestured suggestively, to laughter and applause. This particular stunt caused one political party to withdraw from the barely functioning regime, which lacks a parliament. The symbolism of a Haitian president who serves a foreign occupation while he devalues Haitians, on the 100th anniversary of the first United States occupation of Haiti, was not lost on anyone.

The public insults against the press have morphed into overt calls to corruption and expressions of disdain at the poverty of journalists, as if they are mistresses to be publicly humiliated and discarded from a sadomasochistic fling.

In an open letter, the national station Radio Télé Kiskeya exposed its discovery that, at a Christmas reception on December 23, 2014, Martelly offered “small informal” gifts to a select group of journalists and then referred them to his spokesman and the head of his communication’s office to be organized in single file and get handed envelopes full of cash ($1,100 for some and $870 for others) as they were being photographed. At Radio Kiskeya, three journalists who had accepted these gifts of cash were publicly sanctioned.

On November 4, 2015, the Communications Minister, Mario Dupuy, announced that the government would serve as a banker to guarantee that any journalist could buy a new car on credit and make monthly payments of only about $130. Mr. Dupuy, a career journalist who has apparently gone over to the dark side, as evidenced by his multi-thousand-dollar suit in a country where the minimum wage is about 45 cents per hour, further proposed that his office would soon recruit and train media workers to work for the government’s communication services.

Inducements to corruption and vulgar sexual insults are understandably disconcerting and an affront to polite society, but that is the least of it. The vituperations of people in power are not mere words.

They usually represent to others a license to abuse and kill the members of a disadvantaged group: in this case, dark and poor Haitians who have the temerity to presume they can address the ruling class as their equals. Indeed, Haitian journalists have become the prey of the rich and their affiliates, such as bodyguards, and the members of the foreign-trained Haitian National Police (PNH). Furthermore, a pervasive corruption and weakened judiciary combine to guarantee that the perpetrators of crimes against journalists are almost never punished. In at least one case, the president’s security detail appeared to be under orders to assault certain members of the press.

Specifically, a member of Martelly’s security corps rushed Rodrigue Lalanne, a Radio Kiskeya journalist, as he tried to ask the president a question on October 1, 2013, on the then recent Dominican constitutional court’s decision to denationalize its citizens of Haitian ancestry. Months after a clearly identified irate policeman hit Radio TV Signal cameraman Samus David François’ motorcycle with a police car in July 2015 and then beat the journalist with his tripod, the case remains bogged down in legal technicalities. After a savage beating of Radio Télé Express journalist Gerdy Jeremie by two police commandoes as she covered a moto-taxi drivers protest in November 2014, one hearing about the case was postponed because the defendants failed to appear in court, and another because the dean of a court had ordered the premises shut. After much public protest, a hearing was held, and the court ordered the policemen to pay damages, but the award hardly covered Jeremie’s bills.

In one of the most egregious cases, journalist Wendy Phèle of Radio Télé Zenith (RTZ), a station in Haiti’s Cul-de-Sac plain, had to go into hiding two months after getting shot multiple times and being left for dead on March 17, 2012 by a bodyguard of one of Martelly’s interim mayors. According to Phèle, who lost a kidney in the attack, his assailant continues to circulate freely and to intimidate residents of the town, although charges have been brought against him. Another member of RTZ, George Fortuné, was violently assaulted by a policeman in front of a higher official and then photographed as a threat, while the journalist covered a protest on November 29, 2014.

Unsurprisingly, many journalists are losing their lives in this atmosphere of impunity. Starting with the March 7, 2012 assassination of Jean Liphète Nelson, the director of the community station Radio Boukman, in the large Cité Soleil slum, from a volley of gunfire to his car, the murder rate of Haiti’s journalists during the Martelly regime has accelerated to rival those of the country’s worst military dictatorships.

At least five other journalists have since succumbed from the bullets of assassins who were probably paid to kill them. Georges Henry Honorat, the director of the weekly newspaper Haiti Progrès was killed near his home on March 23, 2013, by two shots to his head, by masked individuals on a motorcycle; about two years later, on May 26, 2015, Eddy Alcindor, a journalist, photographer and publisher also for Haiti Progrès was likewise killed in his own neighborhood by unidentified gunmen. In both cases, the assassins took none of the victim’s possessions and had clearly come only to kill them. On February 8, 2014, the human rights advocates, the couple Daniel Dorsainvil and Girldy Lareche were assassinated near their home, also by unidentified gunmen, shortly after publishing a report that described a systematic violations of human rights by the regime. On April 2, 2015, unknown armed individuals pushed their way into a minibus and assassinated journalist Marc Elie Pierre, who had worked for Melodie FM and several other radio stations. Pierre-Richard Alexandre, a correspondent for Radio Kiskeya in the city of Saint Marc, was killed a few feet from his home too, on May 20, 2013; however this case was somewhat different from the others because witnesses clearly identified the assailant, who received a five-year sentence in 2014 but appealed this sentence. None of the other cases ever made it to a court.

Attacks on journalists in Central America: yellow/arrests, green/attacks, blue/killings.

Attacks on journalists in Central America: yellow/arrests, green/attacks, blue/killings.

A major loss to Haitian radio in general was the sudden death on March 1, 2015 of Sony Estéus despite being only 50 years old and in perfect health. Mr. Estéus was a linguist devoted to Haitian Creole, the director of the Society of Animation in Social Communication (SAKS), a local organization of more than 40 community radio stations, and the Caribbean representative of the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC). He was also active in a popular summer university that hosted students from over 150 regions. During the January 2010 earthquake, Mr. Estéus helped Port-au-Prince’s radio stations, nearly all of which had been destroyed, to restart broadcasting. His death, just before the charade of Haitian elections, was a devastating blow to the country’s journalists. He was an especially big loss for Radio Kiskeya, with which he had collaborated for about 10 years, and where he hosted a regular show addressed especially to Haiti’s peasantry and called “nou tout anndan.” The title of the show, which means “all of us inside” was a direct commentary on the usual reference to Haiti’s rural areas as being “an deyò,” meaning outside.

It is important to understand that even a low count of journalist murders does not happen in a vacuum but a poisonous atmosphere of humiliation, harassment, threats, and routine disregard for human rights. To prevent Haitians in Haiti, the US, France, and Canada from getting real news, independent radio stations as well as their journalists are routinely subjected to legal harassments that typically escalate into threats and finally destruction. Even before Martelly’s inauguration, Tèt Ansanm Karis, a community radio station that served a Haitian city of about 10,000 residents, was destroyed by arson, possibly for having aired the results of a controversial 2011 legislative election.

Prior to its destruction on April 21, 2011, the station had received threats and therefore been able to identify its enemies. Despite warrants being issued against several individuals, they continued to circulate freely and even to socialize with the local police. Radio Monopole of the southern city of Cayes was similarly torched in an act of arson on June 27, 2012.

This happened about one month after it successfully fought an attempted shutdown by the National Telecommunications Council (CONATEL) and was forced to change its broadcast frequency. According to the station’s owner, Martelly partisans had openly criticized him for what they perceived as being hostility to the regime. In Montreal, Radio CPAM 1610 AM was burned on July 2, 2012 in a barely disguised act of arson that involved lighting fires in two parts of the station’s premises. Again, the station’s owner reported that he had received threats after criticizing Martelly. All of these cases had in common that the fires had followed threats but caused no casualties because they typically happened at night, while the buildings were unoccupied.

More recently, the intimidators of journalists have taken to attacking their work premises with automatic gunfire. Radio Zenith and Radio Kiskeya appear to be taking the brunt of these attacks. On November 24, 2015, the owner of RTZ foiled an attack by a group of identified armed individuals, and he fingered members of the police as conniving with the criminals. It hardly seems surprising that the attack followed a failed attempt by CONATEL in April 2014 to shut down the station by recalling a decree of 1977. On December 1, 2015, it was the turn of Radio Télé Kiskeya, in Port-au-Prince, to report a gunfire attack against its premises. The station’s director noted that this was the first such attack in its 21 years. In any case, the CEOs of both stations also reported that they and their staff had received death threats.

Haiti’s local press is well respected, although the US and French embassies, as well as US State Department organs, like USAID and the Voice of America, have in recent years made declarations that Haiti’s journalists are in dire need of training. A cottage industry has developed in the US and Canada, to replace genuine Haitian voices with voices that belong to the foreign press and law NGOs, in presenting the news. Many of the latter benefit directly and indirectly from grants from George Soros’ Open Society Foundation. The Open Society operates in numerous countries. It was recently banned by the Russian Prosecutor’s Office for being an “undesirable group” and a “threat to the constitutional order and national security.” In Haiti, this foundation goes by the name of Fondasyon Konesans Ak Libète (Knowledge and Freedom Foundation, FOKAL). I have already discussed elsewhere the colonialism-of-the-mind involved in having one’s journalism done by the supposedly well-meaning members of occupying powers. Though such individuals are granted greater access to some data, as evidenced by Martelly’s affection for foreign journalists, an invariable aspect of their news reports is an acceptance of the status quo. For example, in its numerous articles about Haiti’s cholera epidemic and the failures of the post-earthquake reconstruction, the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), which lists the Open Society Foundation as one of its major sponsors, has not once proposed, in a major English-language article, the removal of the UN, USAID, and other US influences from Haiti as being possible solutions to its problems. FOKAL also finances the activities of countless pseudo-journalistic social-media personalities. As the southern US proverb says, “You’ve got to dance with the one who brung ya.” One does not take Open Society money to advocate for the nationalistic removal of a US occupation.

Like the media in many countries, Haiti’s press is under vicious attack, not only because it is the last rampart of democracy but also because it safeguards the population. One of the clearest recent examples of the latter function was the continued broadcasting of Radio Signal FM during the 2010 earthquake, which saved countless lives. In the subsequent days, the station’s 12 staff journalists worked extended shifts under nearly impossible circumstances, although at least one of them had lost his child and others had close family members who had died or been grievously injured. By contrast, the police and so-called United Nations peacekeepers searched for their friends, protected property, and they left the local population to fend for itself. As for the foreign NGO journalists: they were safely ensconced in their villas, hotels, and secure work buildings. However well meaning they might be, they like their salaries tax-free and landscapes seismically quiescent. They cannot be counted on to stick around for the shakeups.

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Turkey’s Erdogan is a  loose cannon, a valued US imperial ally, part of NATO’s war agenda,  increasingly risking direct confrontation with Russia.

Washington likely orchestrated Turkey’s downing of Russia’s SU-24 bomber last month in Syrian airspace, a reckless act of war.

On December 11, Putin told participants at a Moscow Defense Ministry collegium:

“I order to act very tough. Any targets that threaten Russian forces or our infrastructure on the ground should be immediately destroyed.”

He warned “those who will again try to organize any provocations against our servicemen. We have already taken additional measures to ensure security of Russian servicemen and air base.”

“It was strengthened by new aviation groups and missile defense systems. Strike aircraft will now carry out operations under cover of fighter jets” armed with deadly accurate air-to-air missiles.

On Saturday, RT International reported Turkish opposition member Mahir Akkar urging Putin and Deputy Defense Minister Anotoly Antonov be criminally investigated for “insulting” and “defam(ing)” Erdogan.

RT quoted a Daily Sabah report, quoting him saying “we cannot turn a blind eye to defamation against our president or (other) officials.”

Putin, Antonov and other Russian officials support their accusations with well-documented hard facts.

On Friday, Ivanov provided clear evidence of

“(a) whole team of bandits and Turkish leadership (under Erdogan and his family involved) in illegal oil trade with ISIS.”

He presented “irrefutable facts to prove it.” Erdogan and top Turkish officials around him are international criminals, involved in “industrial-scale” theft of Syrian and Iraqi oil, complicit with ISIS – along with partnering with Obama to replace Assad with a pro-Western puppet.

On Sunday, Erdogan’s latest provocation involved a Turkish fishing vessel (or perhaps military ship disguised to look like one) sailing on a collision course with a Russian destroyer in the Aegean Sea.

Moscow’s Defense Ministry said its ship fired small arms warning shots in front of Turkey’s vessel after it didn’t respond to calls to change course – finally doing so when it came within about 540 meters of the destroyer.

It never made contact, clearly a state-sponsored provocation with likely more to come. Putin gave fair warning. He always means what he says. Russia’s military has orders to destroy any threats to its air, ground or sea forces.

Tensions between both countries remain high. They maintain military contact to avoid these type incidents. Antonov summoned Turkey’s Moscow-based military attache to explain what happened.

Erdogan would never provoke Russia militarily without Washington’s permission or complicity. Both nations are playing with fire.

Putin is a consummate peacemaker. At the same time, he’ll do whatever it takes to protect Russia’s homeland, its population and military forces.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected].

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PM Central time plus two prerecorded archived programs.

 

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This week shapes up as one which could go down in the history books! Markets last week were tumultuous from weak equities, illiquid credit markets, FOREX markets in disarray and commodities hitting the skids …yet the Federal Reserve is intent on hiking rates? Have they taken this position because the markets are strong? Or because the economy …anywhere on the planet is overheating?

Before looking at “this week”, I have seen it said by many, “the Fed must raise rates to have any credibility left”. This is true to an extent but there is one core reason and one of their own making. You see, the fake data and outright lies have been coming out of Washington in such regularity and magnitude the Fed has been painted into a corner. They either raise rates “because things are so good” or they don’t …as a sign things aren’t so good. It has been for this reason I have had an eye out looking for some manufactured (false flag) event that takes the Fed off the hook. Time is getting short prior to Wednesday’s meeting and announcement …but there still is time.

It is quite interesting how China has devalued their yuan this past week prior to the Fed meeting.

They also announced they will monitor the Yuan’s value versus global currencies rather than just versus the dollar, in essence “de pegging” against the dollar. The weak yuan has been blamed for much of the past weeks volatility and weaknesses in financial markets. A rate hike by the Fed will only double down on the weakness. Also of interest in China are the numerous “disappearances”. For weeks there have been important individuals in the financial industry who have just disappeared. The latest fear was China’s equivalent of Warren Buffett had been disappeared.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/fosun-listed-units-halted-amid-questions-about-founders-whereabouts-1449798047

It turns out he is being held and assisting “investigations”. In the words of Warren Buffett himself, we only find out who was swimming naked when the tide goes out!

On the geopolitical front, the burner turned up this past week and has become much more complicated. First, the IMF basically said Ukraine does not need to pay Russia for the $3 billion equivalent they borrowed two years ago. The IMF will only enforce “dollar debt” …so no more rule of law if not using dollars? Russia then announced they will begin their own oil market for trade and will be an alternative to West Texas and North Sea Brent …NOT in dollars. Please understand this type of action has in the past resulted in the deposing and ultimate death of both Saddam Hussein and Qaddafi.

In Syria, it has now become a literal rainbow of colors in their sky with the latest planes being British. There is risk of a mishap with so many different nations in the sky at one time. Russia and NATO member Turkey also continue Russian Missile Destroyer “Fires Warning Shots” To Avoid Collision With Turkish Vessel to posture while Mr. Putin ordered their forces to “destroy any targets that threaten Russian military in Syria”

http://tass.ru/en/defense/843243 . Needless to say, the stakes are being raised and often.

We also have seen much higher stress in the credit markets as liquidity is evaporating. Junk bonds have been decimated as Zero Hedge reports The Coincidences Are Just Too Eerie: This Is The Last Time CCC Yields Were Here And Rising was the Fridaybefore Lehman blew up in 2008. Traders are now in fear of ANY liquidations as there is simply no depth on the bid side of the credit market. A perfect sign in fact was a second hedge fund announcing a halt to redemptions. Telling someone “they can’t get out” will only prod others who still can …to get out while they can! As a side note, Glencore CDS now puts the odds of a default over 5 years at better than a coin flip! Lastly, we are now half way through December and COMEX is still shy about two and a half tons of gold standing for delivery.

I apologize for the “dryness” and the amount of links in the above as I really do not like to write this way. It was necessary to point out many of the “possibilities” leading up to the Fed’s meeting on Wednesday. I was corrected by a reader for the use of “black swan” in a previous article because this term should be used for “unseen” or surprise events. No matter where you look there are reasons to be very “bearish on the world”. Whether it be equities, credit, derivatives, or nearly anywhere geographically, the risk versus reward is highly skewed toward digging a hole and covering yourself with a rock! …And these are the known risks!

I am not sure what the Fed will do on Wednesday. I am however sure if they do raise rates the volatility will increase and financial markets will probably not like it one bit. One must wonder what they will do should the equity markets drop a quick five or ten percent? Do they immediately reverse and lower rates? How credible is that? Liquidity is such that no matter what the Fed does, the highly levered nature of our financial system is teetering on “reverse” where it will eat itself up. This while a vast multiple of known detonators stand ready to unleash the financial dogs of hell.

We have created the most leveraged financial system in all of history. Liquidity is drying up and the question of “if” has been replaced with “when”. The odds of markets “closing” have risen dramatically. Stress, both geopolitically and financially can no longer be hidden in plain sight. Should the Fed raise rates, I believe markets far and wide will convulse into an unscheduled “holiday”. Yet we listen to the cheers for a rate hike? Even George Orwell would be shocked!  

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Former Prime Minister Tony Blair has refused to disclose whether he was aware of torture techniques used against British prisoner Shaker Aamer in Guantanamo Bay or wider UK complicity in the United States torture regime.

Pressure on Blair to come clean over Labour position on torture followed the damning revelations of Shaker Aamer, who disclosed his torment of 14 years abuse without charge in the US base.

Aamer explained that his abuse by guards included beatings and sleep deprivation, as part of a system that the US Government has conceded amounted to torture.

Torture – including water boarding and sexual punishments – occurred at Guantanamo in Cuba, Abu Ghraib in Iraq and a series of ‘black sites’ in what was formally termed the US ‘extraordinary rendition and detention program’.

Created as part of the attack on civil liberties and international law following 9/11, the torture programme led to questions in the UK over whether the government cooperated with US authorities in torture cases.

Former first minister Alex Salmond has demanded that Blair and former home secretary Jack Straw explain their awareness of the treatment of Aamer, in an interview to the BBC.

Salmond said:

As in so many things, Messrs Blair and Straw have a great deal to answer for, and they have to be asked the straight question how could they possibly not have known about the fate that had befallen a British citizen.

Governments are not meant to collaborate on the illegal abduction and then the torture of one of our own citizens. The then prime minister and home secretary have to face up and tell us exactly what they knew, and when they knew it.

In 2014 former British ambassador Craig Murray, who challenged the UK Government over complicity in torture, stated: “So I know 100 per cent for certain that Jack Straw knew we were getting intelligence from the CIA from torture. And he also, of course, ordered me to be sacked because I was trying to stop it.”

The Blair government previously faced allegations of complicity in Libya’s torture regime.

Scottish police are also investigating whether US torture flights passed through Scottish airports.

However, Blair has refused to be drawn into explaining his knowledge of the Aamer case or claims his government was involved in torture cases.

Instead a spokesperson speaking on Blair’s behalf repeated the claim that Blair is personally opposed to torture.

Cruel Britannia: A Secret History of Torture by Ian Cobain documents centuries of British torture regimes.

CommonSpace journalism is completely free from the influence of advertisers and is only possible with your continued support. Please contribute a monthly amount towards our costs. Build the Scotland you want to live in – support our new media.

Copyright Common Space, 2015

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On December 2, Montenegro received an official invitation from NATO to join the alliance. While the government praised the initiative many in the country have strongly opposed it. A surge of anti-NATO protests has been held across the country since then.

“The invitation from NATO to Montenegro was a big mistake,” Andrija Mandic, leader of the New Serb Democracy party, said in an interview with News Front.

“The alliance knows that over 60 percent of the people in Montenegro are against the country joining the military bloc. Unfortunately, we have a government of puppets controlled by the West,” he added.

According to the politician, the current situation is dangerous for Montenegro because the decision to join NATO will be passed by the parliament, without taking into account the will of the people.

“Our party stands for a referendum in following all the necessary legal procedures. This is the only way to resolve the crisis,” Mandic pointed out.

There are some people in Montenegro who support joining NATO and they are outnumbered, Mandic said. At the same time, there are those who want the country to form a military alliance with Russia, the politician said.

“However, the majority support Montenegro being neutral. But we are an Orthodox people, and Russia protected us from the Ottoman Empire for 300 years. So, first of all, we want our neutrality to be guaranteed and supported by Russia,”

he explained.

The politician stressed that Montenegro should try to build friendly relations with Russia. The Montenegrin economy relies heavily on Russian tourists and investments from Russia. The government should keep this in mind and look to strengthen ties with Moscow, Mandic said.

“Currently, the policy of our government is controlled by the West. Our authorities have repeatedly committed mistakes and made anti-Russian and anti-Serbian statements. But Russia has always been friendly in response,”

the politician said. “I believe that after the first legal snap elections the situation would change and Montenegro will not go with Albania and Turkey against Russia and Serbia.”

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Civil Rights and “Terrorism” in Australia

December 14th, 2015 by Dr. Binoy Kampmark

“Where people are a danger to society after they have served their time for conviction, as we do with sex and as we do with violent offenders… then they should be put into preventive detention.” -Dan Tehan, Intelligence and Security Committee, Australian Parliament, Dec 12, 2015

The change in Australian leadership, initiated by the prime minister’s own party, was meant to be an altering movement. Tony Abbott had been too extreme; too zealous. He wanted to commit Australian troops haphazardly. He pondered moves against death cults.  He cut against the grain of the environmental lobby, lobbing climate change scepticism into each forum he could find.  And there was the delight taken in steam rolling civil liberties.

Malcolm Turnbull is showing how is he is not much better. There is everything to say that he could be worse, a sort of Obama-screen placed over a Bush legacy. Terrible things are justified by language that is picked for the moment.

Given that Australia is already doing its best to attack various liberties, one example being stripping away citizenship of convicted terrorists, albeit those with dual-nationality, Turnbull’s proposal did not seem irregular.

On Friday at the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) meeting, Turnbull got what he wanted. There was no arm-twisting needed.  Governments of conservative and labour persuasions across the country agreed to a regime detaining convicted terrorists past their sentence date.[1]  Their model of inspiration?  The highly problematic, permanent regime designed to penalise exceptional sex and violent offenders.

Such a policy is a poor move on justice, suggesting that convictions, in terms of their philosophy, are irrelevant. It assumes, for instance, that a penal figure cannot reform, and that exceptional categories of offender exist.  Rehabilitation is thereby eschewed, and the protection of society not assured.[2]

It assumes, furthermore, that a state has infinite, unreviewable powers to select groups of individuals for punishment.  This precedent has proven catastrophic for the health of political systems which are, notionally at least, accountable and reviewable.  They also suggest that the burgeoning powers of a police state beckon, one that acts under the pretence of law whilst suspending it.

Within the courts, some resistance has been mounted, though far from enough. There have been cases suggesting that such moves are unconstitutional, an overstepping of some vague mark that is impossible to identify accurately in the common law. But the Australian Constitution is a generally weak document given to procedural outlines and commercial protections.

The drafters remained, with some exceptions, silent on the rights of the citizen, largely thinking that the sagacity of the common law would do the rest.  Judges have had to, inventively, discover hidden protections. The response from Australian governments at all levels has been to take away that inventiveness and effectively empower courts to take away liberties.

Take, for example, the Queensland Supreme Court. In 2003, a state insistent on seeing paedophiles as being the equivalent of genocidal masterminds decided that courts could make preventive or supervision orders where there was a high degree of probability that the offender poses a “serious danger to the community”. That danger is assessed, cryptically, where there “is an unacceptable risk that the prisoner will commit a serious sexual offence”.[3]

Such regimes ensure that the offender is never treated as anything other than a convict. Electronic tagging is permitted and prohibitions from living in certain areas enforced under what are called supervision orders. The continuing detention order goes further: it keeps a person in custody after the release date.  Much to the consternation of civil liberty advocates, the High Court of Australia validated the provisions.[4]

The Queensland precedent saw jurisdictions across Australia smitten.  In 2013, New South Wales decided to extend the post-detention scheme to high-risk violent offenders.  Two years later, South Australia followed.[5]  At the federal level, the Foreign Fighters Act was amended to expand the use of control orders over those convicted of a terrorism-related offence.[6] Officials, it seemed, could not get enough of the idea that prisoners, having served their time, could still be detained in some form at Her Majesty’s pleasure.

Australia is not unique in this regard.  Indefinite detention has insinuated itself into various democracies, often on the pretext to target supposedly exceptional criminals. (The threat could happen here, so act now!)  In the United Kingdom, a post-supervision regime exists for those convicted of terrorist-related offences, though these tend to take the form of less intrusive notification requirements.

In the United States, the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 has been used to indefinitely detain US subjects suspected of being affiliated with al-Qaeda or associate organisations.

In a vain effort to repeal the indefinite provision last year, Rep. Adam Smith (D-Washington) suggested that having such a provision on the statute books was dangerous.  “That is an enormous amount of power to give the executive, to take someone and lock them up without due process.”  Doing so “places liberty and freedom at risk in this country.”[7]

This highly troubling state of affairs betrays the flimsiness of certain protections, even in the United States.  Australia has one less protective barrier.  Unbacked by a spine of constitutionally protected rights, individuals tend to be at the mercy of supposedly wise judgments made by the prime minister and his colleagues. When that wisdom goes on an extended holiday, lawyers are usually left with minimal resources.

Such a program can also have another lasting effect.  Far from protecting Australian society, which is ostensibly its aim, very much the opposite can take place.  “Detaining persons convicted of terrorist offences for lengthy periods after they have served their time,” argue Tamara Tulich and Jessie Blackbourn, “could risk radicalising a section of the community who see the measure as unjust.”[8]  Prevention duly becomes cause and catalyst.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: [email protected]

Notes:

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Amid a continuing weakening of the Chinese currency, the People’s Bank of China (PoBC) has signalled new moves that could accelerate the slide in the renminbi’s value and trigger a currency war among export-dependent countries in Asia and internationally.

Last Friday, as the renminbi hit its weakest level against the US dollar in more than four years, the PoBC announced that it intended to change the way in which the renminbi’s value is fixed. In the future, the renminbi will be measured against a basket of currencies, rather than the dollar, opening the door for further devaluation.

China is under pressure from a rising US dollar, compelling the PoBC to intervene to maintain the value of renminbi within its fixed band. This has led to a depletion of foreign currency reserves, which stood at $3.43 trillion in November, down 14 percent from the peak in June 2014. The renminbi is likely to come under greater pressure if the US Federal Reserve announces an expected rise in US interest rates later this week.

The downward slide in the renminbi’s value, which makes Chinese exports cheaper, threatens other Asian exporters, already being hit by the global economic slump, and heightens the danger of competitive devaluations. Societe Generale analyst Jason Daw warned on Thursday that “further renminbi depreciation risks a currency war, either directly by policymaker actions or indirectly by investors shorting Asian currencies.”

Commenting last week on the upcoming US Fed decision, UK Daily Telegraphbusiness editor Ambrose Evans-Pritchard cautioned:

“The greater risk for the world over coming months is that China stops trying to hold the line against devaluation and sends a wave of corrosive deflation through the world economy. Fear that China may join the world’s currency wars is what haunts the elite and funds in London.”

Evans-Pritchard warned that a large devaluation in the Chinese currency “would set off currency wars in Asia and beyond, replicating the 1998 crisis on a more dangerous level.” In the 1997–98 Asian financial crisis, China was generally praised for maintaining the renminbi’s value against the dollar and assisting in stabilising financial markets. Now China threatens to become a major source of instability.

Underlying the weakening currency is the slowdown of the Chinese economy, which was highlighted by figures released last week. Trade statistics showed further falls in US dollar terms, with an 8.7 percent drop in imports in November compared to a year earlier. Exports declined 6.8 percent year-on-year, steeper than the 5 percent fall in October.

China’s annual growth rate slowed to 6.9 percent in the September quarter, the weakest result since 2009 in the midst of the global financial crisis and below the 7 percent target set by the government. The Chinese leadership claims to be effecting a transition from an export-driven economy to one based on domestic consumption and services, as if this were a natural progression for all countries.

However, China’s rapid economic growth has been completely bound up with its integration into the world economy as the premier cheap labour platform. The regime responded to the 2008 global financial crisis, which led to a contraction in exports and the rapid loss of 20 million jobs, with a huge stimulus package that combined a flood of cheap credit with a massive infrastructure expansion.

The stimulus measures were based on the assumption that the world economy, and thus Chinese exports, would recover. Six years on, that premise has proven false. Moreover, the cheap credit only fuelled speculative bubbles in property and shares that have heightened economic uncertainty. Property prices are stagnant and shares on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets plunged earlier this year.

The slowdown in the property market, combined with the slump in manufacturing exports, is compounding productive overcapacities in basic industries such as steel. China is the world’s largest producer of steel, accounting for about a half the total production of 1.6 billion tonnes. UBS analysts cited in the Economist estimate that China this year will produce 441 million tonnes more than it can consume.

In an effort to stave off a wave of bankruptcies, the Chinese government is encouraging steel producers to export and last week cut export tariffs on pig iron and steel billet. For the year to November, China exported over 100 million tonnes—more than the total production of any other country in the world except Japan. However, Chinese steel exports not only fail to soak up overcapacity, but also threaten to provoke demands for protectionist measures from hard-pressed steel industries in other countries.

The Chinese government is fearful that a wave of bankruptcies in manufacturing will send unemployment soaring and result in widespread social unrest. Strike figures reported by the Hong Kong-based China Labour Bulletin, based largely on media reports, hit 301 in November, the highest level for the year. Most of the workers’ protests were in manufacturing and construction over unpaid wages and factory closures and mergers.

The government’s plans to “transition” to a service economy involve a further round of market restructuring and opening up of service sectors to foreign companies by breaking the current dominance of state-owned enterprises. Given the lucrative opportunities that could open up for foreign investors, it is not surprising that major global institutions like the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, along with financial commentators, champion the proposals.

However, the Financial Times noted last week that not everyone is convinced that services in China will seamlessly takeover from a stagnant manufacturing industry. John-Paul Smith, from the investment advisory firm Ecstrat, argued that the services sector was heavily interconnected to manufacturing. If manufacturing “hit the wall, the idea that consumer spending won’t take a big hit is absolutely fanciful in the extreme,” he said, warning that China had a good chance of experience “a sudden stop”—i.e., zero growth—in the next couple of years.

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Israeli Fighter Jets Bomb Besieged Gaza Strip

December 14th, 2015 by Press TV

Image: An Israeli F-15 E fighter jet takes off during an air show as part of the graduation ceremony of Israeli pilots at the Hatzerim air force base in the southern Negev desert on June 25, 2015. (AFP)

Israeli war jets have carried out a number of airstrikes against the Gaza Strip in yet another act of aggression against the besieged coastal territory.

The airborne assaults, which were launched in the early hours of Monday morning, reportedly hit several targets including military posts in the northern and central parts of the Palestinian blockaded enclave.

According to local Palestinian media, Israeli Apache helicopters were also involved and launched at least two missiles at the northwestern part of the strip, targeting the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, a military wing of the Palestinian Hamas resistance movement.

Israeli sources claimed that the air raids were conducted in response to a rocket attack that had struck the southern part of the Israeli-occupied territories a few hours earlier, blaming the attack on the Palestinian resistance movement.

Red alert sirens urged the residents of the area to hide in bunkers. Tel Aviv later said that the rocket attack caused no casualties or damage as it had landed in an unpopulated area.

The Israeli army frequently launches airstrikes against various areas in Gaza.

Over 2,200 Palestinians, including 577 children, were killed in a 50-day Israeli military aggression against Gaza, which started in early July and ended on August 26 last year. Over 11,100 others, including 3,374 children, 2,088 women and 410 elderly people, were also injured in the offensive.

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Venezuela Election Aftermath: Privatization Looms

December 14th, 2015 by Telesur

Image: Venezuelan opposition leader Henrique Capriles speaks to journalists during a news conference in Caracas, Venezuela, Dec. 7, 2015. (Reuters)

The right-wing coalition of parties, known as the MUD, that won a supermajority in Venezuela’s National Assembly elections Dec. 6, has laid out its plan for a radical departure from the policies and laws laid down over the past 17 years by the socialist government.

Amid news of political infighting, on Thursday evening the MUD published on its website a list of laws its lawmakers plan to overturn once they come into office Jan. 5, including revoking price controls that have kept basic goods affordable; privatizing key enterprises and services; giving foreign companies concessions for infrastructure works; strengthening local police forces; and making public media “independent,” or private.

These sorts of changes would dramatically transform Venezuela’s political and social landscape.

The first proposal would revoke the fair prices and food security laws, which aim to provide Venezuelans with cheap access to basic necessities. The opposition says this would overcome the problem of shortages, which the government claims are due to smuggling and opposition-backed economic warfare.

Two other laws would open the way to privatization. One would reverse the nationalization of strategic enterprises and “nullify the declaration of public utility that threatens the property assets of private entrepreneurs.”

“The idea is to favor the revival of enterprises in key areas such as food, medicine, household cleaning products and personal hygiene,” the document explains.

Another law would “decentralize” public services, handing them over to local authorities and giving these the right to subcontract private service providers. The plan, according to the MUD, is to “suppress monopolies and reservations the state has made in the provision of public services to their detriment, … with strategic partnerships with private or mixed companies by granting concessions.”

A third law in this area would open up concessions for large infrastructure projects to foreign investors and multilateral financing institutions. The socialist government worked hard to end these types of deals with outsiders to enhance sovereignty and what it sees as foreign intervention into domestic affairs, especially from the United States, which has a history of meddling in the region’s politics to protect its usually capital-based interests in the country.

The MUD specifically mentions services such as roads, water supply, garbage collection, ports and airports, for which it plans to “allow and encourage multilateral funding, which would be repaid by exploiting concessions, private companies associated with the state, to develop large-scale projects and the high investment necessary for the (services’) best performance.”

Venezuela’s very real crime problem, which the MUD’s document calls “one of the most serious problems facing everyday citizens in Venezuela,” would be tackled, according to the MUD plan, by giving more power to municipal and state police forces, which are often controlled by opposition local governments. In 2002, it was municipal police in Caracas that played a key role in the failed U.S.-backed coup attempt against then President Hugo Chavez, who had begun a socialist revolution three years earlier.

In terms of the media, the opposition majority in the National Assembly proposes a law to “end hegemony” in the public media and ensure the “independence” of those in charge of those media outlets.

The MUD claims these changes, which were originally approved by in the constitution by the public, will lead to “a better quality of life.”

Watch video here

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This article examines the extent to which state officials are subject to prosecution in foreign domestic courts for international crimes. We consider the different types of immunity that international law accords to state officials , the reasons for the conferment of this immunity and whether they apply in cases in which it is alleged that the official has committed an international crime.

We argue that personal immunity (immunity ratione personae) continues to apply even where prosecution is sought for international crimes. Also we consider that instead of a single category of personal immunity there are in fact two types of such immunity and that one type extends beyond senior officials such as the Head of State and Head of Government. [eg. Tony Blair, David Cameron, GR Ed.]

Most of the article deals with functional immunity (immunity ratione materiae). We take the view that this type of immunity does not apply in the case of domestic prosecution of foreign officials for most international crimes. However, we reject the traditional arguments which have been put forward by scholars and courts in support of this view. Instead we consider the key to understanding when functional immunity is available lies in examining how jurisdiction is conferred on domestic courts.

1 Introduction

The development of substantive norms of international human rights and international criminal law has not been matched by the development of mechanisms and procedures for their enforcement. The primary methods of judicial enforcement envisaged by international law are the domestic courts of the state where the human rights violation or international crime occurred and the courts of the state responsible for that violation. To this end, international law imposes obligations on states to prosecute those who have committed international crimes within their territory. Likewise human rights law includes a right to a remedy or to reparation provided by the state that has violated the substantive human right. However, these methods of enforcement of human rights and international criminal law often fail. Domestic law may not incorporate the relevant international human rights norm. International crimes are often committed by state agents as part of state policy, and so governments do not routinely prosecute their own officials engaged in such action (though, as has happened in Latin America, changes of government may bring a change of policy and prosecutions for past official conduct).

All of this has led to what has been described as a culture of impunity which contributes to a climate in which human rights violations persist and are not deterred. In order to counter this culture, there are two other possible fora where judicial enforcement of human rights norms may take place. First, it is possible that such enforcement takes place in international (including regional) courts: such as the human rights tribunals or quasi-judicial bodies dealing with state responsibility or international criminal tribunals dealing with the penal responsibility of individuals. However, enforcement of human rights norms by such courts is limited, inter alia, by the fact that an international court with jurisdiction over the acts in question may not exist.

For this reason, some human rights advocates have turned to the second set of fora (other than the domestic court of the state committing the wrong): the domestic courts of other states. For the domestic courts of other states to serve as fora for the transnational enforcement of human rights and international criminal law a number of hurdles will have to be overcome. Some of these hurdles are practical, such as the difficulty of obtaining evidence in relation to crimes that took place abroad and the lack of motivation on the part of prosecutors in other states to take up cases which have no connection with the country.

Other hurdles are those to be found in the domestic law of the state, including jurisdictional limits under domestic criminal law or under the conflict of law rules of the forum (doctrines such as forum non conveniens). However, there are at least two international law hurdles that also have to be overcome. It will have to be established that the foreign state has jurisdiction, as a matter of international law, to prescribe rules for the matter at hand and to subject the issue to adjudication in its courts. Also, where a case is brought in a domestic court against a foreign state or foreign state official or agent, it must be established that the state or its official is not immune from the jurisdiction of the forum. There are recent developments suggesting movement in international law on both of these issues, but the precise contours of the relevant rules are yet to be conclusively determined.

This article addresses the last of the obstacles identified: the international law rules on the immunity of state officials. Whilst it is commonly accepted that state officials are immune in certain circumstances from the jurisdiction of foreign states,1 there has been uncertainty about how far those immunities remain applicable where the official is accused of committing international crimes. Examining the rationale for the conferment of each of these types of immunity, as well as their scope, this article determines whether they remain applicable in criminal proceedings in which an official is accused of committing a crime under international law.

Section 2 of this article examines the immunity that attaches to certain state officials as a result of their office or status (immunity ratione personae). It is argued that there are in fact two types of immunity ratione personae: those attaching to a limited group of senior officials, especially the Head of State, Head of Government, and diplomats, and the immunity of state officials on special mission abroad. Section 3 addresses the immunity which attaches to acts performed by state officials in the exercise of their functions (immunity ratione materiae). We argue that this immunity has both a substantive and a procedural function, in that it gives effect to a defence available to state officials and prevents the circumvention of the immunity of the state. In that part, we consider, and reject, a number of related arguments which are normally deployed in arguing that immunity ratione materiae does not apply to cases concerning human rights violations in general and international crimes in particular.

The arguments in question are based on the jus cogens status of the norms in question or on the view that human rights violations/international crimes may not be considered sovereign (or official) acts. In our view, these arguments misunderstand the basis on which immunity is accorded or are premised on a false conflict of norms. We then go on to suggest a more persuasive rationale for the argument that immunity ratione materiae does not apply in cases concerning prosecutions for international crimes. In so doing, we re-examine the relationship between jurisdictional rules and rules of immunity and suggest that rules conferring extra-territorial jurisdiction may of themselves displace prior immunity rules. Our conclusion considers why it is important to clarify the rationale for denial of immunity ratione materiaeand briefly explores some of the implications of our theory for civil cases involving human rights violations. Some of the arguments set out in this article were first summarized by one of us in a previous article.2 The present article explores the arguments in more detail, filling in some of the steps in the reasoning and elaborating on some of the points made and their consequences.

2 Immunity of State Officials Ratione Personae (Immunity Attaching to an Office or Status)

International law confers on certain state officials immunities that attach to the office or status of the official. These immunities, which are conferred only as long as the official remains in office, are usually described as ‘personal immunity’ or ‘immunity ratione personae’. It has long been clear that under customary international law the Head of State and diplomats accredited to a foreign state possess such immunities from the jurisdiction of foreign states.3 In addition, treaties confer similar immunities on diplomats, representatives of states to international organizations,4 and other officials on special mission in foreign states.5The predominant justification for such immunities is that they ensure the smooth conduct of international relations and, as such, they are accorded to those state officials who represent the state at the international level.

International relations and international cooperation between states require an effective process of communication between states.6 It is important that states are able to negotiate with each other freely and that those state agents charged with the conduct of such activities should be able to perform their functions without harassment by other states.7 As the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has pointed out, there is ‘no more fundamental prerequisite for the conduct of relations between States than the inviolability of diplomatic envoys and embassies’.8 In short, these immunities are necessary for the maintenance of a system of peaceful cooperation and co-existence among states.9 Increased global cooperation means that this immunity is especially important.

A The Scope of Immunity Ratione Personae: Immunity from Criminal Process for International Crimes

It is clear that senior officials who are accorded immunity ratione personaewill be hindered in the exercise of their international functions if they are arrested and detained whilst in a foreign state. For this reason, this type of immunity, where applicable, is commonly regarded as prohibiting absolutely the exercise of criminal jurisdiction by states. The absolute nature of the immunity ratione personae means that it prohibits the exercise of criminal jurisdiction not only in cases involving the acts of these individuals in their official capacity but also in cases involving private acts.10 Also, the rationale for the immunity means that it applies whether or not the act in question was done at a time when the official was in office or before entry to office.11 What is important is not the nature of the alleged activity or when it was carried out, but rather whether the legal process invoked by the foreign state seeks to subject the official to a constraining act of authority at the time when the official was entitled to the immunity. Thus, attempts to arrest or prosecute these officials would be a violation of the immunity whilst invitations by a foreign state for the official to testify or provide information voluntarily would not.12 However, since this type of immunity is conferred, at least in part, in order to permit free exercise by the official of his or her international functions, the immunity exists for only as long as the person is in office.

In the Arrest Warrant case, the ICJ held that Foreign Ministers are entitled to immunity ratione personae, and further held that the absolute nature of the immunity from criminal process accorded to a serving Foreign Ministerratione personae subsists even when it is alleged that he has committed an international crime and applies even when the Foreign Minister is abroad on a private visit.13 The Court stated:It has been unable to deduce … that there exists under customary international law any form of exception to the rule according immunity from criminal jurisdiction and inviolability to incumbent Ministers for Foreign Affairs, where they are suspected of having committed war crimes or crimes against humanity.14

The principle that immunity ratione personae extends even to cases involving allegations of international crimes must be taken as applying to all those serving state officials and diplomats possessing this type of immunity.15 Indeed the principle is uncontroversial and has been widely applied by national courts in relevant cases,16 as well as being upheld in state practice.17 The only case which may be construed as denying immunity to a Head of State is United States v. Noriega.18 However, immunity was not accorded in this case on the ground that the US government had never recognized General Noriega (the de facto ruler of Panama) as the Head of State.

B Which Officials are Entitled to Immunity Ratione Personae?

It has long been clear that serving Heads of State,19 Heads of Government,20 and diplomats21 possess immunity ratione personae. In the Arrest Warrant case, the ICJ held – without reference to any supporting state practice – that immunity ratione personae also applies to a serving Foreign Minister.22 Questions remain about whether this type of immunity applies to other senior government members. In describing the rule according immunity ratione personae in the Arrest Warrant case, the ICJ stated it applies to ‘diplomatic and consular agents [and] certain holders of high-ranking office in a State, such as the Head of State, Head of Government and Minister for Foreign Affairs’.23 The use of the words ‘such as’ suggests that the list of senior officials entitled to this immunity is not closed.

In that case, Foreign Ministers were held to be immune because they are responsible for the international relations of the state and ‘in the performance of these functions, he or she is frequently required to travel internationally, and thus must be in a position to do so freely whenever the need should arise’.24 However, justifying this type of immunity by reference to the international functions of the official concerned would make it difficult to confine the immunity to a limited group of state officials. A very wide range of officials (senior and junior) are charged with the conduct of international relations and need to travel in the exercise of their functions. Ministers other than those specifically designated as being responsible for foreign affairs often represent their state internationally. They may have to conduct bilateral negotiations with other governments or may represent their governments at international organizations or at international summits. Indeed it is difficult to think of any ministerial position that will not require at least some level of international involvement.25

Where officials represent their states at international organizations they will usually be accorded immunity by treaty.26 Likewise under Articles 29 and 31 of the UN Convention on Special Missions 1969 the person of any official abroad on a special mission on behalf of his or her state is inviolable, with the result that he or she may not be arrested or detained. Furthermore, Article 31 of that Convention provides that ‘the representatives of the sending State in special mission and the members of its diplomatic staff are immune from the criminal jurisdiction of the receiving State’.27 These are treaty based conferrals of immunity ratione personae which extend the category beyond the Head of State, Head of Government, and Foreign Minister.

However, the policy underlying the immunity is, in all cases, consistent with that enunciated by the ICJ. These treaty-based conferments of immunity are intended to facilitate the conduct of international relations. Although the Convention on Special Missions is in force, only a small number of states have become party to it (38 at the time of writing).

The question arises whether the immunity provisions in that Convention represent rules of customary international law. If they do, then immunity ratione personae is available to a much broader group than was mentioned by the ICJ in the Arrest Warrant case. Although the International Law Commission was of the view that the immunity of special missions was established as a matter of international law, a US Federal District Court doubted that these provisions represented customary international law.28 However, the US Executive Branch has taken a different view and has asserted that foreign officials only temporarily in the United States on ‘special diplomatic mission’ are entitled to immunity from the jurisdiction (criminal and civil) of US courts.29 What is of particular interest is that such assertions of immunity have covered people who are not the Head of State, Head of Government, or Foreign Minister.

For example, the US government suggested immunity in a case brought against the Chinese Minister of Commerce and International Trade.30 Governments and courts in other countries are also willing to accept the customary law status of the rule granting immunity to members of Special Missions. In the Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matterscase, Djibouti relied on the Special Missions Convention in its written pleadings although neither it nor France was a party to that Convention.31The UK government and UK courts have also recognized the immunity of special missions on the basis of customary international law. In Re Bo Xilai,32 a magistrates’ court in England was willing to grant immunity to the same Chinese Minister of Commerce on the ground that this was required by customary international law since he was part of a special mission. Likewise, Germany declined to arrest the Chief of Protocol to the President of Rwanda (Rose Kabuye) when she was on an official visit to the country in April 2008, acknowledging that she was immune, although she was subject to a French-issued arrest warrant on terrorism charges.33 The customary international law basis of special missions immunity was accepted by the Criminal Chamber of the German Federal Supreme Court in the Tabatabai Case, where it stated:

irrespective of the [UN Special Missions Convention], there is a customary rule of international law based on State practice andopinio juris which makes it possible for an ad hoc envoy, who has been charged with a special political mission by the sending State, to be granted immunity by individual agreement with the host State for that mission and its associated status, and therefore for such envoys to be placed on a par with the members of the permanent missions of State protected by international treaty law.34

It is important to point out that it has been accepted that this type of special mission immunity applies even in cases concerning international crimes. For example, immunity was recognized in Re Bo Xilai, even though the case dealt with allegations of torture. Likewise, the Belgian Government in the Arrest Warrant case accepted in its pleadings to the ICJ that the arrest warrant in question would not be enforceable, on immunity grounds, in cases where a representative of a foreign state was in Belgium on the basis of an official invitation.35

Questions remain as to the precise contours of the special mission immunity. In particular, it needs to be determined what constitutes a special mission. According to Article 1 of the Convention on Special Missions a special mission is ‘a temporary mission, representing the State, which is sent by one State to another State with the consent of the latter for the purpose of dealing with it on specific questions or of performing in relation to it a specific task’. This suggests that the receiving state must not only be aware that the foreign official is on its territory, it must also consent to that presence and to the performance of the specified task. It is this consent which gives rise to the immunity.36

Although this special mission immunity is broadly applicable it does not apply to state officials abroad on a private visit. This is what distinguishes it from the type of immunity ratione personae discussed by the ICJ in theArrest Warrant case. In that case, the Court held that the Foreign Minister (and also the Head of State and Head of Government) would be immune even if abroad on a private visit.37 It is not controversial that a foreign Head of State is entitled to absolute immunity ratione personae from criminal jurisdiction of foreign courts even whilst abroad on a private visit. However, prior to the ICJ’s decision it was not certain that this same immunity applied to Foreign Ministers or Heads of Government abroad on a private visit.38

In the Arrest Warrant case, the ICJ justified the conferment of this broad immunity to a serving Foreign Minister on the ground that it was necessary for the conduct of international relations. However, this argument is not convincing. It is difficult to see why a Foreign Minister should require immunity from jurisdiction when on a private visit. Such visits are not necessary for the international relations of the state.39 To the extent that the Foreign Minister (or other official) is immune whilst abroad on official visits then the conduct of international relations ought not to be greatly impeded as the Minister is free to travel to conduct such relations. Justification for immunity of senior officials when abroad on a private visit must be sought elsewhere.

There are two further justifications for immunity ratione personae, beyond the ‘functional’ rationale discussed above, which may be of use: (1) symbolic sovereignty and (2) the principle of ‘non-intervention’. It is worth pointing out here that none of these rationales can be taken as the sole justification for the rule of immunity ratione personae. They must be read together to give a convincing account of why the rule of immunity still exists.

First, it has been argued that the rule according Heads of State immunity ‘reflects remnants of the majestic dignity that once attached to kings and princes as well as remnants of the idea of the incarnation of the state in its ruler’.40 A Head of State is accorded immunity ratione personae not only because of the functions he performs, but also because of what hesymbolizes: the sovereign state.

The person and position of the Head of State reflects the sovereign quality of the state41 and the immunity accorded to him or her is in part due to the respect for the dignity of the office and of the state which that office represents. The principle of non-intervention constitutes a further justification for the absolute immunity from criminal jurisdiction for Heads of State. The principle is the ‘corollary of the principle of sovereign equality of states’,42 which is the basis for the immunity of states from the jurisdiction of other states (par in parem non habet imperium). To arrest and detain the leader of a country is effectively to change the government of that state. This would be a particularly extreme form of interference with the autonomy and independence of that foreign state. The notion of independence means that a state has exclusive jurisdiction to appoint its own government – and that other states are not empowered to intervene in this matter. Were the rule of Head of State immunity relaxed in criminal proceedings so as to permit arrests, such interference right at the top of the political administration of a state would eviscerate the principles of sovereign equality and independence.

Although practice on the point is not clear and although the Head of Government was not in the past considered as having the same ‘majestic dignity’ as the Head of State or as symbolizing the state,43 there are good reasons for extending to the former the absolute immunity from criminal jurisdiction granted to the latter.44 In many states it is the Head of Government who is the effective leader of the country.45 Thus to arrest and detain him or her is as damaging to the autonomy of the state as is the case with Heads of State. However, the same cannot be said of other ministers (including the Foreign Minister). They may represent the state but do not embody the supreme authority of the state, and their removal does not signify a change in government of the state. While removing immunity for the Head of State and Head of Government goes to the root of the principle of equality of states, removing immunity for other senior officials on private visits does not have the same dramatic impact.

Thus, by restricting the allocation of broad immunity ratione personae to Heads of State and Heads of Government, a balance is struck between sovereign equality and respect for the rule of (international and domestic) law. On this analysis, extending such broad immunity ratione personae to other ministers, as the ICJ did in Arrest Warrant, is erroneous and unjustified.

3 Immunity of State Officials Ratione Materiae (Immunity Attaching to Official Acts)

State officials are, generally speaking, immune from the jurisdiction of other states in relation to acts performed in their official capacity (‘functional immunity’ or ‘immunity ratione materiae’).46 As this type of immunity attaches to the official act rather than the status of the official, it may be relied on by all who have acted on behalf of the state with respect to their official acts. Thus, this conduct-based immunity may be relied on by former officials in respect of official acts performed while in office as well as by serving state officials.47 It may also be relied on by persons or bodies that are not state officials or entities but have acted on behalf of the state.48

The application of immunity ratione materiae to state officials has been more common in civil than criminal cases.49 The criminal jurisdiction of states is primarily territorial and state officials do not usually exercise their official functions in the territory of other states. An important exception is during an international armed conflict where combatants will often exercise their official functions (i.e., engaging in hostilities) in the territory of the opposing state. However, international humanitarian law has provided that these officials should not face criminal prosecution at the hands of the enemy state solely for their involvement in such hostilities as long as they adhere to the laws and customs of war.50 Thus, the circumstances in which a state official may face criminal prosecution in a foreign state for an act done in the exercise of official capacity are limited. Nevertheless, the assertion of immunity ratione materiae in criminal cases is not unknown and the reasons for which the immunity is conferred apply a fortiori in criminal cases.51

There are two related policies underlying the conferment of immunityratione materiae. First, this type of immunity constitutes (or, perhaps more appropriately, gives effect to) a substantive defence, in that it indicates that the individual official is not to be held legally responsible for acts which are, in effect, those of the state. Such acts are imputable only to the state and immunity ratione materiae is a mechanism for diverting responsibility to the state.52 This rationale was cogently expressed by the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in Prosecutor v. Blaškić:

[State] officials are mere instruments of a State and their official action can only be attributed to the State. They cannot be the subject of sanctions or penalties for conduct that is not private but undertaken on behalf of the State. In other words, State officials cannot suffer the consequences of wrongful acts which are not attributable to them personally but to the State on whose behalf they act: they enjoy so-called ‘functional immunity’. This is a well established rule of customary international law going back to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, restated many times since.53

One consequence of this function of immunity ratione materiae is that the immunity of state officials is not co-extensive with, but broader than, the immunity of the state itself. The official would be immune not only with respect to sovereign acts for which the state is immune but also in proceedings relating to official but non-sovereign acts.54

Secondly, the immunity of state officials in foreign courts prevents the circumvention of the immunity of the state through proceedings brought against those who act on behalf of the state.55 As was stated by the English Court of Appeal in Zoernsch v. Waldock:A foreign sovereign government, apart from personal sovereigns, can only act through agents, and the immunity to which it is entitled in respect of its acts would be illusory unless it extended also to its agents in respect of acts done by them on its behalf. To sue an envoy in respect of acts done in his official capacity would be, in effect, to sue his government irrespective of whether the envoy had ceased to be ‘en poste’ at the date of his suit.56

In this sense, the immunity operates as a jurisdictional, or procedural, bar and prevents courts from indirectly exercising control over the acts of the foreign state through proceedings against the official who carried out the act.

The next question to be considered is whether state officials are entitled to rely on immunity ratione materiae in foreign domestic proceedings in which the person is charged with an international crime. Three related points have been raised to argue that immunity ratione materiae cannot be relied upon to evade liability for international crimes. First, it has been argued that because state immunity is accorded only to sovereign acts, states and their officials can never be immune from the jurisdiction of other states in respect of international crimes because these crimes, for the most part, constitute violations of jus cogens norms and thus cannot be sovereign acts. A related second argument is that since immunityratione materiae may be pleaded only in order to shield scrutiny from official acts, the acts amounting to international crimes may not be considered official acts.

Thirdly, it has been argued that because jus cogens norms supersede all other norms they overcome all inconsistent rules of international law providing for immunity. The next two sections of this article address and reject these arguments. It is suggested that these arguments demonstrate a misunderstanding of the basis upon which state immunity is accorded and that they suggest a false conflict between the rule according state immunity and the relevant jus cogens norms. A more persuasive theory is suggested upon which removal of immunity ratione materiae can be based in criminal cases involving international crimes. It is argued that whilst international crimes can be official acts, immunityratione materiae is removed as soon as a rule permitting the exercise of extra-territorial jurisdiction over that crime and contemplating prosecution of state officials develops.

A International Crimes as (Non-)Sovereign/(Non-)Official Acts

It has been argued that state immunity applies only in respect of sovereign acts and that international crimes, particularly those contrary to jus cogens norms,57 can never be regarded as sovereign acts.58 Similar arguments have been made to the effect that acts which amount to international crimes may never be regarded as official acts. According to some, when a state engages in acts which are contrary to jus cogensnorms it impliedly waives any rights to immunity as the state has stepped out of the sphere of sovereignty.59 Essentially, the state has no authority to violate jus cogens norms and so these acts are not sovereign acts.

This argument has proved attractive to some national courts. Prefecture of Voiotia v. Federal Republic of Germany concerned a civil claim for reparation following the atrocities committed by German forces in the Greek village of Distomo which resulted in the deaths of 200 civilians.60The Court of First Instance in Greece, in a decision which was confirmed by the Supreme Court of Greece,61 awarded damages of approximately 30 million dollars relying on the argument that acts which violate jus cogensnorms do not qualify as sovereign acts and that Germany had impliedly waived its immunity by committing such acts.

However, other courts have not been convinced. The claimants in thePrefecture of Voiotia case tried to enforce their claim in Germany, but this was dismissed by the German Supreme Court which found that the argument applied by the Greek Supreme Court ‘[a]ccording to the prevailing view, … is not international law currently in force’.62 In a later case regarding the Distomo massacre, the Greek Special Supreme Court held by a narrow majority that state immunity is still a generally recognized international norm which prohibits actions for damages in relation to crimes, including torture, committed by the armed forces of another state.63 The Court held that there was not enough consistent or widespread state practice to demonstrate that there was an exception to the norm of state immunity. In the US case of Prinz v. Federal Republic of Germany,64

Prinz was a victim of the Nazi regime and claimed that Germany had impliedly waived its immunity when it violated jus cogensnorms. The majority of the court rejected this argument, holding that ‘[a]n implied waiver depends upon the foreign government’s having at some point indicated its amenability to suit’.65 Only Judge Wald dissented from the majority opinion, arguing that ‘when a state thumbs its nose at [a jus cogens] norm in effect overriding the collective will of the entire international community, the state cannot be performing a sovereign act entitled to immunity’.66 The Italian Supreme Court explicitly rejected the contention that violations of jus cogens do not qualify as sovereign acts or that there is an implied waiver of sovereign immunity in Ferrini v. Federal Republic of Germany,67 while Lord Hoffmann summarily dismissed the argument in Jones v. Saudi Arabia, stating that the ‘theory of implied waiver … has received no support in other decisions’.68

The argument that acts which amount to international crimes cannot be regarded as sovereign acts ultimately rests on the proposition that the gross illegality of the acts means that international law cannot regard them as acts which are open to states to perform. However, this argument is not persuasive and is riddled with problems.

First, at the stage of proceedings during which immunity is raised it will not yet have been established that the state has acted illegally. Indeed, it may turn out that the allegations made against the state or official are unfounded. It would therefore be wrong to assert that the state, by acting in a grossly illegal manner, has deprived itself of the rights which it would otherwise be entitled to in international law and has implicitly waived its immunity. This assertion would be especially problematic in criminal cases, where there is a presumption of innocence.

