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256
General Election 2010 / Education
« on: March 02, 2010, 06:36:25 PM »
"Why we all should chase a dream":

New Labour's Nightmare Vision for Education

Reproduced from North East Workers & Politics, Vol.2 No.13, November 6, 2002

On October 29, 2002 an article by David Miliband MP, Schools Standards Minister, was featured in the North East Journal newspaper's education supplement. The article was entitled "Why we all should chase a dream". The author addresses the dream in the introduction when he says "education is vital to developing the region's potential and if we can get education right, by making the investments and supporting the teachers, we will have a real chance of reversing economic decline, improving the quality of life and strengthening communities". But the fact that the dream David Miliband is still chasing is really New Labour's nightmare vision is revealed if the reader happens to know the reality and if one is fully woken up to the facts. Schools, universities and colleges are all suffering massive cutbacks on all fronts. Whether it be the take-over of new schools for profit under PFI by the private sector, the worsening conditions and pay of teachers and lecturers, the increasing of fees to students, introduction of top-up fees, and so on. Even in David Miliband's own South Shields constituency, so far, the schools standards Minister has yet to take a stand against the proposed closure of sixteen junior schools and nurseries. Many of these schools belong to the poorest communities in the borough where the people consider these schools and nurseries to be at the heart of their own communities and do not think that their "quality of life is strengthening" when they are having to fight these proposed closures.

Undeterred by this thought, David Miliband then addresses himself to the question that "education remains the number one goal for the government in its second term". What is key in this, he explains is the "reform of the secondary level". And this means the government is "expanding specialist schools and the city academies, not giving up on the comprehensive principle, but modernising it so that it effectively serves the people who matter most – the pupils". He identifies the problem that a significant number of young people "turn off education between 11 and 14, but we also need to tackle the culture of pupils leaving school at 16, making sure they've got the skills that employers need".

Having in one sentence said who matters most – the pupils – David Miliband in the next sentence reveals this modernisation has nothing to do with the needs of the pupils and raising their level of education but is about "making sure that they have got the skills that employers need". Elaborating this point that the pupils must develop the skills that employers need he advocates that if the curriculum on offer is "more vocational, broader and practical, then it is more likely that young people will be enthusiastic about staying within education". He tries to clinch his self-serving argument by saying that "we must emphasise that learning is not uncool but something that will help them live their dreams" and "its important we remember that education doesn't just belong in the class room". He then goes on to argue for improvement in adult education emphasising only literacy and numeracy skills.

His words come at a time when the government is cutting back in general adult education and focusing the remaining resources on numeracy and literacy skill directly linked to the interests of the employer. So, according to the School Standards Minister, the youth will regain their enthusiasm to learn once the education system is in line with a curriculum that is "more vocational, broader and practical" and then an adult education system which concentrates on numeracy and literacy skills. In other words, the youth will "live their dreams" as long as they accept the status quo and remain marginalised. New Labour's vision is that education at school and afterwards must gear itself to a low wage mass unemployment economy, where workers get behind their employers in the global market, where people learn to accept that job security is a thing of the past and that they must switch in an out of work according to the needs of these employers who will come and go to make maximum profits out of what they produce, or what services they provide.

A modern education system, if it is to be progressive, must not narrow down education to a vocational level but must prepare the youth and adults with a broad understanding and scientific outlook towards the present day world. Education should enlighten people about the world and present day events and their history. Education should enable people so that they can better stand up for their rights and interests, and the rights and interests of the collectives to which they belong, in a world of global monopolies and cuts in social spending and public services and a world that is being plunged into war by the big powers. The youth need education that raises their level so that they can think and act for themselves and start to end their marginalisation from decision making in society so they can fully participate in society and change how it is run and how it is organised. Education is a right and society must raise the level of the education of the youth and all in society so that they are equipped to play their part in the fight to humanise society and the environment.




257
General Election 2010 / Torture
« on: February 15, 2010, 09:45:03 AM »
The Binyam Mohamed case: Top UK judges find US and Britain guilty of torture
WSWS, February 13 2010

The Appeal Court in Britain this week rejected efforts by the Foreign Office to suppress seven paragraphs of a report drawn up by British judges in August 2008, based on their access to more than 40 US intelligence documents. The paragraphs, now published in redacted form on the Foreign Office web site, find that Binyam Mohamed, a former Guantanamo Bay prisoner, was subjected to treatment that "could readily be contended to be at the very least cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment by the United States authorities."

The posted document also states: "The treatment reported, if had been administered on behalf of the United Kingdom, would clearly have been in breach of the undertakings given by the United Kingdom in 1972."

Ethiopian-born Mohamed, a British resident, was arrested in Pakistan on April 10, 2002 as he was about to board a flight to Britain. After being imprisoned and tortured in Pakistan, he was turned over to the FBI.

A victim of extraordinary rendition at the hands of the CIA, he was flown to Morocco, where he was again tortured, including being slashed with scalpels or razor blades on his chest and penis. He was then moved to Afghanistan, where he was frequently tortured in the infamous "Dark Prison" before being finally detained in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

There he was held for four years, again suffering torture and abuse. He was released in February 2009 without charge, after nearly seven years in prison.

Mohamed is suing the British government on the grounds that the M15 intelligence agency was complicit in his torture and provided questions and information to his interrogators.

The legal attempt by Foreign Secretary David Miliband to suppress the incriminating paragraphs of the judges’ report is part of a broader effort to suppress findings that implicate the US and British governments in war crimes. The Obama administration has been a full partner in these efforts. It demanded that the British government suppress the findings on Mohamed on the grounds that their publication would damage security and intelligence cooperation between the two countries. Miliband cited the position of the US to argue that disclosure would threaten British national security.

In response to the British Appeal Court ruling and publication of the contested paragraphs, Ben LaBolt, a spokesman for President Obama, stated, "As we warned, the court’s judgment will complicate the confidentiality of our intelligence-sharing relationship with (Britain), and it will have to factor into our decision-making going forward."

The British government’s arguments were dismissed by Sir Igor Judge, the lord chief justice; Lord Neuberger, the master of the rolls; and Sir Anthony May, president of the Queen’s Bench. In his ruling, May rejected the claim by the government of Prime Minister Gordon Brown that disclosure would threaten the UK’s national security.

He said, "In principle, a real risk of serious damage to national security, of whatever degree, should not automatically trump a public interest in open justice which may concern a degree of facilitation by UK officials of interrogation using unlawful techniques which may amount to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment."

The judges had little choice in rejecting Miliband’s appeal, given that Judge Gladys Kessler, in a US court case involving Farhi Saeed Bin Mohammed, a Guantanamo prisoner from Algeria, had previously acknowledged that the account of Binyam Mohamed’s torture was based on "credible" evidence. In her now declassified ruling, Kessler stated, "Binyam Mohamed’s trauma lasted two long years. During that time, he was physically and psychologically tortured. His genitals were mutilated. He was deprived of sleep and food.

"He was summarily transported from one foreign prison to another. Captors held him in stress positions for days at a time. He was forced to listen to piercingly loud music and the screams of other prisoners while locked in a pitch-black cell. All the while, he was forced to inculpate himself and others in plots to imperil Americans. The government does not dispute this evidence.... even though the identity of the individual interrogator changed (from nameless Pakistanis, to Moroccans to Americans)."

Lawyers acting for the British Foreign Secretary had previously accused the Appeal Court judges of "charging in" to a diplomatically sensitive issue and "jeopardising UK intelligence sharing." Miliband said that he had spoken with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about the case, which was being followed carefully at the highest levels in the US "with a great deal of concern."

The Appeal Court judges agreed to withhold one paragraph, number 168, which is particularly critical of MI5. The legal parties were given until yesterday to oppose the decision to suppress paragraph 168.

The paragraph is already known to make even clearer the damning verdict against the US, MI5 and the British government. A leaked letter to the Appeal Court from David Miliband's defence lawyer, Jonathon Sumption QC, demanded that the paragraph be removed on the grounds that it was "likely to receive more public attention than any other parts of the judgments."

Sumption noted in his letter that in the still-suppressed paragraph of the draft judgement, the Master of the Rolls, Lord Neuberger, refers to MI5 officers as having "deliberately misled" parliament and of sharing a "culture of suppression."

These observations, Sumption argued, "will be read as statements by the Court" that MI5 "does not in fact operate a culture that respected human rights or abjures participation in coercive interrogation techniques," and "was in particular true of Witness B [the MI5 agent who visited Binyam in Pakistan in 2002 and is accused of collusion in his torture], whose conduct in this respect is characteristic of the service as a whole."

Neuberger apparently states that "'it appears likely that there were others."

In his letter, Sumption continues that it will be concluded that "officials of the Service deliberately misled the Intelligence and Security Committee" and that this suppressed information was shared "by the Foreign Office."

The letter warns that "the suggestion that the Court should distrust any UK government assurance based on the Service’s advice and information will unquestionably be cited in other cases."

Lord Neuberger told the court that, after receiving the letter, he had agreed to amend the relevant section "quite significantly." But his attempt to stem the tide has failed.

The partial publication of the suppressed paragraphs has already created a major political crisis. Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg demanded to know if ministers were told the US had changed its rules on torture after the 9/11 attacks, stating that either the government knew, or MI5 was engaged in a cover-up.

"We can only conclude that the Security Services either kept the information to themselves, or they informed ministers who failed to act immediately," Clegg said. "Both of these would suggest at best a cover-up and at worst collusion in torture. Knowledge of Britain’s potential complicity in torture looks likely to have gone to the very top of government."

Conservative Shadow Home Secretary David Davis told the BBC there were 15 other cases that suggested a culture of collusion or complicity in torture by both MI5 and MI6.

Kim Howells, the chairman of the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), launched a public defence of MI5 head Jonathan Evans, rejecting accusations that he had misled Parliament. He stated that he had seen no evidence that MI5 had colluded in torture, flatly contradicting the judges’ findings. Again contradicting the judges, he claimed that Evans had assured him that MI5 had not withheld any documents relating to Mohamed’s treatment from the ISC.
 

258
General Discussion / Re: Iraq Inquiry: The First Big Lie
« on: December 11, 2009, 01:00:32 PM »
Blair 'was told Iraq had disarmed - but still went to war' Dec 10
Tony Blair was aware of last-minute intelligence revealing that Saddam Hussein had probably dismantled his chemical and biological weaponry, a key adviser has said.


Sir John Scarlett, who was the head of the Joint Intelligence Committee in the run-up to the war, said that two reports received in March 2003, which suggested that Iraq's weaponry had been taken to pieces, were sent directly to the former prime minister. He also said that Mr Blair was made aware of doubts over Saddam's access to the warheads needed to deliver them.

Sir John, who was responsible for the Government's dossier that claimed Saddam had weapons that could be used within 45 minutes, denied that he had come under pressure to "sex up" the document. However, he admitted for the first time that a crucial part of the dossier was not clear about the threat posed by Saddam, meaning that the seriousness of the claim that the Iraqi leader could launch an attack was "lost in translation".
He told the Iraq inquiry that the document should have made clear |that the 45-minute claim was only meant to refer to battlefield weapons and not those that could be used to attack other countries. "The matter would not have been lost in translation, if it had been spelt out in the dossier that the word was ‘munitions' not ‘weapons'," Sir John said. "There was absolutely no conscious intention to manipulate the language or obfuscate or create a misunderstanding as to what they might refer to."

He said the dossier had been based on "reliable and authoritative" intelligence, received at the start of September, that was "sufficiently authoritative to firm up whether or not Iraq did currently possess chemical and biological agents".

However, he distanced himself from Mr Blair's foreword to the document, published in September 2002, which claimed that intelligence information meant that it was "beyond doubt" that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. Though Sir John admitted he had seen the foreword, and even made several alterations to it, he concluded that it was "quite separate" from the contents of the dossier. "The foreword was an overtly political statement by the Prime Minister so it was his wording and his comments throughout," he said.

