Syria: U.S. War Making at the Expense of Democracy by Richard Falk

The U.S. Government rains drone missiles on civilian human targets anywhere in the world, continues to operate Guantanamo in the face of universal condemnation, whitewashed Abu Ghraib, Bagram, and the torture memos, committed aggression against Iraq and Afghanistan, and invests billions to sustain its unlawful global surveillance capabilities.

Richard Falk

Still, it has the audacity to lecture the world about ‘norm enforcement’ in the wake of the chemical weapons attack in the Ghouta suburb of Damascus. Someone should remind President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry that credibility with respect to international law begins at home and ends at the United Nations. Sadly, the American government loses out at both ends of this normative spectrum, and the days of Washington being able to deliver pious messages on the importance of international law are over. No one is listening, and that’s a relief, although it does provide material for those teams of writers working up material for the likes of Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and the many standups at Comedy Central. Yet, of course, this geopolitical TV series is no laughing matter for the long ordeal of the Syrian people.

There is yet another disturbing dimension of this pre-war pseudo debate about recourse to force in retaliation for an alleged use of chemical weapons by Assad against his own people: should a democracy empower its elected leaders to commit the country to war without at least securing specific legislative authorization? The contrast between the approach of the British and American approach to this issue is illuminating. David Cameron, as Prime Minister, along with his Foreign Secretary, strongly favored joining with the United States in launching a punitive attack against Syria, but arranged a prior Parliamentary debate and vote, and clearly indicated his immediate acceptance of the surprising refusal to win backing for such a policy, a show of Parliamentary independence that had not occurred in the country since the late 18th century. Of course, given polls showing only 11% of British citizens supporting an attack on Syria, Cameron may be privately breathing a deep sigh of relief that the vote came out as it did! Obama should be so lucky! If only his powers as Commander-in-Chief included a tool with which to erase imprudent ‘red lines’!

Compare now the Obama approach: speeches informing the country about why it is important to punish the Assad regime so as to uphold American national security interests and to engender respect for international law and several consultations with Congressional leaders. What is absent from the Obama discourse is the word ‘authorization’ or ‘a decent respect for the opinions’ of humanity, as expressed at home and in the world. In my view, this continuing claim of presidential authority to wage war unilaterally, and absent a UN mandate, is creating a deep crisis of legitimacy not only for the U.S., but for all governments that purport to be democracies but commit to war on the decision of the chief executive, as France and Turkey appear to be doing. It is time to face up to this crisis.

Above all, the foundational idea of American republicanism was to demonstrate that the power to declare and wage war was subject to ‘checks and balances’ and ‘separation of powers,’ and in this crucial respect, was unlike the monarchical powers of English kings in war/peace contexts. This makes the Parliamentary rebuff to Cameron not only a revitalizing move for British democracy, but an ironic commentary on the degree to which American ‘democracy’ has perversely moved in an absolutist direction.

It is true that government lawyers as hired hands can always find legal justifications for desired lines of policy. We can count on White House lawyers do just this at the present time: working into the night at Office of the Legal Counsel to prepare breifing material on the broad scope of the powers of the president as Commander-in-Chief, reinforced by patterns of practice over the course of the last several decades, and rounded out with an interpretation of the War Powers Act that supposedly gives the president 60 days of discretionary war making before any obligation exists to seek approval from Congress. Lawyers might quibble, but democracy will be the loser if procedures for accountability and authorization are not restored with full solemnity. In this respect the law should follow, not lead, and what is at stake is whether the republican ideals of limited government would be better served by the original ideas of making it unconstitutional for a president to commit the country to war without a formal and transparent process of public deliberation in the Congress, which is that part of government charged with reflecting the interests and values of the citizenry. Let the lawyers be damned if they side with the warrior politicians, however ‘war weary’ they claim to be.

It is worth also noticing that the common arguments for presidential authority do not pertain. The United States is not responding to an attack or acting in the face of an imminent threat. There is no time urgency. Beyond this the American public, as is the case with the publics of all other Western democracies, oppose by large majorities acts of war against Syria. What makes this situation worse, still, is the refusal to test diplomacy. By international law norms, reinforced by the UN Charter, a use of force to resolve an international conflict is legally a matter of ‘last resort’ after diplomatic remedies have been exhausted. But here they are not even being tried in good faith, which would involve bringing Iran into the process as a major engaged player, and enlisting Russia's support rather than exhibiting post-Snowden pique. Obama claims that no one is more war weary than he is, but his behavior toward Syria, Iran, Egypt, and Russia convey the opposite message.

And finally, some urge what be called ‘a humanitarian right of exception,’ namely, that this crime against humanity committed against the Syrian people requires a proportionate response from the perspective of international morality, regardless of the constraints associated with international law. Disregarding ‘the slippery slope’ of moral assessments, this particular response is being presented as directed against the Assad regime, but not motivated by any commitment to end the civil war or to assassinate Assad. There are reasons for viewing Washington’s moralizing reaction to the horrifying chemical attacks of August 21, especially the rush to judgment with respect to attributing responsibility to the Assad regime without awaiting the results of the UN inspection team and the odd timing of a such a major attack just as the inspectors were arriving in Damascus. It is not only habitual skeptics that recall Colin Powell’s presentation of conclusive evidence of Iraq’s possession of WMD to the UN Security Council in the lead up to the unlawful Iraq War. We should by now understand that when a foreign policy imperative exists for the occupant of the White House, factoids replace facts, and moral/legal assessments become matters of bureaucratic and media duty.