Secondly, whether or not an act is jure imperii or sovereign for the purposes of state immunity does not depend on the international legality or otherwise of the conduct, but on whether the act in question is intrinsically governmental. This in turn depends on an analysis of the nature of the act as well as the context in which it occurred.69International crimes committed by states usually occur in the context of the use of armed force or in the exercise of police power, and these are acts which are as intrinsically governmental as any other.70 State immunity is not designed to shield states from the consequences of their illegal conduct, although it cannot be denied that it can have this effect.71

The plea of state immunity does not mean that a state is not responsible in international law,72 and it has never been the case that immunity is only available for those acts which are internationally lawful.73 On the contrary, the very purpose of the rule according immunity is to prevent national courts from determining the legality or otherwise of certain acts of foreign states. Thus, it would be illogical if the application of that rule depended on a prior determination that conduct was illegal or grossly illegal. To say that an act is sovereign is not to say that it is an act permitted by international law or within a sphere of permitted acts. In fact, one consequence of the restrictive immunity theory is that it is precisely in those circumstances where international law has something to say about the acts of states, i.e., governmental or public acts, that national courts are precluded from acting.74

For much the same reasons as those discussed above, the related argument that international crimes can never be considered official acts protected from scrutiny by immunity ratione materiae must be rejected.75This argument was relied upon by some judges of the House of Lords in the series of Pinochet cases in which it was held that a former Head of State is not immune in respect of torture committed whilst in office.76However, as stated above, whether or not acts of state officials are regarded as official acts does not depend on the legality, in international or domestic law, of those acts. Rather, whether or not the acts of individuals are to be deemed official depends on the purposes for which the acts were done and the means through which the official carried them out.77 If they were done for reasons associated with the policies of the state, as opposed to reasons which are purely those of the individual, and were carried out using state apparatus, i.e., under colour of law, then those acts should be considered official acts. Acts which constitute international crimes are often carried out by individuals invested with state authority and regularly undertaken for state rather than private purposes. Thus, ‘[t]o deny the official character of such offences is to fly in the face of reality’.78 Such acts are characterized as acts of the state for the purpose of imputing state responsibility,79 and it would be artificial to impose a different test in the context of individual responsibility.80

B Immunity and Jus Cogens Violations – Addressing the Normative Hierarchy Theory

It has been argued that owing to the superior position of jus cogensnorms in the hierarchy of international law, they must prevail over the rules of international law providing immunity.81 As was stated inSiderman de Blake v. Republic of Argentina, this argument:begins from the principle that jus cogens norms ‘enjoy the highest status within international law,’ and thus ‘prevail over and invalidate … other rules of international law in conflict with them’… since sovereign immunity itself is a principle of international law, it is trumped by jus cogens. In short, … when a state violates jus cogens, the cloak of immunity provided by international law falls away, leaving the state amenable to suit.82

However, this argument is unpersuasive.

First, it should be noted that although it has been stated that ‘most norms of international humanitarian law, in particular those prohibiting war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, are also peremptory norms of international law or jus cogens’,83 it is by no means established that all rules prohibiting international crimes are prohibitions that rise to the level of jus cogens. While the prohibitions of aggression,84 genocide,85 and torture86 would seem clearly to fall into that category, it is doubtful that other rules of international humanitarian law are norms of jus cogens.Doubts whether many of the rules of international humanitarian law rise to the level of jus cogens can be seen in the debate about belligerent reprisals. To the extent that some violations of humanitarian law can be legally justified as belligerent reprisals,87 it is not possible to assert that those rules are jus cogens norms. Despite the considerable extension of the prohibition of belligerent reprisals in the First Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions,88 the prohibitions in that instrument cannot be regarded as representing customary international law89 – let alone jus cogens – given the opposition of countries such as the US, UK, and France to those provisions.90

Secondly, it is difficult to see how the rules concerning state immunity91come into conflict with norms of jus cogens.92 The main purpose and effect of such immunities is to prevent adjudication of such violations in the domestic courts of other states. For the granting of immunity to come into proper conflict with those jus cogens norms prohibiting certain international crimes, it would have to be argued that (i) there is anobligation on third states (i.e., states other than that responsible for the violation) to prosecute the crime in their domestic courts (or in civil cases to provide a civil remedy) and (ii) that this obligation itself is a rule of jus cogens.93 Each step of this argument is tenuous and fraught with difficulties.

Undoubtedly, there are some rules which impose obligations on third states to prosecute some international crimes, for example those rules concerning grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions94 and torture.95However, in other cases of war crimes or crimes against humanity there is no recognized obligation on third states to institute criminal prosecutions,96 even if there may be a right to do so.97 Similarly, although there have been judicial and quasi-judicial dicta suggesting otherwise,98 there is no obligation on third states to provide a civil remedy.99 Indeed it would be strange if the violation of a jus cogens norm automatically conferred jurisdiction on foreign national courts by setting aside the rules of state immunity when such violations do not automatically confer jurisdiction on international courts.100

Furthermore, even in the minority of cases where there is an obligation to prosecute, it would be erroneous to suggest that the obligation is peremptory or of ajus cogens character. The jus cogens obligation is the rule prohibiting the act and not the rule requiring a prosecution by third states. It is the state which has committed the act that is in violation of a norm of jus cogens,and not the state which has failed to prosecute or provide a civil remedy. If the obligation to prosecute were jus cogens, it would prevail over other norms of international law and there would be an obligation to prosecute even in situations where such a prosecution would violate the rights of the individual concerned or that of other states. This is clearly not the current situation.

Some have suggested that wherever there is a violation of a norm of jus cogens this gives rise to a right on the part of third states to exercise universal jurisdiction.101 It may then be argued that if this right to universal jurisdiction is an effect which is derived from a jus cogens norm it is itself peremptory and prevails over any inconsistent rights of states. However, this is to read too much into jus cogens prohibitions. In the first place, it is doubtful that violations of jus cogens norms automatically confer the right to exercise universal jurisdiction. Apart from the prohibition of torture and that of genocide, a further prohibition which is indisputably accepted to have attained jus cogens character is the prohibition of aggression.102 Nevertheless, there is no universal jurisdiction over the crime of aggression.103 The ILC has stated that individual states are not competent to prosecute leaders of other states for the crime of aggression and there is no state practice which would support such a right.104 Similarly, it is asserted by some that the obligation to respect the right of self-determination has a jus cogens character.105However, there is no practice to support the view that violation of this obligation gives rise to individual international criminal responsibility or that all states have the right to prosecute such violators.

Even if the right to universal jurisdiction were to flow directly from the peremptory nature of a prohibition, it does not follow that the right is itself of jus cogens character. Secondary norms which emerge as a consequence of violations of norms of jus cogens are not themselves necessarily of overriding effect. For example, it is recognized that all states have a duty not to recognize as lawful situations created by breaches of jus cogens.106 However, it follows from the ICJ’s decision in the Namibia (South West Africa) advisory opinion that this secondary norm does not have peremptory effect and gives way to humanitarian concerns which may arise where non-recognition would cause serious harm to private rights.107 It would have to be demonstrated that a norm which emerges from another jus cogens norm is (to use the words of Article 53 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties) itself accepted by the international community as a whole as a peremptory norm from which no derogation is permitted. This is clearly not the case with regard to any obligation or right to exercise universal jurisdiction, since there is still debate whether some of those norms are even to be found at all in customary international law.

To summarize, a failure by a third state to prosecute those accused of committing an international crime (or to provide a civil remedy), as a result of an immunity, is in many cases not a breach of any international obligation. Furthermore, even where there is an obligation on third states to prosecute (or a right to prosecute or provide a civil remedy) that obligation does not rise to the level of jus cogens. Therefore, there is no conflict between rules of immunity and the jus cogens nature of the prohibition.

Thirdly, the argument that there is no immunity in cases alleging violations of jus cogens norms has been both explicitly and implicitly rejected by two international tribunals. The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has held in a number of cases that the fact that there is a violation of a jus cogens norm does not of itself supersede the rules of state immunity. In Al-Adsani v. United Kingdom, a slim majority of the ECtHR (nine votes to eight) held that the grant of state immunity in a case involving an allegation of torture by a foreign state was consistent with international law and therefore not a denial of the right of access to a court. While the majority of the ECtHR acknowledged that the prohibition of torture was a peremptory norm of international law, it held that:Notwithstanding the special character of the prohibition of torture in international law, the Court is unable to discern in international instruments, judicial authorities or other materials before it any firm basis for concluding that, as a matter of international law, a State no longer enjoys immunity from civil suit in the courts of another State where acts of torture are alleged.108

This view has since been followed by broader majorities of the ECtHR in other cases.109 These cases dealt only with the immunity of states from civil actions. However, if the ECtHR had accepted the normative hierarchy theory and was of the view that the jus cogens prohibition prevailed over immunity in criminal cases, it is difficult to see how such a prohibition would not also override immunity in civil cases as well.

Furthermore, in the Arrest Warrant case, the ICJ held that the immunitiesratione personae of senior state officials such as the Head of State, Head of Government, and Foreign Minister continue to apply even when they are alleged to have committed acts constituting international crimes.110Unless it is asserted that the rule granting immunity ratione personae is itself a rule of jus cogens,111 the ICJ’s decision is a further, albeit implicit, rejection of the argument under consideration.

C The ICJ’s Obiter Dictum in the Arrest Warrant Case

In the Arrest Warrant case, the ICJ appeared to suggest that immunityratione materiae would bar the prosecution of officials or former officials for international crimes committed whilst in office. This suggestion isimplicit in a paragraph of the Court’s judgment in which the Court listed the circumstances in which the immunities of an incumbent or former Foreign Minister would not act as a bar to criminal prosecution.112According to the Court, these circumstances included prosecution (i) in the home country of the Foreign Minister; (ii) where the immunity has been waived by the state of the Foreign Minister; (iii) of a former Foreign Minister in the courts of another state ‘in respect of acts committed prior or subsequent to his or her period of office, as well as in respect of acts committed during that period of office in a private capacity’;113 and (iv) before certain international criminal tribunals which have jurisdiction. The third circumstance in this list deals with immunity ratione materiae and makes clear that state officials possess immunity in relation to official acts committed whilst in office. However, since this list was constructed in a case involving allegations of international crimes, it may be significant that the Court failed specifically to refer to immunities of former officials in such cases.

This omission might suggest that the Court took one of two views. First, the Court may have taken the view that international crimes are to be regarded as private acts and that, in line with the third circumstance in the Court’s list, there is therefore no immunity with respect to such acts. However, as argued above, the categorization of international crimes as always being private acts is wrong. Secondly, the Court may have taken the view that international crimes committed by state officials are official acts and may be regarded as suggesting that immunity ratione materiae continues to exist in proceedings before foreign national courts relating to those crimes. This would be contrary to extensive post-World War II practice. It will be argued below that this interpretation would be wrong. A further possibility, however, is that the Court’s list is non-exhaustive and does not preclude the possibility that there is a rule removing immunity ratione materiae in relation to prosecutions for acts amounting to international crimes.

D The Relationship Between Immunity Ratione Materiae, Individual Criminal Responsibility, and Extra-Territorial Jurisdiction

Despite the fact that international crimes when committed by state officials in their official capacity are to be categorized as official acts, there are good reasons for arguing that international law is now at a stage where immunity ratione materiae does not apply in relation to such crimes.114 There have been a significant number of national prosecutions of foreign state officials for international crimes.115 All of these decisions proceed – at least implicitly (and sometimes explicitly116) – on the basis of a lack of immunity ratione materiae in respect of such crimes. The best explanation for the absence of immunity ratione materiae in cases concerning international crimes is that the principle is necessarily in conflict with more recent rules of international law and it is the older rule of immunity which must yield. Developments in international law now mean that the reasons for which immunity ratione materiae are conferred simply do not apply to prosecutions for international crimes.117

As set out above, the first reason for this type of immunity is that official acts done by individuals are deemed to be acts of the state for which it is the state and not the individual which is responsible. However, this general principle does not apply to acts which amount to international crimes, because there is a further, newer, principle that the official position of an individual does not exempt him/her from individual responsibility for international crimes.118 As the Nuremberg Tribunal stated:

The principle of international law which under certain circumstances protects the representatives of a State, cannot be applied to acts which are condemned as criminal by international law. The authors of these acts cannot shelter themselves behind their official position in order to be freed from punishment in appropriate proceedings.119

Indeed, the very purpose of international criminal law is to attribute responsibility to individuals, including state officials, and to defeat the defence of official capacity or act of state. Since acts amounting to international law crimes are to be attributed to the individual, there is less need for a principle which shields those officials from responsibility for acts which are to be attributed solely to the state. The newer rule of attribution supersedes the earlier principle of immunity which seeks to protect non-responsibility.

Similarly, the development of principles permitting the exercise by states of extra-territorial jurisdiction in relation to international crimes suggests that international law now contemplates that states may exercise jurisdiction over some official acts of foreign states in the context of considering individual criminal responsibility for such acts. This development means that the second purpose that immunity ratione materiae serves (preventing national courts from indirectly exercising control over acts of foreign states through proceedings against foreign officials) is also inapplicable in the case of domestic prosecutions for international crimes.

In the Arrest Warrant case, the ICJ held:the rules governing the jurisdiction of national courts must be carefully distinguished from those governing jurisdictional immunities: jurisdiction does not imply absence of immunity, while absence of immunity does not imply jurisdiction. Thus, although various international conventions on the prevention and punishment of certain serious crimes impose on States obligations of prosecution or extradition, thereby requiring them to extend their criminal jurisdiction, such extension of jurisdiction in no way affects immunities under customary international law, including those of Ministers of Foreign Affairs. These remain opposable before the courts of a foreign State, even where those courts exercise such a jurisdiction under these conventions.120

It is generally correct to say that jurisdiction does not imply an absence of immunity – indeed, immunity is generally speaking an exception to an otherwise applicable jurisdiction.121 However, it must be remembered that the Court was considering the immunity ratione personae available to serving senior state officials. The position with regard to immunity ratione materiae is different. There may well be circumstances in which a rule providing for jurisdiction may by itself override an immunity which would otherwise be available. This will clearly be the case where a subsequent jurisdictional rule is practically co-extensive with a prior rule according immunity. By practically co-extensive we mean that both rules apply in large measure to the same set of circumstances. In such circumstances, there will be a conflict between the later jurisdictional rule and the prior rule of immunity so that the two cannot be applied simultaneously. Where the application of the prior immunity would deprive the subsequent jurisdictional rule of practically all meaning, then the only logical conclusion must be that the subsequent jurisdictional rule is to be regarded as a removal of the immunity. Even where the subsequent jurisdictional rule is not practically co-extensive with the rule according immunity, the subsequent jurisdictional rule will remove immunity where the jurisdictional rule contemplates and provides authority for national proceedings in circumstances which would otherwise be covered by immunity. In this latter circumstance, the jurisdictional rule will apply to scenarios covered by the immunity rule (i.e., prosecution of state officials) and cases outside that rule (e.g., prosecution of non-state actors). However, the fact that the jurisdictional rule gives authority to foreign domestic courts in cases which are covered by the immunity rule suggests that foreign domestic courts are competent in those cases to adjudicate on acts of the foreign state.

These principles constitute the best explanation for the decision by the House of Lords in Pinochet (No. 3). As was stated by most of the judges in that case, a grant of immunity ratione materiae would have been inconsistent with those provisions of the Torture Convention according universal jurisdiction for torture.122 The Torture Convention defines torture as ‘any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted for [certain] purposes … when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or any other person acting in an official capacity’.123 The jurisdiction provisions of the Convention envisage that states parties must legislate to ensure that all acts of torture are offences under its criminal law,124 and in situations where an alleged perpetrator of torture is present on the territory of a contracting party that state will either prosecute or extradite the individual to a state where he or she will be prosecuted.125 Since the Torture Convention limits the offence of torture to acts committed in an official capacity, extra-territorial prosecution can occur only in cases where immunity ratione materiaewould ordinarily be applicable. However, application of immunity ratione materiae would deprive the jurisdiction provisions of the Convention of practically all meaning. Such a result would be contrary to the object and purpose of the treaty, and therefore it was held in Pinochet (No. 3) that immunity ratione materiae must be regarded as having been displaced.126

Similarly, the crime of enforced disappearance as defined by Article 2 of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance can be perpetrated only by ‘agents of the State’ or ‘persons or groups of persons acting with the authorisation, support or acquiescence of the State’.127 Articles 4, 9, and 11(1) establish a set of obligations on states parties to legislate for the crime of enforced disappearance, and prosecute or extradite individuals suspected of committing enforced disappearances similar to those provided for in the Torture Convention. Once again, it would defeat the purpose of this treaty regime if immunities were allowed to bar prosecutions of individuals in the courts of third states.

In summary, where extra-territorial jurisdiction exists in respect of an international crime and the rule providing for jurisdiction expressly contemplates prosecution of crimes committed in an official capacity, immunity ratione materiae cannot logically co-exist with such a conferment of jurisdiction.

While most international crimes (i.e., genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity) as defined in the ICC Statute and other relevant conventions are not limited to official acts (as is the case with torture and enforced disappearance), it is clearly the case that these crimes are intended to capture the conduct of those acting in the exercise of official capacity.128 In fact, when most of these international crimes were originally created, they were intended, primarily, to cover state action,129and it is only more recently that they have been extended to cover private (i.e., non-state) action.

Apart from torture and enforced disappearance a strong argument can be made that any rule permitting the exercise of universal jurisdiction with respect to war crimes committed in international armed conflicts will clearly contemplate the prosecution of state officials and is, thus, practically co-extensive with immunity ratione materiae. Although war crimes in international armed conflicts (i.e., grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions130 as well as ‘other serious violations of the laws and customs applicable in an international armed conflict’ as defined in the ICC Statute131) are not, as is the case with torture, explicitly restricted to acts of state officials or agents’ acts, the position is very similar. Since the opposing parties to an international armed conflict are, by definition, states, and since the acts amounting to war crimes in such a conflict must have some connection with the international armed conflict, these acts will usually have been committed by soldiers in a state’s armed forces or other officials or agents exercising state authority. Therefore when the Geneva Conventions132 and customary international law133 conferred universal jurisdiction in respect of those crimes, it cannot be supposed that immunity ratione materiae was left intact as that would have rendered the conferment of such jurisdiction practically meaningless.

As regards war crimes committed in non-international armed conflicts,134clearly one party to the conflict will be a non-state entity, and it is therefore the case that liability for these crimes is not restricted to state officials. However, it may be argued that if international law permits universal jurisdiction135 with respect to such acts it cannot be supposed that it permits the exercise of jurisdiction over persons of one party only whilst leaving persons of the state party free from such jurisdiction.

Furthermore, although the more modern definition of crimes against humanity does not require connection with an armed conflict or state action,136 the definition which was used at Nuremberg effectively required that those crimes be linked to an international armed conflict and thus implicitly to state action.137 Also, it has been noted that ‘national jurisprudence on crimes against humanity following the Second World War frequently indicated that governmental policy is a requirement’.138 In particular, in many cases that came before the German Supreme Court in the British Occupied Zone officials were prosecuted for crimes against humanity when their actions were in accordance with and supported by state policy.139

Indeed, even prior to Nuremburg, the initial use of the term ‘crimes against humanity’ was in connection with the possible prosecution by states of officials of a foreign state for such crimes. The term was first used in 1915, in relation to the mass killings of Armenians by Turkish forces; the British, French, and Russian governments issued a declaration calling these acts ‘crimes … against humanity and civilisation’ and stating that ‘they [would] hold personally responsible [for] these crimes all members of the Ottoman Government and those of their agents who are implicated in such massacres’.140 Similarly, the first extraterritorial prosecution for crimes against humanity141 – the Israeli prosecution of Adolf Eichmann – was for crimes against humanity committed during World War II by a government official. Significantly the exercise of universal jurisdiction by Israel was not challenged by any state. Other domestic prosecutions of foreign government officials for crimes against humanity have also occurred where no challenges based on immunity ratione materiae have been made.142 Thus, it seems clear that at the time when international law began to confer extra-territorial jurisdiction over this crime, the jurisdictional rule contemplated (or was even restricted to) prosecution of those acting on behalf of states. In this way immunity ratione materiae possessed by those persons would have necessarily been displaced.

In relation to genocide, Article IV of the Genocide Convention provides that ‘[p]ersons committing genocide … shall be punished whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals’. There is an intention that all individuals, including state officials, responsible for genocide shall be prosecuted. It is possible that the Convention could be interpreted in a restrictive manner so that the prosecution of an official is limited to the national courts of the state from which the official comes.143 However, Article VI provides that ‘persons charged with genocide … shall be tried by a competent tribunal of the State in the territory of which the act was committed’, and the ICJ has made clear that obligations under the Convention apply also to genocide committed extra-territorially.144 Therefore, it would appear that the Convention, through Articles IV and VI, has displaced immunity ratione materiae in a situation where prosecutions take place in the state where the genocide occurs. Importantly, there is also evidence that the national rules which form the basis of the international law permitting universal jurisdiction for genocide have been drafted with the intention of extending them to prosecutions of foreign state officials. For example, in the debates in the US Senate leading up to the passage of the US Genocide Accountability Act of 2007,145 Senator Richard Durbin, the main sponsor of the Act, specifically stated that the Act was intended to allow the US to prosecute foreign government officials. He specifically referred to the head of security in the Sudanese Government, who is alleged to be involved in the crimes committed in Darfur and who had visited the United States in 2005, and to Pol Pot.146

Since the possible rules providing for extraterritorial jurisdiction over war crimes in a non-international armed conflict, crimes against humanity, and genocide are not practically co-extensive with immunity ratione materiae,it must be admitted that the arguments relating to these crimes are not as strong as those relating to torture, enforced disappearance, or war crimes in an international armed conflict. However, these arguments are consistent with the policy goals underlying universal jurisdiction. Arguably, the primary reason for permitting universal jurisdiction is that persons who commit such international crimes are often connected to the state concerned and might escape justice if only their home state had jurisdiction. To the extent that rules relating to universal jurisdiction are intended to avoid impunity often caused by the failure of states to take action against persons acting on their behalf, those rules contemplate prosecution of those officials by other states. The position was well summarized by Lord Phillips in Pinochet (No. 3):International crimes and extra-territorial jurisdiction in relation to them are both new arrivals in the field of public international law. I do not believe that State immunity ratione materiae can co-exist with them. The exercise of extra-territorial jurisdiction overrides the principle that one State will not intervene in the internal affairs of another. It does so because, where international crime is concerned, that principle cannot prevail…. Once extra-territorial jurisdiction is established, it makes no sense to exclude from it acts done in an official capacity.147

E Does International Law Permit the Exercise of Extra-Territorial Jurisdiction over International Crimes?

It follows that an important challenge is one of establishing the circumstances in which universal, or at least extra-territorial, jurisdiction is permitted under international law in relation to national prosecutions for international crimes. Whilst this task is an endeavour beyond the scope of this article, some tentative, general remarks may be made.148 The first point to be noted is that this task is complicated by two opposite trends which are concurrently taking place in the international community. On the one hand, the principle of universal jurisdiction is being increasingly asserted in national legislation (much of it prompted by the ICC Statute)149 and judicial decisions.150 On the other hand, this increasing assertion of universal jurisdiction has resulted in increased challenges to the principle. The principle has been challenged in several recent cases before the ICJ,151 as well as in diplomatic exchanges and national proceedings.152 For instance, the US Executive branch expressed serious concern over the exercise by Belgian courts of universal jurisdiction over US officials under Belgium’s notorious universal jurisdiction statute.153This challenge resulted in the amendment of the Belgian statute and the restriction of Belgian jurisdiction to international crimes committed by or against Belgian nationals or residents.154

However, these challenges to the exercise of universal jurisdiction have not, in the main, been challenges to the very principle of universality, but rather challenges to particular applications of the principle. The challenges have been made in cases in which the alleged offender is not present in the territory of the forum and the state in question is seeking to exercise universal jurisdiction in absentia.155 In addition, the exercise of universal jurisdiction has been challenged in cases where the alleged offender possesses immunity ratione personae. The fact that a very significant number of states have legislation permitting the exercise in principle of universal jurisdiction with respect to the crimes in the ICC Statute suggests that the principle does exist in customary international law. As regards war crimes committed in international armed conflict, the principle is to be found in the provisions of the Geneva Conventions (and First Additional Protocol) dealing with repression of grave breaches of those conventions. However, the application of this principle is not unlimited. Rather international law recognizes only universal jurisdiction exercised where the alleged offender does not possess immunity ratione personae.156 It is also arguable that the suspect must be present on the territory of the prosecuting state for a legitimate exercise of universal jurisdiction.157 Yet, as demonstrated above, the principle of universal jurisdiction over certain international crimes is inconsistent with immunityratione materiae; it follows that that type of immunity does not exist in relation to those crimes. Therefore serving state officials not entitled to immunity ratione personae and former state officials who are present on the territory of the forum state may be arrested and prosecuted for such crimes.

F Diplomatic Immunity Ratione Materiae

A final point which needs to be considered in relation to immunity ratione materiae is whether the position of the former diplomat is the same as that of other state officials. The position of the former diplomat deserves separate consideration because, unlike the case with other state officials, the immunity ratione materiae is set out in a treaty provision: Article 39(2) of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations 1961. This provision states that a former diplomatic agent will continue to be immune even after he leaves office ‘with respect to acts performed … in the exercise of his functions as a member of the [diplomatic] mission’. Whilst some have argued that the immunity ratione materiae of the diplomat is simply a reflection of the general immunity ratione materiae available to other state officials,158 this view has been rejected by other authors159 and by the German Constitutional Court.160 This question is important for at least two reasons. First, the question arises whether any exceptions to immunity ratione materiae for state officials (particularly the exception for international crimes) also apply to former diplomats. Secondly, the question arises whether the immunity ratione materiae of former diplomats applies erga omnes, i.e., in relation to states other than the state to which the diplomat was accredited.

It has been argued that acts which amount to international crimes cannot amount to acts performed in the exercise of diplomatic functions because the definition of diplomatic functions in Article 3 of the VCDR limits them to acts within the limits of international law.161 This provision states that the functions of a diplomatic mission are, inter alia:

  • (a) Representing the sending state in the receiving state;

  • (b) Protecting in the receiving state the interests of the sending state and of its nationals, within the limits permitted by international law;

  • (c) Negotiating with the government of the receiving state;

  • (d) Ascertaining by all lawful means conditions and developments in the receiving state, and reporting thereon to the government of the sending state;

  • (e) Promoting friendly relations between the sending state and the receiving state, and developing their economic, cultural, and scientific relations.

On a textual analysis of this provision, international law is only a restriction to two of the five functions listed. Other functions, such as representing the sending state in the receiving state and negotiating with the government of the receiving state, are not so limited. 162 So, if in the course of negotiating on behalf of his state with the receiving state, the Ambassador were to conspire to commit genocide, the text of Article 3 does not indicate that this is not an act performed in the exercise of his diplomatic function. Beyond this textual analysis, the reasons for rejecting the argument that acts contrary to international law are not official acts of other state officials discussed above apply with equal force to diplomats. Thus the German Constitutional Court confirmed in the Former Syrian Ambassador case, ’diplomatic immunity from criminal prosecution basically knows no exception for particularly serious violations of law’.163

As the immunity ratione materiae of former diplomats is treaty-based and there is no evidence to suggest that the VCDR has fallen into disuse, it is difficult to argue that this immunity is superseded by the emerging customary international law rule according universal jurisdiction. It would therefore appear that the state to which a former diplomat was accreditedis bound to respect his or her immunity ratione materiae, even if the diplomat is charged with having committed an international crime. However, the treaty rule according diplomatic immunity ratione materiaedoes not apply with respect to third states.164 With respect to those states the position of the former diplomat is the same as that of other officials: he or she is entitled to the general immunity ratione materiae of state officials which derives from state immunity.165 Therefore, when in a third state, a former diplomat is not entitled to immunity ratione materiaewith respect to prosecutions for international crimes.

4 Conclusion

In this article, we have examined the status-based and conduct-based immunity which international law confers on state officials. We have argued that in addition to the long-standing customary international law rules conferring immunity ratione personae on Heads of State, Heads of Government, and diplomats, international law confers a broader immunityratione personae on state officials abroad on special mission. This broader immunity allows for the smooth conduct of international relations, but does not necessarily result in impunity, as it does not prevent prosecutions when the person in question is not exercising his/her international functions.

We have argued that there are good reasons for coming to the conclusion that immunity ratione materiae does not apply in criminal prosecutions for international crimes. In so doing we rely on arguments derived from the way international law confers extra-territorial jurisdiction and reject arguments derived from jus cogens or the allegedly non-sovereign and non-official character of acts amounting to international crimes. The rejection of these arguments is important for a number of reasons and may have important consequences. First, those arguments are unpersuasive and rely on faulty logic. Secondly, they misunderstand the basis for immunity. Thirdly, and more importantly, basing the non-availability of immunity ratione materiae on jurisdictional grounds may have important consequences not merely for prosecution of state officials but for immunity of the state and for civil cases against individual officials.

One of the difficulties relating to the question of immunity from jurisdiction in cases concerning human rights violations and international crimes is that these questions can arise in different types of proceedings raising different types of immunity. There are civil cases brought against the state, civil cases brought against officials, and criminal proceedings against officials. Should international law provide immunity in all cases, deny it in all cases, or can there be justifiable differences between the answers provided in different cases? This article has dealt in particular with criminal prosecutions against officials. The conclusion reached with regard to a lack of immunity ratione materiae leads to a different result from that which is reached in most judicial decisions regarding the immunity of the state in proceedings dealing with human rights violations.166

The question has also been raised as to what the position should be in civil cases brought against individuals.167 Should civil cases against individuals be deemed to be analogous to civil proceedings against the state on the theory that such actions are an indirect way of suing the state?168 Or alternatively should the position of individual officials in civil cases be deemed analogous to the position of individual officials in criminal cases? As Justice Breyer of the United States Supreme Court has suggested:

consensus as to universal criminal jurisdiction itself suggests that universal tort jurisdiction would be no more threatening… . That is because the criminal courts of many nations combine civil and criminal proceedings, allowing those injured by criminal conduct to be represented, and to recover damages, in the criminal proceeding itself. … Thus, universal criminal jurisdiction necessarily contemplates a significant degree of civil tort recovery as well.169

The approach we take to the removal of immunity ratione materiae in criminal cases, when combined with Justice Breyer’s views and the assertion that the exercise of criminal jurisdiction over an individual is more coercive than the exercise of civil jurisdiction, may well suggest that in cases where international law confers extraterritorial jurisdiction over international crimes there is no immunity in either criminal or civil proceedings. The result reached on this view would be different from that reached by those who argue for lack of immunity in human rights cases on the ground of a normative hierarchy or alleged lack of official status for human rights violations. This is because our view would lead to the conclusion of a lack of immunity in civil cases only (if at all) in cases where international law rules and practice confer extra-territorial jurisdiction over acts of state officials which are co-extensive with the immunity or cases where the rule conferring jurisdiction contemplates jurisdiction over official conduct. Since the category of norms falling into this category is smaller than the universe of human rights norms, our view would suggest that, when considering the question of immunity from proceedings alleging human rights violations, careful attention needs to be paid to the human rights violation in question and whether it amounts to an international crime over which international law grants extra-territorial jurisdiction.

Notes

  • 1 See, generally, Whomersley, ‘Some Reflections on the Immunity of Individuals for Official Acts’, 41 ICLQ (1992) 848; Tomonori, ‘The Individual as Beneficiary of State Immunity: Problems of the Attribution of Ultra Vires Conduct’, 29 Denver J Int’l L and Policy (2001) 261; H. Fox, The Law of State Immunity (2nd edn, 2008), at 455–464 and Ch. 19; Watts, ‘The Legal Position in International Law of Heads of States, Heads of Governments and Foreign Ministers’, 247 Recueil des Cours(1994-III) 13; Wickremasinghe, ‘Immunities Enjoyed by Officials of States and International Organizations’, in M. Evans (ed.), International Law (3rd edn, 2010), at 380.

  • 2 Akande, ‘International Law Immunities and the International Criminal Court’, 98 AJIL (2004) 407, 409–415.

  • 3 See Watts, supra note 1.

  • 4 E.g., Arts 29 and 31 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations 1961 (VCDR), 500 UNTS 95; Art. IV, Section 11, Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations 1946, 1 UNTS 15 and 90 UNTS 327 (corrigendum to vol. I).

  • 5 Arts 21, 39, and 31 UN Convention on Special Missions 1969, 1400 UNTS 231.

  • 6 See Wickremasinghe, supra note 1, at 406.

  • 7 See Tunks, ‘Diplomats or Defendants? Defining the Future of Head-of-State Immunity’, 52 Duke LJ (2002) 651, at 656: ‘Head-of-State immunity allows a nation’s leader to engage in his official duties, including travel to foreign countries, without fearing arrest, detention, or other treatment inconsistent with his role as the head of a sovereign State. Without the guarantee that they will not be subjected to trial in foreign courts, heads of State may simply choose to stay at home rather than assume the risks of engaging in international diplomacy’. The same may be said of others entitled to immunity ratione personae. In 2010, Gordon Brown, then prime minister of the UK, expressed a similar concern: ‘[t]here is already growing reason to believe that some people are not prepared to travel to this country for fear that such a private arrest warrant – motivated purely by political gesture – might be sought against them. These are sometimes people representing countries and interests with which the UK must engage if we are not only to defend our national interest but maintain and extend an influence for good across the globe’: ‘Britain must protect foreign leaders from private arrest warrants’, The Guardian, 3 Mar. 2010.

  • United States Diplomatic and Consular Staff in Tehran case (United States of America v. Iran) [1980] ICJ Rep 3, at para. 91.

  • 9 See Arrest Warrant of 11 April 2000 (Democratic Republic of Congo v. Belgium) [2002] ICJ Rep 3, Joint Separate Opinion of Judges Higgins, Kooijmans, and Buergenthal, ibid., at para. 75: ‘immunities are granted to high State officials to guarantee the proper functioning of the network of mutual inter-State relations, which is of paramount importance for a well-ordered and harmonious international system’. See also Fox, supra note 1, at 673.

  • 10 Arrest Warrant case, supra note 9, at para. 54; Fox, supra note 1, at 694. See also the treaty provisions cited supra at note 5.

  • 11 Arrest Warrant case, supra note 9, at paras 54–55.

  • 12 Ibid., at paras 55, 70–71; Case Concerning Certain Questions of Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters (Djibouti v. France), ICJ judgment of 4 June 2008, at para. 170, available at: www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/136/14550.pdf.

  • 13 Arrest Warrant case, supra note 9, at para. 55.

  • 14 Ibid., at para. 58.

  • 15 See, generally, A. Cassese, International Criminal Law (2nd edn, 2008), at 309–310; Gaeta, ‘Official Capacities and Immunities’, in A. Cassese et al. (eds), Commentary on the International Criminal Court(2002), at 975, 983–989; Zappalà, ‘Do Heads of State in Office Enjoy Immunity from Jurisdiction for International Crimes? The Ghaddafi Case before the French Cour de Cassation’, 12 EJIL (2001) 595; Fox, ‘The Resolution of the Institute of International Law on the Immunities of Heads of State and Government’, 51 ICLQ (2002) 119.

  • 16 See the Ghaddafi case, Arrêt no. 1414 (2001), 125 ILR 456 (France: Cour de Cassation); Castro case (Spain: Audiencia Nacional, 1999), cited by Cassese, supra note 15, at 272 n. 20; Re Sharon and Yaron, 42 ILM (2003) 596 (Belgium: Cour de Cassation); R. v. Bow Street Stipendiary Magistrate and others, Ex parte Pinochet (No.3) [1999] 2 All ER 97, at 126–127, 149, 179, 189 (HL, per Lords Goff, Hope, Millett, and Phillips); Plaintiffs A, B, C, D, E, F v. Jiang Zemin, 282 F Supp 2d 875 (ND Ill., 2003); Tachiona v. Mugabe, 169 F Supp 2d 259 (SDNY 2001). In Jan. 2004, an English District Judge rejected, on grounds of immunity, an application for a warrant for the arrest of Robert Mugabe, Head of State of Zimbabwe, in relation to allegations of torture. In 2008, Spain’s Audencia Nacional concluded that the Spanish courts did not have jurisdiction to prosecute President Kagame of Rwanda for the crime of genocide, crimes against humanity, and terrorist activities:Auto del Juzgado Central de Instucción No. 4 (2008), 151–157. Likewise, in Feb. 2004, a District Judge at Bow Street Magistrates’ Court rejected, on grounds of immunity, an application for a warrant for the arrest of General Mofaz, then Israeli Minister of Defence, in relation to allegations of breaches of war crimes: see Warbrick, ‘Immunity and International Crimes in English Law’, 53 ICLQ (2004) 769. In 2009, Ehud Barak, Israeli Minister of Defence was the subject of an application for an arrest warrant for war crimes committed in Gaza in Dec. 2008. This application was also denied: see Black and Cobain, ‘Barak faces war crimes arrest threat during UK visit’, The Guardian, 29 Sept. 2009.

  • 17 The US government issued a suggestion of immunity in a case brought against the then President of China alleging torture, genocide, and other human rights violations. See Murphy, ‘Head-of-State Immunity for Former Chinese President Jiang Zemin’ in ‘Contemporary Practice of the United States Relating to International Law’, 97 AJIL(2003) 962, at 974–977; Plaintiffs A, B, C, D, E, F, supra note 16. In Aug. 2003, Saied Baghban, an Iranian diplomat accused of having been involved in the bombing of a Jewish centre in Argentina, was briefly detained in Belgium but then released on grounds of diplomatic immunity: see Beeston, ‘Iran threatens to hit back over diplomat’s arrest’, The Times, 28 Aug. 2003, at 17. Similarly, despite accusations that the Israeli Ambassador to Denmark had been complicit in torture while he was head of Shin Bet, the Israeli Intelligence Service, Denmark has maintained that he is entitled to diplomatic immunity from Danish criminal jurisdiction. See Osborn, ‘Danish protests greet Israeli envoy’,The Guardian, 16 Aug. 2001, at 13; Hartmann, ‘The Gillon Affair’, 54ICLQ (2005) 745. Likewise, the authorities of the UK took the view that a serving Israeli Defence Minister was entitled to immunity from arrest despite allegations that he had been responsible for war crimes in the West Bank. See McGreal, ‘Sharon’s Ally Safe from Arrest in Britain’, The Guardian, 11 Feb. 2004, at 19.

  • 18 117 F 3d 1206 (11th Cir. 1997).

  • 19 See Djibouti v. France, supra note 12, at para. 170.

  • 20 See Arrest Warrant case, supra note 9, at para. 51; Watts, supranote 1; Arts 1, 2, and 15 Res of the Institut de Droit Internaitonal on ‘Immunities from Jurisdiction and Execution of Heads of State and of Government in International Law’, 2001, available at: www.idi-iil.org/idiE/resolutionsE/2001_van_02_en.PDF.

  • 21 Arts 29 and 31 VCDR.

  • 22 Arrest Warrant case, supra note 9, at para. 53.

  • 23 Ibid. 53 (emphasis added).

  • 24 Ibid.

  • 25 In Application for Arrest Warrant Against General Shaul Mofaz(Decision of District Judge Pratt, Bow Street Magistrates’ Court, Feb. 2004), it was stated that ‘[t]he function of various Ministers will vary enormously depending upon their sphere of responsibility. I would think it very unlikely that ministerial appointments such as Home Secretary, Employment Minister, Environment Minister, Culture Media and Sports Minister would automatically acquire a label of State immunity. However, I do believe that the Defence Minister may be a different matter’: see Warbrick, supra note 16, at 773. However, in modern international affairs, it is difficult to see that the Ministers listed above would not be involved in travel on behalf of the state. However, some limits have been drawn. In Djibouti v. France, supranote 12, the ICJ confirmed that officials holding the (non-ministerial) posts of Public Prosecutor and Chief of National Security did not enjoy immunity ratione personae (at para. 194).

  • 26 See Art. IV, para. 11, Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the UN (1946), supra note 4; Art. V, General Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the Organization of African Unity (1965), available at:www.dfa.gov.za/foreign/Multilateral/africa/treaties/oaupriv.htm.

  • 27 See Arts 29 and 31 UN Convention on Special Missions 1969,supra note 5.

  • 28 See USA v. Sissoko, 121 ILR 599 (SD Fla, 1997); Wickremasinghesupra note 1, at 391. See however Yearbook of the International Law Commission, Volume II (1967), 358 (‘It is now generally recognized that States are under an obligation to accord the facilities, privileges and immunities in question to special missions and their members.’).

  • 29 See the suggestion of immunity issued by the US Executive Branch in Li Weixum v. Bo Xilai, DCC Civ. No. 04-0649 (RJL), available at: www.state.gov/documents/organization/98832.pdf. See also the statement of John Bellinger Legal Adviser, US State Department, available at: http://opiniojuris.org/2007/01/18/immunities/.

  • 30 Li Weixum v. Bo Xilaisupra note 29.

  • 31 Djibouti v. Francesupra note 12, Memorial of the Republic of Djibouti, Mar. 2007, at paras 131–140, available at: www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/136/14390.pdf. Djibouti later amended its claim and declined to claim immunity ratione personae for persons other than the Head of State. In any event, the Court held that ‘the Convention on Special Missions of 1969 [was] not … applicable in this case’: ICJ judgment, supra note 12, at para. 194. This was probably no more than an indication that the facts did not fall within the scope of the Convention.

  • 32 128 ILR (2005) 713. See also proceedings in England regarding Israeli Minister Ehud Barak, supra note 16; Written Ministerial Statement by Mr Henry Bellingham (Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs), HC Deb., 13 Dec. 2010, Vol. 520, 72WS.

  • 33 However, Germany did arrest her on a subsequent visit in Nov. of the same year arguing that she was in Germany on a private visit (a point disputed by Rwanda). See Akande, ‘Prosecution of Senior Rwandan Government Official in France: More on Immunity’ (2008), available at: www.ejiltalk.org/prosecution-of-senior-rwandan-government-official-in-france-more-on-immunity/. See also Thalmann, ‘French Justice’s Endeavours to Substitute for the ICTR’, 6 J Int’l Criminal Justice (2008) 995.

  • 34 Decision of 27 Feb. 1984, Case No. 4 StR 396/83, 80 ILR (1989) 388 (Germany: Federal Supreme Ct).

  • 35 See Arrest Warrant case, supra note 9, Counter-Memorial of the Kingdom of Belgium, 28 Sept. 2001, at paras 1.11–1.12, 3.2.32, available at: www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/121/8304.pdf.

  • 36 See The Schooner Exchange v. McFaddon, 11 US 116 (1812) (US Sup. Ct.) Marshall CJ, holding that whenever a Sovereign, a representative of a foreign State or a foreign army is present within the territory by consent, it is to be implied that the local sovereign confers immunity from local jurisdiction.

  • 37 Arrest Warrant case, supra note 9, at para. 55.

  • 38 See Watts, supra note 1, at 102–109. There appears to be little practice, if any, suggesting that states consider the position of Foreign Ministers to be the same as that of Heads of State and Government.

  • 39 See R. van Alebeek, The Immunity of States and Their Officials in International Criminal Law and International Human Rights Law (2008), at 179–180, making the same point with regard to Heads of State.

  • 40 Ibid., at 180. See also Fox, supra note 1, at 673: ‘[t]he occasion of an official visit peculiarly celebrates the representation of the State in the person of the visiting head’.

  • 41 See Watts, supra note 1, at 53, 102–103.

  • 42 Military and Para-military Activities in and against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v. United States) [1986] ICJ Rep 14, at para. 202.

  • 43 See R. Jennings and A. Watts (eds), Oppenheim’s International Law (9th edn, 1992), at para. 445: ‘the head of government … does not represent the international persona of the state in the same way in which the Head of State does’. See also Watts, supra note 1, at 102–103: ‘heads of government and foreign ministers, although senior and important figures, do not symbolize or personify their States in the way that Heads of State do. Accordingly, they do not enjoy in international law any entitlement to special treatment by virtue of qualities of sovereignty or majesty attaching to them personally.’

  • 44 This is the approach set out by the Institut de droit international,supra note 20.

  • 45 Fox, supra note 1, at 670 (n. 16) notes that in 1978 there were ‘68 States whose Heads were also Heads of Government’.

  • 46 For relevant cases from different jurisdictions see Tomonori,supra note 1, at 269–273. For a consideration of US and UK law on the matter see Whomersley, supra note 1; Fox, supra note 1, at 458–459.

  • 47 Wickremasinghe, supra note 1, at 383. See also Art. 39(2) VCDR,supra note 4, and the discussion infra in relation to former diplomats, and Art. 43(1) Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (1963) (VCCR), 596 UNTS 261, in relation to consular officials. Some have doubted whether the immunity ratione materiae applicable to former diplomats is of the same nature as the general immunity applicable to other official acts of other state officials: see, e.g., Dinstein, ‘Diplomatic Immunity from Jurisdiction Ratione Materiae’, 15 ICLQ (1966) 76, at 86–89, who argues that diplomatic immunity ratione materiae is broader than that accorded to other state officials. Tomonori, supra note 1, at 281, questions whether other state officials possess immunity ratione materiae in criminal proceedings and in relation to ultra vires acts.

  • 48 See Van Panhuys, ‘In the Borderland Between the Act of State Doctrine and Questions of Jurisdictional Immunities’, 13 ICLQ (1964) 1193, at 1201. See also Twycross v. Dreyfus, 5 ChD (1877) 605 (England: CA); Kuwait Airways Corp. v. Iraq Airways Co. [1995] 3 All ER 694 (HL); Walker v. Bank of New York, 16 OR 3d 1994) 504 (Canada: Ontario CA) and s.14(2) UK State Immunity Act 1978, Ch. 33.

  • 49 For the suggestion that the paucity of domestic criminal cases recognizing the ratione materiae immunity of states makes it difficult to prove that this type of immunity applies in criminal proceedings see Tomonori, supra note 1, at 262.

  • 50 See Ipsen, ‘Combatants and Non-Combatants’, in D. Fleck (ed.),The Handbook of Humanitarian Law of Armed Conflict (2nd edn, 2008), at 79, 82.

  • 51 The best-known case in which this type of immunity was asserted in respect of criminal proceedings is Macleod’s case (on which see Jennings, ‘The Caroline and McLeod Cases’, 32 AJIL (1938) 82, at 92); Noyes, ‘The Caroline: International Law Limits on Resort to Force’, in J. Noyes, L. Dickinson, and M. Janis, International Law Stories (2007), at 263. While both the British and US governments accepted that there was immunity under international law from both civil and criminal processes, Macleod was actually subject to trial owing to the inability of the US federal government to interfere with the prosecution. In Nov. 2007 a Paris District Prosecutor dismissed a complaint against Donald Rumsfeld, former US Secretary of State for Defence, alleging that he was responsible for acts of torture in detention centres in Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. The Prosecutor’s reason for dismissing the complaint was based on Rumsfeld’s continuing immunity ‘for acts performed in the exercise of his functions [as former Secretary of State for Defense].’ See www.fidh.org/france-in-violation-of-law-grants-donald-rumsfeld,4932. However, in the Rainbow Warrior Case, 74 ILR (1986) 241, the French government’s assertion that military officers should not be tried in New Zealand once France had accepted international responsibility was rejected by New Zealand. See also the few cases cited by Tomonori, supra note 1, at 262.

  • 52 See Cassese, supra note 15, at 304; Fox, supra note 1, at 94–97. InAttorney General of Israel v. Eichmann, 36 ILR (1962) 5, at 308–309, the Israeli Supreme Court stated that ‘[t]he theory of “Act of State” means that the act performed by a person as an organ of the State – whether he was Head of the State or a responsible official acting on the Government’s order – must be regarded as an act of the State alone. It follows that only the latter bears responsibility therefor, and it also follows that another State has no right to punish the person who committed the act, save with the consent of the State whose mission he performed. Were it not so, the first State would be interfering in the internal affairs of the second, which is contrary to the conception of the equality of States based on their sovereignty.’ However, the Court was not prepared to accept that this theory applied in all cases. See also the correspondence in the MacLeod case, supra note 51.

    In Jones v. Saudi Arabia [2006] UKHL 26, at para. 68, Lord Hoffmann argued that it is ‘artificial to say that acts of officials are not attributable to them personally and … this usage can lead to confusion, especially in those cases in which some aspect of the immunity of the individual is withdrawn by treaty, as it is for criminal proceedings by the Torture Convention’. However, he conceded that there was ‘undoubted authority’ for this view of functional immunity.

  • 53 Prosecutor v. Blaškić (Objection to the Issue of Subpoena duces Tecum) IT-95-14-AR108 (1997), 110 ILR (1997) 607, at 707, para. 38.

  • 54 See Brief for the United States of America as Amicus Curiae in Support of Affirmance (2007)Matar v. Dichter (2nd Cir. 2009): ’the Executive generally recognizes foreign officials to enjoy immunity from civil suit with respect to their official acts – even including, at least in some situations, where the state itself may lack immunity under the FSIA’.

  • 55 See Wickremasinghe, supra note 1, at 396; Fox, supra note 1, at 455–463.

  • 56 Zoernsch v. Waldock [1964] 1 WLR 675, at 692 (England: CA, perDiplock LJ). For similar statements see Chuidian v. Philippine National Bank, 912 F 2d 1095, 1101 (9th Cir. 1990): ‘it is generally recognized that a suit against an individual acting in his official capacity is the practical equivalent of a suit against the sovereign directly’; Restatement (Third) of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States (1986), at para. 66: ‘immunity of a foreign state … extends to … any other public minister, official or agent of the state with respect to acts performed in his official capacity if the effect of exercising jurisdiction would be to enforce a rule of law against the state’; and Propend Finance Pty Ltd v. Sing, 111 ILR (1997) 611, at 669 (England: CA).

  • 57 Under Art. 53 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (1969), 1155 UNTS 331, a peremptory norm of international law or jus cogensis ‘a norm accepted and recognized by the international community as a whole as a norm from which no derogation is permitted’.

  • 58 This argument has generally been made in attempts to deny immunity in civil actions against states. See Bianchi, ‘Immunity Versus Human Rights: The Pinochet Case’, 10 EJIL (1999) 237, at 265: ‘human rights atrocities cannot be qualified as sovereign acts: international law cannot regard as sovereign those acts which are not merely a violation of it, but constitute an attack against its very foundation and predominant values’. See also Belsky, Merva, and Roht-Arriaza, ‘Implied Waiver Under the FSIA: A Proposed Exception to Immunity for Violations of Peremptory Norms of International Law’, 77 California LR (1989) 365, at 394: [t]he existence of a system of rules that states may not violate implies that when a state acts in violation of such a rule, the act is not recognized as a sovereign act. When a state act is no longer recognized as sovereign, the state is no longer entitled to invoke the defense of sovereign immunity’; Bianchi, ‘Denying State Immunity to Violators of Human Rights’, 46 Austrian J Public and Int’l L (1994) 195, at 205, 217; Reimann, ‘A Human Rights Exception to Sovereign Immunity: Some Thoughts on Prinz v. Federal Republic of Germany’, 16Michigan J Int’l L (1995) 403, at 421–423; Orakhelashvili, ‘State Immunity and International Public Order’, 43 German Yrbk Int’l L (2002) 227, at 237.

  • 59 Belsky, Merva, and Roht-Arriaza, supra note 58, at 394.

  • 60 Prefecture of Voiotia v. Federal Republic of Germany, [1997]Revue Hellénique De Droit International 595 (Greece: Court of First Instance Leivadia, 1997). See Bantekas, ‘Case Comment: Prefecture of Voiotia v. Federal Republic of Germany’, 92 AJIL (1998) 765.

  • 61 Albeit that the Supreme Court qualified the argument by emphasizing that the acts had taken place on Greek territory:Prefecture of Voiotia v. Germany, Case no. 11/2000 (Greece: Supreme Court, 2000). See Vournas, ‘Prefecture of Voiotia v. Federal Republic Of Germany: Sovereign Immunity and the Exception for Jus CogensViolations’, 21 NY Law School J Int’l & Comp L (2002) 629; Gavouneli and Bantekas, ‘Prefecture of Voiotia v. Federal Republic of Germany’, 95AJIL (2001) 198.

  • 62 Greek Citizens v. Federal Republic of Germany (The Distomo Massacre Case), 42 ILM (2003) 1030 (Germany: Sup. Ct, 2003), at 1033. The German Supreme Court noted both a judgment of the Special Supreme Court of Greece on a similar issue in which it was held ‘that according to the current state of international law there still exists a generally recognized international norm, which prohibits that a State be sued in another State for damages in relation to crimes which were committed on the territory of the forum state with the participation of troops of the defendant State in times of war as well as in times of peace’ (Margellos v. Federal Republic of Germany (Greece: Anotato Eidiko Dikasterio, 2002)) and the decision of the ECtHR in App. No. 50021/00, Kalegoropoulou v. Greece and Germany, 2002-IX ECtHR 415, which declared the same applicants’ claim inadmissible.

  • 63 Federal Republic of Germany v. Miltiadis Margellos, Case 6/17-9-2002 (Greece: Special Supreme Court, 2002).

  • 64 Prinz v. Federal Republic of Germany 26 F 3d 1166 (DC Cir. 1994).

  • 65 Ibid., at 1174. Other US cases where this argument has been dismissed include: Smith v. Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya,101 F 3d 239 (CA, 2nd Cir., 1996); Persinger v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 90 ILR 486 (DC Cir. 1996); Sampson v. Federal Republic of Germany, 975 F Supp 1108 (ND Ill., 1997).

  • 66 Ibid., at 1182.

  • 67 Ferrini v. Repubblica Federale di Germania, 87 RDI (2004) 539 (Italy: Cassazione), at paras 7 and 8.2. See De Sena and de Vittor, ‘State Immunity and Human Rights: the Italian Supreme Court Decision on the Ferrini Case’, 16 EJIL (2005) 89, at 101–102; Focarelli, ‘Denying Foreign State Immunity for Commission of International Crimes: the Ferrini Decision’, 54 ICLQ (2005) 951, at 956–957. However, it should be noted that the Court did accept the normative hierarchy theory discussed infra.

  • 68 Jones v. Saudi Arabia, supra note 52, at para. 62. See alsoArgentine Republic v. Amerada Hess Shipping Corporation, 488 US 428, 442–443 (1989) (US Sup. Ct).

  • 69 See Lord Wilberforce in I Congresso del Partido [1981] 2 All ER 1064, at 1074 (HL): ‘in considering, under the restrictive theory, whether State immunity should be granted or not, the court must consider the whole context in which the claim against the State is made, with a view to deciding whether the relevant act(s) on which the claim is based should, in that context, be considered as fairly within an area of activity, trading or commercial or otherwise of a private law character, in which the State has chosen to engage or whether the relevant activity should be considered as having been done outside the area and within the sphere of governmental or sovereign activity’. See also Holland v. Lampen Wolfe [2000] 3 All ER 833 (HL), where Lord Hope stated that ‘it is the nature of the act that determines whether it is to be characterised as iure imperii or iure gestionis. The process of characterisation requires that the act must be considered in its context. In the present case the context is all-important. The overall context was that of the provision of educational services to military personnel and their families stationed on a US base overseas. The maintenance of the base itself was plainly a sovereign activity.’ For similar statements see also United States v. Public Service Alliance of Canada, 32 ILM (1993) 1 (Canada: Sup. Ct); Litterell v. USA (No. 2), 100 ILR (1995) 438 (England: CA); Egypt v. Gamal-Eldin [1996] 2 All ER237 (England: Employment Appeals Tribunal).

  • 70 In Nelson v. Saudi Arabia, 100 ILR (1993) 544, at 553 the US Sup. Ct stated that ‘however monstrous such abuse undoubtedly may be, a foreign state’s exercise of the power of its police has long been understood for purposes of the restrictive theory as peculiarly sovereign in nature’. See also Claim against the Empire of Iran, 45 ILR (1963) 57, at 81 (West Germany: Federal Constitutional Court): ‘[i]n this generally recognisable field of sovereign activity are included transactions relating to foreign affairs and military authority, the legislature, the exercise of police authority, and the administration of justice’. See further Propend Finance Pty. Ltd and others v. Singsupranote 56; Argentine Republic v. Amerada Hesssupra note 68; Paprocki v. German State, 104 ILR (1995) 684 (England: High Ct).

  • 71 See McGregor, ‘Torture and State Immunity: Deflecting Impunity, Distorting Sovereignty’, 18 EJIL (2007) 903.

  • 72 ‘The immunity, where it exists, is from the local jurisdiction and not from legal (or State) responsibility on the international plane. The issue is, in part at least, a question of the appropriate forum’ (emphasis in original): Brownlie, ‘Preliminary Report on the Contemporary Problems Concerning the Jurisdictional Immunity of States’, 62-IAnnuaire de L’Institut de Droit international (Cairo, 1987) 13, at 18. See also Fox, ‘International Law and Restraints on the Exercise of Jurisdiction by National Courts of States’, in M.D. Evans (ed.),International Law (3rd edn, 2010), 340, 351. See also Arrest Warrantcase, supra note 9, at para. 59.

  • 73 Jones v. Saudi Arabia, supra note 52, at para. 12 (per Lord Bingham). See generally Fox, supra note 1, at ch. 13.

  • 74 Art. 2(3)(a) and (b), Res of the Institut de Droit International on ‘Contemporary Problems Concerning the Immunity of States in Relation to Questions of Jurisdiction and Enforcement’ (1991) indicates that the fact that a particular case involves the adjudication of the validity or legality of the acts of the defendant state in terms of international law itself indicates the incompetence of the forum court in the matter. See 64-II Annuaire de L’institut de Droit international (Basle, 1991), 338, 393–394.

  • 75 See Tunks, supra note 7, at 659–660; Tomonori, supra note 1, at 283 ff.

  • 76 See Pinochet (No.3), supra note 16, at 113, 166 (per Lords Browne-Wilkinson and Hutton); R. v. Bow Street Stipendiary Magistrate and others, ex parte Pinochet (No.1) [1998] 4 All ER 897, at 939–940, 945–946 (HL, per Lords Nicholls and Steyn). It is amazing that these judges could have reached this conclusion in respect of torture, which under Art. 1 Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984), 1465 UNTS 85 is limited to acts ‘of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity’ (emphasis added). See also the Joint Separate Opinion of Judges Higgins, Kooijmans, and Buergenthal in the Arrest Warrant case, supranote 9, at para. 85 and the Bouterse case, at para. 4.2 (Netherlands: Gerechtshof Amsterdam, 2000), cited in the Joint Separate Opinion above. A similar position has been taken in a number of US civil cases under the Alien Tort Claims Act. See, e.g., In re Estate of Ferdinand Marcos, 25 F 3d 1467, at 1469–1472 (9th Cir. 1994); Xuncax v. Gramajo, 886 F Supp 162, at 175 (D. Mass. 1995); Cabiri v. Assasie-Gyimah, 921 F Supp 1189, at 1197–1198 (SDNY 1996).

  • 77 See Watts, supra note 1, at 56–57; Wirth, ‘Immunity for Core Crimes? The ICJ’s Judgment in the Congo v. Belgium Case’, 13 EJIL(2002) 877, at 891; Cassese, ‘When May Senior State Officials be Tried for International Crimes? Some Comments on the Congo v. BelgiumCase’, 13 EJIL (2002) 853, at 867–870.