On 7 March, less than two weeks before the invasion, Sir John confirmed that new evidence suggested that "Iraq had no missiles that could reach Israel and none that could carry germ or biological weapons". A second piece of intelligence on 17 March, and discussed at a meeting on the day before the invasion, said "chemical weapons had been disassembled and dispersed and would be difficult to reassemble".

A report in December 2002 had already reported Iraq may not have warheads to deliver chemical and biological weapons. "That was the picture that was being presented both through the reporting and through the updates," he said. "Those reports, I understand, went directly to the Prime Minister's office. The updates were certainly available to him, too. This information was definitely known."

The new evidence was not acted upon because intelligence forces believed Saddam had dismantled his weapons as a ploy to avoid detection. Nevertheless, Sir John said it was made clear to ministers that the policy would "have consequences on [Iraq's] ability to deploy chemical and biological warheads".

Ed Davey, foreign affairs spokesman for the Liberal Democrats, attacked the inquiry team after it was revealed Sir John would be giving more evidence in private. He also said that the former MI6 chief's claim that there were no attempts to manipulate the September dossier "stretched credibility".

"John Scarlett was a central figure in the intelligence claims that were made to support the illegal invasion of Iraq," he said. "The cursory level of questioning undertaken in public – and the announcement that further appearances will be behind closed doors - is deeply disappointing. It looks like the Chilcot Inquiry may have failed its first test on transparency."

Campbell and Scarlett: Was there pressure to 'sex up' intelligence?

* Sir John Scarlett, who until recently was the head of MI6, was chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee when it produced the now notorious dossier of September 2002 which spelled out the case for military action against Iraq. It contained the claim that Saddam Hussein's regime could launch weapons of mass destruction at British targets within 45 minutes - which would later lie at the heart of a row between the Government and the BBC and culminated in the death of weapons expert Dr David Kelly.

* While Sir John told the Iraq inquiry that he did not come under any pressure to "sex up" the dossier, a number of key figures within the Government at the time did have influence over the document.

* Although Alastair Campbell had no role in the claim that Mr Hussein could launch an attack within 45 minutes, he did suggest 11 changes to a draft copy, all of which were accepted. They included altering how biological weapons "could be used" to "are capable of being used", and changing "may have" to "have", in regard to the authority of Mr Hussein's sons to launch weapons.
 

259
News Items / Sunderland Stop the War Coalition
« on: November 11, 2009, 07:58:37 AM »
Sunderland Stop the War Coalition
Afghanistan: Why We Should Bring the Troops Home

45 Stop the War supporters attended Tuesday's public meeting in
Sunderland with Clare Glenton, wife of Lance Corporal Joe Glenton, the
soldier who faces desertion charges for refusing to return to Afghanistan.
Disgracefully, he has now been arrested and charged with five further
offences for speaking against the war! http://stopwar.org.uk/content/
view/1593/1/

£86 was also collected and several more people joined the coach to the 'No
to NATO' demo in Edinburgh on Saturday (see below).

The coach is now full, but it may be possible to get a larger coach, so
please let me know if you still need seats.

The war effort in Afghanistan is starting to fall apart at the
seams. We will shortly reach the hundredth British soldier's
death this year, and there is talk in military circles of
withdrawing British troops from the frontline.

There is growing opposition amongst MPs as well as unease
amongst senior military figures. The Independent on Sunday
called for the end of the war on its front page yesterday and
other papers are becoming very critical of the war.

Most important of all, 73% of the population now believe the
troops should be brought home soon and there is growing
opposition to the war amongst the troops.
Now is the time to step up the pressure on government to bring
the troops home.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

Stop the War groups will be organising protests and vigils
around the country on the tragic day when the hundredth
British soldier this year dies. The figure now stands at 95.
Please contact your local Stop the War group for details.
There will be vigils in both Newcastle and Sunderland at 5-6pm (more
details to follow shortly - supporters should bring their own suitable
banners and placards.

On December 21st, members of soldiers, ex-soldiers and
military families will be taking our Bring the Troops Home
Petition to Gordon Brown in Downing Street. More than 15,000
have already signed, but we want to get many more signatures
before December 21st. You can sign online at
http://bit.ly/ft6BP, but we are also asking everyone to
download a hard copy of the petition, get your colleagues and
friends to sign and return to the office.

260
The geopolitics behind the phoney US war in Afghanistan
by F. William Engdahl*

One of the most remarkable aspects of the Obama Presidential agenda is how little anyone has questioned in the media or elsewhere why at all the United States Pentagon is committed to a military occupation of Afghanistan. There are two basic reasons, neither one of which can be admitted openly to the public at large.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Behind all the deceptive official debate over how many troops are needed to “win” the war in Afghanistan, whether another 30,000 is sufficient, or whether at least 200,000 are needed, the real purpose of US military presence in that pivotal Central Asian country is obscured.

Even during the 2008 Presidential campaign candidate Obama argued that Afghanistan not Iraq was where the US must wage war. His reason? Because he claimed, that was where the Al Qaeda organization was holed up and that was the “real” threat to US national security. The reasons behind US involvement in Afghanistan is quite another one.

The US military is in Afghanistan for two reasons. First to restore and control the world’s largest supply of opium for the world heroin markets and to use the drugs as a geopolitical weapon against opponents, especially Russia. That control of the Afghan drug market is essential for the liquidity of the bankrupt and corrupt Wall Street financial mafia.

Geopolitics of Afghan Opium
According even to an official UN report, opium production in Afghanistan has risen dramatically since the downfall of the Taliban in 2001. UNODC data shows more opium poppy cultivation in each of the past four growing seasons (2004-2007), than in any one year during Taliban rule. More land is now used for opium in Afghanistan, than for coca cultivation in Latin America. In 2007, 93% of the opiates on the world market originated in Afghanistan. This is no accident.

It has been documented that Washington hand-picked the controversial Hamid Karzai, a Pashtun warlord from the Popalzai tribe, long in the CIA’s service, brought him back from exile in the USA, created a Hollywood mythology around his “courageous leadership of his people.” According to Afghan sources, Karzai is the Opium “Godfather” of Afghanistan today. There is apparently no accident that he was and is today still Washington’s preferred man in Kabul. Yet even with massive vote buying and fraud and intimidation, Karzai’s days could be ending as President.

The second reason the US military remains in Afghanistan long after the world has forgotten even who the mysterious Osama bin Laden and his alleged Al Qaeda terrorist organization is or even if they exist, is as a pretext to build a permanent US military strike force with a series of permanent US airbases across Afghanistan. The aim of those bases is not to eradicate any Al Qaeda cells that may have survived in the caves of Tora Bora, or to eradicate a mythical “Taliban” which at this point according to eyewitness reports is made up overwhelmingly of local ordinary Afghanis fighting to rid their land once more of occupier armies as they did in the 11980’s against the Russians.

The aim of the US bases in Afghanistan is to target and be able to strike at the two nations which today represent the only combined threat in the world today to an American global imperium, to America’s Full Spectrum Dominance as the Pentagon terms it.

The lost ‘Mandate of Heaven’
The problem for the US power elites around Wall Street and in Washington is the fact that they are now in the deepest financial crisis in their history. That crisis is clear to the entire world and the world is acting on a basis of self-survival. The US elites have lost what in Chinese imperial history is known as the Mandate of Heaven. That mandate is given a ruler or ruling elite provided they rule their people justly and fairly. When they rule tyrannically and as despots, oppressing and abusing their people, they lose that Mandate of Heaven.

If the powerful private wealthy elites that have controlled essential US financial and foreign policy for most of the past century or more ever had a “mandate of Heaven” they clearly have lost it. The domestic developments towards creation of an abusive police state with deprivation of Constitutional rights to its citizens, the arbitrary exercise of power by non elected officials such as Treasury Secretaries Henry Paulson and now Tim Geithner, stealing trillion dollar sums from taxpayers without their consent in order to bailout the bankrupt biggest Wall Street banks, banks deemed “Too Big To Fail,” this all demonstrates to the world they have lost the mandate

In this situation, the US power elites are increasingly desperate to maintain their control of a global parasitical empire, called deceptively by their media machine, “globalization.” To hold that dominance it is essential that they be able to break up any emerging cooperation in the economic, energy or military realm between the two major powers of Eurasia that conceivably could pose a challenge to future US sole Superpower control—China in combination with Russia.

Each Eurasian power brings to the table essential contributions. China has the world’s most robust economy, a huge young and dynamic workforce, an educated middle class. Russia, whose economy has not recovered from the destructive end of the Soviet era and of the primitive looting during the Yeltsin era, still holds essential assets for the combination. Russia’s nuclear strike force and its military pose the only threat in the world today to US military dominance, even if it is largely a residue of the Cold War. The Russian military elites never gave up that potential.

As well Russia holds the world’s largest treasure of natural gas and vast reserves of oil urgently needed by China. The two powers are increasingly converging via a new organization they created in 2001 known as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). That includes as well as China and Russia, the largest Central Asia states Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.

The purpose of the alleged US war against both Taliban and Al Qaeda is in reality to place its military strike force directly in the middle of the geographical space of this emerging SCO in Central Asia. Iran is a diversion. The main goal or target is Russia and China.

Officially, of course, Washington claims it has built its military presence inside Afghanistan since 2002 in order to protect a “fragile” Afghan democracy. It’s a curious argument given the reality of US military presence there.

In December 2004, during a visit to Kabul, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld finalized plans to build nine new bases in Afghanistan in the provinces of Helmand, Herat, Nimrouz, Balkh, Khost and Paktia. The nine are in addition to the three major US military bases already installed in the wake of its occupation of Afghanistan in winter of 2001-2002, ostensibly to isolate and eliminate the terror threat of Osama bin Laden.

The Pentagon built its first three bases at Bagram Air Field north of Kabul, the US’ main military logistics center; Kandahar Air Field, in southern Afghanistan; and Shindand Air Field in the western province of Herat. Shindand, the largest US base in Afghanistan, was constructed a mere 100 kilometers from the border of Iran, and within striking distance of Russia as well as China.

Afghanistan has historically been the heartland for the British-Russia Great Game, the struggle for control of Central Asia during the 19th and early 20th Centuries. British strategy then was to prevent Russia at all costs from controlling Afghanistan and thereby threatening Britain’s imperial crown jewel, India.

Afghanistan is similarly regarded by Pentagon planners as highly strategic. It is a platform from which US military power could directly threaten Russia and China, as well as Iran and other oil-rich Middle East lands. Little has changed geopolitically over more than a century of wars.

Afghanistan is in an extremely vital location, straddling South Asia, Central Asia, and the Middle East. Afghanistan also lies along a proposed oil pipeline route from the Caspian Sea oil fields to the Indian Ocean, where the US oil company, Unocal, along with Enron and Cheney’s Halliburton, had been in negotiations for exclusive pipeline rights to bring natural gas from Turkmenistan across Afghanistan and Pakistan to Enron’s huge natural gas power plant at Dabhol near Mumbai. Karzai, before becoming puppet US president, had been a Unocal lobbyist.

Al Qaeda doesn’t exist as a threat
The truth of all this deception around the real purpose in Afghanistan becomes clear on a closer look at the alleged “Al Qaeda” threat in Afghanistan. According to author Erik Margolis, prior to the September 11, 2001 attacks, US intelligence was giving aid and support both to the Taliban and to Al Qaeda. Margolis claims that “The CIA was planning to use Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda to stir up Muslim Uighurs against Chinese rule, and Taliban against Russia’s Central Asian allies.” [1] The US clearly found other means of stirring up Muslim Uighurs against Beijing last July via its support for the World Uighur Congress. But the Al Qaeda “threat” remains the lynchpin of Obama US justification for his Afghan war buildup.

Now, however, the National Security Adviser to President Obama, former Marine Gen. James Jones has made a statement, conveniently buried by the friendly US media, about the estimated size of the present Al Qaeda danger in Afghanistan. Jones told Congress, “The al-Qaeda presence is very diminished. The maximum estimate is less than 100 operating in the country, no bases, no ability to launch attacks on either us or our allies.”