 

Richard Falk | August 31, 2013 at 2:26 am | Categories: America, Commentary, Global Governance, International & Global Law, Syria | URL: http://wp.me/p19Wt7-lq

 

Accountability needed for killings in Israeli raid on West Bank refugee camp

Evidence strongly suggests that three men who were shot dead with live ammunition during an arrest raid on a Palestinian refugee camp in the occupied West Bank on Monday were unlawfully killed by Israeli forces, Amnesty International said today.

Another 19 people, including six children, were injured by live ammunition fired during the raid on Qalandia refugee camp, the highest number of casualties in a single Israeli operation in the West Bank this year. Five of those wounded, including three children, had injuries to the upper body.

“The intentional lethal use of firearms – such as firing live ammunition at individuals’ upper bodies – is only permissible if strictly unavoidable to protect life,” said Philip Luther, Middle East and North Africa Programme Director at Amnesty International.

“The loss of life and high number of casualties in this incident raise serious questions as to whether heavily armoured Israeli troops acted according to international standards.”

Rubin ‘Abd al-Rahman Zayed, a 34-year-old employee of UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, was among those killed when he was shot in the chest by Israeli troops from a military vehicle as it was exiting the camp after the raid.

Local human rights organizations told Amnesty International that the immediate area was quiet at the time and that there was no violence or threats faced by the soldiers when Rubin ‘Abd al-Rahman Zayed was shot.

“The circumstances surrounding the death of Rubin ‘Abd al-Rahman Zayed raise concerns that this may have been an extrajudicial execution in violation of international law,” said Philip Luther.

“Wilful killing of civilians is also a war crime under the Fourth Geneva Convention, which Israel must uphold as the occupying power in the Palestinian territories.”

Younes Jamal Jahjouh and Jihad Mansour Aslan were the other two men killed by Israeli forces during the raid. A spokesperson for the Palestine Medical Complex, the main hospital in Ramallah, told Amnesty International that both men were shot in the chest.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have stated that soldiers responded with firearms because they felt their lives were threatened when Palestinians pelted their jeeps with rocks and heavy objects. The IDF has also claimed that Palestinians fired towards the jeeps, and that four bullets were found in the jeeps afterwards.

“Even if Israeli troops felt threatened, they have a responsibility to minimize the risks to those not presenting a threat and should only have used firearms as a last resort,” said Philip Luther.

“This deadly arrest raid appears to be yet another example of the use of excessive force by Israeli troops in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Instead of conducting impartial, independent investigations and ensuring that their troops abide by international law, Israeli spokespeople are already trying to dismiss concerns about these killings and grave injuries.”

The IDF has stated that, according to its initial investigation, its troops acted “according to plans… [and their behaviour was] restrained, controlled and proportionate.”

Amnesty International has repeatedly raised concerns that Israel’s military investigations fail to meet international standards and result in near-total impunity for those responsible for unlawful killings. Any killing or serious injury by Israeli forces should be investigated promptly, independently, and impartially, and, if there is evidence of unlawful killing or arbitrary or abusive use of force, those responsible should be prosecuted by civilian courts in fair trials.

Following Monday’s killings, protests erupted in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, with reports of further injuries and arrests.

Before Monday’s arrest raid in Qalandia, Israeli forces had killed 10 Palestinian civilians in the West Bank during 2013, most recently during an arrest raid in Jenin on 20 August. Amnesty International has investigated several of these killings and found strong evidence that they were unlawful.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs documented 2,877 injuries of Palestinian civilians by Israeli forces in the West Bank during the first seven months of 2013. More

 

MSF-backed hospitals treated Syria 'chemical victims

Medecins Sans Frontieres says hospitals it supports in Syria treated about 3,600 patients with "neurotoxic symptoms", of whom 355 have died.

It said the patients had arrived in three hospitals in the Damascus governorate on 21 August - when opposition activists say chemical attacks were launched against rebels.

But MSF says it cannot "scientifically confirm" the use of chemical weapons.

Both sides in the conflict accuse each other of using chemical weapons.

MSF says staff at the hospitals described a large number of patients arriving in the space of less than three hours with symptoms including convulsions, extreme salivation, contracted pupils and sight and respiratory problems.

The charity said many were treated with atropine, a drug administered to those with "neurotoxic symptoms".

"MSF can neither scientifically confirm the cause of these symptoms nor establish who is responsible for the attack," said MSF Director of Operations Bart Janssens.

"However, the reported symptoms of the patients, in addition to the epidemiological pattern of the events, characterised by the massive influx of patients in a short period of time, the origin of the patients, and the contamination of medical and first aid workers, strongly indicate mass exposure to a neurotoxic agent.

"This would constitute a violation of international humanitarian law, which absolutely prohibits the use of chemical and biological weapons."

MSF's disclosure came hours after the UN disarmament chief Angela Kane arrived in Damascus to press the Syrian government to allow access to the site of the alleged chemical weapons attack.

France has joined the UK in accusing Bashar al-Assad's forces of carrying out the attack in the capital's eastern suburbs on Wednesday.