  • 78 Barker, ‘The Future of Former Head of State Immunity After Ex Parte Pinochet’, 48 ICLQ (1999) 937, at 943. Taking the same view are Denza, ‘Ex Parte Pinochet: Lacuna or Leap’, 48 ICLQ (1999) 949, at 952; Cassese, supra note 77, at 870 (who argues that it would be artificial to consider international crimes committed by senior state officials as private acts). See also the views of the Prosecutor dismissing a complaint seeking the prosecution in France of former US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, for torture, discussed in Gallagher, ‘Universal Jurisdiction in Practice: Efforts to Hold Donald Rumsfeld and Other High Level United States Officials Accountable for Torture’, 7 J Int’l Criminal Justice (2009) 1087, at 1110–1111.

  • 79 See Arts 4 and 7, International Law Commission’s Articles on the Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts 2001, UN Doc. A/CN.4/L.602.

  • 80 See Jones v. Saudi Arabia, supra note 52, at paras 74–78 (per Lord Hoffmann).

  • 81 See Bianchi, supra note 58, at 265: ‘[a]s a matter of international law, there is no doubt that jus cogens norms, because of their higher status, must prevail over other international rules, including jurisdictional immunities’. See also Reimann, supra note 58, at 421–423; Byers, ‘Comment on Al-Adsani v. Kuwait’, 67 British Yrbk Int’l L(1996) 537, at 539–540; Orakhelashvili, ‘State Immunity in National and International Law: Three Recent Cases Before the European Court of Human Rights’, 15 Leiden J Int’l L (2002) 703, at 712–713; Orakhelashvili, ‘International Decisions: Arrest Warrant case’, 96 AJIL(2002) 677; Orakhelashvili, supra note 58, at 255 ff; Karagiannakis, ‘State Immunity and Fundamental Human Rights’, 11 Leiden J Int’l L(1998) 9; Orakhelashvili, ‘State Immunity and Hierarchy of Norms: Why the House of Lords Got it Wrong’, 18 EJIL (2007) 955, at 964: ‘[t]here is solid doctrinal support for the approach that jus cogens trumps state immunity before national court, and this has been the case throughout the whole period in which this issue has been arising in practice’.

  • 82 Siderman de Blake v. Republic of Argentina, 965 F 2d 699, at 718 (CA 9th Cir. 1992). A similar argument was made and accepted inFerrini v. Federal Republic of Germany (2004), Cass sex un 5044/04; 87Rivista di diritto internazionale (2004) 539 (Italy: Cassazione);Prefecture of Voiotia v. Federal Republic of Germany (2000), Case No. 11/2000 (Greece: Court of Cassation); Lozano 91 Rivista di diritto internazionale (2008) 1223 (Italy: Cassazione); FRG v. Mantelli and others, Order No. 14201 (2008) (Italy: Cassazione); Milde (‘Civitella’), 92 Rivista di diritto internazionale (2009) 618 (Italy: Cassazione); and by six of the dissenting judges (Rozakis and Caflisch, joined by Wildhaber, Costa, Cabral Barreto, and Vajić) in App. No. 35763/97, Al-Adsani v. United Kingdom, 34 EHRR (2002) 11. In 2008, the rash of Italian judgments against Germany became the subject of proceedings before the ICJ when Germany initiated proceedings against Italy, claiming that ‘Italian judicial bodies have repeatedly disregarded the jurisdictional immunity of Germany as a foreign State’: Jurisdictional Immunities of the State (Germany v. Italy), press release no. 2008/44, 23 Dec. 2008, available at: www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/143/14925.pdf.

  • 83 Prosecutor v. Kupreškić et al, IT-95-16 (ICTY: Trial Chamber, 2000), at para. 520. For similar assertions see Cassese, supra note 15, at 203. In the Nuclear Weapons Advisory Opinion (Request by General Assembly) [1996] ICJ Rep 226, the ICJ was evasive on this point. On the one hand, it stated (at para. 79) that ‘a great many rules of humanitarian law’ were ‘fundamental rules’ which ‘constitute intransgressible principles of international customary law’. However, the Court stated later in the same opinion (at para. 83) that while it had been argued that the rules and principles of humanitarian law were part of jus cogens, there was ‘no need for the Court to pronounce on this matter’.

  • 84 See Nicaragua v. USAsupra note 42, at para. 190.

  • 85 See Judge ad hoc Elihu Lauterpacht, in Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Yugoslavia), Further Request for Provisional Measures, Order of 13 Sept. 1993 [1993] ICJ Rep 325, at 440.

  • 86 See Prosecutor v. Furundžija, Judgment, Case No. IT-95-17/1-T (1998), 121 ILR 213, at 260 (ICTY: Trial Chamber), para. 153; Al-Adsani v. UK, supra note 82, at paras 60–61.

  • 87 Belligerent reprisals are defined as ‘coercive measures which would normally be contrary to international law but which are taken in retaliation by one party to a conflict in order to stop the adversary from violating international law’. See Oeter, ‘Methods and Means of Combat’, in Fleck (ed.), supra note 50, at 232. See generally F. Kalshoven,Belligerent Reprisals (1971).

  • 88 See Hampson, ‘Belligerent Reprisals and the 1977 Protocols to the Geneva Conventions 1949’, 37 ICLQ (1988) 818; Greenwood, ‘The Twilight of the Law of Belligerent Reprisals’, 20 Netherlands Yrbk Int’l L(1989) 35; Kalshoven, ‘Belligerent Reprisals Revisited’, 21 Netherlands Yrbk Int’l L (1990) 43.

  • 89 For the view that Art. 51(6), Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 (1977), 1125 UNTS 3, which prohibits reprisals against civilians, constitutes a rule of customary international law see Prosecutor v. Kupreškićsupra note 83, at paras 521–536; and Rule 146 ICRC Customary Study which provides that ‘Belligerent reprisals against persons protected by the Geneva Conventions are prohibited’: J. Henckaerts and L. Doswald-Beck, Customary International Humanitarian Law, Volume 1 (2005), at 519, especially at 520–523.

  • 90 See Greenwood, supra note 88, at 63–64; Kalshoven, supra note 87, at 53; Oeter, supra note 87, at 206–207; R. Cryer et al.An Introduction to International Criminal Law and Procedure (2nd edn, 2010), at 421. See also Prosecutor v. Kupreškićsupra note 83, at 532–533. See UK Ministry of Defence, The Manual of the Law of Armed Conflict (2004), at 422–423.

  • 91 This applies equally to the rules regarding diplomatic immunity.

  • 92 See Fox, supra note 1, at 525: ‘[s]tate immunity is a procedural rule going to the jurisdiction of a national court. It does not go to substantive law; it does not contradict a prohibition contained in a jus cogens norm but merely diverts any breach of it to a different method of settlement. Arguably, then, there is no substantive content in the procedural plea of State immunity upon which a jus cogens mandate can bite.’ Lady Fox’s argument was cited with approval in Jones v. Saudi Arabia by both Lords Bingham and Hoffmann: see supra note 52, at paras 24 and 44. See also Voyiakis, ‘Access to Court v. State Immunity’, 52 ICLQ (2003) 297, at 321: ‘it is not all clear how the prohibition of torture and the law of State immunity could collide in the first place. To risk some triviality, the prohibition of torture seems mainly about prohibiting the practice of torture, whereas the rules of State immunity are mainly about the exercise of jurisdiction over foreign States.’

  • 93 This argument was presented by Judge Al-Khasawneh in his dissenting opinion in the Arrest Warrant case, supra note 9, at para. 7.

  • 94 Art. 49, First Geneva Convention (1949), 75 UNTS 31; Art. 50, Second Geneva Convention (1949), 75 UNTS 85; Art. 129, Third Geneva Convention (1949), 75 UNTS 135; Art. 146, Fourth Geneva Convention, (1949), 75 UNTS 287; Art. 85(1), First Additional Protocol to the 1949 Geneva Conventions (1977), supra note 89.

  • 95 Art. 7, Convention Against Torture 1984, supra note 76.

  • 96 See B. Broomhall, International Justice and the International Criminal Court: Between Sovereignty and the Rule of Law (2003), at 111–112; Meron, ‘International Criminalization of Internal Atrocities’, in T. Meron, War Crimes Law Comes of Age (1998), 228, at 249–256.

  • 97 In Prosecutor v. Furundžija, Judgment, supra note 86, at para. 156, the ICTY held that ‘[a]t the individual level, that is, of criminal liability, it would seem that one of the consequences of the jus cogenscharacter bestowed by the international community upon the prohibition of torture is that every State is entitled to investigate, prosecute and punish or extradite individuals accused of torture, who are present in a territory under its jurisdiction. Indeed, it would be inconsistent on the one hand to prohibit torture to such an extent as to restrict the normally unfettered treaty-making power of sovereign States, and on the other hand bar States from prosecuting and punishing those torturers who have engaged in this odious practice abroad’ (emphasis added.) See also Pinochet (No. 3)supra note 16, at 109 (per Lord Browne-Wilkinson), 177 (per Lord Millett).

  • 98 See dicta by the ICTY in Prosecutor v. Furundžijasupra note 86. The Committee Against Torture also made similar statements in its Concluding Comments on Canada, 7 July 2005, CAT/C/CR/34/CAN, at paras 4(g) and 5(f); Concluding Observations on Republic of Korea, 25 July 2006, CAT/C/KOR/CO/2, at para. 8(a); Concluding Observations on Japan, 3 Aug. 2007, CAT/C/JPN/CO/1, at para. 23; and Concluding Observations on New Zealand, 14 May 2009, at para. 14. See also Hall, ‘The Duty of States Parties to the Convention against Torture to Provide Procedures Permitting Victims to Recover Reparations for Torture Committed Abroad’, 18 EJIL (2007) 921. Reference may also be made to the limited practice of immunity being lifted in civil cases under the US Alien Tort Claims Act 1789, 28 USC § 1350.

  • 99 See Jones v. Saudia Arabia, supra note 52, where it was held that there was ‘no adequate foundation in any international convention, State practice or scholarly consensus’ for such a practice (per Lord Bingham, at para. 34). In his judgment, Lord Hoffmann stated that for the claimants to succeed with this argument it was ‘necessary to show that the prohibition on torture has generated an ancillary procedural rule which, by way of exception to State immunity, entitles or perhaps requires States to assume civil jurisdiction over other States in cases in which torture is alleged’. See also Fox, supra note 1, at 525, andBouzari v. Iran (2002), 124 ILR 427 (Canada: Ontario Sup. Ct, approved on appeal 2004), at paras 43–56, holding that Art. 14(1) Torture Convention, supra note 76, which provides that states parties ‘shall ensure in its legal system that the victim of an act of torture obtains redress and has an enforceable right to fair and adequate compensation’, does not impose an obligation on parties to provide a civil remedy in respect of torture committed by another state.

  • 100 See East Timor Case (Portugal v. Australia) [1995] ICJ Rep 90;Armed Activities on the Territory of the Congo (New Request, 2002)(Congo v. Rwanda), Jurisdiction and Admissibility [2006] ICJ Rep 6, at para. 64. For the argument that state immunity is based on the consent rule applicable to international tribunals see Crawford, ‘International Law and Foreign Sovereigns: Distinguishing Immune Transactions’, 53British Yrbk Int’l L (1983) 75, at 79–85.

  • 101 See Prosecutor v. Furundzija, ICTY Trial Chamber, Dec. 1998, at para. 156: ‘it would seem that one of the consequences of the jus cogens character bestowed by the international community upon the prohibition of torture is that every State is entitled to investigate, prosecute and punish or extradite individuals accused of torture, who are present in a territory under its jurisdiction’. See A. Orakhelashvili,Peremptory Norms in International Law (2006), at 288–319 and 340–357: ‘[i]f jus cogens crimes are peremptorily outlawed as crimes, then the duty to prosecute or extradite their perpetrators must be viewed as peremptory’ (at 305) ‘under international law peremptory rules such as core norms of human rights law prevail over non-peremptory norms of immunities. Also in the case of international crimes outlawed under jus cogens, such as crimes against humanity, it must be accepted that the principles of immunity have no peremptory status and that the conflict between the two sets of norms must be resolved considering the framework of normative hierarchy giving primacy to the relevant peremptory norm’ (at 343).

  • 102 See J. Crawford, The International Law Commission’s Articles on State Responsibility (2002), at 188 (para. 5 of commentary to Art. 26).

  • 103 See Akande, ‘Prosecuting Aggression: The Consent Problem and the Security Council Issue’, Oxford ELAC Working Paper (May 2010), available at:www.elac.ox.ac.uk/downloads/dapo%20akande%20working%20paper%20may%202010.pdf. See also Res. RC/Res. 6 adopted at the Kampala Review Conference by states parties to the Statute of the International Criminal Court (June 2010), Annex III, ‘Understandings regarding the amendments to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court on the Crime of Aggression’, at para. 5: ‘[i]t is understood that the amendments [relating to aggression] shall not be interpreted as creating the right or obligation to exercise domestic jurisdiction with respect to an act of aggression committed by another State’.

  • 104 ‘The aggression attributed to a State is a sine qua non for the responsibility of an individual for his participation in the crime of aggression. An individual cannot incur responsibility for this crime in the absence of aggression committed by a State. Thus, a court cannot determine the question of individual criminal responsibility for this crime without considering as a preliminary matter the question of aggression by a State. The determination by a national court of one State of the question of whether another State had committed aggression would be contrary to the fundamental principle of international law par in parent imperium non habet. Moreover, the exercise of jurisdiction by the national court of a State which entails consideration of the commission of aggression by another State would have serious implications for international relations and international peace and security’: Commentary to Art. 8, ILC Draft Code of Crimes Against the Peace and Security of Mankind, 1996, available at:http://untreaty.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/commentaries/7_4_1996.pdf.

  • 105 See the International Law Commission’s Commentary to Art. 26 of the Articles on the Responsibility of States, in Crawford, supra note 102, at 188, para. 5; Separate Opinion of Judge Ammoun, Barcelona Traction [1970] ICJ Rep 304; I. Brownlie, Principles of Public International Law (7th edn, 2008), at 511; and Cassese, supra note 15, at 203.

  • 106 See Art. 41(2), ILC Articles on State Responsibility in Crawford,supra note 102.

  • 107 ‘[T]he non-recognition of South Africa’s administration of the Territory should not result in depriving the people of Namibia of any advantages derived from international co-operation … the effects of which can be ignored only to the detriment of the inhabitants of the territory’: Legal Consequences for States of the Continued Presence of South African in Namibia (South West Africa) notwithstanding Security Council Resolution 276 (1970) [1971] ICJ Rep 16, at para. 125.

  • 108 Al-Adsani v. United Kingdomsupra note 82, at para. 61. A similar conclusion was reached by the British Branch of the Human Rights Section of the International Law Association, ‘Report on Civil Actions in the English Courts for Serious Human Rights Violations Abroad’ [2001] European Human Rts L Rev 129.

  • 109 See also App. No. 59021/00, Kalogeropoulou v. Greece & Germany, supra note 62; App. No. 14717.06, Grosz v. France,Admissibility Decision, 16 June 2009 (ECtHR).

  • 110 Arrest Warrant case, supra note 9, at para. 58. Although note the dissenting opinions of Judges Al-Khasawneh and Van den Wyngaert, ibid., at 7 and 28 respectively.

  • 111 While some support this view (see Black-Branch, ‘Sovereign Immunity Under International Law: The Case of Pinochet’, in D. Woodhouse (ed.), The Pinochet Case: A Legal and Constitutional Analysis (2000), 93, at 101; Pinochet (No. 3)supra note 18, at 149 (perLord Hope)), it is untenable since immunity ratione personae can always be waived or set aside by treaty. Indeed, it has been argued elsewhere that Art. 27 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (1998), 2187 UNTS 3, constitutes a treaty waiver of immunity ratione personae. See Akande, supra note 2, at 419–421.

  • 112 Arrest Warrant case, supra note 9, at para. 61.

  • 113 Ibid.

  • 114 See Art. III(1), Resolution on the Immunity from Jurisdiction of the State and of Persons Who Act on Behalf of the State in case of International Crimes, Institut de Droit International (2009): ‘[n]o immunity from jurisdiction other than personal immunity international law applies with regard to international crimes’. See Cassese, supranote 77, at 870 ff; Cassese, supra note 15, at 305 ff; Gaeta, supra note 15, at 981–983; Zappalà, supra note 15, at 601–605; Wirth, supra note 77.

  • 115 See Cassese, supra note 77, at 870–871, referring to cases in which Israeli, French, Italian, Dutch, British, US, Polish, Spanish, and Mexican courts have entertained proceedings against foreign state officials (particularly foreign military officers) in respect of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide; Cryer et al.supra note 90, at ch. 4.

  • 116 See, e.g., Eichmannsupra note 71, at 44–48 (Israel: Ct of Jerusalem), at 308–311 (Israel Sup. Ct); Pinochet (No. 3), supra note 16. See also the Lozano Case (Cassazione, 2008), discussed in Cassese, ‘The Italian Court of Cassation Misapprehends the Notion of War Crimes: The Lozano Case’, 6 JICJ (2008) 1077, where the Court accepts that there is no immunity ratione materiae with respect to international crimes but appears to misconstrue the criteria for war crimes.

  • 117 For a similar view see McGregor, supra note 71, at 912–918.

  • 118 See Art. 7, London Agreement for the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg (1945), 82 UNTS 279; Art. 6, Charter of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (1946), TIAS 1589; Art. 7(2), Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (1993), UN SC Res 827 (1993); Art. 6(2), Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (1994), UN SC Res 995 (1994); Art. 27(1), ICC Statute, supra note 111; and Art. 6(2), Statute of the Special Court for Sierra Leone (2002), available at: www.sc-sl.org. While these treaty texts apply to the respective tribunals, there is no doubt that this lack of a substantive defence is now a principle of international law applicable even with respect to domestic prosecutions. See the works cited supra in note 114.

  • 119 In re Goering and others (1946), 13 ILR 203, at 221.

  • 120 Arrest Warrant case, supra note 9, at para. 59; see also the Joint Separate Opinion of Judges Higgins, Kooijmans, and Buergenthal, ibid., at para. 4.

  • 121 Caplan, ‘State Immunity, Human Rights and Jus Cogens: A Critique of the Normative Hierarchy Theory’, 97 AJIL (2003) 741, at 756–757.

  • 122 See Pinochet (No. 3), supra note 16, at 114, 169–170, 178–179, 190 (per Lords Browne-Wilkinson, Saville, Millett, Phillips).

  • 123 Art. 1, Convention Against Torture, supra note 76. 3

  • 124 By obliging states parties to legislate against all acts of torture, the Convention prescribes for universal jurisdiction. See O’Keefe, ‘Universal Jurisdiction. Clarifying the Basic Concept’, 2 JICJ (2004) 735, who argues that universal jurisdiction is a particular form of the jurisdiction to prescribe where there is no link between the prescribing state and the offender at the time of the commission of the offence.

  • 125 Arts 4, 5, and 7, Convention Against Torture, supra note 76. SeeGuengueng v. Senegal (181/01), CAT/C/36/D/181/2001 (Committee Against Torture). On 19 Feb. 2009, Belgium instigated proceedings against Senegal before the ICJ in relation to the failure of Senegal to fulfil its obligations set out in the Convention against Torture to prosecute or extradite Hissène Habré, former President of Chad: seeQuestions Relating to the Obligation to Prosecute or Extradite (Senegal v. Belgium), Provisional Measures, 2009, ICJ Press Release 2009/13, 19 Feb. 2009.

  • 126 Lord Saville stated in Pinochet (No. 3)supra note 16, at 169–170 that ‘[s]o far as the states that are parties to the Convention are concerned, I cannot see how, so far as torture is concerned, this immunity [ratione materiae] can exist consistently with the terms of that Convention. Each state party has agreed that the other state parties can exercise jurisdiction over alleged official torturers found within their territories, by extraditing them or referring them to their own appropriate authorities for prosecution; and thus to my mind can hardly simultaneously claim an immunity from extradition or prosecution that is necessarily based on the official nature of the alleged torture. Since 8 December 1988 Chile, Spain and this country [the UK] have all been parties to the Torture Convention. So far as these countries at least are concerned it seems to me that from that date these state parties are in agreement with each other that the immunityratione materiae of their former heads of state cannot be claimed in cases of alleged official torture. In other words, so far as the allegations of official torture against Senator Pinochet are concerned, there is now by this agreement an exception or qualification to the general rule of immunity ratione materiae.’ According to Lord Millett, ‘[t]he definition of torture, … in the Convention … is in my opinion entirely inconsistent with the existence of a plea of immunity ratione materiae. The offence can be committed only by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. The official or governmental nature of the act, which forms the basis of the immunity, is an essential ingredient of the offence. No rational system of criminal justice can allow an immunity which is coextensive with the offence.’

  • 127 International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (2006), GA Res 61/177, 20 Dec. 2006, A/RES/61/177. See Anderson, ‘How Effective Is the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances Likely to Be in Holding Individuals Criminally Responsible for Acts of Enforced Disappearance’, 7 Melbourne J Int’l L(2006) 245, at 275–277.

  • 128 See Dupuy, ‘International Criminal Responsibility of the Individual and International Responsibility of the State’, in Cassese et al. (eds), supra note 15, ii, at 1085–1099; Commentary of the International Law Commission to Article 5 of the Draft Code of Crimes,supra note 104.

  • 129 Schabas, ‘State Policy as an Element of International Crimes’, 98Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology (2008) 953. With respect to genocide see the Report of the Ad Hoc Committee on Genocide (and Draft Convention Drawn Up by the Committee), UN Doc E/794 (1948), at 29 and 32 (recognition by state representatives that ‘in almost every serious case of genocide it would be impossible to rely on the Courts of the States where genocide had been committed to exercise effective repression because the government itself would have been guilty, unless it had been, in fact, powerless’ and that ‘genocide would be committed mostly by the State authorities themselves or that these authorities would have aided and abetted the crime’).

  • 130 See Arts 49, 50, 129, and 146, Geneva Conventions 1949, supranote 94; Art. 85(1), First Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions 1949, supra note 89.

  • 131 Art. 8(2)(b), ICC Statute, supra note 111. Note that under Art. 85(1) First Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions 1949, supranote 89, many of the crimes listed in Art. 8(2)(b) ICC Statute constitute grave breaches of that Protocol.

  • 132 This is provided for in the provisions listed supra in note 130. See O’Keefe, ‘The Grave Breaches Regime and Universal Jurisdiction’, 7JICJ (2009) 811.

  • 133 Rule 157 ICRC Study of Customary International Humanitarian Law provides that ‘[s]tates have the right to vest universal jurisdiction in their national courts over war crimes’. The Study points to a large amount of state practice, including both legislation to this effect and national prosecutions on the basis of extra-territorial jurisdiction, to confirm this finding. See Henckaerts and Doswald-Beck, supra note 89, at 604–607. Furthermore, the ICJ has held in two cases (Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons, Advisory Opinion [1996] ICJ Rep 66, at para. 79 and Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Advisory Opinion [2004] ICJ Rep 136, at para. 157) that the fundamental principles of the Geneva Conventions are part of customary international law. Arguably, this includes the grave breaches regime.

  • 134 These crimes are set out in Common Art. 3 to the Geneva Conventions I–IV, supra note 94, and in Art. 8(2)(c) and (e) ICC Statute,supra note 111.

  • 135 There have been some prosecutions of war crimes committed in non-international armed conflicts on the basis of universal jurisdiction. See Butare case (unpublished) (Belgium: Court of Assizes) (for a case report see Reydams, ‘Belgium’s first application of Universal Jurisdiction: The Butare Four case’, 1 J Int’l Criminal Justice (2003) 428);Munyeshyaka case, 4 RGDIP (1996) 1084 (France: CA); Knesević, 11 Nov. 1997, 1 Yrbk Int’l Humanitarian L (1998) 599 (Netherlands: Sup. Ct); Grabež, 18 Apr. 1997 (unpublished) (Switzerland: Military Tribunal at Lausanne); Niyonteze, 26 May 2000 (unpublished) (Switzerland: Military Tribunal at Lausanne) (for a case report see Reydams, ‘Case Report: Niyontese v Public Prosecutor’, 96 AJIL (2002) 232). Rule 157 ICRC Customary Study, supra note 133, is considered to be applicable to war crimes committed in non-international armed conflicts as well as those committed in international armed conflicts.

  • 136 Art. 7(2)(a), ICC Statute, supra note 110, requires that the attack on the civilian population, which is the contextual element for crimes against humanity, must have occurred ‘pursuant to or in furtherance of a State or organizational policy to commit such attack’. This element contemplates cases which involve state action and those which do not. There are questions whether this policy element is contained in customary international law. See Cryer et al.supra note 90, at 237–241.

  • 137 Art. 6(c) Nuremberg Charter defines crimes against humanity as ‘murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before or during the war, or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds in execution of or in connection with any crime within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, whether or not in violation of the law of the country where perpetrated’. However, the nexus between crimes against humanity and armed conflict was gradually dropped and customary law recognizes crimes against humanity in times of both peace and conflict; see Tadić(Interlocutory Appeal), 2 Oct. 1995, ICTY Appeals Chamber, at para. 141 and Art. 7 ICC Statute.

  • 138 See Cryer et al.supra note 90, at 238.

  • 139 Cassese, supra note 15, at 116.

  • 140 Dispatch of the US Ambassador in France, Sharp, to the US Secretary of State, Bryan, of 28 May 1915, cited in ibid., at 101.

  • 141 The grounds on which the Israeli Supreme Court upheld Eichmann’s conviction suggests that the basis for the prosecution was universal jurisdiction: ‘the peculiarly universal character of these crimes [against humanity] vests in every State the authority to try and punish anyone who participated in their commission’: Eichmann, supra note 52, at 287.

  • 142 See Fédération Nationale des Déportées et Internés Résistants et Patriotes and Others v. Barbie, 78 ILR 124 (France: Court of Cassation (Criminal Chamber)); In re Ahlbrecht, 11 Apr. 1949, [1949] Annual Digest and Reports of Public International Law Cases 397 (Netherlands: Special Court of Cassation); In re Buhler, 10 July 1948 [1948] Annual Digest and Reports of Public International Law Cases 680 (Poland: Supreme National Tribunal).

  • 143 In the drafting of the Convention, universal jurisdiction for genocide was considered and rejected: see the Report of the Ad Hoc Committee on Genocide, supra note 129, at 32.

  • 144 ‘The Court notes that the obligation each State … has to prevent and to punish the crime of genocide is not territorially limited by the Convention’: Application of Genocide Convention, Preliminary Objections (Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Yugoslavia) [1996] ICJ Rep 594, at para. 31.

  • 145 Genocide Accountability Act 2007, Public Law 110-151, signed 21 Dec. 2007.

  • 146 See http://durbin.senate.gov/showRelease.cfm?releaseId=270718.

  • 147 Pinochet (No. 3), supra note 16, at 190.

  • 148 For consideration of this question, see O’Keefe, supra note 124; Reydams, Universal Jurisdiction: International and Municipal Legal Perspectives (2003); ILA Final Report on the Exercise of Universal Jurisdiction in Respect of Gross Human Rights Offences, Report of the 69th Conference of the International Law Association (2000). See Fletcher, ‘Against Universal Jurisdiction’, 1 J Int’l Criminal Justice (2003) 580; Cassese, ‘Is the Bell Tolling for Universality? A Plea for a Sensible Notion of Universal Jurisdiction’, 1 J Int’l Criminal Justice (2003) 589; Bassiouni, ‘Universal Jurisdiction for International Crimes: Historical Perspectives and Contemporary Practice’, 42 Virginia J Int’l L (2001) 81; Wedgwood, ‘National Courts and the Prosecution of War Crimes’, in G. Kirk-McDonald and O. Swaak-Goldman (eds), Substantive and Procedural Aspects of International Criminal Law (2000), i, ch. 10; Randall, ‘Universal Jurisdiction Under International Law’, 66 Texas L Rev(1988) 785; Restatement (Third) of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States (1986), at para. 404.

  • 149 See, e.g., (i) s. 8(b), Canadian Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act 2000, providing for jurisdiction over any person who ‘after the time the offence is alleged to have been committed … is present in Canada’; (ii) s. 8(1)(c), New Zealand International Crimes and International Criminal Court Act 2000, providing for jurisdiction over genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes irrespective of (a) the nationality of the accused, (b) the place of commission of the crime and (c) the presence of the accused in New Zealand at the time a decision was made to charge him with the offence; (iii) s. 268.117, Australian Criminal Code Act 1995 (Act No. 12 of 1995) (together with s. 15(4)), providing for jurisdiction over genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes ‘whether or not the conduct constituting the alleged offence occurs in Australia’; (iv) Art. 1 German Code of Crimes Against International Law 2002, 42 ILM (2003) 995, providing for jurisdiction over international crimes ‘even when the offence was committed abroad and bears no relation to Germany’; (v) s. 4(3)(c), South African Implementation of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court Act 2002 (27/2002), providing for jurisdiction over non-nationals present in South Africa who are accused of committing international crimes whilst abroad; (vi) s. 2(1)(a), Netherlands International Crimes Act 2003, providing for jurisdiction over ‘anyone who commits any of the crimes defined in this Act outside the Netherlands, if the suspect is present in the Netherlands’; (vii) s. 12(2), Irish International Criminal Court Act 2006, providing for jurisdiction over non-nationals who whilst abroad commit war crimes in the course of an international armed conflicts; (viii) Art. 23(4), Spanish Judicial Power Organization Act, 6/1985, providing for jurisdiction over certain international crimes committed by Spanish or foreign nationals outside Spanish territory; (ix) US Genocide Accountability Act 2007, supra note 145, amending s. 1091 of title 18 of the US Code and providing for jurisdiction when ‘the alleged offender is brought into, or found in, the United States, even if the conduct occurred outside the United States’. See, further, the national surveys in Reydams, supra note 148; ILA Report on Universal Jurisdiction, supra note 148; and Amnesty International, ‘Universal Jurisdiction: The Duty of States to Enact and Enforce Legislation’. Note that the most notorious piece of legislation asserting universal jurisdiction – Art. 7, Belgian Act Concerning the Punishment of Grave Breaches of International Humanitarian Law 1999 – has been amended to restrict Belgian prosecutors to international crimes committed by or against Belgian nationals or residents. See 42 ILM (2003) 740.

  • 150 See Reydams, supra note 148.

  • 151 See Arrest Warrant case, supra note 9. Certain Criminal Proceedings in France (Republic of Congo v. France) (Provisional Measures Request) [2003] ICJ Rep 102; Liberia’s application instituting proceedings against Sierra Leone in respect of the indictment by the Special Court for Sierra Leone of the Liberian Head of State. See ‘Liberia applies to the International Court of Justice in a dispute with Sierra Leone concerning an international arrest warrant issued by the Special Court for Sierra Leone against the Liberian President’, ICJ Press Release 2003/26 (5 Aug. 2003), available at: www.icj-cij.org/icjwww/ipresscom/ipress2003/ipresscom2003-26_xx_20030805.htm; Rwanda’s application against France of 18 Apr. 2007, ‘The Republic of Rwanda Applies to the International Court of Justice in a Dispute with France’, ICJ Press Release, 18 Apr. 2007, available at: http://www.icj-cij.org/presscom/index.php?pr=1909(p1=6p2=1;p1=6&p2=1.

  • 152 See, e.g., the Guatemalan Genocide case, 42 ILM (2003) 683 (Spain Sup. Ct), holding, by an 8–7 majority, that the exercise of universal jurisdiction is limited by the ‘principle of subsidiarity’. According to this principle, universal jurisdiction will be exercised only where the territorial state has failed to exercise jurisdiction and where there is a link with the forum’s national interest. Such a link would include the nationality of the victim or the presence of the accused in Spain. See, further, Ascencio, ‘Are Spanish Courts Backing Down on Universality? The Supreme Tribunal’s Decision in Guatemalan Ganerals’, 1 J Int’l Criminal Justice (2003) 690; Peruvian Genocide Case, 42 ILM (2003) 1200 (Spain: Sup. Ct). However, in Sept. 2005, Spain’s Constitutional Tribunal found that there was no need for a nexus between Spain and the alleged incident for a complaint to be initiated, and that there was no need to show that prosecution would not take place in the state where the incident took place. See Guatemalan Genocide Case, Judgment No. 237/2005, available at:www.tribunalconstitucional.es/stc2005/STC2005-237.htm. See Roht-Azzaria, ‘Guatemala Genocide Case’, 100 AJIL (2006) 207.

  • 153 See Murphy, ‘U.S. Reaction to Belgian Universal Jurisdiction Law’, in ‘Contemporary Practice of the United States Relating to International Law’, supra note 17, at 984–987. In addition to the concerns expressed by the US Executive, Rep. Gary Ackerman in May 2003 introduced into the US Congress a bill entitled the ‘Universal Jurisdiction Rejection Act’, 2003 HR 2050. S. 3 of this bill states that ‘[i]t is the policy of the United States to reject any claim of universal jurisdiction made by foreign governments and to refuse to render any assistance or support to any foreign government pursuing an investigation or prosecution under a universal jurisdiction act’. See http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c108:1:./temp/∼c108p6Eiei::.

  • 154 See ‘Belgium’s Amendment to the Law of June 15, 1993 (as Amended by the Law of February 10, 1999 and April 23, 2003) Concerning the Punishment of Grave Breaches of Humanitarian Law’, 42 ILM (2003) 740. For analysis see Reydams, ‘Belgium Reneges on Universality: The 5 August 2003 Act on Grave Breaches of International Humanitarian Law’, 1 J Int’l Criminal Justice (2003) 679; Black, ‘Belgium Gives in to US on War Crimes Law’, The Guardian, 24 June 2003, at 13.

  • 155 See Reydams, supra note 148, at 223–226. O’Keefe, supra note 124, argues that as a matter of logic there cannot be a category of universal jurisdiction in absentia. This is a persuasive critique of much of the debate which has surrounded this topic since the Arrest Warrantcase. However, there is nothing to prevent state practice from developing a principle that universal jurisdiction cannot be enforced unless the alleged offender is present within the territory of the state seeking enforcement.

  • 156 See Arrest Warrant case, supra note 9, at para. 59.

  • 157 See Cassese, supra note 148, and Abi-Saab, ‘The Proper Role of Universal Jurisdiction’, 1 J Int’l Criminal Justice (2003) 596. O’Keefe,supra note 124, argues that, at the conceptual level, there is no distinction between the exercise of universal jurisdiction in absentiaand universal jurisdiction with presence.

  • 158 See, e.g., Van Panhuys, supra note 48, at 1206.

  • 159 See Dinstein, supra note 47, at 86–89.

  • 160 Former Syrian Ambassador to the German Democratic Republic case, Case No. 2 BvR 1516/96 (1997), 115 ILR 595, at 609–610, 613–614 (Germany: Federal Constitutional Ct).

  • 161 Wirth, ‘Immunities, Related Problems, and Article 98 of the Rome Statute’, 12 Criminal Law Forum (2001) 429, at 449.

  • 162 In a recent Italian case, it was held that three CIA agents who were accredited to the US Embassy in Rome benefited from diplomatic immunity in proceedings against them for the ‘extraordinary rendition’ of Abu Omar from Italian territory. Although the court did not address whether the abduction was an ‘international crime’, Judge Magi did affirm that ‘the activity of “extraordinary renditions” committed by CIA agents, albeit being a crime in Italy, may and should be understood within the functional ambit of Article 3 of the Vienna Convention [on Diplomatic Relations] (“Protecting in the receiving State the interests of the sending State”)’: Adler Monica Courtney and others, n. 12428/09, verdict of 4 Nov. 2009, judgment delivered by Dr Oscar Magi, registered on 1 Feb. 2010 (Italy Fourth Criminal Section of Milan Tribunal), II-93. See Akande, ‘The Conviction by an Italian Court of CIA Agents for Abduction – Some Issues Concerning Immunity’, Nov. 2009, available at: www.ejiltalk.org/the-conviction-by-an-italian-court-of-cia-agents-for-abduction-some-issues-concerning-immunity/. Messineo, ‘The Untidy Dystopias of anti-terrorism: Italian State Secrets, CIA Covert Operations, and the Criminal Law in the Abu Omar Judgment’, Aug. 2010, available at: www.ejiltalk.org/the-untidy-dystopias-of-anti-terrorism-italian-state-secrets-cia-covert-operations-and-the-criminal-law-in-the-abu-omar-judgment.

  • 163 Supra note 160, at 607.

  • 164 Ibid., at 610–613.

  • 165 The finding in ibid., at 613–614 that former diplomats do not possess even the immunity accorded to other former state officials is unconvincing. It is difficult to see why the immunity of the state ratione materiae will not apply where the official acting on behalf of the state was a former diplomat. See Fassbender, ‘Case Comment’, 92 AJIL(1998) 74.

  • 166 See the cases cited supra in notes 68–71.

  • 167 For recent discussion of the issue in the US see Samantar v. Yousuf, 130 S Ct 2278 (US Sup. Ct, 2010); Bradley and Goldsmith, ‘Foreign Sovereign Immunity, Individual Officials and Human Rights Litigation’, 13 Green Bag 2D (2009) 9; Keitner, ‘Officially Immune? A Response to Bradley and Goldsmith’, 36 Yale J Int’l L Online (2010); Keitner, ‘The Common Law of Foreign Official Immunity’, 13 Green Bag 2D (forthcoming 2010); Stephens, ‘The Modern Common Law of Foreign Official Immunity’, 79 Fordham LRev (forthcoming 2011).

  • 168 See Jones v. Saudi Arabia, supra note 52.

  • 169 Sosa v. Alvarez Machain, 542 US 692 (2004) (US Sup. Ct).

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This article was first published by Who What Why

The richest 20 Americans now own as much wealth as the country’s poorest 152 million people combined.

That is just one of the findings of noted inequality scholar and author Chuck Collins’s most recent report, “Billionaire Bonanza, The Forbes 400 and the Rest of Us.”

In a wide-ranging interview, which will be available in its entirety as a podcast tomorrow, Collins likened the current situation to the “Gilded Age,” the time just before the turn of the 20th century, when there was a similar accumulation of wealth at the top and political power was concentrated in the hands of a few rich men.

And Americans are slowly realizing that the extreme accumulation of wealth at the very top is hurting their own prospects.  But grassroots efforts to redress economic inequality must contend with the political power that comes with great wealth.

Wages have now been stagnant for three decades and the median wealth of Americans has actually declined since 1990. At the same time, the rich have gotten richer. A lot richer.

This is an unstable situation. With pressure building for change but potent forces stacked against it, there are only three options, Collins told WhoWhatWhy: “Realignment, revolution or repression.”

Rules Rigged, and the Rich Get Richer

Back in the Gilded Age, the country managed to convert the pressure that was building from the bottom up into meaningful changes that resulted in a realignment of political power and the rise of the middle class. Those gains, however, are now being reversed. In fact, a new report found that, for the first time in decades, the middle class no longerconstitutes the economic majority in the United States.

The shift toward increasing inequality began in the 1970s. At that time, Collins says (and research shows), “we stopped being an economy in which most people grew together” and instead became a “society that is dramatically pulled apart.”

Wages have now been stagnant for three decades and the median wealth of Americans has actually declined since 1990. At the same time, the rich have gotten richer. A lot richer.

Like the Great Depression in the early 1930s, the economic crisis of 2008 has been a wake-up call for the country. Polls historically have shown that people are indifferent to great wealth as long as they feel the rules are fair and that they at least have the option of moving up the ladder. But for many, the latest crash is changing that perception.

“In the economic meltdown of 2008, people realized the rules are rigged, that the big financial industry people … are tipping the scale in their favor,” Collins said. This has led to a perception that upward mobility in America is stalled — a perception supported by statistical data.

Collins believes that this sentiment has helped boost the candidacies of presidential hopefuls as diverse as Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders.

The collapsing middle class, including groups like recent college students whose prospects are blighted by crushing debt burdens, represents an “angry and mobilized constituency.” These are the people whose dissatisfactions are articulated by populists like Trump.

At the other end of the spectrum, the success of self-avowed “democratic socialist” Sanders shows how fluid the situation is. Collins pointed out that the Vermont senator has been saying the same things for 30 years — but only now are they resonating with a larger proportion of the electorate.

Collins pointed out that Sanders is the only major candidate who does not need a billionaire bankrolling his primary campaign to do well in the polls.

One bloc of voters who can cause a tectonic shift in the near future are millennials, many of whom are resentful of the obstacles they face in pursuing the American dream while paying off their college loans. With 40 million households shouldering a burden of $1.2 trillion in college debt, Collins believes that if this segment of the population were to organize, they could force significant change.

“Otherwise, the machinery of inequality will just keep chugging along as it currently is and it will get more concentrated,” Collins said. In any case, all of the ingredients are there for a major political realignment.

“We’re headed for a showdown.”

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Blocking Democracy as Syria’s Solution

December 14th, 2015 by Robert Parry

The solution to the crisis in Syria could be democracy – letting the people of Syria decide who they want as their leaders – but it is the Obama administration and its regional Sunni “allies,” including U.S.-armed militants and jihadists, that don’t want to risk a democratic solution because it might not achieve the long-held goal of “regime change.”

Some Syrian opposition forces, which were brought together under the auspices of the Saudi monarchy in Riyadh this past week, didn’t even want the word “democracy” included in their joint statement. The New York Times reported on Friday, “Islamist delegates objected to using the word ‘democracy’ in the final statement, so the term ‘democratic mechanism’ was used instead, according to a member of one such group who attended the meeting.”

Even that was too much for Ahrar al-Sham, one of the principal jihadist groups fighting side-by-side with Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front, the two key elements inside the Saudi-created Army of Conquest, which uses sophisticated U.S.-supplied TOW missiles to kill Syrian government troops.

Ahrar al-Sham announced its withdrawal from the Riyadh conference because the meeting didn’t “confirm the Muslim identity of our people.” Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has sought to maintain a secular government that protects the rights of Christians, Alawites, Shiites and other religious minorities, but Sunni militants have been fighting to overthrow him since 2011.

Despite Ahrar al-Sham’s rejection of the Saudi-organized conference, all the opposition participants, including one from Ahrar al-Sham who apparently wasn’t aware of his group’s announcement, signed the agreement, the Times reported.

“All parties signed a final statement that called for maintaining the unity of Syria and building a civil, representative government that would take charge after a transitional period, at the start of which Mr. Assad and his associates would step down,” wrote Times’ correspondent Ben Hubbard.

But the prospects of Assad and his government just agreeing to cede power to the opposition remains highly unlikely. An obvious alternative – favored by Assad and Russian President Vladimir Putin – is to achieve a ceasefire and then have internationally supervised elections in which the Syrian people could choose their own leaders.

Although President Barack Obama insists Assad is hated by most Syrians – and if that’s true, he would presumably lose any fair election – the U.S. position is to bar Assad from the ballot, thus ensuring “regime change” in Syria, a long-held goal of Official Washington’s neoconservatives.

In other words, to fulfill the neocons’ dream of Syrian “regime change,” the Obama administration is continuing the bloody Syrian conflict which has killed a quarter million people, has created an opening for Islamic State and Al Qaeda terrorists, and has driven millions of refugees into and through nearby countries, now destabilizing Europe and feeding xenophobia in the United States.

For his part, Assad called participants in the Saudi conference “terrorists” and rejected the idea of negotiating with them. “They want the Syrian government to negotiate with the terrorists, something I don’t think anyone would accept in any country,” Assad told Spanish journalists, as he repeated his position that many of the terrorists were backed by foreign governments and that he would only “deal with the real, patriotic national opposition.”

Kinks in the Process

Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters on Friday that he was in contact with senior Saudi officials and noted, “there are some questions and obviously a couple of – in our judgment – kinks to be worked out” though expressing confidence that the problems could be resolved.

A key problem appears to be that the Obama administration has so demonized Assad and so bought into the neocon goal of “regime change” that Obama doesn’t feel that he can back down on his “Assad must go!” mantra. Yet, to force Assad out and bar him from running in an election means escalating the war by either further arming the Sunni jihadists or mounting a larger-scale invasion of Syria with the U.S. military confronting Syrian and now Russian forces to establish what is euphemistically called “a safe zone” inside Syria. A related “no-fly zone” would require destroying Syrian air defenses, now supplied by the Russians.

Obama has largely followed the first course of action, allowing Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and other Sunni “allies” to funnel U.S. weapons to jihadists, including Ahrar al-Sham which fights alongside Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front as the two seek to transform Syria into a Islamic fundamentalist state, a goal shared by Al Qaeda’s spinoff (and now rival), the Islamic State.

Retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, the former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, has termed Obama’s choice of aiding the jihadists a “willful decision,” even in the face of DIA warnings about the likely rise of the Islamic State and other extremists.

In August 2012, DIA described the danger in a classified report, which noted that “The salafist, the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI [Al Qaeda in Iraq, later ISI or ISIS and then the Islamic State] are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria.” The report also said that “If the situation unravels there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared salafist principality in eastern Syria” and that “ISI could also declare an Islamic State through its union with other terrorist organizations in Iraq and Syria.”

Despite these risks, Obama continued to insist that “Assad must go!” and let his administration whip up a propaganda campaign around claims that Assad’s forces launched a sarin gas attack outside Damascus on Aug. 21, 2013. Though many of the U.S. claims about that attack have since been discredited – and later evidenceimplicated radical jihadists (possibly collaborating with Turkish intelligence) trying to trick the U.S. military into intervening on their side – the Obama administration did not retract or clarify its initial claims.

By demonizing Assad – much like the demonization of Russian President Putin – Obama may feel that he is deploying “soft power” propaganda to put foreign adversaries on the defensive while also solidifying his political support inside hawkish U.S. opinion circles, but false narratives can take on a life of their own and make rational settlements difficult if not impossible.

Now, even though the Syrian crisis has become a tsunami threatening to engulf Europe with a refugee crisis and the United States with anti-Muslim hysteria, Obama can’t accept the most obvious solution: compel all reasonable sides to accept a ceasefire and hold an internationally supervised election in which anyone who wants to lead the country can stand before the voters.

If Obama is right about the widespread hatred of Assad, then there should be nothing to worry about. The Syrian people will dictate “regime change” through the ballot box.

Democracy – supposedly one of the U.S. government’s goals for Middle East countries – can be the answer to the problem. However, since democracy can be an unpredictable process, it might not guarantee “regime change” which apparently makes democracy an unsuitable solution for Syria.

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com). 

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The Global Economic Crossroads

ASEAN’s solid growth in the past few decades has made it an enviable partner for many, and the economic bloc has entered into several high-profile free trade agreements (FTAs) in the past couple of years. As of the end of 2015, it has bilateral FTAs with Australia and New ZealandChinaIndiaJapan, and South Korea, essentially making it the formal economic crossroads between these leading world economies. Furthermore, it’s currently engaged in free trade negotiations with the EU and the Eurasian Union, which if ultimately sealed, would give ASEAN free trade rights with almost the entirety of the supercontinent with the exception of the Mideast and a small handful of other countries. With the convergence of so many economic interests over ASEAN, it’s only a matter of time before this smattering of bilateral agreements is expanded into a multilateral framework that progressively includes each of the given parties.

Such an arrangement would represent a major victory for Eurasia and the multipolar world because it would tie each of the Great Powers together and make them collectively more interdependent on one another than either of them individually would be with the US. This is obviously a long-term vision and isn’t something that can be actualized in the scope of just a few years, but the path is already being paved the closer that ASEAN comes to inking free trade deals with the EU and the Eurasian Union. The increasingly intertwined FTAs that these respective economic partners reach with one another will inevitably bring them all closer together with time, despite existing political and structural differences between some of them such as the current American-dictated chill in the EU’s relations with the Eurasian Union.

TTIP Tramples Everything

If given the chance to behave freely, the EU would likely intensify bilateral ties with the Eurasian Union as evidenced by Junker’s late-November 2015 outreach to the bloc, but US grand strategy has always been based on keeping the two divided, hence the manufactured Ukrainian Crisis and subsequently planned New Cold War. Should a breakthrough in bilateral relations occur, perhaps due to the structural changes that Balkan Stream and the Balkan Silk Road would generate inside the EU if either of them is successfully completed, then it’s probable that their overlapping economic interests in ASEAN (independently negotiated up until that point) could represent the perfect catalyst for banding together and formalizing a larger and more inclusive economic framework between all actors. The reasoning behind this is because the current American-attributed deterioration of EU-Eurasian Union relations is the only ‘non-natural’ structural impediment preventing all of the supercontinent’s trade blocs from cooperating on the all-inclusive scale suggested above.

From the American strategic standpoint, however, this would represent the ultimate failure of its divide-and-rule policy in Eurasia, and it’s for this institutional reason why the US is so adamant about pursuing the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) with the EU. In the event that this neo-imperialist proposal ever enters into force, then the US would have the dominant say in deciding whether its junior EU ‘partner’ is allowed to continue its existing free trade negotiations with Japan andIndia. More likely than not, it would indefinitely freeze these already-stalled processes in order to consolidate its economic control over the bloc, and only after it exercises indisputable control over it will Washington allow the talks to proceed. By that point, the goal would be to link TTIP and the TPP (which will be expanded upon shortly, but whose Asian component will be led by Japan) together to make the US the institutionally essential actor between them, and then complete the unipolar-dominated economic envelopment of Eurasia by bringing India into the mix to some capacity.

"Stop Fast Track" rally in Washington D.C., April 2015.

“Stop Fast Track” rally in Washington D.C., April 2015.

This strategy is contingent on the US using the New Cold War hype that it’s created to scare its partners into agreeing to the TTIP and TPP out of the manufactured perception that they need to contain Russia and China, respectively. In the scenario being describe above, if the US doesn’t succeed in pushing through TTIP and the EU independently aligns itself with either of those major Asian economies (let alone that it begins free trade negotiations with China), then the US could rapidly lose its present preeminence over the EU economy.

In a short time, Brussels might finally come to the conclusion that everyone else in the world has already arrived at and realize that the future of the global economy rests in the East, not the West, and enter into wider and freer trading relations with the rest of its prospective partners. This would of course naturally include Russia and the Eurasian Union, and with the two economies already converging on their own as it would be (remembering that it’s only because of American-attributed political impediments that they aren’t doing so already), it’s foreseeable that they could coordinate their respective FTAs with ASEAN as a final stepping stone before engaging in a similar one amongst themselves.

Multilateral Backup Plans

As positive of a picture as the above section paints, it probably won’t happen for at least the coming decade, if at all, seeing how serious the US is in ‘playing for keeps’ within the New Cold War rivalry. Whether through the institutional workings of the TTIP or outside of it via more unscrupulous measures if the said agreement isn’t passed by that time, the US will do everything in its power to prevent the EU from expanding its independent economic relations with the Eurasian Union, China, and ASEAN. It might potentially be allowed to deepen its ties with Japan and India (per the unipolar grand strategy described previously), but even that is debatable unless the US feels assured enough that it can maintain control over the bloc after those prospective agreements are clinched. It probably wouldn’t have the confidence to do so unless it formally controlled the EU through TTIP, thus making these potential free trade areas unlikely, at least in the short- to medium-term timeframes, barring of course any unexpected geopolitical shifts. For the most part, then, the EU can be safely discounted from any serious discussions about intra-Eurasian free trade zones, but that doesn’t mean that such dreams should be discouraged simply because the bloc realistically can’t take part in them for a while (if at all).

TPPRCEPChartRCEP And FTAAP:

To compensate for the expected non-participation of the EU inside the envisioned multipolar economic frameworks, a few modified proposals have been suggested. Two of the most talked about are the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership(RCEP) and the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP), both of which are actively supported by China. The RCEP is the formalization of a multilateral FTA between ASEAN and each of its already-existing free trade partners (Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea), while the FTAAP takes things a lot further and proposes a grandiose free trade zone among all the countries that constitute the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, thereby including Russia, the US, and a few other Western Hemispheric countries but at the expense of a full free trade deal with ASEAN as a whole (Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia are not APEC members).

Nevertheless, it’s still significant that most of the countries within the bloc would be participants in that framework, highlighting just how important ASEAN economies are for transregional free trade deals nowadays. At the same time, however, the inclusion of the US would greatly erode the multipolar flexibility of the intended grouping and turn it into more of an apolitical economic organization that can’t be used in a relative way to weaken the US’ unipolar standing. It’s probable that Russia and China only support this idea so as to score political points of their own in contrasting it with the US’ exclusionary TPP plans that threaten to undermine both Great Powers’ existing trade connections and future opportunities with the involved states.

Russia’s Vision For GEFTA:

The latest proposal to be brought up for creating a multilateral transregional trading bloc came from Russia and was pronounced during President Putin’s Address to the Federal Assembly on 4 December, 2015. The Russian leader announced his country’s intention to form an economic partnership between the Eurasian Union, ASEAN, and SCO states (including the two ascending members of India and Pakistan), arguing that the new organization would “make up nearly a third of the global economy in terms of purchasing power parity.” This is the most realistic of the three suggestions and the most likely to be implemented in practice. China already has a FTA with Pakistan(the ‘zipper’ of Eurasian integration), and the Eurasian Union is exploring the possibility of sealing similar deals with India and official SCO-prospect Iran. Of note, Russia and China are also engaged in a trilateral partnership with Mongolia that could predictably become a free trade area sometime in the future as well.

Assuming that Moscow will be successful in reaching these (and there’s no reason to doubt that at the moment), then joining the Eurasian Union and the SCO together in an economic partnership would be a natural fit, with ASEAN offering a perfect complementary touch that would economically excite all of the members. Furthermore, India and Pakistan’s inclusion into the discussed framework would likely lead to the rest of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC, and which has its own internal free trade area) joining in as well, which would then push the proposed organization’s ranks to also include Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, the Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. Taken together, Russia’s vision amounts to a Grand Eurasian Free Trade Area (GEFTA) that’s supposed to encompass the vast majority of Asia and one day merge with the EU, with the notable exclusions for now obviously being the European economies (both EU and non-EU-member states), the Mideast (except for perhaps Syria and Israel [an odd combination to be sure, but pursued forentirely separate reasons]), the Koreas, and Japan.

The Indian Impediment Opens Up An ASEAN Opportunity

Even assuming a minimum of external (American) interference in trying to offset Russia’s vision, it’s foreseeable that India will present a major challenge for GEFTA’s implementation. India and China are engaged in a very intense security dilemma at the moment that neither side publicly wants to acknowledge, and under such conditions, it’s not likely that either of them is serious about pursuing a FTA with the other. From New Delhi’s perspective, India has no motivation whatsoever to sacrifice what it feels to be its national economic interests by entering into a FTA with China, no matter if it’s in RCEP or GEFTA. Relating to RCEP, India already has FTAs with Japan and South Korea, and it doesn’t believe that including Australia and New Zealand into the proposed multilateral framework would compensate for the economic unbalancing that it thinks it would experience through the tariff-free trade with China that it would have to agree to as part of the deal. With respect to GEFTA, the concerns are very similar. India is currently in a free trade relationship with ASEAN and might eventually enter into one with Iran after the latter proposed such an idea in spring 2015. With progress looking quite positive in reaching a free trade deal with the Eurasian Union one day soon, India doesn’t see any need to jump into GEFTA when it’s already all but assured to receive every benefit that it would be seeking out of the arrangement minus the foreseen complications that would happen if it has to do so with China as well (and to which its leadership presently sees no benefit).

India’s expected absence from GEFTA doesn’t translate into the vision’s failure, but it does raise its dependency on ASEAN’s inclusion in order to be geopolitically broad-based enough to become a defining point in the global economy. By itself, the Eurasian Union and its bilateral free trade arrangements are positive developments in and of themselves, especially if they lead to a prospective Eurasian Union-China FTA that multilaterally incorporates the other deals reached prior to that point (such as with Iran), but multipolarity would be infinitely more enhanced through the addition of ASEAN to this accord. Vietnam is already party to such a deal with the Eurasian Union, and even though it’s a robust component of the bloc’s partnership portfolio, its mutual potential pales in comparison to if both economic groupings had their own inclusive bloc-to-bloc pact. One of the steps in advancing this possibility would be for Russia to make efficient use out of ASEAN’s SEZs in Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia in order to reach individual FTAs with the rest of the organization’s mainland members (including Thailand, whom Medvedev offered the possibility to in spring 2015) so that they can collectively lobby their insular counterparts in this direction.

To be continued…

Andrew Korybko is the American political commentaror currently working for the Sputnik agency, exclusively for ORIENTAL REVIEW. This article is a select chapter from his second book that will focus on the geopolitical application of Hybrid Wars.

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The Global Economic Crossroads

ASEAN’s solid growth in the past few decades has made it an enviable partner for many, and the economic bloc has entered into several high-profile free trade agreements (FTAs) in the past couple of years. As of the end of 2015, it has bilateral FTAs with Australia and New ZealandChinaIndiaJapan, and South Korea, essentially making it the formal economic crossroads between these leading world economies. Furthermore, it’s currently engaged in free trade negotiations with the EU and the Eurasian Union, which if ultimately sealed, would give ASEAN free trade rights with almost the entirety of the supercontinent with the exception of the Mideast and a small handful of other countries. With the convergence of so many economic interests over ASEAN, it’s only a matter of time before this smattering of bilateral agreements is expanded into a multilateral framework that progressively includes each of the given parties.

Such an arrangement would represent a major victory for Eurasia and the multipolar world because it would tie each of the Great Powers together and make them collectively more interdependent on one another than either of them individually would be with the US. This is obviously a long-term vision and isn’t something that can be actualized in the scope of just a few years, but the path is already being paved the closer that ASEAN comes to inking free trade deals with the EU and the Eurasian Union. The increasingly intertwined FTAs that these respective economic partners reach with one another will inevitably bring them all closer together with time, despite existing political and structural differences between some of them such as the current American-dictated chill in the EU’s relations with the Eurasian Union.

TTIP Tramples Everything

If given the chance to behave freely, the EU would likely intensify bilateral ties with the Eurasian Union as evidenced by Junker’s late-November 2015 outreach to the bloc, but US grand strategy has always been based on keeping the two divided, hence the manufactured Ukrainian Crisis and subsequently planned New Cold War. Should a breakthrough in bilateral relations occur, perhaps due to the structural changes that Balkan Stream and the Balkan Silk Road would generate inside the EU if either of them is successfully completed, then it’s probable that their overlapping economic interests in ASEAN (independently negotiated up until that point) could represent the perfect catalyst for banding together and formalizing a larger and more inclusive economic framework between all actors. The reasoning behind this is because the current American-attributed deterioration of EU-Eurasian Union relations is the only ‘non-natural’ structural impediment preventing all of the supercontinent’s trade blocs from cooperating on the all-inclusive scale suggested above.

