That the MOD is trying to "write" the history of the Iraq War to teach in British schools and the history is not accurate. Man we all know the history was written by the victors and it is not accurate. But this is lunacy.
Have a look at this little bit from the article.
"What the MoD’s guide says… and what it omits
* “Iraq was invaded early 2003 by a United States coalition. Twenty-nine other countries, including the UK, also provided troops… Iraq had not abandoned its nuclear and chemical weapons development program”. After the first Gulf War, “Iraq did not honour the cease-fire agreement by surrendering weapons of mass destruction…”
The reality: The WMD allegation, central to the case for war, proved to be bogus. David Kay, appointed by the Bush administration to search for such weapons after the invasion, found no evidence of a serious programme or stockpiling of WMDs. The “coalition of the willing” was the rather grand title of a rag-tag group of countries which included Eritrea, El Salvador and Macedonia.
* “The invasion was also necessary to allow the opportunity to remove Saddam, an oppressive dictator, from power, and bring democracy to Iraq”.
The reality: Regime change was not the reason given in the run-up to the invasion - the US and UK governments had been advised it would be against international law. Saddam was regarded as an ally of the West while he was carrying out some of the worst of his atrocities. As for democracy, elections were held in Iraq during the occupation and have led to a sectarian Shia government. Attempts by the US to persuade the government to be more inclusive towards minorities have failed.
* “Over 7,000 British troops remain in Iraq… to contribute to reconstruction, training Iraqi security forces… They continue to fight against a strong militant Iraqi insurgency.”
The reality: The number of British troops in Iraq is now under 5,000. They withdrew from their last base inside Basra city in September and are now confined to the airport where they do not take part in direct combat operations.
* “The cost of UK military operations in Iraq for 2005/06 was £958m.”
The reality: The cost of military operations in Iraq has risen by 72 per cent in the past 12 months and the estimated cost for this year is £1.648bn. The House of Commons defence committee said it was “surprised” by the amount of money needed considering the slowing down of the tempo of operations.
* “Over 312,000 Iraqi security forces have been trained and equipped (Police, Army and Navy).”
The reality: The Iraqi security forces have been accused, among others by the American military, of running death squads targeting Sunnis. In Basra, the police became heavily infiltrated by Shia militias and British troops had to carry out several operations against them. On one occasion British troops had to smash their way into a police station to rescue two UK special forces soldiers who had been seized by the police.
* “A total of 132 UK military personnel have been killed in Iraq.”
The reality: The figure is 175 since the invasion of 2003. A British airman died in a rocket attack at the airport two weeks ago despite British troops not going into Basra city on operations. Conservative estimates of the number of Iraqi civilians killed since the beginning of the invasion stand at around 85,000.
* “From hospitals to schools to wastewater treatment plants, the presence of coalition troops is aiding the reconstruction of post-Saddam Iraq.”
The reality: Five years after “liberation”, Baghdad still only has a few hours of intermittent power a day. Children are kidnapped from schools for ransom and families of patients undergoing surgery at hospitals are advised to buy and bring in blood from sellers who congregate outside."
British Teachers Told to Rewrite History of Iraq War
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Food I Eat Again
I will have to eat biofuel from now onwords. And if I want to make money invest on companies like: Seed innovators Monsanto (MON, news, msgs) and Syngenta (SYT, news, msgs); fertilizer makers Potash of Saskatchewan (POT, news, msgs), Mosaic (MOS, news, msgs), CF Industries (CF, news, msgs) and Agrium (AGU, news, msgs); tractor maker Deere (DE, news, msgs); and, for exposure to the food futures themselves, the exchange-traded funds PowerShares DB Agriculture (DBA, news, msgs), iPath AIG Agriculture (JJA, news, msgs) and iPath AIG Grains (JJG, news, msgs).
Nice EU and UK passed bills n their respective paliaments to increase the production of biofuel in the future. Ha Ha. some of us petitioned the MPs and MEPs not to but to no avail. Funny init reading this article appeared.
This is what I said
Dear MEP,
I am writing to ask you to vote against increased EU biofuel targets as proposed by the European Commission in the draft Directive on renewable energy.
You may be aware of the overwhelming evidence published over the last few months that the large scale production of biofuels will
- have devastating effects on the world's most important habitats- have disastrous consequences for the poorest people and
- do little to tackle climate change.
Despite this evidence the European Commission has held on to its proposal to include a 10% target for biofuels by 2020.
The Commission proposes to avoid negative impacts from biofuels through the introduction of sustainability criteria.
In reality sustainability criteria fail to solve problems like the pressure biofuel crops exert on other agricultural land uses, pushing them into rainforests and other habitats (a problem known as leakage). And there are not even attempts to address social issues like land rights conflicts and the effects on the world's food prices.
If you feel you cannot vote against the target I would like to hear from you how you propose the problems of leakage and the social impacts of biofuels will be tackled. You can contact me by email or at the following address:
Flat 1 34, Badminton RoadBristolBS2 9QL
Yours sincerely,
Chris Bury
23 Feb 2008
Reply 1.
Dear Chris Bury,
Thank you for your email. I am of the belief that biofuels still present us with a greatopportunity, both for farmers, and to deal with our energy dependancy.However it is imperative that biofuel growth is sustainable.
I believe that the EU was not wrong to initially introduce ambitioustargets on the amount of fuel that should be replaced with biofuels butunfortunately many farmers in Britain have not felt they had the supportfrom the government to venture into biofuel production. The key to thelong-term viability of biofuels is ensuring our fuels are grown as closeto home as possible and that any growth is sustainable. Cutting down therainforest and digging up food crops when we have a world shortage offood is clearly not the best way to meet the targets.
However, with the future potential of second generation biofuels, whichare both cleaner and do not affect our ability to grow food, and with aproper accreditation scheme which can ensure that imports come fromsustainable sources, I still believe that biofuels can play an importantrole in our future energy needs. Therefore I do not support a furtherreduction in what is now a more modest target for biofuel use.
Yours sincerely, Neil Parish MEP
Reply 2
Dear Constituent
Please forgive my addressing you in this impersonal way but I have hadso many identical letters about biofuels that it is the only way I canreply quickly.
I do believe that biofuels have the potential to offer an alternativeform of energy that can help to alleviate Europe's dependence uponimported oil. Given that our transport sector is almost entirelydependent upon oil, the price of which doubled from 2003-6, biofuels mayoffer, in part, a means by which to cope with a severe security ofsupply challenge. Secondly, in an era in which climate change poses areal and significant threat, biofuels may offer greenhouse gas savings;the combustion of biofuels only releases carbon into the atmosphere thatwas absorbed by the biofuel crop during its growth. It is thereforehoped that biofuels may offer a carbon neutral solution to transport fuels.
The proposal to which you refer has not yet arrived in the Environment,Public Health and Food Safety Committee, of which I am a member. When itdoes, I agree with you that rather than blunder onwards towards such anarbitrary target with potentially weak sustainability criteria, weperhaps need to reassess what we are trying to do with biofuels andreconsider the whole approach. It is quite likely that the Parliamentreport will say something on similar lines and hopefully address theproblems of leakage and the social impacts of biofuels. How this will bedone will not be known until the rapporteur, the MEP responsible forsteering the dossier through the Parliament and the responsiblecommittees, has published his draft report.
Yours sincerely Caroline Jackson MEP
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Nice EU and UK passed bills n their respective paliaments to increase the production of biofuel in the future. Ha Ha. some of us petitioned the MPs and MEPs not to but to no avail. Funny init reading this article appeared.
This is what I said
Dear MEP,
I am writing to ask you to vote against increased EU biofuel targets as proposed by the European Commission in the draft Directive on renewable energy.
You may be aware of the overwhelming evidence published over the last few months that the large scale production of biofuels will
- have devastating effects on the world's most important habitats- have disastrous consequences for the poorest people and
- do little to tackle climate change.
Despite this evidence the European Commission has held on to its proposal to include a 10% target for biofuels by 2020.
The Commission proposes to avoid negative impacts from biofuels through the introduction of sustainability criteria.
In reality sustainability criteria fail to solve problems like the pressure biofuel crops exert on other agricultural land uses, pushing them into rainforests and other habitats (a problem known as leakage). And there are not even attempts to address social issues like land rights conflicts and the effects on the world's food prices.
If you feel you cannot vote against the target I would like to hear from you how you propose the problems of leakage and the social impacts of biofuels will be tackled. You can contact me by email or at the following address:
Flat 1 34, Badminton RoadBristolBS2 9QL
Yours sincerely,
Chris Bury
23 Feb 2008
Reply 1.
Dear Chris Bury,
Thank you for your email. I am of the belief that biofuels still present us with a greatopportunity, both for farmers, and to deal with our energy dependancy.However it is imperative that biofuel growth is sustainable.