That means that Al-Qaeda, for all practical purposes, does not exist in Afghanistan. Oops…

Even in neighboring Pakistan, the remnants of Al-Qaeda are scarcely to be found. The Wall Street Journal reports, “Hunted by US drones, beset by money problems and finding it tougher to lure young Arabs to the bleak mountains of Pakistan, al Qaeda is seeing its role shrink there and in Afghanistan, according to intelligence reports and Pakistan and U.S. officials. For Arab youths who are al Qaeda’s primary recruits, ‘it’s not romantic to be cold and hungry and hiding,’ said a senior U.S. official in South Asia.”

If we follow the statement to its logical consequence we must conclude then that the reason German soldiers are dying along with other NATO youth in the mountains of Afghanistan has nothing to do with “winning a war against terrorism.” Conveniently most media chooses to forget the fact that Al Qaeda to the extent it ever existed, was a creation in the 1980’s of the CIA, who recruited and trained radical muslims from across the Islamic world to wage war against Russian troops in Afghanistan as part of a strategy developed by Reagan’s CIA head Bill Casey and others to create a “new Vietnam” for the Soviet Union which would lead to a humiliating defeat for the Red Army and the ultimate collapse of the Soviet Union.

Now US NSC head Jones admits there is essentially no Al Qaeda anymore in Afghanistan. Perhaps it is time for a more honest debate from our political leaders about the true purpose of sending more young to die protecting the opium harvests of Afghanistan.

 F. William Engdahl

Author of Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation.. He also authored A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order (Pluto Press). His latest book is Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order (Third Millennium Press).

 
 

261
The First Casualty Of War: News Reports Match Misperception Of Civilian Deaths, Study Finds
ScienceDaily (Nov. 6, 2009) — Researchers reporting in BioMed Central's open access journal Conflict and Health found that the discrepancy in media reporting of casualty numbers in the Iraq conflict can potentially misinform the public and contribute to distorted perceptions and gross underestimates of the number of civilians killed in the armed conflict.

In February of 2007 Associated Press conducted a survey of 1,002 adults across the United States about their perceptions of the war in Iraq. Whilst the respondents accurately estimated the death toll of U.S. soldiers (the median estimate was 2,974 while the actual toll at the time was 3,100), they grossly underestimated the number of Iraqi civilian casualties (the median answer was 9,890 at a time when several estimates put the toll at least 10 times that number and some as high as 50 times that number).

To assess the potential reasons for this discrepancy, Schuyler W. Henderson and colleagues at Columbia University examined 11 U.S. newspapers and 5 non-U.S. newspapers to collate the number of Coalition and Iraqi fatalities reported in the media between March 2003 and March 2008. They specifically looked at tallies (numbers of death over a period of time) and the descriptions of specific casualty events.

The results of their study showed U.S. newspapers reported more events and tallies related to Coalition deaths than Iraqi civilian deaths, although there were substantially different proportions amongst the different U.S. newspapers. In four of the five non-US newspapers, the pattern was reversed.

The authors of the study suggest that as newspapers reflect the interests of their readers, it is not surprising that U.S. newspapers describe more casualties related to Coalition deaths than Iraqi civilians, however they go on to question whether this is consistent with the goals and tenets of ethical and accurate journalism.

"We feel that this study casts an important light on the role of the media in covering armed conflict and communicating the human costs of war to the public" said Schuyler. "Our paper calls into question the role of the media in providing a tool for civilians to accurately gauge the true effects and outcomes of military action and ongoing warfare."

Journal reference:

Schuyler W Henderson, William E Olander and Les Roberts. Reporting Iraqi civilian fatalities in a time of war. Conflict and Health, 2009; (in press) [link]
Adapted from materials provided by BioMed Central, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
 
 

262
Marking The Balfour Declaring, Hamas Calls For Unity, Resistance To Counter The Occupation

IMEMC, November 3, 2009

Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, issued a press release on Monday calling for unity between all Palestinian factions in order to maintain strong resistance against the occupation and 'Zionism".

The statements of the movement came on the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration of 1917 in which the government of Britain, occupying Palestine, granted the Jews a 'homeland in Palestine".

Hamas said that Europe, and specifically Britain, must act as 'they are morally responsible for this crime against the Palestinian people".

The movement also demanded the Arab and Muslim nations and leaders to act for the liberation of Palestine and its holy sites.

--
The Belfour declaration
Foreign Office,
November 2nd, 1917.

Dear Lord Rothschild,

I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty's Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet:
"His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country".

I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.

Yours sincerely
Arthur James Balfour
--

In 1918, the Muslim-Christian Association held protests marking the first anniversary the Belfour Declaring.

The declaration ignored the presence of the natives of the land, the Palestinian people, led to repeated massacres carried out by Zionist groups, including the Hagana organization.







 
 

263

GENERAL ASSEMBLY BEGINS DEBATE ON UN RIGHTS PROBE INTO GAZA CONFLICT New York, Nov 4 2009 6:05PM The General Assembly today began its debate on the report of the United Nations probe which found that both Israeli forces and Palestinian militants were guilty of serious human rights violations during the Gaza conflict earlier this year.

The report is the result of a three-month investigation, led by Justice Richard Goldstone, a former prosecutor at the UN war crimes tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, and mandated by the UN Human Rights Council.

The four-member team found evidence that both Israeli forces and Palestinian militants committed serious war crimes and breaches of humanitarian law, which may amount to crimes against humanity, during the conflict in December 2008 and January 2009.

The report calls for a number of measures, including its referral to the Security Council, since neither the Government of Israel nor the responsible Palestinian authorities have so far carried out any credible investigations into alleged violations.

In addition to the debate, the Assembly is considering a draft resolution, tabled by the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and the Group of Arab States, by which it would endorse the report, and request the Secretary-General to transmit it to the Security Council.

The Assembly would also call for independent investigations by both the Israelis and the Palestinians within three months.

“What the Goldstone report essentially constitutes is another damning record of the Israeli crimes committed against our people under occupation,” the Palestinian representative, Riyad Mansour, told the Assembly, adding that its recommendations represent a significant contribution to the pursuit of accountability and justice.

He called on Member States to support the draft resolution, which was an important step to end impunity and the absence of justice that obstructed peace efforts and prolonged the suffering of civilians.

Ambassador Gabriela Shalev of Israel said that the fact-finding mission, with a “one-sided mandate,” was a politicized body set up to reach pre-determined conclusions. “It is the product of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, a body whose obsession with Israel had led it to pass more resolutions against Israel than on all other UN Member States put together.

“It makes explosive charges against Israel – yet the evidence provided to support such accusations is at best uncorroborated, and at worst false,” she stated.

Opening the meeting, which was slated to hear from more than 40 speakers, Assembly President Ali Treki said that despite the political sensitivities associated with the report, the question before the Assembly was simple.

“We have to answer whether the respect of human rights is universal or not? Whether we should be divided on human rights issues or should we remain united behind advocating their respect all over the world?

“Let us be clear on what is at stake here: the human rights of nearly 2 million civilians,” said Mr. Treki, adding that “without justice there can be no progress towards peace.”
 
 

264
Hamas want Britain to make amends for crimes against Palestine


November 4, 2009

Hamas marked the 92nd anniversary of the infamous Balfour Declaration by recalling the misery of the 1948 Nakba (Catastrophe) and insisting that European states in general and Britain in particular make amends for the crimes committed against Palestine.

It is worth reminding ourselves from time to time what started the trouble all those years ago. Arabs know the details only too well, but you would be surprised how the British people are kept in ignorance. The history of the Arab-Israeli struggle is seldom taught in schools and our politicians are afraid to talk freely about it.

To all intents and purposes the fuse to the present powder-keg was lit by the British foreign secretary, Lord Balfour, on 2 November 1917 in a letter to the most senior Jew in England, Lord Rothschild, pledging assistance for the Zionist cause. It was a moment of madness that showed utter disregard for the likely impact on Islamic sensibilities and the day-to-day lives of those (Muslim and Christian) already living in the Holy Land, and for peace in the region.

This lethal scrap of paper, which called itself a declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations, actually said… "His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing and non-Jewish communities..."

Was Balfour completely off his head? The Allied Powers, in correspondence between Sir Henry McMahon and Sharif Hussein Ibn Ali of Mecca, had already promised independence to Arab leaders in return for their help in defeating Germany's ally, Turkey.

But Balfour was a Zionist convert, as were many others in the corridors of power in London at that time. Among them were Lloyd George and, to my dismay, Winston Churchill.

In an article in the Illustrated Sunday Herald of 8 February 1920 Churchill is credited with writing: "It has fallen to the British Government, as the result of the conquest of Palestine, to have the opportunity and the responsibility of securing for the Jewish race all over the world a home and centre of national life. The statesmanship and historic sense of Mr. Balfour were prompt to seize this opportunity. Declarations have now been made which have irrevocably decided the policy of Great Britain. The fiery energies of Dr. Weissmann, the leader, for practical purposes, of the Zionist project. backed by many of the most prominent British Jews, and supported by the full authority of Lord Allenby, are all directed to achieving the success of this inspiring movement… If, as may well happen, there should be created in our own lifetime by the banks of the Jordan a Jewish State under the protection of the British Crown, which might comprise three or four millions of Jews, an event would have occurred in the history of the world which would, from every point of view, be beneficial, and would be especially in harmony with the truest interests of the British Empire."

Poor Winston’s crystal ball was seriously malfunctioning that day.

Balfour, with eye-watering arrogance, said in justification of his lunatic action: "In Palestine we do not propose even to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country. The four powers are committed to Zionism and Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long tradition, in present needs, in future hopes, of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now occupy that land."

Not everyone was fooled by the Zionists. Lord Sydenham warned: "The harm done by dumping down an alien population upon an Arab country may never be remedied. What we have done, by concessions not to the Jewish people but to a Zionist extreme section, is to start a running sore in the East, and no-one can tell how far that sore will extend."

If only more people had listened.

In 1922 Palestine was placed under British mandate. Jewish immigration would be facilitated "under suitable conditions" and a nationality law would allow Jews taking up permanent residence to acquire Palestinian citizenship.

That same year the British government issued a White Paper clarifying the position. The intention was not to turn Palestine as a whole into a Jewish National Home but enable such a Home to be founded within Palestine. The White Paper recorded with satisfaction that, at a meeting of the Zionist Congress at Carlsbad in September 1921, "a resolution was passed expressing as the official statement of Zionist aims the determination of the Jewish people to live with the Arab people on terms of unity and mutual respect, and together with them to make the common home into a flourishing community…"

The White Paper also noted that the Zionist Commission in Palestine, renamed the Palestine Zionist Executive, had no wish to take part in running the country and would not be allowed to share in the government. "Further, it is contemplated that the status of all citizens of Palestine in the eyes of the law shall be Palestinian, and it has never been intended that they, or any section of them, should possess any other juridical status."

Fine words, but nobody was taking them on board. From that moment onwards the bully-boys of the Western world behaved increasingly badly and so did the Zionists. It all culminated in the messy 1947 Partition Plan, a corrupt and poorly managed piece of work by the fledgling United Nations, with the bullies twisting the arms of smaller nations in order to steamroller their rotten scheme through.

Zionist Jews had legitimately purchased only 6 percent of Palestinian land and by 1947 accounted for about one-third of the population, yet the UN allocated them 57 percent of the territory with access to two seas. They seized the offer with both hands while the Arabs, who hadn’t been consulted, quite rightly rejected it as unfair. As we all know now – and should have known then, since the extent of the Greater Israel project was widely advertised - this exceedingly generous 57 percent gift just wasn't enough for the greedy Zionists. They wanted the lot, and still do. So for 61 years they have kept the fires of the conflict well stoked while ethnically cleansing each territorial gain at gunpoint.

It is only right that Hamas are making such an appeal to those who have so miserably failed the Holy Land. It does no harm to remind the bloated and corrupted West of its Christian duty even though it long ago abandoned any pretence of honour and principle.