US President Obama has said he is weighing his options and described it as a "big event of grave concern". More

 

On Bradley Manning & America by Richard Falk

I am posting on this blog two important texts that deserve the widest public attention and deep reflection in the United States and elsewhere. I would stress the following:

Bradley Manning - A Real Hero

• the extraordinary disconnect between the impunity of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Yoo, and others who authorized and vindicated the practice of torture, were complicit in crimes against humanity, and supported aggressive wars against foreign countries and the vindictive rendering of 'justice' via criminal prosecution, harsh treatment, and overseas hunts for Snowden and Assange, all individuals who acted selflessly out of concern for justice and the rights of citizens in democratic society to be informed about governmental behavior depicting incriminating information kept secret to hide responsibility for the commission of crimes of state and awkward diplomacy; a perverse justice dimension of the Manning case is well expressed in the statement below of the Center of Constitutional Rights "It is a travesty of justice that Manning who helped bring to light the criminality of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, is being punished while the alleged perpetrators are not even investigated." And "We fear for the future of our country in the wake of this case."

• the vindictive punishment of Bradley Manning, a historically stiff imprisonment for the unlawful release of classified documents, a dishonorable discharge from military service that is a permanent stain, a demotion to the lowest rank, and imprisonment for 35 years;

• the failure of the prosecution or the military judge or the national leadership to acknowledge the relevance of Manning's obviously ethical and patriotic motivations and the extenuating circumstance of stress in a combat zone that was producing observable deteriorations in his mental health;

• an increasingly evident pattern of constructing a national security state that disguises its character by lies, secrecy, and deception, thereby undermining trust between the government and the people, creating a crisis of legitimacy; it is part of the pattern of 'dirty wars' fought on a global battlefield comprehensively described in Jeremy Scahill's book with that title;

• the mounting challenge directed at President Obama to grant Manning's request for a presidential pardon, and to reverse course with respect to the further authoritarian drift that has occurred during his time in the White House; ever since Obama's Nobel Prize acceptance speech when he claimed American adherence to the rule of law, it has been evident that such a commitment does not extend to high level governmental violators at home ("too important to prosecute") or to the sovereign rights of foreign countries within the gunsights of the Pentagon or the CIA or to the crimes of America's closest allies; international law is reserved for the enemies of Washington, especially those who resist intervention and occupation, or those who dare to be whistle-blowers or truth-tellers in such a highly charged atmosphere that has prevailed since the 9/11 attacks; the opening of Manning's statement below suggests the relevance of such a context to the evolution of his own moral and political consciousness;

• read Bradley Manning's statement and ask yourself whether this man belongs in prison for 35 years (even granting eligibility for parole in seven years), or even for a day; imagine the contrary signal sent to our citizenry and the world if Manning were to be awarded the Medal of Freedom! It is past time that we all heeded Thomas Jefferson's urgent call for 'the vigilance' of the citizenry as indispensable to the maintenance of democracy.

Statement by Bradley Manning: On Being Sentenced

The decisions that I made in 2010 were made out of a concern for my country and the world that we live in. Since the tragic events of 9/11, our country has been at war. We’ve been at war with an enemy that chooses not to meet us on any traditional battlefield, and due to this fact we’ve had to alter our methods of combating the risks posed to us and our way of life.

I initially agreed with these methods and chose to volunteer to help defend my country. It was not until I was in Iraq and reading secret military reports on a daily basis that I started to question the morality of what we were doing. It was at this time I realized in our efforts to meet this risk posed to us by the enemy, we have forgotten our humanity. We consciously elected to devalue human life both in Iraq and Afghanistan. When we engaged those that we perceived were the enemy, we sometimes killed innocent civilians. Whenever we killed innocent civilians, instead of accepting responsibility for our conduct, we elected to hide behind the veil of national security and classified information in order to avoid any public accountability.

In our zeal to kill the enemy, we internally debated the definition of torture. We held individuals at Guantanamo for years without due process. We inexplicably turned a blind eye to torture and executions by the Iraqi government. And we stomached countless other acts in the name of our war on terror.

Patriotism is often the cry extolled when morally questionable acts are advocated by those in power. When these cries of patriotism drown our any logically based intentions [unclear], it is usually an American soldier that is ordered to carry out some ill-conceived mission.

Our nation has had similar dark moments for the virtues of democracy—the Trail of Tears, the Dred Scott decision, McCarthyism, the Japanese-American internment camps—to name a few. I am confident that many of our actions since 9/11 will one day be viewed in a similar light.

As the late Howard Zinn once said, "There is not a flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people."

I understand that my actions violated the law, and I regret if my actions hurt anyone or harmed the United States. It was never my intention to hurt anyone. I only wanted to help people. When I chose to disclose classified information, I did so out of a love for my country and a sense of duty to others.

If you deny my request for a pardon, I will serve my time knowing that sometimes you have to pay a heavy price to live in a free society. I will gladly pay that price if it means we could have country that is truly conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all women and men are created equal.

Statement of the Center for Constitutional Rights

August 21, 2013 – Today, in response to the sentencing of Pfc. Bradley Manning, the Center for Constitutional Rights issued the following statement.

We are outraged that a whistleblower and a patriot has been sentenced on a conviction under the Espionage Act. The government has stretched this archaic and discredited law to send an unmistakable warning to potential whistleblowers and journalists willing to publish their information. We can only hope that Manning’s courage will continue to inspire others who witness state crimes to speak up.