I believe that the EU was not wrong to initially introduce ambitioustargets on the amount of fuel that should be replaced with biofuels butunfortunately many farmers in Britain have not felt they had the supportfrom the government to venture into biofuel production. The key to thelong-term viability of biofuels is ensuring our fuels are grown as closeto home as possible and that any growth is sustainable. Cutting down therainforest and digging up food crops when we have a world shortage offood is clearly not the best way to meet the targets.
However, with the future potential of second generation biofuels, whichare both cleaner and do not affect our ability to grow food, and with aproper accreditation scheme which can ensure that imports come fromsustainable sources, I still believe that biofuels can play an importantrole in our future energy needs. Therefore I do not support a furtherreduction in what is now a more modest target for biofuel use.
Yours sincerely, Neil Parish MEP
Reply 2
Dear Constituent
Please forgive my addressing you in this impersonal way but I have hadso many identical letters about biofuels that it is the only way I canreply quickly.
I do believe that biofuels have the potential to offer an alternativeform of energy that can help to alleviate Europe's dependence uponimported oil. Given that our transport sector is almost entirelydependent upon oil, the price of which doubled from 2003-6, biofuels mayoffer, in part, a means by which to cope with a severe security ofsupply challenge. Secondly, in an era in which climate change poses areal and significant threat, biofuels may offer greenhouse gas savings;the combustion of biofuels only releases carbon into the atmosphere thatwas absorbed by the biofuel crop during its growth. It is thereforehoped that biofuels may offer a carbon neutral solution to transport fuels.
The proposal to which you refer has not yet arrived in the Environment,Public Health and Food Safety Committee, of which I am a member. When itdoes, I agree with you that rather than blunder onwards towards such anarbitrary target with potentially weak sustainability criteria, weperhaps need to reassess what we are trying to do with biofuels andreconsider the whole approach. It is quite likely that the Parliamentreport will say something on similar lines and hopefully address theproblems of leakage and the social impacts of biofuels. How this will bedone will not be known until the rapporteur, the MEP responsible forsteering the dossier through the Parliament and the responsiblecommittees, has published his draft report.
Yours sincerely Caroline Jackson MEP
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
War Mongering People Colombia
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-Peoples Army (FARC-EP)
The Cost of Unilateral Humanitarian Initiatives
By James Petras
16/03/08 "ICH" -- - President Uribe’s troop and missile assault, violating Ecuadorian sovereignty came very close to precipitating a regional war with Ecuador and Venezuela. During an interview I had with President Chavez, at the time of this bellicose act, he confirmed to me the gravity of Uribe’s doctrine of ‘preventive war’ and ‘extra-territorial intervention’, calling the Colombian regime the ‘Israel of Latin America’. Earlier, during his Sunday radio program ‘Alo Presidente’, in which I was an invited guest, he followed up with an announcement that he was sending ground, air and sea forces to the Venezuelan frontier with Colombia.
Uribe’s cross-border attack was meant to probe the political ‘will’ of Ecuador and Venezuela to respond to military aggression, as well as to test the performance of US-coordinated remote, satellite directed missile attack. There is no doubt also that Uribe aimed to scuttle the imminent humanitarian release of FARC prisoner, Ingrid Betancourt, being negotiated by the French Foreign Minister, Bernard Kouchner, Ecuador’s Interior Minister Larrea, the Colombian Red Cross and especially Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Kouchner, Larrea and Chavez were in direct contact with FARC’s leader, Raul Reyes who, along with 22 others, including non-combatants of various nationalities, were assassinated in Ecuador by Uribe’s American-coordinated missile and ground attack. Uribe’s military intervention was in part directed at denying the important diplomatic role, which Chavez was playing in the release FARC-held prisoners, in contrast to the failure of Uribe’s military efforts to ‘free the prisoners’.
Raul Reyes was recognized as the legitimate interlocutor in these negotiations by both European and Latin American governments, as well as the Red Cross; if the negotiations succeeded in the prisoner release it was likely that the same governments and humanitarian bodies would pressure Uribe to open comprehensive prisoner exchange and peace negotiations with the FARC, which was contrary to Bush and Uribes’ policy of unrelenting warfare, political assassinations and scorched earth policies.
What was at stake in Uribe’s violating Ecuadorian sovereignty and murdering 22 FARC guerrillas and Mexican visitors was nothing less than the entire military counter-insurgency strategy, which has been pursued by Uribe since coming to office in 2002.
Uribe was clearly willing to risk what eventually happened – the censure and sanction of the Organization of American States and the (temporary) break in relations with Venezuela, Ecuador and Nicaragua. He did so because he could count on Washington’s backing, which covertly (and illegally) participated in and immediately applauded the attack. That was more important than jeopardizing cooperation with Latin American nations and France. Colombia remains Washington’s military forward shield in Latin America and, in particular, it is the most important politico-military instrument to destabilize and overthrow the anti-imperialist Chavez government. Clinton and Bush have invested over $6 billion dollars in military aid to Colombia over the past 7 years, including sending 1500 military advisers and Special Forces, dozens of Israeli commandos and ‘trainers’, funding over 2000 mercenary fighters and over 10,000 paramilitary forces working closely with the 200,000-man strong Colombian Armed Forces.
Notwithstanding these and other international considerations, influencing Uribe’s extra-territorial ‘act of war’, I would argue that the main consideration in this attack on the FARC campsite in Ecuador was to decapitate, weaken and isolate the most powerful guerrilla movement in Latin America and the most uncompromising opponent to Washington and Bogotá’s repressive neo-liberal policies. International politicians, including progressive leaders like Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez and Rafael Correa, who have called for the end of armed struggle, seem to overlook the recent experiences of FARC efforts to de-militarize the struggle, including three peace initiatives (1984-1990), (1999-2001) and (2007-2008) and the heavy costs to the FARC in terms of the killing of key leaders, activists and sympathizers. During the mid-1980’s many leaders of the FARC joined the electoral process, formed a political party – the Patriotic Union. The scores of successfully elected local and national officeholders and…5,000 of their members, leaders, congress-people and three presidential candidates were slaughtered. The FARC returned to the countryside and guerrilla struggle. Ten years later, the FARC agreed to negotiate with then President Pastrana in a demilitarized zone. The FARC held public forums, discussed policy alternatives for social and political reforms to democratize the state and debated private versus public ownership of strategic economic sectors with diverse sectors in ‘civil society’. President Pastrana, under pressure from US President Clinton and later Bush, abruptly broke off negotiations and sent the armed forces in to capture the FARC’s high level negotiating teams. The US-funded and advised Colombian military failed to capture the FARC leaders but set the stage for the scorched earth policies pursued by paramilitary President Uribe.
In 2007-2008, the FARC offered to negotiate the mutual release of political prisoners in a secure demilitarized zone in Colombia. Uribe refused. President Chavez entered into negotiations as a mediator. The French government and others challenged Chavez to ask for ‘evidence’ that the FARC prisoners were alive. The FARC complied with Chavez request. It sent three emissaries who were intercepted and are being detained by the Colombian military under brutal conditions. Still the FARC continued with Chavez request and attempted to relocate the first set of prisoners to be turned over to the Red Cross and Venezuelan officials – but they came under aerial attack by Uribe’s armed forces thus aborting the release. Still later, under increased risk, they were able to release the first batch of captives. The French Foreign Minister Kouchner and Chavez made new requests for the release of Ingrid Betancourt, a dual French-Colombian national and former presidential candidate. This was sabotaged when Uribe, with high-level US technical assistance, launched a major military offensive throughout the country, including a comprehensive monitoring program, tracing communications between Reyes, Chavez, Kouchner, Larrea and the Red Cross. It was this high-risk role played by Reyes as the highest level FARC official involved in the negotiations and coordination for captive release that led to his assassination. Outside pressures for a unilateral release of prisoners caused the FARC to lower their security. The result was the loss of leaders, negotiators, sympathizers and militants – without securing the release of any of their 500 comrades held in Colombian prisons. The entire emphasis of Sarkozy, Chavez, Correa and others demanded unilateral concessions from the FARC - as if their own tortured and dying comrades in Uribe’s jails were not part of any humanitarian consideration.