From the American strategic standpoint, however, this would represent the ultimate failure of its divide-and-rule policy in Eurasia, and it’s for this institutional reason why the US is so adamant about pursuing the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) with the EU. In the event that this neo-imperialist proposal ever enters into force, then the US would have the dominant say in deciding whether its junior EU ‘partner’ is allowed to continue its existing free trade negotiations with Japan andIndia. More likely than not, it would indefinitely freeze these already-stalled processes in order to consolidate its economic control over the bloc, and only after it exercises indisputable control over it will Washington allow the talks to proceed. By that point, the goal would be to link TTIP and the TPP (which will be expanded upon shortly, but whose Asian component will be led by Japan) together to make the US the institutionally essential actor between them, and then complete the unipolar-dominated economic envelopment of Eurasia by bringing India into the mix to some capacity.

"Stop Fast Track" rally in Washington D.C., April 2015.

“Stop Fast Track” rally in Washington D.C., April 2015.

This strategy is contingent on the US using the New Cold War hype that it’s created to scare its partners into agreeing to the TTIP and TPP out of the manufactured perception that they need to contain Russia and China, respectively. In the scenario being describe above, if the US doesn’t succeed in pushing through TTIP and the EU independently aligns itself with either of those major Asian economies (let alone that it begins free trade negotiations with China), then the US could rapidly lose its present preeminence over the EU economy.

In a short time, Brussels might finally come to the conclusion that everyone else in the world has already arrived at and realize that the future of the global economy rests in the East, not the West, and enter into wider and freer trading relations with the rest of its prospective partners. This would of course naturally include Russia and the Eurasian Union, and with the two economies already converging on their own as it would be (remembering that it’s only because of American-attributed political impediments that they aren’t doing so already), it’s foreseeable that they could coordinate their respective FTAs with ASEAN as a final stepping stone before engaging in a similar one amongst themselves.

Multilateral Backup Plans

As positive of a picture as the above section paints, it probably won’t happen for at least the coming decade, if at all, seeing how serious the US is in ‘playing for keeps’ within the New Cold War rivalry. Whether through the institutional workings of the TTIP or outside of it via more unscrupulous measures if the said agreement isn’t passed by that time, the US will do everything in its power to prevent the EU from expanding its independent economic relations with the Eurasian Union, China, and ASEAN. It might potentially be allowed to deepen its ties with Japan and India (per the unipolar grand strategy described previously), but even that is debatable unless the US feels assured enough that it can maintain control over the bloc after those prospective agreements are clinched. It probably wouldn’t have the confidence to do so unless it formally controlled the EU through TTIP, thus making these potential free trade areas unlikely, at least in the short- to medium-term timeframes, barring of course any unexpected geopolitical shifts. For the most part, then, the EU can be safely discounted from any serious discussions about intra-Eurasian free trade zones, but that doesn’t mean that such dreams should be discouraged simply because the bloc realistically can’t take part in them for a while (if at all).

TPPRCEPChartRCEP And FTAAP:

To compensate for the expected non-participation of the EU inside the envisioned multipolar economic frameworks, a few modified proposals have been suggested. Two of the most talked about are the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership(RCEP) and the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP), both of which are actively supported by China. The RCEP is the formalization of a multilateral FTA between ASEAN and each of its already-existing free trade partners (Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea), while the FTAAP takes things a lot further and proposes a grandiose free trade zone among all the countries that constitute the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, thereby including Russia, the US, and a few other Western Hemispheric countries but at the expense of a full free trade deal with ASEAN as a whole (Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia are not APEC members).

Nevertheless, it’s still significant that most of the countries within the bloc would be participants in that framework, highlighting just how important ASEAN economies are for transregional free trade deals nowadays. At the same time, however, the inclusion of the US would greatly erode the multipolar flexibility of the intended grouping and turn it into more of an apolitical economic organization that can’t be used in a relative way to weaken the US’ unipolar standing. It’s probable that Russia and China only support this idea so as to score political points of their own in contrasting it with the US’ exclusionary TPP plans that threaten to undermine both Great Powers’ existing trade connections and future opportunities with the involved states.

Russia’s Vision For GEFTA:

The latest proposal to be brought up for creating a multilateral transregional trading bloc came from Russia and was pronounced during President Putin’s Address to the Federal Assembly on 4 December, 2015. The Russian leader announced his country’s intention to form an economic partnership between the Eurasian Union, ASEAN, and SCO states (including the two ascending members of India and Pakistan), arguing that the new organization would “make up nearly a third of the global economy in terms of purchasing power parity.” This is the most realistic of the three suggestions and the most likely to be implemented in practice. China already has a FTA with Pakistan(the ‘zipper’ of Eurasian integration), and the Eurasian Union is exploring the possibility of sealing similar deals with India and official SCO-prospect Iran. Of note, Russia and China are also engaged in a trilateral partnership with Mongolia that could predictably become a free trade area sometime in the future as well.

Assuming that Moscow will be successful in reaching these (and there’s no reason to doubt that at the moment), then joining the Eurasian Union and the SCO together in an economic partnership would be a natural fit, with ASEAN offering a perfect complementary touch that would economically excite all of the members. Furthermore, India and Pakistan’s inclusion into the discussed framework would likely lead to the rest of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC, and which has its own internal free trade area) joining in as well, which would then push the proposed organization’s ranks to also include Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, the Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. Taken together, Russia’s vision amounts to a Grand Eurasian Free Trade Area (GEFTA) that’s supposed to encompass the vast majority of Asia and one day merge with the EU, with the notable exclusions for now obviously being the European economies (both EU and non-EU-member states), the Mideast (except for perhaps Syria and Israel [an odd combination to be sure, but pursued forentirely separate reasons]), the Koreas, and Japan.

The Indian Impediment Opens Up An ASEAN Opportunity

Even assuming a minimum of external (American) interference in trying to offset Russia’s vision, it’s foreseeable that India will present a major challenge for GEFTA’s implementation. India and China are engaged in a very intense security dilemma at the moment that neither side publicly wants to acknowledge, and under such conditions, it’s not likely that either of them is serious about pursuing a FTA with the other. From New Delhi’s perspective, India has no motivation whatsoever to sacrifice what it feels to be its national economic interests by entering into a FTA with China, no matter if it’s in RCEP or GEFTA. Relating to RCEP, India already has FTAs with Japan and South Korea, and it doesn’t believe that including Australia and New Zealand into the proposed multilateral framework would compensate for the economic unbalancing that it thinks it would experience through the tariff-free trade with China that it would have to agree to as part of the deal. With respect to GEFTA, the concerns are very similar. India is currently in a free trade relationship with ASEAN and might eventually enter into one with Iran after the latter proposed such an idea in spring 2015. With progress looking quite positive in reaching a free trade deal with the Eurasian Union one day soon, India doesn’t see any need to jump into GEFTA when it’s already all but assured to receive every benefit that it would be seeking out of the arrangement minus the foreseen complications that would happen if it has to do so with China as well (and to which its leadership presently sees no benefit).

India’s expected absence from GEFTA doesn’t translate into the vision’s failure, but it does raise its dependency on ASEAN’s inclusion in order to be geopolitically broad-based enough to become a defining point in the global economy. By itself, the Eurasian Union and its bilateral free trade arrangements are positive developments in and of themselves, especially if they lead to a prospective Eurasian Union-China FTA that multilaterally incorporates the other deals reached prior to that point (such as with Iran), but multipolarity would be infinitely more enhanced through the addition of ASEAN to this accord. Vietnam is already party to such a deal with the Eurasian Union, and even though it’s a robust component of the bloc’s partnership portfolio, its mutual potential pales in comparison to if both economic groupings had their own inclusive bloc-to-bloc pact. One of the steps in advancing this possibility would be for Russia to make efficient use out of ASEAN’s SEZs in Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia in order to reach individual FTAs with the rest of the organization’s mainland members (including Thailand, whom Medvedev offered the possibility to in spring 2015) so that they can collectively lobby their insular counterparts in this direction.

To be continued…

Andrew Korybko is the American political commentaror currently working for the Sputnik agency, exclusively for ORIENTAL REVIEW. This article is a select chapter from his second book that will focus on the geopolitical application of Hybrid Wars.

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Erdogan’s Strikes in the Dark and Russia’s Thousand Stings

December 14th, 2015 by Dr. Anthony F. Shaker

Russia knows well why Turkey shot down one of its warplanes in hot pursuit. Like Saudi Arabia, the emirate minions and Israel, Turkey of course has been losing its most prized pieces inside Syria–an assortment of the most violent jihadi and ultranationalist elements. The process may be systematic and limited for now, but the losses for the Wahhabi terroists are truly mind-boggling. Their scale testifies to the vast infrastructure of terror, murder and theft built up with billions of petrodollars.

Until now, the Syro-Russian-Iranian strategy seems to be to secure government-held areas, seal off the borders with Turkey, Jordan and Israel, now that the border with Lebanon is mostly impassable for the terrorists. Sealed in, all the foreign and foreign-controlled terrorist outfits will be more effectively pulled out by their roots.

Russia knows that Turkey simply wanted to complicate its unenviable task in Syria by introducing new, unexpected risks in the sky. But this has not really complicated Russia’s declared first strategic mission to crush Turkey’s pieces and the rest of the foreign Wahhabi presence in Syria. The difference now is that Russia is more determined than ever.

The second goal, in that order, is to ensure proper negotiations take place between the Syrian government and whatever Syrian opposition exists, leaving out the foreign or foreign-controlled outfits around which the West has been dancing. Hence the maneuvering at the Ryadh “opposition” conference to rehabilitate those same Wahhabi terrorists by any means, and the continued demand for the overthrow of the Syrian government, despite the fact that the terrorists are being erased on the battlefield.

The cooperation of some elements of the so-called Free Syria Army with Russia has already begun to produce good results in the fight to dislodge the Wahhabis. This cooperation has extended to coordination on the ground with the Syrian government army itself. In other words, Russia is already wrenching away pieces that the United States to this day pretends are its “allies” and which Britain insists are the fictitious “70,000 troops” ready to assist it against ISIL.

At any rate, Putin has been keen to raise the ante with Turkey with the painful economic sanctions he has so far slapped, a temporary tit-for-tat to make sure nobody fantasizes about the smell of Russian blood and be tempted to repeat Turkey’s “stab in the back.” But hurt Turkey he absolutely will–one step at a time. For starters, he will do it by enabling the Syrian army and the region’s republican forces to crush the Wahhabi terrorist plague in Syria. Further measures will depend on Turkey’s future actions and policy, which apparently are now going off the rails even inside NATO. The Turkish troop-incursion fiasco in Iraq this week is a clear example of desperation.

Then there is the case of Saudi Arabia. It is presently in dire straights in Yemen. Just this week it lost the eighth “Coalition” ship off the coast to Yemeni forces allied to Ansarullah Party led by the Houthis. It is financially exhausted because of this misadventure and diplomatically so isolated that pressure has mounted fast right up to the United Nations Security Council, as we hear today regarding an upcoming discussion of the Yemen. The United States itself has been privately expressing grave concern about the course of its operations.

In hindsight, Saudi Arabia has been planning for decades with Israel to topple every secular republican government and movement, from Syria to Tunisia, in fulfillment of an original plan dreamed up by Britain and France before World War II. For decades, the Saudi monarchy has been on board with that plan to balkanize the Middle East into religio-ethnic enclaves in order to guarantee the survival of the Zionist race colony and to finish with that “troublesome business” of Palestine.

Clearly, Israel is the centerpiece in this unfolding regional drama.

Continuing to trample this wild dream to dust, one that’s more fit for the wild animals, is thus the most effective response that Russia could undertake. This is the same addle-brained balkanization scheme that Bush and his Neocon gang (re: Israel lobby) revived on the pretext of 9-11. But if the United States persists in it, thinking it can redesign the Middle East in its own image, it will go down the tubes even faster than it presently is.

Nothing is going well for either the US or its retrograde allies.

Anthony F. ShakerVisiting Scholar, Institute of Islamic Studies
McGill University 
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Turkey’s Role in Iraq – Precursor to War?

December 14th, 2015 by Peter Koenig

What is Turkey doing in Iraq? Who invited them? Who incited them to shoot down the Russian SU-24? – The answer is the same. The Pentagon / NATO gang of aggressors. They found that Turkey is the perfect patsy for this type of operation. Erdogan’s corruption and greed make him a vulnerable pawn. He and his family are sucking up cheap Daesh / ISIS oil stolen from Syria and Iraq and ‘smuggled’ into the open gates of Turkey, where it is whitewashed so to speak and sold to the world, including to Israel. Exact amounts are not known, but are estimated in the billions of dollars since the Islamic State’s occupation of Northern Iraq and parts of Syria in 2014. Erdogan is also a megalomaniac – dreaming of expanding his influence in the region – and of a new Ottoman empire.

On 3 December Turkey deployed a few hundred troops and 25 tanks to Bashiqa just north of Mosul, the center of an oil rich region, an ISIS stronghold. The reason, the Turkish Defense Minister claims, is to train Kurdish Peshmerga and Arab fighters against ISIS. Ahmet Davuloglu, Turkish Prime Minister, says his country’s troops have been in Bashiqa since March 2015 with the consent of the Kurdistan Regional Government. Despite this presence – or because of it, Turkey being a key supporter of the Islamic State – Mosul, the oil-rich capital of Iraq’s Niniveh Province and the heartland of Kurdistan fell to ISIS in June 2015.

Turkey’s real motives may be securing and controlling northern Iraq, an area rich of petroleum and homeland of Kurdistan and much more importantly – pleasing the Washington masters who want Turkey on behalf of NATO to interfere with Russia’s air force fighting the Islamic State.

This war tactic against Russia by proxy was also applied when the US and Saudi air force guided Turkish F-16 fighters to ambush one of Russia’s two SU-24 on 24 November 2015

(http://www.globalresearch.ca/bombshell-the-turkish-assault-on-russias-su-24-was-guided-by-the-us-air-force/5493075).

What proxy – Turkey being a NATO member? – But Turkey also being a loose cannon, her acts of aggression against Russia may be sidelined by NATO.

On 3 December Iraq’s Prime Minister and Commander in Chief said clearly, “I did not ask any country to send foreign ground troops and we will [consider] any sent as hostile act.” He categorically rejected such action as an infringement on Iraq’s sovereignty and asked Turkey for immediate withdrawal of her troops.

Russia asked the UN Security Council to discuss Turkish military action in Iraq and Syria. Washington waffled, not knowing what to say, other than this was an issue to be resolved between Iraq and Turkey. See also how State Department’s spokesman John Kirby insults an RT journalist, who simply asked about Washington’s reaction to the Turkish invasion of sovereign Iraq.

So far nothing has changed. Iraqi protesters demonstrate against Turkish military presence in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square. But Turkey remains steadfast in northern Iraq, knowing that she has the full, if tacit, support of Washington and NATO – and the Saudi’s for that matter.

If Turkey shoots down a Russian plane it’s called a ‘blunder’ in the western media. If it were a more serious NATO partner like the UK, France or Germany, not to mention the US, it might even in the western public opinion become an act of aggression – an escalation towards WWIII. Turkish acts of aggression on Russia are just minor provocations, hoping Russia will fall into the trap of retaliating and starting a direct East-West confrontation.

Not to forget, Erdogan, once an ally and friend of President Assad, is a staunch supporter of the US policy doctrine that Bashar al-Assad must be removed. Isn’t it amazing how money and power can change friendships? It is reminiscent of then President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, who enjoyed financial support from Mohammed Gaddafi, yet was the initiator of the NATO attack on Libya in March 2011 which led to the horrendous murder of the Libyan leader and many of his family members.

Our western world has become a theatre of lies and deceit. Nothing is ‘mistake’ or ‘blunder’. All is well planned with a nefarious objective of full dominance by consent of the common citizen. Propaganda of terror with increasing numbers of false flags throughout the western world, are terrorizing the people with fear. Innocent people have to be killed, including invented attackers, thus subjugating the public into submission, or worse, into asking for police protection in the form of ever more repressive measures.

The latest false flag comes in the form of a warning: On 10 December the US Embassy in Switzerland warned US citizens residing in Switzerland, particularly in Geneva to be vigilant for a possible terror attack. Some Jihadists from the Paris 13 November attack may have escaped to Geneva. By inference, the Swiss Government had to take this warning seriously, lest some bought Islamists may have indeed caused terror in Geneva – leaving the city and Switzerland under a ‘We told you so’ blame.

Today, with due diligence and justifying the alert, Geneva police have arrested two ‘suspects’ – curiously with Syrian passports, whose homes have allegedly been searched and – oh wonder – a considerable cache of weapons and explosives was apprehended.

The people will never know the truth, because that’s police secret.

There is hardly a secure place any more in the western monotheistic Christian world – secure from false flags and lies and media manipulation – and secure from being killed in one of these necessary false flag attacks that justify large scale reprisals – like bombing Syria into rubble – pushing 11 million Syrians into homelessness and more than 4 million into becoming international refugees, ‘invading’ the countries of their hangmen, NATO countries, asking for mercy and shelter.

What an absurd world we are living in. Absurdity has become the norm of the day – of our despicable lives. That’s what we convey to our children – the next generation. The new normal, living in terror, artificially made terror to fear-beat as many into submission, for the Global Big Dictator with headquarters in Washington and a succursale in Tel Aviv to fast-step to full world hegemony.

In the meantime the Pentagon announces an expansion of its global network of military bases. Unnamed Pentagon officials told the New York Times on 9 December that

The US Defense Department (DOD) is preparing to expand its global network of military bases by establishing a new “string” of bases in countries stretching from Africa to East Asia, unnamed Pentagon officials told the New York Times Wednesday. The enlarged US basing arrangements will include at least four new large-scale bases or “hubs,” including new facilities in East Africa and West Africa and Afghanistan, along with a greater number of smaller camps or “spokes.” The new bases, which the Pentagon describes as “enduring” bases, will host forces ranging from dozens of commandos up to 5,000 soldiers at the largest hubs.

When do we wake up to stop the monster?

Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a former World Bank staff and worked extensively around the world in the fields of environment and water resources. He writes regularly for Global Research, ICH, RT, Sputnik, PressTV, CounterPunch, TeleSur, The Vineyard of The Saker Blog, and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance

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A Saudi-led plan to draw “moderate” Syrian opposition groups into a unified political front collapsed on Wednesday when a powerful Islamic militia refused to participate in the meetings after their demands were rejected.  Ahrar al-Sham, a hardcore amalgam of Wahhabi extremists and fanatical jihadis, withdrew from the anti-Assad confab because, according to the Washington Post:  “some of its comments and recommendations have been disregarded at the meeting.”

Not surprisingly, the Post failed to explain exactly what those “comments and recommendations” were.  The reason for this is easy to understand. The media doesn’t want the American people to know that the so called  “moderate” militias their government is backing are actually homicidal maniacs who are determined to topple a secular government and replace it with an Islamic Caliphate.  Here are a few of the group’s demands which have not appeared in any of the western media:

1 All Iranian and Russian military personnel must leave Syria.

2 The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) should be disbanded, along with their paramilitary units.

3 Syria will become an Islamic state.

4 No negotiations with the Syrian Government.

5 Fighting ISIS is secondary because rebels have lost family members because of the war with the Syrian Army.

6 A secular Syria will only empower ISIS

(“Largest Rebel Group Calls for an Islamic State in Syria“, Almasdarnews)

Ahrar al-Sham is anything but moderate. According to the Telegraph, “the group was established by Islamists and originally included internationally known jihadists with long-standing ties to al-Qaeda.” The group receives significant financial support from Saudi Arabia which is a country that is vehemently opposed to democratic government, which has a long history of support for terrorist organizations, and where citizens convicted of sorcery can face beheading. The whole idea of holding these phony negotiations in the terrorist capital of the planet is laughable.

According to the New York Times: “All parties signed a final statement that called for maintaining the unity of Syria and building a civil, representative government that would take charge after a transitional period, at the start of which Mr. Assad and his associates would step down.” (“Syrian rebels form bloc for new round of peace talks“, New York Times)

That sounds impressive, but what the Times fails to mention is that all of these conditions were inserted into previous agreements (Geneva) and insisted upon by Russia and Iran. If democracy prevails in Syria, it will be because the Russian’s and Iranians refused to accept anything less.

Here’s more from the New York Times: 

In two days of meetings hosted by the Saudi government that ended Thursday, more than 100 opposition leaders created a new high commission to oversee negotiations with the government….The high commission contains 33 members, about one-third representing armed factions. It will select a negotiating team of 15 people to face the Assad government at talks that could begin in January….

Mohammed Baerakdar, a representative of the Islam Army, one of the armed brigades, said that foreign military support had not been enough to ensure victory so the group had to pursue a political solution.

“We did not take up arms to spill blood,” he said. “We took up arms to spare blood.” (New York Times)

The ” high commission” is not going to have any impact on future negotiations because its leaders don’t represent the most powerful groups of fighters on the ground. The most powerful groups are the Syrian Arab Army (SAA), Jahbat al Nusra (and other al Qaida-linked militias), ISIS and the Kurdish People’s Protection Units or YPG.  None of these groups participated in the Saudi talks even though their delegates will eventually play a big role in determining the country’s future.

As for Baerakdar’s claim that, “We did not take up arms to spill blood. We took up arms to spare blood.” That is transparently false. In fact, most of the fighters active in Syria today, are foreigners that are funded, armed, and trained by Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the US. Their job is to tear the country to shreds in order to topple Assad, replace him with a compliant stooge, and divide the state in a way that best serves the commercial and strategic interests of the three main perpetrators.

The idea that prominent western media like the New York Times and the Washington Post would take these Saudi-led meetings seriously is simply mindboggling.  Does anyone need to be reminded that 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9-11 were from Saudi Arabia, or that Saudi royals have been arming and funding terrorist organizations for the last 30 years or that Riyadh is presently backing many of the Sunni militants now prosecuting the proxy war in Syria today?

The Saudis are up to their eyeballs in terror, in fact, it seems to be the national pastime much like soccer in Brazil or baseball in the US. The problem is that– this time around– their terror tactics aren’t working, in fact, their jihadi militias are getting beaten quite badly the by the Russian-led coalition, which is why they’ve moved on to Plan B, a political strategy for uniting the anti-Assad opposition to improve their chances for success in the next round of  negotiations in Vienna.

But how do the Saudis measure success?

Here’s a clip from the Washington Post which spells it out in black and white:

Speaking at a news conference earlier on Thursday, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir said Assad has two choices, “either to leave through negotiations” or be forcibly removed from power.

(“Syria opposition groups set framework for proposed talks“, Washington Post)

So nothing has changed, right?  This whole fiasco about convening “talks” between opposition leaders is just a smokescreen to conceal the real objective which is regime change.

But does anyone really think the Russians and Iranians are going to be fooled by this “opposition conference” charade?

Not on your life. They’re not going to let any of these foreign-born whackos from Chechnya, Libya or Saudi Arabia decide Syria’s future.  That has to be decided by the Syrian people themselves, which is what the Geneva Communique was all about: Self determination, sovereignty and free elections. Those are the foundation blocks that are needed to rebuild the Syrian state, but they can’t be put in place until the  foreign meddling stops and there’s an honest dialogue between the various stakeholders about the way forward.

Mike Whitney lives in Washington state. He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press). Hopeless is also available in a Kindle edition. He can be reached at [email protected].

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trumpdebate-510x287Muslims entering US, Surveillance of Mosques: Donald Trump’s Religion Test for Immigrants Is Standard Practice in Israel

By Philip Weiss, December 13 2015

The widespread political condemnation of Donald Trump’s call for a ban on Muslims entering the United States and for surveillance of mosques was pretty great yesterday. American leaders left and right said that such policies are unconstitutional and counter to U.S. values. “Donald Trump is a race-baiting, xenophobic religious bigot,” Senator Lindsey Graham said emphatically.

tim_anderson“Humanitarian” Military Interventions: “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P) and the Double Game

By Prof. Tim Anderson, December 13 2015

A new version of ‘humanitarian intervention’, known as the ‘responsibility to protect’ (R2P), was developed at the turn of the 21st century. An invention of the big powers, with reference to the suggested humanitarian consequences of their supposed failures to intervene in the past, it became a tremendous moral argument for the 2011 intervention in Libya.

Russia_USA__nuclear_armsThe Neoconservatives’ Hegemonic Goal Of Making Sovereign Countries Extinct Is Bringing Instead The Extinction Of Planet Earth

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, December 13 2015

My warning that the neoconservatives have resurrected the threat of nuclear Armageddon, which was removed by Reagan and Gorbachev, is also being given by Noam Chomsky, former US Secretary of Defense William Perry, and other sentient observers of the neoconservatives’ aggressive policies toward Russia and China.

President-al-Assad-EFE-Spanish-news-agency-660x330President Al-Assad Interview: “The West Is Not Serious in Fighting Terrorists”

By Bashar al Assad, December 13 2015

President Bashar al-Assad gave an interview to the Spanish EFE news agency in which he stressed that the Russians’ values and interests in their policy towards Syria are not in contradiction, noting that as long as the US is not serious in fighting the terrorists, the West won’t be serious.

The following is the full text of the interview:

syrizaGreece: National Economic Collapse and the Neoliberal Backlash, Syriza Holds On, The Left Is Weakened

By Asad Ismi, December 13 2015

The Greek tragedy of national economic collapse appeared to be turning into farce with the re-election of Syriza at the end of September.

Russia-1Russia in an “Invisible War”. The Rise of Russia on the World Scene

By Rostislav Ischenko, December 13 2015

How could Russia in just 20 years, without wars or other perturbations, rise from a semi-colony to an acknowledged world leader, equal among the top ones?

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First published in June 2014

Netanyahu is pushing a new bill to allow the force-feeding of Palestinian hunger strikers. The prime minister is in good company.

American practices at the prison at Guantanamo Bay are giving Benjamin Netanyahu ideas.

Earlier this week, a draft bill authorizing the force-feeding of hunger-striking Palestinian prisoners passed the first of three readings in the Knesset. Of the roughly 300 prisoners presently fasting in protest of Israeli administrative detention, at least 70 are hospitalized around the country, shackled to their beds. If the bill becomes law, dozens of them may be forced to undergo the procedure.

Illustrative photo of Palestinian prisoners in an Israeli military prison (By ChameleonsEye / Shutterstock.com)

Netanyahu is personally pressing for the law, prodded along by the Shin Bet security service. The Shabak is calling for a tough approach to the mass strike andrefusing to negotiate with the prisoners lest they see any benefit from their protest. The prime minister is in good company. He explicitly cited the United States as inspiration, reportedly telling Israel’s Channel 2 that “in Guantanamo, the Americans are using the method of force-feeding too.”

The echoes of the U.S. example don’t stop there. Like its American andinternational counterparts, the Israeli Medical Association, to its credit, won’t go along, citing “the sanctity of life and the duty to respect the autonomy of the patient.”

Read: ‘Administrative detainees must have done something wrong’

Force-feeding, by all accounts, is an excruciating procedure that causes immense pain and has been declared “cruel, inhuman, and degrading” by medical experts the world over. Watch this video of rapper Yasiin Bey (aka Mos Def) being force-fed under the Guantanamo procedure (warning: it’s hard to watch), or consider this description of a method used at the island prison, a variation of “the water cure,” which has roots in the Spanish Inquisition:

At Guantanamo Bay, military doctors and nurses have medicalized the water cure. They are now using excessively thick nasogastric feeding tubes to force as much as two-thirds of a gallon of fluid into hunger-striking detainees in as little as 20 minutes, twice each day, while they are tightly strapped to a specially-made restraint chair. If a detainee vomits during the process—which is common—it starts all over again. Adding humiliation to the ordeal, the doctors frequently give the detainee a laxative, which can cause him to defecate during the process—after which he may be held in the restraint chair for as long as two hours, sitting in his own filth. One detainee has even reported that often, when he is brought back to his cell, the guards lay him on his stomach and cause him to vomit by pressing forcefully on his back.

In 2012, Khader Adnan, a Palestinian held in Israel without charge or trial, agreedto stop his 66-day hunger strike in exchange for release from prison. Several other hunger strikes, including that of Palestinian footballer Mahmoud Sarsak, were called off under similar terms. The prisoners managed to mobilize their only vestiges of autonomy – their bodies – in protest of a manifestly unjust practice. Israel, faced with the fallout of their deaths, no longer found them too dangerous too free.

But the Shin Bet is clearly seeking to avoid a repetition of those earlier successes. “You can’t have a situation where prisoners who are in jail for a very good reason will use the threat of a hunger strike to receive a ‘get out of jail free’ card,” an Israeli official recently explained.

Palestinian youth protest in solidarity with soccer player Mahmoud Sarsak, who was held in administrative detention for three years. Nablus, 2012. (Photo by Ahmad al-Baz/Activestills.org)

But what’s the very good reason? Like at Guantanamo, those strikes and this one, which began in April, are a protest against the military use of administrative detention (“indefinite detention,” in American parlance), an oft-used tool in the occupation’s arsenal to detain Palestinians without charge or trial for indefinitely renewable periods. Over the years, thousands have come in and out of Israeli detention, many on a revolving basis. As of April, Israel was holding 191 administrative detainees, according to B’Tselem. They do not know why they are in jail or when they will be released.

“People go on a hunger strike for political reasons … and the consequence could be political damage to the state,” said Yoel Hadar, a government legal advisor. In the end, force-feeding isn’t about saving lives, it’s about neutralizing the long-term threat that the likes of Khader Adnan and Mahmoud Sarsak pose to the occupation: the exposure of a system whose raison d’être is repression and control, not security.

Guantanamo is 12 years old. Barack Obama continues to claim he wants to see it shuttered. But while Israel may now be borrowing from the U.S. playbook on force-feeding, the tactics of the 47-year-old occupation are clearly focused on the long game.

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In recent speeches and other public statements, Netanyahu calls Palestinian self-defense against the Israeli occupier “terrorism.”

At the same time, he claimed daily Israeli-instigated violence has nothing to do with their justifiable courageous response after nearly half a century of illegal, brutalizing military occupation.

He lied, saying “(t)he terrorists are attacking in California or in Israel, or for that matter in Paris. They are attacking the very values that we hold dear – freedom, tolerance, diversity.”

Last month, he said

“(w)e are standing on the front lines against terrorism that is increasingly being transformed from Palestinian nationalistic terrorism to Islamic terrorism. An attack on any one of us should be seen as an attack on all of us. You can’t say these are the good terrorists and these are the bad terrorists. All terrorists are bad.”

Physician, political activist and human rights champion Mustafa Barghouti explained justifiable Palestinian rage “come(s) from hopelessness.” They want the same rights granted Jews.

PLO Executive Committee member Hanan Ashrawi blasted Netanyahu, accusing him of

“cynically exploiting the pain of the innocent victims in order to create a misleading linkage and to justify Israeli state terror against the Palestinian people, while presenting Israel as the victim.”

Multiple daily examples explain. On Saturday, Israeli forces again invaded Gaza, attacking hundreds of mourners attending slain Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) leader Sami Shawqi Madhi’s funeral.

He’s the 19th Gazan Israeli soldiers killed since October 1. Another 100 were murdered in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Eighteen Israeli lives were lost, only five by stabbings.

Since January, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said Israeli forces conducted a weekly average of 83 terror raids on Palestinian communities, greater numbers since October 1.

The whole world knows Israel is a racist, apartheid, rogue terror state, supported by the US. Too few voices of prominence admit it.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected].

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PM Central time plus two prerecorded archived programs.

 

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A new international survey has ranked German Chancellor Angela Merkel, US President Barack Obama and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, as the world’s top three liars of 2015.

The recent poll conducted by German web platform, Alles Schall und Rauch, asked more than 3,000 of its readers from Germany and 40 other countries to determine the world’s “liar of the year.”

More than 39 percent of those surveyed crowned the German chancellor with the “liar of the year” title.

Over 21 percent of those polled also said the US president deserved to be called the liar of 2015, while the Turkish president received 18 percent of the votes.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko also secured 8 and 7.8 percent of the votes, respectively.

On the contrary, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani and his Syrian counterpart, Bashar al-Assad, were classed as honest policy-makers, gaining only 0.03 and 0.10 percent of the votes, respectively.

French President Francois Hollande, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and Russian President Vladimir Putin were further among those classified as honest policymakers.

The findings come less than a week after the New York-based Time magazine named Merkel its Person of the Year, citing her encouragement of other countries to open their borders to refugees and her determination to lead Europe through the Greek debt crisis this summer.

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Biological Warfare and the People of Iraq

December 13th, 2015 by Ian Roberts

This article was first published by the International Journal of Epidemiology in 2003 in the immediate wake of the war on Iraq

The only property of micro-organisms that enables them to be used as biological weapons is their capacity to cause infectious disease. People may be deliberately exposed to pathogenic micro-organisms in a variety of ways but it is the fact of exposure rather than the method of delivery that determines whether disease will result. Because the ability to cause infection is the defining aspect of a biological weapon, then anymalevolent intervention that causes infection in the civilian population constitutes an attack with a biological weapon.

Micro-organisms are necessary but not sufficient in the causation of infectious disease and other causal factors are required for infection to occur.1 Host resistance is an important factor in the chain of causation leading to clinical infection.2 Whether or not exposure to a micro-organism causes disease depends on whether or not the exposed individual is susceptible or immune. Dietary deficiency of key vitamins and micronutrients increases susceptibility to a number of infectious agents and also increases the likelihood that infectious disease will result in severe illness and death. Vitamin A and zinc deficiency impair the ability of the immune system to fight infection and the ability of mucous membranes to resist infection.2,,3 Indeed, the decline in infectious diseases in high-income countries is more readily attributed to increased host resistance from better nutrition than to a reduction in the virulence of the relevant micro-organisms. It follows that any malevolent intervention that impairs the ability of a civilian population to resist infection constitutes biological warfare.

In public health practice, prevention involves removing one or more of the components in the chain of causation leading to disease. From an epidemiological perspective, causation and prevention are two sides of the same coin.1 For this reason, a consideration of the actions that can prevent infectious disease from occurring after exposure to a biological agent can help to identify the other components in the causal chain. For example, following an attack with anthrax, spores can be washed off with soap and water and oral antibiotics can be given to prevent infection from developing.4 If an anthrax attack occurred in situations where antibiotics were unavailable then some cases of anthrax infection would be attributable to their absence. Consequently, any malevolent intervention that destroys a population’s ability to respond effectively to infectious diseases constitutes a biological attack.

These rather mundane scientific considerations have important implications for how biological warfare is defined in the context of the current conflict in Iraq. First, it implies that the Anglo-American bombing of water supplies, sanitation plants, and the power plants that are necessary for their functioning, constitutes a biological attack. Standard texts on biological weapons point out that three factors must be taken into account in selecting a biological agent for a biological attack: ease of manufacture, stability, and lethality. Despite widespread public concern about the use of anthrax, smallpox, and plague, all three are difficult to manufacture and disseminate. Anthrax requires sophisticated methods of manufacture and virulent stock is hard to find. The only confirmed sources of smallpox are in the US and Russia, and plague is both difficult to obtain and difficult to weaponize.4

On the other hand, the microbial agents that can cause devastating epidemics of diarrhoea are ubiquitous, lethal, and are readily disseminated by destroying the civilian sanitation infrastructure by bombing or otherwise destroying water sanitation and sewage disposal systems. These actions will ensure that food and water supplies to the civilian population will quickly become contaminated. Because the faeces of infected people will further contaminate the water supply and because there will be extensive person-to-person transmission this strategy has the potential to result in extensive, population-wide, and self-propagating epidemics. The scope for civilian casualties with such an approach is massive in comparison with the use of agents such as anthrax for which there is no evidence of person-to-person transmission. Declassified documents from the American Defense Intelligence Agency show that during the 1991 Gulf War, the ‘Allies’ deliberately targeted Iraq’s water supply. Twelve years later, half the water treatment plants are still out of action.5

Second, the economic sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council that have caused widespread dietary deficiencies throughout the civilian population, seriously reducing the ability of the population to resist infection, constitute a form of biological warfare. Micro-organisms that pose little threat to those with intact immune systems can be highly lethal to those with impaired immunity as a result of micronutrient deficiency and malnutrition. For example, life-threatening diarrhoea can be caused by ubiquitous microbes such as Escherichia coli that reside in the gastrointestinal tract and common respiratory viruses can cause highly lethal pneumonia. As a result of the sanctions against Iraq there has been a more than doubling of the infant and under-5 mortality rates, with most of the excess child deaths being due to diarrhoea and pneumonia exacerbated by malnutrition.6 The imposition of economic sanctions in Iraq is as much a form of biological attack as was the distribution of anthrax in the US mail system.

Third, the destruction of the Iraqi population’s ability to respond to outbreaks of infectious disease by restricting the import of essential medicines and medical equipment, by destroying the public health infrastructure, and by overwhelming the capacity of the healthcare system to respond effectively constitutes a further biological attack.

Fourth, having destroyed Iraq’s water and sanitation systems, leaving the civilian population highly vulnerable to major epidemics of infectious disease, the failure to restore the public health infrastructure and provide safe water supplies to homes and hospitals constitutes a biological attack. In this context, recent reports that reconstruction contracts may be awarded to the US company Bechtel are a particular cause for concern. In 1999, a Bechtel subsidiary took over the control of the public water system in Cochabamba in Bolivia and within weeks doubled and tripled the water rates for some of the poorest families in South America resulting in massive public demonstrations.7 Also, we must not forget that in the case of Afghanistan, despite the Bush administration’s claim that ‘the US will not walk away from the Afghan people’, the administration subsequently forgot to ask for any money for humanitarian and reconstruction costs in its 2003 budget.

The full extent of civilian casualties resulting from the war on Iraq will become clear in the coming weeks and months. An effective humanitarian response must be mounted urgently to reduce the death toll from this appalling episode in the history of biological warfare.

References

  1. Rothman KJ. Modern Epidemiology. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1986.
     
  2. Stephensen CB. Vitamin A, infection and immune function. Annu Rev Nutr2001;21:167–92.
  3. Berger A. What does zinc do? BMJ 2002;325:1062.
  4. Levy BS, Sidel VW (eds). Terrorism and Public Health. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
     
  5. Sengupta K. The Independent. Saturday 19 April 2003.
     
  6. Arnove A (ed.). Iraq under Siege: The Deadly Impact of Sanctions and War. London: Pluto Press, 2003.
     
  7. Palast G. New British Empire of the Dammed. The Observer. Sunday 23 April 2000.
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The Nuclear End of the World never happened. When the Cold War finally ended, the whole world sighed in relief as the threat of total annihilation seemingly passed. And yet, 25 years later, both the US and Russia once again are pumping up their nuclear arsenal, and the Doomsday Clock shows it’s just three minutes before midnight. Is nuclear destruction looming once again over humankind? And, even if no state is actually ready to press the button – could Atomic Armageddon happen by accident? We ask these and many other questions to a specialist on nuclear technology, a professor from MIT and a former adviser to the US Chief of Naval Operations. Dr. Theodore Postol is on Sophie&Co.

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Sophie Shevardnadze:  Dr. Theodore Postol, former advisor to the U.S. Chief of Naval Operations, a professor at MIT, nuclear technology expert, welcome to the show, it’s great to have you with us – so, Ted, President Obama came into the White House calling for “Global Zero” – now, there are plans to spend a trillion dollars on an overall of entire nuclear arsenal. Why is this happening?

Dr. Theodore Postol: I think this is a consequence of the domestic politics. You can never understand the foreign policy of a country without understanding its domestic situation, and in this case, the domestic politics has caused Mr. Obama to decide – frankly, I think, incorrectly – that he has to modernize the U.S. arsenal in order to avoid being criticized for not being concerned about the defence of the country.

SS: Now, do you believe the U.S. is readying its nuclear forces for direct confrontation with Russia? Do you think nuclear war is possible now? At any scenario, do you see that?

Dr.TP: I do think that an accidental nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia is possible. I don’t know how likely it is – anyone who says they know how likely it is, has no idea what they’re talking about, so… But, I think any possibility is too high, and in that sense, I do think we are in danger. I think the current political confrontation between Russia and the West and, particularly, the U.S. is potentially dangerous too. Both sides are very aware of the catastrophic consequence of nuclear weapons being used by one or the other, so I think both will be very cautious – but I think the danger does exist, yes.

SS: But, nuclear weapons have worked as a deterrent against war with the risks, like you say, “way too high” for all sides involved. Has the mutually assured destruction doctrine being forgotten? Has the defenition been changed, maybe?

Dr.TP: No, I don’t think the definition has changed, and certainly, the reality has not changed, and I think, an understanding of the reality is very important if you’re not going to make a mistake that leads to nuclear use – on either side. I believe, from what I’ve seen on both sides, that the concern about the potential for the complete destruction of each country and the world is still very high. The problem is that as long as forces are on alert, at a high level, there’s always the possibility of a series of unexpected accidents that could lead to nuclear exchange, and I think, that’s the real danger.

SS: What happens, hypothetically, if there is a nuclear war? Will a doctrine like a mutual destruction doctrine ever work again?

Dr.TP: I think, anybody who is rational and understands pretty much, in a dim way, the consequences of nuclear weapons, would not rationally use nuclear weapons. The problem is that if you have a crisis situation when one or both sides have no understanding of what is actually happening on the other side, and people are exhausted because it was going on over time, and somebody makes a bad decision with incomplete information, which is almost certainly what happens in the real world – information is never complete – you could have a massive use of nuclear weapons, and that, of course, would end civilization as we know it and might, although we can’t be sure, but might actually end human life on the planet.

SS: You know, you’ve mentioned earlier that the nuclear war as it is, is unlikely, but there’s always a threat of an accident. And I’ve spoken to many political leaders, newsmakers like Noam Chomsky, Mikhail Gorbachev, and they also agree that nuclear war is something nobody’s willing to risk right now, but there is a danger of an accident involving nuclear weapons. What kind of accident can occur?

Dr.TP: I can give you a concrete example, and then expand on it. In 1955 there was, what’s called a “sounding rocket” launched off an island that is on off the NW coast of Norway. Now, this “sounding rocket” was different from other “sounding rockets” that had been launched at that time. It went to much higher altitudes than had previously occurred, and it passed through the radar search-fan of an early warning radar at Olenegorsk in Russia, and set off an alarm that led to Yeltsin at that time being brought into the command loop.

Now, I do not believe that Russia or the Russian military forces were put on high alert or would have done anything that could have led to an accident at that time, but if you had an accident like this which occurred for example, during the crisis between Russia and the U.S., where both sides had been at loggerheads for quite a while and both sides were exhausted, very concerned about military action happening – it could have led to an alert and possibly even a launch of Russian or U.S. forces. So, there’s a concrete situation where an accident that really, must be looked at as benign, given the circumstance under which it occurred, could have been fatal under different circumstances. Now, the likelihood of something like that happening is low, because you need this accident to occur at the time of extreme crisis and you need the overlap, but the consequences, of course, would be horrendous.

SS: Now, Ted, tell me something. Explain to an amateur, to me, how does one launch a nuclear weapon? Is it as easy as pressing a button? How long does it take for a nuclear missile to reach its target?

Dr.TP: Well, typically what the U.S. and Russia have are several kinds of what are called “ballistic missiles” – they, in the case of both Russia and the U.S. we have land-based ballistic missiles which are in fortified underground missile silos, so they are protected to some extent from nuclear attack, or on submarines, in the holds of submarines. The ballistic missile could be fired, basically, within 50 or 60 seconds, more or less, after alert being given to the operators.The warning could take minutes to occur  – that is, the Russian government or the American government, could believe that an attack is underway, they could access the situation, and then, collect information and then make a decision whether or not to launch.

That could take 10 or 15 minutes. In the case of actually launching a rocket, that would take 40-60 seconds, more or less, depending on procedures – which are easily changed. The rocket will then ignite, it would fly out of its silo or its launch hall in the submarine, it would typically undergo powered flight for about… between 150 and 300 seconds, depending on whether or not the rocket is what’s called a “solid-propellant” or “liquid propellant”, so in one case 5 minutes, in other cause, maybe, 2,5 minutes – and then it would release warheads. The warheads would float in the near vacuum of space under the influence of gravity and momentum, and in about 20-28 minutes would arrive at their targets, re-enter the atmosphere and explode. So the world could be, basically, finished off in anywhere from half hour to an hour upon the arrival of these warheads. People who think about these things generally expect – nobody really knows what to expect – but if you have a massive exchange, most nuclear warheads would be delivered in a very short time, probably within half hour or an hour interval.

SS: Now, the bombs that Russia and the U.S. have in their arsenal right now – they are 100 times more powerful than the ones that were used in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. How devastating would be the aftermath of the nuclear explosion be today?

Dr.TP: They are more than 100 times more powerful. Typical warhead from a Russian missile like what we call the SS-18, the one of these warheads –  this rocket can carry up to 10 warheads – one of these warheads, detonated over New York city, for example – one! – would essentially destroy all of Manhattan, most of Staten Island, probably all of it, basically. Large parts of New Jersey to the west. basically, the borough of Brooklyn and most of Queens and the Bronx out to a range range of, maybe, anywhere from, I’d say, 10 kilometers range from the central area where it exploded. If you had a similar warhead from the U.S. over Moscow, it would destroy, again, most of the city. It would, again, destroy a 150 square kilometers of the city easily and that’s only one warhead. There would be many warheads targeted on each of these great cities by the other side.

SS: Now, you wrote that there’s a lack of quality stuff in the American nuclear forces. Are you saying nuclear arsenal is not being looked after properly, or is it safe?

Dr.TP: I think, there are very serious problems with the nuclear arsenal at the current time. Basically, what is going on is there is a catastrophic falling of morale among the troops. This is not hard to understand, and, in fact, to some degree… well, to high level, predictable. The reason is that the nuclear forces had an enormously high status in American military organisation for a long time. At the end of the Cold War, there was a giant change in the status accorded to the U.S. military forces that were doing nuclear weapons control.

The net result of that is that younger officers who are seeking advancement in their career and who are more talented and more upwardly mobile, more promotable, did not want to choose to go into the nuclear forces. So, the net result was you got people of less capability and less motivation populating the forces. This has been a real problem. A second aspect of this problem is that the interest in the American Pentagon in maintaining the current forces at a proper level has not been as high as it should’ve been. So, modernisation does not take place when it should. Let me give you an example. If you have computers that are extremely old – in our case, these computers are, in some cases, 40 or 50 years old, which is a very long time in computer technology. Now, the advantage of the older computers is that you know what you have. The problem with newer computers is that there’s more… when you’re moving over to a newer system there’s always a danger created by moving over to a newer system, because things are unpredictable on some level.

SS: Is that why you guys are sticking to the old computers?

Dr.TP: I can’t explain why that’s happening. I think, it would be very wise to actually modernise these systems. They are modernizing them in some ways, but they’re modernizing them in ways that are in my view not helpful. Let me give you an example: they modify the computer navigation system on our Minuteman Intercontinental ballistic missiles, so that we can the targets that we shoot at more rapidly and hold more targets, be able to select targets in Russia or other places more quickly, and select more targets. Well, that’s only useful if you’re planning to fight and win a nuclear war. If you think that by moving the targets on one missile to take advantage of some damage you’ve already done somewhere else, like you would your artillery in a conventional war – if you think that is a good idea, the way it looks to other people – for example, Russian military planners – it looks like you’re trying to prepare to fight and win a nuclear war against Russia.

SS: Is it even possible to win a nuclear war? Is there such thing as winning a nuclear war?

Dr.TP: Of course, it’s not possible to win a nuclear war. There’s no outcome that you can predict associated with the facts of nuclear weapons that would lead to any definition that is at all meaningful of “winning” a nuclear war. The problem is, if you have another adversary, you’re a military person, you’re evaluating the actions of the other adversary, and you see the adversary doing things that look like they believe that they can fight and win,  it makes you concerned, it raises concerns that they might actually believe that, or, in a crisis, they might actually exercise options created by these technical changes. So, it’s a dangerous, double-edged sword.

SS: Russia recently announced 40 new ballistic missiles to boost its military arsenal. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg called the move “unjustified, destabilizing and dangerous”. Now, in light of this American nuclear rearmament we were talking about – do you think it’s unjustified?

Dr.TP: I think it’s unjustified from a technical point of view. From a political point of view, I have no real judgement, but I can see how the political leadership in Russia believes that it has to respond to what it sees as America’s continued encroachment and planning to intimidate. Whether that’s the intent of the U.S. or not – I have no way of knowing. But I can understand why they think that such an action makes sense. From a purely technical point of view, it in no way enhances Russia’s security – and it could detract from it, because of an American overreaction.

SS: Also, remember NATO’s plans for a missile defence shield in Europe, they were also supported by the U.S. and its allies. It was supposed to be protection against possible Iran nuclear program. Now, a deal with Iran is in place, a deal that, as you say, has unprecedented verification measures. Why is NATO still going forward with these plans?

Dr.TP: I’m not a total… I’m more of a technical than a political person, but I don’t want to make fake claims, I am unsophisticated politically…

SS: Sure, but you surely have your opinions and observations on that – I mean, it’s a huge topic…

Dr.TP: I think it’s going forward because the leadership of the U.S. has domestic – again, I want to underscore this, domestic political, not international, political commitments to doing missile defence. The Congress is deeply committed to it. I think, the big defence companies that do the work wanted to keep their contracts and the American Congress is strongly influenced by the ability of these companies to influence elections through their money. I think the President has not behaved…has not shown leadership in this particular area. He has backed away from his original scepticism, which was well-justified, about the value of these missile defences in terms of their technical capability, and…

SS: Okay, but, as you say, domestic policies usually play out, internally,  they play out to be foreign policies. In this case, does Russia have evidence to believe it’s not a security threat for it?

Dr.TP: I would that the Russian military, the informed military, the technically well-informed military, have to understand that the American missile defence is not viable – that’s to say, it does not have any capability. However, I want to underscore – however, they cannot treat this missile defence as if it has no capability. This is because they do not know what will happen next. The U.S. has vast industrial power, vast wealth. It has shown that it is more than able to engage in irrational military activities, and the Russian military cannot be assured that the U.S. won’t make some kinds of changes in some unforeseen future scenario to this missile defence. So you can have a missile defence, like the Americans have, which technically speaking is a joke –  I want to underscore it, it’s a technical joke in terms of what it can do – but, the Russian military has almost no choice but to treat it as if it is a serious concern. So you get the worst of both worlds. Even from an american point of view – a missile defence that doesn’t work, but is treated by the Russian side as if it works.

SS: Ted we have time for just one more question…

Dr.TP: Is that too convoluted?

SS: No, it sounds pretty simple to me. I don’t know why people up there don’t understand it.

Dr.TP: Okay.

SS: Now, states that embark on a nuclear weapons program, they actually do it because they feel it’s the only way to ensure their security. Can you say they are wrong? I mean – look at Libya, it gave up its nuclear weapons, and in the end, it was little to stop a NATO bombing campaign in 2011. We just have one more minute left for this question.

Dr.TP: I think it’s a double-edged sword, and it depends on who you are and your circumstances. Unfortunately, and I’m not comfortable saying this, I want to be clear, this is not a comfortable thing to say, if I were in a situation of some nuclear states, I would not give up my nuclear weapons. In the case of other nuclear states, I think not only it is a good idea to give up your nuclear weapons, but in fact you shouldn’t get them. Let me give you an example. If I were Japanese I would not want to have nuclear weapons. The reason is, I’m under the protection of the U.S., and if I get nuclear weapons, it will cause to be a target of the Chinese, it will cause the South Koreans to become extremely concerned, to the point that they might react in a bad way, and my overall security situation would be worse. But, if I’m alone, and I think I need nuclear weapons, for example, if I’m Russia, and the Americans have a nuclear monopoly – I would want nuclear weapons, because I’m not dependant on another nuclear power to offset the American threat. So, it’s a political judgement, not a technical one.

SS: Thanks, Ted. Unfortunately that’s all the time that we have, but thanks a lot for this very interesting and sometimes scary insight into the world of nuclear power game.

We were talking to Theodore Postol, former advisor to the U.S. Chief of Naval operations, professor of technology and international security at MIT, nuclear expert. We were talking on the current state of nuclear arsenals across the world and the ominous possibility of a nuclear catastrophe. That’s it for this edition of Sophie&Co, I will see you next time.

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Fallujah is Being Slaughtered Silently

December 13th, 2015 by Iyad Al-Dulaimi

The daughter of Anbar, the Baghdadian city that rests on the banks of the Euphrates, barricaded itself every morning and learned to survive the abrasive nature of war and bombings. The Americans believed that their repeated shelling would extinguish the city’s flame but they were wrong. The beginning of a major liberation movement swept Iraq and ended with the expulsion of its twenty-first century invaders. They left with their tails between their legs in disappointment, reminding them of the failures they experienced in Vietnam, and perhaps even more.

Fallujah: what is unknown about this city is that it differs from the majority of other Iraqi cities and that it is located approximately 40 kilometres west of Baghdad. The mosques have found their place among the houses of the city and they are so great in number that Fallujah is now known as the “mother of mosques”, being home to more than 100 mosques; the perimeter of the city does not exceed 30 kilometres.

When the Americans invaded Baghdad in the spring of 2003 the shock was intense for all, whether it was the Iraqis who set eyes on a tank headed for their capital for the first time, or even the rest of the Arab and Islamic world as they saw the occupation of one of the region’s most influential capitals. While it is true that Iraqi resistance was quick to form in the face of the new invaders — many have called it the fasted growing resistance in history —it was still not enough to revive and protect the dignity of the Iraqi and Arab peoples when American tanks entered Baghdad on 9 April 2003.

The people of Fallujah protested against the occupation of Iraq for nearly a year in an effort to regain the balance of everyday life and the dignity of the city. At the time of the invasion of Iraq, the plan to divide the country was already on the invader’s table. Nothing was missing, not even the means to implement the project. Twenty-five million Iraqis were subsequently divided into Sunni, Shia, Kurds and other minorities. Even so, Fallujah stood as a reminder to all Iraqis that the path to resistance was ongoing and that national unity remained a goal. In the spring of 2004, Fallujah was the first Iraqi city to free itself from the US occupation after a battle that lasted 33 days. American forces used all of their energy to try to reclaim the city and failed.

On that day, men were truly men as America was forced to sit down at the negotiating table with the rest of the city’s inhabitants. All the US wanted to do was break Fallujah’s will but on that day Iraq was united behind the city. Songs praising Fallujah were broadcast from north to south of Iraq. There was no disagreement among any of the Iraqis as to what Fallujah stood for. The city was a thorn in the side of anyone who wanted to swallow Iraq whole.

Months went by and Fallujah became a liberated city within an occupied country. It became a bubble that governed itself. It frustrated all of the invaders who stood beyond the city boundary, subjecting them to humiliation and shame. The US used all of its forces and brought Tony Blair’s forces with it, including those who were trained in Iran. All of them wanted to take revenge on the city by testing out weapons that had never been used before. The results left the bodies of the victims completely destroyed or melted; not even their bones remained.

Today, years later, Fallujah finds itself, once again, the prey of evil beings who wish to retaliate for its steadfastness. They continue to use the same argument time and again; that the city is harbouring terrorists. This has been the excuse for everything since 2004 when it was believed that Fallujah was harbouring Al-Qaeda leader Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi. Since the beginning of 2014, Fallujah has been transformed into the city of death. Every day it is bombarded under the pretext of fighting Daesh. What the media and the international community continue to ignore is the fact that the city is home to 150,000 civilians who refuse to leave the city out of fear that they will be subject to government blackmail in Baghdad.

Despite today’s constant violence in the city, many of the inhabitants of the neighbouring city of Ramadi have sought refuge in Fallujah. From the perspective of those fleeing, it is more dignified to go to Fallujah then to stand on the bridge to Baghdad awaiting mercy. Today Fallujah is being bombed and the world continues to see only what it wants to see. It is important for us to remind the people across the Arab and Islamic world that this city, which is bombed every day, was once a symbol of honour and resistance. It is in need of more than a prayer or a loaf of bread because the people of Fallujah are fighting for their lives and paying the price with the blood of their children. That is the dearest thing that can be offered to this steadfast city.

Translated from Al-Araby Al-Jadid, 1 December, 2015

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An ardent attempt is afoot on Capitol Hill to prevent states from requiring the labeling of genetically engineered foods – made especially urgent by the fact that Vermont’s labeling bill is set to take effect July 1st.

Although proponents of these foods scored a major victory in July when they induced the House of Representatives to pass a bill (HR 1599) that would ban such state-enacted legislation, a version of that bill has not yet been introduced in the Senate; and because of the intense focus on crafting and passing crucial legislation that will provide necessary funding to keep the federal government functioning, none is likely to be during this session.Accordingly, biotech advocates are endeavoring to get key provisions of HR 1599 attached as a rider to the must-pass appropriations bill – and sneak them into law without meaningful scrutiny and debate. But this attempt could be quickly foiled by one simple occurrence: the dissemination of a few essential facts. Moreover, if these facts had been widely known in July, HR 1599 could not have even made it through the House. That’s because the bill has always relied on disinformation – and could not survive an open airing of the truth.

The DARK Act’s Survival Depends on Keeping People in the Dark

HR 1599 was artfully titled the “Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act of 2015.”

Mike Pompeo, Kansas

Mike Pompeo, Kansas

But because it would actually restrict the labeling of GE foods, public interest groups dubbed it the DARK Act (Denying Americans the Right to Know Act). Moreover, not only would that proposed legislation keep consumers in the dark, the legislators were significantly operating in the dark themselves. Indeed, it’s safe to say that virtually every member of the House who voted on that bill – whether for or against – was mistaken about at least one of the key relevant facts.

The false belief that there are no legitimate safety concerns

Some of the greatest confusion involves food safety. For instance, the bill’s sponsor, Congressman Pompeo, declared that consumer demands for labeling of GE foods have nothing to do with health or safety, and its other supporters have backed that assertion and proclaimed that no legitimate food safety concerns exist. Even the main witness who testified against the bill before a congressional committee in 2014 declared that there aren’t any. But this is flat-out false. For example, science-based concerns about the dangers to human health were repeatedly raised in memos written by the technical experts at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) when they analyzed the risks of genetic engineering in 1991. The pervasiveness of the concerns within the scientific staff is attested by a memo from an FDA official who asserted: “The processes of genetic engineering and traditional breeding are different, and according to the technical experts in the agency, they lead to different risks.”(1)

Such concerns have been expressed in subsequent years by numerous other scientists and scientific institutions as well, including the British Medical Association, the Public Health Association of Australia, and the respected medical journal The Lancet. One of the strongest set of cautions appeared within an extensive report issued by the Royal Society of Canada, which declared (a) that it is “scientifically unjustifiable” to presume that GE foods are safe and (b) that the “default presumption” for every one of them should be that the genetic alteration has induced unintended and potentially harmful side effects (2).