This show trial was a frontal assault on the First Amendment, from the way the prosecution twisted Manning’s actions to blur the distinction between whistleblowing and spying to the government’s tireless efforts to obstruct media coverage of the proceedings. It is a travesty of justice that Manning, who helped bring to light the criminality of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, is being punished while the alleged perpetrators of the crimes he exposed are not even investigated. Every aspect of this case sets a dangerous precedent for future prosecutions of whistleblowers – who play an essential role in democratic government by telling us the truth about government wrongdoing – and we fear for the future of our country in the wake of this case.

We must channel our outrage and continue building political pressure for Manning’s freedom. President Obama should pardon Bradley Manning, and if he refuses, a presidential pardon must be an election issue in 2016. More

Were I the leader of a country I would want the Bradley Manning's and Snowden's as citizens, and not the Bush's, Cheney's, Rumsfeld's, Yoo's or Obama's. Editor.

 

 

More than 1228 men women and children killed in Damascus suberb

More than 1228 Elderly, women, and children killed due to shelling with chemical weapons in Mudhamiat Ash-Sham and other cities in Damascus Suburb 21 8 2013. The Number of martyrs in Mudhamiat Ash-Sham was no less than 103.

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Warning: This video contains horrifying scenes and we don't recommend it for weak hearted people.This scene is just to document the crimes that are being committed by Bashar al-Assad and his regime. It is not to shock our viewers or to encourage violence; we just want to document what is happening in Syria.

محتوى الفيديو قاسي جداً و فيه مشاهد مؤلمة و لا ينصح لأصحاب القلوب الضعيفة بمشاهدته , هذا المقطع فقط لتوثيق الجرائم التي اقترفتها القوات الأسدية التابعة لنظام بشار الأسد , والمقطع ليس لصدم المشاهدين هذا المقطع هو مقطع لتوثيق الأحداث التي تحدث في سوريا , وليس للتشجيع على العنف.
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Hundreds of Syrians killed by alleged chemical weapons attacks

 

 

Julian Assange: Bradley Manning Sentence is an "Affront to Basic Concepts of Western Justice"

Julian Assange of WikiLeaks responds to the sentencing of Bradley Manning to 35 years in prison for turning over more than 700,000 classified files to WikiLeaks. Manning could be eligible for parole in about a decade, after serving one-third of his prison term.

In a statement Assange said:

Today the well-known whistleblower Bradley Manning has been ordered by a military court in Maryland to spend a minimum of 5.2 years in prison with a 32 year maximum (including time already spent in detention), for revealing information about US government behaviour to the public.

This hard-won minimum term represents a significant tactical victory for Bradley Manning’s defense, campaign team and supporters. At the start of these proceedings, the United States government had charged Bradley Manning with a capital offence and other charges carrying over 135 years of incarceration. His defense team is now appealing to the US Army Court of Criminal Appeals in relation to this sentence and also for due process violations during the trial.

While the defense should be proud of their tactical victory, it should be remembered that Mr Manning’s trial and conviction is an affront to basic concepts of Western justice. On Mr Manning’s arrest in May 2010, he was immediately subjected to punitive incarceration by the US government, which was found to be "cruel, inhumane and degrading" by the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Juan Mendez, and even found to be unlawful by US military courts.

The period Mr Manning has already spent in prison will be subtracted from the sentence, and dispensations for good behaviour, parole and other factors mean that it is likely he will now spend less than ten years in confinement. Mr Manning’s defense team are now seeking to reduce this sentence further on appeal. US military law stipulates that the sentence can only be reduced. It is important that support for Bradley Manning continues during this time.

The only just outcome in Mr Manning’s case is his unconditional release, compensation for the unlawful treatment he has undergone, and a serious commitment to investigating the wrongdoing his alleged disclosures have brought to light.

Mr Manning’s treatment has been intended to send a signal to people of conscience in the US government who might seek to bring wrongdoing to light. This strategy has spectacularly backfired, as recent months have proven. Instead, the Obama administration is demonstrating that there is no place in its system for people of conscience and principle. As a result, there will be a thousand more Bradley Mannings. More

Watch Julian Assange’s recent interview on Democracy Now! after the Manning verdict

 

Over 1100 killed in the chemical weapon attack this morning in Damascus suburbs

SAMS (Syrian American Medical Society)

Over 1100 killed in the chemical weapon attack this morning in Damascus suburbs
One of the worst attacks in the recent history
50% of victims are children and women
Numbers of victims are increasing
Field hospitals exhausted all available oxygen and needed medications
Whole families suffocated and died at their homes

British police detain protesters at anti-fracking demo

BALCOMBE, England (Reuters) - British police dispersed hundreds of protesters who blocked access to an oil exploration site in rural England on Monday in an intensification of an almost month-long standoff over the nascent shale gas extraction industry in Britain.

A total of 36 people were detained, both in the village of Balcome and in London, in the first of two days of "direct action" against the drilling process known as fracking, which protesters fear may trigger small earthquakes and pollute water supplies.

Hundreds of protesters converged on the West Sussex village and repeatedly scuffled with around 400 police who were bussed in from 10 different forces around Britain.

While many played drums and sang, others chained themselves to each other at the entrance of the Cuadrilla Resources-owned site, behind tall metal fences down a country lane bordered by dense woodland.

"This protest is part of a huge wave that's building up," 32-year-old Mark Weaver from London told Reuters. "There's a lot of people who are going to be watching what's happening here."