The subsequent summit in the Dominican Republic during the weekend of March 8-9 led to a condemnation of Colombia’s violation of Ecuador’s territorial sovereignty, but the Uribe government, responsible for the invasion, was not actually named or officially sanctioned. Moreover, no mention was made (let alone respect shown) for the treacherously assassinated leader, Raul Reyes, whose life was lost in pursuit of a humanitarian exchange. If the meeting itself was a disappointing response to a tragedy, the aftermath was a farce: a smiling Uribe, walked across the meeting hall and offered a hand shake and perfunctory apology to Correa and Chavez, while Nicaraguan President Ortega embraced the murderous leader of Colombia. By that vile and cynical gesture, Uribe turned the entire military mobilization and weeklong denunciations by Chavez and Correa into a comic opera. The post-meeting ‘reconciliation’ gave the appearance that their opposition to a cross-border attack and the cold-blooded murder of Reyes was merely political theater – a bad omen for the future if, as is likely, Uribe repeats his cross border attacks on an even larger scale. Will the people of Venezuela or Ecuador and the armed forces take serious another call for mobilization and readiness?
Less than a week after the Santa Domingo ‘reconciliation’ meeting, Chavez and Uribe renewed an earlier military agreement to cooperate against ‘violent groups whatever their origins’. Clearly Chavez hopes that by dissociating Venezuela from any suspicion of providing moral support to the FARC, Uribe will stop the large-scale flow of paramilitary infiltrators from entering Venezuela and destabilizing the country. In other words, ‘reasons of state’ take precedence over solidarity with the FARC. What should be clear to Chavez however is the fact that Uribe will not abide by his side of the agreement because of his ties to Washington, and the latter’s insistence that the Chavez government be destabilized by any or all means, including the continued infiltration by Colombian paramilitary forces into Venezuela.
Uribe could apologize to Correa and Chavez because the real purpose of his military attack was to destroy the FARC leadership, any way, any place, any time and under any circumstance – even in the midst of international negotiations. Washington placed a $5 million dollar bounty on each and every member of the FARC secretariat, long before Chavez or Correa came to power, Washington’s top priority – as witnessed by its military aid programs ($6 billion dollars in 7 years), size and scope of its military advisory mission (1500 US specialists) and the length of its involvement in counter-insurgency activities within Colombia (45 years) – was to destroy the FARC.
Washington and its Colombian surrogates were willing to incur the predictable displeasure of Correa, Chavez and the slap on the wrist by the OAS if they could succeed in killing the Number Two commander of the FARC. The reason is clear: it is the FARC and not the neighboring leaders, who influence a third of Colombia’s countryside; it is the FARC’s military-political power which ties down a third of Colombia’s armed forces and prevents Colombia from engaging in any major military intervention against Chavez at the behest of Washington. Uribe and Washington have pressured Correa into cutting most of the FARC’s logistical supply lines and many security camps on the Ecuadorian-Colombian border. Correa claims to have destroyed 11 FARC campsites and arrested 11 guerrillas. The Venezuelan National Guard has turned a blind eye to Colombian cross border military pursuit of FARC activists and sympathizers among the Colombian refugee-peasantry camped along the Venezuelan-Colombian border. Uribe and Washington’s pressure has forced Chavez to publicly disclaim any support for the FARC, its methods and strategy. The FARC is internationally isolated – the Cuban Foreign Ministry proclaimed the phony ‘reconciliation’ at Santo Domingo to be a ‘great victory’ for peace. The FARC is diplomatically isolated, even as it retains substantial domestic support in the provinces and countryside of Colombia.
With the ‘neutralization’ of outside support, or sympathy for the FARC, the Uribe regime – before, during and immediately after the Santo Domingo meeting – launched a series of bloody murders and threats against all progressive and leftist organizations. In the run-up to a March 6, 2008 200,000-strong ‘march against state terror’, hundreds of organizers and activists were threatened, abused, followed, interrogated and accused by Uribe of ‘supporting the FARC’, a government label, which was followed up by the death squad killings of the leader of the march and four other human rights spokespeople. Immediately following the mass demonstration, the principle Colombian trade union, the CUT (the Confederation of Colombian Workers) reported several assassinations and assaults including the head of the banking employees union, a leader of the teachers union, the head of the education section of the CUT and a researcher at a pedagogical institute. All told, over 5,000 trade unionists have been killed, 2 million peasants and farmers have been forcibly removed and their land seized by pro-Uribe paramilitary forces and landlords. Former self-confessed death squad leaders publicly have admitted to funding and controlling over one-third of the elected members of Congress backing Uribe. Currently 30 congress-people are on trial for ‘association’ with the paramilitary death squads. Several of Uribe’s most intimate cabinet collaborators were exposed as having family ties with the death squads and two were forced to resign.
Despite international disrepute, especially in Latin America, with powerful support from Washington, Uribe has built up a murderous killing machine of 200,000 military, 30,000 police, several thousand death squad killers and over a million fanatical middle and upper class Colombians in favor of ‘wiping out the FARC’ – meaning eliminating independent popular organizations of civil society. More than any other past Colombian oligarchic rulers, Uribe is the closest to a fascist dictator combining state terror with mass mobilization.
The opposition political and social movements in Colombia are massive, committed and vulnerable. They are subject to daily intimidation and gangland-style murder. Through terror and mass propaganda, Uribe has so far been able to impose his rule over the working class opposition and attract mass middle class support. But he has utterly failed to defeat, destroy or disarticulate the FARC – his most consequential opposition. Each year since he has come to power, Uribe has pledged massive, all-out military sweeps of entire regions of the country, which would finally put an end to the ‘terrorists’. Tens of thousands of peasants in FARC-influenced regions have been tortured, raped, murdered and driven from their homes. Each of Uribe’s military offensives has failed. Yet he absolutely and totally fails to recognize what some generals and even US officials observe: the FARC cannot be militarily annihilated and at some point the government must negotiate.
Uribe’s failures and the enduring presence of the FARC have become a psychotic obsession: All territorial, legal, international constraints are thrown overboard. Alternating between euphoria and hysteria, faced with internal opposition to his mono-maniac strategy of terror, he screams ‘FARC supporters’ at any and all overseas and Colombian critics. To Ecuador and Venezuela, he promises ‘not to invade their territory again’ unless ‘circumstances warrant it.’ So much for ‘reconciliation.’
The period of humanitarian exchange is dead; the FARC cannot and will not accommodate the requests of well-intentioned friends, especially when it puts in risk the entire FARC organization and leadership. Let us concede that Chavez intentions were well meant. His pleas for a mutual release of prisoners might have made sense if he had been dealing with a rational bourgeois politician responsive to international leaders and organizations and eager to create a favorable image before world public opinion. But it was naïve for Chavez to believe that a psychotic politician with a history of annihilating his opposition would suddenly discover the virtues of negotiations and humanitarian exchanges. Without question, the FARC understands better than its Andean and Caribbean friends through hard experience and bitter lessons, that armed struggle may not be the desired method but it is the only realistic way to confront a brutal fascist regime.
Uribe’s killing of Raul Reyes was not about Chavez initiatives or Ecuador’s sovereignty or Ingrid Betancourt’s captivity, it was about Raul Reyes, a consequential and life-long revolutionary and leader of the FARC. The war-scare is over, differences have been papered over, the leaders have returned to their palaces, but Raul Reyes has not been forgotten – at least not in the countryside of Colombia or in the hearts of its peasants.
James Petras, a former Professor of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York, owns a 50-year membership in the class struggle, is an adviser to the landless and jobless in Brazil and Argentina, and is co-author of Globalization Unmasked (Zed Books). His latest book is "The Power of Israel in the United States" (Clarity Press, 2006).
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
The Cost of Unilateral Humanitarian Initiatives
By James Petras
16/03/08 "ICH" -- - President Uribe’s troop and missile assault, violating Ecuadorian sovereignty came very close to precipitating a regional war with Ecuador and Venezuela. During an interview I had with President Chavez, at the time of this bellicose act, he confirmed to me the gravity of Uribe’s doctrine of ‘preventive war’ and ‘extra-territorial intervention’, calling the Colombian regime the ‘Israel of Latin America’. Earlier, during his Sunday radio program ‘Alo Presidente’, in which I was an invited guest, he followed up with an announcement that he was sending ground, air and sea forces to the Venezuelan frontier with Colombia.
Uribe’s cross-border attack was meant to probe the political ‘will’ of Ecuador and Venezuela to respond to military aggression, as well as to test the performance of US-coordinated remote, satellite directed missile attack. There is no doubt also that Uribe aimed to scuttle the imminent humanitarian release of FARC prisoner, Ingrid Betancourt, being negotiated by the French Foreign Minister, Bernard Kouchner, Ecuador’s Interior Minister Larrea, the Colombian Red Cross and especially Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Kouchner, Larrea and Chavez were in direct contact with FARC’s leader, Raul Reyes who, along with 22 others, including non-combatants of various nationalities, were assassinated in Ecuador by Uribe’s American-coordinated missile and ground attack. Uribe’s military intervention was in part directed at denying the important diplomatic role, which Chavez was playing in the release FARC-held prisoners, in contrast to the failure of Uribe’s military efforts to ‘free the prisoners’.