Laboratory testing has confirmed the legitimacy of the concerns, and a number of well-conducted research studies on GE foods published in peer-reviewed scientific journals have detected statistically significant instances of harm to the laboratory animals that were consigned to consume them. Moreover, a review of the scientific literature on GE foods (itself published in a peer-reviewed journal in 2009) concluded that “most” of the safety assessments have not only indicated problems, but indicated that “many GM [genetically modified] foods have some common toxic effects.” (3)

The erroneous notion that the FDA is responsibly regulating GMOs

Confusion also reigns regarding the adequacy of federal regulation, and it’s widely believed that the FDA is assiduously following the law and subjecting GE foods to rigorous scientific review. But in reality (and as will be seen), that agency has not conducted a genuinely scientific review for any GE food on the market, and far from following the law, it’s been deliberately violating the law’s express mandates in order to enable these products to be marketed without the kinds of testing that the law requires.

Accounting for the Confusion: The Decisive Role of Deception

The widespread misconceptions about GE foods have been created and sustained through the systematic spreading of disinformation by a large number of their proponents. Deplorably, one of the chief spreaders has been the FDA; and if that agency had not routinely distorted the facts – and instead told the truth – the GE food venture would almost surely have collapsed.

For instance, when the FDA issued its policy statement on GE foods in 1992, it claimed it was “not aware of any information showing that foods derived by these new methods differ from other foods in any meaningful or uniform way,”(4) despite the fact its files contained multiple memos from its own scientists explaining how GE foods do indeed differ, why they pose greater risks, and why none should be presumed safe unless its safety has been demonstrated through rigorous testing.

Moreover, the FDA compounded the fraud by claiming that GE foods were “Generally Recognized as Safe” among experts and could be marketed without the requirement of any safety testing at all, even though its files reveal that it knew there was no expert consensus – and even though the law mandates that foods containing novel substances must be established safe through solid technical evidence (5).

Furthermore, to create the illusion that responsible regulation was being exercised, the agency set up a voluntary consultation process that it claims affords “rigorous” review. But the process is not a genuine scientific review, and the FDA’s Biotechnology Strategic Manager has acknowledged that fact – while admitting that the agency does not even request or receive any original test data (6).

The agency’s shameful behavior continues, and although by now it is well aware of much more information showing that GE foods significantly differ from others, it persists in its bogus claim that it is “not aware” of any; and this blatant falsehood was repeated by an FDA official on October 21st at a hearing of the Senate Agriculture Committee. She also asserted that the consultation process is so rigorous that it resolves “all safety issues,” which is not only misleading but ridiculous, because the process is far too superficial to achieve such certitude (7).

The Delusions Cannot Last Much Longer

Because the facts weigh so heavily against the GE food venture, and because it has relied on distorting them in order to survive, it cannot long endure. When enough people in general, or even a small number on Capitol Hill, finally learn the truth – and realize the extent to which the truth has been consistently twisted – there will be dramatic change. And if a sufficient dose of enlightenment were to soon suffuse The Hill, the Dark Act would be dead.

The author is Executive Director of the Alliance for Bio-Integrity

Notes

1) Document 1 at http://biointegrity.org/24-fda-documents The FDA covered up the memos from its scientists, and they only came to light because a lawsuit initiated by the Alliance for Bio-Integrity compelled the agency to release its files on GE foods.
2) “Elements of Precaution: Recommendations for the Regulation of Food Biotechnology in Canada; An Expert Panel Report on the Future of Food Biotechnology prepared by The Royal Society of Canada at the request of Health Canada Canadian Food Inspection Agency and Environment Canada” The Royal Society of Canada, January 2001
3) Dona, A., and I. S. Arvanitouannis (2009) Health Risks of Genetically Modified Foods. Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition 49: 164-75.
4) Statement of Policy: Foods Derived From New Plant Varieties, May 29, 1992, Federal Register vol. 57, No. 104 at 22991
5) The legal requirements are delineated at 21 CFR Sec. 170.30 (a-b). For a fuller explanation of what the law requires for GRAS status and how the FDA has been violating the requirements, see Chapter 5 of my book,Altered Genes, Twisted Truth, or my article, “Why the FDA’s Policy on Genetically Engineered Foods is Unscientific, Irresponsible, and Illegal.
6) Maryanski, J., “Safety Assurance of Foods Derived by Modern Biotechnology in the United States,” July 1996.
7) Statement of Susan Mayne, PhD, Director, FDA Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, before the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, U.S. Senate, October 21, 2015.

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Seeing the clapping and hollering enthusiasm from the likes of Al Gore and others in Paris, one would have thought the earth had been saved. “I now invite the COP to adopt the decision entitled the Paris Agreement outlined in the document,” came the words of French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius. Then, the deluge. “Together, we’ve shown what’s possible when the world stands as one,” claimed an overly optimistic US President, Barack Obama.

The conclusion of COP21 did give us an environmental agreement, the first to impose various binding and voluntary measures within its remit that will first permit a peak of greenhouse gases globally before rapidly reducing.[1] It will attempt to limit the rise in global temperatures “well below” 2°C above pre-industrial levels, with the background target being 1.5°C (Art. 2.1(a)). A climate finance fund of $100 billion per annum for developing countries by 2020, with further future finance, is to come from the pockets of developing states.

Delegates emphasised the historical sense of the occasion. A persistent theme to come through was that of “balance”. In the Agreement, it was recognised that “global peaking of greenhouse gas emissions” would vary for developing country parties. Once reached, rapid reductions would take place forthwith “so as to achieve a balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases in the second half of this century, on the basis of equity, and in the context of sustainability development and efforts to eradicate poverty” (Art. 4.1).

Various environmental groups were certainly not convinced by the paperwork. The agreement, according to Friends of the Earth International, was a “sham,” the outcome of deception and bullying. The developed countries, in short, had gotten away with the meanest of undertakings.[2] The problems of differentiation, to take one example of this purported sham, have been combated with a severely contorting bit of legalese termed Common But Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities, In the Light of Different National Circumstances (Art 2(2)).

Other stinging criticisms were also mounted. Compensation mechanisms for irreparable damage have not been factored in; adequate finance will not be made available; and the proposed program will exceed the proposed temperature limit. The point was largely compounded by the memories of Copenhagen 2009, when the insistence on binding emission targets led to any prospective being scuppered.

The result, then, has been a new creature in the form of Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs), many of which were submitted in advance of the meeting, and will be a cornerstone of the agreement. When these are factored in, a target closer to three degrees is considered the more accurate outcome of the commitments. Data from Climate Analytics, ECOFYS, the New Climate Institute and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, suggests that the generated figure, based on the Paris undertakings, will come at 2.7°C by 2100.

Nick Deardon, director of the Global Justice Now group, took issue with the persisting disparity between developed and developing states on the subject. As for what was actually binding in the agreement, one could count only on some bare bones procedures: the submission of an emissions reduction target, for instance, and the regular review mechanism on reaching that goal. (The first review will take place in 2019, with a more thorough “global stocktake” (Art. 14) in 2023 followed by cuts to carbon emissions two years later.)

What otherwise stands out is Article 6(1), a wordy provision that puts the boot into binding obligations while giving a free hand to states, suggesting that flexibility is better than not. “Parties recognize that some Parties choose to pursue voluntary cooperation in the implementation of their nationally determined contributions to allow for higher ambition in their mitigation and adaptation actions and to promote sustainable development and environmental integrity.”

Is such a regime a genuine compromise on shouldering adequate and proportionate burdens? Not so, according to Deardon. “It’s outrageous that the deal that’s on the table is being spun as a success when it undermines the rights of the world’s most vulnerable communities and had almost nothing binding to ensure a safe and liveable climate for future generations.”[3]

Any arrangement worth its salt was going to have to go into the drawers of history to consider past wrongs, a sort of divvying up of resources that would require a dramatic shifting of wealth. That is simply not going to happen. The fund for $100 billion, which is in turn hundreds of billions short, is small fare for what has taken place, and what is to come.

The interaction between humankind’s engagement with the environment has already produced a range of dystopian foretastes. Even climate change sceptics would find it hard to deny Beijing’s “red alert” for smog, declared on Monday by authorities in an effort to keep people in from the lethal air.[4] They would find it impossible to deny the increasing deaths from those living in cities which are becoming uninhabitable, or movement from areas which are vanishing. These are simply some features of the environmental devastation that require addressing.

COP21 seeks the vision of the de-carbonized globe; but it is highly questionable whether it will have the legs, and the lengths, to fulfil it. Kumi Naidoo of Greenpeace claims that, even if the wheel of climate action turned slowly, it had at least turned at Paris. “There’s much in this deal that frustrates and disappoints me, but it still puts the fossil fuel industry squarely on the wrong side of history.”[5] But after the chatter has been concluded in Paris, the implementation on home fronts will have to take place. Fossil fuel lobbies will continue their dirty work. (They are glaring absentees in the final text.) A hostile US Congress, rent with climate change sceptics, is already promising to make life for the administration interesting.

In any case, such measures are meaningless without a united front of seemingly disparate interests, be they anti-austerity groupings on the one hand, or climate change activists on the other.[6] Environment, economy and politics are vast but related peas in a complex pod. In the aftermath of Paris, it is clear that COP21 was far from what Angelica Navarro, Bolivian trade and climate negotiator, would have wished for: the equivalent of a Marshall plan for planet earth.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: [email protected]

Notes

[1] http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2015/cop21/eng/l09.pdf

[2] http://www.foei.org/press/archive-by-subject/climate-justice-energy-press/paris-climate-deal-sham

[3] http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-35084374

[4] http://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1889215/how-china-has-gone-climate-villain-hero-just-six-years?utm_source=&utm_medium=&utm_campaign=SCMPSocialNewsfeed

[5] http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/makingwaves/cop21-climate-talks-paris-negotiations-conclusion/blog/55092/

[6] http://www.towardfreedom.com/32-archives/environment/4109-naomi-klein-we-are-going-backwards-cop21–the-opposite-of-progress

 

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My warning that the neoconservatives have resurrected the threat of nuclear Armageddon, which was removed by Reagan and Gorbachev, is also being given by Noam Chomsky, former US Secretary of Defense William Perry, and other sentient observers of the neoconservatives’ aggressive policies toward Russia and China.

Daily we observe additional aggressive actions taken by Washington and its vassals against Russia and China. For example, Washington is pressuring Kiev not to implement the Minsk agreements designed to end the conflict between the puppet government in Kiev and the break-away Russian republics. 

https://www.rt.com/news/325687-ukraine-rhetoric-sabotage-churkin/

Washington refuses to cooperate with Russia in the war against ISIS. Washington continues to blame Russia for the destruction of MH-17, while preventing an honest investigation of the attack on the Malaysian airliner. Washington continues to force its European vassals to impose sanctions on Russia based on the false claim that the conflict in Ukraine was caused by a Russian invasion of Ukraine, not by Washington’s coup in overthrowing a democratically elected government and installing a puppet answering to Washington.

The list is long. Even the International Monetary Fund (IMF), allegedly a neutral, non-political world organization, has been suborned into the fight against Russia. Under Washington’s pressure, the IMF has abandoned its policy of refusing to lend to debtors who are in arrears in their loan payments to creditors. In the case of Ukraine’s debt to Russia, this decision removes the enforcement mechanism that prevents countries (such as Greece) from defaulting on their debts. The IMF has announced that it will lend to Ukraine in order to pay the Ukraine’s Western creditors despite the fact that Ukraine has renounced repayment of loans from Russia.

Michael Hudson believes, correctly in my view, that this new IMF policy will also be applied to those countries to whom China has made loans. The IMF’s plan is to leave Russia and China as countries who lack the usual enforcement mechanism to collect from debtors, thus permitting debtors to default on the loans without penalty.

In other words, the IMF is presenting itself, although the financial media will not notice, as a tool of US foreign policy.

What this shows, and what should concern us, is that the institutions of Western civilization are in fact tools of American dominance. The institutions are not there for the noble reasons stated in their founding documents.

The bottom line is that Western Capitalism is simply a looting mechanism that has successfully suborned Western governments and all Western “do-good” institutions.

As in George Orwell’s 1984, the IMF is dividing the world into warring factions — the West vs. the BRICS.

To avoid the coming conflict that the neoconservatives’ pursuit of American hegemony is bringing, the Russians have relied on fact-based, truth-based diplomacy. However, neocon Washington relies on lies and propaganda and has many more and much louder voices. Consequently, it is Washington’s lies, not Russia’s truth, that most of the Western sheeple believe.

In other words, Russia was misled by believing that the West respects and abides by the values that it professes. In fact, these “Western values” are merely a cover for the unbridled evil of which the West consists.

The Western peoples are so dimwitted that they have not yet understood that the “war on terror” is, in fact, a war to create terror that can be exported to Muslim areas of Russia and China in order to destabilize the two countries that serve as a check on Washington’s unilateral, hegemonic power.

The problem for the neocon unilateralists is that Russia and China—although misinformed by their “experts” educated abroad in the neoliberal tradtion, people who are de facto agents of Washington without even knowing it—are powerful military powers, both nuclear and conventional. Unless Russia and China are content to be Washington’s vassal states, for the neoconservatives, who control Washington and, therefy, the West, to press these two powerful countries so hard can only lead to war. As Washington is not a match for Russia and China in conventional warfare, the war will be nuclear, and the result will be the end of life on earth.

Whether ironic or paradoxical, the US is pushing a policy that means the end of life. Yet, the majority of Western governments support it, and the insouciant Western peoples have no clue.

But Putin has caught on. Russia is not going to submit. Soon China will undersand that US dependency on China’s workforce and imports is not a protection from Washington’s aggression. When China looks beyond its MIT and Harvard miseducated neoliberal economists to the writing on the wall, Washington is going to be in deep trouble.

What will Washington do? Confronted with two powerful nuclear forces, will the crazed neocons back off? Or will their confidence in their ideology bring us the final war?

This is a real question. The US government pays Internet trolls to ridicule such quesions and their authors. To see the people who sell out humanity for money, all you have to do is to read the comments on the numerous websites that reproduce this column.

Nevertheless, the question remains, unanswered by the Western presstitute media and unanswered by the bought-and-paid-for stooges in the US Congress and all Western “democracies.”

Indications are that Russia has had enough of Amerian arrogance. The Russian people have elevated a leader as they always do, and which Western countries seldom, if ever, do. The West has triumphed by technology, not by leadership. But Vladimir Putin is Russia’s choice of a leader, and he is one. Russia also has the technology and a sense of itself that no longer exists in the diversified West.

There is nothing like Putin anywhere in the West, over which presides a collection of bought-and-paid-for-puppets who report to private interest groups, such as Wall Street, the military-industrial complex, the Israel Lobby, agribusiness, and the extractive industries (energy, mining, timber).

At the 70th Anniversary of the United Nations (September 28), Putin, backed by the President of China, announced that half of the world no longer accepts American unilateralism. Additionally, Putin said that Russia can no longer tolerate the state of affairs in the world that results from Washington’s pursuit of hegemony.

Two days later Putin took over the fight against ISIS in Syria.

Putin, still relying on agreements with Washington, relied on the agreement that Russia would announce beforehand its attacks on ISIS installations in order to prevent any NATO-Russian air encounters. Washington took advantage of this trust placed in Washington by Russia, and arranged for a Turkish jet fighter to ambush an unsuspecting Russian fighter-bomber.

http://sputniknews.com/analysis/20151211/1031591091/us-defense-analyst-su-24-downing.html

This was an act of war, committed by Washington and Turkey, and thereby Washington’s European NATO vassal states against a nuclear power capable of exterminating all life in every one of the countries, including the “superpower US.”

This simple fact should make even the American super-patriots, who wear the flag on their sleeve, wonder about the trust they place in “their” government and in Fox “news,” CNN, NPR, and the rest of the presstitutes who continually lie every minute of every broadcast.

But it won’t. Americans and Europeans are too insouciant. They are locked tightly in The Matrix, where the impotent creatures are content to live without understanding reality.

Realizing that it is pointless to attempt to communicate to the Western sheeple, who have no input into their government’s policy, Putin now sends his message directly to Washington.

Putin’s message is loud and clear in his order directed against any US/NATO operations against Russia in its Syrian operations against ISIS:

“Any targets threatening the Russian groups of forces or land infrastructure must be immediately destroyed.”

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/11/putin-immediately-destroy-target-threatening-russia-syria

Putin followed up this order with another order to the Russian Defense Ministry Board:

“Special attention must be paid to strengthening the combat potential of the strategic nuclear forces and implementing defense space programs. It is necessary, as outlined in our plans, to equip all components of the nuclear triad with new arms.”

http://sputniknews.com/russia/20151211/1031582368/putin-air-defense.html 

Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reported at the Defense Ministry meeting that 56 percent of Russia’s nuclear forces are new and that more than 95 percent are at a permanent state of readiness. The few Western news sources that report these developments pretend that Russia is ”saber-rattling” without cause.

To make it clear even for the insouciant Western populations, everything that Reagan and Gorbachev worked for has been overthrown by crazed, demented, evil American neoconservatives whose desire for hegemony over the world is driving the world to extinction.

These are the same bloodthirsty war criminals who have destroyed seven countries, murdered, maimed, and displaced millions of Muslim peoples, and sent millions of refugees from the neocon wars into Europe. None of these war criminals are protected from terrorist attack. If the alleged “Muslim threat” was real, every one of the war criminals would be dead by now, not the innocent people sitting in Paris cafes or attending parties in California.

Neocons are the unhumans who created on purpose the “war against terror” in order to gain a weapon against Russia and China. You can witness these unhumans every day on talk TV and read them in the Weekly Standard, National Review, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the British, German, Australian, Canadian, and endless Western newspapers.

In the West lies prevail, and the lies are driving the world to extinction. An expert reminds us that it only takes one mistake and 30 minutes to destroy life on earth.

https://www.rt.com/shows/sophieco/324941-nuclear-cold-war-us/

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts’ latest books areThe Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West and How America Was Lost.

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How could Russia in just 20 years, without wars or other perturbations, rise from a semi-colony to an acknowledged world leader, equal among the top ones?

Kitchen “strategists”, who sincerely believe that massive nuclear strike is the universal solution to any international problem (even the hottest one, close to military confrontation), are unhappy about the moderate position of the Russian leadership in the crisis with Turkey. However, they deem insufficient even direct participation of the Russian military in the Syrian conflict. They are also dissatisfied with the Moscow’s activities on the Ukrainian front.

However, for some reason nobody asks a simple question. How did it happen that all of a sudden Russia started not just actively stand up to the world hegemonic power, but successfully win against it on all fronts?

Why now

By the end of 1990s, Russia was a state that economically and financially was at the level of the third world. An anti-oligarch rebellion was brewing in the country. It was fighting an endless and hopeless war with Chechens that spilled over to Dagestan. National security was supported only by nukes, as to conduct any serious operation even within its own borders, the army did have neither trained personnel nor modern equipment, fleet could not sail, and aviation could not fly.

Sure enough, anybody can tell how the industry, including military, was gradually revived, how growing living standards stabilized the internal situation, how the army was modernized.

But the key question is not who did more to rebuild the Russian military: Shoygu, Serdukov, or the General Staff. The key question is not who is a better economist, Glaziev or Kudrin, and whether it would have been possible to allocate even more resources to social spending.

The key unknown factor in this task is time. How did Russia have it, why did the US give Russia time to prepare resistance, to grow economic and military muscle, to annihilate State Department-funded pro-American lobby in the politics and the media?

Why did not the open confrontation, in which we are now getting ahead of Washington, begin earlier, 10-15 years ago, when Russia had no chance to withstand sanctions? In reality, the US in the 1990s or 2000s started installing puppet regimes on the post-Soviet space, including Moscow, which was considered as one of several capitals of dismembered Russia.

Healthy conservatism of diplomats

The conditions for today’s military and diplomatic successes were being built for decades on the invisible (diplomatic) front.

It must be said that among central ministries the Foreign Ministry was the first to recover from administrative mess caused by the breakup of the early 1990s. As early as in 1996, Evgeny Primakov became the Foreign Minister, who, in addition to turning the government plane around over the Atlantic upon learning about the US aggression against Yugoslavia, turned around the Russian foreign policy, which after that never followed the US course.

Two and a half years later, he recommended Igor Ivanov as his successor, who slowly (almost imperceptibly), but surely continued to strengthen the Russian diplomacy. He was succeeded in 2004 by the current foreign minister Sergey Lavrov, under whose leadership diplomacy accumulated enough resources to switch from positional defense to decisive offence.

Among these three ministers only Ivanov received The Hero Star, but I am sure that both his predecessor and successor are just as worthy of this award.

It must be said that traditional caste closeness and healthy conservatism of the diplomatic corps contributed to rapid restoration of the work of the Foreign Ministry. That very unhurriedness and traditionalism the diplomats are accused of helped. “Kozyrevshchina” (the word is derived from the name of Andrei Kozyrev, the Foreign minister in 1990-1996; the word means “acting like Kozyrev”, i.e. in a subservient manner against one’s own interests – translator’s note) never caught on in the Foreign Ministry because it did not fit.

Period of internal consolidation

Let’s return to the 1996. Russia is at the bottom of the pit economically, but the default of 1998 is still ahead. The USA totally disregards the international law replacing it with its arbitrary actions. NATO and the EU are getting ready to move to the Russian borders.

Russia has nothing to respond with. Russia (as USSR before it) can annihilate any aggressor in 20 minutes, but nobody plans to fight it. Any deviation from the Washington-approved line, any attempt to pursue an independent foreign policy would lead to economic strangulation and subsequent internal destabilization – at that time the country lives on Western credits.

The situation is further complicated by the fact that until 1999 the power is in the hands of the comprador elite beholden to the US (like the current Ukrainian one), and until 2004-2005 compradors are still fighting for power with patriotic Putin’s bureaucracy. The last rearguard battle given by the loosing compradors was an attempt at a revolution in 2011 at Bolotnaya square. What would have happened if they had made their move in 2000, when they had an overwhelming advantage?

The Russian leaders needed time for internal consolidation, restoration of the economic and financial systems, ensuring their self-reliance and independence from the West, and rebuilding the modern army. Finally, Russia needed allies.

Diplomats had an almost impossible mission. It was necessary, without retreating on key issues, to consolidate the influence of Russia in post-Soviet states, ally itself with other governments resisting the US, strengthen them, if possible, all the while creating an illusion in Washington that Russia is weak and ready for strategic concessions.

The illusion of Russia’s weakness

One demonstration of the fact that this task was successfully achieved are the myths that are still alive among some Western analysts and pro-American Russian “opposition”. For example, if Russia opposes another instance of Western adventurism, it is “bluffing to save face”, the Russian elites are totally dependent on the West because “their money is there”, “Russia sells out its allies”.

However, the myths of “rusty rockets that do not fly”, “hungry solders building dachas for generals”, and about “economy in tatters” are essentially gone. Only marginals believe in them, who are not really incapable, but are too afraid to acknowledge the reality.

These very illusions of weakness and readiness to back off that fooled the West into belief that the Russian question is solved and prevented it from rapid political and economic attacks on Moscow, gave the Russian leadership the precious time for reforms.

Naturally, there is never too much time, and Russia would have preferred to postpone the direct confrontation with the US, which started in 2012-13, by another 3-5 years, or even avoid it altogether, but the diplomacy won 12-15 years for the country – a huge period of time in today’s rapidly changing world.

Russian diplomacy in Ukraine

To save space, I will give just one very clear example, most relevant in the current political situation.

People still blame Russia for not counteracting the US in Ukraine actively enough, for failing to create a pro-Russian “fifth column” to counterbalance the pro-American one, for working with elites, rather than with the people, etc. Let us evaluate the situation based on real capabilities, rather than wishful thinking.

Despite all references to the people, it is the elite that determines the state policy. The Ukrainian elite, in all its actions, has always been and still is anti-Russian. The difference is that the ideologically nationalistic (gradually becoming Nazi) elite was openly russophobic, whereas the economic (comprador, oligarchic) elite was simply pro-Western, but did not object to lucrative links with Russia.

I would like to remind you that not somebody else but representatives of supposedly pro-Russian Party of Regions bragged that they did not allow Russian business to Donbass. They also were the once who tried to convince the world that they are better for Euro-integration than nationalists.

The regime of Yanukovich-Azarov precipitated economic confrontation with Russia in 2013, demanding that despite signing the treaty of association with the EU Russia retained and even enhanced favorable regime with Ukraine. After all, Yanukovich and his fellows in the Party of Regions, while they had absolute power (2010-2013), supported Nazis financially, informationally, and politically. They led them from marginal niche to mainstream politics in order to have a convenient opponent in the presidential elections in 2015, while suppressing any pro-Russian informational activity (not to mention a political one).

The Ukrainian communist party, while retaining pro-Russia rhetoric, never had a shot at power, and played a role of convenient loyal opposition indirectly supporting oligarchs, channeling protest activity into venues safe for any (including current) powers.

Under these conditions, any Russian attempt to work with NGOs or to create pro-Russian media would be perceived as an encroachment on the rights of Ukrainian oligarchs to rob the country singlehandedly, which would cause a further drift of the Ukrainian officialdom towards the West viewed by Kiev as a counter-balance to Russia. The US would, quite naturally, see it as transition of Russia to direct confrontation, and would have redoubled its efforts to destabilize Russia and support pro-Western elites all over the post-Soviet space.

Neither in 2000, nor in 2004 Russia was ready to openly confront the US. Even when (not by Moscow’s choice) this happened 2013, Russia needed almost two years to mobilize its resources in order to give a strong response in Syria. The Syrian elite, in contrast to the Ukrainian one, from the very beginning (in 2011-2012) rejected the option of compromising with the West.

That is why during 12 years (from “Ukraine without Kuchma” action, which was the first unsuccessful attempt of pro-American coup in Ukraine) the Russian diplomacy worked on two key tasks.

First, it was keeping the situation in Ukraine in unstable equilibrium; second, convincing the Ukrainian elite that the West was a danger to their wellbeing, whereas reorientation towards Russia was the only way to stabilize the situation and save the country as well as the position of the elite itself.

The first task was successfully achieved. The US has managed to switch Ukraine from the multi-directional mode into the mode of anti-Russian battering ram only by 2013, having spent enormous amount of time and resources and having acquired a regime with huge internal contradictions incapable of existing independently (without growing American support). Instead of using Ukrainian resources for their benefit, the US is forced to spend their own resources to prolong the agony of the Ukrainian statehood destroyed by the coup.

The second task has not been accomplished due to objective (independent of Russian efforts) reasons. The Ukrainian elite turned out to be totally inadequate, incapable of strategic thinking, of evaluating real risks and advantages, but living and acting under the influence of two myths.

First – the West will easily win in any confrontation with Russia and share the spoils with Ukraine. Second – no effort, except the unwavering anti-Russian position, is necessary for comfortable existence (at the expense of Western financing). In the situation of choice between orientation on Russia and survival, or siding with the West and dying, the Ukrainian elite chose death.

However, even out of negative choice of the Ukrainian elite the Russian diplomacy managed to get maximum advantage. Russia did not let itself be sucked into a confrontation with Ukrainian regime, instead forcing Kiev and the West into the grueling negotiation process on the background of a low-key civil war and excluding the USA from the Minsk format. By focusing on contradictions between Washington and the EU, Russia managed to burden the West with Ukraine financially.

As a result, initially consolidated position of Washington and Brussels disintegrated. Counting on a politico-diplomatic blitzkrieg, the European politicians were not prepared for a prolonged confrontation. The EU economy simply could not support it. In its turn, The US was not ready to accept Kiev exclusively on its own payroll.

Today, after a year and a half of efforts, the “old Europe”, which determines the position of the EU, such as Germany and France, has abandoned Ukraine completely and is looking for a way to extend a hand to Russia over the heads of the pro-American Eastern European limitrofes (Poland and Baltics). Even Warsaw, which used to be the main “advocate” of Kiev in the EU, openly (although semi-officially) hints at the possibility of dividing Ukraine, having lost the faith in the ability of the Kiev authorities to keep the country together.

In the Ukrainian political and expert community hysterics about “the treason of Europe” is growing. Former governor of the Donetsk region (appointed by the Nazi regime) and oligarch Sergey Taruta states that his country has eight months to exist. Oligarch Dmitry Firtash (who had a reputation of the Ukrainian “king maker”) predicts disintegration as early as in the spring.

All this, quietly and imperceptibly, without using tanks and strategic aviation, was achieved by the Russian diplomacy. Achieved in a tough confrontation with the block of most powerful, militarily and economically, countries, while starting from a much weaker position and with the most peculiar allies, not all of which were or are happy about growing Russian power.

Breakthrough in the Middle East

In parallel, Russia managed to return to the Middle East, retain and develop integration within the post-Soviet space (Eurasian Economic Union), together with China roll out a Eurasian integration project (Shanghai Cooperation Organization), and initiate via BRICS a global integration project.

Unfortunately, limited space does not allow us to discuss in detail all strategic actions of the Russian diplomacy for the past 20 years (from Primakov until today). A comprehensive study would take many volumes.

However, anyone who would try to answer honestly how Russia managed within 20 years, without wars or upheavals, to rise from the state of a semi-colony to the state of a recognized world leader, would have to acknowledge the contributions of many people on Smolenskaya Square (where the Foreign Ministry is located – translator’s note). Their efforts do not tolerate fuss or publicity, but without blood and victims yield results comparable to those achieved by multi-million armies in many years.

Rostislav Ischenko, analyst of “Russia Today”.

Source: http://oko-planet.su/politik/politiklist/301881-rostislav-ischenko-rossiya-v-nevidimoy-voyne.html

Translated by Seva

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Bagnolet, 12 December 2015

After two weeks of heads of states taking centre stage to salve their consciences, COP21 has come up with an agreement that many worried in advance would offer nothing good for the peoples of the world. There is nothing binding for states, national contributions lead us towards a global warming of over 3°C—and multinationals are the main beneficiaries. It was essentially a media circus. However states know how to make binding commitments when it comes to signing free trade agreements. Those agreements threaten the democratic functioning of countries by merely serving the interests of multinationals. Once more, it is clear that money dictates the law, even taking precedence over the future of humanity.

“Despite multiple attempts to silence us these past few weeks, the social movements have made their voices heard today,” said Antolin Huascar, a peasant leader from Peru. “The future of the planet is in the hands of the people,” he added.

Peasants from across the world, from member organizations of Via Campesina, came together to warn others that the agricultural sector is being severely affected. While they are the guardians of a changing climate, they stressed that industrial agriculture is threatening their disappearance. At the same time, COP21 is further opening the door to financial speculation on nature, industrialisation of agriculture, and accelerating resource grabbing.

“We, the peasants of the world, will now return to our territories and farms all the more determined to continue our struggle for food sovereignty for all the peoples of the world,” Huascar concluded.

The masquerade may be over, but the peasant fight will only continue to gain momentum.

Contacts :

Elina Bouchet, media contact (French) : 00 33 6 95 29 80 78

Solenne Garin, media contact (English, Spanish) : 00 33 6 10 04 83 69

and [email protected]

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Damascus, SANA – President Bashar al-Assad gave an interview to the Spanish EFE news agency in which he stressed that the Russians’ values and interests in their policy towards Syria are not in contradiction, noting that as long as the US is not serious in fighting the terrorists, the West won’t be serious.

The following is the full text of the interview:

Question 1: Thank you very much, Mr. President, for your hospitality and for giving the Spanish News Agency EFE the opportunity to understand what is the situation in your country. Okay, on November 14th, the world powers, including Russia and Iran, agreed in Vienna on a timetable for a political solution for the Syria crisis. According to this timetable, the negotiations between your government and the moderate opposition should start on January 1st. Are you ready to start those negotiations?

President Assad: You are most welcome in Syria. Since the very beginning of the conflict in Syria, we adopted the dialogue approach with every party that is involved in the Syrian conflict, and we dealt positively, responded positively, to every initiative that has been launched by different states around the world regardless of the real intention and the genuineness of the people or the officials who started those initiatives. So, we were ready, and we are ready today to start the negotiations with the opposition. But it depends on the definition of opposition. Opposition, for everyone in this world, doesn’t mean militant. There’s a big difference between militants, terrorists, and opposition. Opposition is a political term, not a military term. So, talking about the concept is different from the practice, because so far, we’ve been seeing that some countries, including Saudi Arabia, the United States, and some Western countries wanted the terrorist groups to join these negotiations. They want the Syrian government to negotiate with the terrorists, something I don’t think anyone would accept in any country.

Question 2: Would you be ready to negotiate, to dialogue, with the opposition groups that are right now gathering in Riyadh?

President Assad: It’s the same, because they are a mixture of political opposition and militants. Let me be realistic; regarding the militants in Syria, we already had some dialogue with some groups, not organizations, for one reason, and the reason was to reach a situation where they give up their armaments and either join the government or go back to their normal life, having amnesty from the government. This is the only way to deal with the militants in Syria.

Whenever they want to change their approach, give up the armaments, we are ready, while to deal with them as a political entity, this is something we completely refuse. This is first. Regarding what they call political opposition, you as a Spanish [person], when you look at the opposition in your country, it’s self-evident that the opposition is a Spanish opposition, is related to the Spanish grassroots, Spanish citizens. It cannot be opposition while it’s related and beholden to any other country, to a foreign country, no matter which country. So, again, it depends on which group are we talking about in Saudi Arabia. People that have been made as opposition in Saudi Arabia, in Qatar, in France, in the UK, in the US. So, as a principle, we have to, we are ready, but at the end, if you want to reach something, to have successful and fruitful dialogue, you need to deal with the real, patriotic, national opposition that has grassroots in Syria and is only related to the Syrian people, not to any other state or regime in the world.

Question 3: Will the Syrian delegation attend the conference in New York in case this conference was confirmed, in the next weeks?

There’s no point of meeting in New York or anywhere else without defining terrorist groups

President Assad: It’s not confirmed yet. The recent Russian statement said they preferred it to be, I think, in Vienna. This is first. Second, they said it’s not appropriate before defining which are the terrorist groups and which are not, which is very realistic and logical. For us, in Syria, everyone who holds a machinegun is a terrorist, so without defining this term, reaching a definition, there’s no point of just meeting in New York, or anywhere else.

Question 4: Okay, Mr. President, in your opinion, what can be done to put an end to “Daesh?”

President Assad: This is a very complicated issue, not because of ISIS, because ISIS is an organization. There’s something more dangerous to be dealt with, which is the reasons. First of all, the ideology, something that’s been instilled in the minds of the people or the society in the Muslim world for decades now, because of the Wahabi institutions, because of the Saudi money that’s been paid to support this kind of dark and resentful ideology. Without dealing with this ideology, it’s just a waste of time to say we are going to deal with Daesh or al-Nusra or any other organization that belongs to Al Qaeda. Daesh-Al Qaeda and al-Nusra-Al Qaeda, and you have many other organizations that have the same ideology.

So, this is something that should be dealt with on the long term; how to prevent those Wahabi institutions and Saudi money from reaching the Muslim institutions around the world in order to have more extremism and terrorism spreading around the world. This is first. Second, we have to talk about the short term and dealing with the situation now, Daesh in Syria and Iraq, mainly. Of course, fighting terrorism is another self-evident answer to that question, but we are talking about an ideology and an organization that has unlimited ability to recruit terrorists from around the world. In Syria, we have more than 100 nationalities fighting with the extremists and terrorists,

Al Qaeda and al-Nusra and others. The first step we should take in order to solve this problem is to stop the flood of terrorists, especially through Turkey to Syria and to Iraq, and of course we have to stop the flowing of money, Saudi money and other Wahabi money and Qatari money to those terrorists through Turkey, and the armaments, and every other logistical support. This is how we can start, then later, if you want to talk about the rest, it could be political, it could be economic, it could be cultural, it has many aspects, but for the time being, we have to start with stopping the flow, and at the same time fighting terrorists from within Syria by the Syrian Army and by whoever wants to support the Syrian Army.

Question 5: Who buys the oil from Daesh? Which countries are behind Daesh?

Turkey is the only lifeline for ISIS

President Assad: The Russians last week published on TV pictures and videos of trucks carrying oil crossing the Syrian-Turkish borders. Of course, the Turks denied this, it’s very easy to deny, but let’s think about the reality. Most of the oil in Syria is in the northern part of Syria. If they want to export it to Iraq, that’s impossible, because every party in Iraq is fighting ISIS. In Syria, it’s the same. In Lebanon, it’s very far. Jordan in the south is very far. So, the only lifeline for ISIS is Turkey. Those trucks moving the oil from Syria to Turkey, and Turkey selling this cheap oil to the rest of the world. I don’t think anyone has any doubt about this indubitable reality.

Question 6: Which countries are behind Daesh?

Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar are the main perpetrators in the atrocities of ISIS

President Assad: You have states, mainly Saudi Arabia, because both this country and this organization do the beheading, both following the Wahabi ideology, both of them reject anyone who is not like them; not only not Muslim, but who is Muslim but not like them. That Muslim could belong to the same sect, but if he’s not like them, he’s rejected. So, Saudi Arabia is the main supporter of this kind of organization. Of course, you have figures, you have different people who have the same ideology or same belief, they send money privately, but it’s not only who sends the money, who facilitates the reaching of the money to those organizations. How could organizations considered [to be] terrorist around the world like ISIS or al-Nusra have hundreds of millions, to have this recruits, to have a nearly full army like any other state, if they don’t have direct support, source of money, and direct support like Turkey in particular. So, Saudi Arabia and Turkey and Qatar are the main perpetrators in the atrocities of ISIS.

Question 7: Yesterday we saw the mortars falling near Damascus. It seems that this fighting is far from ending. When do you think that the war will be over in Syria?

Pressure Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and this conflict will end in less than a year

President Assad: If you want to talk about the Syrian conflict as an isolated conflict with the same situation now, the same Syrian troops and Syria’s allies, and the terrorists from the other side, we could end it in a few months. It’s not very complicated in either meaning, whether militarily or politically. It’s not complicated. But as long as you’re talking about a lifeline that isn’t being suffocated for those terrorists, having recruits on daily basis, in every sense, money, armaments, human resources, everything, that will make it much longer. Of course it’s going to have a heavy price. But at the end, we are making advancement. I’m not saying that we’re not making advancement. The situation on the military level is much better than before, but again, the price is very high. That’s why I said earlier if you want to end it shorter, and most of the world is saying now they want to see an end to this crisis, okay, make pressure on those countries that, you know them, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, then this conflict will end in less than a year, definitely.

Question 8: Is there any kind of military coordination between the Syrian Army and the bombing attacks of the US-led coalition?

Russian and Syrian armies achieved in a few weeks  much better than the US-led alliance

President Assad: Not at all, not at all, not a single connection regarding this sector, let’s say, military sector. That’s why, for more than one year now, they’ve been bombing ISIS, and at the same time ISIS is expanding, because you cannot deal with terrorists from the air. You have to deal with them from the ground, and that’s why when the Russians came and started their participation in the war against terrorism, the achievement of the Russian and Syrian armies in a few weeks was much better than the alliance has achieved during more than a year, and actually didn’t achieve anything to say more, because they were supporting ISIS, maybe indirectly, because it was expanding, and you have more recruits coming. So, we cannot say that they achieved something in reality.

Question 9: What do you think about Obama’s role in this crisis?

As long as the US is not serious in fighting the terrorists, the West won’t be serious

President Assad: Let’s talk about the American administration, because Obama, at the end, is part of the administration. You have lobbies in the United States. From the very beginning, the United States provided those terrorists with different political covers. At the very beginning they called them “peaceful demonstrations” then when they appeared that they are terrorists they said they are “moderate terrorists,” then at the end they have to say that you have ISIS and al-Nusra, but at the end, they’re not objective, they don’t dare to say that they were wrong. They don’t dare to say that Qatar at the very beginning, and then Saudi Arabia, have misled them. This is first. Second, as long as the United States is not serious in fighting the terrorists, we cannot expect the rest of the West to be serious, because they are the allies of the United States, and so far, in brief, let’s say, the role of the Americans in that situation is not to destroy ISIS or the extremism or the terrorism, and Obama said it; he said he wants to contain it. What does it mean? It means to allow you to move somewhere, while not to let you go somewhere else. It’s like to define the border of the harmful effect of ISIS. So, we don’t think that the Americans are genuine in fighting the terrorism.

Question 10: And what about French President Francois Hollande? He has talked about destroying ISIS. Do you think that at some point at the end, the French will cooperate with your government?

President Assad: Look at what he did after the recent shootings in Paris last month. They started, the French aircrafts, started attacking ISIS with heavy bombardments. They said they wanted to fight – he said we’re going to be in a war with terrorism. What does it mean? It means before the shootings, they weren’t in a war with terrorism. Why didn’t they do the same before the war? It means this heavy bombardment is just to dissipate the anger within the French public opinion, not to fight terrorism. If you want to fight terrorism, you don’t wait for a shooting in order to fight terrorism. Fighting terrorism is a principle. It’s not a transient situation where you feel you’re angry and you want to attack the terrorists. You have to have value, principle, in order to defeat it, and it should be a sustainable kind of fighting. So, this is another proof that the French are not serious in fighting terrorism.

Question 11: And what do you think about the EU in general? The EU position on this conflict? Could Europe do something more inside Europe against Jihadist groups?

Europe can play a role, but it is now just a satellite to the US policy

President Assad: Of course they can, definitely. They have the ability, but it’s not only about the ability; it’s about the will. The question that we’ve been asking – not only during the crisis, before the crisis, for the last, let’s say, more than ten years, especially after the war on Iraq: does Europe exist politically anymore, or is it just a satellite to the United States policy? So far, we don’t see any independent political position. Some, you have some cases, let’s say, we don’t put everyone in one basket, and the proof is the relation between Europe and Russia. The United States pushed Europe to do something against its interests, to make embargo on Russia. This is not realistic, not logical. So, of course it can, of course it has interest to fight terrorism like we have the same interest, and the recent shooting and what happened in Madrid in 2004 and 2001 in New York and then in London, and recently in California, this is proof that everyone has interest to do, but who has the will and who has the vision? That is the question that I don’t have an answer about it now, but in the meantime, I’m not optimistic about this will.

Question 12: What has President Vladimir Putin asked of you in return for Russian military aid?

President Putin didn’t ask for anything in return for Russian military aid

President Assad: He didn’t ask for anything in return for a simple reason; because it’s not a trade. Actually, the normal relation between two countries is a relation about mutual interest. The question is what is the mutual interest between Syria and Russia? Does Russia have interest in having more terrorism in Syria? The collapse of the Syrian state? Anarchy? No, they don’t have. So, let’s say in return, Russia have the stability of Syria, of Iraq, of our region – we’re not far from Russia, of Russia, and let me go far beyond that, of Europe. Russia now, in Syria, they are defending Europe directly, and again, the recent terrorist events in Europe is the proof that what’s going on here will affect them positively and negatively.

Question 13: Okay, has Putin asked you to resign your position of president at some point?

Staying in or leaving office depends on the Syrian people’s option

President Assad: First of all, the question is: what is the relation between the president staying in power or resigning with the conflict? That is the first question we have to ask. This kind of personalizing the problem just to be used as a cover to say that “there’s no problem with the terrorism, no country interfering from the outside, sending money and armaments to the Syrian rebels in order to make chaos and anarchy. Actually, this is a president who wants to stay in power and people who are fighting for freedom, and he’s oppressing them and killing them, and that’s why they are revolting.” This is a very romantic picture for, let’s say, teenagers, like a love story for teenagers. Reality is not like this. The question is if it’s part of the solution in Syria. Political solution, that means when I say political solution doesn’t mean Western or external; it should be a Syrian solution. When the Syrian people doesn’t want you to be a president, you have to leave the same day, not the other day. The same day. This is a principle for me. If I think that I can help my country, especially in a crisis, and the Syrian people still support me – I don’t say the Syrian people; the majority of the Syrian people to be more precise – of course I have to stay. That’s self-evident.

Question 14: As a hypothesis, would you accept the possibility of leaving Syria in the future and leaving to a friendly country if this was the condition for a final political arrangement?

President Assad: For me leaving the position?

Question 15: Leaving the position and leaving Syria.

President Assad: No, leaving Syria, I never thought about leaving Syria under any circumstances, in any situation, something I never put in my mind, like the Americans say “plan B” or “plan C.” Actually, no. But again, the same answer: that depends on the Syrian population; would they support you or not? If you have the support, it means you’re not the problem, because if you are the problem as a person, the Syrian people will be against you. What’s the point of the people, of the majority, supporting you, while you are the reason of the conflict? This is the first aspect. The second aspect, if I have a problem with the Syrians, with the majority of the Syrians, and you have the national and regional countries being against me, and the West, most of the West, the United States, their allies, the strongest countries and the richest countries in the world against me, and I’m against the Syrian people, how can I be president? It’s not logical. I’m being here after five years – nearly five years – of the war, because I have the support of the majority of the Syrians.

Question 16: Is it true that Russia will have another military base in Syria?

If there will be another Russian military base in Syria, they would have announced it

President Assad: No, that’s not true, and two days ago, they denied this allegation. If there is, they would have announced it, and we would have announced it at the same time, so no.

Question 17: Are the Iranians planning to build here their own military base?

President Assad: No. They never thought about it, never discussed this.

Question 18: Okay. Is it possible to include President Erdogan in solution for the crisis? What is the role of Turkey in this crisis?

Erdogan is a Muslim Brotherhood ideological person, we don’t expect him to change

President Assad: As a principle, if he’s willing to get away from his criminal attitude that he’s been adopting since the beginning of the crisis by supporting the terrorists in every way, we don’t have a problem. We don’t have a problem. At the end, we will be ready to welcome any help or positive participation from anywhere. That’s in principle. So, whoever’s been complicit against Syria, we don’t havea problem with, but do we expect Erdogan to change? No, for one reason, because Erdogan is a Muslim Brotherhood ideological person, so he cannot go against his ideology. He’s not a pragmatic man who thinks about the interests of his country. He’s working against the interests of his country for the sake of his ideology, whether it’s realistic or not. So we don’t expect Erdogan to change in that way.

Question 19: Mr. President, US Secretary of State John Kerry has announced recently that he will travel to Moscow to see President Putin and the Russian Foreign Minister. Don’t you fear that a kind of trade between the US and Moscow, Ukraine against Syria, could be in preparation?

No Russia-West deal against Syria, Russia’s policy towards Syria is based on values and interests

President Assad: No, because it’s been now nearly five years, and we’ve been hearing that argument, or let’s say, kind of, how to say, idea, by the Western officials, just to make a wedge, a kind of wedge between Syria and Russia. The Russians are pragmatic, but at the same time they are adopting a moral policy based on values and principles, not only on interests, and the good thing in their position is that there’s no conflict or contradiction between their values and their interests. This is first. Second, The Russians know very well that any solution, if there’s a trade for example for the solution, any solution cannot be implemented if it’s not a compromise between the Syrians. So, Russia and the United States and any other country in this world cannot make a deal; we can make the deal with ourselves, Syrians can make a deal with the Syrians, can make dialogue with the Syrians. That’s what the Russians know very well. That’s why they don’t make such mistakes, beside the values that they have.

Question 20: In relation with Turkey again, what do you see about the downing of the Russian aircraft by Turkey? Was it an accident or premeditated?

President Assad: Since the Russian military participation in Syria regarding fighting against the terrorists’ organizations, the situation on the ground has changed in a positive way, and for Erdogan, that would bring his ambitions to failure, and if Erdogan failed in Syria, as he looked at it, that would be his political demise; it is like sounding the death knell of his political future, his ambitions to make Turkey the hub for the Brotherhood in the region by having a Brotherhood government and having following or satellite Brotherhood governments around the world. He thinks the last bastion of his dream is Syria. If he failed in Syria, as he failed in Egypt and as he failed in other places, he will think that this is the end of his career. So, his reaction was an unwise reaction but reflected not his way of thinking, but actually his instinct, his visceral instinct towards the Russian issue. This is the first part of the shooting. The second one, he thought the NATO would help him, and he would bring the NATO to conflict with Russia and the result would be more complicated situation in Syria on the ground, and may be his dream of having a no-fly zone where he can send those terrorists to Syria and they can use them as another state in front of the legitimate state here in Syria. That was his ambition, his way of thinking, as we think, and his plan in Syria.

Question 21: Mr. President, the US holds you responsible for the civil war and the rise of terrorism in Syria. Your enemies blame you for the death of 250 thousand in Syria since the beginning of the war. They also accused you of attacking opposition groups and civilians. How you defend yourself against those accusations?

President Assad: Actually, you cannot shoot yourself in the foot. Now the whole war in Syria, since the beginning of the conflict, was about who is going to bring more Syrians to his side. That was the war from the very beginning. How can you shoot the people and get their support? This is impossible. But at the same time, there is no good war; every war is a bad war. So whenever you have a war – something you should avoid but you cannot avoid – any war, will have civilian casualties, will have innocent casualties. This is a very bad and dangerous aspect in any war. That is why we have to end the war. While to say that the government attacked the civilians, what is the point, what do you get from attacking the civilians? Actually, the reality if you want to go around in Syria, you will be surprised that most of the families of the militants, they don’t live with them, they live under the umbrella of the government, and they get the support of the government, which is another proof that we don’t work against the civilians or kill them, otherwise they would not come to the government’s side. So, those allegations are false allegations.

Question 22: Mr. President, we want you to send a message to the Syrian refugees that have fled the country, many of them fled to Europe and even to Spain. What message do you have for them?

European governments’ embargo and support to terrorists created the migration issue

President Assad: Most of those refugees have contact with their families in Syria, so we’re still in contact with them. The majority of those refugees are government supporters, but they left because of the situation created by the terrorists, the direct threatening, killing, and because the terrorists destroyed the infrastructure, and by the embargo by the West on Syria where the basic life needs are not affordable anymore. So, actually, I don’t have to send them a message to them because they are going to come back when the situation is better. Most of them like their country, they love this country. Actually, the message I would like to send is to the European governments: they brought them, they created the situation, they helped the terrorists, and they made the embargo that has played directly into the hands of those terrorists and helped those people leaving Syria to other countries. So, if you are working for the sake of the Syrian people, as you said, the first thing you do is to lift the embargo. The second thing to do is to stop the flooding of terrorists. So, I think the message to the western governments who helped them going and live in their countries.

Question 23: Would you pardon the terrorists if they lay down their weapons?

President Assad: Of course, that is already happening in Syria. What we called “the reconciliation” is the only real political solution that has reached fruitful solution and positive reality in different places in Syria. The crux of the reconciliation is based on them giving up their armaments as terrorists and the government gives them amnesty or pardon. Of course, this the only way, and this is the good way I think to solve the problem.

Question 24: Okay, two last questions; if you go back to March 2011, would you make any different decisions?

President Assad: On daily basis, as a human, every day you have something you wish you did it in a better way. That is natural, because you have a lot of details, but if we want to talk about the pillars of our policy, it depends on two things. First of all, dialogue from the very first day, although we believed that it wasn’t about political problems at the very beginning, in spite of that we said we are ready for political dialogue, we are ready to change the constitution, we are ready to change many laws, and we did it, we did in 2012, the next year after the conflict has begun. At the same time, from the very beginning we said we are going to fight terrorism and terrorists. There is no way to change either to adopt dialogue or fight terrorism. Anything else is not a pillar, I mean if you talk about the daily practice, of course you have to do a lot of mistakes in daily practice whether my practice and other institutions’ practice or other official’s practice, that’s self-evident, there’s nothing in my mind now, but maybe one of the things I wouldn’t do it again is to trust many officials, Western or regional, Arabs, or like Turkish or others, to trust them, to think that they really wanted to help Syria at some point. This is one of the things that I wouldn’t do gain.

Question 25: How do you explain to your children what is happening in Syria? Would you like them to follow your footsteps?

President Assad: To follow my steps in politics you mean?

Question 26:  Yes.

President Assad: I think politics is not a job, and it is not a book you read, and it is not a specialty you do at the university. So, you cannot teach your children to be politicians; you can teach them a job. Actually, politics is everything in life; it is the sum of economy, society, culture, everything, and the fact that you live on a daily basis. So as a result, that depends on the path of your children if they go in that regard. For me, the most important thing is to help them in helping their country, but how? Should they be politicians in the future, or should they be in any other job? This is not a very important issue for me. But I wouldn’t try to influence them; they have to choose their path. I have to explain as much as I can from our reality about our country so that they can read it very well and they can decide which path they want to follow.

Journalist: Thank you very much Mr. President for the interview and for your time.

President Assad: Thank you for coming to Syria

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The Greek tragedy of national economic collapse appeared to be turning into farce with the re-election of Syriza at the end of September. The leftist party had been first elected only seven months earlier on the promise to end the austerity measures forced on Greece by the troika of the European Union (EU), International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Central Bank (ECB) in exchange for $339 billion in bailout loans (see March Monitor). Reforms to that point had devastated the Greek economy causing it to shrink by 25% and increasing overall unemployment by the same amount, and pushing youth unemployment to 48%.

Syriza has now been returned to power after pledging to enact arguably more severe austerity measures than the ones it had first been elected to oppose. A month after the July 5 referendum, in which Greeks overwhelmingly (61.31%) rejected the troika’s bailout plans, Alexis Tsipras, Syriza’s leader, signed a third memorandum of understanding with Europe, in which his government agreed to significant tax hikes, drastic pension cuts and wide-ranging privatizations that exceed many of the structural reforms undertaken over the previous five years. When some of his own party members rebelled against this clear betrayal, ending Syriza’s coalition majority in parliament, Tsipras called an election.

The party took 35.5% of the vote in September, winning 145 seats in the 300-seat Greek parliament—only slightly lower than its January performance—allowing Syriza to again govern in coalition with the right-wing Independent Greeks party, which won 10 seats. Syriza’s closest rival, the right-wing New Democracy party, got 28% of the vote, but the more important voice came from the many people who did not vote. This election saw the highest abstention rate in Greek history (45%), signifying widespread dissatisfaction with Syriza and the Greek political system in general. This is particularly remarkable in a country where voting is compulsory.

Cyprus-based author and news commentator Andreas C. Chrysafis, who supported Syriza in January, told me “the Greeks can take no more austerity—they have reached rock bottom and that is why they did not vote; they no longer trust the system.

The Greek debt is not sustainable and only a madman would believe that it is. It was a bad mistake by Tsipras to betray the trust of the people, which is unforgivable. I do not support Syriza any more nor do I support the current political mentality of the Greeks.

The central contradiction brought out by both of this year’s Greek elections has been the electorate’s desire to end the EU’s austerity measures, but to also stay in the EU. Syriza reflects the pro-EU stance of most Greek voters, which hobbles its attempts to negotiate a better deal, with fewer neoliberal concessions, in return for badly needed loans.

According to former Syriza finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, who was removed by Tsipras as Greece’s chief negotiator with the troika in April, the government must now “implement a fiscal consolidation and reform programme that was designed to fail.”

In a Guardian UK commentary on the September election, Varoufakis explained: “Illiquid small businesses, with no access to capital markets, have to now pre-pay next year’s tax on their projected 2016 profits. Households will need to fork out outrageous property taxes on non-performing apartments and shops, which they cannot even sell. Substantial [value-added tax] rate hikes will boost VAT evasion. Week in week out, the troika will be demanding more recessionary, anti-social policies: pension cuts, lower child benefits, more foreclosures.”

Chrysafis warned, “If the Greek government and the political elite insist on introducing all of the Troika’s [bailout] conditions, the Greek people will rise up and possibly topple the government for a new start. They did that before with the Greek junta [the military dictatorship which ruled from 1967 to 1974] and would not hesitate to do it again.” The author says a similar wave of antipathy is affecting politics in other parts of Europe.

The Communist Party of Greece (KKE), which has long warned that Syriza was no different from the other pro-austerity mainstream parties (New Democracy and the social democratic PASOK) that have perpetuated Greece’s economic crisis, won 15 seats in the Greek parliament in September. Plato Routis, the party’s representative in Toronto, told me the Communists are, “the only party in the Greek parliament that opposes austerity and Greece’s membership in the EU and in NATO.

But we go further because the main issue is about who controls the economy and the means of production. We want to nationalize the big banks, major corporations including shipyards, and the natural resources of Greece. We will strongly oppose all austerity measures that Syriza will try to impose and do this inside and outside parliament by mobilizing the people against them. We have close relations with the All-Workers Militant Front (PAME), the most militant trade union confederation, which will be supporting our efforts.

Routis said he considers the EU a trap that has robbed Greece of its political and economic independence and demolished the country’s industry. He thinks that this independence must be regained if Greece is to recover economically.

Greece is a rich country, contrary to popular belief. We grow wheat, vegetables, sugar, cotton and we have oil, bauxite and chromium. Some years ago we were not only self-sufficient in food production but were exporting food so Greece has the resources to sustain its population.

In fact, the Communists are not as alone in some of these plans as Routis suggests. The new Popular Unity party, a splinter group of former Syriza radicals, also plans to steadfastly resist new austerity measures, but will support the party when it introduces social measures such as legalizing gay marriage or implementing more welcoming immigration rules.

In an interview with Jacobin Magazine, Popular Unity member Stathis Kouvelakis claimed the one benefit of Syriza’s catastrophic first seven months in power was that “political illusions have now dissipated,” in that it convinced the Greek and EU people “of the brutally undemocratic and pernicious character of the European Union. It provides a peerless practical demonstration of this.”

Like Routis, he believes Tsipras was afflicted with a “Europeanist blindness…. He had not understood that the interests of the EU leaders could be contradictory and antagonistic. For me he proved his genuine blindness—he was truly naïve.”

Varoufakis gives the situation a slightly different spin. “During the first six months of 2015, when we were challenging the troika’s monopoly over policy-making powers in Greece, its greatest domestic supporters were the oligarch-owned media and their political agents. The same people and interests who have now embraced Tsipras!” he wrote in his post-election column. “Can he turn against them? I think he wants to but the troika has already ensured that his main weapons have been disabled (with, for example, the disbandment of the economic crime fighting unit, SDOE).”

Routis told me more could be done for the Greek economy outside the EU, notably because this would give much financial authority back to the government. “For instance, tourism is a big industry in Greece and we could get a lot more tourists if we were able to devalue our currency,” he said. “Our biggest industry, which is shipbuilding, has been destroyed and so has sugar and garment production. With control of our economy, we would be able to start the process of reviving these and other industries to create employment and generate income.”

Corruption and military spending are also significant drains. Routis pointed out that Greece would save billions by leaving NATO, where a lot of Greek wealth is being spent. In addition, he emphasized that the Greek oligarchy “has been draining billions of Euros out of the country for the last 20 years,” storing it in offshore tax havens. “Syriza promised to destroy this oligarchy, but did nothing about it. Through nationalization we will extinguish the power of this elite.”

In spite of its anti-austerity position, which most Greeks share, and its commitment to rebuilding the Greek economy to benefit the majority, the KKE remains stuck at 15 seats in parliament, which is the same number it had before the election, placing it fifth among parties. Alarmingly, Golden Dawn, a neo-Nazi party with criminal connections whose leaders are in jail for murder, won an extra seat in September’s elections, placing it third among parties with 18 seats.

Routis explained that the KKE’s limited voter base stems partly from the fact that despite five years of brutal austerity, Greeks are not yet ready to leave the EU, so they vote for the lesser evil, Syriza, as opposed to the mainstream New Democracy and PASOK, which are largely blamed for the economic mess. “People would like to give Syriza another chance because it has only been in power for seven months”, he said.