Desperate to stimulate a U.S.-style production boom and offset dwindling North Sea oil and gas reserves, the Conservative-led government has backed fracking as an "energy revolution" that can create jobs and lower energy prices.

Activists argue the government should invest in renewable energy rather than fracking, the retrieval of gas and oil from rock by injection of high-pressure water, sand and chemicals.

Caroline Lucas, Britain's only elected Green Party member of parliament, was among those detained. "Along with everyone else who took action today, I'm trying to stop a process which could cause enormous damage for decades to come," she said.

ANGER

Thirty people were detained after protesters refused to move from the entrance of the Cuadrilla site in Balcombe, about 35 miles south of London. The protests have already forced Cuadrilla to halt drilling at the site.

Six other people were detained in London after gluing themselves to glass doors at the public relations firm employed by the privately-owned energy company, chaired by former BP chief Lord Browne, and blocking the entrance.

Cuadrilla, which is drilling a conventional oil well in Balcombe, is the only company to have fracked a shale gas well in Britain, making its activities a target for protesters.

The debate has turned angry in recent weeks with death threats sent to the head of Cuadrilla and around 75 people arrested at the Balcombe site since protesters set up camp there in July, including those held on Monday.

With natural gas imports from outside the North Sea set to surpass domestic production by 2015, Britain has been looking for new gas sources to meet rising import needs, with a eye on the U.S., where a massive expansion of shale gas extraction has driven down energy prices and cut dependence on imports.

Imports for Britain have so far mostly come from Norway and, increasingly Qatar. Last year it imported around 50 billion cubic meters of gas via pipelines and liquefied natural gas (LNG) ships.

The country has potentially vast shale gas resources in underground rock formations; the government said last month there may be 1,300 trillion cubic feet of gas present in the north of England alone.

"Why would you want fracking on your doorstep?" said protester Melanie Strickland, 30, who works for a health charity. "It pollutes water, it causes earthquakes. It's profoundly undemocratic because it tends to happen without any consultation so I think there'll be resistance everywhere." More

 

CIA Confirms Role in 1953 Iran Coup

Washington, D.C., August 19, 2013 – Marking the sixtieth anniversary of the overthrow of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq, the National Security Archive is today posting recently declassified CIA documents on the United States' role in the controversial operation.

Shah's Firman

American and British involvement in Mosaddeq's ouster has long been public knowledge, but today's posting includes what is believed to be the CIA's first formal acknowledgement that the agency helped to plan and execute the coup.

The explicit reference to the CIA's role appears in a copy of an internal history, The Battle for Iran, dating from the mid-1970s. The agency released a heavily excised version of the account in 1981 in response to an ACLU lawsuit, but it blacked out all references to TPAJAX, the code name for the U.S.-led operation. Those references appear in the latest release. Additional CIA materials posted today include working files from Kermit Roosevelt, the senior CIA officer on the ground in Iran during the coup. They provide new specifics as well as insights into the intelligence agency's actions before and after the operation.

The 1953 coup remains a topic of global interest because so much about it is still under intense debate. Even fundamental questions — who hatched the plot, who ultimately carried it out, who supported it inside Iran, and how did it succeed — are in dispute.[1]

The issue is more than academic. Political partisans on all sides, including the Iranian government, regularly invoke the coup to argue whether Iran or foreign powers are primarily responsible for the country's historical trajectory, whether the United States can be trusted to respect Iran's sovereignty, or whether Washington needs to apologize for its prior interference before better relations can occur.

Donald N Wilber

Also, the public release of these materials is noteworthy because CIA documents about 1953 are rare. First of all, agency officials have stated that most of the records on the coup were either lost or destroyed in the early 1960s, allegedly because the record-holders' "safes were too full."[2]

Regarding public access to any remaining files (reportedly about one cubic foot of material), the intelligence community's standard procedure for decades has been to assert a blanket denial. This is in spite of commitments made two decades ago by three separate CIA directors. Robert M. Gates, R. James Woolsey, and John M. Deutch each vowed to open up agency historical files on a number of Cold War-era covert operations, including Iran, as a sign of the CIA's purported new policy of openness after the collapse of the USSR in 1991.[3]

A clear sign that their pledge would not be honored in practice came after the National Security Archive filed a lawsuit in 1999 for a well-known internal CIA narrative about the coup. One of the operation's planners, Donald N. Wilber, prepared the account less than a year later. The CIA agreed to release just a single sentence out of the 200-page report.

Despite the appearance of countless published accounts about the operation over the years - including Kermit Roosevelt's own detailed memoir, and the subsequent leak to The New York Times of the 200-page CIA narrative history[4] — intelligence agencies typically refused to budge. They have insisted on making a distinction between publicly available information on U.S. activities from non-government sources and official acknowledgement of those activities, even several decades after the fact.

Kermit Roosevelt

While the National Security Archive applauds the CIA's decision to make these materials available, today's posting shows clearly that these materials could have been safely declassified many years ago without risk of damage to the national security. (See sidebar, "Why is the Coup Still a Secret?")

Archive Deputy Director Malcolm Byrne called for the U.S. intelligence community to make fully available the remaining records on the coup period. "There is no longer good reason to keep secrets about such a critical episode in our recent past. The basic facts are widely known to every school child in Iran. Suppressing the details only distorts the history, and feeds into myth-making on all sides." More

 

How some ordinary Egyptians became ‘malicious terrorists’

Disgust, shame, outrage.