Israel’s evil progress could be halted by simply breaking the siege, if necessary landing humanitarian supplies on Gaza’s beach or providing armed escorts for other ships that wish to do so. That, it seems to me, is the very least we could do. The increasingly effective action by ordinary citizens boycotting Israeli goods should then be matched by government measures, and the screw turned until the economic pain persuades Israel to withdraw behind recognized borders and leave the Palestinians alone.

And if our politicians and leaders cannot free themselves from Israeli influence and act with the necessary decency, they should be helped to pack their bags and clear their desks.


Stuart Littlewood
4 November 2009
 

265
South Tyneside Forum on the Alternative to Pro-War Government

From Workers' Daily Internet Edition
http://www.rcpbml.org.uk/wdie-09/d09-071.htm

On October 20, South Tyneside Stop the War Coalition held a Forum in South Tyneside entitled: “Bring the Troops Home! Block the Plans for Another Pro-War Government!” The Forum was held in the run-up to the national demonstration to demand that the troops get out of Afghanistan, recognising the importance to participate in a conscious manner and discuss the issues arising from the eight-year-old invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. But equally, it was also an opportunity to continue the discussion on making plans to block another pro-war government from coming to power, and to put an end to the catalogue of aggressive wars launched by the British ruling circles in alliance with the US. Whilst this was still very much work in progress, the programme for an anti-war government is an immediate demand with the likely General Election coming next year.

The Forum highlighted how life itself is demanding a solution and an alternative. People are being killed and maimed in Afghanistan – both the hundreds of thousands of Afghans and the hundreds of British and other soldiers killed in this brutal occupation. People are drawing their own conclusions despite the disinformation and propaganda for the war by government and media alike. It is a fact that in a local area of South Tyneside – Hebburn – the local newspaper had commented that it could not find anyone to interview who was in favour of the war in Afghanistan! All of the propaganda and lies that the war is to protect the British people from terrorism, or to give democracy and provide security in the Afghan election, are becoming more and more exposed. Poor communities in Britain, where recruitment of soldiers is high because in many cases the youth see no alternative future, are being asked to give their sons and daughters to impose by military means the same kind of “democracy” in Afghanistan that had disempowered them and left them without jobs in Britain and is refusing to recognise their right to a livelihood and a viable future.

The Forum addressed these questions and especially the question of the anti-war programme to disentangle the British state from NATO and other pro-war alliances, to disempower the generals and war industry lobby and bring the troops home from foreign soil everywhere. There was the question of supporting all those candidates in the General Election that take a stand against the war, and even more crucially the vital importance of the anti-war movement giving rise to its own anti-war candidates that uphold the anti-war agenda and the demand for an anti-war government at a political level right at the centre of British politics.

The South Tyneside Stop the War Coalition Discussion Forum is one of many forums and discussions being held throughout the country to contribute to the internal consolidation of this organised and powerful anti-war movement which was reflected in the strength of the 10,000-strong demonstration that took place on October 24 in London.
  
 



  

266
News Items / When War becomes Peace, When the Lie becomes the Truth
« on: October 12, 2009, 03:08:41 PM »
Obama and the Nobel Prize: When War becomes Peace, When the Lie becomes the Truth


by Michel Chossudovsky


Global Research, October 11, 2009

When war becomes peace,

When concepts and realities are turned upside down,

When fiction becomes truth and truth becomes fiction.

When a global military agenda is heralded as a humanitarian endeavor,

When the killing of civilians is upheld as "collateral damage",

When those who resist the US-NATO led invasion of their homeland are categorized as "insurgents" or "terrorists".

When preemptive nuclear war is upheld as self defense.

When advanced torture and "interrogation" techniques are routinely used to "protect peacekeeping operations",

When tactical nuclear weapons are heralded by the Pentagon as "harmless to the surrounding civilian population"

When three quarters of US personal federal income tax revenues are allocated to financing what is euphemistically referred to as "national defense"

When the Commander in Chief of the largest military force on planet earth is presented as a global peace-maker,

When the Lie becomes the Truth.

Obama's "War Without Borders"

We are the crossroads of the most serious crisis in modern history. The US in partnership with NATO and Israel has launched a global military adventure which, in a very real sense, threatens the future of humanity.

At this critical juncture in our history, the Norwegian Nobel Committee's decision to award the Nobel Peace Prize to President and Commander in Chief Barack Obama constitutes an unmitigated tool of propaganda and distortion, which unreservedly supports the Pentagon's "Long War": "A War without Borders" in the true sense of the word, characterised by the Worlwide deployment of US military might.

Apart from the diplomatic rhetoric, there has been no meaningful reversal of US foreign policy in relation to the George W. Bush presidency, which might have remotely justified the granting of the Nobel Prize to Obama. In fact quite the opposite. The Obama military agenda has sought to extend the war into new frontiers. With a new team of military and foreign policy advisers, the Obama war agenda has been far more effective in fostering military escalation than that formulated by the NeoCons.

Since the very outset of the Obama presidency, this global military project has become increasingly pervasive, with the reinforcement of US military presence in all major regions of the World and the development of new advanced weapons systems on an unprecdented scale.

Granting the Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama provides legitimacy to the illegal practices of war, to the military occupation of foreign lands, to the relentless killings of civilians in the name of "democracy".

Both the Obama administration and NATO are directly threatening Russia, China and Iran. The US under Obama is developing "a First Strike Global Missile Shield System":

"Along with space-based weapons, the Airborne Laser is the next defense frontier. ... Never has Ronald Reagan's dream of layered missile defenses - Star Wars, for short - been as....close, at least technologically, to becoming realized."

Reacting to this consolidation, streamlining and upgrading of American global nuclear strike potential, on August 11 the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Air Force, the same Alexander Zelin cited earlier on the threat of U.S. strikes from space on all of his nation, said that the "Russian Air Force is preparing to meet the threats resulting from the creation of the Global Strike Command in the U.S. Air Force" and that Russia is developing "appropriate systems to meet the threats that may arise." (Rick Rozoff, Showdown with Russia and China: U.S. Advances First Strike Global Missile Shield System, Global Research, August 19, 2009)

At no time since the Cuban missile crisis has the World been closer to the unthinkable: a World War III scenario, a global military conflict involving the use of nuclear weapons.

1. The so-called missile defense shield or Star Wars initiative involving the first strike use of nuclear weapons is now to be developed globally in different regions of the World. The missile shield is largely directed against Russia, China, Iran and North Korea.

2. New US military bases have been set up with a view to establishing US spheres of influence in every region of the World as well as surrounding and confronting Russia and China.

3. There has been an escalation in the Central Asian Middle East war. The "defense budget" under Obama has spiraled with increased allocations to both Afghanistan and Iraq.

4. Under orders of president Obama, acting as Commander in Chief, Pakistan is now the object of routine US aerial bombardments in violation of its territorial sovereignty, using the "Global War on Terrorism" as a justification.

5. The construction of new military bases is envisaged in Latin America including Colombia on the immediate border of Venezuela.

6. Military aid to Israel has increased. The Obama presidency has expressed its unbending support for Israel and the Israeli military. Obama has remained mum on the atrocities committed by Israel in Gaza. There has not even been a semblance of renewed Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

7. There has been a reinforcement of the new regional commands including AFRICOM and SOUTHCOM

8. A new round of threats has been directed against Iran.

9. The US is intent upon fostering further divisions between Pakistan and India, which could lead to a regional war, as well as using India's nuclear arsenal as an indirect means to threaten China.

The diabolical nature of this military project was outlined in the 2000 Project for a New American Century (PNAC). The PNAC's declared objectives are:

defend the American homeland;

fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars;

perform the "constabulary" duties associated with shaping the security environment in critical regions;

transform U.S. forces to exploit the "revolution in military affairs;" (Project for a New American Century, Rebuilding Americas Defenses.pdf, September 2000)

The "Revolution in Military Affairs" refers to the development of new advanced weapons systems. The militarization of space, new advanced chemical and biological weapons, sophisticated laser guided missiles, bunker buster bombs, not to mention the US Air Force's climatic warfare program (HAARP) based in Gokona, Alaska, are part of Obama's "humanitarian arsenal".

War against the Truth

This is a war against the truth. When war becomes peace, the world is turned upside down. Conceptualization is no longer possible. An inquisitorial social system emerges.

An understanding of fundamental social and political events is replaced by a World of sheer fantasy, where "evil folks" are lurking. The objective of the "Global War on Terrorism" which has been fully endorsed by Obama administration has been to galvanize public support for a Worldwide campaign against heresy.

In the eyes of public opinion, possessing a "just cause" for waging war is central. A war is said to be Just if it is waged on moral, religious or ethical grounds. The consensus is to wage war. People can longer think for themselves. They accept the authority and wisdom of the established social order.

The Nobel Committee says that President Obama has given the world "hope for a better future." The prize is awarded for Obama's

"extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. The Committee has attached special importance to Obama's vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons."

...His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population. (Nobel Press Release, October 9, 2009)

The granting of the Nobel "peace prize" to president Barack Obama has become an integral part of the Pentagon's propaganda machine. It provides a human face to the invaders, it upholds the demonization of those who oppose US military intervention.

The decision to grant Obama the Nobel Peace Prize was no doubt carefully negotiated with the Norwegian Committee at the highest levels of the US government. It has far reaching implications.

It unequivocally upholds the US led war as a "Just Cause". It erases the war crimes committed both by the Bush and Obama administrations.

War Propaganda: Jus ad Bellum

The "Just war" theory serves to camouflage the nature of US foreign policy, while providing a human face to the invaders.

In both its classical and contemporary versions, the Just war theory upholds war as a "humanitarian operation". It calls for military intervention on ethical and moral grounds against "insurgents", "terrorists", "failed" or "rogue states".

The Just War has been heralded by the Nobel Committee as an instrument of Peace. Obama personifies the "Just War".

Taught in US military academies, a modern-day version of the "Just War" theory has been embodied into US military doctrine. The "war on terrorism" and the notion of "preemption" are predicated on the right to "self defense." They define "when it is permissible to wage war": jus ad bellum.

Jus ad bellum has served to build a consensus within the Armed Forces command structures. It has also served to convince the troops that they are fighting for a "just cause". More generally, the Just War theory in its modern day version is an integral part of war propaganda and media disinformation, applied to gain public support for a war agenda. Under Obama as Nobel Peace Laureate, the Just War becomes universally accepted, upheld by the so-called international community.

The ultimate objective is to subdue the citizens, totally depoliticize social life in America, prevent people from thinking and conceptualizing, from analyzing facts and challenging the legitimacy of the US NATO led war.

War becomes peace, a worthwhile "humanitarian undertaking", Peaceful dissent becomes heresy.

Military Escalation with a Human Face. Nobel Committee grants the "Green Light"

More significantly, the Nobel peace prize grants legitimacy to an unprecedented "escalation" of US-NATO led military operations under the banner of peacemaking.

It contributes to falsifying the nature of the US-NATO military agenda.

Between 40,000 to 60,000 more US and allied troops are to be sent to Afghanistan under a peacemaking banner. On the 8th of october, a day prior to the Nobel Committee's decision, the US congress granted Obama a 680-billion-dollar defense authorization bill, which is slated to finance the process of military escalation:

"Washington and its NATO allies are planning an unprecedented increase of troops for the war in Afghanistan, even in addition to the 17,000 new American and several thousand NATO forces that have been committed to the war so far this year".

The number, based on as yet unsubstantiated reports of what U.S. and NATO commander Stanley McChrystal and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Michael Mullen have demanded of the White House, range from 10,000 to 45,000.

Fox News has cited figures as high as 45,000 more American soldiers and ABC News as many as 40,000. On September 15 the Christian Science Monitor wrote of "perhaps as many as 45,000."

The similarity of the estimates indicate that a number has been agreed upon and America's obedient media is preparing domestic audiences for the possibility of the largest escalation of foreign armed forces in Afghanistan's history. Only seven years ago the United States had 5,000 troops in the country, but was scheduled to have 68,000 by December even before the reports of new deployments surfaced. (Rick Rozoff, U.S., NATO Poised For Most Massive War In Afghanistan's History, Global Research, September 24, 2009)

Within hours of the decision of the Norwegian Nobel committee, Obama met with the War Council, or should we call it the "Peace Council". This meeting had been carefully scheduled to coincide with that of the Norwegian Nobel committee.