Raul Reyes was recognized as the legitimate interlocutor in these negotiations by both European and Latin American governments, as well as the Red Cross; if the negotiations succeeded in the prisoner release it was likely that the same governments and humanitarian bodies would pressure Uribe to open comprehensive prisoner exchange and peace negotiations with the FARC, which was contrary to Bush and Uribes’ policy of unrelenting warfare, political assassinations and scorched earth policies.
What was at stake in Uribe’s violating Ecuadorian sovereignty and murdering 22 FARC guerrillas and Mexican visitors was nothing less than the entire military counter-insurgency strategy, which has been pursued by Uribe since coming to office in 2002.
Uribe was clearly willing to risk what eventually happened – the censure and sanction of the Organization of American States and the (temporary) break in relations with Venezuela, Ecuador and Nicaragua. He did so because he could count on Washington’s backing, which covertly (and illegally) participated in and immediately applauded the attack. That was more important than jeopardizing cooperation with Latin American nations and France. Colombia remains Washington’s military forward shield in Latin America and, in particular, it is the most important politico-military instrument to destabilize and overthrow the anti-imperialist Chavez government. Clinton and Bush have invested over $6 billion dollars in military aid to Colombia over the past 7 years, including sending 1500 military advisers and Special Forces, dozens of Israeli commandos and ‘trainers’, funding over 2000 mercenary fighters and over 10,000 paramilitary forces working closely with the 200,000-man strong Colombian Armed Forces.
Notwithstanding these and other international considerations, influencing Uribe’s extra-territorial ‘act of war’, I would argue that the main consideration in this attack on the FARC campsite in Ecuador was to decapitate, weaken and isolate the most powerful guerrilla movement in Latin America and the most uncompromising opponent to Washington and Bogotá’s repressive neo-liberal policies. International politicians, including progressive leaders like Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez and Rafael Correa, who have called for the end of armed struggle, seem to overlook the recent experiences of FARC efforts to de-militarize the struggle, including three peace initiatives (1984-1990), (1999-2001) and (2007-2008) and the heavy costs to the FARC in terms of the killing of key leaders, activists and sympathizers. During the mid-1980’s many leaders of the FARC joined the electoral process, formed a political party – the Patriotic Union. The scores of successfully elected local and national officeholders and…5,000 of their members, leaders, congress-people and three presidential candidates were slaughtered. The FARC returned to the countryside and guerrilla struggle. Ten years later, the FARC agreed to negotiate with then President Pastrana in a demilitarized zone. The FARC held public forums, discussed policy alternatives for social and political reforms to democratize the state and debated private versus public ownership of strategic economic sectors with diverse sectors in ‘civil society’. President Pastrana, under pressure from US President Clinton and later Bush, abruptly broke off negotiations and sent the armed forces in to capture the FARC’s high level negotiating teams. The US-funded and advised Colombian military failed to capture the FARC leaders but set the stage for the scorched earth policies pursued by paramilitary President Uribe.
In 2007-2008, the FARC offered to negotiate the mutual release of political prisoners in a secure demilitarized zone in Colombia. Uribe refused. President Chavez entered into negotiations as a mediator. The French government and others challenged Chavez to ask for ‘evidence’ that the FARC prisoners were alive. The FARC complied with Chavez request. It sent three emissaries who were intercepted and are being detained by the Colombian military under brutal conditions. Still the FARC continued with Chavez request and attempted to relocate the first set of prisoners to be turned over to the Red Cross and Venezuelan officials – but they came under aerial attack by Uribe’s armed forces thus aborting the release. Still later, under increased risk, they were able to release the first batch of captives. The French Foreign Minister Kouchner and Chavez made new requests for the release of Ingrid Betancourt, a dual French-Colombian national and former presidential candidate. This was sabotaged when Uribe, with high-level US technical assistance, launched a major military offensive throughout the country, including a comprehensive monitoring program, tracing communications between Reyes, Chavez, Kouchner, Larrea and the Red Cross. It was this high-risk role played by Reyes as the highest level FARC official involved in the negotiations and coordination for captive release that led to his assassination. Outside pressures for a unilateral release of prisoners caused the FARC to lower their security. The result was the loss of leaders, negotiators, sympathizers and militants – without securing the release of any of their 500 comrades held in Colombian prisons. The entire emphasis of Sarkozy, Chavez, Correa and others demanded unilateral concessions from the FARC - as if their own tortured and dying comrades in Uribe’s jails were not part of any humanitarian consideration.
The subsequent summit in the Dominican Republic during the weekend of March 8-9 led to a condemnation of Colombia’s violation of Ecuador’s territorial sovereignty, but the Uribe government, responsible for the invasion, was not actually named or officially sanctioned. Moreover, no mention was made (let alone respect shown) for the treacherously assassinated leader, Raul Reyes, whose life was lost in pursuit of a humanitarian exchange. If the meeting itself was a disappointing response to a tragedy, the aftermath was a farce: a smiling Uribe, walked across the meeting hall and offered a hand shake and perfunctory apology to Correa and Chavez, while Nicaraguan President Ortega embraced the murderous leader of Colombia. By that vile and cynical gesture, Uribe turned the entire military mobilization and weeklong denunciations by Chavez and Correa into a comic opera. The post-meeting ‘reconciliation’ gave the appearance that their opposition to a cross-border attack and the cold-blooded murder of Reyes was merely political theater – a bad omen for the future if, as is likely, Uribe repeats his cross border attacks on an even larger scale. Will the people of Venezuela or Ecuador and the armed forces take serious another call for mobilization and readiness?
Less than a week after the Santa Domingo ‘reconciliation’ meeting, Chavez and Uribe renewed an earlier military agreement to cooperate against ‘violent groups whatever their origins’. Clearly Chavez hopes that by dissociating Venezuela from any suspicion of providing moral support to the FARC, Uribe will stop the large-scale flow of paramilitary infiltrators from entering Venezuela and destabilizing the country. In other words, ‘reasons of state’ take precedence over solidarity with the FARC. What should be clear to Chavez however is the fact that Uribe will not abide by his side of the agreement because of his ties to Washington, and the latter’s insistence that the Chavez government be destabilized by any or all means, including the continued infiltration by Colombian paramilitary forces into Venezuela.
Uribe could apologize to Correa and Chavez because the real purpose of his military attack was to destroy the FARC leadership, any way, any place, any time and under any circumstance – even in the midst of international negotiations. Washington placed a $5 million dollar bounty on each and every member of the FARC secretariat, long before Chavez or Correa came to power, Washington’s top priority – as witnessed by its military aid programs ($6 billion dollars in 7 years), size and scope of its military advisory mission (1500 US specialists) and the length of its involvement in counter-insurgency activities within Colombia (45 years) – was to destroy the FARC.
Washington and its Colombian surrogates were willing to incur the predictable displeasure of Correa, Chavez and the slap on the wrist by the OAS if they could succeed in killing the Number Two commander of the FARC. The reason is clear: it is the FARC and not the neighboring leaders, who influence a third of Colombia’s countryside; it is the FARC’s military-political power which ties down a third of Colombia’s armed forces and prevents Colombia from engaging in any major military intervention against Chavez at the behest of Washington. Uribe and Washington have pressured Correa into cutting most of the FARC’s logistical supply lines and many security camps on the Ecuadorian-Colombian border. Correa claims to have destroyed 11 FARC campsites and arrested 11 guerrillas. The Venezuelan National Guard has turned a blind eye to Colombian cross border military pursuit of FARC activists and sympathizers among the Colombian refugee-peasantry camped along the Venezuelan-Colombian border. Uribe and Washington’s pressure has forced Chavez to publicly disclaim any support for the FARC, its methods and strategy. The FARC is internationally isolated – the Cuban Foreign Ministry proclaimed the phony ‘reconciliation’ at Santo Domingo to be a ‘great victory’ for peace. The FARC is diplomatically isolated, even as it retains substantial domestic support in the provinces and countryside of Colombia.
With the ‘neutralization’ of outside support, or sympathy for the FARC, the Uribe regime – before, during and immediately after the Santo Domingo meeting – launched a series of bloody murders and threats against all progressive and leftist organizations. In the run-up to a March 6, 2008 200,000-strong ‘march against state terror’, hundreds of organizers and activists were threatened, abused, followed, interrogated and accused by Uribe of ‘supporting the FARC’, a government label, which was followed up by the death squad killings of the leader of the march and four other human rights spokespeople. Immediately following the mass demonstration, the principle Colombian trade union, the CUT (the Confederation of Colombian Workers) reported several assassinations and assaults including the head of the banking employees union, a leader of the teachers union, the head of the education section of the CUT and a researcher at a pedagogical institute. All told, over 5,000 trade unionists have been killed, 2 million peasants and farmers have been forcibly removed and their land seized by pro-Uribe paramilitary forces and landlords. Former self-confessed death squad leaders publicly have admitted to funding and controlling over one-third of the elected members of Congress backing Uribe. Currently 30 congress-people are on trial for ‘association’ with the paramilitary death squads. Several of Uribe’s most intimate cabinet collaborators were exposed as having family ties with the death squads and two were forced to resign.