All these words apply to the disgrace of Egypt these past six weeks. A military coup, millions of enraged supporters of the democratically elected but deposed dictator – reports that indicate well over 1,000 Muslim Brotherhood sympathisers slaughtered by the security police – and what were we told by the authorities yesterday? That Egypt was subject to “a malicious terrorist plot”.

The language speaks for itself. Not just a common or garden “terrorist” plot – but a “terrorist” plot so terrible that it is “malicious”. Naturally, the government acquired this use of the “terrorist” word from Bush and Blair, another Western contribution to Arab culture. But it goes further. The country, we are now informed, is at the mercy of “extremist forces who want to create war”. You would think, on hearing this, that most of the dead these past six weeks were soldiers and policemen, whereas in fact most were unarmed demonstrators.

And who is to blame? Obama, of course, for “encouraging terrorism” by his wimpish complaints last week – so claim the Egyptian authorities. And our old friend, the “foreign media”. It is the infidel channels – including al-Jazeera – which has been feeding hatred into the land of the Pharaohs, according to the Egyptian press (which is now almost as wimpish as Obama in its fealty to its new rulers).

Outside the al-Fath mosque in Cairo on Saturday, supporters of the military were roughing up reporters and cameramen, Italians and Germans among them, and even al-Jazeera briefly high-tailed it from the scene. The Independent took its chances, with Alastair Beach inside the besieged mosque with the Brotherhood. Outside, I was wearing a scruffy tourist hat among the security thugs and Army supporters, where an Egyptian friend helped me – rather unkindly, I thought – by explaining to men with clubs that I was an elderly English tourist who had just popped out from his Cairo hotel to see what was going on. I kept my notebook and my mobile phone in my pocket. “Welcome to Cairo,” I was repeatedly told.

To be fair, let me just recount one little, heartening moment amid Saturday’s mosque drama. TwoEgyptian men walked up to me and said, quite simply, that “it is very unfair to keep these people in the mosque without water and food. They are human beings just like us.” The men were not Morsi supporters, but didn’t seem too keen on the police. They were just good, decent, humane Egyptians, the kind we all hope are in the real majority.

But this leads me to remember a typically Obama-like piece of lying last week. It came when the US president decided to take a break from his golfing holiday to comment on the violence in Egypt. He described Morsi’s opponents – now represented by a general, Abdul-Fattah al-Sisi, who is also the defence minister and the deputy prime minister – as “many Egyptians, millions of Egyptians, perhaps even a majority of Egyptians”. And there you had it – Obama had credited the coup with a majority following.

How General al-Sisi – who speaks excellent American English – must have been delighted with this little set of code words.

And it’s odd, isn’t it, how the supposedly malicious journalists have been playing down the murderous actions of the Egyptian security cops. They were repeatedly referred to on Al-Jazeera last week as “armed men” – as if they were not in uniform and shooting from the roof of a police station. Western editorials have described Egyptian police killings as “heavy-handed’, as if Inspector Lewis and Sergeant Hathaway had biffed a few bad guys over the head.

A trustworthy friend of mine put it to me the other day that our Western leaders are so sick of the demonstrators that plague G8 summits – where the usual “terror” warnings always apply – that they have an innate sympathy with policemen and a built-in hatred of protesters.

But it’s our dear friends the Saudis whom the Egyptian army and police can count on for help. King Abdullah himself has promised billions of dollars for poor old Egypt, now that Qatari generosity has dried up. But Egyptians should beware Saudis bearing gifts. The House of Saud is not really interested in helping foreign armies – unless they are coming to save Saudi Arabia – but it is very much involved in supporting the Salafists of the Egyptian Noor party. It is the Noor religious fundamentalists who won an extraordinary 24 per cent in the last parliamentary election – and who ruthlessly decided to ally themselves with General al-Sisi when Morsi was dethroned. The conservative Salafists are much more to Saudi taste than potentially liberal members of the Brotherhood. It is for them that the King is opening his purse. And if by some mischance, the Salafists can drum up a majority from disenchanted members of the Brotherhood in the next election, then the Caliphate of Egypt is a step nearer.

And the Other Side of the Story. It is true that gunmen have fired from Brotherhood crowds. A handful at most – and it does not justify the Egyptian press calling tens of thousands of people “terrorists” – but both my colleague and I have seen armed men among protesters. The attacks on the churches are real. Churches have been burned, Christian homes vandalised.

The anti-Christian fury is now political-ideological. It is persecution. Pope Tawadros might perhaps now regret having his photo taken alongside the coup supporters. But the sheikh of Al Azhar was in the same picture – and so were the Salafists.

Oh yes, and the government is now rumbling on about the need to “dissolve” the Brotherhood. Since members are already being rounded up by the cops, I’m not quite sure what “dissolution” is supposed to achieve. Didn’t the Brits once declare the IRA “illegal”? Did that make them go away? More

 

Israel’s booming secretive arms trade

Israel’s secretive arms trade is booming as never before, according to the latest export figures. But it is also coming under mounting scrutiny as some analysts argue that Israel has grown dependent on exploiting the suffering of Palestinians for military and economic gain.

A new documentary, called The Lab, has led the way in turning the spotlight on Israel’s arms industry. It claims that four million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza have become little more than guinea pigs in military experiments designed to enrich a new elite of arms dealers and former generals.

