The Irresistible Illusion
July 3rd, 2009 § 1 Comment
You know that things for the Western occupation of Afghanistan have reached a pretty pass when the most devastating indictment of its failures comes from a former colonial manager. Here is Rory Stewart in the London Review of Books (the world’s best publication by far ) presenting what may be the most trenchant critique of the of the US-UK occupation of Afghanistan, but as can be expected from someone who had earlier played a key role in managing the UK occupation of Southern Iraq, he limits it to the handling of the occupation.
We are accustomed to seeing Afghans through bars, or smeared windows, or the sight of a rifle: turbaned men carrying rockets, praying in unison, or lying in pools of blood; boys squabbling in an empty swimming-pool; women in burn wards, or begging in burqas. Kabul is a South Asian city of millions. Bollywood music blares out in its crowded spice markets and flower gardens, but it seems that images conveying colour and humour are reserved for Rajasthan.
Barack Obama, in a recent speech, set out our fears. The Afghan government
is undermined by corruption and has difficulty delivering basic services to its people. The economy is undercut by a booming narcotics trade that encourages criminality and funds the insurgency . . . If the Afghan government falls to the Taliban – or allows al-Qaida to go unchallenged – that country will again be a base for terrorists who want to kill as many of our people as they possibly can . . . For the Afghan people, a return to Taliban rule would condemn their country to brutal governance, international isolation, a paralysed economy, and the denial of basic human rights to the Afghan people – especially women and girls. The return in force of al-Qaida terrorists who would accompany the core Taliban leadership would cast Afghanistan under the shadow of perpetual violence.
When we are not presented with a dystopian vision, we are encouraged to be implausibly optimistic. ‘There can be only one winner: democracy and a strong Afghan state,’ Gordon Brown predicted in his most recent speech on the subject. Obama and Brown rely on a hypnotising policy language which can – and perhaps will – be applied as easily to Somalia or Yemen as Afghanistan. It misleads us in several respects simultaneously: minimising differences between cultures, exaggerating our fears, aggrandising our ambitions, inflating a sense of moral obligations and power, and confusing our goals. All these attitudes are aspects of a single worldview and create an almost irresistible illusion.
Senior Administration Officials One and Two explain situation in Honduras
July 3rd, 2009 § Leave a Comment
On a visit to the website of the US State Department yesterday, I was greeted with a map of Honduras superimposed with an invitation to “[s]upport UN efforts to aid Pakistani refugees. Send $5 donation; text the word ‘Swat’ to 20222.” I learned during a subsequent visit that the superimposition was not an attempt to obscure either situation and that it had merely been an effect of my inferior internet connection. The UN fundraiser was in fact supposed to appear to the right of the map, although there was still no accompanying explanation of why $5 could not be deducted from US aid to Israel.
Accompanying explanations for the map meanwhile consisted of a link to a July 1 “Teleconference Background Briefing by Two Senior Department Officials,” who are appropriately referred to throughout the transcript as Senior Administration Official One and Senior Administration Official Two. The briefing starts with a Mr. Kelly, who is regrettably not referred to as Non-Senior Administration Official One and who surmises that: “I think we’re going to start off with some opening remarks. So, go ahead, Mr. Senior Administration Official.”
A Visit to Hebron
July 3rd, 2009 § Leave a Comment
This was published on the Reuters Great Debate blog.
There’s no pretty way to describe what I saw in Hebron, no tidy conceit to wrap it in.
I visited as a participant in the Palestine Festival of Literature, the brain child of the great British-Egyptian novelist Ahdaf Soueif. I was in the company of many wonderful writers and publishers, among them Python and traveller Michael Palin, best-selling crime novelist Henning Mankel, Pride and Prejudice screenplay writer Deborah Moggach, and prize-winning novelists Claire Messud and MG Vassanji.
Our first stop was Hebron University, where I ran a workshop on ‘the role of writing in changing political realities.’ The students were bright and eager; the only discomforting note was struck by a memorial stone to three killed while walking on campus, by rampaging settlers, in 1986.
After lunch we visited Hebron’s historic centre.
Which side of the ideas war are you on?
July 3rd, 2009 § Leave a Comment
Canadian web activist and filmmaker Brett Gaylor has released a fascinating documentary about the debate surrounding copyright issues and the struggle against the ‘privatization of ideas.’ Prior to the film’s release Gaylor spent years following and collecting the work of hundreds of artists and activists on the Open Source Cinema Website and remixed the work of several contributors into his film to produce the “world’s first open source documentary.” Rip!: A Remix Manifesto touches on various issues which are relevant to any mass media user including the pros and cons of downloading media off the Internet without paying for it, the legal consequences of remixing existing forms of media like film and music to produce new forms, and the frightening measures that corporations are taking to ensure that those who violate copyright terms are punished legally.
Viewers are encouraged to create their own remixes of the movie as a form of Web 2.0 activism, can pay what they want to download the film from the official website and can even host their own screenings that way. The entire film is also divided into parts which can be viewed on YouTube — you can start with Part 1 by going here.
Existing screening dates in the United States can be viewed here.
The film’s trailer can also be watched below — be sure to check it out.
US: Israel’s Puppet Government
July 3rd, 2009 § 1 Comment
Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration, on Russia Today, explains that when it comes to the Middle East, the US Government is the puppet of Israel (or rather its lobby).
Included below is his recent counterpunch article on Israel’s kidnapping of the ‘Spirit of Humanity’ activists titled Pirates of the Mediterranean.
Sympathy for the devil
July 2nd, 2009 § 1 Comment
The list of outrageous actions Justice Secretary Jack Straw has performed in his various guises for the UK government is long, from his role in the Iraq War to his scandalous support for BAE systems which seen the scrapping of a corruption enquiry into arms deals worth billions. This Guardian article by Duncan Campbell on Straw’s decision not to pardon ‘Great Train Robber’ Ronnie Biggs reminds us of one of his most disgraceful acts; his compassion for the mass murderer General Augusto Pinochet.