Varoufakis suggested Europe’s refugee crisis might have played a role as well. “A comparison [by the conservative opposition] between the welcome afforded to the thousands of ship-wrecked people in recent weeks with the concentration camps built by the Samaras government explains why disappointed progressives swung back to SYRIZA in the polling stations,” he wrote.

The pro-austerity, pro-EU parties were not above fear-mongering, says Routis. Their line of argument suggested that “without the EU the Greeks would lose whatever little money, jobs or property they have left at present and become isolated internationally.

There is also the fact that the Greek people have not felt the full pain of EU-enforced austerity yet, which will come with the implementation of the third memorandum during the coming months. It is true that Greeks have suffered a lot during the last five years of austerity, but there is even greater suffering to come.

Asad Ismi is the international affairs correspondent of the CCPA Monitorand author of the radio documentary Capitalism is the Crisis which has been aired on 42 radio stations in Canada, the U.S. and Europe reaching 33 million people. For his publications visit www.asadismi.ws.

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(Featured image: Syrian checkpoint outside Yarmouk, the Palestinian settlement in southern Damascus. The Syrian Arab Army is the main force protecting Syrian citizens.)

A new version of ‘humanitarian intervention’, known as the ‘responsibility to protect’ (R2P), was developed at the turn of the 21st century. An invention of the big powers, with reference to the suggested humanitarian consequences of their supposed failures to intervene in the past, it became a tremendous moral argument for the 2011 intervention in Libya. That intervention, based on lies, was a disaster for the Libyan people. A similar course was attempted with Syria, but failed. Russia and China, in particular, were no longer prepared to play Washington’s game. However it may have sounded in theory, in practice this R2P emerged as a new tool of intervention. It carries great dangers, having helped incite ‘false flag’ massacres by armed groups in their search for greater foreign support. It has also helped undermine the international system which, since the 1940s, has been founded on principles of sovereignty and non-intervention.

In some respects it is extraordinary that, so soon after the 2003 invasion of Iraq on a manifestly false pretext (see Kramer and Michalowski 2005), an earnest debate began over how to deepen and sanctify the reasons for military intervention. The debate was extraordinary, in that relatively little attention was paid to the long history of false pretexts for intervention. Yet in many respects it was logical, as it appeals to a naïve social conscience while opening new avenues for big power ambition. The ‘double game’ of mixing false pretext, political ambition and public benefit rationale is an age-old tradition.

The recent debate has been mostly western referenced and often focussed on promotion of the R2P as ‘a new norm of customary international law’, even one of obligation (Loiselle 2013: 317-341). This has articulated a groundswell of western sentiment generally in favour of intervention, almost regardless of the detail. This was a reversal of trends established by the formal colonies in the post-colonial era. The Non-Aligned Movement of 118 nations, mostly former colonies, on the other hand, elevates non-intervention as a founding principle of nation-states (Köchler 1982). As an example of past debates, the major in-principle dispute between the United States and the Latin American states at all Pan-American conferences in the early twentieth century was Washington’s refusal to accept the principle of non-intervention. Finally, in 1933, the United States recognised that principle (Dreier 1963: 40-41). Of course, the US continued to intervene in Latin America after this, but that principle helped drive a search for new pretexts.

While the notion of ‘humanitarian intervention’ has been around for some time, the more specific doctrine of a ‘responsibility to protect’ is quite recent. Nevertheless, the two share similar rationales for foreign military intervention, always by the big powers but usually in the name of a wider group. In one North American view, contemporary ‘humanitarian intervention’ links up to earlier practise, for example by the British Empire against slavery (well, forgetting about the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries) and by the alleged idealism of US intervention in the Spanish-American war (Bass 2009). In this view humanitarian intervention was distinct from imperialism, yet opposed by both ‘realists’ and ‘leftists’. Bass quotes John Stuart Mill, the famous English liberal, an opponent of absolute sovereignty and of slavery, yet an advocate of humanitarian intervention:

‘Barbarians have no rights as a nation, except a right to such treatment … [to] fit them for becoming one … [we should] mediate in the quarrels which break out between foreign states, to arrest obstinate civil wars … intercede for mild treatment of the vanquished … [and to abolish] the slave trade’ (Mill 1867: 252-253).

Mill’s view might be considered a predecessor of the ‘liberal imperialism’ argued by British writers (Ferguson 2004; Cooper 2002), though somewhat different to the arguments of North Americans such as Ignatieff (2005) and Ikenberry (2012), who tend to adhere to ‘hegemonic stability’ ideas. In this North American doctrine a benevolent superpower does not exploit its dominant role, but rather engages in self-sacrificing behaviour to provide ‘public goods’ to all (Keohane 1986).

In any case, ‘liberal imperialism’ does not sit well in the post-World War Two world, supposedly ordered by the United Nations Charter and the twin covenants of human rights. Both that Charter and those covenants begin with the right of states and peoples to self-determination. Critical perspectives also call for historical interpretations of ‘humanitarian intervention’ and of the ‘responsibility to protect’. Chomsky says such norms must be understood as historical parts of imperial doctrine. Most military aggressions, he writes, were ‘justified by elevated rhetoric about noble humanitarian intentions’ (Chomsky 2008: 48).

The idea of a ‘responsibility to protect’, however, was crafted in an era of clear recognition of self-determination and state sovereignty and, at the same time, conventions on war crimes, crimes against humanity and the newly-created crime of genocide. In this context, and following the mass killings in Cambodia and Rwanda, an ‘International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty in 2001 promoted the idea of ‘sovereignty as responsibility’, with a focus on violence within weak or emerging states. The World Summit of 2005 then stated:

‘Each individual state has the responsibility to protect its populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity … The international community should, as appropriate, encourage and help States … [and] we are prepared to take collective action … through the Security Council … should peaceful means be inadequate and national authorities are manifestly failing to protect their populations’ (UN 2005: 138-139).

The substance of this text was adopted in UN Security Council resolution 1674, the following year (UNSC 2006; see also ICRtoP 2014). Edward Luck (2009) observes that there is no necessary contradiction between this doctrine and state sovereignty, as the notion draws on conventional humanitarian law and ‘reinforces state sovereignty’. However he acknowledges a tension with a stricter sense of sovereignty, which he calls ‘Westphalian sovereignty’, and says the concern that R2P ideas ‘might be used by powerful states … to justify coercive interventions undertaken for other reasons is eminently understandable’ (Luck 2009: 17).

The R2P does not change the UN charter or the International Bill of Rights. It does, however, attract greater attention to the Chapter VII intervention powers of the Security Council. Yet the R2P has not altered the legal prohibition on military intervention, except in the case of self-defence or to prevent any attack on sovereignty which the Security Council regards as a breach of ‘collective security’. Both rationales aim to defend the international system, built on the integrity of nation-states.

In critical analysis, the first notable feature of the R2P doctrine is that it provides a new intervention rationale for the big powers, including the former colonial powers, to ‘prevent’ crimes which have traditionally been committed by those same powers. Rafael Lemkin – a Polish Jew, lawyer and creator of the concept of ‘genocide’ – said it had generally been the very strong states which engaged in wars of aggression, ethnic cleansing and genocide. Genocide, he said, was ‘not the result of the mood of an occasional rogue ruler but a recurring pattern in history … a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups’ (Frieze 2013: 138; Lemkin 1944: 79). The victims were those in contested and occupied territories, while the perpetrators described were the Ottoman, Japanese, Mongol and Spanish empires (Frieze 2013: 80, 138, 168, 184). Bloxham, who also wrote of the Armenian genocide, concurs with Lemkin that genocide must be understood as the outcome of historical processes and ‘structured relationships’, rather than the ‘evil intentions of wicked men’ (Bloxham 2003: 89). This great crime was one of the dreadful but logical outcomes of projects of domination, driven by empires. With this history in mind it was audacious of the big powers to seek use of ‘impending great crimes’, including anticipated genocide, as a pretext for intervention. No entity has committed great crimes on the scale of empires, which are interventionist by character.

Conscious of the legacies of colonisation, slavery and genocide, leaders of the Non Aligned group of nations, almost all former colonies, have strongly defended the principle of non-intervention (e.g. Lage 2006). From the beginning of the Syrian conflict most of these nations dismissed the idea of big power intervention on humanitarian grounds, regarding the R2P as ‘a Trojan Horse’ created to help bring about ‘regime change’ (Mendiluza 2014).

A second notable feature of the R2P is that the driving force tends to come from the liberal side of western politics. This is distinct from the divisions that emerged between the big powers over the 2003 invasion of Iraq, but consistent with the argument from Bass (2009) that ‘humanitarian intervention’ has its roots in the liberal, as opposed to the ‘realist’, side of hegemonic culture. I explained in Chapter Seven how former Human Rights Watch director Holly Burkhalter argued, on behalf of the US State Department, a very wide role for Washington’s military intervention, supposedly to prevent great crimes. The US military was more cautious, stressing a need for closer links to direct US interests (CFR 2000).

The Libyan intervention of 2011 drew heavily on R2P arguments, but NATO forces immediately went well beyond the UNSC’s ‘no fly zone’ mandate (see RT 2011). NATO air power and ground forces were decisive in destroying the government of Muammar Qaddafi and in dismantling the Libyan state. Former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney (2012: 12-13) points out that Iraq, Libya and Syria were ‘old pro-Soviet regimes’ that US Pentagon officials from the early 1990s had wanted to ‘clean up’. Those plans were sharpened with the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq. The Libyan pretext was alleged civilian massacres, in the wake of an al Qaeda style insurrection in Eastern Libya. Graham Cronogue (2012) citing the British Guardian, a key supporter of ‘humanitarian intervention’, claimed that ‘hundreds of civilians’ had been killed in ‘protests’. Amnesty International (2011: 8) supported claims of ‘killings, disappearances, and torture’.

Yet most of those reports were tainted by conflicts of interest.

The key source of information on supposed abuses by the Libyan Government, Sliman Bouchuiguir, drew his allegations directly from opposition political forces (Nazemroaya 2012: 132-134). He would later admit there was no way to verify the data he had presented on killings (Teil 2011). After Qaddafi was killed and his government overthrown, French Amnesty Head Genevieve Garrigos admitted the claims that Qaddafi was using ‘African mercenaries’ to slaughter Libyans was ‘just a rumour spread by the media’ (in Truth Syria 2012). Across the Atlantic, Amnesty USA’s Director, Suzanne Nossel, was recruited directly from her position at the US State Department, where she had worked on US policy against Russia, Iran, Libya, Syria (Teil 2012: 146; Wright and Rowley 2012; Cartalucci 2012).

The state of Qatar had helped supply arms to Libyan Islamists as well as propaganda through its media network, Al Jazeera (Fitrakis in McKinney 2012: 22). The US Government, through its National Endowment for Democracy, had funded several NGOs in Libya, which also contributed to the campaign for ‘humanitarian’ intervention (Nazemroaya 2012: 147). Conflicts of interest in the Libyan R2P debate were rampant. Estimates of the loss of life, drawing on North American sources, say that around ten times as many died after the NATO intervention as before. Four years after that intervention Libya remains in a disastrous situation (Kuperman 2015).

Wide academic dissatisfaction has been expressed over Libya as a model of R2P. Dunne and Gelber say that the Libyan arguments undermined the idea of an R2P ‘norm’, with the NATO shift from a ‘no fly zone’ to regime change ‘betraying’ the UN trust and showing the partisan nature of intervention (Dunne and Gelber 2014: 327-328). Brown agrees, saying that the Libyan intervention demonstrates that the suggested ‘apolitical nature’ of a responsibility to protect ‘is a weakness not a strength … the assumption that politics can be removed from the picture is to promote an illusion and thus to invite disillusionment’ (Brown 2013: 424-425). Even in western circles the doctrine lost its intellectual gloss, after Libya.

The historical record can help us take this critique, along with recognition of R2P as a ‘permissive norm’ (Steele and Heinze 2014: 88, 109), one step further. Both humanitarian intervention and R2P arguments must be interrogated by the well-established principles of avoiding conflicts of interest and having regard to sufficiently detailed and relatively independent evidence of the matters in question. Further, these arguments might best be informed by the long history of imperial interventions. That applies to all such conflicts, including the partisan claims made over civilian massacres in Syria. The fabrications over these massacres have been documented in this book at Chapters Eight and Nine. Without such principled examination the debate can easily fall hostage to false pretexts of the ‘double game’, a historical tactic of the great powers.

In 2014 there was a change in the principal rationale for western intervention in Syria. It shifted from one which drew on the ‘responsibility to protect’ to one of ‘protective intervention’, in the name of suppressing terrorism globally. This argument trampled on international law, showing reckless disregard for the rights of other peoples and their nations. In Syria this new argument involved the bizarre claim that Washington was arming one group of Islamists so they could fight another, more extreme group.

Both humanitarian intervention and the more specific R2P doctrine carry a high risk of aggravating serious crimes, as the ‘false flag’ massacres in Syria have demonstrated. When outside powers back proxy militias against a nation-state, those militia can be encouraged to carry out with impunity the worst atrocities, or to manipulate combinations of their own crimes and events, blaming them on the target ‘regime’ in the hope of attracting greater military support from their sponsors. That contribution to aggravated violence vindicates the wide-spread insistence on respect for the principle of non-intervention.

References:

Bass, Gary J. (2008) Freedom’s Battle: the origins of humanitarian intervention, Vintage Books, New York

Bloxham, Donald (2003) ‘The Armenian Genocide of 1915-1916: cumulative radicalization and the development of a destruction policy’, Past and Present, No 181, November, 189

Brown, Chris (2013) The Anti-Political theory of Responsibility to Protect’, Global Responsibility to Protect, Vol 5, Issue 4, 423-442

Cartalucci, Tony (2012) ‘Amnesty International is US State Department propaganda’, Global research, 22 August, online: http://www.globalresearch.ca/amnesty-international-is-us-state-department-propaganda/32444

CFR (2000) Humanitarian Intervention: crafting a workable doctrine, A Council Policy Initiative, Council on Foreign Relations, Washington

Chomsky, Noam (2008) ‘Humanitarian Imperialism: The New Doctrine of Imperial Right’, Monthly Review, Vol 60, No 4, September, online: http://monthlyreview.org/2008/09/01/humanitarian-imperialism-the-new-doctrine-of-imperial-right/

Cooper, Robert (2002) ‘The new liberal imperialism’, The Guardian, 7 April, online: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/apr/07/1

Cronogue, Graham (2012) ‘Responsibility to Protect: Syria, the Law, Politics and Future of Humanitarian Intervention Post-Libya’, Journal of International Humanitarian Legal Studies, Volume 3 issue 1, 124-159

Dreier, John (1963) ‘The Organization of American States and United States Policy’, International Organization 17, no. 1, 40–41.

Dunne, Tim and Katherine Gelber (2014) ‘Arguing Matters: The responsibility to protect and the Case of Libya’, Global Responsibility to Protect, 6, 326-349

Ferguson, (2004) Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire, Penguin, London

Frieze, Donna-Lee (Ed) (2013) Totally Unofficial: the autobiography of Raphael Lemkin, Yale University Press, New Haven

ICRtoP (2014) International Coalition for the Responsibility to Protect, World Federalist Movement, New York, online: http://www.responsibilitytoprotect.org/

Ignatieff, Michael (2005) American Exceptionalism and Human Rights, Princeton University Press, New Jersey

Ikenberry, G. John (2012) Liberal Leviathan: The Origins, Crisis, and Transformation of the American World Order, Princeton University Press, New Jersey

Keohane, Robert O. (1986) Neorealism and Its Critics, Colombia University, New York

Köchler, Hans (Ed) (1982) Principles of Non-alignment: The Non-aligned Countries in the Eighties – Results and Perspectives, Third World Centre, London

Kramer, Ronald C. and Raymond J. Michalowski (2005) ‘War, Aggression and State Crime: A Criminological Analysis of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq’, British Journal of Criminology, July, 45:4, 446-469

Kuperman, Alan J. (2015) ‘Obama’s Libya Debacle’, Foreign Affairs, March-April, online: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/libya/2015-02-16/obamas-libya-debacle

Lage, Carlos (2006) ‘Discurso del Vicepresidente del Consejo de Estado de la República de

Cuba Carlos Lage Dávila, en la Inauguración de la Reunión de Cancilleres del Movimiento de Países No Alineados, Granma, 18 September, online: http://www.granma.cu/granmad/secciones/noal-14/noti-noal/n060.html

Lemkin, Raphael (1944) Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Division of International Law, Washington

Loiselle, Marie-Eve (2013) ‘The Normative Status of the Responsibility to Protect After Libya’, Global Responsibility to Protect, Vol 5, Issue 3, 317-341

Luck, Edward C. (2009) ‘Sovereignty, Choice, and the Responsibility to Protect’, Global Responsibility to Protect 1, pp. 10–21

McKinney, Cynthia (2012) The Illegal war on Libya, Clarity Press, Atlanta GA

Mendiluza, Waldo (2014) ‘Debate sobre Siria en ONU, el tema humanitario como Caballo de Troya’, Avanzada, 16 February, online: http://avanzada.reduc.edu.cu/index.php/especial-siria/7088-debate-sobre-siria-en-onu-el-tema-humanitario-como-caballo-de-troya

Mill, John Stuart (1874) ‘On the Treatment of Barbarous Nations’, in Dissertations and Discussions: Political, Philosophical, and Historical, Vol 3, Longmans, Green, Reader and Dyer, London

Nazemroaya, Mahdi Daerius (2012) ‘The Big Lie and Libya’, in Cynthia McKinney (2012) The Illegal war on Libya, Clarity Press, Atlanta GA, 127-139

RT (2011) ‘Russia accuses NATO of going beyond UN resolution on Libya’, April 17, online: http://rt.com/news/russia-nato-un-resolution-libya/

Steele, Brent J, and Eric A. Heinze (2014) ‘Norms of Intervention, R2P and Libya’, Global Responsibility to Protect, Vol 6, 88-112

Teil, Julian (2011) ‘Lies behind the “Humanitarian War” in Libya: There is no evidence! (Part 1), NATO Crimes In Libya’, YouTube, Interview with Soliman Bouchuiguir, October 15, online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4evwAMIh4Y

Truth Syria (2012) ‘The Gaddafi Mercenaries and the Division of Africa’, YouTube, Interview with Genevieve Garrigos (Amnesty International France), 4 February, online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WFknaEKdOM

UN (2005) 2005 World Summit Outcome, 60/1, 24 October, online: http://www.un.org/womenwatch/ods/A-RES-60-1-E.pdf

UNSC (2006) Resolution 1674, online: http://www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/Civilians%20SRES1674.pdf

Wright, Ann and Coleen Rowley (2012) ‘Amnesty’s Shilling for US Wars’, Consortium News, June 18, online: https://consortiumnews.com/2012/06/18/amnestys-shilling-for-us-wars/

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Damascus –The Cabinet condemned the terrorist bombing that rocked Homs city earlier today and left civilian casualties.

This “cowardly” terrorist attack came in retaliation for the local reconciliations taking place in Homs province, said a statement by Prime Minister Wael al-Halaqi, referring to a most recent settlement agreement that will ensure clearing al-Waer neighborhood of weapons and gunmen.

Such terrorist attacks, the statement added, will not succeed in intimidating the Syrians off the reconciliation track, but will rather boost their determination to continue fighting terrorism and consolidating national unity.

In the Cabinet’s statement, the Premier held the countries supporting and funding terrorism fully responsible for the “barbaric massacres” committed in Syria, demanding that those countries stop their conduct.

Today’s terrorist attack, carried out with a car packed with 150 kg of explosives, targeted the crowded al-Zahraa neighborhood, claiming several lives, injuring others and leaving massive material damage.

The neighborhood has been previously targeted several times. The latest was on October 4 when a similar car bomb attack killed a civilian and injured 21 others.

An attack on September 22 also left a civilian dead and 12 others wounded.

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“The targets we’ve set are bold.  And by empowering businesses, scientists, engineers, workers, and the private sector — investors — to work together, this agreement represents the best chance we’ve had to save the one planet that we’ve got.” –U.S. President Barack Obama, commenting on the adoption of the Paris Climate Agreement, December 12, 2015 [1]

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The 21st annual  UN climate conference of parties (COP21) gathered in Paris this year.

World leaders engaged in two weeks of intense negotiations geared at turning the tide on one of the greatest threats facing humanity, namely runaway climate change.

As of Saturday December 12, negotiations concluded with an agreement focused on keeping global temperatures below the agreed upon limit of 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, as well as $100 billion a year commitment in climate financing for developing countries.

The celebratory rhetoric and declarations of the ‘historic’ nature of this accord glosses over some of the complications involved in adequately confronting the fall-out from a society addicted to fossil fuels.

This week’s Global Research News Hour invites three analysts with three different perspectives related to fossil fuel dependence and climate change.

First we speak to Richard Heinberg. He is a Senior Fellow with the Post-Carbon Institute. He is a journalist, and author of a dozen books including The Party’s Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies (2003) and his most recent Afterburn: Society Beyond Fossil Fuels (2015). Heinberg is considered one of the world’s leading educators on the subject of Peak Oil, the opposite side of the fossil fuel energy coin. In this interview he outlines the extent to which our society is dependent on cheap oil, why peak oil is still an issue in spite of $40 a barrel oil, how hydraulic fracturing and other new oil recovery technologies is generating an oil economy ‘bubble’ that is set to burst, and why transitioning to a “renewable energy” economy is much more complicated than many people anticipate.

Dane Wigington is a licensed contractor based in northern California and a former employee of Bechtel. The founder of the information site geoengineeringwatch.org, Wigington is convinced that geo-engineering is among the greatest threats facing humanity at present, He remarks that geo-engineering efforts such as Solar Radiation management and the (High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program  (HAARP) are not only harmful, but have been clandestinely pursued for decades. He expresses his thoughts about why weather modification is being pursued, how humanity and the ecosphere is being affected, and why there is so little public discussion about impacts of these programs even from traditional Climate activists.

Finally, we hear from Guy McPherson. He is a Professor Emeritus of  Natural Resources and Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona. He has spent years assembling and collating available peer-reviewed research on climate. On his blog Nature Bats Last is a ‘Monster Climate Essay‘ which leaves readers with the conclusion that there is virtually nothing that can be done to halt runaway climate change and the Near-Term Extinction of the human species. Dr. McPherson updates listeners on the most recent discoveries and the prospects of these Climate Meetings to accomplish much of anything of significance.

 

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The Global Research News Hour airs every Friday at 1pm CT on CKUW 95.9FM in Winnipeg. The programme is also podcast at globalresearch.ca .

The show can be heard on the Progressive Radio Network at prn.fm. Listen in every Monday at 3pm ET.

Community Radio Stations carrying the Global Research News Hour:

CHLY 101.7fm in Nanaimo, B.C – Thursdays at 1pm PT

Boston College Radio WZBC 90.3FM NEWTONS  during the Truth and Justice Radio Programming slot -Sundays at 7am ET.

Port Perry Radio in Port Perry, Ontario –1  Thursdays at 1pm ET

Burnaby Radio Station CJSF out of Simon Fraser University. 90.1FM to most of Greater Vancouver, from Langley to Point Grey and from the North Shore to the US Border.

It is also available on 93.9 FM cable in the communities of SFU, Burnaby, New Westminister, Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, Port Moody, Surrey and Delta, in British Columbia Canada. – Tune in every Saturday at 6am.

Notes: 

1) http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/12/12/transcript-and-video-obama-praises-climate-deal/

 

Cameron UKIllegal Slaughter: Cameron’s Bombings of Syria, Equals Blair’s Iraq War Crimes

By Felicity Arbuthnot, December 12 2015

How desperately Prime Minister Cameron has been yearning to bomb the Syrian Arab Republic.

Russia_USA__nuclear_armsUS “Unofficially” Waging War on Russia Without a Formal “Declaration of War”

By Stephen Lendman, December 12 2015

Washington’s undeclared war on Russia (and China) is the greatest threat to world peace, risking the unthinkable – possible nuclear war.

man voting on elections in venezuela in front of flagVenezuelan Election Results: The Electoral System and Democracy

By Arnold August, December 12 2015

Can the Bolivarian Revolution successfully face up to these momentous domestic and international challenges? In the long run, yes.

central-banks-economyReinventing Banking: From Russia to Iceland to Ecuador

By Ellen Brown, December 12 2015

Global developments in finance and geopolitics are prompting a rethinking of the structure of banking and of the nature of money itself.

RussiaInterest Free Banking: Russia Debates Unorthodox Orthodox Financial Alternative

By F. William Engdahl, December 12 2015

A significant debate is underway in Russia since imposition of western financial sanctions on Russian banks and corporations in 2014. It’s about a proposal presented by the Moscow Patriarchate of the Orthodox Church. The proposal, which resembles Islamic interest-free banking models in many respects, was first unveiled in December 2014 at the depth of the Ruble crisis and oil price free-fall.

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Syria will not negotiate with terrorists to end the conflict on their terms, no matter how hard the West tries to present armed gangs as grassroots political opposition, the country’s President Bashar Assad told Spanish News Agency EFE.

The problem, Assad says, lies with the fact that large portion of armed fighters and terror gangs in Syria are foreign mercenaries, which the US and their allies in the Gulf region are craving to include in the negotiation process.

“Opposition is a political term, not a military term. So, talking about the concept is different from the practice, because so far, we’ve been seeing that some countries, including Saudi Arabia, the United States, and some western countries wanted the terrorist groups to join these negotiations. They want the Syrian government to negotiate with the terrorists, something I don’t think anyone would accept in any country,” Assad told EFE.

At the same time, Assad once again reiterated that his government is always open for negotiations with the real opposition – but emphasized that opposition must be defined.

“Opposition, for everyone in this world, doesn’t mean militant,” Assad stressed. He said that Damascus is already engaged in dialogue with certain armed “groups, not organizations”, so they would lay down their arms in exchange for “amnesty from the government” and a chance to return to “normal life.”

“This is the only way to deal with the militants in Syria. Whenever they want to change their approach, give up the armaments, we are ready, while to deal with them as a political entity, this is something we completely refuse,” Assad clarifies.

An agreement on a peaceful resolution to the crisis, according to Assad, can only be reached with the “real, patriotic, national opposition” that has grassroots in and related to Syria, “not to any other state or regime in the world.”

In Syria “more than 100 nationalities” have united with the government in their fight with the extremists, including Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL), Al-Qaeda and Al-Nusra. Fighting these jihadi groups in the long term should focus on tackling“Wahabi” militant ideology of Islam, Assad said.

“The ideology, something that’s been instilled in the minds of the people or the society in the Muslim world for decades now, because of the Wahabi institutions, because of the Saudi money that’s been paid to support this kind of dark and resentful ideology,” Assad said.

“Saudi Arabia and Turkey and Qatar are the main perpetrators in the atrocities of ISIS,” he stressed.

OP-EDGE: This isn’t about ISIS, just good old fashioned regime change

In the short term, anti-ISIS combat efforts should focus on cutting the jihadist supply routes of fighters and financing on the Turkish border.

“To solve this problem is to stop the flood of terrorists, especially through Turkey to Syria and to Iraq, and of course we have to stop the flowing of money…to those terrorists through Turkey, and the armaments,” the Syrian president said.

Assad confirmed Russian intelligence data over ISIS oil smuggling activity, explaining why Syrian illegally harnessed oil has no other place to go but to Turkey.

“Most of the oil in Syria is in the northern part of Syria. If they want to export it to Iraq, that’s impossible, because every party in Iraq is fighting ISIS. In Syria, it’s the same. In Lebanon, it’s very far. Jordan in the south is very far. So, the only lifeline for ISIS is Turkey. Those trucks moving the oil from Syria to Turkey, and Turkey selling this cheap oil to the rest of the world,”Assad reasoned.

Assad said that if pressure is stepped up on Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, “then this conflict will end in less than a year, definitely,” as Syrian army is making impressive gains on the ground.

 

Commenting on Russian participation in the air campaign against the terrorists in Syria, Assad attributed its success to joint coordination with the Syrian forces on the ground. The Syrian leader says the US coalition has failed to produce any fruitful results because it does not have any significant forces doing the ground work for them in Syria.

“You have to deal with them [ISIS] from the ground, and that’s why when the Russians came and started their participation in the war against terrorism, the achievement of the Russian and Syrian armies in a few weeks was much better than the alliance has achieved during more than a year,” he said.

Another reason for US underachievement is their support – probably indirect – for the extremists, Assad says.

Actually [the US-coalition] didn’t achieve anything … because they were supporting ISIS, maybe indirectly, because it was expanding, and you have more recruits coming.

The Syrian leader also accused the US of lacking the will to fight terrorism. At the same time, Assad criticized the French involvement in Syria following the November 13 attacks as an overdue retaliatory revenge strike.

 

This heavy bombardment is just to dissipate the anger within the French public opinion, not to fight terrorism. If you want to fight terrorism, you don’t wait for a shooting in order to fight terrorism. Fighting terrorism is a principle.

Russia instead is fighting for a principle, a principle to protect its borders. Furthermore “Russia now, in Syria, they are defending Europe directly,” Assad concluded.

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The dirty war on Syria has involved repeated scandals, often fabricated against the Syrian Government to help create pretexts for deeper intervention. Perhaps the most notorious was the East Ghouta incident of August 2013, where pictures of dead or drugged children were uploaded from an Islamist-held agricultural area east of Damascus, with the claim that the Syrian Government had used chemical weapons to murder hundreds of innocents. The incident generated such attention that direct US intervention was only averted by a Russian diplomatic initiative. The Syrian Government agreed to eliminate its entire stockpile of chemical weapons (Smith-Spark and Cohen 2013), maintaining that it had never used them in the recent conflict.

Indeed, all the independence evidence on the East Ghouta incident (including evidence from the US and the UN) shows that the Syrian Government was falsely accused. This followed a series of other false accusations, ‘false flag’ claims recorded by Mother Agnes (SANA 2011), a biased investigation into the Houla massacre (see Chapter Eight) and failed or exposed attempts to blame the Syrian Government over Islamist group killings, for example at Daraya and Aqrab (Fisk 2012; Thompson 2012). However the Islamist groups’ use of chemical weapons was mostly dismissed by the western powers, and that stance has been reflected in almost all western media reports. Further, because the chemical weapon claims have been repeated for years, public perceptions seem to have little reference to facts based on evidence. After a little background, let’s consider the independent evidence on the East Ghouta incident, in some detail. Arising from that evidence we are led to another serious crime of war, the fate of the dead or drugged children portrayed in those infamous images.

 

 A range of independent evidence fairly quickly showed the claims of Syrian Army involvement in the chemical weapons incident at East Ghouta were false.

A range of independent evidence fairly quickly showed the claims
of Syrian Army involvement in the chemical weapons incident at East Ghouta were false.

9.1 Chemical Weapons in Syria

Chemical weapons are a crude relic of an earlier era, such as the trench warfare of a century ago. They have no utility in urban warfare, where an army hunts armed groups amongst streets, buildings and civilian populations. No real utility, unless a ruthless party wants to create general panic or make false claims. In the case of the Syrian Arab Army, their conventional weapons were far superior to crude chemical weapons and their urban warfare training, including that done in Iran, had the aim of rooting out terrorist groups, building by building (al Akhras 2013). A stockpile of chemical weapons had been kept as a deterrent to Israel, which holds nuclear weapons; but there had been no proven use of them in recent decades.

By mid-2013 the war had turned in favour of the Government. Although parts of Aleppo, east Damascus and some parts of eastern Syria were held by various Islamist groups, the Army had secured the major populated areas in western Syria and had closed much of the armed traffic across the mountainous Lebanese border. Along the borders with states which backed the Islamists – Turkey, Israel and Jordan – there were regular incursions, but they were mostly beaten back by the Syrian Army. Over May-June 2013 the Army, backed by Lebanon’s Hezbollah, took back the city of Qusayr, south-west of Homs, from a combination of the Farouq Brigade and Jabhat al Nusra, including many foreigners (Mortada 2013).

In this context anti-government armed Islamist groups were accused of using chemical weapons. The main foreign support group for the Syrian Islamists, Jabhat al Nusra, were reported to have seized a chemical factory near Aleppo in December 2012 (Gerard Direct 2012). Then in March the Syrian Government complained to the UN that sarin gas had been used in a major battle with the Islamists at Khan al Assal, west of Aleppo. The Syrian news agency SANA reported that terrorists had fired a rocket ‘containing chemical materials’, killing 16 people and wounding 86, soldiers and civilians. The death toll later rose to 25 (Barnard 2013). The Muslim Brotherhood-aligned British-based source, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, along with other anti-government ‘activists’, confirmed the casualties but insinuated that the Syrian Army might have used the weapons and ‘accidentally’ hit themselves (Barnard 2013). Western media reports mostly elevated the Islamist counter-claims to the level of the Government’s report. In April 2013 Jabhat al Nusra was reported as having gained access to chlorine gas (NTI 2013).

About Khan al Asal, a 19 March statement from Syria’s UN Ambassador, Bashar al Ja’afari, said that ‘armed terrorist groups had fired a rocket from the Kfar De’il area towards Khan Al Asal (Aleppo district) … a thick cloud of smoke had left unconscious anyone who had inhaled it. The incident reportedly resulted in the deaths of 25 people and injured more than 110 civilians and soldiers who were taken to hospitals in Aleppo’. The following day the Syrian Government ‘requested the Secretary-General to establish a specialized, impartial independent mission to investigate the alleged incident’ (UNMIAUCWSAA 2013: 2-3).

Almost immediately following this, from 21 March onwards, the governments of the USA, France and Britain (all of which were by then directly or indirectly supporting the Islamist groups) began to add a series of incidents, claiming the use of chemical weapons in Syria (UNMIAUCWSAA 2013: 2-6). Washington repeatedly claimed there was ‘no proof’ the ‘rebels’ were responsible for chemical weapon use. They sought to turn the accusations against the Syrian Government. However, in an interim statement in May, UN investigator Carla del Ponte said she had testimony from victims that ‘rebels’ had used sarin gas (BBC 2013). Then in May, Turkish security forces were reported to have found a 2kg canister of sarin, after raiding the homes of Jabhat al Nusra fighters (RT 2013). In July Russia announced it had evidence that Syrian ‘rebels’ were making their own sarin gas (Al Jazeera 2013).

Despite dissatisfaction over the Houla inquiry the previous year the Syrian Government invited UN inspectors to visit the Khan al Asal attack site. Details were organised and the UN’s Special Mission finally arrived in Damascus on 18 August 2013. The Mission ‘intended to contemporaneously investigate the reported allegations of the use of chemical weapons in Khan Al Asal, Saraqueb and Sheik Maqsood’, that is, at three of the 16 reported sites where such attacks ‘were deemed credible’. However, ‘after the tragic events of 21 August 2013’ the UN Secretary General directed the group to investigate the East Ghouta incident ‘as a matter of priority’ (UNMIAUCWSAA 2013: 7-8). This incident derailed the initially planned investigations. Despite the implausibility of the Syrian Government launching a chemical weapons attack, just as it had invited UN inspectors in Damascus, the new claims gained world attention.

9.2 The East Ghouta Incident

The main armed Islamist group which controlled the area, the Saudi-backed Islamic Front (Liwa al Islam), blamed the Government for gassing children. Photos of dozens of dead or injured children were circulated. Supporting the ‘rebel’ accusations, the US government and the US-based Human Rights Watch blamed the Syrian government. Human Rights Watch said it had ‘analyzed witness accounts of the rocket attacks, information on the likely source of the attacks, the physical remnants of the weapon systems used’, and claimed the rockets used were ‘weapon systems known and documented to be only in the possession of, and used by, Syrian government armed forces’ (HRW 2013a). Much the same was said by the US Government. Close links between the two should tell us that this was more collaboration than corroboration. A group of Nobel Prize winners would later accuse Human Rights Watch of running a ‘revolving door’ between its offices and those of the US government (Pérez Esquivel and Maguire 2014).

The New York Times backed the US Government claim ‘that only Syrian government forces had the ability to carry out such a strike’ (Gladstone and Chivers 2013). The paper claimed vector calculations of the rocket trajectories indicated they must have been fired from Syrian Army bases in Damascus (Parry 2013). Yet studies at MIT quickly showed the rockets to have a much shorter range than was suggested. The NYT retreated from its telemetry claims saying, while ‘some argued that it was still possible the government was responsible’, new evidence ‘undermined the Obama administration’s assertions’ about the rocket launch points’ (Chivers 2013; also Parry 2013). The final MIT report was more emphatic, concluding that the rockets ‘could not possibly have been fired at East Ghouta from the ‘heart’, or from the eastern edge, of the Syrian Government controlled area shown in the intelligence map published by the White House on August 30, 2013’ (Lloyd and Postol 2014).

While western media outlets mostly repeated Washington’s accusations, independent reports continued to contradict the story. Journalists Dale Gavlak and Yahya Ababneh reported direct interviews with ‘doctors, Ghouta residents, rebel fighters and their families’ in the East Ghouta area. Many believed that the Islamists had received chemical weapons via Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, and were responsible for carrying out the gas attack (Gavlak and Ababneh 2013). The father of a rebel said his son had asked ‘what I thought the weapons were that he had been asked to carry’. His son and 12 other rebels were ‘killed inside of a tunnel used to store weapons provided by a Saudi militant, known as Abu Ayesha’ (Gavlak and Ababneh 2013). A female fighter complained they had no instructions on how to use chemical weapons. A rebel leader said much the same. Many of those interviewed reported that their salaries came from the Saudi government (Gavlak and Ababneh 2013).

Next a Syrian group, ISTEAMS, led by Mother Agnes Mariam, carried out a detailed examination of the video evidence, noting that bodies had been manipulated for the images and that many of the children appeared ill or drugged (ISTEAMS 2013: 32-35). The videos used ‘artificial scenic treatment … there is a flagrant lack of real families in East Ghouta … so who are the children that are exposed in those videos?’ (ISTEAMS 2013: 44). How is it that there are so many children without parents, the report asked? All reports came from ‘rebel’ controlled areas. The medical office of the area claimed 10,000 injured and 1,466 killed, 67% of whom were women and children; while the Local Coordinating Committee (by this time an FSA linked group) said there were 1,188 victims. Videos showed less than 500 bodies, by no means all dead (ISTEAMS 2013: 36-38). Even more striking was the subsequent absence of verified bodies. ‘Eight corpses are seen buried. [The] remaining 1,458 corpses, where are they? Where are the children?’ (ISTEAMS 2013: 41). A ‘rebel’ spokesperson claimed that ‘burials took place quickly for fear the bodies might decompose as a result of the heat’ (Mroue 2013).

The ISTEAMS report suggested a possible link with a large scale abduction of children in Ballouta, Northern Latakia, just two weeks prior to the East Ghouta incident.

‘We refer also the list of the victims of the invasion of 11 Alawite villages in Lattakia the 4th of August 2013, where 150 women and children were abducted by Jobhat Al Nosra’ (ISTEAMS 2013: 43).

The report said:

‘the families of some adducted women and children … recognise their relatives in the videos’, and called for an ‘unbiased’ investigation to determine the identity and whereabouts of the children (ISTEAMS 2013: 44). Later reports noted that the children abducted in northern Syria had been held in the northern town of Selma (Martin 2014; Mesler 2014), with one alleging the armed groups had drugged those children to create a video, sending the images to East Ghouta to be uploaded (Mesler 2014). If this were true, those children were never in the East Ghouta.

At the end of 2013 a Turkish lawyers and writers group issued a substantial report on crimes against civilians in Syria. A particular focus was the responsibility of the Turkish Government, which was backing the ‘rebel’ groups. The report concluded that ‘most of the crimes’ against Syrian civilians, including the East Ghouta attack, were committed by ‘armed rebel forces in Syria’. The Saudi backed group Liwa al Islam, led by Zahran Alloush, was said ‘by several sources to be the organization behind the chemical attack (Peace Association and Lawyers for Justice 2013).

The US storyline received another blow, from within the US. Veteran North American journalist Seymour Hersh interviewed US intelligence agents and concluded that Washington’s claims on the evidence had been fabricated. Al Nusra ‘should have been a suspect’, he said, ‘but the [US] administration cherry picked intelligence to justify a strike against Assad’ (Hersh 2013). President Obama cited as evidence the Syrian Army’s preparation for a gas attack and ‘chatter’ on the Syrian airwaves at the time of the incident. However Hersh said he had found ‘intense concern’ and anger amongst US agents over ‘the deliberate manipulation of intelligence’. One officer said the attack ‘was not the result of the current regime’ (Hersh 2013). The White House backgrounder combined facts after the event with those before. Hersh concludes that the White House ‘disregarded the available intelligence about al-Nusra’s potential access to sarin and continued to [wrongly] claim that the Assad government was in sole possession of chemical weapons’ (Hersh 2013).

The UN special mission on chemical weapons returned to Syria in late September and investigated several sites, including East Ghouta. They decided to investigate seven of the initial sixteen reports (UNMIAUCWSAA 2013: 10). This Mission was not briefed to determined responsibility, but rather to determine whether chemical weapons had been used and what had been the results. In a December 2013 report they reported that chemical weapons had been used in Syria, and specifically

‘against civilians, including children, on a relatively large scale in the Ghouta area of Damascus on 21 August … in Khan Al Asal on 19 March 2013 against soldiers and civilians … in Jobar on 24 August 2013 on a relatively small scale against soldiers … in Saraqueb on 24 August 2013 on a small scale, also against civilians … [and] in Ashrafiah Sahnaya on 25 August 2013 on a small scale against soldiers’ (UNMIAUCWSAA 2013: 19-21).

Notice that on three of these five occasions chemical weapons were used against soldiers. Logically those attacks came from groups which were fighting soldiers, not from government forces. A later report for the Human Rights Council (February 2014) noted that the chemical agents used in Khan-Al-Assal attack ‘bore the same unique hallmarks as those used in al Ghouta’; however they could not determine the perpetrator (HRC 2014: 19). The independent evidence was overwhelming and inescapable: chemical weapons had been used in East Ghouta, but the charges against the Syrian Army were fabricated.

Evidence independent of the Syrian Government came from Syrian, Jordanian, Turkish and US sources, and from a United Nations team. Further, many of the images of sick of dead children were not reliably linked to East Ghouta.

Nor is there independent verification of who those children are and what happened to them. The weight of evidence shows this to be another ‘false flag’ incident, designed to attract deeper foreign intervention. The scale of independent reporting which undermined claims against the Syrian Government stands in marked contrast to the boastful self-publicity by ‘rebels’ of their own atrocities: beheadings, public executions, truck bombings, mortaring of cities, bombing of hospitals and destruction of mosques and churches. The fact that the Syrian Army strongly contests civilian atrocity claims (the treatment of captured fighters is another matter), while many of the ‘rebels’ publicise their own atrocities, sets a distinct background to these controversies.

9.3. Chemical fabrications and Syria’s Missing Children

After the East Ghouta incident, Islamist groups supported by a range of states opposed to Syria maintained the chemical accusations. Jabhat al Nusra claimed the chemicals they were caught with in Turkey were ‘not for making sarin gas’ (Today’s Zaman 2013). Yet video evidence from south Syria showed al Nusra using chemical weapons against Syrian soldiers (Turbeville 2014). In July 2014 barrels containing sarin were reported as discovered in parts of ‘rebel-held Syria’ (RT 2014). Then in 2015 Iraqi Kurds reported the other main al Qaeda group ISIS as using chemical weapons (Solomon 2015; Ariel 2015). Kurdish fighters seized chlorine canisters after a suicide bomb attack which left them ‘dizzy, nauseous and weak’ (Akbar 2015).

Anti-Syrian ‘activists’, plus US-based NGOs such as Avaaz, the Syria Campaign and The White Helmets, repeated and extended the accusations, urging a Libyan styled ‘no fly zone’ (NFZ Syria 2015; White Helmets 2015), clearly intended to topple the Government in Damascus. By 2014 there seemed little chance that would happen. In April 2014 Al Jazeera again accused the Syrian Government of using chlorine gas (Baker 2014), while anonymous activists’ accused the Syrian army of a poison gas attack (Mroue and Lucas 2015). In neither case was there any independent verification. Nevertheless, media channels repeated the initial claims of the East Ghouta incident, as though they were fact, oblivious to the evidence. An April 2015 article in the UK Guardian, for example, claimed in its backgrounder that the Syrian Government had used chemical weapons and ‘killed up to 1,400 people in August 2013’ (Black 2015). Such was the reckless disinformation.

The smokescreens around chemical weapons effectively derailed reasonable western discussion about the war in Syria; and perhaps that was the point. It is sad, though, that reasonable discussion of the evidence should matter so little. Further, the constant stream of fabrications have certainly aggravated and helped prolong the violence. Islamist militia carry out their crimes with relative impunity, regularly blaming them on the Syrian Government.

Another crime has been buried by the chemical fabrications: the fate of the children kidnapped in Ballouta. Even Human Rights Watch reported this crime (HRW 2013b), if not the link to the children said to have been injured or killed in East Ghouta. This mass kidnapping was just one of many by the armed groups. The victims are held for ransom, for prisoner exchanges, or simply slaughtered because they are thought be from pro-government families. However in the East Ghouta incident, several sources (ISTEAMS 2013; Martin 2014; Mesler 2014) link the Ballouta children to the photos of the dead or drugged little bodies said to have bene in the East Ghouta. That is, their images may have been uploaded from East Ghouta but the bodies were never there. While some of those kidnapped were released in a 2014 prisoner exchange, many are still held, reportedly in Selma.

This is said to be why many families in northern Syria did not wish to publicly identify their children. They want to free those that have survived. Western media sources continue refer to ‘1,400’ dead, without names, but only eight bodies are known to have been buried. In the fog of war, Mother Agnes Mariam has been right all along to insist on names and details of people killed, and not just a recital of numbers, as though these killings were a cricket match. Back in September 2013 her ISTEAMS group posed one of the most vital questions of this whole affair: ‘Eight corpses are seen buried’. [The] remaining 1,458 corpses, where are they? Where are the children?’ (ISTEAMS 2013: 41).

References:

Al Akhras, Samer (2013) Interview with this writer, Damascus, 24 December

Al Jazeera (2013) ‘Syria rebels made own sarin gas, says Russia’, 10 July, online: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/07/20137920448105510.html  

Anderson, Tim (2015) ‘The Houla Massacre Revisited: “Official Truth” in the Dirty War on Syria’, Global Research, 24 March, online: http://www.globalresearch.ca/houla-revisited-official-truth-in-the-dirty-war-on-syria/5438441  

Ariel, Ben (2015) ‘United States ‘concerned’ about ISIS use of chlorine gas’, Arutz Sheva, 17 March, online: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/192730#.VSJJc5MY6q4  

Akbar, Jay (2015) ‘More evidence emerges of ISIS using chemical weapons as Kurdish fighters seize chlorine canisters after suicide bomb attack that left them ‘dizzy, nauseous and weak’’, 15 March, Daily Mail, online: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2995150/More-evidence-emerges-ISIS-using-chemical-weapons-Kurdish-fighters-seize-chlorine-canisters-suicide-bomb-attack-left-dizzy-nauseous-weak.html  

Baker, Graeme (2014) ‘Syrian regime accused of chlorine gas attacks’, Al Jazeera, 17 April, online: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/04/syrian-regime-accused-chlorine-gas-attacks-201441703230338216.html  

Barnard, Anne (2013) ‘Syria and Activists Trade Charges on Chemical Weapons’, New York Times, 19 March, online: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/20/world/middleeast/syria-developments.html?pagewanted=all

BBC (2013) UN’s Del Ponte says evidence Syria rebels ‘used sarin’’, 6 May, online: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-22424188  

Black, Ian (2015) ‘Former ambassador attacks Cameron’s ‘arrogant’ Syria policy’, UK Guardian, 8 April, online: http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/apr/07/former-ambassador-attacks-camerons-arrogant-syria-policy

Chivers, C.J. (2013) ‘New Study Refines View of Sarin Attack in Syria’, New York Times, online: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/29/world/middleeast/new-study-refines-view-of-sarin-attack-in-syria.html  

Eva Pal (2014) ‘Talk with Lilly Martin and Steven Sahiounie, part 1’, YouTube, May 10, online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oc2HRk42O-w

Fisk, Robert (2012) ‘Inside Daraya – how a failed prisoner swap turned into a massacre’, 29 August: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-inside-daraya–how-a-failed-prisoner-swap-turned-into-a-massacre-8084727.html  

Gavlak, Dale and Yahya Ababneh (2013) ‘Syrians In Ghouta Claim Saudi-Supplied Rebels Behind Chemical Attack’, MINT PRESS, August 29, online: http://www.mintpressnews.com/witnesses-of-gas-attack-say-saudis-supplied-rebels-with-chemical-weapons/168135/  

Gerard Direct (2012) ‘Syria: jihadist al-Nusra Front seizes chemical factory near Aleppo’, 9 December, online: http://gerarddirect.com/2012/12/09/syria-jihadist-al-nusra-front-siezes-chemical-factory-in-allepo/  

Gladstone, Rick and C.J Chivers (2013) ‘Forensic Details in U.N. Report Point to Assad’s Use of Gas’, New York Times, 16 September, online: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/17/world/europe/syria-united-nations.html?_r=0&amp;adxnnl=1&amp;adxnnlx=1387381766-55AjTxhuELAeFSCuukA7Og

Hersh, Seymour M. (2013) ‘Whose Sarin?’ London Review of Books, Vol. 35 No. 24, 19 December, 9-12, online: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n24/seymour-m-hersh/whose-sarin  

Hersh, Seymour M. (2014) ‘The Red Line and the Rat Line’, London Review of Books, 36:8, 17 April, pp 21-24, online: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n08/seymour-m-hersh/the-red-line-and-the-rat-line  

HRC (2014) ‘Report of the independent international commission of inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic’, Human Rights Council, A/HRC/25/65, 12 February, online: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/IICISyria/Pages/IndependentInternationalCommission.aspx

HRW (2013a) ‘Attacks on Ghouta: Analysis of Alleged Use of Chemical Weapons in Syria’, Human Rights Watch, Washington, 10 September, online: http://www.hrw.org/reports/2013/09/10/attacks-ghouta  

HRW (2013b) ‘You Can Still See Their Blood’, Human Rights Watch, Washington, 11 October, online: http://www.hrw.org/node/119675/  

ISTEAMS (2013) ‘Independent Investigation of Syria Chemical Attack Videos and Child Abductions’, 15 September, online: http://www.globalresearch.ca/STUDY_THE_VIDEOS_THAT_SPEAKS_ABOUT_CHEMICALS_BETA_VERSION.pdf  

Lloyd, Richard and Theodore A. Postol (2014) ‘Possible Implications of Faulty US Technical Intelligence in the Damascus Nerve Agent Attack of August 21, 2013’, MIT, January 14, Washington DC, online: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1006045-possible-implications-of-bad-intelligence.html#storylink=relast

Malas, Nour (2013) ‘As Syrian Islamists Gain, It’s Rebel Against Rebel’, Wall Street Journal, 29 may, online: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323975004578499100684326558.html   

Martin, Lilly (2014) in Deena Stryker ‘The Hidden Australia/Syria Story’, Op Ed News, 22 December, online: http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Hidden-Australia-Syria-by-Deena-Stryker-Children_Community_Death_Government-141222-294.html

Mesler, John (2014) ‘Combating the Propaganda Machine in Syria: The ‘Moderate Opposition’, the Children from Ballouta, and the Sarin Gas Attack on Eastern Ghouta’, NSNBC, 10 October, online: http://nsnbc.me/2014/10/10/combating-propaganda-machine-syria/

Mortada, Radwan (2012) ‘Syria Alternatives (II): no homegrown solutions’, Al Akhbar, 13 June, online: http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/syria-alternatives-ii-no-homegrown-solutions  

Mortada, Radwan (2013) ‘The Battle for Qusayr: Decisive Victory or War of Attrition?’ Al Akhbar, May 21, online: http://english.al-akhbar.com/node/15864  

Mroue, Bassem (2013) ‘Syrian forces bomb area of alleged chemical attack’ USA Today, 22 August, online: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/08/22/syria-attack/2683855/

Mroue, Bassem and Ryan Lucas (2015) ‘Activists accuse Syrian military of deadly poison gas attack’, 17 march, online: http://news.yahoo.com/group-syrian-attacks-may-amount-war-crimes-074128323.html  

NFZ Syria (2015) ‘Call from Syria: London march 26th April’, 4 April, online: http://www.nfzsyria.org/  

NTI (2013) ‘Syrian militants have access to chlorine gas: plant owner’, 1 April, online: http://www.nti.org/gsn/article/syrian-militants-have-access-chlorine-gas-plant-owner/

Parry, Robert (2013) ‘NYT Backs Off Its Syria-Sarin Analysis’, Global Research, 30 December, online: http://www.globalresearch.ca/nyt-backs-off-its-syria-sarin-analysis/5363023  

Peace Association and Lawyers for Justice in Turkey (2013) ‘War Crimes Committed Against the People of Syria’, December, online: http://www.wpc-in.org/sites/default/files/documents/war-crimes-committed-againts-the-people-of-syria.pdf  

RT (2013) ‘Turkey finds sarin gas in homes of suspected Syrian Islamists – reports’, 30 may, online: http://rt.com/news/sarin-gas-turkey-al-nusra-021/  

RT (2014) ‘‘Abandoned’ barrels containing deadly sarin seized in rebel-held Syria’, 8 July, online: http://rt.com/news/171076-two-sarin-barrels-found-syria/  

SANA (2011) ‘Mother Agnes Merriam al-Saleeb: Nameless Gunmen Possessing Advanced Firearms Terrorize Citizens and Security in Syria’, Syrian Free Press Network, 19 November, online: http://syrianfreepress.wordpress.com/2011/11/19/mother-agnes-merriam-al-saleeb-nameless-gunmen-possessing-advanced-firearms-terrorize-citizens-and-security-in-syria/

Smith-Spark, Laura and Tom Cohen (2013) ‘U.S., Russia agree to framework on Syria chemical weapons’, CNN, 15 September, online: http://edition.cnn.com/2013/09/14/politics/us-syria/  

Solomon, Erica (2015) ‘Iraqi Kurds claim ISIS used chemical weapons’, Financial Times, 14 March, online: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6e69cfca-ca78-11e4-8973-00144feab7de.html#axzz3WW8sO2k1  

Turbeville, Brandon (2014) ‘New video evidence points to al-Nusra chemical attack against Syrian soldiers’, 5 May, Online: http://www.activistpost.com/2014/05/new-video-evidence-points-to-al-nusra.html  

Stack, Liam and Hania Mourtada (2012) ‘Members of Assad’s Sect Blamed in Syria Killings’, New York Times, December 12, online: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/13/world/middleeast/alawite-massacre-in-syria.html?_r=0  

Thompson, Alex (2012) ‘Was there a massacre in the Syrian town of Aqrab?’ 14 December: http://blogs.channel4.com/alex-thomsons-view/happened-syrian-town-aqrab/3426   

Today’s Zaman (2013) ‘Detained al-Nusra members say chemicals not for making sarin gas’, 13 September, online: http://www.todayszaman.com/national_detained-al-nusra-members-say-chemicals-not-for-making-sarin-gas_326332.html  

UN (2013) United Nations Mission to Investigate Allegations of the Use of Chemical Weapons in the Syrian Arab Republic, December, online: https://unoda-web.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/report.pdf

UNMIAUCWSAA (2013) ‘Final report’, United Nations Mission to Investigate Allegations of the Use of Chemical Weapons in the Syrian Arab Republic, 12 December, online: https://unoda-web.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/report.pdf  

White Helmets (2015) ‘It’s time to stop the bombs’, March, online: https://www.whitehelmets.org/  

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on The Dirty War On Syria: Chemical Fabrications, The East Ghouta Incident

This article first published in October 2013 is of utmost relevance in relation to current events including the mainstream news coverage of the war on Syria.

During the public debate around the question of whether to attack Syria, Stephen Hadley, former national security adviser to George W. Bush, made a series of high-profile media appearances. Hadley argued strenuously for military intervention in appearances on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, and Bloomberg TV, and authored a Washington Post op-ed headlined “To stop Iran, Obama must enforce red lines with Assad.”

In each case, Hadley’s audience was not informed that he serves as a director of Raytheon, the weapons manufacturer that makes the Tomahawk cruise missiles that were widely cited as a weapon of choice in a potential strike against Syria. Hadley earns $128,500 in annual cash compensation from the company and chairs its public affairs committee. He also owns 11,477 shares of Raytheon stock, which traded at all-time highs during the Syria debate ($77.65 on August 23, making Hadley’s share’s worth $891,189). Despite this financial stake, Hadley was presented to his audience as an experienced, independent national security expert.

Though Hadley’s undisclosed conflict is particularly egregious, it is not unique. The following report documents the industry ties of Hadley, 21 other media commentators, and seven think tanks that participated in the media debate around Syria. Like Hadley, these individuals and organizations have strong ties to defense contractors and other defense- and foreign policy-focused firms with a vested interest in the Syria debate, but they were presented to their audiences with a veneer of expertise and independence, as former military officials, retired diplomats, and independent think tanks.

The report offers a new look at an issue raised by David Barstow’s 2008 Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times series on the role military analysts played in promoting the Bush Administration’s narrative on Iraq. In addition to exposing coordination with the Pentagon, Barstow found that many cable news analysts had industry ties that were not disclosed on air.

If the recent debate around Syria is any guide, media outlets have done very little to address the gaps in disclosure and abuses of the public trust that Barstow exposed. Some analysts have stayed the same, others are new, and the issues and range of opinion are different. But the media continues to present former military and government officials as venerated experts without informing the public of their industry ties – the personal financial interests that may be shaping their opinions of what is in the national interest.

This report details these ties, in addition to documenting the industry backing of think tanks that played a prominent role in the Syria debate. It reveals the extent to which the public discourse around Syria was corrupted by the pervasive influence of the defense industry, to the point where many of the so-called experts appearing on American television screens were actually representatives of companies that profit from heightened US military activity abroad. The threat of war with Syria may or may not have passed, but the threat that these conflicts of interest pose to our public discourse – and our democracy – is still very real.

Key Findings

The media debate surrounding the question of whether to launch a military attack on Syria in August and September of 2013 was dominated by defense industry-backed experts and think tanks. These individuals and organizations are linked to dozens of defense and intelligence contractors, defense-focused investment firms, and diplomatic consulting firms with strong defense ties, yet these business ties were rarely disclosed on air or in print. This report brings transparency to these largely undocumented and undisclosed connections.

For more on the methodology used to identify commentators, think tanks, and industry ties, please see the “Methodology” section below.