This key meeting behind closed doors in the Situation Room of the White House included Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and key political and military advisers. General Stanley McChrystal participated in the meeting via video link from Kabul.

General Stanley McChrystal ias said to have offered the Commander in Chief "several alternative options" "including a maximum injection of 60,000 extra troops". The 60,000 figure was quoted following a leak of the Wall Street Journal (AFP: After Nobel nod, Obama convenes Afghan war council, October 9, 2009)

"The president had a robust conversation about the security and political challenges in Afghanistan and the options for building a strategic approach going forward," according to an administration official (quoted in AFP: After Nobel nod, Obama convenes Afghan war council October 9, 2009)

The Nobel committee had in a sense given Obama a green light. The October 9 meeting in the Situation Room was to set the groundwork for a further escalation of the conflict under the banner of counterinsurgency and democracy building.

Meanwhile, in the course of the last few months, US forces have stepped up their aerial bombardments of village communities in the northern tribal areas of Pakistan, under the banner of combating Al Qaeda.
 
 

267
The End of Sykes-Picot: Moving Beyond Colonialism

One of the greatest threats to mankind today can be summarized in the familiar saying: "Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them."

It was in this spirit that Lyndon LaRouche delivered the following lecture, before an audience of approximately 200 faculty, students, and guests of Central Connecticut State University on the afternoon of May 4, 2009.

From the moment he was invited to deliver the lecture as part of the Middle East policy series, chaired by the distinguished Middle East scholar Prof. Norton Mezvinsky, LaRouche contemplated how best to use the limited time allotted, to deliver the most thought-provoking message.

As you will read below, LaRouche stepped outside of the rigged game of the Middle East per se, to deliver a message, intended to reverberate in the Obama Administration as it prepares for an urgent round of diplomacy, and within governing institutions around the world.

LaRouche's message was: Unless the fundamental global struggle between the republican and oligarchical outlooks—expressed most clearly, still today, in the struggle between the American (republican) and British (oligarchical) systems—is understood, no Middle East peace is possible.

LaRouche's words did, indeed, reverberate instantly in Washington, where key policy-makers have already taken up the LaRouche challenge to learn the most vital lessons of human history, and to move, decisively, to defeat the British Empire today. That empire, as LaRouche reiterated during his CCSU lecture, is not based upon the English, Irish, Scottish, or Welsh people. It is a global financial empire, centered in the City of London, but with tentacles on Wall Street and in every financial capital around the globe. It is the power of the Anglo-Dutch Liberal system that must be defeated today, if humanity is to survive, and if the Middle East is ever to enjoy true peace and prosperity.

Hence, LaRouche titled his lecture, "The End of the Sykes-Picot System."

'A Controversial Speaker'
Lyndon LaRouche gave this address to the Middle E.ast Lecture Series at Central Connecticut State University, in New Britain, Conn., on May 4, 2009, at the invitation of Prof. Norton Mezvinsky. Professor Mezvinsky spoke at a Schiller Institute conference in Germany on Feb. 22.

Prof. Norton Mezvinsky: Thank you all for coming. As many of you know, my name is Norton Mezvinsky, and I'm a professor of history here at Central Connecticut State University. I also plan and coordinate the CCSU Middle East Lecture Series. Today's lecture is the last of the 2008-2009 series, and in addition, it's my own addition to the series. By that, I mean, as has happened in previous years with this series, the money allocated has previously been used. Hence, as I have previously done the last couple years, I have, out of my own pocket, provided the funding for the expense of bringing today's speaker.

Because of some controversy that had arisen over this session, I want to state this specifically: Those of you who have some objections to today's speaker—you have only me to blame. Controversy, of course, is endemic to the Middle East lecture series. We have had speakers who have presented views that, to some other people, are controversial. Different speakers have presented diametrically opposed points of view. This is a university, so therefore, so be it.

My standard, my requirement, for a lecturer in this series, is that she, or he, is knowledgeable factually, about one or more important issues within the context of the Middle East, and that she or he has presented orally, and/or in writing, useful ideas, and/or has engaged in useful activity in regard to the serious issues.

Today's speaker, Lyndon LaRouche, measures up to the standard I have just said. A controversial individual for many decades, Lyndon LaRouche is a leading political economist, and prolific author. He has been a precandidate for the Democratic Party presidential nomination. LaRouche has produced a series of economic forecasts, dating back to 1956. He forecast, for example, the present global economic collapse, in an international webcast, delivered from Washington, D.C., on July 25, 2007.

LaRouche was born in Rochester, New Hampshire in 1922. He has authored more than a dozen books, and hundreds of articles, many published in Executive Intelligence Review, a weekly magazine he founded in the mid-1970s, which is, I have personally discovered, must reading for numerous members of the United States Congress, United States State Department officials, other politicos in Washington and around the world, and many academics.

LaRouche has been dedicated to a just peace in the Middle East for decades, working tirelessly for economic policies that can provide an underpinning to a lasting solution to a crisis that, in some ways, is rooted in the topic of his discussion today, the Sykes-Picot Agreement. LaRouche has travelled in the region, visiting Iraq in the mid-1970s, and delivering a lecture in the early 2000s at the Zayed Center in the United Arab Emirates. He collaborated with members of the Israeli Labor Party in developing what became known as the Oasis Plan, for high-technology regional development, centered upon nuclear power-driven desalination, and high-speed mass transportation throughout the region.

At major Middle-East-oriented think-tanks in Washington and elsewhere, factual information, supplied by the LaRouche group, at least some of his views, are regularly studied and considered. During the past year, especially, when I have been in Washington starting a new Middle East political think-tank, I have witnessed this personally.

One final word, before bringing Lyndon LaRouche to the stage to speak. Some sharply negative attacks upon him have been made by some people, on and off the CCSU campus. Material is being handed out, as you know, even though I wrote on the listserv that I urged groups not to distribute material at the sessions of the Middle East Lecture Series. There are other fora and other channels to hand out material. I told LaRouche supporters, before the lecture, not to hand out material. I have seen much of the materials being handed out, and believe that much of it, that I have seen, is at best problematic factually, and some of it clearly inaccurate. But we can discuss that at another time. Because unwarranted attacks have been made against me for at least the last four decades, I suppose it's fair to say that I am especially sensitive to this kind of thing. My hope is, that you in the audience will pay close attention to what Lyndon LaRouche has to say about an important topic.

I shall field questions and answers after his lecture, which is titled "The End of Sykes-Picot: Moving Beyond Colonialism in the Middle East."

The Middle East in Context
Lyndon LaRouche: Thank you very much.

I shall suggest it is an error to talk a Middle East policy. That is, I think, one of the reasons we have a problem with the Middle East, is, we keep talking about a Middle East policy. Instead of talking about a conflict in the so-called Middle East, we should talk about the Middle East as a conflict, and a conflict that is largely global, especially within the context of nearby European and related civilization.

This is demonstrated, especially, since the British took over the Middle East, in a process which began with the development of petroleum in what is now called Kuwait, by the British monarchy. And the petroleum development, of this monopoly, was to change the British naval fleet from a coal-burning fleet, at least in principal capital ships, to an oil-burning fleet. The advantage of the use of petroleum, as a fuel, rather than coal, was a decisive margin of significance for the British in World War I.

Out of that, the breakup of the Turkish, the Ottoman, Empire, came a new situation, in which the British, with their puppets in France, formed what was called the Sykes-Picot coalition, under which the entire area was intended to be carved up between France and Britain, as a joint colony, as such.

It didn't work out that way, because you had an able Turkish commander [Mustafa Kemal Ataturk], who embarrassed the British very much, during the First World War. Who defeated the British, and the French, and set up an independent Turkey, which he consolidated by proceeding to make agreements immediately with Syria, in order to keep Turkey out of the Arab world, to save it from being embroiled in the Arab world. And who also made an agreement with the Soviet Union, in respect to that border, and, in that way, created a nation-state of Turkey, which, in a sense, has been a success. Not that everything has been successful, but that the existence of the state of Turkey has been a success, with all its peculiarities, which have been shaped in its history.

Now, if you look back on this thing, and look at what the conflict in this region is, since the developments of the late 19th Century, this has always been an area of conflict. But people look at this, and say, "This is a conflict among this person or that person." And, more recently, since the end of World War II, it's considered a conflict between Israelis, or Jews, and Arabs—which is also, not quite true.

What we have to do, is think of this area, as I said, as being an area within the world—the Middle East is a part of the world!—the conflict in the Middle East is a part of the world conflict, not the other way around.

But then, look at it from the standpoint of economics: What is important about this area, which is called today the Middle East? Why is it such a cockpit of conflict? Why has it been such a cockpit of conflict since way before anybody knew of a Jew in the Middle East? In the ancient wars, among Egypt, among the Hittites, among the people of Mesopotamia, and similar kinds of wars. The wars of the 7th Century B.C., which involved essentially, the Greeks, allied with the Egyptians, against Phoenicia, and the extension of Phoenicia in the Western Mediterranean, being combatted and controlled by another civilization, there.

So, the conflict is ancient.

The Difference Between Man and Ape: Fire
Now, why this conflict?

Well, we have to go back a little more to ancient history, to understand these things. Because men are not animals. Human beings are not animals. Animals have no history; they have a biological history, but they have no cultural history. Mankind's conflicts of today are the product of cultural conflicts, in cultural history. And we must look back, perhaps a million years, to get some glimpse of this.

For example: In our archeology, with the frail evidence we have of mankind's probable, or actual existence then, say up to a million years ago: How do we distinguish between ape and man? There's one simple explanation. If you can find evidence of a fire site, together with fossils which look like they might be either anthropoid or human, if you find a fire site, that's human.

The primary difference of man from ape, is fire. But fire is only a symptom. Fire is an expression of the nature of the human intellect, of the creative powers of man that do not exist in the ape.

In lower forms of life than man, in the so-called biosphere, development is built into the physiology, the physical circumstances. In the case of man, as the case of ancient fire sites, which distinguish man from ape, in anthropology, we have the secret of man, which is ideas. Fire is the illustration of the concept of discovery of ideas, of the concept of culture, of the concept of development of the human race, development of civilization.

And therefore, to understand human behavior, we must look back as well as we can, to ancient times, to see, as much as we can, this pattern of distinction, between the ape, and man. Between the biosphere, and what is called the Nöosphere—the sphere of the human mind, and its creative potential—and the ape, lacking that kind of creative potential; and all beasts, lacking that kind of creative potential.

So, then we have to look at this question from the standpoint of humanism. And what do we mean by humanism? We also mean language. We mean cultures which are transmitted by or with the assistance of language. So we study man in terms of language, not merely because of the use of language, but because of the invention of ideas, which do not start and end with the life of an individual, but are the transmission of ideas from one generation to the next. And so it is the development of ideas, the development of mankind, over thousands of years, over even a million or 2 million, perhaps, where we find the secret of human behavior at any point or location within history.

And this is no exception, this so-called Middle East conflict.

This conflict arose long after the period of about 17,000 B.C., when the last great glaciation, of about 100,000 years ago—these glaciations are never quite simple, but they do have demarcations—and we're coming to the end of a warming period. As a matter of fact, we're already, contrary to some rumors, we're in a cooling period. And the lowering of sunspot activity, is one indication of a 10- to 11-year cooling period now in process. It's global.

There are other factors involved, but, as far as the Sun is concerned, sunspot activity and changes recently, indicate that we're in an 11-year cycle, typical of the past, of sunspot decline, and therefore a cooling period.

We're also in a long-term cooling period, because we have another 100,000-, approximately, year cycle, to deal with, which determines long-term glaciation, and deglaciation.

So, in this process, there's a lot we don't know, because a good deal of this planet was buried under many layers of ice, especially the Northern Hemisphere, for a long period of time.