Despite international disrepute, especially in Latin America, with powerful support from Washington, Uribe has built up a murderous killing machine of 200,000 military, 30,000 police, several thousand death squad killers and over a million fanatical middle and upper class Colombians in favor of ‘wiping out the FARC’ – meaning eliminating independent popular organizations of civil society. More than any other past Colombian oligarchic rulers, Uribe is the closest to a fascist dictator combining state terror with mass mobilization.
The opposition political and social movements in Colombia are massive, committed and vulnerable. They are subject to daily intimidation and gangland-style murder. Through terror and mass propaganda, Uribe has so far been able to impose his rule over the working class opposition and attract mass middle class support. But he has utterly failed to defeat, destroy or disarticulate the FARC – his most consequential opposition. Each year since he has come to power, Uribe has pledged massive, all-out military sweeps of entire regions of the country, which would finally put an end to the ‘terrorists’. Tens of thousands of peasants in FARC-influenced regions have been tortured, raped, murdered and driven from their homes. Each of Uribe’s military offensives has failed. Yet he absolutely and totally fails to recognize what some generals and even US officials observe: the FARC cannot be militarily annihilated and at some point the government must negotiate.
Uribe’s failures and the enduring presence of the FARC have become a psychotic obsession: All territorial, legal, international constraints are thrown overboard. Alternating between euphoria and hysteria, faced with internal opposition to his mono-maniac strategy of terror, he screams ‘FARC supporters’ at any and all overseas and Colombian critics. To Ecuador and Venezuela, he promises ‘not to invade their territory again’ unless ‘circumstances warrant it.’ So much for ‘reconciliation.’
The period of humanitarian exchange is dead; the FARC cannot and will not accommodate the requests of well-intentioned friends, especially when it puts in risk the entire FARC organization and leadership. Let us concede that Chavez intentions were well meant. His pleas for a mutual release of prisoners might have made sense if he had been dealing with a rational bourgeois politician responsive to international leaders and organizations and eager to create a favorable image before world public opinion. But it was naïve for Chavez to believe that a psychotic politician with a history of annihilating his opposition would suddenly discover the virtues of negotiations and humanitarian exchanges. Without question, the FARC understands better than its Andean and Caribbean friends through hard experience and bitter lessons, that armed struggle may not be the desired method but it is the only realistic way to confront a brutal fascist regime.
Uribe’s killing of Raul Reyes was not about Chavez initiatives or Ecuador’s sovereignty or Ingrid Betancourt’s captivity, it was about Raul Reyes, a consequential and life-long revolutionary and leader of the FARC. The war-scare is over, differences have been papered over, the leaders have returned to their palaces, but Raul Reyes has not been forgotten – at least not in the countryside of Colombia or in the hearts of its peasants.
James Petras, a former Professor of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York, owns a 50-year membership in the class struggle, is an adviser to the landless and jobless in Brazil and Argentina, and is co-author of Globalization Unmasked (Zed Books). His latest book is "The Power of Israel in the United States" (Clarity Press, 2006).
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
War Mongering People Israel
"I Came, I Saw, I Destroyed!"
By Uri Avnery
16/03/08 "ICH" --- WHAT HAPPENED this week is so infuriating, so impertinent, that it stands out even in our familiar landscape of governmental irresponsibility.
On the near horizon, a de facto suspension of hostilities was taking shape. The Egyptians had made great efforts to turn it into an official cease-fire. The flame was already burning visibly lower. The launching of Qassams and Grads from the Gaza Strip into Israel had fallen from dozens a day to two or three.
And then something happened that turned the flame up high again: undercover soldiers of the Israeli army killed four Palestinians militants in Bethlehem. A fifth was killed in a village near Tulkarm.
THE MODUS OPERANDI left no doubt about the intention.
As usual, the official version was mendacious. (When the army spokesman speaks the truth, he is ashamed and immediately hurries on to the next lie.) The four, it was said, drew their weapons and endangered the life of the soldiers, who only wanted to arrest them, so they were compelled to open fire.
Anyone with half a brain knows that this is a lie. The four were in a small car on the main street of Bethlehem, the road that has joined Jerusalem and Hebron since British (or Turkish) times. They were indeed armed, but they had no chance at all of drawing their weapons. The car was simply sprayed with dozens of bullets.
That was not an attempt to make an arrest. That was an execution, pure and simple, one of those summary executions in which the Shin Bet fulfils the roles of prosecutor, judge and executioner.
This time no effort was even made to pretend that the four were about to carry out a murderous attack. It was not claimed, for example, that they had anything to do with last week's attack on the Mercaz Harav seminary, the flagship of the settlers' fleet. Actually, no such pretense could be put forward, because the most important of the four had recently given interviews to the Israeli media and announced that he was availing himself of the Israeli "pardon scheme" - a Shin Bet program under which "wanted" militants give up their arms and undertake to cease resistance to the occupation. He was also a candidate in the last Palestinian elections.
If so, why where they killed? The Shin Bet did not hide the reason: two of the four had participated in attacks in 2001 in which Israelis were killed.
"Our long arm will get them even years later," Ehud Barak boasted on TV, "we shall get everyone with Jewish blood on his hands."
SIMPLY PUT: The Defense Minister and his men endangered today's cease-fire in order to avenge something that happened seven years ago.
It was obvious to all that the killing of Islamic Jihad militants in Bethlehem would cause the renewal of the Qassam launchings on Sderot. And so it happened.
The effect of a Qassam rocket is completely unpredictable. For the residents of Sderot, this is a kind of Israeli Roulette - the rocket may fall in an empty field, it may fall on a building, sometimes it kills people.
In other words, according to Barak himself, he was ready to risk Jewish lives today in order to take revenge on persons who may perhaps have shed blood years ago and have since given up their armed activity.
The emphasis is on the word "Jewish". In his statement, Barak took care not to speak about persons "with blood on their hands", but about those "with Jewish blood on their hands". Jewish blood, of course, is quite different from any other blood. And indeed, there is no person in the Israeli leadership with so much blood on his hands as him. Not abstract blood, not metaphorical blood, but very real red blood. In the course of his military service, Barak has personally killed quite a number of Arabs. Whoever shakes his hand - from Condoleezza Rice to this week's honored guest, Angela Merkel - is shaking a hand with blood on it.
THE BETHLEHEM killing raises a number of hard questions, but with very few exceptions, the media did not voice them. They shirk their duty, as usual when it concerns "security" problems.
Real journalists in a real democratic state would have asked the following questions:
(a) Who was it who decided on the executions in Bethlehem - Ehud Olmert? Ehud Barak? The Shin Bet? All of them? None of them?
(b) Did the decision-makers understand that by condemning the militants in Bethlehem to death, they were also condemning to death any residents of Sderot or Ashkelon who might be killed by the rockets launched in revenge?
(c) Did they understand that they were also boxing the ears of Mahmoud Abbas, whose security forces, which in theory are in charge of Bethlehem, would be accused of collaborating with the Israeli death-squad?
(d) Was the real aim of the action to undermine the cease-fire that had come about in practice in the Gaza Strip (and the reality of which was official denied both by Olmert and Barak, even while the number of rockets launched fell from dozens a day to just two or three?)
(e) Does the Israeli government generally object to a cease-fire that would free Sderot and Ashkelon from the threat of the rockets?
(f) If so, why?
The media did not demand that Olmert and Barak expose to the public the considerations that led them to adopt this decision, which concerns every person in Israel. And no wonder. These are, after all, the same media that danced for joy when the same government started an ill-considered and superfluous war in Lebanon. They are also the same media that kept silent, this week, when the government decided to hit the freedom of the press and to boycott the Aljazeera TV network, as punishment for showing babies killed during the Israeli army's recent incursion in Gaza.
But for two or three courageous journalists with an independent mind,
all our written and broadcast media march in lockstep, like a Prussian regiment on parade, when the word "security" is mentioned.
(This phenomenon was exposed this week in CounterPunch by a journalist named Yonatan Mendel, a former employee of the popular Israeli web-site Walla. He pointed out that all the media, from the Channel 1 news program to the Haaretz news pages, as if by order, voluntarily use exactly the same slanted terminology: the Israeli army confirms and the Palestinians claim, Jews are murdered while Palestinians are killed or find their death, Jews are abducted while Arabs are arrested, the Israeli army always responds while the Palestinians always attack, the Jews are soldiers while Arabs are terrorists or just murderers, the Israeli army always hits high-ranking terrorists and never low-ranking terrorists, men and women suffering from shock are always Jews, never Arabs. And, as we said, people with blood on their hands are always Arabs, never-ever Jews. This, by the way, also goes for much of the foreign coverage of events here.)