Commentators

  • 22 commentators. The report identifies 22 commentators who weighed in during the Syria debate in large media outlets, and who have current industry ties that may pose conflicts of interest. The commentators are linked to large defense and intelligence contractors like Raytheon, smaller defense and intelligence contractors like TASC, defense-focused investment firms like SCP Partners, and commercial diplomacy firms like the Cohen Group.
  • 111 appearances, 13 attempts at disclosure. These commentators made 111 appearances – as op-ed authors, quoted experts, or news show guests – in major media outlets such as CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, Bloomberg, and the Washington Post. Despite the commentators’ apparent financial and professional stakes in military action, major media outlets typically failed to disclose these relationships, noting them, often incompletely, in only 13 of the 111 appearances (see table below for media outlet breakdown).
  • Varying types of conflicts of interest. In some cases, commentators have undisclosed industry ties that pose significant and direct conflicts of interest. In other cases, the undisclosed ties were less direct, but still suggest that the commentator has a financial interest in continuing heightened levels of US military action abroad. A number of consultants are included because their business relationships are foreign policy-focused and likely involve work for defense clients, though most do not disclose client lists. One consulting relationship highlighted in the report is with the Department of Defense – not an industry connection, but a significant conflict of interest.
  • Largely supportive of military action. The commentators profiled have largely expressed support for military action in Syria, and many have framed the decision as an issue of national security. However, the opinions they expressed were not uniformly supportive of military action. Several commentators identified, such as Robert Scales, opposed military intervention outright. (see correction)

The following is a selection of commentators, profiled at greater length below, who have multiple undisclosed ties to the defense industry and have expressed strong support for military intervention in Syria in multiple appearances:

  • Jack Keane has strongly supported striking Syria on PBS, the BBC, and Fox News. Though Keane is currently a director of General Dynamics, one of the world’s largest military services companies, and a venture partner of SCP Partners, a defense-focused investment firm, only his military and think tank affiliations were identified in all sixteen appearances.
  • General Anthony Zinni has expressed support for military action in Syria during three appearances on CNN and one on CBS This Morning, and has been quoted in the Washington Post. Though a director with major defense contractor BAE Systems and an advisor to defense-focused private equity firm DC Capital Partners, only Zinni’s military experience was considered relevant by the media outlets interviewing him all five times.
  • Stephen Hadley has voiced strong support for a strike on Syria in appearances on Bloomberg TV, Fox News, and CNN, as well as in a Washington Post op-ed. Though he has a financial stake in a Syria strike as a current Raytheon board member, and is also a principal at consulting firm RiceHadleyGates, he was identified all four times only as a former National Security Advisor to George W. Bush.
  • Frances Townsend has appeared on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 six times strongly favoring action in Syria. Though Townsend holds positions in two investment firms with defense company holdings, MacAndrews & Forbes and Monument Capital Group, and serves as an advisor to defense contractor Decision Sciences, only her roles as a CNN national security analyst and member of the CIA and DHS advisory committees were revealed in all six appearances.

Think Tanks

  • Seven think tanks. The report profiles seven prominent think tanks with significant industry ties that weighed in on intervention in Syria. These think tanks were cited 144 times in major US publications from August 7th, 2013 to September 6th, 2013. The Brookings Institution, Center for Strategic and International Studies, and The Institute for the Study of War were the most cited think tanks from our dataset.
  • Experts with The Brookings Institution were cited in 31 articles on Syria in our dataset, more than any other think tank. Brookings is an influential think tank that is presented in the media as an independent authority, yet it receives millions in funding from the defense industry, including $1 – 2.5 million from Booz Allen Hamilton and $50,000 – $100,000 from Boeing, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Palantir Technologies. Brookings Executive Education’s Advisory Council Chair, Ronald Sanders, is a Vice President and Senior Fellow at Booz Allen Hamilton.
  • The Center for Strategic and International Studies was cited in 30 articles on Syria. CSIS has ample individual connections to the defense industry through its advisors and trustees, including CSIS Senior Advisor Margaret Sidney Ashworth, Corporate Vice President for Government Relations at Northrop Grumman, and CSIS Advisor Thomas Culligan, Senior Vice President at Raytheon. CSIS President and CEO John Hamre is a director for defense contractor SAIC.
  • Analysts representing The Institute for the Study of War were cited in 22 articles on Syria in our dataset. One such article by former ISW Senior Research Analyst Elizabeth O’Bagy was cited by Secretary John Kerry and Senator John McCain during congressional hearings in their effort to justify intervention.1 ISW’s Corporate Council represents a who’s who of the defense industry and includes Raytheon, SAIC, Palantir, General Dynamics, CACI, Northrop Grumman, DynCorp, and L-3 Communication.

The report also includes profiles on the Council on Foreign Relations, the American Enterprise Institute, the Atlantic Council, and the Center for American Progress. Each profile includes a selection of commentary from analysts associated with the think tank and a selection of defense industry ties. These ties are both organizational (corporate sponsorships and donations) and individual (ties through their directors, advisors, trustees, fellows, and analysts).

Methodology

Commentators were identified in articles, videos and transcripts gathered from Factiva and Google News searches, for the period August 20, 2013 to September 18, 2013. Research on the commentators’ backgrounds was then conducted, drawing on data from SEC EDGAR, news archive searches, online biographies, and other sources. Commentators with current industry ties were selected for inclusion in the report. Each piece was reviewed for relevance and only those directly related to discussions around Syria were counted toward the total. Potentially conflicted commentators were included in our dataset regardless of their support or opposition to military intervention. Where possible, videos of appearances were reviewed to determine whether industry affiliations were noted on-screen in a way that would not appear in transcripts.

The think tanks were identified through a review of articles appearing in major US publications for a slightly different period, from August 7th, 2013 to September 6th, 2013, and included the keyword “Syria” in the headline and/or lede paragraph. Searches were conducted using the Factiva database. Each article was reviewed for relevance to the Syria intervention debates. Only articles directly related to discussions around Syria were counted toward the total. Research was then conducted on the think tanks’ industry ties through reviews of annual reports, news articles, SEC data, and sources such as Right Web (http://rightweb.irc-online.org/), a database which includes extensive information on some of the think tanks profiled in the report.

In each case, data was reviewed and compiled on LittleSis.org (the opposite of Big Brother), PAI’s investigative research platform. The data in this report is available on LittleSis.org. At times, citations link to LittleSis.org profiles; additional, original sources for information about these individuals and organizations can be found on these pages.

Commentators and think tanks were included if they had significant current ties to the following types of firms:

  • Defense and intelligence contractors.
  • Investment firms with a significant defense or intelligence focus.
  • Consulting firms with a significant focus on defense, intelligence, or commercial diplomacy.

Some consulting firms identified in the report function as shadow diplomatic firms, working for foreign governments and corporate clients seeking overseas business. These firms, such as the Albright Stonebridge Group, usually do not disclose their clients, so it can be difficult to discern their defense industry ties. In the absence of disclosure, this report includes these firms, and notes their defense ties where possible. Regardless of whether they have defense clients, principals at these firms likely have business relationships that complicate their public personas as expert foreign policy commentators.

I. Commentators

Each profile below highlights how the commentator was identified by the media, typically a previous position in government or the military. It then identifies their undisclosed ties to the defense industry, typically current positions as executives, board members or advisors with defense and intelligence contractors and defense-focused investment and consulting firms. Many of them also hold positions with the think tanks investigated in this report, which are identified where possible. If a news outlet attempted to disclose a commentators’ industry ties in any way, the profile includes a section titled “Disclosure” that describes that attempt.

Stephen Hadley

Identified as: Former national security adviser to George W. Bush

Undisclosed industry ties: Hadley has served on the board of defense contractor Raytheon since 2009. Raytheon manufactures the Tomahawk cruise missiles that were potentially to be used in airstrikes against Syria. He also sits on the Special Activities committee of Raytheon’s board, the stated purpose of which is “provide oversight of the Company’s business activities which involve matters that have been classified for purposes of national security by an agency or instrumentality of the government customer (‘Classified Business’).” Members of the committee must obtain “applicable security clearances.”2 Hadley also chairs the company’s Public Affairs Committee, which reviews “political, social and legal trends and issues that may have an impact on the business operations, financial performance or public image of the Company.”3 Hadley owns 11,477 shares of Raytheon stock, worth close to $900,000, and earned $128,500 in cash compensation from the company last year.4

Hadley is a principal at RiceHadleyGates LLC, an international strategic consulting firm. The firm advises companies on their international strategies, including foreign policy and national security matters. One example of its work highlighted on its website: “Providing information and analysis to help a client manage the changes to its business brought about by the Arab Awakening.”5 He is also an advisor, focused on Policy Research & Analysis, to the consulting firm APCO Worldwide and director and member of the Executive Committee of the Atlantic Council (see below).6

Media commentary: Hadley has been a vocal and highly visible supporter of war with Syria. He published an opinion piece for the Washington Post headlined “To stop Iran, Obama must enforce red lines with Syria.” He has also done interviews with Bloomberg TV, MSNBC, and CNN, conveying a similar message.7 House Majority Leader Eric Cantor invited Hadley to brief staffers on Syria, according to the National Journal.8 National Security Advisor Susan Rice tweeted Hadley’s remarks in support of the strike, according to the Wall Street Journal.9 From Bloomberg Television’s Political Capital with Al Hunt (9/6/2013):

HUNT: How would it be read in Tehran if we don’t strike?HADLEY: I think that’s one of the biggest problems. And that’s why, if I were – and when I talk to Republicans, I say if you are concerned about Iran and the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran, you better be voting in favor of this resolution, because having – the president having set down a red line for chemical weapons use in Syria, if he does not enforce it, the – the red line, if you will, that we’ve put down with Iran on its nuclear program doesn’t look credible. We’ve said that Iran needs to give up its nuclear program, and if it does not do so, all options are on the table, including the military option. If we don’t enforce the red line in Syria, that threat looks empty. And if that threat looks empty, I think there’s very little chance that we can get Iran to be willing to negotiate away its nuclear weapons program.10

Disclosure: CNN’s John Berman noted that Hadley is “with the consulting firm RiceHadleyGates”, but failed to disclose his position with Raytheon. None of Hadley’s ties to the defense industry were noted in his other three appearances.

James Cartwright

Identified as: Retired General and former Vice Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

Undisclosed industry ties: Cartwright has served on the board of Raytheon since January 2012. He served on the Public Affairs Committee and the Special Activities committees (described above, under Stephen Hadley) until recently. Cartwright owns 5,374 shares of stock and earned $124,000 in cash compensation from Raytheon last year.11

Cartwright has a number of other defense industry affiliations, as well. He is currently an advisor to defense and intelligence contractor TASC, consulting firm Accenture, and Enlightenment Capital, a private equity firm with defense investments. He is also a director of the Atlantic Council (see below).12

Cartwright is currently the target of a federal investigation into leaks regarding the Stuxnet virus.13

Media commentary: Cartwright appeared on ABC’s This Week Syria experts panel on September 1, 2013, the same day John Kerry made appearances on all of the Sunday shows. Cartwright echoed concerns that a limited strike would not be an effective deterrent, but agreed with host George Stephanopoulos that the United States needed to strike Syria to maintain credibility and send a message to Iran:

STEPHANOPOULOS: And General Cartwright, so much of this idea of hitting back at Assad, in part because of those horrific pictures, but also the word credibility comes back into play. All of the military, all the entire region, also looking at Iran and wondering the kind of message it sends to Iran if we do not, if we do not strike in the wake of an attack like this.CARTWRIGHT: I think it’s critical here and that’s probably one of the audiences we have to pay close attention to.14

Frances Townsend

Identified as: CNN national security analyst; member of the CIA and DHS advisory committees

Undisclosed industry ties: Townsend, former assistant for homeland security to George W. Bush, is a senior vice president at MacAndrews & Forbes, an investment firm. MacAndrews & Forbes owns AM General, which manufactures military vehicles. Townsend also serves as an operating advisor to Monument Capital Group, an investment firm with a global security and defense sector investment focus, and on the advisory board of Decision Sciences, a cargo screening company with defense contracts.

Townsend was the chair of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance, a private intelligence contractor association, until 2012.15

Media commentary: As CNN’s national security analyst, Townsend has made multiple appearances on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 to discuss Syria.16 Townsend has stated that she sees action as “inevitable,” but has also questioned the effectiveness of a limited air strike on most appearances, instead promoting a “full comprehensive strategy” without limits set by Congress. She has expressed on multiple occasions her concern that a limited strike will threaten US national security. From CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 (8/28/2013):

TOWNSEND: When we have used these standoff assaults before, like after the East Africa bombing, it has a short-term effect, but not a long-term strategic effect. And that’s what you really want to do. You don’t want to just deter the Syrians. You want to deter Hezbollah, al Qaeda, Iran from using these kind of weapons as well.17

From CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 (9/3/2013):

TOWNSEND: That’s right, so you worry about the release of what chemical weapons they have, the use of Hezbollah, you know, asymmetric attacks not only inside Syria but are in the region and around the world against Western targets.18

She has also commented on the quality of the intelligence on Syria, calling it a “pretty compelling narrative” and questioned the trustworthiness of Russia’s plan to deal with Syria’s chemical weapons.19

General Anthony Zinni

Identified as: Retired U.S. Marine Corps General and Commander-in-Chief of U.S. Central Command

Undisclosed industry ties: Zinni is an outside director at BAE Systems, which was the third largest military services company in the world in 201120 and received $6.1 billion in federal contracts in 2012.21 He was previously chairman of the board and acting CEO between 2009 and 2012. He is a member of the Advisory Board of DC Capital Partners, a private equity firm investing in defense contractors. According to its website, “DC Capital’s investment strategy emphasizes certain sectors that it believes offer the most compelling growth opportunities for investment, including but not limited to: Intelligence, Homeland Security, Information Technology, and Operations and Maintenance.”22

Zinni is also a Distinguished Senior Advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (see below).23

Media commentary: Zinni has made multiple appearances on CNN and was quoted in the Washington Post. He has expressed support for the strike, but questioned the likelihood of it being a “one-and-done.”24 He has also appeared on CBS’s This Morning with a similar message:

ZINNI: Well, we have to do something because the President laid a red line down. This is an unacceptable act. And– and so I think we’re committed, or look, we can– he’ll continue to test us. I think we need to think in terms of a longer campaign, not that this shot might be just one act and then finished25

In his most recent appearance, on CNN’s State of the Union with Candy Crowley, Zinni expressed concern that Iran might see U.S. indecision on Syria as a “potential opportunity to exploit:”

CROWLEY: Is that the signal, you think, that Iran has gotten from the U.S. over the past couple of weeks?ZINNI: I think it’s probably been confusing for them. They probably see an opportunity here. I think prior to this they would have been convinced that we intended to act if they crossed the red line there. Knowing the Iranians, they see everything as a potential opportunity to exploit. And I’m sure they are calculating much how they could take advantage of this and maybe push the edge of the envelope.26

Jeremy Bash

Identified as: Former Chief of Staff to the Defense Department and CIA under Leon Panetta

Industry ties: Bash is co-founder and managing director of Beacon Global Strategies. According to its website, Beacon is a “strategic advisory firm specializing in matters of International Policy, Foreign Affairs, National Defense, Cyber, Intelligence, and Homeland Security,” though its clients are not disclosed.27 Defense News notes the firm is “built on providing advice to companies, primarily defense contractors, focused on international defense business as well as cyber, although their first client was Bash’s former boss, Panetta.”28

Media commentary: Bash has made multiple appearances on CNN and MSNBC to discuss Syria. He has expressed strong confidence in U.S. intelligence on Syria. He has expressed support for the strike, including his “hope” that Congress will vote to approve it, and commented on its effectiveness in the interest of national security as a deterrent to other governments, citing Iran in particular.29 From MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews (8/30/2013):

MATTHEWS: Jeremy Bash, your thoughts on that. Let`s see — keep the focus here on deterrence. We have a military capability. Can we, should we use it in this way to signal our potential future enemies, Don’t go nuclear because we’re not going to let this bum go chemical?BASH: Well, Chris, it`s good to be with you. I’ve probably sat through several hundred intelligence briefings over the last eight years on Capitol Hill, at the CIA, and at the Defense Department. Not one has been as nearly definitive as this one and not one has been nearly as horrifying as this. This really ranks up there as one of the most convincing and compelling intelligence cases for using military action in this way. And in terms of your question about deterrence and talking about Iran, let me point out two things. In 2003, Iran suspended its nuclear program. We know that definitively. Why did they do that? In part because that was the same year we invaded Iraq. We were in both countries around Iran, and they feared our military. Now, that wasn’t the objective of the Iraq war, but it was one of the intended — that was one of the consequences.30

Disclosure: CNN’s Jake Tapper noted that Bash founded Beacon Global Strategies and called it “a consulting firm.” CNN and MSNBC failed to disclose the connection in Bash’s five other appearances.

Nicholas Burns

Identified as: Former Under Secretary of State; professor at Kennedy School of Government, former U.S. ambassador to NATO

Undisclosed industry ties: Burns is a Senior Counselor to the Cohen Group, a global consulting firm with Aerospace & Defense and Homeland Security among its practice groups. The Cohen Group has previously been registered as a lobbyist to the U.S. government on behalf of defense contractors Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, United Technologies and others. James Loy, senior counselor to the Cohen Group, and Joseph Ralston, Cohen Group vice chairman, are both directors at Lockheed Martin.

Burns is also a director for Entegris, which is “the leading manufacturer of graphite and silicon carbide materials and products for use in Aerospace applications,” according to their website.31 He serves on the board of the Atlantic Council (see below).32

Media commentary: Burns has made appearances on CNN and Fox News in addition to penning op-ed columns for the Boston Globe. He has expressed strong support for a strike on Syria and suggested that inaction may threaten national security.33 From one of Burns’s Boston Globe op-ed pieces (9/7/2013):

From a foreign policy perspective, the decision isn’t even close — the United States must act by attacking President Bashar Assad’s air force, artillery, and command and control assets within Syria. The goal is to intimidate him, degrade his military capacity, and deter him from ever using these weapons again. There are risks, to be sure, in any use of force. But this will not be another Iraq — the United States will not put ground troops into Syria. And the risks are even greater if we do nothing.34

From CNN’s State of the Union with Candy Crowley (9/1/2013):

BORGER: And Nick Burns, let me ask you, what are the implications of this kind of delay for our allies in the region, or in Syria, for that matter?BURNS: Well, Gloria, there are some risks here. Risk one is that Assad will misread this, not understand what the president is trying to do as David has described in terms of domestic affairs and believes that we’re a paper tiger. And that will embolden him. The second risk is that Iran, Hezbollah and Russia, the coalition supporting Assad, will also feel that they have got license to continue what they’re doing. So the president needs to counteract those.35

William S. Cohen

Identified as: Former Secretary of Defense during the Clinton Administration; former Republican Senator and Congressman from Maine; served as a Director of the Council on Foreign Relations

Industry ties: Cohen is Chair and CEO of the Cohen Group, a global consulting firm with Aerospace & Defense and Homeland Security among its practice groups, both led by Cohen. The firm’s website asserts Cohen’s particular credentials in those areas. The Cohen Group has previously been registered as a lobbyist to the federal government on behalf of defense contractors Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, United Technologies and others. James Loy, senior counselor to the Cohen Group, and Joseph Ralston, Cohen Group vice chairman, are both directors for Lockheed Martin. Cohen is also a trustee at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.36

Media commentary: Cohen has made multiple appearances on CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, and Bloomberg TV to discuss Syria in recent weeks. He has expressed confidence in the US intelligence on Syria, but advised consulting with the UN and Congress and determining more clear objectives before taking action.37 From CNN Newsroom (9/11/2013):

COHEN: Nonetheless, the president is where he is right now and if he is forced to take action because the Russians are stalling and Assad is not complying, then he should use the Desert Fox operation that President Clinton initiated against Saddam Hussein with a four-day campaign that did real damage to Saddam’s capabilities. And I think that’s what the president has in mind.38

Disclosure: MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell and CNBC noted the Cohen Group affiliation, but did not identify it as a defense consulting firm. The affiliation was not disclosed in Cohen’s other four appearances on CNN, Bloomberg TV and MSNBC.

Wesley Clark

Identified as: Retired General; former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO; senior fellow at the Burkle Center for International Relations at UCLA

Undisclosed industry ties: Clark founded a consulting firm Wesley K Clark & Associates in 2004, which, according to its website, “uses his expertise, relationships, and extensive international reputation and experience in the fields of energy, alternative energy, corporate and national security, logistics, aerospace and defense, and investment banking.”39 He currently serves as CEO of the firm. Clients are not disclosed on its website.

Clark sits on the boards of many companies, most of them focused on the energy sector, and serves as an energy sector advisor to the Blackstone Group. He serves on the board of MFG.com, a sourcing company, which landed a Department of Defense contract shortly before he joined its board.40 He is also a director of the Atlantic Council (see below).41

Media commentary: Clark has made appearances on CNN and NPR and penned an op-ed for Zocalo Public Square that was published in USA Today. He has expressed condemnation of Syria’s use of chemical weapons and support for Obama’s response on moral grounds.42 From Clark’s op-ed in USA Today (8/29/2013):

But President Obama has rightly drawn a line at the use of chemical weapons. Some weapons are simply too inhuman to be used. And, as many of us learned during 1990s, in the words of President Clinton, “Where we can make a difference, we must act.”43

From CNN’s Erin Burnett OutFront (9/4/2013):

CLARK: Because I think if the United States is going to lead, this is the time to lead, and what the president is doing is leading. Everyone signed this chemical warfare convention. It outlaws the use of chemical weapons. It’s actually been in law since 1925. And this is a chance for the United States and the world community to show that we meant the piece of paper when we signed it. And that’s what this is about, U.S. leadership. It is not about the strike. This is about bringing the United States and the world together to make a statement. This is not going to be permitted in the 21st Century.44

Roger Cressey

Identified as: former National Security Council staff/White House counterterrorism official; NBC News counterterrorism consultant

Undisclosed industry ties: Cressey was until recently a senior vice president with Booz Allen Hamilton, “supporting the firm’s cybersecurity business and international government clients,” according to its website.45 His profile is no longer available on the Booz Allen Hamilton website, but was as of September 21, 2013. He is currently listed as a partner with Arlington-based risk and crisis management firm, Liberty Group Ventures LLC.46

Media commentary: Cressey has appeared on MSNBC and was quoted in NBC News commenting on the nature of Syrian rebels and whether regime change may be a consequence of the US strike.47

From NBC News (9/9/2013):

President Barack Obama and other U.S. officials have said that any U.S. reprisal for Assad’s alleged use of chemical weapons against his people would be limited and not aimed at regime change. But Cressey, the NBC News consultant, and other experts say that attacks – likely to be in the form of cruise-missile strikes on Syrian command-and-control facilities — could have that effect, coming at a time when the rebels have been gaining ground, even making headway in Alawite strongholds like Latakia. “You don’t have to advertise regime change,” said Cressey, “but you can strike a series of targets that are critical to the regime’s survival, that ultimately will help the rebels.48

Charles Duelfer

Identified as: former chief U.S. weapons inspector (in Iraq during the administration of George W Bush); led the CIA’s Iraq Survey Group; author of Hide and Seek: The Search for Truth in Iraq

Undisclosed industry ties: Duelfer is chairman and special advisor to the CEO of Omnis, a consulting firm with a national security and intelligence focus. Omnis was part of team of contractors assembled by SAIC that in December 2007 won a 5-year contract worth up to $1 billion with the Defense Intelligence Agency.49 Other clients are not disclosed on its website. According to Duelfer’s bio on the firm’s website, he is also currently “consulting on a range of intelligence and security management topics.”50

Media commentary: Duelfer has made multiple appearances on PBS NewsHour and NPR to discuss Syria, as well as being quoted in The Nation and The Guardian. He has commented on the quality of intelligence in Syria and the plan to find and destroy their supply of chemical weapons.51

From PBS NewsHour (September 16, 2013):

IFILL: You mentioned Iraq. How does this compare to Syria, another place where the leader came out and said I’m going to give up my weapons and then someone had to enforce that?DUELFER: Well, I think implicitly or explicitly, the threat of force is there. Certainly, Bashar al-Assad will have noticed that the president gave a speech basically saying he was going to conduct a military strike. In the book of Obama, I think he is guilty, but he suspended the sentence. So whether or not the Security Council agrees to the use of force, the United States will.52

Adam Ereli

Identified as: Former State Department deputy spokesperson; former ambassador to Bahrain; former State Department diplomat to Syria

Industry ties: Ereli recently joined public relations firm Mercury LLC as vice chairman and co-leads its international affairs team. Defense and homeland security are both listed among his focus industries on the firm’s website.53

Media commentary: Ereli made an appearance on Fox News, shortly after the chemical attacks were discovered, repeatedly calling for an attack on Syria: “If it is demonstrated that chemical weapons were used, then force is not an option, it’s a necessity.” He reiterated his point on Twitter with a link to the interview: “The question is not whether the US should respond with force to the use of WMD in Syria, but how much force to use.”54

Ereli has also made appearances in international press, including an interview on France 24 and quotes in the Telegraph, Voice of America, and the United Arab Emirates’ Khaleej Times and The National, all calling for an attack on Syria and suggesting inaction could threaten national security. He made another appearance on Fox News as well with a similar message.55

From The National (9/8/2013):

“First of all, Obama made it clear that he wants to act. He doesn’t want Bashar [Al Assad, the Syrian president] and the Syrian regime to use chemical weapons with nothing done about it, but he also wants America to be united in this action,” Mr Ereli said. “That’s why he asked Congress to vote on it although he does not constitutionally need that. Will he get it? I hope so because if he doesn’t it will be a disaster for the United States, a disaster for Syria and a disaster for the whole region.”56

Disclosure: Of all the media outlets that interviewed Ereli, only The National noted that he is “now a diplomatic consultant.” It is unclear if Ereli was already under contract with Mercury when he made appearances on Fox and other quotes in the international press.

Michèle Flournoy

Identified as: Former Undersecretary of Defense

Industry ties: Flournoy has been a senior advisor at the Boston Consulting Group since mid-2012 in the firm’s worldwide public sector practice, to “provide advice on driving change in the government arena to BCG teams and the government they are supporting around the world.”57 According to Wikileaks State Department cables, past Boston Consulting Group clients have included the government of the United Arab Emirates and Kazakhstan.58 The firm has also opened a major office in Dubai, which plays a “strategic role in serving clients throughout the fast-growing Gulf and MENA (Middle East North Africa) regions.”59

Flournoy is also a cofounder and president of the Center for a New American Security, a director at the Atlantic Council and a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (see below).60

Media commentary: Flournoy appeared on MSNBC expressing support for a strike on Syria:

FLOURNOY: Look, I think there are very important stakes involved here: first, the issue of upholding the international norm against the use of chemical weapons; second, U.S. credibility and leadership in the world and third, knowing that the rest of the world is watching. What messages does Iran take from either action or inaction? So I do think that limited, focused strikes, focused on deterring further use of chemical weapons, degrading Assad`s ability to carry out such attacks, that those are something we need to support and we need to do. But I also think we need to better explain to the American people and to Congress the stakes involved and the risks of not acting, what that would mean.61

Disclosure: MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell noted Flournoy’s position at the Boston Consulting Group, but did not indicate the nature of its business.

Michael Hayden

Identified as: Retired General; former CIA director

Industry ties: Hayden is a principal at the Chertoff Group, a global security consulting firm founded by former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. Hayden’s focus areas include “technological intelligence and counterintelligence (communications and data networks),” “global political and terrorist risk analysis,” and “the structure and strategy of the American intelligence community,” according to the firm’s website.62 Hayden serves on the board of Alion Science and Technology and the advisory board of Next Century Corporation, both defense contractors. He is also a director at the Atlantic Council (see below).

Media commentary: Hayden has made multiple appearances on CNN to discuss Syria. He has expressed support for striking Syria and suggested the attack cannot be “one and done.” He has also commented on the quality of intelligence on Syria.63

From CNN’s Piers Morgan Live (8/29/2013):

HAYDEN: No, I think the United States would act unilaterally because President Obama made this commitment for the United States and frankly for himself personally about a year ago. And I just can’t conceive that he would back down from a very serious course of action in which these actions of President Assad have serious consequences.64

Disclosure: Hayden’s affiliation with the Chertoff Group, described as a “risk management/security consulting firm,” was noted on most appearances. CNN’s Anderson Cooper and and Wolf Blitzer also noted that Hayden “serves on the board of several defense firms.” CNN’s Piers Morgan incorrectly identified Hayden as a National Security Advisor to President George W. Bush, but did not note his affiliations with Chertoff or any defense contractors.

Colin Kahl

Identified as: Former deputy assistant secretary of Defense for the Middle East; former Obama administration Pentagon official

Undisclosed industry ties: Kahl does not appear to have current ties to defense contractors, but he is currently a consultant to the Office of the Secretary of Defense with TS-SCI clearance, according to his CV.65 He is a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security.

Media commentary: Kahl was quoted in Politico, the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg about Syria. He has expressed support for the strike on Syria, but concern about potential consequences that would make disengagement difficult, similar to Iraq.66

From the Wall Street Journal (8/31/2013):

Colin Kahl, a former Obama administration Pentagon official, said the president’s expected military action was an appropriate demonstration of U.S. credibility. “One of the things I heard most often when I was in the administration is that superpowers don’t bluff,” he said. “That’s why the administration has been very cautious across a whole host of issues not to issue a lot of red lines.”67

Brian Katulis

Identified as: Senior fellow/national security specialist at the Center for American Progress (see below)

Undisclosed industry ties: Katulis is a senior advisor at the Albright Stonebridge Group, a global strategy firm. According to his bio on its website, Katulis “assists clients with issues related to the Middle East and South Asia. He has consulted numerous U.S. government agencies, private corporations, and non-governmental organizations on projects in more than two dozen countries, including Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Egypt, and Colombia.”68 Albright Stonebridge does not disclose its clients.

Media commentary: Katulis has appeared on MSNBC’s Politics Nation with Al Sharpton and Bloomberg TV, published a piece on Syria in the New York Daily News, and has been quoted in the Christian Science Monitor, Bloomberg and the LA Times. On MSNBC, Katulis said that Obama and Kerry had done a “very good job” making the case for airstrikes, though raised doubts about the efficacy of a limited strike.69 He has also commented on the role of international “silent partners,” countries who may not support the strike militarily, but in other ways.70

Jack M Keane

Identified as: Retired Army General; vice chief of staff of the Army from 1999 to 2003; Board Chairman for the Institute for the Study of War (see below); Fox News military analyst. He has also been described as “an influential advocate for the surge of troops in Iraq” and “serving in an advisory role in the U.S. occupation of Iraq.”

Undisclosed industry ties: Keane has been a director with major defense contractor General Dynamics since 2004.71 General Dynamics was the fourth largest military services company in the world in 201172 and received $15 billion in federal contracts in 2012, making it the fourth largest federal contractor.73 Keane is a venture partner with SCP Partners, a private equity firm targeting defense and security investments.74

Media commentary: Keane has appeared on PBS News Hour, BBC Radio 4, NPR-affiliated Utah Public Radio, and Fox News on thirteen occasions as a military analyst. In every appearance he has expressed strong support for striking Syria. He has expressed some of the earliest support for military action in Syria, following initial reports of the chemical attacks, and emphasized the importance of “degrading” the Syrian military.75 Most recently, Keane has been a strong critic of the deal with Russia on Fox, calling the focus on chemical weapons disarmament “a lost opportunity to achieve the kind of strategic balance we need to buffer the Iranians.”76 From PBS NewsHour (9/2/2013):

BROWN: General Keane, I want to ask you because I understand you talked to Senators McCain and Graham after their meeting with the president. Do they have a sense of some kind of plan on the table for what could be done militarily?KEANE: Yes, I think they came away from that meeting a little bit more optimistic than they had thought they would be. I believe they were encouraged by the fact that I think the plan is a little bit more robust and that degrades significantly Assad’s delivery systems, to include airpower.77

Patrick Murphy

Identified as: Iraq veteran, former US Representative from Pennsylvania

Undisclosed industry ties: Patrick Murphy is a partner at the law firm Fox Rothschild LLP. According to a Philadelphia Business Journal article, another partner in the firm indicated that Murphy’s service in the military and the House Armed Services Committee “will be a big help in the firm’s recently expanded Washington office, where the firm’s clients largely revolve around the defense industry.” He also noted that Murphy “would become involved in some government relations work.”78

Media commentary: Murphy has made multiple appearances on MSNBC to discuss Syria. He has expressed concern about the effectiveness of a limited strike and has advocated exploring diplomatic options before using the military.79

Madeleine Albright

Identified as: Former Secretary of State during the Clinton Administration

Industry ties: Albright chairs the Albright Stonebridge Group, an international consulting firm, as well as Albright Capital Management, an emerging markets investment firm. As noted above, Albright Stonebridge does not disclose its clients, though its business, described as “commercial diplomacy,” likely gives rise to significant conflicts of interest and likely involves work with defense contractors. One of the consulting firm’s clients, Marsh Inc. CEO Brian Storms, said “To be blunt, the access that Madeleine Albright gives Marsh through her global contacts is unprecedented.”80 Albright is also a director of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Center for a New American Security, as well as an honorary director for the Atlantic Council (see below)81

Media commentary: Albright issued a statement urging Congress to vote in favor of striking Syria that was quoted in the Washington Post:

The “risks of complacency and inaction far outweigh those of the limited, but purposeful, response now contemplated,” Albright said in a statement. “The dangers of this world will only deepen if aggressors believe that global norms have no meaning and that gross violations can be carried out with impunity.”82

Most recently, she has appeared on CBS’s Face the Nation and CNN commenting on a possible deal with Russia.83

Disclosure: Albright’s affiliation with Albright Stonebridge was noted by CNN on the screen during her appearance, but not verbally, and the firm’s business was not described for viewers. The Washington Post indicated that Albright’s statement was “released by her consulting company,” but failed to name it.84 CBS failed to mention any of her ties.

James A “Spider” Marks

Identified as: Retired Army Major General; former commander of the U.S. Army intelligence center; CNN military analyst

Undisclosed industry ties: Marks serves as a venture partner and advisory board member at the Stony Lonesome Group, an investment firm with a defense and national security focus.85 He is also a co-founder of Willowdale Services, a consulting firm that lists “global strategic risk management,” “defense operations,” and “intelligence support operations” among its areas of expertise, and “geographic and operational risk assessments” among its service offerings.86

Media commentary: Marks is a military analyst on CNN and has made ten appearances to discuss Syria. He has expressed support for striking Syria and commented on a range of military options, suggesting that regime change and use of ground forces should be on the table. He has also commented on the plan to find and destroy chemical weapons in Syria.87 From CNN Newsroom (8/27/2013):

COSTELLO: OK so last question for you the President is set to get this document that will present evidence that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons on its own people. How long after that do you think a decision will be made?MARKS: Well I would hope a decision has already been made and that all that is necessary now is confirmation and at least alerting the American public that this is an inevitability. It literally could be a New York minute. Make the decision and then launch the first cruise missiles immediately. There should be no effort on the part of Assad — we’ve demonstrated, or at least Assad has demonstrated an inability to be reasonable in terms of what he is doing, so our expectations should be that he’s not going to alter his behavior. We need to be prepared to strike immediately.88

Chuck Nash

Identified as: Retired US Navy Captain; Fox News military analyst.

Undisclosed industry ties: Nash serves as an independent director of Applied Visual Sciences, a contraband detection company seeking Defense and Homeland Security contracts. Since 2000, he has also run Emerging Technologies International Inc. (ETII), a defense consultancy. It is unclear if ETII is active.89

Media commentary: Nash has made multiple appearances on Fox News to discuss Syria. He has criticized the effectiveness of a limited strike, instead supporting a larger strategic military plan to “change the events on the ground.”90 From Fox News’ America’s Newsroom (9/3/2013):

MARTHA: What do you think should be done? Do you think Congress should vote to approve this strike?NASH: It depends on what this strike really entails. If this strike is nothing more than poking our nose in there and not changing the game then, no. Because if you take a shot at somebody, you should expect them to take a shot back at you. Therefore, this ought to be part of an overall plan that achieves certain strategic political ends, and if it doesn’t, if all it is is “doing something” then, no, I don’t support that at all. But if it’s to change the events on the ground and we have a plan on what we want that outcome to look like then, yes, I can say support it because the President has already gotten far out in front of the whole process with his rhetoric, and now the United States and our reputation abroad is really swinging in the balance.91

Disclosure: Nash’s Fox News bio indicates his affiliation with Emerging Technologies,92 but neither that nor his affiliation with Applied Visual Sciences are noted during his appearances.

John D Negroponte

Identified as: Former Director of National Intelligence (during the Bush administration); former Ambassador to Iraq and the UN; former Deputy Secretary of State

Undisclosed industry ties: Negroponte is vice chairman of McLarty Associates, a global strategic consulting firm that lists defense among its sectors of focus. He is also an advisor to Aamina, a global investment company with private investing “currently focused on ventures in the Middle East and North Africa,”93 and Oxford Analytica, a global analysis and advisory firm. Negroponte became Chairman of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance, a private intelligence contractor association, in 2012.94

Media commentary: In late August, Negroponte was quoted in Politico with concerns about striking Syria without accurate intelligence and an international coalition, given his experiences with Iraq. He praised Obama for trying to get more buy-in at home and abroad on CNN’s State of the Union.95 During his appearance on Fox News’ On the Record with Greta Van Susteren the following week, Negroponte expressed support for the strike as a way to deter Assad and discussed possible regime change:

NEGROPONTE: Well, the truth is, this is a situation fraught with uncertainty and fraught with terrible choices, choices between different shades of bad and worse. And I don’t think we know what’s going to happen, but I think one of the things that is forcing our hand and sort of giving impetus to our thinking is the fact that Mr. Bashar al Assad’s behavior has become even more reprehensible. And in a way, you might argue that this use of chemical weapons has been kind of a straw that broke the camel’s back96

Robert Scales

Identified as: retired Army major general, former commandant of the U.S. Army War College.

Correction, 10/11/2013 11:50 am: The following section has been updated to reflect the following correction: Scales is no longer a consultant to the defense industry, and his firm, Colgen, has not been operating for the past year. The “media commentary” section is unchanged from its original version. As the report noted, Scales voiced outright opposition to war in a Washington Post op-ed and multiple appearances on Fox News. He was the only analyst in our dataset who fully opposed striking Syria, but was included because of his defense industry ties. His ties to Colgen were found in his online bios and Colgen’s company website, which appeared to be up-to-date.

Undisclosed industry ties: Scales is the former founder and CEO of Colgen, a defense consulting firm which . Many major defense contractors, including Boeing, Booz Allen Hamilton, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and SAIC, and branches of the U.S. military are listed among its clients.97

Media commentary: Scales wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post calling the Syria strike “a war the Pentagon doesn’t want.”98 He has also made multiple appearances on Fox News opposing the Syria strike and expressing concern that it might lead to a larger conflict.99

Disclosure: Scales’ Fox News bio online notes his affiliation with Colgen, but it is not noted during his appearances.

II. Think Tanks

Brookings Institution

Industry Ties: Brookings is an influential research and policy think tank that works in many major policy areas, including defense and foreign policy. In its most recent annual report Brooking’s corporate donors include some prominent names in the defense industry.100 The bulleted points below give the donation level and each defense industry contractor that gave at that level.

In addition to organizational funding, Brookings has several industry-connected individuals in its ranks. David Rubenstein, co-founder and co-CEO at the Carlyle Group, the majority shareholder of Booz Allen Hamilton and the company responsible for taking the firm public in 2010, is co-chair of Brookings’ board of trustees. He also made a personal contribution at the $1-2.5 million level, according to the 2012 annual report.101 Another Brookings trustee, Ken Duberstein, is a director of Boeing, the second largest defense contractor in the United States.102103

Brookings employs Booz Allen Hamilton vice president and senior fellow, Ronald Sanders as adjunct faculty.104 Sanders also chairs Brookings’ Executive Education’s Advisory Council, most recently heading up a Brookings event entitled “Enterprise Leadership: The Essential Framework for Today’s Government Leaders,” which featured Booz Allen senior vice president Admiral Thad Allen as keynote speaker. 105 106

Syria commentary: The Brookings Institution’s commentary on intervention in Syria was cited in 31 articles. Though largely logistical and focused on analysis of the President’s response and effects of Congressional involvement, some analysts weighed in on intervention specifically, advocating missile strikes and offering public relations pointers.

Michael O’Hanlon, national security analyst at Brookings, urged a comparison between the hypothetical Syria intervention and President Clinton’s punitive missile strikes against Iraq on NPR, saying that the operation would be “small scale” and “over as soon as it’s begun”:

Michael O’Hanlon, a national security analyst at The Brookings Institution, said that for all the contrasts with the 2003 Iraq invasion, the more apt comparison in Syria is with missile strikes ordered against Iraq by President Bill Clinton, including strikes in 1998 to punish Saddam for not complying with U.N. chemical weapons inspections.“I’m surprised this administration doesn’t make that analogy,” O’Hanlon said. “This operation is going to be limited. It’s going to be small scale or medium scale and it’s going to be over as soon as it’s begun practically. We’re going to hear about the beginning, middle and end of it all in one Pentagon briefing, more or less.”107

Ken Pollack, senior fellow in the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, Brookings Institution, drew a comparison between intervention in Syria and the (positively viewed) US intervention in Kosovo in the late 1990s, also on NPR, implying that opposition to intervention is largely due to bad public relations:

One path may be persuading NATO to get involved or even lead any military action. That helped the Clinton administration cast a frame of legitimacy on the Kosovo war in the late 1990s even though the Security Council, with Russia firmly opposed, never sanctioned the bombing campaign against Belgrade, said Ken Pollack, an expert on Middle Eastern political-military affairs at the Brookings Institute.“Very famously, the Kosovo war was not legal,” Pollack said. “Yet … you don’t have people running around screaming that the Kosovo war was illegal. That is because the US did a good job of building a case for it.”108


A pentagonal network: think tank-defense industry ties. (click through for detail).

Center for Strategic and International Studies

Industry Ties: The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) is an established foreign policy think tank with a long roster of corporate executives and government officials serving as trustees109 and counselors.110 CSIS has more defense industry connected advisors than most think tanks, including at its highest level of leadership: its president and CEO, John J Hamre, serves as a director for defense contractor SAIC. 111

  • CSIS trustee James McNerney is president, CEO, and chairman of the board at Boeing.112
  • CSIS senior advisor Margaret Sidney Ashworth is the corporate vice president for government relations at Northrop Grumman and former Raytheon lobbyist.113
  • CSIS Advisory Board member Thomas Culligan is senior vice president at Raytheon.114
  • CSIS Advisory Board member Gregory Dahlberg is senior vice president of Washington operations at Lockheed Martin. 115
  • CSIS Advisory Board member Timothy Keating is senior vice president of public policy at Boeing.116
  • CSIS Roundtable member Gregory Gallopoulos is senior vice president, general counsel and secretary at General Dynamics. 117
  • CSIS trustee Ray L Hunt is a former Halliburton director.118
  • Trustee James L Jones is a former director of General Dynamics and Boeing.119

Syria Commentary: CSIS’ experts were cited in 30 articles on intervention in Syria, often advocating for greater military action than the target strikes being considered by Secretary Kerry.

Anthony Cordesman, Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy for CSIS and a former national security assistant to Senator John McCain said limited strikes would be “pointless”:

Others said that Mr. Obama needs to go beyond cruise-missile strikes. “Simply taking reprisal action to say ‘We mean it’ does not strike me as significant meaningful action,” said Anthony Cordesman, a longtime military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “It’s a pointless punitive military exercise.”120

In another article Cordesman said that the planned strikes would cause “lasting” damage to Assad:

Defense analyst Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank said if successful, hitting fixed targets would eliminate key assets to Assad that “can’t easily be replaced, like command and control facilities, major headquarters.”“These are lasting targets,” Cordesman said.121

In yet another article Cordesman said that the limited strikes would send a message of weakness and hypothetically incentivize similar regimes to use nuclear weapons:

“If anything, the message of a narrowly focused US strike could be just the opposite of what the US intends,” says Anthony Cordesman, a defense analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.“To the world’s worst regimes, the unintended message of limited strikes that leave their governments intact may be that that if you are going to use such weapons, use them decisively enough to make any international action worth the cost,” he adds. “Worse, such actions may lead regimes to question the utility of using weapons with limited value in deterring international intervention, like chemical weapons. Instead, they may be incentivized to go nuclear, go cyber, or support violent non-state actors.”122

Institute for the Study of War

Industry ties: The Institute for War Studies’ close connection to defense contractors is well documented. ISW Founder and President Kimberly Kagan was criticized in a December, 2012 Washington Post article for “pro bono” advisory services she and her husband provided to General Petraeus.123 The article noted that Kagan’s proximity to the general “provided an incentive for defense contractors to contribute” to her think tank and “during Petraeus’s tenure in Kabul, she sent out a letter soliciting contributions so the organization could continue its military work.” Most telling of how the deep ties between ISW and the defense industry are bolstered is the following anecdote from the Washington Post, describing their 2011 dinner honoring Petraeus:

At the August 2011 dinner honoring Petraeus, Kagan thanked executives from two defense contractors who sit on her institute’s corporate council, DynCorp International and CACI International. The event was sponsored by General Dynamics. All three firms have business interests in the Afghan war.Kagan told the audience that their funding allowed her to assist Petraeus. “The ability to have a 15-month deployment essentially in the service of those who needed some help — and the ability to go at a moment’s notice — that’s something you all have sponsored,” she said.She called her work for him “an extraordinary and special occasion.”After accepting the award, Petraeus heaped praise on the institute.“Thanks to all of you for supporting an organization that General Keane very accurately described as filling a niche — a very, very important one,” he said. “It’s now a deployable organization. We’re going to start issuing them combat service stripes.”

ISW’s Corporate Council is a “who’s who” of the defense industry and includes Raytheon, SAIC, Palantir, General Dynamics, CACI, Northrop Grumman, DynCorp, and L-3 Communication.124 Raytheon, of course, is the manufacturer of the Tomahawk cruise missile, widely understood as the weapon of choice for the proposed strike and the featured armament in Harmer’s ISW study.

Syria commentary: The Institute for the Study of War was cited in 22 articles on intervention. The message from analysts from the ISW focused on quelling the notion that the opposition forces, which stood to gain from a US intervention, are extremists and argued in favor of immediate strikes over waiting for Congress.

Christopher Harmer, a senior naval analyst with the Middle East Security Project at the Institute for the Study of War, released a widely circulated study on the use of Tomahawk missiles for a “surgical” strike against Assad. The study was touted by Sen. John McCain as proof that limited strikes were a viable intervention strategy. From Foreign Policy:

In July, Harmer authored a widely-circulated study showing how the U.S. could degrade key Syrian military installations on the cheap with virtually no risk to U.S. personnel. “It could be done quickly, easily, with no risk whatsoever to American personnel, and a relatively minor cost,” said Harmer. One of the study’s proposals was cruise missile strikes from what are known as TLAMs (Tomahawk land attack missiles) fired from naval vessels in the Mediterranean.125

In addition to advocating for intervention, Harmer was critical of any delay in the strikes. From Bloomberg:

While a delay doesn’t present “insurmountable difficulty” for the U.S., Assad will benefit from time to prepare for an attack, said Christopher Harmer, an analyst with the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War who follows the Syrian military.The decision to wait for a vote in Congress lets Assad disperse his forces and equipment and allows Syria’s ally, Russia, to reposition some of its Black Sea fleet into the Mediterranean, Harmer said. It also provides Assad a “considerable psychological advantage within Syria,” he said.“It strains credibility to assert that the effect of delaying action is positive for the U.S. and negative for the Assad regime,” Harmer said in an e-mail.126

Prior to her dismissal from ISW for lying about holding a Ph.D. from Georgetown University, Elizabeth O’Bagy, who also worked for the Syrian Emergency Task Force, was quoted in several articles supporting intervention and arguing that opposition forces were not linked to extremists groups as feared. Her articles were influential enough to be quoted by Secretary Kerry. From Reuters:

Kerry cited an article by Elizabeth O’Bagy, an analyst with the Institute for the Study of War think tank, in which she wrote that Islamic extremist factions are not “spearheading the fight against the Syrian government,” but rather that the struggle is being led by “moderate opposition forces.”127

Council on Foreign Relations

Industry ties: The Council on Foreign Relations claims over 4,700 members and boasts many celebrity and high profile members among those ranks including Brian Williams, Fareed Zakaria, Angelina Jolie, Chuck Hagel, and Erin Burnett.128 Its prominence lends it a gravitas that obscures substantial conflicts of interest.

CFR has a robust corporate membership129 program that includes many of the top companies in the defense industry including Booz Allen Hamilton, DynCorp, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, Palantir. Each company paid between $30,000 and $100,000 for varying levels of access to CFR’s experts and directors.

CFR’s board members include many individuals with defense industry ties, such as R. Nicholas Burns (profiled above), Ann Fudge, a director of General Electric, and Donna J. Hrinak, an executive at Boeing. The vice chairman of CFR’s board of directors is David Rubenstein, co-founder and co-CEO of top Booz Allen shareholder the Carlyle Group.

Individual memberships are similarly stocked with defense industry insiders. CFR members Thad Allen and Tom Moorman are Booz Allen Hamilton executives, while members Robert Millard and John P White are Directors at L-3 Communication. CFR member Norman Augustine was the chairman and CEO of Lockheed Martin.

Syria commentary: CFR’s analysts and experts were cited in 19 articles on intervention in Syria. Much of CFR’s pro-intervention commentary came from CFR President Richard Haass130 who advocated directly arming the Syrian opposition in addition to the proposed limited strikes:

Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, said providing “significant” arms to the rebels would be the best way to help shape the battlefield and influence the outcome in Syria.“I think the strikes are in a narrow way successful by simply occurring,” Haass said. “It shows that you cannot use these weapons and get off scot-free,” said Haass. “If the Syrians continue to slaughter — as I believe they probably would — their fellow citizens as the civil war continues, then the United States has other means rather than direct military participation to counter that. And that’s where I have been arguing, will continue to argue, for serious arming of the opposition.”131

In an op-ed in the Washington Post, CFR senior fellow for Middle East and Africa studies Robert Danin called for a military commitment that would “send a message to Assad”:

But if the Obama administration wants to send a message to Assad that he accurately understands, the United States must provide not only a credible response to his recent use of chemical weapons but also make him believe that response is part of a larger strategy to compel him to stop slaughtering his own people — by any means. Such an approach would require a U.S. commitment to doing more than limited strikes against facilities related to chemical weapons. But it is the only message Assad will understand.132

American Enterprise Institute

Industry ties: The American Enterprise Institute does not disclose its corporate donor base but its trustees and fellows have significant ties to the defense industry.

  • Trustee Daniel D’Aniello is co-founder and Chairman of the Carlyle Group, the majority shareholder of Booz Allen Hamilton.133
  • Trustee John Faraci sits on the board of directors of United Technologies Corporation, an aerospace and aviation manufacturing company. 134
  • Trustee Dick Cheney is the former Vice President of the United States, former CEO of Halliburton, and a famed Washington, DC hawk.135
  • Senior Fellow Thomas Donnelly was the director of strategic communications and initiatives for Lockheed Martin.136
  • Fred Kagan, director of the Critical Threats Project137, is the husband of ISW director Kim Kagan. Both were criticized in the Washington Post for “pro bono” senior advisory work to General Petraeus.138

Syria commentary: Individuals associated with the American Enterprise Institute were cited in 15 articles on intervention in Syria.

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed former Senators Lieberman and Kyl, co-chairmen of the American Enterprise Institute’s American Internationalism Project, derided inaction in Syria as detrimental to national security, a betrayal of US allies in the region, and an ominous “green-light” for Iran and Putin:

But none of this should blind us from a larger truth: Regardless of how we got here, failure to authorize military force against Assad now will have far-reaching and profoundly harmful consequences for American national security.This is no longer just about the conflict in Syria or even the Middle East. It is about American credibility. Are we a country that our friends can trust and our enemies fear? Or are we perceived as a divided and dysfunctional superpower in retreat, whose words and warnings are no longer meaningful?139

This doomsday scenario of “green-lighting” the hypothetical ambitions of Iran and North Korea was echoed by AEI scholar Michael Rubin in comments to the Associated Press:

“President Obama issued those words – red line – a little more than a year ago,” said Rubin. “If you draw a line in the sand and you allow your opponent to cross, then that’s not an issue of confidence only in Syria, but that’s something the North Koreans will be watching, the Iranians will be watching and potentially other rogues around the globes will be watching. So the whole idea of a symbolic strike is to say ‘you can’t cross the line.’”140

Atlantic Council

Industry ties: Supporters of the Atlantic Council are grouped into sponsor circles of increasing access depending on the financial commitment to the organization. Donors giving less than $25,000 are designated as “Other Supporters”:

In addition to direct support from defense industry contractors, the Atlantic Council maintains its own stable of connected directors and advisors:

  • Former National Security Advisor Stephen J Hadley, profiled above, is a director for the Atlantic Council and a director at Raytheon. 142
  • Director James Cartwright, also profiled above, is also a director for Raytheon and an advisor for TASC.143
  • Advisor Robert J Stevens is the former CEO and currently serving as chairman of Lockheed Martin.144
  • Advisor General John Jumper was the CEO and Chairman of SAIC until September 27, 2013, when the company split off its national security, health, and engineering businesses as a new public company called Leidos. Jumper now serves as the CEO and Chairman of Leidos.145146
  • Director Thomas M Culligan is senior vice president for Raytheon. 147
  • Director Admiral Edmund Giambastiani Jr serves as a director for Boeing.148
  • Atlantic Council Chairman James L Jones was formerly a director for Boeing and General Dynamics.149

Syria commentary: Analysts with the Atlantic Council were cited in 14 articles on intervention in Syria.

Frederic C Hof, a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, wrote that limited, symbolic strikes were worse than doing nothing and mused on the image of American weakness portrayed in such an intervention scenario in an interview with the Christian Science Monitor:

On the other hand, if the attack is limited in scope and duration, it could send entirely the wrong signal to the Assad regime.“The more limited and symbolic it is the more disastrous it would be for the US and its partners… It would be worse than doing nothing,” says Frederic C. Hof, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East who previously served as the Obama administration’s liaison with the Syrian opposition.“It would only confirm Assad’s view that it is safe to walk up to the president of the United States and slap him in the face, as appears to have been the case in this most recent incident,” he adds, in reference to last week’s chemical attack, believed to be the deadliest single poison gas attack in quarter of a century.150

Center for American Progress

Industry ties: Although considered dovish by defense policy standards, the Center for American Progress’ business alliance and analysts have ties to large defense contractors.

CAP’s business alliance was revealed in a Nation article that exposed its undisclosed corporate donors. Among these donors were two of the biggest names in the defense industry, Lockheed Martin and Boeing.151

These ties extend into their roster of experts. CAP’s senior vice president for national security and international policy, Rudy de Leon, was senior vice president of Boeing; CAP senior fellow Scott Lilly was a lobbyist for Lockheed Martin. Several senior staff at the Albright Stonebridge Group, a commercial diplomacy firm, have ties to CAP, including Madeleine Albright and Carol Browner, both board members, and Brian Katulis and Richard Verma, both senior fellows with a national security focus. Former Raytheon and SAIC director John Deutch is a CAP trustee.

Syria commentary: The Center for American Progress was the least cited of the think tanks profiled, appearing in 13 articles on intervention in Syria.

Larry Korb, a former Pentagon official and a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, said that intervention would be a foregone conclusion if not for the looming shadow of Iraq. From AFP:

“It’s the elephant in the room,” said Larry Korb, a former Pentagon official and a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. “Had we not had the Iraq war, there would be no real question here,” he said, suggesting that proposed strikes on Syria would have been “approved overwhelmingly” by Congress.152

In addition to providing their own commentary, the Center for American Progress provided a platform for UN Ambassador Samantha Power to promote military strikes as the sole available strategy to avoid green-lighting future atrocities. From the New York Times:

Warning that President Bashar al-Assad of Syria has barely put a dent in his chemical weapons stockpile, President Obama’s new envoy to the United Nations said on Friday that a failure to intervene in Syria would “give a green light to outrages that will threaten our security and haunt our conscience” for decades to come.“We have exhausted the alternatives,” Ms. Power said. “For more than a year, we have pursued countless policy tools short of military force to try to dissuade Assad.”153

The “green-lighting” narrative was echoed by other commentators and think tanks including conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute.

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Over 22 people were killed in a massive blast in the Syrian city of Homs near a hospital, according to a source.

At least 22 people were killed and over 70 injured in the explosion near a charity association and the al-Ahli hospital in the center of the Syrian city of Homs, a source in the hospital said Saturday.

“According to our information, 22 people have died. There are about 70 injured people in the hospital. Some of the wounded were also taken to other hospitals,” an employee at the al-Ahli hospital told RIA Novosti.

Most of the injured are in critical condition, according to the source.

We are providing emergency assistance, however there are seriously injured people here and more are still comming in. A lot of wounded started arriving after the second explosion.

Warning: The following video contains graphic content that some may find disturbing. Viewer discretion is advised.

According to local television, the area was rocked with two large “terrorist explosions” with the first blasting in the vicinity of the hospital while the other reportedly hitting a close-by shop within minutes.

The car was packed with 150 kg of explosives, the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) stated.

“A terrorist car bomb attack took place in central Homs city on Saturday, leaving a number of civilians dead,” the agency reported.

This was the largest terrorist attack in Homs in the five years of the Syrian crisis.

 

Earlier, a source told RIA Novosti that “two explosions took place one after another between the al-Abbasiya square and the al-Ahli hospital. According to the preliminary data, 10 civilians are dead, 23 people have been hospitalized, some severely injured.”

A group of terrorists detonated a car bomb near a hospital in the center of the Syrian Homs. The blast that took place near gas cylinders triggered a second explosion. As a result of the two explosions several houses and shops were partially destroyed.

 

Syria’s Prime Minister Wael Nader Al-Halqi condemned the explosions, stressing that these terrorist attacks will not hamper the truce and the fight against terrorism in the country, according to SANA.

 

“Prime Minister Wael Nader Al-Halqi confirmed these were terrorist bombings, however, these attacks will not affect the national truce in Syria and will not hamper the fight against terrorism,” the tweet states.

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One of the members of the notorious Turkish opposition movement has urged a criminal investigation against Russian President Putin for “insulting” and “defamation” of Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Furthermore, Mahir Akkar, a suspect in the Ergenekon ‘coup plot’ case, also wants Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anotoly Antonov to stand trial on grounds of “insulting the president.”

This is a democratic right but we cannot turn a blind eye to defamation against our president by other presidents or officials,” Akkar said in the letter of denunciation, the Daily Sabah reports.

The plea submitted to the Ankara Public Prosecutor’s Office also added that Erdogan can only be criticized if “the boundaries of criticism are not exceeded.

He believes the Russian president and the Russian Defense Ministry overstepped that boundary when Putin mentioned the possibility of Turkish officials’ involvement in smuggling Islamic State oil into the country. That included Erdogan and his family. Putin’s accusations have been backed by extensive evidence produced by Russian military intelligence into the “industrial-scale” activity of Islamic State (formerly ISIS/ISIL) oil trade through Turkey.