The film’s release this month in the United States follows news that Israeli sales of weapons and military systems hit a record high last year of $7.5bn, up from $5.8bn the previous year. A decade ago, Israeli exports were worth less than $2bn.

Israel is now ranked as one of the world’s largest arms exporters – a considerable achievement for a country smaller than New York.

Yotam Feldman, director of The Lab and a former journalist with Israel’s Haaretz newspaper, says Israel has turned the occupied territories into a laboratory for refining, testing and showcasing its weapons systems.

His argument is supported by other analysts who have examined Israel’s military industries.

Neve Gordon, a politics professor at Ben Gurion University, said: “You only have to read the brochures published by the arms industry in Israel. It’s all in there. What they are selling is Israel’s ‘experience’ and expertise gained from the occupation and its conflicts with its neighbours.”

Another analyst, Jeff Halper, who is writing a book on Israel’s role in the international homeland security industry, has gone further. He argues that Israel’s success at selling its know-how to powerful states means it has grown ever more averse to returning the occupied territories to the Palestinians in a peace agreement.

“The occupied territiories are crucial as a laboratory not just in terms of Israel’s internal security, but because they have allowed Israel to become pivotal to the global homeland security industry.

“Other states need Israel’s expertise, and that ensures its place at the table with the big players. It gives Israel international influence way out of keeping with its size. In turn, the hegemonic states exert no real pressure on Israel to give up the occupied territories because of their mutually reinforcing interests.”

Suggestions that Israel is exploiting the occupied territories for economic and military gain come at a sensitive moment for Israel, as it returns this week to long-stalled negotiations with the Palestinians. The commitment of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to the talks has already been widely questioned.

Booming arms sales

Israel’s growing success at marketing its military wares to overseas buyers was highlighted in June when defence analysts Jane’s ranked Israel in sixth place for arms exports, ahead of China and Italy, both major weapons producers.

However, Israel’s own figures, which include additional covert trade, place it in fourth place ahead of Britain and Germany, and surpassed only by the United States, Russia and France.

Shemaya Avieli, the head of Sibat, the Israeli defence ministry’s agency promoting arms exports, said at a press conference last month that the record figure had been a surprise given the “very significant economic challenge” posed by the worldwide economic downturn.

The arms-related trade is reported to account for somewhere between one-tenth and one-fifth of Israel’s exports. The main buyers are Asian countries, especially India, Europe, the US, Canada, Australia and Latin America.

The importance of the arms trade to Israel can be gauged by a simple mathematical calculation. Last year Israel earned nearly $1,000 from the arms trade per head of population – several times the per capita income the US derives from military sales.

Israel’s reliance on the arms industry was underscored in June when a local court forced officials to publish data revealing that some 6,800 Israelis are actively engaged in exporting arms.

Separately, Ehud Barak, the defence minister in the previous Israeli government, has revealed that 150,000 Israeli households – or about one in 10 people in the country – depend economically on its military industries.

These disclosures aside, Israel has been loath to lift the shroud of secrecy that envelopes much of its arms trade. In recent court hearings it has argued that further revelations would harm “national security and foreign relations”.

‘People like to buy things that have been tested’

Feldman’s film – which won an award at DocAviv, Israel’s documentary Oscars – shows arms dealers, army commanders and government ministers speaking frankly about the way the trade has become the engine of Israel’s economic success during the global recession.

Leo Gleser, who specialises in developing new weapons markets in Latin America, observes: “The [Israeli] defence minister doesn’t only deal with wars, he also makes sure the defence industry is busy selling goods.”

The Lab suggests that arms sales have been steadily rising since 2002, when Israel reversed its withdrawals from Palestinian territory initiated by the Oslo accords. The Israeli army reinvaded the West Bank and Gaza in an operation known as Defensive Shield.

In parallel, many retired army officers moved into the new high-tech field. There they found a chance to test their security ideas, including developing systems for long-term surveillance, control and subjugation of “enemy” populations.

The biggest surge in the arms trade followed Operation Cast Lead, Israel’s month-long attack on Gaza in winter 2008-09 that provoked international condemnation. More than 1,400 Palestinians were killed, as well as 13 Israelis. Sales that year reached $6bn for the first time.

Benjamin Ben Eliezer, a former defence minister turned industry minister, attributes Israel’s success to the fact that “people like to buy things that have been tested. If Israel sells weapons, they have been tested, tried out. We can say we’ve used this 10 years, 15 years.”

Nonetheless, The Lab’s argument has proved controversial with some security experts. Shlomo Bron, a former air force general who now works at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, rejected the film’s premise.

“It may be true that in practice the military uses the occupied territories as a laboratory, but that is just an unfortunate effect of our conflict with the Palestinians. And we sell to other countries only because Israel itself is too small a market.”

The film highlights the kind of innovations for which Israel has been feted by overseas security services. It pioneered the airborne drones that are now at the heart of the US programme of extra-judicial executions in the Middle East. More

 

Murdering The Wretched Of The Earth - By Chris Hedges

Radical Islam is the last refuge of the Muslim poor. The mandated five prayers a day give the only real structure to the lives of impoverished believers. The careful rituals of washing before prayers in the mosque, the strict moral code, along with the understanding that life has an ultimate purpose and meaning, keep hundreds of millions of destitute Muslims from despair.