WHEN THE GOVERNMENT does not disclose its intentions, we have no choice but to deduce its intentions from its actions. That is a judicial rule: when a person does something with a foreseeable result, it is assumed that he did it in order to obtain this result.
The government which decided on the killing in Bethlehem undoubtedly intended to torpedo the cease-fire.
Why does it want to do so?
There are several possible kinds of cease-fire. The most simple is the cessation of hostilities on the Gaza Strip border. No Qassams, Grads and mortar shells on the one side, no targeted assassinations, bombardments, shelling and incursion on the other side.
It is known that the army objects to that. They want to be free to "liquidate" from the air and raid on the ground. They want a one-sided cease-fire.
A limited cease-fire is impossible. Hamas cannot agree to it, as long as the blockade cuts the Strip off on all sides and turn life there into hell - not enough medicines, not enough food, the seriously ill cannot reach appropriate hospitals, the movement of cars has come to an almost complete standstill, no imports or exports, no production or commercial activity. The opening of all border crossings for the movement of goods is, therefore, an essential component of a cease-fire.
Our government is not willing to do that, because it would mean the consolidation of the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip. Government sources hint that Abbas and his people in Ramallah also object to the lifting of the blockade - a malicious rumor, because it would mean that Abbas is conducting a war against his own people. President Bush also rejects a cease-fire, even while his people pretend the opposite. Europe, as usual, is trailing along behind the US.
Can Hamas agree to a cease-fire that would apply only to the Gaza Strip but not to the West Bank? That is doubtful. This week it was proven that the Islamic Jihad organization in Gaza cannot stand idly by while its members are killed in Bethlehem. Hamas could not stand by in Gaza and enjoy the fruits of government if the Israeli army were to kill Hamas militants in Nablus or Jenin. And, of course, no Palestinian would agree that the Gaza Strip and the West Bank are two separate entities.
A Gaza-only cease-fire would allow Barak to blow it to pieces at any moment by a Bethlehem-style provocation. This is how it could go: Hamas agrees to a Gaza-only cease-fire, the Israeli army kills a dozen Hamas members in Hebron, Hamas responds by launching Grad missiles at Ashkelon, Olmert tells the world: You see? The terrorist Hamas is violating the cease-fire, which proves that we have no partner!
This means that a real and durable cease-fire, which would create the necessary atmosphere for real peace negotiations, must include the West Bank, too. Olmert-Barak would not dream of agreeing to that. And as long as George Bush is around, there will be no effective pressure on our government.
A PROPOS: who is really in charge in Israel at this time?
This week's events point to the answer: the man who makes the decisions is Ehud Barak, the most dangerous person in Israel, the very same Barak who blew up the Camp David conference and persuaded the entire Israeli public that "we have no partner for peace".
2052 years ago today, on the Ides of March, Julius Caesar was assassinated. Ehud Barak sees himself as a latter-day local replica of the Roman general. He, too, would dearly want to report: "I came, I saw, I conquered."
But the reality is rather different: He came, he saw, he destroyed.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
By Uri Avnery
16/03/08 "ICH" --- WHAT HAPPENED this week is so infuriating, so impertinent, that it stands out even in our familiar landscape of governmental irresponsibility.
On the near horizon, a de facto suspension of hostilities was taking shape. The Egyptians had made great efforts to turn it into an official cease-fire. The flame was already burning visibly lower. The launching of Qassams and Grads from the Gaza Strip into Israel had fallen from dozens a day to two or three.
And then something happened that turned the flame up high again: undercover soldiers of the Israeli army killed four Palestinians militants in Bethlehem. A fifth was killed in a village near Tulkarm.
THE MODUS OPERANDI left no doubt about the intention.
As usual, the official version was mendacious. (When the army spokesman speaks the truth, he is ashamed and immediately hurries on to the next lie.) The four, it was said, drew their weapons and endangered the life of the soldiers, who only wanted to arrest them, so they were compelled to open fire.
Anyone with half a brain knows that this is a lie. The four were in a small car on the main street of Bethlehem, the road that has joined Jerusalem and Hebron since British (or Turkish) times. They were indeed armed, but they had no chance at all of drawing their weapons. The car was simply sprayed with dozens of bullets.
That was not an attempt to make an arrest. That was an execution, pure and simple, one of those summary executions in which the Shin Bet fulfils the roles of prosecutor, judge and executioner.
This time no effort was even made to pretend that the four were about to carry out a murderous attack. It was not claimed, for example, that they had anything to do with last week's attack on the Mercaz Harav seminary, the flagship of the settlers' fleet. Actually, no such pretense could be put forward, because the most important of the four had recently given interviews to the Israeli media and announced that he was availing himself of the Israeli "pardon scheme" - a Shin Bet program under which "wanted" militants give up their arms and undertake to cease resistance to the occupation. He was also a candidate in the last Palestinian elections.
If so, why where they killed? The Shin Bet did not hide the reason: two of the four had participated in attacks in 2001 in which Israelis were killed.
"Our long arm will get them even years later," Ehud Barak boasted on TV, "we shall get everyone with Jewish blood on his hands."
SIMPLY PUT: The Defense Minister and his men endangered today's cease-fire in order to avenge something that happened seven years ago.
It was obvious to all that the killing of Islamic Jihad militants in Bethlehem would cause the renewal of the Qassam launchings on Sderot. And so it happened.
The effect of a Qassam rocket is completely unpredictable. For the residents of Sderot, this is a kind of Israeli Roulette - the rocket may fall in an empty field, it may fall on a building, sometimes it kills people.
In other words, according to Barak himself, he was ready to risk Jewish lives today in order to take revenge on persons who may perhaps have shed blood years ago and have since given up their armed activity.
The emphasis is on the word "Jewish". In his statement, Barak took care not to speak about persons "with blood on their hands", but about those "with Jewish blood on their hands". Jewish blood, of course, is quite different from any other blood. And indeed, there is no person in the Israeli leadership with so much blood on his hands as him. Not abstract blood, not metaphorical blood, but very real red blood. In the course of his military service, Barak has personally killed quite a number of Arabs. Whoever shakes his hand - from Condoleezza Rice to this week's honored guest, Angela Merkel - is shaking a hand with blood on it.
THE BETHLEHEM killing raises a number of hard questions, but with very few exceptions, the media did not voice them. They shirk their duty, as usual when it concerns "security" problems.
Real journalists in a real democratic state would have asked the following questions:
(a) Who was it who decided on the executions in Bethlehem - Ehud Olmert? Ehud Barak? The Shin Bet? All of them? None of them?
(b) Did the decision-makers understand that by condemning the militants in Bethlehem to death, they were also condemning to death any residents of Sderot or Ashkelon who might be killed by the rockets launched in revenge?
(c) Did they understand that they were also boxing the ears of Mahmoud Abbas, whose security forces, which in theory are in charge of Bethlehem, would be accused of collaborating with the Israeli death-squad?
(d) Was the real aim of the action to undermine the cease-fire that had come about in practice in the Gaza Strip (and the reality of which was official denied both by Olmert and Barak, even while the number of rockets launched fell from dozens a day to just two or three?)
(e) Does the Israeli government generally object to a cease-fire that would free Sderot and Ashkelon from the threat of the rockets?
(f) If so, why?
The media did not demand that Olmert and Barak expose to the public the considerations that led them to adopt this decision, which concerns every person in Israel. And no wonder. These are, after all, the same media that danced for joy when the same government started an ill-considered and superfluous war in Lebanon. They are also the same media that kept silent, this week, when the government decided to hit the freedom of the press and to boycott the Aljazeera TV network, as punishment for showing babies killed during the Israeli army's recent incursion in Gaza.
But for two or three courageous journalists with an independent mind,
all our written and broadcast media march in lockstep, like a Prussian regiment on parade, when the word "security" is mentioned.
(This phenomenon was exposed this week in CounterPunch by a journalist named Yonatan Mendel, a former employee of the popular Israeli web-site Walla. He pointed out that all the media, from the Channel 1 news program to the Haaretz news pages, as if by order, voluntarily use exactly the same slanted terminology: the Israeli army confirms and the Palestinians claim, Jews are murdered while Palestinians are killed or find their death, Jews are abducted while Arabs are arrested, the Israeli army always responds while the Palestinians always attack, the Jews are soldiers while Arabs are terrorists or just murderers, the Israeli army always hits high-ranking terrorists and never low-ranking terrorists, men and women suffering from shock are always Jews, never Arabs. And, as we said, people with blood on their hands are always Arabs, never-ever Jews. This, by the way, also goes for much of the foreign coverage of events here.)