The Shift from Maritime to Inland Culture
And during this long period of time, culture was primarily located in transoceanic, or at least other maritime cultures, not land cultures. As far as we know, culture, human culture's progress, is determined by maritime culture, which in its navigation, discovered the significance of astronomy, discovered its importance for man, and for navigation itself. And these were the leading cultures in the Great Ice Age period, in particular, when many of our calendars, as we know them today, the ancient calendars, and the markings of these ancient calendars, became apparent.

And then, the ice began to recede, about 20,000 years ago. And the rate of melting increased. Gradually, the oceans rose by about 400 feet, changing the definition of coastline. Making India much smaller than it had been, in an earlier period. The Mediterranean was opened up into a longer and lake-like formation that became a sea, a salty sea. And then, about 10,000 years ago, as the Mediterranean rose, it broke through the so-called Dardenelles Strait, and transformed what we call the Black Sea, changing it from a freshwater lake into a saltwater lake, with a freshwater underbase.

So, in this process, these changes are going on. Man is reacting to these changes. Gradually, as the glaciation recedes, civilization moves inland. It moves along the coast first, as we see in the 4th and 3rd Millennia B.C., in the Mediterranean region. It goes through various crises, but there's a gradual inland movement. The first movement is along the coast: maritime culture. Secondly, it begins to move upriver, along the major rivers, particularly the rivers that were being flooded by the melting ice, from the glaciation.

And, in this situation, something happens. You have a culture whose leading characteristic, in this known period, was that of a maritime culture, not an inland culture. There were inland cultures, but they were not progressive, in the sense that the maritime cultures were progressive, scientifically, or the equivalent of science, and culture.

So, what now is the meaning of this area we call the Middle East, at that point? It's an area between the Mediterranean, which becomes a center of growing culture, and the Indian Ocean, and Asia in general.

For example, let's take the case of Sumer, which is the first major civilization which emerged in the southern Middle East. This was an Indian Ocean culture, it was not a Semitic culture. It progressed. It was a very advanced culture in many respects; much of the idea of language, of written language, was developed there, and influenced the entire region for a long time after that, with the cuneiform writings.

But then, it degenerated. And the lower part of Mesopotamia became salinated, because of a physical economic degeneration in the area. Then you had the Akkads. Then you had the Semitic cultures, which were based upriver, on the structure which they had adapted to, in the earlier Indian Ocean cultures. And in this process, now, you have a development, a powerful development, between the Indian Ocean, and the Mediterranean, as an area. That remains to the present day.

A Fundamental Change in World History
Then there was a change, a change in the middle of the 19th Century, or slightly afterward. The victory of the United States, in defeating the British puppet, called the Confederacy, in the Civil War, resulted in a fundamental change in world history.

Up until that time, the superior cultures in power were cultures which were based on maritime culture, because the ability to move by seawater, and up rivers, which were the large parts of the rivers, became the places where civilization, where economic power developed. Inland movement was difficult, compared to movement across water. And so, until about the 1870s, the world was dominated, in terms of powers in the world, by maritime cultures. And the British Empire's emergence was a product of that process.

But, in 1876, there was a change. The change was the Philadelphia Centennial celebration, in which all of the achievements of the United States, especially those of the recent period, were put on display in Philadelphia. People from all over the world, prominent figures from various countries, came to see this. Japan came to see it, and Japan was changed, and transformed from what it had been, into an emerging industrial power, through visits to the United States, in the context of the Philadelphia Centennial.

Russia, the great scientists from Russia, came there, and adopted a policy which results, among many other things, in the Trans-Siberian Railroad.

In Germany, Otto von Bismarck, the Chancellor, had direct representation, and negotiated directly with the circles of those who had been associated with Abraham Lincoln, and transformed Germany, with many reforms instituted in the late 1870s. Among these reforms were the imitation of the United States on one crucial point: We, as had been intended by John Quincy Adams, when he had been Secretary of State, had defined a policy for the United States, as one nation, from the Canadian to the Mexican borders, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. Not merely a territory, but a nation which was developing in an integrated way, through the development of the Transcontinental Railroad system.

Germany then adopted that policy, for Eurasia, a policy of developing Europe, continental Europe and continental Asia, on the basis of transcontinental railway systems, and the things which go with that.

Suddenly, there was a transformation in the character of economy, for as far back as we know much history, from national power based on maritime power, to national power, a superior national power, based on the development of inland transportation, rail transportation, and the industries that went with that.

This was recognized by the British as being a great threat to the existence of the British Empire—which is not really a British empire; it was a financial empire, with headquarters in the Netherlands, and in England. It was not the British people that were the empire; it was an international financial group, based on maritime power, which thought they could create a power dominating the world.

So, from that point on—from Lincoln's defeat of the British puppet, the Confederacy, through the 1876 Centennial celebration in Philadelphia—there's a great conflict between the British Empire, as a maritime power, and the United States, as a model of transcontinental internal development of national areas. And the pivot of this thing, which became known as World War II—what started the first war was actually the assassination on the President of France, Sadi Carnot, on behalf of British interests. Which made a mess of things, and therefore, allowed the British to begin to Balkanize.

In 1895, the British organized the first Japan-China War, and continued that policy as an attack on China, up until 1945, Japan's attack on China. Japan was also dedicated to a war with Russia. Then, the Prince of Wales, who actually ran the place for his mother [Queen Victoria]—she was kind of dotty at that point—the Prince of Wales planned to have his two nephews go to war with each other. One of his nephews was Wilhelm II of Germany, the other was the Czar of Russia. And they were determined to start a war.

Bismarck knew this, and made an agreement with the Czar of Russia, that if anyone tried to get Germany to support Austria in a Balkan war, that Bismarck would kill the operation. And on that basis, peace was preserved, for a while. But then, Bismarck was dumped in 1890, and the process of war began. First, through the assassination of Sadi Carnot of France, who was close to the United States, and close to its policy. And, with the dumping of Bismarck beforehand. Then, with the launching of the Japan-China warfare, which continued until 1945, until August 1945.

So, we went into what was called a Great World War, but really a whole series of great world wars, which had been ongoing since 1890, to, in fact, the present times.

The conflicts of the world today, are, proximately the echo of this long conflict, between the idea of the internal development of national territories, and across national territories, as typified by great transcontinental railway systems, and by technological progress, and the other side: the idea of maintaining a maritime supremacy, a maritime financial supremacy over the world at large. We're still there.

There Was Nothing Accidental About Franklin Roosevelt
Now, in this process, a time came, at which Franklin Roosevelt had intervened in this process, and had broken it up. Up until that time—frankly, from the assassination of McKinley, which was a key part of getting us into World War I, and then World War II—from that time on, the United States was going in a bad direction. We had bad Presidents. Theodore Roosvelt, who was the nephew of the organizer of the Confederate intelligence service, became President. And he was a loyal British subject. He made a mess of things.

Then we had Woodrow Wilson, whose family was notorious for its leading role in the organization and tradition of the Ku Klux Klan. And it was Woodrow Wilson who, personally, from the White House, as President, launched the reorganization of the Ku Klux Klan in the United States, on a scale far beyond anything that was in existence ever before.

Then we had the case of Cal Coolidge. He kept his mouth shut, because he'd incriminate himself if he talked, in public.

Then we had the case of Hoover. Well, we say, Hoover sucked. He was a bright man, but he had bad politics, and worked for people who controlled him, and he was their puppet.

Then comes in, a man who's a descendant of a friend of—guess who? Our great first Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton. And that friend was Isaac Roosevelt, and Isaac Roosevelt had started the Bank of New York. Isaac was a close collaborator of Hamilton, and Franklin Roosevelt, who was a descendant of Isaac Roosevelt, wrote a paper, in his Harvard graduation period, honoring his ancestor Isaac Roosevelt and his policies.

There was nothing accidental about Franklin Roosevelt. Franklin Roosevelt, who had to struggle against the people in New York and elsewhere, who we would call fascist today—and they were fascists—they're still fascists, some of them. He turned the tide against them. And while he was President, despite the difficulties under which he labored, he went into the Presidency with a very clear intention, and a very clear perspective. Roosevelt, in his Presidency, made and implemented policies faster than anybody else could think of them. You look at that from his first steps in office. He knew exactly what he was going to do. He had to improvise in some degree—and all leaders in societies do improvise. They know what their mission is: Now they have to find out how to bring the forces together to accomplish that mission in principle, even if it has repercussions. And that's the way our system works.

We are a people with many different views, and the way you get the job done, is find a common interest in the nation, awaken the people to a common interest, and then figure out how to get the job done. And do a lot of bargaining and negotiating in the process, to get the thing through.

The thing you count on, first of all: Can you innovate? Can you innovate the way which is in the right direction? Are you laying the foundation for further steps which may correct what you have failed to do in the previous action? And you have to also educate the people. You have to educate them, not by preaching at them as such, but by organic methods, by influencing them to see things about themselves, and about the world, they have not seen before. And as people come slowly to a realization, sometimes with a jerk: "This is right!" Then they make another leap forward.

And had Roosevelt lived, the world today would be far better, and also far different than we're seeing since Roosevelt died. The world as it existed, on April 12th of 1945, when Roosevelt died, and the day after, April 13th, when Truman became President, were two entirely different worlds.

And I know it. I was in military service abroad during that transition period. I was in India and Burma. When I came back, in the late Spring of 1946, after a beautiful experience with the attempt of India to achieve its independence, my United States had changed. It was no more the United States of Franklin Roosevelt. The same fascist crowd that Roosevelt had kept under control while he was President, was back in power, under a puppet called Harry Truman. Harry S Truman—no point, no initial, no name. His mother had planned to have a name with S in it, at a point at some time, but she never got around to filling what the rest of the S was. I don't think she cared, and I don't think he cared.

A Great Cultural Degeneration
So, we had this process. Truman was a catastrophe. Eisenhower was a relief, but he came in weak. He didn't have the strength to control the situation politically. He did many good things, but he was not in control of the forces. Kennedy got the idea that he was going to control the Presidency—then he got himself killed, by having that kind of commitment. When Kennedy was killed, Johnson—Johnson was not a bad person. He was a politician, with all that goes, good and bad, in that appellation. But, he was convinced that the three guys who killed Kennedy, who were of French provenance, who had attempted to kill de Gaulle, would get him next. The three guns pointed at his neck was the thing he referred to before he left office, that had frightened him all along. So, he gave in on the Vietnam War.

Then we had the '68 phenomenon, and what happened after that.

Then we had a fascist President, called Nixon. The guy was a fascist—don't kid yourself. He was exactly that. Then we had Ford—he didn't exactly know what was going on in there. He was a pleasant guy, but a lot of bad things happened under him. He didn't notice what was going on. The guy's sitting there, he's happily sitting at the dinner table while rats are running all over it, and he doesn't notice them.

Then you had Reagan, who was a complex creature, with some good instincts. He belonged to my generation, an older version of it, and was very strong under Roosevelt, but, as we saw immediately, he adapted to the Truman Administration very quickly, and that was his problem. I had some dealings with him which were very important, and could have changed history for the better—and they did change history, but we could have done much better, if he'd been able to stick to his guns. But otherwise he was a mistake, he just went rolling on.

Then, 1987: We had a recession which was as bad, or worse, than the Depression of 1929. And then we had a terrible man, Alan Greenspan, and what he came out of, that [Ayn Rand] cult he came out of, was not very good. The result was terrible.

So, we've gone through a process of degeneration of the United States, since the death of Roosevelt, with ups and downs in between, but the cultural degeneration is great.

Look, for example: You're sitting here in a university. And think about what came out of universities about the time I was coming back from military service, to today. What's a typical situation? What kind of professions do people undertake, leaving a university?

I'll give you a case. We just had an affair, I participated indirectly, in Ukraine, a scientific case. And we looked at the population composition of Ukraine, in terms of different age groups. We found that the scientists, those who could actually think in terms which were significant to Ukraine, were usually over 60 years of age, and the leaders were in their 80s, like me. In Russia you find a similar thing going on. In the post-Soviet period, there was disorientation, which had started in Russia earlier, under Andropov, and then Gorbachov: the destruction of the ability of produce. The destruction of the power of the creative process. And replaced by greed, to get money for money's sake, and for the sake of the power of money. Not to build a nation, not to make conditions better.