The fundamentalist ideology that rises from oppression is rigid and unforgiving. It radically splits the world into black and white, good and evil, apostates and believers. It is bigoted and cruel to women, Jews, Christians and secularists, along with gays and lesbians. But at the same time it offers to those on the very bottom of society a final refuge and hope. The massacres of hundreds of believers in the streets of Cairo signal not only an assault against a religious ideology, not only a return to the brutal police state of Hosni Mubarak, but the start of a holy war that will turn Egypt and other poor regions of the globe into a caldron of blood and suffering.

The only way to break the hold of radical Islam is to give its followers a stake in the wider economy, the possibility of a life where the future is not dominated by grinding poverty, repression and hopelessness. If you live in the sprawling slums of Cairo or the refugee camps in Gaza or the concrete hovels in New Delhi, every avenue of escape is closed. You cannot get an education. You cannot get a job. You do not have the resources to marry. You cannot challenge the domination of the economy by the oligarchs and the generals. The only way left for you to affirm yourself is to become a martyr, or shahid. Then you will get what you cannot get in life—a brief moment of fame and glory. And while what will take place in Egypt will be defined as a religious war, and the acts of violence by the insurgents who will rise from the bloodied squares of Cairo will be defined as terrorism, the engine for this chaos is not religion but the collapsing economy of a world where the wretched of the earth are to be subjugated and starved or shot. The lines of battle are being drawn in Egypt and across the globe. Adli Mansour, the titular president appointed by the military dictator of Egypt, Gen. Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi, has imposed a military-led government, a curfew and a state of emergency. They will not be lifted soon.

The lifeblood of radical movements is martyrdom. The Egyptian military has provided an ample supply. The faces and the names of the sanctified dead will be used by enraged clerics to call for holy vengeance. And as violence grows and the lists of martyrs expand, a war will be ignited that will tear Egypt apart. Police, Coptic Christians, secularists, Westerners, businesses, banks, the tourism industry and the military will become targets. Those radical Islamists who were persuaded by the Muslim Brotherhood that electoral politics could work and brought into the system will go back underground, and many of the rank and file of the Muslim Brotherhood will join them. Crude bombs will be set off. Random attacks and assassinations by gunmen will puncture daily life in Egypt as they did in the 1990s when I was in Cairo for The New York Times, although this time the attacks will be wider and more fierce, far harder to control or ultimately crush.

What is happening in Egypt is a precursor to a wider global war between the world’s elites and the world’s poor, a war caused by diminishing resources, chronic unemployment and underemployment, overpopulation, declining crop yields caused by climate change, and rising food prices. Thirty-three percent of Egypt’s 80 million people are 14 or younger, and millions live under or just above the poverty line, which the World Bank sets at a daily income of $2 in that nation. The poor in Egypt spend more than half their income on food—often food that has little nutritional value. An estimated 13.7 million Egyptians, or 17 percent of the population, suffered from food insecurity in 2011, compared with 14 percent in 2009, according to a report by the U.N. World Food Program and the Egyptian Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS). Malnutrition is endemic among poor children, with 31 percent under 5 years old stunted in growth. Illiteracy runs at more than 70 percent. More

 

Demolition in the desert: Israel destroys Bedouin village for 54th time

Israeli authorities destroyed the Bedouin village of Al-Araqib for the 54th time in the last three years on Thursday, as the country struggles to relocate Bedouins in the Negev desert to specially built towns.

Forces arrived at Al-Araqib carrying arms and batons as bulldozers tore down homes, resident Aziz al-Turi told Palistinain news agency Ma’an.

Another resident, Maher Abu Qreinat, said that homes and other structures were pulled down in the Negev village of Abu Qreinat on the same day.

The Israeli government approved the Prawer-Begin Bill in January, calling for the relocation 30,000-40,000 Bedouins and the demolition of about 40 villages which the Jewish state considers to be illegal.

The bill was approved by the country’s parliament, the Knesset, during its first reading in June. Two additional votes are expected to take place.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu previously said that the move would “put an end to the spread of illegal building by Negev Bedouin and lead to the better integration of the Bedouin into Israeli society.”

The Bedouins refuse to be relocated, saying they purchased their land in the Negev desert before the establishment of the state of Israel. However, they say the agreements were verbal ones – and there is no way to prove their ownership of the territory.

Amnesty International called on Israel to stop “demolitions of Arab Bedouin homes” after Israeli forces performed a previous raid on Al-Araqib in July.

"The Israeli government's Prawer-Begin plan would lead to the forced eviction of tens of thousands of Arab Bedouin citizens of Israel,” Philip Luther, director of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Program, said. “The plan is inherently discriminatory, flies in the face of Israel's international obligations and cannot be accepted in any circumstances."

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay also slammed the bill in July, urging Israel to reconsider its plans to relocate the Bedouin to officially recognized towns such as Rahat, Khura, and Ksayfe.

"If this bill becomes law, it will accelerate the demolition of entire Bedouin communities, forcing them to give up their homes, denying them their rights to land ownership, and decimating their traditional cultural and social life in the name of development," he said.

There are around 210,000 Bedouins in Israel, most of whom live in and around the Negev desert in the southern part of the country. More than half of them reside in unrecognized villages which lack basic infrastructure. Many Bedouins also live in extreme poverty.

The Israeli government said it would grant legal status “as much as possible” to the currently unrecognized Negev villages if they meet minimum population criteria – but those requirements were never revealed. More