WHEN THE GOVERNMENT does not disclose its intentions, we have no choice but to deduce its intentions from its actions. That is a judicial rule: when a person does something with a foreseeable result, it is assumed that he did it in order to obtain this result.
The government which decided on the killing in Bethlehem undoubtedly intended to torpedo the cease-fire.
Why does it want to do so?
There are several possible kinds of cease-fire. The most simple is the cessation of hostilities on the Gaza Strip border. No Qassams, Grads and mortar shells on the one side, no targeted assassinations, bombardments, shelling and incursion on the other side.
It is known that the army objects to that. They want to be free to "liquidate" from the air and raid on the ground. They want a one-sided cease-fire.
A limited cease-fire is impossible. Hamas cannot agree to it, as long as the blockade cuts the Strip off on all sides and turn life there into hell - not enough medicines, not enough food, the seriously ill cannot reach appropriate hospitals, the movement of cars has come to an almost complete standstill, no imports or exports, no production or commercial activity. The opening of all border crossings for the movement of goods is, therefore, an essential component of a cease-fire.
Our government is not willing to do that, because it would mean the consolidation of the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip. Government sources hint that Abbas and his people in Ramallah also object to the lifting of the blockade - a malicious rumor, because it would mean that Abbas is conducting a war against his own people. President Bush also rejects a cease-fire, even while his people pretend the opposite. Europe, as usual, is trailing along behind the US.
Can Hamas agree to a cease-fire that would apply only to the Gaza Strip but not to the West Bank? That is doubtful. This week it was proven that the Islamic Jihad organization in Gaza cannot stand idly by while its members are killed in Bethlehem. Hamas could not stand by in Gaza and enjoy the fruits of government if the Israeli army were to kill Hamas militants in Nablus or Jenin. And, of course, no Palestinian would agree that the Gaza Strip and the West Bank are two separate entities.
A Gaza-only cease-fire would allow Barak to blow it to pieces at any moment by a Bethlehem-style provocation. This is how it could go: Hamas agrees to a Gaza-only cease-fire, the Israeli army kills a dozen Hamas members in Hebron, Hamas responds by launching Grad missiles at Ashkelon, Olmert tells the world: You see? The terrorist Hamas is violating the cease-fire, which proves that we have no partner!
This means that a real and durable cease-fire, which would create the necessary atmosphere for real peace negotiations, must include the West Bank, too. Olmert-Barak would not dream of agreeing to that. And as long as George Bush is around, there will be no effective pressure on our government.
A PROPOS: who is really in charge in Israel at this time?
This week's events point to the answer: the man who makes the decisions is Ehud Barak, the most dangerous person in Israel, the very same Barak who blew up the Camp David conference and persuaded the entire Israeli public that "we have no partner for peace".
2052 years ago today, on the Ides of March, Julius Caesar was assassinated. Ehud Barak sees himself as a latter-day local replica of the Roman general. He, too, would dearly want to report: "I came, I saw, I conquered."
But the reality is rather different: He came, he saw, he destroyed.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Iraq key players, then and now
These are the past and the present feelings of the people who took us to war in Iraq. This comes from BBC.
"KOFI ANNAN
The battle over Iraq in the UN Security Council raised doubts about the organisation's role in the 21st Century. Secretary General Kofi Annan vainly appealed for compromise and unity. But as France, China and Russia threatened to veto a US-backed resolution authorising force against Iraq, he realised the die was cast. The UN began instead to prepare for the humanitarian consequences of war.
In the first few months of the conflict the UN's headquarters in Baghdad was bombed, killing its most senior official. Mr Annan called the attack "the darkest day in our lives".
In September 2004, he said for the first time that the decision to go to war without a second resolution was illegal. "I have indicated it was not in conformity with the UN charter from our point of view - from the charter point of view - it was illegal," he told the BBC. In his final speech as UN head, in late 2006, he again attacked US unilateralism, saying: "No nation can make itself secure by seeking supremacy over others."
JOSE MARIA AZNAR
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar's support for the Iraq war marked a realignment in Europe's relations with the US. A member of the UN Security Council as the preparations for war advanced, Mr Aznar stood shoulder to shoulder with the US and the UK, rather than France and Germany.
"There is nothing more dangerous than a political leader who builds castles in the air, and I believe political leaders who raise false hopes, who don't look at the world as it is, are set to reap failure," Mr Aznar said after a meeting with Mr Bush in February 2003. The next month he took part in a key pre-war summit with Mr Bush and Mr Blair in the Azores. Huge protests occurred in August, as Spanish troops departed for Iraq.
In 2007, Mr Aznar - who was beaten in the 2004 elections - acknowledged that he had over-estimated the threat posed by Saddam Hussein: "The whole world thought Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and they didn't, I know that now. When I didn't know, no-one knew."
TONY BLAIR
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair's backing for war - as the only way of ridding Iraq of weapons of mass destruction - came to define his premiership. In a speech before parliament on March 18 2003, he argued that Saddam Hussein's "diplomatic dance" meant that threats were only effective if backed with force: "The only persuasive power to which he responds is 250,000 allied troops on his doorstep."
His decision to go to war was backed in parliament but brought the biggest parliamentary rebellion ever recorded against a British government, and prompted three ministers to resign.
He has recognised that the intelligence on his decision was based was flawed but has not apologised. In 2006, he admitted he had struggled with his conscience over the decision to go to war, saying he would be judged by history and God. A year later he told The Times: "If there's anything I regret... it is... not having laid out for people in a clearer way what I saw as the profound nature of this struggle and the fact that it was going to go on for a generation."
HANS BLIX
Plucked from retirement to lead the team of UN weapons inspectors sent in to Iraq, the pragmatic and calm Hans Blix asked in vain for more time to continue checking for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
His anger about the military intervention spilled over just months after the bombing began. In a series of scathing attacks on the UK and the US, he accused them of organising the war well before the outcome of his work was known and dramatising the threat of WMD to support their campaign. "There is evidence that this war was planned well in advance. Sometimes this raises doubts about their attitude to the [weapons] inspections," he told the Spain's El Pais in April 2003.
A year later, he compared the US attitude to the hunt for WMD to a "witch-hunt", saying the US had made "monumental" and "scandalous" errors of intelligence. His opinions have not changed. In 2007 he said: "I think everything in Iraq after the invasion has been a tragedy. The only positive thing I think is the disappearance of Saddam Hussein."
GEORGE W BUSH
The US president said he had three reasons for going to war against Iraq - to disarm the country of its WMD, to end Saddam Hussein's support for terrorism and to free the Iraqi people. "The attacks of September 11 2001, show what the enemies of America did with four airplanes. We will not wait to see what terrorists or terrorist states could do with weapons of mass destruction," he said in March 2003.
Two months into a war that his Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said would probably last no longer than six, Mr Bush announced that major combat operations in Iraq were over. "The tyrant has fallen, and Iraq is free," Mr Bush said from an aircraft carrier off the Californian coast.
Three years later, he seemed willing to concede that the situation in Iraq could be compared to Vietnam but continued to describe it as the latest battlefield in the war on terror. In January 2007, he announced that an additional 20,000 US troops would be sent to Iraq to bolster the lawless regions around the capital.
Despite his administration's acknowledgement of intelligence failures, Mr Bush has remained steadfast in his defence of his decision to go to war, saying in March 2008: "The decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the right decision early in my presidency; it is the right decision at this point in my presidency; and it will forever be the right decision."
SERGEI LAVROV
Russia's ambassador to the United Nations was one of the key mouthpieces for his country's opposition to the US-led proposal to intervene militarily. "Russia never considered war as an adequate tool to resolve the Iraqi issue," he said. Russia, along with France, opposed the idea of a second UN resolution to authorise the use of force. In an address just a few days after the conflict began, he called the military action "unprovoked" and said it violated international law and the UN charter.
Russia's anger over the war contributed to a deepening diplomatic rift between the two countries, prompting talk of a new Cold War. Critics claim Russia's opposition to the Iraq war was due to its oil interests in the country.
Five years on, as Russia's Foreign Minister, Mr Lavrov continues to argue that the conflict threatens to destabilise Iraq's immediate neighbours and the region as a whole. He has repeatedly called on the international community to withdraw foreign troops and says strengthened Iraqi forces should be given responsibility for security.