And we had the same thing in the United States, in general.

We're now at a point, that our nation is disintegrating. It has actually been disintegrating in the direction it goes, since April 12, 1945, since Truman became President. And I could go through the details of that, but I won't here, because that's too far from the subject.

But we have been destroyed step by step, step by step by step. And because it came on slowly, like the boiled frog, we didn't react. We just sat in the pool while the heat came to a boil, sitting there contentedly in the pool, while the water reached the boiling point, and the frog died. We're like the frog that died, in the pool. We've been going step by step, down the wrong way.

The British Empire
Come back then to the situation in the so-called Middle East. And see the Middle East, not as having its own history, but the Middle East as something within the process of history.

And the other part is, don't look at the Israeli-Arab conflict. Don't ignore it, but don't look at it. Because the conflict is not determined by the Israelis or Arabs. It's determined by international forces which look at this region. How? As a crossover point between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, the relationship of Europe to Asia, the relationship of Europe to East Africa, and so forth.

Therefore, what you're seeing is that.

Now, go back and say, where did the British get this idea—as they did with Sykes-Picot—where did they get the bright idea of keeping the Arab population, and what became the Israeli population, at odds with each other permanently? Killing each other over land that wasn't worth fighting over, in terms of its quality.

Ask yourself, what is the development of this territory? What is the development of the conditions of life of the people? The development of the conditions of life of the typical Israeli? Look at the Israeli of the 1950s and '60s, and even the '70s, the early '70s, where there was progress. What do you see today? You see decadence. Accelerating decadence, and an increase in warfare.

What do you see in the Arab condition? Decadence. And you sit there with despair, and you say, are these people just going to kill themselves into extinction? Kill each other into extinction? What's wrong here?

Well, somebody's playing them. Somebody's playing and orchestrating the situation. Who? How do the British come in on this?

Well, go back, for example, to the time that Lord Shelburne, who was the boss of the British Empire—which at that time was not the empire of the British monarchy; it was the empire of the British East India Company, which had private armies, and private navies, and private funds, and a lot of drugs. What do we learn from that?

Well, how did Shelburne come into power? How did he become the leader, in February of 1763, of what became the British Empire? Which was really the empire of the British East India Company, not the empire of the British monarchy. That came later, under Victoria. It came because of the Seven Years War.

What was the Seven Years War? The Anglo-Dutch interests, which were largely banking-financial interests, orchestrated a period of warfare among the nations of continental Europe, back and forth, playing the very skilled military commander of Prussia, Frederick the Great, in perpetual warfare, which resulted in the ruin of the nations of continental Europe, through mutual warfare and its effects, such that, in February 1763, the British walked in and dictated a treaty called the Peace of Paris, which established the British East India Company as a private empire. Which led, later, to the formation, under Victoria, of the so-called British Empire.

Since that time, this group, which is not a group of people, as such—I don't think of British bankers as people, because they don't act like people. They act like clever apes, with the instincts of apes. What was done in this whole period—especially in dealing with the Lincoln process, and the 1876 effect—was not to engage in direct war against the United States, which they intended to destroy, but to subvert it. To neutralize the United States in its own development, by various kinds of crises.

But mainly, it was to destroy Continental Europe, and to destroy it by warfare, like the Seven Years War in Europe. For example, shortly after 1890, when Bismarck was commenting on what had happened to him, he said, the purpose of this thing was to ruin continental Europe through a new Seven Years War, like that which had led to that.

We also had another example of this, the case of Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon Bonaparte was not an enemy of Britain; he was a tool of Britain. He ran a Seven Years War on the continent of Europe, as a dictator, to the point that he ruined Europe, so that Britain emerged as triumphant in 1815. And it was only the emergence of the United States as a power, essentially after 1876, that checked [the British Empire], and therefore, the British were determined to destroy us then. But they weren't quite ready.

When we had the assassination of McKinley, and the introduction of British puppets, such as Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Coolidge, and so forth, as Presidents, and what that signified, and we became a tool of the British imperial policy, rather than representing our own interests, or representing what we should represent, in our dedication to the establishment of a system of republics throughout the planet.

So what happened was, the British created, beginning in the late part of the 19th Century, what became the Sykes-Picot Treaty.

Fighting for the Common Aims of Mankind
Now, one thing is crucial about this, in all of this, which angers me greatly. Because I'm angered, not at them—I despise them—but I'm angered at my own people, who, like fools, will kill each other over things that are not really worth fighting about, when there are all these other solutions to the problem. And thus, making themselves the common prey, in their own fighting of each other, of an empire.

It's like the principle of the Seven Years War: Get the other guys to kill each other; then you come in and take over the mess. That's the way the British Empire has always operated.

This was conscious too. Because, remember what Shelburne's advice and counsel was: the model of Julian the Apostate, the Emperor Julian the Apostate. What did Julian do, which caused Shelburne to admire him so much? What he did was, he abandoned Christianity. He cancelled it—but not really. What he did, is, he put it into a kind of temple, of various religions, and began to play these against each other.

Now, Shelburne's conviction was, on the basis of the study of the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, that the way the British Empire should operate, was the way he had operated in the Seven Years War, and the way it was to operate in the Napoleonic Wars, and so forth. It was to get the fools to kill each other, to play one against the other.

Now, this is easy to do. If you get people who don't understand the principle of Westphalia, the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, who don't understand this. Our interest as human beings, is not to kill each other, or not to engage in killing each other for the purpose of trying to get power over other people. Our purpose should be, to set up a system of sovereign nation-states, under which each group of people, using their own language, and their own culture, is self-represented. But these nations, as such, so formed, must have also a common interest, in the betterment of the general condition of mankind.

The only thing that's worth fighting for, is to prevent evil from happening to this effort, and to promote this effort, for the common aims of mankind. Because the human mind is based on creativity. And because creativity is associated with Classical poetry, the best expression of Classical poetry, of a language culture. In order to evoke creativity in our people, so that our people may prosper, and humanity may prosper, we have to promote the welfare of the other nation as much, or more, than our own.

Because it's by promoting in them that which is good, which is creativity, which is the development of culture, the development of a physical contribution to the human effort: That's what our purpose should be. Our purpose is not to compete with each other, as such. Yes, compete in another sense. But not to compete as hostile forces, but to compete in doing good, in sharing the good, and realizing that you must develop our people's creative powers to the stage of enriching their use of language, especially as typified by poetry and music, to think. And that should be our purpose.

The Solution: End the Imperialist System!
The problem, when you look at this thing in the Middle East, you say, this is a disaster. What are these two groups of people going to do with this damn warfare? They're going to destroy each other. They're going to destroy civilization by spreading this disease. What are they fighting for? To kill somebody else? To eliminate somebody else?

Or are they fighting to make their own people more successful, as human beings, by finding ways of cooperation with people of a different religious or similar culture?

The principle of Westphalia.

We get so involved with the issues of the Middle East, that we find we can never solve them! The way we're playing it, we'll never solve them.

We will make efforts: Maybe the United States, if it had the right President, could force a peace, with the support of other nations. But without some force, there's no tendency for agreement in this region. There's a tendency for perpetual killing. And what many of you can do is, to try to ameliorate that thing, and slow down the killing rate, try to keep it from spreading. To get them not to do it for another day. There are no guarantees.

There is a solution, a solution in principle. And the solution is: End this blasted imperialist system! And understand that we, as a people, must develop our spiritual culture; that is, the creative powers of mankind, to carry further the development of mankind, from some brutish character by a campfire a million years ago, or so, into mankind as we desire that mankind should develop today. That's the issue.

In the meantime, we will fight. We will do everything possible to try to get peace in this area, because we want to stop the killing. But we're not going to tell somebody, we've got a solution that's going to be accepted, that's going to work. We're going to say, we've got a hopeless cause, and we're going to continue to fight for it.

But you have to understand, the problem comes not from these people, except that they're playing themselves for fools, by fighting each other. They're both extremely poor. Do you know what the condition of the average Arab is, in that region? Do you know what the condition of life is, the deteriorating condition of life, of the Israeli? What the hell are they fighting about? Where's the benefit in the fighting?

But the passions are deeply imbedded. The habits are deeply imbedded. We can try to impose the influence of restraints. Try to prevent these crazy Israelis from thinking about an attack on Iran, because that would be really a hellhole operation. In other words, we try to intervene through diplomacy, through other influences, to moderate the tendency for self-destruction of the peoples.

But don't believe that there's some solution for the Israeli-Arab conflict. There is no solution, in that, per se. That's why I said at the beginning here: Don't look at the history of the Middle East; look at the Middle East in history. And there you find the solution.

Because it's being played! The whole region. It's being played like a puppet.

I've got a similar situation in India. I've got a worse situation in Pakistan: Pakistan is about to die, it's about to be killed, by U.S. advice, and British management. The dumping of Musharraf was insane. He's not a good person, but he kept the country together. The disintegration of Pakistan would uncork all kinds of hell in the entire region.

So, that's the point. We must grow up, and those of you who are in the university, presumably approaching now the point of where people are graduating, either from that term at the university, or going on to some other education, should think of yourselves not just as being university graduates, or prospective graduates. But think of yourselves as respecting the need for young Americans, in particular, to get out of the habits of thinking which have dominated our press, and our conversations, in recent times. To realize we're on the edge of a disaster beyond belief. And to realize that what's needed, is an understanding of history, not an understanding of something that's happening in some section of history.

A Credit System; Not a Money System
For example, the power of the United States, just to conclude here: The United States has great power it doesn't know it has. I'm greatly worried about this President, because I think he's cuckoo at this point. He's being managed by a bunch of people who are evil.

But we have a mission. For example: We have now a disintegrating world financial and monetary system. We have gone through a depression phase, since July of 2007. We're now entering a hyperinflationary phase. It's a process which has a striking resemblance to what happened in Germany, in the early days of the Weimar Republic. The Weimar conditionalities imposed by Versailles, put Germany, at that time, first through a great depression. We in the United States have, since the Summer of 2007, the United States has gone through a great depression. The collapse of the economy, the collapse in the conditions of life, the accelerating rate of collapse in the conditions of life now, have been those of a depression, a deep depression, like that which Germany experienced in the early 1920s.

But then, in the Spring of 1923, there was a change. And between the Spring of '23, and November of 1923, the German mark disintegrated. The economy disintegrated. And was bailed out by outside forces. It wasn't really bailed out, because what happened is, that the people who had left, came back and took over. And this led to Hitler.

That was the year that Hitler came to power, in fact. Became a phenomenon. 1923. And it was that, that made Hitler possible. Allowed that to happen. Which was done by the Versailles Treaty—which you don't do.

So, now we're in a situation in which we have to change our monetary system. We can reorganize our monetary system and the world monetary system. We can cooperate with Russia, with China, India, and other countries, whose situation, as it stands now, is hopeless. There's no future for China, under the present conditions. It has lost the means of employment for a large part of its population. It can not carry itself under these conditions, and there's no prospect for increase of markets, for China's goods. Russia is also in that kind of condition. India, because it has a low export dependency, relatively speaking, is not as badly off. But the blowup of Pakistan will have an effect on India, to blow India up too. That's Asia! A major part of the world's population.

Africa's already a disaster.

So, how do you do this? Well, we have a system; we call it the American System, defined by Hamilton. We can shift the world economy, from being a monetary economy, to being a credit system, as specified by Alexander Hamilton. That is, we do not try to run a money system. The money system is finished! This monetary system, as it exists, can not be saved. It's doomed. But some people are greatly attached to it. It's like being attached to a certain lead weight, which may drown you, by trying to carry it.