As to why Straw let Pinochet escape back to Chile, John Pilger writes that if he had been sent to trial, he “almost certainly would have implicated at least one British prime minister and two US presidents in crimes against humanity.” (For more on the US and UK’s involvement in Latin American politics, watch Pilger’s documentary, The War on Democracy, available here.)
This reminds us of the fast-tracked trial of Saddam Hussein, which saw the Iraqi dictator tried for just one of the many human rights massacres he was accused of. Saddam was then hurriedly executed thus preventing other families from getting answers to how the ‘Butcher of Bagdhad’ was able to perpetrate such atrocities. And why? Well our leaders were well aware that investigations into some of Saddam’s larger scale uses of chemical weapons and where the ingredients came from would lead an embarrassing trail back to European and American companies.
Here is the Guardian article.
A frail old man, barely able to communicate, guilty of a crime committed many decades earlier, but unrepentant about his past, wants only to be released so that he can spend his final days with his family. Some people object, saying that the nature of the crime is such that the old man deserves to die in custody. Enter Jack Straw, the member of the government who must make the onerous decision on the old man’s future. He realises that the old man is barely able to walk and is in a confused state of mind. He allows him to return home.
The old man was General Pinochet. In 2000, the then home secretary Jack Straw declined requests from Spain for Pinochet to stand trial for gross human rights violations and sent him back to Chile. Pinochet was responsible for the deaths of 3,000 people, the torture of many thousands more, the removal of a democratically elected president and the looting of the national coffers. Straw still felt that mercy was appropriate. « Read the rest of this entry »
Web 2.0 warfare from Gaza to Iran
July 2nd, 2009 § 1 Comment
Twitterati hack official Iranian websites
by Tom Griffin
Recent weeks have seen an explosion of interest in Twitter, a social networking application which has been used by thousands of internet users to pass on news, views and rumours about the situation unfolding in Iran in the wake of the disputed presidential election.
The Iranian struggle is not however, the first conflict in which emerging ‘Web 2.0’ social media technologies have played a significant role. Israel’s offensive in Gaza in December 2008 – January 2009 provides an important precedent which shows that, despite its undoubted potential for empowering new forms of bottom-up organisation, the social web is not immune from very traditional propaganda techniques.
Operation Cast Lead – The First Social Media War
The roots of Israel’s media strategy in Gaza emerged in the aftermath of the 2006 Lebanon War. The Winograd Commission appointed by the Israeli Government to look into the conflict criticised a lack of co-ordination in the country’s media effort. This led to the creation of the National Information Directorate in the Prime Minister’s Office to co-ordinate efforts across government departments.[1][2]
Derailing Veolia and Alstom
July 2nd, 2009 § 1 Comment
With thanks to Angus Geddes and Ruth Tenne. See also Derailing Veolia in the UK.
If you live in the UK, check the rubbish skips used by your place of worship and local shops and businesses: if they are using Veolia Environmental Services, Onyx or Cleanaway get them to switch to another contractor. All these indicate Veolia, the multinational company aiding and abetting Israeli war crimes. For contracts with local councils, where Veolia has a contract expiring within the next two or three years we can be sure that Veolia will bid for the replacement contract, so these are the key councils to challenge to exclude Veolia.
So how is Veolia involved in apartheid Israel? A large French multinational employing 320,000 people, Veolia is helping build and operate a tramway linking illegal Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem with Israel. Not only do the settlements contravene article 49 of the 4th Geneva Convention, but in most cases their establishment involved war crimes too. The tramway tightens Israel’s hold on occupied East Jerusalem, ties the settlements more firmly into Israel and undermines chances of a just peace for the Palestinian people. So don’t let your local authority give Veolia Environmental Services contracts for waste management or Veolia Transport contracts for bus services. Ask local businesses using Veolia to switch to another rubbish collector.
The Wall Street White House
July 2nd, 2009 § Leave a Comment
Andrew Cockburn on ‘How Goldman Sachs and Citi Run the Show‘.
Is this where Obama's financial policies are made?
Robert Hormats, Vice Chairman of Goldman Sachs, is to be installed as Under Secretary of Economics, Business, and Agricultural Affairs. This comes as one more, probably unnecessary reminder of the total control exercised by Wall Street over the Obama administration’s economic and financial policy. True, Hormats is “a talker rather than a decider” according to one former White House official, but he will find plenty of old friends used to making decisions, almost all of them uniformly disastrous for the U.S. and global economy.
How to Deal with America’s Empire of Bases
July 2nd, 2009 § Leave a Comment
From the indispensable TomDispatch.com: Chalmers Johnson comments on the new $736 million US embassy in Pakistan and offers ‘A Modest Proposal for Garrisoned Lands‘.
The latest in Chalmer Johnson's Blowback Trilogy.
The U.S. Empire of Bases — at $102 billion a year already the world’s costliest military enterprise — just got a good deal more expensive. As a start, on May 27th, we learned that the State Department will build a new “embassy” in Islamabad, Pakistan, which at $736 million will be the second priciest ever constructed, only $4 million less, if cost overruns don’t occur, than the Vatican-City-sized one the Bush administration put up in Baghdad. The State Department was also reportedly planning to buy the five-star Pearl Continental Hotel (complete with pool) in Peshawar, near the border with Afghanistan, to use as a consulate and living quarters for its staff there.
Unfortunately for such plans, on June 9th Pakistani militants rammed a truck filled with explosives into the hotel, killing 18 occupants, wounding at least 55, and collapsing one entire wing of the structure. There has been no news since about whether the State Department is still going ahead with the purchase.