COLIN POWELL
Former US Secretary of State Colin Powell presented the detailed and controversial evidence for going to war against Iraq to the UN in February 2003. He referred to spy satellite photos and intercepted conversations between Iraqi officials as he asserted that Saddam Hussein's regime was hiding WMD: "Numerous human sources tell us that the Iraqis are moving, not just documents and hard drives, but weapons of mass destruction to keep them from being found by inspectors."
It was a speech that would come to haunt him. A year later he conceded that some of the information - on the country's development of mobile labs for making biological weapons - "appears not to be... that solid". In September 2005, more than a year after he resigned as head of the State Department, he described the speech as a "blot" on his record. "It will always be a part of my record. It was painful. It's painful now," he said.
In 2007, he revealed that he had tried to dissuade George W Bush from intervening militarily in Iraq, a country which he now said was a state of civil war. "I tried to avoid this war. I took him through the consequences of going into an Arab country and becoming the occupiers."
DOMINIQUE DE VILLEPIN
Former French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin led his country's opposition to the war in Iraq, successfully blocking a second UN resolution proposed by the US and UK authorising the use of force. In a much-quoted speech to the UN Security Council on 14 February 2003, Mr de Villepin eloquently defended the diplomatic process: "The option of war might seem a priori to be the swiftest. But let us not forget that having won the war, one has to build peace," he said.
France threatened to employ its Security Council veto against a second UN resolution authorising the use of force. This, combined with France's rejection of a series of disarmament tests proposed by the UK, led to accusations that he was poisoning the very same process he wanted to protect. In response, Mr de Villepin said: "It isn't a matter of according a few more days to Iraq before resorting to force, but to resolutely advance on the path of peaceful disarmament created by the inspections, which are a credible alternative to war."
His prominent anti-Iraq role, brought huge popularity in France, and helped catapult him into the job of France's prime minister, which he held between 2005 and 2007."
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"KOFI ANNAN
The battle over Iraq in the UN Security Council raised doubts about the organisation's role in the 21st Century. Secretary General Kofi Annan vainly appealed for compromise and unity. But as France, China and Russia threatened to veto a US-backed resolution authorising force against Iraq, he realised the die was cast. The UN began instead to prepare for the humanitarian consequences of war.
In the first few months of the conflict the UN's headquarters in Baghdad was bombed, killing its most senior official. Mr Annan called the attack "the darkest day in our lives".
In September 2004, he said for the first time that the decision to go to war without a second resolution was illegal. "I have indicated it was not in conformity with the UN charter from our point of view - from the charter point of view - it was illegal," he told the BBC. In his final speech as UN head, in late 2006, he again attacked US unilateralism, saying: "No nation can make itself secure by seeking supremacy over others."
JOSE MARIA AZNAR
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar's support for the Iraq war marked a realignment in Europe's relations with the US. A member of the UN Security Council as the preparations for war advanced, Mr Aznar stood shoulder to shoulder with the US and the UK, rather than France and Germany.
"There is nothing more dangerous than a political leader who builds castles in the air, and I believe political leaders who raise false hopes, who don't look at the world as it is, are set to reap failure," Mr Aznar said after a meeting with Mr Bush in February 2003. The next month he took part in a key pre-war summit with Mr Bush and Mr Blair in the Azores. Huge protests occurred in August, as Spanish troops departed for Iraq.
In 2007, Mr Aznar - who was beaten in the 2004 elections - acknowledged that he had over-estimated the threat posed by Saddam Hussein: "The whole world thought Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and they didn't, I know that now. When I didn't know, no-one knew."
TONY BLAIR
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair's backing for war - as the only way of ridding Iraq of weapons of mass destruction - came to define his premiership. In a speech before parliament on March 18 2003, he argued that Saddam Hussein's "diplomatic dance" meant that threats were only effective if backed with force: "The only persuasive power to which he responds is 250,000 allied troops on his doorstep."
His decision to go to war was backed in parliament but brought the biggest parliamentary rebellion ever recorded against a British government, and prompted three ministers to resign.
He has recognised that the intelligence on his decision was based was flawed but has not apologised. In 2006, he admitted he had struggled with his conscience over the decision to go to war, saying he would be judged by history and God. A year later he told The Times: "If there's anything I regret... it is... not having laid out for people in a clearer way what I saw as the profound nature of this struggle and the fact that it was going to go on for a generation."
HANS BLIX
Plucked from retirement to lead the team of UN weapons inspectors sent in to Iraq, the pragmatic and calm Hans Blix asked in vain for more time to continue checking for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
His anger about the military intervention spilled over just months after the bombing began. In a series of scathing attacks on the UK and the US, he accused them of organising the war well before the outcome of his work was known and dramatising the threat of WMD to support their campaign. "There is evidence that this war was planned well in advance. Sometimes this raises doubts about their attitude to the [weapons] inspections," he told the Spain's El Pais in April 2003.
A year later, he compared the US attitude to the hunt for WMD to a "witch-hunt", saying the US had made "monumental" and "scandalous" errors of intelligence. His opinions have not changed. In 2007 he said: "I think everything in Iraq after the invasion has been a tragedy. The only positive thing I think is the disappearance of Saddam Hussein."
GEORGE W BUSH
The US president said he had three reasons for going to war against Iraq - to disarm the country of its WMD, to end Saddam Hussein's support for terrorism and to free the Iraqi people. "The attacks of September 11 2001, show what the enemies of America did with four airplanes. We will not wait to see what terrorists or terrorist states could do with weapons of mass destruction," he said in March 2003.
Two months into a war that his Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said would probably last no longer than six, Mr Bush announced that major combat operations in Iraq were over. "The tyrant has fallen, and Iraq is free," Mr Bush said from an aircraft carrier off the Californian coast.
Three years later, he seemed willing to concede that the situation in Iraq could be compared to Vietnam but continued to describe it as the latest battlefield in the war on terror. In January 2007, he announced that an additional 20,000 US troops would be sent to Iraq to bolster the lawless regions around the capital.
Despite his administration's acknowledgement of intelligence failures, Mr Bush has remained steadfast in his defence of his decision to go to war, saying in March 2008: "The decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the right decision early in my presidency; it is the right decision at this point in my presidency; and it will forever be the right decision."
SERGEI LAVROV
Russia's ambassador to the United Nations was one of the key mouthpieces for his country's opposition to the US-led proposal to intervene militarily. "Russia never considered war as an adequate tool to resolve the Iraqi issue," he said. Russia, along with France, opposed the idea of a second UN resolution to authorise the use of force. In an address just a few days after the conflict began, he called the military action "unprovoked" and said it violated international law and the UN charter.
Russia's anger over the war contributed to a deepening diplomatic rift between the two countries, prompting talk of a new Cold War. Critics claim Russia's opposition to the Iraq war was due to its oil interests in the country.
Five years on, as Russia's Foreign Minister, Mr Lavrov continues to argue that the conflict threatens to destabilise Iraq's immediate neighbours and the region as a whole. He has repeatedly called on the international community to withdraw foreign troops and says strengthened Iraqi forces should be given responsibility for security.
COLIN POWELL
Former US Secretary of State Colin Powell presented the detailed and controversial evidence for going to war against Iraq to the UN in February 2003. He referred to spy satellite photos and intercepted conversations between Iraqi officials as he asserted that Saddam Hussein's regime was hiding WMD: "Numerous human sources tell us that the Iraqis are moving, not just documents and hard drives, but weapons of mass destruction to keep them from being found by inspectors."
It was a speech that would come to haunt him. A year later he conceded that some of the information - on the country's development of mobile labs for making biological weapons - "appears not to be... that solid". In September 2005, more than a year after he resigned as head of the State Department, he described the speech as a "blot" on his record. "It will always be a part of my record. It was painful. It's painful now," he said.
In 2007, he revealed that he had tried to dissuade George W Bush from intervening militarily in Iraq, a country which he now said was a state of civil war. "I tried to avoid this war. I took him through the consequences of going into an Arab country and becoming the occupiers."
DOMINIQUE DE VILLEPIN
Former French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin led his country's opposition to the war in Iraq, successfully blocking a second UN resolution proposed by the US and UK authorising the use of force. In a much-quoted speech to the UN Security Council on 14 February 2003, Mr de Villepin eloquently defended the diplomatic process: "The option of war might seem a priori to be the swiftest. But let us not forget that having won the war, one has to build peace," he said.
France threatened to employ its Security Council veto against a second UN resolution authorising the use of force. This, combined with France's rejection of a series of disarmament tests proposed by the UK, led to accusations that he was poisoning the very same process he wanted to protect. In response, Mr de Villepin said: "It isn't a matter of according a few more days to Iraq before resorting to force, but to resolutely advance on the path of peaceful disarmament created by the inspections, which are a credible alternative to war."
His prominent anti-Iraq role, brought huge popularity in France, and helped catapult him into the job of France's prime minister, which he held between 2005 and 2007."
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
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