Therefore, we can go back to a Hamiltonian approach, the same approach that Hamilton used, which led to the formation of our Federal Constitution. That is, Hamilton was in a situation, where he was a key figure in Washington's policy, and he had a situation in which the banks of the United States, which were state banks, state-chartered banks, were essentially bankrupted by the costs of fighting the War for Independence. Therefore, he had to create a national government, a Federal government, which, by being able to reorganize bankrupt banks, to prevent a chain reaction collapse, would save the United States from disintegration.

It was this consideration, of the bankruptcy of the state banks of the former colonies, at that time, which prompted, and motivated, the formation of the Federal Constitution.

Our system, from the beginning, was therefore, a credit system, as our Constitution provides. You can not print money, as such. You can utter money, you can utter credit, by a vote of the Congress, and the President. But what you can do, and how far you can go, is limited by this vote, by this action. So we create a debt, a debt commitment of the Federal government. This is our system. It's a credit system, not a monetary system.

European systems are monetary systems; they don't work. We have experimented with monetary systems, and we have now destroyed ourselves by doing so, during this period, because we did not think about physical values. We thought about money values, and said, "The money values will save us. The money values will help us."

Like this printing of fake money now, which will never be paid. Debt will never be paid under these conditions. Not the existing debt. Then we have to go back to the same thing, again. Go back to a credit system, as Roosevelt had intended on April 12, 1945, as opposed to what Truman did, on April 13. And that difference, between April 12 and April 13, is the key to understanding U.S. history since that point.

We go to a credit system: We can organize credit agreements, like treaty agreements, with Russia, China, India, and other countries. Europe can't do it. Europe is in a hopeless situation—Central and Western Europe right now. But if we do this, they will come in on it. We can rescue the system.

We have to move, therefore, from thinking about conflict among nations and regions, to the alternative to conflict, by finding that which unites us through our common purpose, as independent sovereign nations, rather than seeking resolution of a conflict we are now enjoying among ourselves. That's the only chance we have. And when you look at the possibilities for this region, like Southwest Asia, the only chance will come, not from inside Southwest Asia. We will do, and must do, what we can, for that area, to try to stop the bloodshed, the agony, to prevent the war. But we will not succeed, until we change the history, change the world in which this region is contained.

And that's my mission. Thank you.
 
 

268
News Items / 1-2-3 What Are We Fighting For?
« on: May 13, 2009, 09:32:43 PM »
1-2-3 What Are We Fighting For?
May 11, 2009

We’re been here before, many times.

The US causes massive civilian deaths through its indiscriminate use of heavy air power, and then tries to claim it’s the enemy’s fault for "hiding" among the civilians and "using them as shields."

In Vietnam, where the US was fighting against a local revolutionary movement that was seeking to overthrow the puppet regime backed by America, American planes routinely bombed and napalmed villages, claiming that the Viet Cong were hiding amongst the peasants. Women, old men and children would die in droves—several million of them by the time that war was over--and we’d be told it was all the fault of the Communists, who, we were told, had no regard for innocent life.

In Iraq, we took a city of 300,000, Fallujah, and effectively leveled it. Anyone who died there was presumed to be an insurgent, though the truth was, the Marines encircling the city before the onslaught only allowed fleeing women, girls and male children who were under the age 12 to flee, sending older boys and men seeking to get out back into the city to meet their fate.

Just this week, the brave Marines in Iraq blew away a 12-year-old boy after someone tossed a grenade their way. Local people said the grenade had been tossed by an older man standing near the boy, who fled. The unlucky boy, who was just a kid who sold gum for a living, had not done anything, local people said.

Now it’s Afghanistan, where upwards of 120 people, including babies and small children, were slaughtered during a battle in a remote part of the country in the latest example of mass deaths at the hands of American forces. Local people say that several villages in the Bala Baluk district of Farah Province of were intensely bombarded by US planes, causing most if not all of the deaths. The US response to the initial charges of a mass slaughter of civilians was to blame the deaths on the Taliban. When it became clear that the victims had died of burns and shrapnel, not from bullets, the US came out with a new explanation: The Taliban had tossed grenades at the locals. But reporters at the scene reported seeing huge craters and leveled buildings—not what you get from hand grenades. Then came reports of unusually deep and localized burns—the type caused by white phosphorus—a weapon that the US has used widely in Iraq--including in densely populated Fallujah—and in Afghanistan.

The Pentagon immediately said it did not use white phosphorus bombs in the battle in question, and suggested instead that perhaps the Taliban had used phosphorus grenades. This again was an absurd argument. The purpose of phosphorus weapons, primarily, is to light up a battlefield, but Taliban fighters don’t want lit up battlefields. They prefer operating the dark. It is the US that wants to light up targets.

Besides, there are those craters to explain.

So the next dance step was to say that the Taliban had caused the deaths, because during their retreat they had fled to the town, miles from the scene of the battle that led to the calling in of air support by US advisers to embattled government forces, and in so doing, had brought the attack upon the villagers.

Well, assuming that is true, there is still the problem that under the Geneva Conventions, it is a war crime to attack an enemy where the risk of harming large numbers of civilians is too great. The extreme example would the bombing of a school full of children on the grounds that a few enemy soldiers were hiding in the school (something that the Israeli military did in Gaza during the recent invasion, causing the deaths of dozens of children). But bombing a town full of people in order to hit a few retreating enemy fighters is equally criminal—a point that the Pentagon, and the compliant US media, are ignoring.

Barack Obama’s war in Afghanistan—for it is indeed his war now—is turning into the same kind of bloody imperial slaughter that Iraq was earlier under President Bush. The stated objective—eliminating Al Qaeda—has been lost. The enemy of all this fighting isn’t Al Qaeda at all; it is the indigenous Taliban—the former governing power in Afghanistan until the US invasion in 2001, and a political organization that never was an enemy of the US.

Whatever one might think of the religious fanatics and misogynists who go under the name Taliban, they are not seeking to overthrow the West. They are simply seeking to return to power in Afghanistan, one of the poorest, remotest, and economically and politically least important countries in the world.

And to defeat that movement, if that can even be done, the US is going to have to kill Afghani civilians by the truckload, as it has been doing.

And then there has to be the inevitable dancing around to hide the criminality of what the US is doing.

The blame-the-victim dance goes on.

Dave Lindorff is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. His latest book is "The Case for Impeachment" (St. Martin’s Press, 2006 and now available in paperback). He can be reached at dlindorff@mindspring.com 
 

269
Motion 15 from South Tyneside Stop the War Coalition

Block the Plans for Another Pro-War Government

Recognising that another world is possible is the vision of the anti-war
movement and that present pro-war government continues to defy the will
of the British people in prolonging the occupation of Iraq, in stepping up its
occupation of Afghanistan and in continuing its policy of interference in
other sovereign states.

Recognising that the continuation of this criminal pro-war policy, which is
not in our name,  is the preoccupation of the major political parties that are
part of these present and future arrangements which are being prepared
and promoted to be put in place at the next general election.

Recognising that, with the severe economic crisis, leaving in place such
pro-war arrangements  is extremely dangerous for the lives and liberties of
the people of Britain and the world.  That young people will increasingly be
used as cannon fodder for wars of aggression and occupation, to defend
the privileged positions of global monopolies and "British interests" and
that this will lead the world into an even more dangerous situation.

Recognising that the movement for change must rely first and foremost on
its own strength, organisation and sense of justice.

We resolve that the anti-war movement makes preparations to block these
plans of present and future pro-war government so as to bring about an
anti-war government.

We resolve that the movement should encourage the standing of anti-war
candidates in workplaces, communities, and all spheres of society, and
make preparations for the people to support such candidates.

Also, we resolve that the anti-war movement continues to work to form an
anti-war block with any candidate and organisation that wish to take a stand
in their communities for an anti-war government so that every candidate is
speaking out against the continued wars and occupations, against the
continued militarisation of the economy, against involvement in aggressive
military alliances such as NATO, against the stationing of British troops on
foreign soil and to take the stand for unity of the people of all nationalities
and to defend the rights of all.

End of motion


Roger Nettleship South Tyneside Stop the War Coalition Moving Motion 15 -Block the plans  for another Pro-War Government.

We think this is a very important issue.  The vision of the anti-war  movement is Another world is Possible  and the present pro-war government continues to defy the will of the British people in prolonging the occupation of Iraq, in stepping up its occupation of Afghanistan and in continuing its policy of interference in other sovereign states.

The continuation of this criminal pro-war policy is the preoccupation  of the major political parties that are part of these present and future arrangements which are being prepared and promoted to be put in place at the next general election.

With the severe economic crisis, leaving in place such pro-war arrangements is extremely dangerous for the lives and liberties, that has been spoken about at this conference, of all the people of Britain and the world.  That young people will increasingly be used as cannon fodder  for wars of aggression and occupation, to defend the privileged position of global monopolies and “British interests” and that this will lead to the world into an even more dangerous situation.

This movement for change must rely first and foremost on its own strength, organisation and sense of justice. The motion calls ojn the anti-war movement to make preparations to block theses plans of present and future pro-war government so as to bring about an anti-war government.

The movement should encourage the standing of anti-war candidates to make preparations to block these plans of present and future pro-war government so as to bring about an anti-war government.

The movement should encourage the standing of anti-war candidates in workplaces, communities, and all spheres of society, and make preparations for the people to support such candidates and working out how this can be done.   At the last general election one of the coalition in South Tyneside  stood an antiwar candidate in David Miliband's constituency and another in Jarrow supported by his union members and health staff. We had to do it in 4 weeks and because of the electoral laws we could not stand a candidate directly as a coalition because the coalition is not a political party but a member of the coalition stood as an independent candidate.  Another member of the group got support from his fellow health workers and stood against the privatisation and also also against the war agenda. This time there are a  number of people who are prospective candidates so we have called for serious discussions on this issue to make preparation  to all unite to block the warmongers from coming to power.

It is important we work to form and anti-war block with individuals and organisations, as well as any candidate that wishes to take a stand in their communities for an anti-war government so that every candidate is speaking out against the continued wars and occupations, against the continued militarisation of the economy, against involvement in aggressive military alliances such as NATO, against the stationing of British troops on foreign soil and to take a stand for the unity of the people of all nationalities and against racism. 

Finally, just to mention on the small change to the text of the motion. We have proposed a small change to the motion because we wanted to allay concerns that the motion was not extending support to candidates of other than small parties that take a firm stand against the war.  In South Tyneside and in the north east there are very few candidates of the calibre of Jeremy Corbyn, for example, and we have been battling away against David Miliband and I am sure you will wish us every success in attempting to defeat him at the next election. Thank you.
Applause

270
Motion from South Tyneside Stop the War Coalition

Block the Plans for Another Pro-War Government

Recognising that another world is possible is the vision of the anti-war
movement and that present pro-war government continues to defy the will
of the British people in prolonging the occupation of Iraq, in stepping up its
occupation of Afghanistan and in continuing its policy of interference in
other sovereign states.

Recognising that the continuation of this criminal pro-war policy, which is
not in our name,  is the preoccupation of the major political parties that are
part of these present and future arrangements which are being prepared
and promoted to be put in place at the next general election.

Recognising that, with the severe economic crisis, leaving in place such
pro-war arrangements  is extremely dangerous for the lives and liberties of
the people of Britain and the world.  That young people will increasingly be
used as cannon fodder for wars of aggression and occupation, to defend
the privileged positions of global monopolies and "British interests" and
that this will lead the world into an even more dangerous situation.

Recognising that the movement for change must rely first and foremost on
its own strength, organisation and sense of justice.

We resolve that the anti-war movement makes preparations to block these
plans of present and future pro-war government so as to bring about an
anti-war government.

We resolve that the movement should encourage the standing of anti-war
candidates in workplaces, communities, and all spheres of society, and
make preparations for the people to support such candidates.

Also, we resolve that the anti-war movement continues to work to form an
anti-war block with small parties and organisations that wish to take a stand
in their communities for an anti-war government so that every candidate is
speaking out against the continued wars and occupations, against the
continued militarisation of the economy, against involvement in aggressive
military alliances such as NATO, against the stationing of British troops on
foreign soil and to take the stand for unity of the people of all nationalities
and to defend the rights of all.

End of motion

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