Akkar demanded a criminal case against Putin and Antonov be initiated.

Prior to the evidence being put forward, Erdogan vowed he would resign if Moscow could prove their claims. Following the exposure, he vehemently denied the accusations adding it was “immoral” to involve his family in the affair. The Turkish leader further said he had evidence showing it is Russia who is actually involved in trading oil with IS.

Ergenekon is a secularist ultra-nationalist organization in Turkey with ties to members of the country’s military and security forces. Since 2008, they have suffered severe crackdowns by the government.

The so-called Ergenekon trials have involved 275 people: military officers, journalists and opposition lawmakers all accused of plotting against the Turkish government. Prosecutors described the group as “The Ergenekon terrorist organization.”

By April 2011, over 500 people had been taken into custody. As of 2015, most of the people accused have been acquitted, while others have been handed lengthy prison terms.

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A gun linked to last month’s Paris mass shootings has been traced back to a Florida arms dealer.

The serial number for a M92 semi-automatic pistol linked to the deadly Nov. 13 terrorist attacks matched one for a weapon delivered by the Zastava arms factory in May 2013 to Century International Arms in Delray Beach, reported the Palm Beach Post.

Michael Sucher, the owner of Century Arms, did not answer calls seeking comment Thursday and the doors to his shop were closed as TV news crews gathered outside.

Employees leaving the arms dealer’s building did not comment on the case, and a woman who works next door said she had no idea the business dealt guns.

Century Arms buys and sells military-grade surplus guns — with a specialty in buying weapons from overseas and reselling them to dealers — and is one of the largest arms dealers in the U.S.

The company also holds a federal firearms license in Georgia, Vermont, to import and build guns and to import destructive devices such as large-caliber guns and armor-piercing ammunition.

Documents shared by WikiLeaks in 2011 showed Century Arms had illegally traded firearms with the help of “unauthorized brokers.”

The Center for Public Integrity reported that same year that WASR-10 rifles manufactured for Century Arms in Romania had become a favorite of Mexican drug cartels.

John Rugg, a former police officer and longtime Century Arms employee, testified before a U.S. Senate committee in 1987 that the company had supplied rockets, grenades and other weapons to Nicaraguan rebels as part of the Iran-Contra scandal.

The export of firearms is heavily regulated, and weapons experts suggested the weapon may have been illegally transferred.

Century Arms sells to individuals or other businesses with a federal firearms license, and its website directs most retail traffic to a network of dealers.

But there are no restrictions on who can obtain those licenses.

The owner of the Zastava arms factory in Serbia that delivered the rifle to Century Arms said his company did not sell weapons to terrorists.

“Here’s where the weapons ended, there’s the data,” said arms dealer Milojko Brzakovic. “Zastava cannot be blamed for where it went afterward. Wherever there are wars, there are bigger possibilities for abuse and to hide the channels for guns (and) they end up where they shouldn’t.”

Watch this Century Arms customer demonstrate his M92 pistol:

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Washington’s undeclared war on Russia (and China) is the greatest threat to world peace, risking the unthinkable – possible nuclear war.

Both countries stand in the way of unchallenged US global dominance – allied with NATO partners (mainly Britain, France, Germany and Turkey), Israel and the  Middle East regimes led by Saudi Arabia, a metastasizing cancer masquerading as a nation-state.

Two major flashpoint areas risk igniting global war – Ukraine and Syria.

Washington transformed Kiev into a de facto Neo-Nazi regime  (for the first time in Europe since WW II) – used as a dagger targeting Russia’s heartland, along with other Eastern European countries close to its border.

Preserving Syrian sovereign independence is the lynchpin of preventing Iran’s isolation and the entire region from becoming a US/Israeli colony, partnered with ruling Saudi tyrants using ISIS and other terrorist groups partnered with Washington to ravage Syria, Iraq and Yemen, ahead of what increasingly looks like an inevitable US/Russia clash.

On December 15, John Kerry will meet with Vladimir Putin and Sergey Lavrov in Moscow. Ongoing conflicts in Syria and Ukraine will be discussed – both countries at odds on resolving them.

Russia’s supports nation-state sovereignty, America wants all independent governments replaced by pro-Western ones it controls – using ISIS and other terrorist groups to achieve its objectives.

Next week’s meeting between US and Russian officials will resolve nothing, not as long as Washington’s hegemonic aims remain unchanged.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry called US/Moscow relations “difficult,” citing Washington’s “confrontational steps…under the pretext of the Ukrainian crisis.” They negatively “impacted cooperation between (both) countries.”

US support for ISIS and other terrorist groups in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere further exacerbated relations. Nothing in prospect suggests positive change.

“…Russia has been consistently stressing the necessity to observe the principles of equality, mutual respect and non-interference into (the) domestic affairs” of all nations, its Foreign Ministry said.

Moscow’s hope for better US/Russian relations furthered by Kerry’s upcoming visit is more pipe dream than reality.

Kerry heads to Moscow after a planned December 14 meeting in Paris with European and Arab foreign ministers. They’ll discuss ongoing Middle East conflicts, plotting strategy to continue them and ways to subvert Russia’s war on terrorism.

Separately, interviewed by Spanish EFE news on Friday, Bashar al-Assad stressed Washington, its NATO partners and regional allies aren’t serious about fighting terrorism. They’re the problem, not the solution.

Russia’s intervention alone achieved progress, Washington trying to subvert it. The struggle for Syria’s soul continues, along with Putin’s efforts to save humanity from the scourge of another global war. He deserves universal support against US-led pure evil.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected].

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PM Central time plus two prerecorded archived programs.

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A significant debate is underway in Russia since imposition of western financial sanctions on Russian banks and corporations in 2014. It’s about a proposal presented by the Moscow Patriarchate of the Orthodox Church. The proposal, which resembles Islamic interest-free banking models in many respects, was first unveiled in December 2014 at the depth of the Ruble crisis and oil price free-fall. This August the idea received a huge boost from the endorsement of the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. It could change history for the better depending on what is done and where it further leads.

Some 20 years ago during the Yeltsin era, within the chaos of Russian hyperinflation and IMF “shock therapy,” the Russian Orthodox Church introduced a similar proposal for interest-free banking as an alternative. During that time a gaggle of liberal pro-free-market Russian economists around Yeltsin, such as Yegor Gaider, prevailed. They instead opened Russia’s state-owned assets to literal plunder by western banks, hedge funds and corporations.

In my first visit to Russia in May 1994 to give a talk at a Russian economic institute on IMF shock therapy, I saw first-hand the lawless mafia, russkaya mafiya, speeding through the near-empty Tverskaya Street near Red Square in new state-of-the-art Mercedes 600 limos without license plates. It was a devastating time in Russia and Washington and the technocrats at the IMF knew exactly what they were doing to foster the chaos.

US sanctions focus attention

By 2014 much has changed in Russia. Most significantly, the infatuation with everything American of two decades ago has understandably vanished. The US Treasury financial sanctions were launched in stages in 1914 against specific individuals around President Putin, specific banks and corporations dependent on foreign credit. They had the effect of forcing a critical rethinking among Russian intellectuals, government officials and in the Kremlin itself.

The Washington attacks, legally-speaking acts of warfare against a sovereign nation, were initiated by the US Treasury’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, the only government finance agency in the world with its own in-house intelligence agency. The Office was created under the pretext of going after and freezing the assets and bank accounts of drug cartels and terrorists, something it seems strangely inept at if we judge from their record regarding groups like ISIS or Al Qaeda in Iraq. It seems to be far better going after “undesireable” countries like Iran and Russia. It has offices around the world, including in Islamabad and Abu Dhabi.

Those US Treasury financial warfare sanctions and the prospect of much worse to come have sparked a deep debate within Russia on how to defend the nation from more attacks. Vulnerability to western sanctions in their banking system has led Russia, like China, to develop an internal Russian version of SWIFT interbank payments. Now the very nature of money and its control is at the heart of the debate.

Unorthodox Orthodox Proposal

In January 2015, in the depth of the financial crisis, with a Ruble at half what it had been months earlier and oil prices in a free-fall as a result of the September 2014 John Kerry-King Abdullah agreement, the Moscow Patriarchate reissued its idea.

Dmitri Lubomudrov, the Orthodox Church’s legal adviser told the media at that time, “We realized we couldn’t stay dependent on the Western financial system, but must develop our own. As with the Islamic system, the Orthodox one will be based not just on legislation, but on Orthodox morality as well, and will be an invitation to businessmen seeking security at a time of crisis.” Among its features would be interest-free credit issuance and prohibition of investment in gambling casinos or such activities going against Church moral values.

Then in early August this year the Orthodox plan for interest-free money creation gained a major added support. Sergei Katyrin, head of the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, after meeting with Vsevolod Chaplin, the senior Orthodox cleric overseeing the project, announced, “The Chamber of Commerce and Industry supports the creation of the Orthodox Financial System… and is ready to provide its platform for detailed and professional discussion of these questions together with the relevant committees of the chamber.” The proposal is aimed at reducing Russia’s reliance on the Western banking system, an essential national economic security requirement.

Much as with Islamic banking models than ban usury, the Orthodox Financial System would not allow interest charges on loans. Participants of the system share risks, profits and losses. Speculative behavior is prohibited, as well as investments in gambling, drugs and other businesses that do not meet Orthodox Christian values. There would be a new low-risk bank or credit organization that controls all transactions, and investment funds or companies that source investors and mediate project financing. It would explicitly avoid operations with active financial risks. Priority would be ensuring financing of the real sector of the economy, its spokesman stated.

Interestingly, Russia’s largest Islamic autonomous republic, Tatarstan, recently introduced Islamic banking into Russia for the first time and it was supported positively by German Gref, CEO of the state-owned Sperbank, Russia’s largest bank. This May, Gref called it a very important instrument amid the current problems with raising funds on international markets. In July Sberbank and the Republic of Tatarstan signed an agreement on cooperation in the field of Islamic financing.

Under Czar Alexander III and his Finance Minister Nikolai Bunge, Russia established the Peasant Land Bank in the beginning of the 1880’s to give interest-free loans to the liberated peasantry that had been freed from serfdom in 1861 by his father, Alexander II and given land. The Land Bank invested in the modernization of Russian agriculture with farmers only paying a small handling charge for credits. The result was such a spectacular rise in Russian wheat, and other cereals that Russia became the world “bread basket” up to outbreak of World War I, exceeding the combined production of the USA, Argentina and Canada by some 25%.

Glazyev proposals

The new prominence of the Orthodox Monetary model in Russian discussions comes at a time when one of Vladimir Putin’s economic advisers, Sergei Glayzev, the person advising the President on Ukraine as well as relations with fellow-members of the Eurasian Economic Union, has presented a plan for enhancing Russia’s national economic and financial security under the quite sensible assumption that the financial sanctions and now military pressures from Washington and NATO are no whimsical accident but a deep-seated strategy of weakening and economically destroying one of the two nations which stand in a way of a globalist US New World Order.

In May 2014, a few weeks after the Obama Administration imposed a series of select sanctions on key Russian individuals, banks and energy companies, striking at the heart of the economy, Glazyev made an interview with the Russian financial paper, Vedomosti, in which he proposed a number of prudent defensive measures. Among them were several which are now policy. This has included a credit and currency swap with China to finance critical imports and a shift to settlement in national currencies–Ruble and RMB; creation of a Russian

interbank information exchange system, analogous to SWIFT, for payments and settlements within the Eurasian Economic Union and other partner countries.

A strategic proposal of Glazyev that the state impose a halt on all export of gold, precious metals, and rare earth elements, and that the Central Bank buy up gold mined by foreign companies to build monetary gold reserve strength, was, unfortunately, refused by Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina who told the Duma, “We don’t believe that a moratorium is needed on gold exports. We are able to buy enough gold to diversify our gold and currency reserves.”

Nabiullina has come under criticism from members of the Duma for being far too slow in building the gold reserves of the ruble. Russia today is the world’s second largest gold producer after China, and China has been building its Peoples’ Bank of China gold reserves in recent years at a feverish pace. Western central banks, led by the Federal Reserve, since gold backing for the dollar was abandoned in August, 1971, have done everything, including brazen market manipulation, to discourage gold currency reserves around the world.

Most recently, on September 15 Glazyev presented a new series of economic proposals to the Presidential Russian Security Council to, as he stated it, reduce the vulnerability to western sanctions over the coming five years and achieve foundations for long-term growth and economic sovereignty. Among his proposals were creation of a State Committee on Strategic Planning under the President of the Russian Federation, together with a State Committee for Scientific and Technological Development, modeled on a system created in Iran during the 1990s following the introduction of Western sanctions there.

The first measure, creation of a Committee on Strategic Planning, echoes the highly successful French national Planification model introduced under President Charles de Gaulle, that was credited with transforming France from a stagnant peasant-dominated economy to an advanced, innovative modern industrial nation by the early 1970’s.

In the 1960’s France had a General Commission of the Plan which surveyed the entire economy to identify critical weaknesses that needed attention for overall national development. They would set goals for the coming 5 years. General Commission members were senior civil servants consulting with business leaders, trade unions and other representative groups. Each proposed plan was then sent to the national parliament for voting approval or change.

The crucial difference between France’s 5-year Planification and the Soviet 5-year central planning model was that the French was indicative and not imperative as was the Soviet Five Year Plan. Private or state companies could freely decide to focus on a sector such as railway development knowing the state would encourage the investment with tax incentives or subsidies to lower risk and make it attractive. It was highly successful until the mid-1970’s when the massive oil shocks and increasing Brussels supra-national rule-making made it increasingly difficult to implement.

There are other features to the detailed Glazyev proposal, among the most interesting his proposal to use Central Bank resources to provide targeted lending for businesses and industries by providing them with low interest rates between 1-4 percent, made possible by quantitative easing to the tune of 20 trillion rubles over a five year period. The program also suggests that the state support private business through the creation of “reciprocal obligations” for the purchase of products and services at agreed-upon prices.

Russia is in a fascinating process of rethinking every aspect of her national economic survival because of the reality of the western attacks. It could produce a very healthy transformation away from the deadly defects of the Anglo-American free-market banking model.

F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

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The December 6, 2015 election resulted in a clear victory of the opposition over the Bolivarian alliance led by the Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (PSUV). The opposition won 112 seats, obtaining votes from 67.7% of the approximately 74% of the electorate who voted. The Bolivarian coalition won 55 seats and garnered 42% of the votes. This provides the opposition with one more seat than the minimum 111 needed to be declared a full majority. The 112-seat block holds 20 seats more than a simple majority. This status provides the opposition with the control of the unicameral National Assembly.

By obtaining two-thirds of the National Assembly (NA), the opposition may approve organic laws, propose reforms and make constitutional amendments, to replace members of the Supreme Tribunal of Justice, the National Electoral Board and other public authorities, but only with the approval of other legal bodies. The NA, to be installed in January 2016, must comply with its powers already enshrined in the Constitution. The system of Venezuela is not parliamentary, but mixed, as there are checks and balances between the five branches of government. The Assembly cannot remove other powers, even with the backing of a two-thirds majority, if there is not a previous ruling by the Supreme Tribunal of Justice, from the Citizens’ Power or the authority established for each case. Nor can the NA legislate against the principle known as improving human rights, which states that the rights are improved or left untouched, but never removed or limited.

This is the second time in the 20 elections held since the 1998 election of Hugo Chávez that the Chavista forces have lost. There was peaceful voting at the polls on December 6. This was followed by the results and the immediate acceptance of them by Nicolás Maduro. The respect for the results was never in doubt. What does this show? It indicates once again that the Venezuelan electoral system is not only fair but one of the best in the world. It provides proof for the world to view the electoral system as being solid and transparent. In this sense, it is a so-called “victory”; it is, however, a pyrrhic one.

This is because, it seems, one cannot declare that it was victory for democracy. The electoral system as mainly a legal process is one thing, while the concept of democracy is something else. Democracy cannot be assessed in the abstract. Democracy in the Venezuelan context means the political power of the people in a Venezuela that is sovereign and independent in the face of US imperialist attempts to gain control of the country of Bolívar once again. Who and what forces represent this people’s political power? It is the political alliance led by the PSUV. Most importantly, people’s power springs from the concept that political power resides in the hands of the people as enshrined in the Constitution: “Sovereignty resides untransferably in the people [cannot be transferred], who exercise it directly in the manner provided for in this Constitution and in the law, and indirectly, by suffrage, through the organs exercising Public Power. The organs of the State emanate from and are subject to the sovereignty of the people” (article 5). Thus, the situation is very complex both for the opposition and the Bolivarian revolutionary forces.

Taking this into account, democracy today is based on the approximately 42% of the electorate. It voted, in general, to continue the Bolivarian Revolution. Moreover, voting day is for the Bolivarian force just one day in their daily ongoing struggle for their social, economic, cultural and political rights for the poor and others. Voting day is just a part of the participatory democracy that Venezuelan leaders from Chávez to Maduro have been striving to develop. In fact, it is successful to the extent that the new experiments in participatory democracy in Venezuela constitute a basis for its further development, even since December 6. This is so despite the shortcomings the new situation has to face. It still offers lessons to other countries as well.

However, this force in favour of people’s power or democracy lost to those who seek to turn the clock back on recent Venezuelan history since December 1998. As such, it was a major defeat for democracy. The opposition is fiercely against the Bolivarian Revolution and in favour of the Venezuelan oligarchy and further US penetration and control. This is in flagrant violation of democracy. Yet, the opposition easily won.

Nevertheless, the democratic force of millions of Venezuelan revolutionaries has become, and is today, a material force. Under certain conditions, consciousness can be converted into a material force. It does not consist merely of ideas. Even though its numbers have drastically fallen, it is still a solid force despite being the minority. Many of those inside and outside of Venezuela who support the Bolivarian Revolution do not think very highly of those among the most disadvantaged sections of the society who voted for the opposition. This sentiment is understandable and justified.

However, there is the other side of the coin. While important sections at the base were duped by the media war against the Chavistas, those who were not stood up very strongly and resisted the media terrorism. This highlights that those millions of Venezuelans, while now a minority, should be considered more solid than ever. They have to be appreciated more now than before December 6. Their December 6 option represents a heroic resistance to the all those Venezuelan and international forces that targeted the Bolivarian Revolution in an attempt to bury it. The revolution is not dead. December 6 is not even a nail in the coffin of the revolution.

The Bolivarian Revolution as the bearer of democracy in Venezuela is a democracy in motion. It has its ups and downs. Although December 6 represents a serious downswing, it challenges the revolutionary forces to further innovate and improve the notion that sovereignty resides in the people and cannot be transferred. Its first task is to resist all attempts to roll back the gains of their revolution, as Maduro has pointed out. As for those who voted for the opposition, but should not have, they can also learn by the positive example of the democracy in motion in the streets, neighbourhoods, workplaces and educational institutes. This is bound to contrast with their experience alongside the opposition forces that now control the National Assembly.

Compared to this compact material force, based on a clear ideology tempered in battle since 1998, what does the opposition represent today? It is a mixed bag of different outlooks and classes. This shaky coalition is based first and foremost on the determined efforts of the oligarchy and their ideology, which revolves around capitalism and dependence on the US. This is relatively solid and will not change significantly until they are eventually overthrown by the further development of the Bolivarian Revolution.

On the other hand, the forces from the base that adhered so massively for the first time to the oligarchy on December 6 did so for a variety of reasons. They mainly stem from the economic war and its accompanying media war led by the US and its allies in Venezuela. These forces probably did not all vote to “punish” the Maduro government. Rather, many were animated by a general dissatisfaction resulting from the economic war. This materialized in a vague hope of seeking relief, for example, from the seven-hour lineups to obtain necessities at increasingly higher prices.

This opportunist electoral alliance is no match in the long run for the forces of the Bolivarian Revolution. It has a huge responsibility at this time. There is, of course, the domestic situation. However, December 6 is also a direct challenge to maintaining, let alone further developing, the regional integration of Latin America and the Caribbean, one of the greatest legacies of Hugo Chávez. It is also a threat to international cooperation such as demonstrated by PetroCaribe, which is based on the use of the oil industry for the people of Venezuela and neighbouring countries. Given this, the results also defy the new developing multipolar world in resistance to the unipolar one led by the US.

Can the Bolivarian Revolution successfully face up to these momentous domestic and international challenges? In the long run, yes. Seventeen years is a relatively short period in a revolution that is continuously developing. One cannot underestimate the Venezuelan base. After all, this incipient democracy in motion was largely responsible for defeating the 2002 US-inspired coup d’état against Hugo Chávez. He was brought back to power and democracy was reinstated in the main by the masses in the street.

Arnold August, a Canadian journalist and lecturer, is the author of Democracy in Cuba and the 1997–98 Elections and, more recently, Cuba and Its Neighbours: Democracy in Motion. Cuba’s neighbours under consideration are the US, Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador. Arnold can be followed on Twitter @Arnold_August.

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Paris Climate Deal is a Sham

December 12th, 2015 by Friends of the Earth International

PARIS, FRANCE, December 12, 2015 – The climate deal to be agreed today is a sham, according to Friends of the Earth International.

“Rich countries have moved the goal posts so far that we are left with a sham of a deal in Paris. Through piecemeal pledges and bullying tactics, rich countries have pushed through a very bad deal,” said Sara Shaw, Friends of the Earth International climate justice and energy coordinator.

A detailed policy analysis of the Paris Agreement will be available at http://www.foei.org/what-we-do/paris

“Despite the hype, the Paris agreement will fail to deliver. Politicians say it is a fair and ambitious deal – yet it is the complete opposite. People are being deceived,” said Dipti Bhatnagar, Friends of the Earth International climate justice and energy coordinator.

“Vulnerable and affected people deserve better than this failed agreement; they are the ones who feel the worst impacts of our politicians’ failure to take tough enough action,’” she added.

Rich countries must make their fair share of emissions cuts and provide finance and support to developing countries to help them adapt to the impacts of climate change, according to Friends of the Earth International. Instead, they are failing to cut carbon emissions and the finance they have offered is insufficient.

In Paris rich countries are seeking to dismantle the UN Climate Convention to suit their own needs. The Climate Convention states that the rich countries who have done most to cause the climate crisis must do their fair share to stop it.

According to Friends of the Earth International three major problems stem from the Paris talks:

  •  The draft Paris deal states that 2 C is the maximum acceptable global temperature increase, and that countries should pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C. This is meaningless without requiring rich countries to cut their emissions drastically and provide finance in line with their fair share, and places the extra burden on developing countries. To avoid runaway climate we need to urgently and drastically cut emissions, not just put it off.
  • Without compensation for irreparable damage, the most vulnerable countries will be left to pick up the pieces and foot the bill for a crisis they didn’t create.
  • Without adequate finance, poor countries will now be expected to foot the bill for a crisis they didn’t cause. The finance exists. The political will does not.

Jagoda Munic, chairperson of Friends of the Earth International said:

Instead of acting with ambition and urgency, our governments are acting in the interests of powerful lobbies and corporations, but people are taking back the power. History will not be made in the convention centre, but on the streets of Paris and round the globe. The climate justice movement is unstoppable and will continue to expand in 2016 and beyond. A handful of politicians will not stop the energy revolution.

Today (Saturday 12th December) over 2,000 activists from the Friends of the Earth International federation, joined by thousands more from Paris sent a global message for climate justice and peace, writ large across the city in a peaceful protest. [1]

Friends of the Earth International is one of many civil society organisations that have used The People’s Test on Climate 2015 to assess the Paris climate agreement.

The demands in the Test cover the key pillars of what would have constituted a just deal: a commitment to keeping us well below 1.5 C warming while dividing the carbon budget using the fairshares principle; finance and support in line with rich nations’ climate debt; a just, systemic transformation; and justice for impacted communities, including compensation for irreparable climate damage. [2]

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Sara Shaw, Friends of the Earth International climate justice and energy coordinator + 33 6 71 71 38 31 (until 12 Dec) or + 44 79 74 00 82 70 or email [email protected]

Lucy Cadena, climate justice and energy coordinator, Friends of the Earth International, +44 7580 270129 or +33 6 07103962 (until 12 Dec) or [email protected]

Dipti Bhatnagar, climate justice and energy coordinator, Friends of the Earth International,+33 6 07 10 17 28 (until 14 Dec) or [email protected]

Asad Rehman, Friends of the Earth International spokesperson at the Summit in Paris, + 33 753 92 59 04 (until 13 Dec), or [email protected]

Jagoda Munic, chairperson of Friends of the Earth International, Tel: +33 (0) 6 07 104 213, email [email protected]

Friends of the Earth International media line: Tel: +31 (0) 6 51 00 56 30 or +33 (0) 6 07 104 509, email [email protected]

NOTES:

[1] Thousands of individuals spelled out “Climate Justice Peace” across Paris using geo-localisation software, recorded online here: http://www.climatejusticepeace.org/

The Friends of the Earth demonstration is followed by a number of peaceful demonstrations planned by a broad coalition of organisations including the French Coalition Climat 21.

Demonstrations include the ‘Climate State of Emergency’ gathering at the Eiffel Tower, co-organised by Friends of the Earth France, Alternatiba and allies, and a ‘Red-Lines’ action organised by 350.org, ATTAC and others.

[2] The People’s Climate Test is available at http://peoplestestonclimate.org

 

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Since Russia began military operations in Syria against the terrorist proxy forces of NATO and the Gulf states, ubiquitous reports in the Western media have emerged which claim that Russia has killed and targeted civilians. Yet a large proportion of these news organisations that apparently are at the pinnacle of journalism in the West, are publishing reports that are often based on one or two very  dubious (to say the least) sources.

No photographs, videos or any actual evidence is provided in a lot of these articles. The presstitutes are so lazy these days they can’t even be bothered manufacturing fake evidence most of the time, they just cite a blog post from what may as well be some random guy on Twitter, and then quote a few Western politicians who want to oust Assad from power in Damascus; and they try and pass that off as professional news gathering. It’s truly a new low for Western mainstream journalism.

One of the most widely cited ‘organizations’ in the Western media pertaining to the Syrian conflict is the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR). As Tony Cartalucci astutely noted back in 2012, in his article: West’s Syrian Narrative Based on “Guy in British Apartment”, the Western media portrays the SOHR as a group of impartial and highly skilled professionals who are based in Syria:

One would believe this to be a giant sprawling organization with hundreds of members working hard on the ground, documenting evidence in Syria with photographs and video, while coordinating with foreign press to transparently and objectively “observe” the “human rights” conditions in Syria, as well as demonstrate their methodologies. Surely that is the impression the Western media attempts to relay to its readers.

As usual, the reality of this so-called organization is the complete inversion of the way the mainstream media portrays it. TheSOHR was founded in 2006 by the enigmatic Rami Abdulrahman (also spelled Abdurrahman, but his real name is Ossama Suleiman), who is also the director of the one-man group. He is the only individual publicly listed as working for the SOHR, with even the New York Times admitting in a 2013 article that the SOHR is “virtually a one-man band”.

He apparently relies on four unnamed men inside Syria who assist him, along with over 200 unnamed informants. Obviously, the major problem with these unnamed activists is that they are anonymous, meaning the media has absolutely no idea who these people are, or if they even exist. Are some of these activists members of ISIS or Jabhat al-Nusra? Do they work for MI6 or the CIA? Is the tooth fairy one of his informants? There is no way to verify that Abdulrahman’s informants are authentic, reliable or objective.

Secondly, Abdulrahman is not an impartial individual himself, and is starkly opposed to the Syrian government. He told Reutersin 2012 that he would only return to Syria “when Bashar al-Assad goes”. (It should also be noted that when he was still living in Syria, Abdulrahman supposedly served three brief spells in a Syrian jail for what Reuters called “pro-democracy activism” – you can make of that what you wish).

In 2011, CNN reported that Abdulrahman meet the former Foreign Secretary of Britain, William Hague, in London, as a representative of the Syrian opposition (he was even photographed outside the Foreign & Commonwealth Office). The SOHR clearly has an agenda, and should not be relied on to give impartial reports on the situation in Syria.

Thirdly, Abdulrahman left Syria in 2000 and now lives in Coventry, England! You would think the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights is based in Syria, considering the ‘organization’ supposedly monitors the situation solely in Syria.

Furthermore, the SOHR casualty count for certain periods in the Syrian conflict often differs from the figures calculated by specialists from around the world.

Blatant Propaganda! 

Many of the allegations in the Western press that accuse the Russian government of killing civilians are solely based on this one unprofessional and biased source. The International Business Times (IBT) published an article on the 21st of October, titled: Russia in Syria: 370, including civilians killed in Russian airstrikes, says SOHR. The IBT article provides no second source, and merely says “according” to the SOHR.

On the 20th of November 2015, the SOHR released a report which claimed that the Russian air force had killed 403 civilians in Syria, including 166 women and children. In the report, there is absolutely zero evidence to support these claims – literally not a shred of evidence. But that doesn’t stop Western media quoting the SOHR report as proof of civilian casualties however.

The Independent published an article on the 23rd of November with the sensationalist headline: Russian air strikes in Syria ‘have killed 97 children’, monitoring group says. The Independent only cites the SOHR report which has zero evidence in it, and provides no additional evidence to support this accusation, but somehow that passes for journalism in the West – what a joke. The Independent isn’t even a tabloid paper, it’s meant to be a little more respectable than say The Sun.

Other mainstream news outlets such as ReutersYahoo News and the New York Times, publish stories which quote this figure of 403 civilians from the SOHR report.

The Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, denounced the SOHR in October of this year, when she was responding to allegations widely circulated in the Western media that Russia had bombed a hospital in Northern Syria, killing 13 people. Zakharova stated:

This information appears with reference to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights based in London. As we all understand, it is very ‘convenient’ to cover and observe what is happening in Syria without leaving London and without the ability to collect information in the field.

It is obvious to anyone who values real journalism and intellectual honesty, that the SOHR is a joke, and is the antithesis of a reliable and impartial source. For the Western mainstream media however, its legitimate sounding name is an important and useful tool when promulgating war propaganda and disinformation to their ignorant readers.

Steven MacMillan is an independent writer, researcher, geopolitical analyst and editor of  The Analyst Report, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

 

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Donald Trump has had it in for the followers Allah and the Prophet from the start of his campaign. Much of this, however, is histrionics. Adopting a salesman’s pitch, Trump changes the message depending on his audience. If one is to go back into the troves of interviews he has done, chiding remarks about fellow Republicans who took racial, historically questionable lines can be found.

Now, in the full flight of engineered bigotry, Trump has taken the anti-Islamic position and made it firm within his platform. The timing is apt. The war in Syria is only expanding, ostensibly against the forces of ISIS. A faceoff is unfolding. The attacks in Paris remain raw. He resorts to history, poorly, but his deficiency as a student of Clio’s mysteries disappears when he puts on the demagogue’s hat. Resonances change; the register is different.

Given that the register in many Western states is very much sceptical of Islam and its followers, his cue was as unsurprising as it was violent. On Monday, he called for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States while we figure out what the hell is going on.” “We,” he pointedly remarked, “are out of control.”

Trump had referenced his statement by referring to poll results farmed by an anti-Islamic group, suggesting that “great hatred” had been evidenced “towards Americans by large segments of the Muslim population.”

Trump’s proposal to bar foreign Muslims, one which shares its DNA with numerous proposals on the Right to restrict the entry of Muslims generally, has caused a storm. GOP leaders baulked. Even that dark eminence, former Vice President Dick Cheney, took issue with the supposedly “un-American” nature of the idea. “Well, I just think this whole notion that somehow we need to say no more Muslims and just ban a whole religion goes against everything we stand for and believe in.”

A stunned Kassem Allie, executive director of the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn, Michigan, claimed that he was “trampling on our constitution and packaging it as snake oil cure for our security concerns.”[1]

Allie also detected a Nazi-Stalinist echo, a rather dramatic point given that the US has previously barred other groups from entering on bureaucratic security grounds. The refugee annals will show a rather poor record in the 1930s to Jews fleeing Nazi Germany, characterised by the ignominious turning back of the German Ocean liner, the MS St. Louis. A quarter of those on board would perish in the Holocaust.

Trump’s sharp stance has various effects. For one thing, it provides cover for other presidential candidates who are themselves problematic. The focus on Hillary Clinton, which should be razor sharp and sceptical, has not so much blurred as vanished – for the moment. The limelight has been well and truly cast on the property tycoon. What will he do next?

The remarks have not been falling on deaf electoral ears. Trump knows how to snap up coverage, something he needed to do after losing ground in a Monmouth University poll. (That poll had suggested Ted Cruz’s shading him into second spot in the first party election contest on February 1 in Iowa.) He plays the press, claims Jeb Bush, “like a fiddle”. Cast an outrageous remark out in the open, and the media will give it legs. “That’s his strategy to dominate the news.”

Accordingly, a new poll from NBC news and the Wall Street Journal has found that 42 percent of Republican voters support the suggestion. A smaller 36 percent oppose it. But ever polarising, Trump’s anti-Muslim bar is opposed by 57 percent of respondents across party lines.[2]

There has also been some movement in the polls for Trump personally – and these have not been entirely negative. There is nothing ingenious to it – the technique is the classic anti-establishment message that is trundled into old populism. The result is a surge since Monday, one that has placed him ahead of a paltry lot of rivals.

While one should take Fox News, and its polls, with the slightest of pinches, the network’s poll of 437 likely Republican primary voters, conducted over December 5 to 8, was music for The Donald. Steaming ahead of the historically challenged Ben Carson, languishing at 15 percent, Trump mustered 35 percent.[3]

Such results can have one of two effects. Other candidates can contrast their positions, drawing strength from distinction rather than similarity. But the law of polemical averages suggests that drawing similarity from distinction is the more regular pattern. Other GOP candidates have had to compete on similar terms, modifying more moderate stances, notably surrounding refugees and security.Trump might be deemed mad, obscene, absurd and somehow self-disqualifying for the White House, but he does possess a dangerous appeal to a slew of voters. The Democrats have expressed concern, but will hope that such appeal remains confined to a cancelling GOP core. As for Trump, he has made sounds to the effect that he is happy to run as an independent, if need be. Interesting times await.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: [email protected]

Notes

 [1] http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/08/donald-trump-muslim-ban-republican-party-chaos

[2] http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/10/donald-trump-strikes-chord-with-gop-voters-over-muslims-poll-finds

[3] http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-12-10/trump-polling-lead-surges-after-anti-muslim-comments

 

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Syrian Arab Army (SAA), National Defense Forces (NDF) and Hezbollah are successfully advancing the in the Eastern parts of Aleppo province. The pro-government forces are now closing in on the terrorists’ positions in the town of Deir Hafer, approaching the town from several directions.

Meanwhile, the Russian strikers heavily pounded the terrorists’ gathering centers in the Darat Izza, Bashkoy, Keshtaar, Kafarina and Azaz regions of the province. Dozens of militants were killed. A large number of weapons and equipment was destroyed. The Syrian airstrikes hit terrorists’ positions in Jarouf, Ein al-Beida, al-Bab and Anadan.

On Wednesday, the SAA killed a senior commander of the “Thuwar al-Sham Brigades” terrorist group in a strategic town of Khan Touman. Abdul Rahim al-Hamoud was a defected lieutenant colonel of the SAA.

The SAA made important advances in the city of Dara’a. The field reports said that the loyalists are in a striking distance of the old Dara’a border crossing with Jordan which is commonly referred to as the Al-Jamrak crossing. Sporadic clashes between the SAA and militants were observed at the outskirts of al-Sheikh Meskeen and Atman.

ISIS militants in Iraq’s Ramadi have destroyed a lock on the Euphrates River which served as a bridge as pro-government forces advance further in the fight to retake the western militant-held city. It was the last bridge which connected the city center. Thus, 300 militants trapped in the city. This week, the Iraqi security forces and local militia seized control of a military complex north of the city and captured the neighborhood of Husaybah on the eastern outskirts of the city. Separately, Iraqi military and allied volunteer fighters cleared almost the whole area of the western neighborhoods of Ramadi.

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Love, Marriage and Imperialism

December 12th, 2015 by Andre Vltchek

After photographing the new, enormous and undoubtedly sinister building of the US embassy in Bishkek, capital of Kyrgyzstan, I was driven by a local left-wing politician towards the mountains. We agreed to have lunch; simple, good local food.

In front of the restaurant, which my friend selected, was parked an indescribable monster: a white double-decker ‘extremely stretched’ limousine with tinted windows.  I had never seen a double-decker limo before.

“An American-style wedding”, my host commented gloomily.

The bride was dressed all in white. She looked rather depressed. The groom appeared to be concerned, scared of something. Some 100 guests were desperately trying to appear merry and positive.

The wedding was monstrously kitschy.  ‘So will be their married life’, I thought. It was obvious. Bad taste has lately been penetrating everything, everywhere: from the lives of married couples to kindergarten wards.

I looked at the bride. Our eyes met for a few seconds.  I thought that I read in her desperate gaze, “Take me to Patagonia or to Polynesia”. Maybe I was wrong… Maybe she was actually happy… With that stretched limo at the parking lot.

She smiled shyly. I smiled back, and then I went to a backroom to eat and to discuss with my friend how the West destroyed the Soviet Union, and how it then implanted hate, tribalism and extremism in all parts of Central Asia.

I have seen hundreds of weddings, all over the world. Almost all of them based on some outdated, depressing monotheist ideology. All offering shackles instead of wings, depressing obligations and prison bars instead of love; consumerism instead of dreams.

Possess, possess, possess; control, control, control, consume, consume, consume…

Possess the other person, break her or his identity and will, control her or his steps, while consuming what the market tells you to consume. And don’t forget about Jesus, even if you absolutely don’t believe in that gentleman. Because Jesus has been converted into some sort of justification for why you consume the way you do, step on others every day, and fuck (or don’t fuck) at night.

A man and a woman, two loving beings, are now expected to spend, reproduce, pay taxes to some monstrous state, and behave obediently and “morally”, instead of turning their feelings into some positive creative force, instead of dreaming and fighting side by side for a much better society and for a much better world.

After the 1917 Revolution, the Soviets considered abolishing the institution of marriage altogether as something obsolete, religious, oppressive, regressive and grotesque. But inertia in the psyche of the masses proved to be too great. The desire to control other human beings was still deeply rooted even in the psyche of the wretched of the earth.

Love that would be simply based on trust and on free choice appeared too ‘risky’.

Handcuffs and ropes survived.

Even now, in the 21st Century, before a man and a woman are allowed to make love, some sclerotic bureaucrat or child-molesting priest, is expected to slam a stamp on a paper form and declare: “you can now kiss the bride.”

How thoroughly disgusting, patronizing and humiliating… for love! How, actually, endlessly feudal and sleazy!

Isn’t love supposed to be the highest form of rebellion, a fight for something totally new? Its purity should not be based on virginity, but on beauty, trust, determination and courage.

It should be, but as we all know, it is not.

Instead, the monotheist religions and Western cultural imperialism are using the institution of marriage for their own despotic, dictatorial interests. While the weddings,  themselves, exactly like Christmas and other religious gaga carnivals, are converted into some pathetic and shameless orgy of consumerism.

The “Bride’s dream” is now mostly that of a Disneyland-style bad taste orgy of consumption and cash burning, designed as an injection of funds into a private sector service industry.

Imperialist and market fundamentalist ideologues love the game – as long as there is no deep meaning left in all this! And there certainly isn’t. The modern marriage institution is not unlike some low Hollywood film or pop tune.

Once rings are exchanged, papers stamped and excessive food puked out in overflowing toilets, what follows is the brutal reality of married life, in most cases broken, forced, depressing, sustained only because of “children”, or “obligation”, or because of guilt, or because of religious idiocy.

In short: married life exists mainly so that many absolutely despicable, and for centuries unreformed societies (including those in the West), could survive intact.  Through the degenerate institution of marriage, sadistic Christian dogma manage to persist…

Western-style marriage, now also implanted into virtually all parts of the world, is resting on several mighty columns including fear, selfishness (like putting the family unit above national and other objective interests, which indisputably breeds corruption), submission, lack of creativity and imagination, and yes, lack of love.

Because love, if allowed to bloom, is mostly founded on trust, understanding, generosity, but also on rebellion, freedom, and a desire to live one’s life in a totally new way. All of the above is directly opposed to Western cultural imperialism, Christian dogma and market fundamentalism, read: opposed to the global fascism that is ruling the world.

Global fascism wants married couples to live like slaves, consuming like idiots, erecting a twisted Disney-style “reality” for their children, while following the most idiotic religious and cultural concepts of their parents and grandparents: concepts that already brought our planet to its present pitiful state!

All this – in the name of “morality”! A penis entering an “unmarried vagina” being portrayed as more immoral than murdering millions, spreading nihilist ideological and religious lies, corrupting, stealing from and scaring billions of poor people.

***

One day after our lunch at the restaurant converted to a wedding parlor, we drove to the southern shore of a mighty Central Asian lake. There, several years ago, a Canadian mining company managed to drive a truck full of cyanide, into a river. In order not to pay compensations, the company lied. It corrupted the then country’s President, as well as the local press and several MPs. My friend was heading the investigating commission. He refused to betray his people. One day, a representative of the company came into his office, with a case full of US dollars. My friend kicked them out, and then made everything public.

Until now, hundreds of people are dying from cancer. Until now, children are born deformed. Mining goes on.

“The mining company arranges small events in the village,” I was told. Village, which lost so many people!

Events include weddings. Why?

The entire Central Asia is dreaming about the old Soviet Union. I was told this in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, even in Uzbekistan, and I will address the topic in my future essays.

The West corrupts, steals and supports nationalist and religious extremists. Not only is ISIS now active, but also several extremist Christian fascist organizations had been implanted, like in Indonesia and Africa. Like everywhere in the world!

But smashing countries to pieces is not considered “immoral”. Robbing them is fine. Indoctrinating, brainwashing them – all just part of some daily routine.

While love is being reduced to a filthy market place, while marriage feels increasingly like a prison, while human relationships are mass-produced. There is almost no space left for imagination, the ability to dream, the desire to fight for a much better world!

Like Western porn, mechanical and gym-like, like Western culture, increasingly resembling a supermarket, like childhood that is infiltrated by mass-produced unsavory chemical-colored characters, a union between a woman and a man now consists of pre-fabricated, computer-generated gigs and squeaks. It appears to be toxic, unfit for human consumption.

I say: “screw such unions!” Let’s think about something better.  Let’s laugh at morally corrupt preachers and bureaucrats, and at their stamps! Let’s try to bring back poetry, dreams and humanism. And trust! And let’s do it really soon!

Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. His latest books are: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire” and Fighting Against Western Imperialism.Discussion with Noam Chomsky: On Western TerrorismPoint of No Return is his critically acclaimed political novel. Oceania – a book on Western imperialism in the South Pacific. His provocative book about Indonesia: “Indonesia – The Archipelago of Fear”. Andre is making films for teleSUR and Press TV. After living for many years in Latin America and Oceania, Vltchek presently resides and works in East Asia and the Middle East. He can be reached through his website or his Twitter.

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Why Did Turkey Shoot Down That Russian Plane?

December 12th, 2015 by Conn Hallinan

It was certainly not because the SU-24 posed any threat. The plane is old and slow, and the Russians were careful not to arm it with anti-aircraft missiles. It was not because the Turks are quick on the trigger. Three years ago Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said, “A short-term violation of airspace can never be a pretext for an attack.” And there are some doubts about whether the Russian plane ever crossed into Turkey’s airspace.

Indeed, the whole Nov. 24 incident looks increasingly suspicious, and one doesn’t have to be a paranoid Russian to think the takedown might have been an ambush. As Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney (ret), former U.S. Air Force chief of staff commented, “This airplane was not making any maneuvers to attack the [Turkish] territory,” the Turkish action was “overly aggressive,” and the incident “had to be preplanned.”

It certainly puzzled the Israeli military, not known for taking a casual approach to military intrusions. Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon told the press Nov. 29 that a Russian warplane had violated the Israeli border over the Golan Heights. “Russian planes do not intend to attack us, which is why we must not automatically react and shoot them down when an error occurs.”

So why was the plane downed? Because, for the first time in four years, some major players are tentatively inching toward a settlement of the catastrophic Syrian civil war, and powerful forces are maneuvering to torpedo that process. If the Russians had not kept their cool, several nuclear-armed powers could well have found themselves in a scary faceoff, and any thoughts of ending the war would have gone a glimmering.

There are multiple actors on the Syrian stage and a bewildering number of crosscurrents and competing agendas that, paradoxically, make it both easier and harder to find common ground. Easier, because there is no unified position among the antagonists; harder, because trying to herd heavily armed cats is a tricky business.

A short score card on the players:

The Russians and the Iranians are supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and fighting a host of extremist organizations ranging from Al-Qaeda to the Islamic State (IS). But each country has a different view of what a post civil war Syria might look like. The Russians want a centralized and secular state with a big army. The Iranians don’t think much of “secular,” and they favor militias, not armies.

Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan with President Barack Obama during a G20 summit in Pittsburgh, Sept, 25, 2009. (Pete Souza)

Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan with President Barack Obama during a G20 summit in Pittsburgh, Sept, 25, 2009. (Pete Souza)

Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and most the other Gulf monarchies are trying to overthrow the Assad regime, and are the major supporters of the groups Russia, Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah are fighting. But while Turkey and Qatar want to replace Assad with the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, Saudi Arabia might just hate the Brotherhood more than it does Assad. And while the monarchies are not overly concerned with the Kurds, Turkey is bombing them, and they are a major reason why Ankara is so deeply enmeshed in Syria.

The U.S., France and Great Britain are also trying to overthrow Assad, but are currently focused on fighting the IS using the Kurds as their major allies—specifically the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Party, an offshoot of the Kurdish Workers Party that the U.S. officially designates as “terrorist.” These are the same Kurds that the Turks are bombing and who have a friendly alliance with the Russians. Indeed, Turkey may discover that one of the price tags for shooting down that SU-24 is the sudden appearance of new Russian weapons for the Kurds, some of which will be aimed at the Turks.

The Syrian war requires a certain suspension of rational thought.

For instance, the Americans are unhappy with the Russians for bombing the anti-Assad Conquest Army, a force dominated by the Nusra Front, al-Qaeda’s franchise in Syria. That would be the same al-Qaeda that brought down the World Trade towers and that the U.S. is currently bombing in Yemen, Somalia and Afghanistan.

Suspension of rational thought is not limited to Syria.

A number of Arab countries initially joined the U.S. air war against the Islamic State (IS) and al-Qaeda, because both organizations are pledged to overthrow the Gulf monarchies. But Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar have now dropped out to concentrate their air power on bombing the Houthis in Yemen.

The Houthis, however, are by far the most effective force fighting the IS and al-Qaeda in Yemen. Both extremist organizations have made major gains in the last few weeks because the Houthis are too busy defending themselves to take them on.

In spite of all this political derangement, however, there are several developments that are pushing the sides toward some kind of peaceful settlement that doesn’t involve regime change in Syria. That is exactly what the Turks and the Gulf monarchs are worried about, and a major reason why Ankara shot down that Russian plane.

The first of these developments has been building throughout the summer: a growing flood of Syrians fleeing the war. There are already almost two million in Turkey, and over a million in Jordan and Lebanon, and as many as 900,000 in Europe. Out of 23 million Syrians, some 11 million have been displaced by the war, and the Europeans are worried that many of those 11 million people will end up camping out on the banks of the Seine and the Rhine. If the war continues into next year, that is a pretty accurate assessment.

Hence, the Europeans have quietly shelved their demand that Assad resign as a prerequisite for a ceasefire and are leaning on the Americans to follow suit. The issue is hardly resolved, but there seems to be general agreement that Assad will at least be part of a transition government. At this point, the Russians and Iranians are insisting on an election in which Assad would be a candidate because both are wary of anything that looks like “regime change.” The role Assad might play will be a sticking point, but probably not an insurmountable one.

(Wikiwand)

(Wikiwand)

Turkey and Saudi Arabia are adamant that Assad must go, but neither of them is in the driver’s seat these days. While NATO supported Turkey in the Russian plane incident, according to some of the Turkish press many of its leading officials consider Erdoğan a loose cannon. And Saudi Arabia—whose economy has been hard hit by the worldwide fall in oil prices—is preoccupied by its Yemen war that is turning into a very expensive quagmire.

The second development is the Russian intervention, which appears to havechanged things on the ground, at least in the north, where Assad’s forces were being hard pressed by the Conquest Army. New weapons and airpower have dented a rebel offensive and resulted in some gains in the government’s battle for Syria’s largest city, Aleppo.

Russian bombing also took a heavy toll on the Turkmen insurgents in the Bayirbucak region, the border area that Turkey has used to infiltrate arms, supplies and insurgents into Syria.

The appearance of the Russians essentially killed Turkey’s efforts to create a “no fly zone” on its border with Syria, a proposal that the U.S. has never been enthusiastic about. Washington’s major allies, the Kurds, are strongly opposed to a no fly zone because they see it as part of Ankara’s efforts to keep the Kurds from forming an autonomous region in Syria.

The Bayirbucak area and the city of Jarabulus are also the exit point for Turkey’s lucrative oil smuggling operation, apparently overseen by Erdoğan’s son, Bilal. The Russians have embarrassed the Turks by publishing satellite photos showing miles of tanker trucks picking up oil from IS-controlled wells and shipping it through Turkey’s southern border with Syria.

“The oil controlled by the Islamic State militants enters Turkish territory on an industrial scale,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said Nov. 30. “We have every reason to believe that the decision to down our plane was guided by a desire to insure the security of this oil’s delivery routes to ports where they are shipped in tankers.”

Erdoğan did not get quite the response he wanted from NATO following the shooting down of the SU-24. While the military alliance backed Turkey’s defense of its “sovereignty,” NATO then called for a peaceful resolution and de-escalation of the whole matter.

At a time when Europe needs a solution to the refugee crisis, and wants to focus its firepower on the organization the killed 130 people in Paris, NATO cannot be happy that the Turks are dragging them into a confrontation with the Russians, and making the whole situation a lot more dangerous than it was before the Nov. 24 incident.

The Russians have now deployed their more modern SU-34 bombers and armed them with air-to-air missiles. The bombers will now also be escorted by SU-35 fighters. The Russians have also fielded S-300 and S-400 anti-aircraft systems, the latter with a range of 250 miles. The Russians say they are not looking for trouble, but they are loaded for bear should it happen. Would a dustup between Turkish and Russians planes bring NATO—and four nuclear armed nations—into a confrontation? That possibility ought to keep people up at night.

Some time around the New Year, the countries involved in the Syrian civil war will come together in Geneva. A number of those will do their level best to derail the talks, but one hopes there are enough sane—and desperate—parties on hand to map out a political solution.

It won’t be easy, and who gets to sit at the table has yet to be decided. The Turks will object to the Kurds, the Russians, Iranians and Kurds will object to the Conquest Army, and the Saudis will object to Assad. In the end it could all come apart. It is not hard to torpedo a peace plan in the Middle East.

But if the problems are great, failure will be catastrophic, and that may be the glue that keeps the parties together long enough to hammer out a ceasefire, an arms embargo, a new constitution, and internationally supervised elections.

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Reinventing Banking: From Russia to Iceland to Ecuador

December 12th, 2015 by Ellen Brown

Global developments in finance and geopolitics are prompting a rethinking of the structure of banking and of the nature of money itself. Among other interesting news items:

  • In Russia, vulnerability to Western sanctions has led to proposals for a banking system that is not only independent of the West but is based on different design principles.
  • In Iceland, the booms and busts culminating in the banking crisis of 2008-09 have prompted lawmakers to consider a plan to remove the power to create money from private banks.
  • In Ireland, Iceland and the UK, a recession-induced shortage of local credit has prompted proposals for a system of public interest banks on the model of the Sparkassen of Germany.
  • In Ecuador, the central bank is responding to a shortage of US dollars (the official Ecuadorian currency) by issuing digital dollars through accounts to which everyone has access, effectively making it a bank of the people.

Developments in Russia

In a November 2015 article titled “Russia Debates Unorthodox Orthodox Financial Alternative,” William Engdahl writes:

A significant debate is underway in Russia since imposition of western financial sanctions on Russian banks and corporations in 2014. It’s about a proposal presented by the Moscow Patriarchate of the Orthodox Church. The proposal, which resembles Islamic interest-free banking models in many respects, was first unveiled in December 2014 at the depth of the Ruble crisis and oil price free-fall. This August the idea received a huge boost from the endorsement of the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. It could change history for the better depending on what is done and where it further leads.

Engdahl notes that the financial sanctions launched by the US Treasury in 2014 have forced a critical rethinking among Russian intellectuals and officials. Like China, Russia has developed an internal Russian version of SWIFT Interbank payments; and it is now considering a plan to restructure Russia’s banking system. Engdahl writes:

Much as with Islamic banking models that ban usury, the Orthodox Financial System would not allow interest charges on loans. Participants of the system share risks, profits and losses. Speculative behavior is prohibited . . . . There would be a new low-risk bank or credit organization that controls all transactions, and investment funds or companies that source investors and mediate project financing. . . . Priority would be ensuring financing of the real sector of the economy . . . .

On September 15, 2013, Sergei Glazyev, one of Vladimir Putin’s economic advisers, presented a  a series of economic proposals to the Presidential Russian Security Council that also suggest radical change is on the horizon. The plan is aimed at reducing vulnerability to western sanctions and achieving long-term growth and economic sovereignty.

Particularly interesting is a proposal to provide targeted lending for businesses and industries by providing them with low-interest loans at 1-4 percent, financed through the central bank with quantitative easing (digital money creation). The proposal is to issue 20 trillion rubles for this purpose over a five year period. Using quantitative easing for economic development mirrors the proposal of UK Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn for “quantitative easing for people.”

William Engdahl concludes that Russia is in “a fascinating process of rethinking every aspect of her national economic survival because of the reality of the western attacks,” one that “could produce a very healthy transformation away from the deadly defects” of the current banking model.

Iceland’s Radical Money Plan

Iceland, too, is looking at a radical transformation of its money system, after suffering the crushing boom/bust cycle of the private banking model that bankrupted its largest banks in 2008. According to a March 2015 article in the UK Telegraph:

Iceland’s government is considering a revolutionary monetary proposal – removing the power of commercial banks to create money and handing it to the central bank. The proposal, which would be a turnaround in the history of modern finance, was part of a report written by a lawmaker from the ruling centrist Progress Party, Frosti Sigurjonsson, entitled “A better monetary system for Iceland”.

“The findings will be an important contribution to the upcoming discussion, here and elsewhere, on money creation and monetary policy,” Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson said. The report, commissioned by the premier, is aimed at putting an end to a monetary system in place through a slew of financial crises, including the latest one in 2008.

Under this “Sovereign Money” proposal, the country’s central bank would become the only creator of money. Banks would continue to manage accounts and payments and would serve as intermediaries between savers and lenders. The proposal is a variant of the Chicago Plan promoted by Kumhof and Benes of the IMF and the Positive Money group in the UK.

Public Banking Initiatives in Iceland, Ireland and the UK

A major concern with stripping private banks of the power to create money as deposits when they make loans is that it will seriously reduce the availability of credit in an already sluggish economy. One solution is to make the banks, or some of them, public institutions. They would still be creating money when they made loans, but it would be as agents of the government; and the profits would be available for public use, on the model of the US Bank of North Dakota and the German Sparkassen (public savings banks).

In Ireland, three political parties – Sinn Fein, the Green Party and Renua Ireland (a new party) — are now supporting initiatives for a network of local publicly-owned banks on the Sparkassen model. In the UK, the New Economy Foundation (NEF) is proposing that the failed Royal Bank of Scotland be transformed into a network of public interest banks on that model. And in Iceland, public banking is part of the platform of a new political party called the Dawn Party.

Ecuador’s Dinero Electronico: A National Digital Currency

So far, these banking overhauls are just proposals; but in Ecuador, radical transformation of the banking system is under way.

Ever since 2000, when Ecuador agreed to use the US dollar as its official legal tender, it has had to ship boatloads of paper dollars into the country just to conduct trade. In order to “seek efficiency in payment systems [and] to promote and contribute to the economic stability of the country,” the government of President Rafael Correa has therefore established the world’s first national digitally-issued currency.

Unlike Bitcoin and similar private crypto-currencies (which have been outlawed in the country), Ecuador’s dinero electronico is operated and backed by the government. The Ecuadorian digital currency is less like Bitcoin than like M-Pesa, a private mobile phone-based money transfer service started by Vodafone, which has generated a “mobile money” revolution in Kenya.

Western central banks issue digital currency for the use of commercial banks in their reserve accounts, but it is not available to the public. In Ecuador, any qualifying person can have an account at the central bank; and opening one is as easy as walking into a participating financial institution and exchanging paper money for electronic money stored on their smartphones.

Ecuador’s banks and other financial institutions were ordered in May 2015 to adopt the digital payment system within the next year, making them “macro-agents” of the Electric Currency System.

According to a National Assembly statement:

Electronic money will stimulate the economy; it will be possible to attract more Ecuadorian citizens, especially those who do not have checking or savings accounts and credit cards alone. The electronic currency will be backed by the assets of the Central Bank of Ecuador.

That means there is no fear of the bank going bankrupt or of bank runs or bail-ins. Nor can the digital currency be devalued by speculative short selling. The government has declared that these are digital US dollars trading at 1 to 1 – take it or leave it – and the people are taking it. According to an October 2015 article titled “Ecuador’s Digital Currency Is Winning Hearts!”, the currency is actually taking the country by storm; and other countries in Latin America and Africa are not far behind.

The president of the Ecuadorian Association of Private Banks observes that the digital currency could be used to finance the public debt. However, the government has insisted that this will not be done. According to an economist at Ecuador’s central bank:

We did it from the government because we wanted it to be a democratic product. In any other countries, [digital currency] is provided by private companies, and it is expensive. There are barriers to entry, like [expensive fees] if you transfer money from one cellphone operator to another. What we have here is something everyone can use regardless of the operator they are using.

Banking Moves into the 21st Century

The catastrophic failures of the Western banking system mandate a new vision. These transformations, current and proposed, are constructive steps toward streamlining the banking system, eliminating the risks that have devastated individuals and governments, democratizing money, and promoting sustainable and prosperous economies.

They also raise some provocative questions:

  • Would issuing “quantitative easing” to the tune of 20 trillion rubles for Russian development and trade trigger hyperinflation?
  • Could merging the Iceland version of the Chicago Plan with a public banking initiative return the power to create money to the public without collapsing credit?
  • How does the Ecuadorian national digital currency mesh with the “war on cash” underway in Europe?

These and related questions will be explored in later articles. Stay tuned.

Ellen Brown is an attorney, founder of the Public Banking Institute, and author of twelve books including the best-selling Web of Debt. Her latest book, The Public Bank Solution, explores successful public banking models historically and globally. Her 300+ blog articles are at EllenBrown.com. Listen to “It’s Our Money with Ellen Brown” on PRN.FM.

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