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BEIRUT (Codewit) — A government airstrike Sunday on a bakery in a rebel-held town in central Syria killed more than 60 people, activists said, casting a pall over a visit by the international envoy charged with negotiating an end to the country’s civil war.
The strike on the town of Halfaya left scattered bodies and debris up and down a street, and more than a dozen dead and wounded were trapped in tangled heap of dirt and rubble.
The attack appeared to be the government response to a newly announced rebel offensive seeking to drive the Syrian army from a constellation of towns and village north of the central city of Hama. Halfaya was the first of the area’s towns to be “liberated” by rebel fighters, and activists saw Sunday’s attack as payback.
“Halfaya was the first and biggest victory in the Hama countryside,” said Hama activist Mousab Alhamadee via Skype. “That’s why the regime is punishing them in this way.”
The total death toll remained unclear, but the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said more than 60 people were killed. That number is expected to rise, it said, because some 50 of those wounded in the strike are in critical condition.
Amateur videos posted online Sunday showed residents and armed rebels rushing to the scene. One stopped to cover a mound of human flesh lying in the street with his coat.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
BRUSSELS — President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Friday added to recent signals that Moscow is slowly distancing itself from the regime of Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, its longstanding but now severely weakened ally.
Asserting that Russia’s main goal is to avoid chaos, Mr. Putin restated Russia’s position that Syria’s civil war could be resolved only through talks between the parties involved. But he insisted that “we aren’t a defender of the current Syrian leadership†and said Moscow wants “a democratic regime in Syria based on the expression of the people’s will.â€
He made the remarks at a joint news conference in Brussels with European Union leaders at the end of mostly fruitless talks centered on quarrels over energy and trade at the headquarters of the 27-nation bloc.
European nations are themselves divided over what to do about Syria but have increasingly tilted toward providing at least diplomatic support for the opponents of Mr. Assad.
Russia has been the Syrian government’s main backer since an uprising against Mr. Assad began in 2011 and, along with China, has used its veto in the United Nations Security Council to block resolutions that would have imposed penalties on Syria.
But a senior Russian Foreign Ministry official said recently that Mr. Assad’s government could lose its struggle for survival and that Moscow was making contingency plans to evacuate citizens from the country.
At the same time, Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, said in an interview with Russia Today, a government news organization, that Moscow was still rejecting appeals from other countries to help persuade the Syrian leader to flee.
Mr. Putin described Russia’s policy, which has put it at odds with Washington and also Arab countries that support Mr. Assad’s opponents, as intended to avoid mayhem. “We will do what we can so that there will be order in Syria,†he said. “Whatever changes are occurring in Syria, we would not like to see the same chaos there which we are seeing in other countries in the region.â€
Mr. Putin’s talks in Brussels focused mainly on energy, an issue of far more immediate importance to his own hold on power in Russia, where earnings from natural gas exports to Europe are a central pillar of an economic and political system built around state control of natural resources.
Mr. Putin pressed the European Union to exempt the natural gas behemoth Gazprom from rules aimed at promoting greater competition in the energy market. But he won no favors for the company, Russia’s biggest.
Russia is Europe’s main external energy supplier, and disputes over natural gas have dominated discussions between Moscow and the bloc for years. Friday’s talks yielded no significant progress, said a European Union official briefed on them. While the visit to Brussels produced no breakthroughs, it did avoid the angry polemics of some previous meetings.
“We’ve had worse summits,†the official said.
In Syria, meanwhile, activists reported fierce fighting in Hama Province, where rebel forces have spent days attacking checkpoints and other government positions. Opposition commanders described the moves as part of a broad offensive aimed at controlling a strategic link between the north, where the rebels control broad areas of territory, and the government strongholds in the center.
Abu Hadi, an activist in the village of Kafar Zita, north of Hama city, said the village and others had come under heavy government shelling on Friday. “The situation is very bad,†he said. “People are panicking in the streets.â€
The bloc has demanded that Gazprom open its export pipelines that run through member countries to other gas producers.
Mr. Putin complained that European energy regulation violated an earlier agreement on Russia-European Union economic relations, a claim the Europeans rejected. “It creates confusion and undermines confidence in our mutual work,†he said ahead of talks with Mr. Barroso and Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the European Council, which represents the governments of the member states.
Ellen Barry contributed reporting from Brussels, and Hania Mourtada and Hwaida Saad from Beirut, Lebanon.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
BRUSSELS — President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Friday added to recent signals that Moscow is slowly distancing itself from the regime of Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, its longstanding but now severely weakened ally.
Asserting that Russia’s main goal is to avoid chaos, Mr. Putin restated Russia’s position that Syria’s civil war could be resolved only through talks between the parties involved. But he insisted that “we aren’t a defender of the current Syrian leadership†and said Moscow wants “a democratic regime in Syria based on the expression of the people’s will.â€
He made the remarks at a joint news conference in Brussels with European Union leaders at the end of mostly fruitless talks centered on quarrels over energy and trade at the headquarters of the 27-nation bloc.
European nations are themselves divided over what to do about Syria but have increasingly tilted toward providing at least diplomatic support for the opponents of Mr. Assad.
Russia has been the Syrian government’s main backer since an uprising against Mr. Assad began in 2011 and, along with China, has used its veto in the United Nations Security Council to block resolutions that would have imposed penalties on Syria.
But a senior Russian Foreign Ministry official said recently that Mr. Assad’s government could lose its struggle for survival and that Moscow was making contingency plans to evacuate citizens from the country.
At the same time, Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, said in an interview with Russia Today, a government news organization, that Moscow was still rejecting appeals from other countries to help persuade the Syrian leader to flee.
Mr. Putin described Russia’s policy, which has put it at odds with Washington and also Arab countries that support Mr. Assad’s opponents, as intended to avoid mayhem. “We will do what we can so that there will be order in Syria,†he said. “Whatever changes are occurring in Syria, we would not like to see the same chaos there which we are seeing in other countries in the region.â€
Mr. Putin’s talks in Brussels focused mainly on energy, an issue of far more immediate importance to his own hold on power in Russia, where earnings from natural gas exports to Europe are a central pillar of an economic and political system built around state control of natural resources.
Mr. Putin pressed the European Union to exempt the natural gas behemoth Gazprom from rules aimed at promoting greater competition in the energy market. But he won no favors for the company, Russia’s biggest.
Russia is Europe’s main external energy supplier, and disputes over natural gas have dominated discussions between Moscow and the bloc for years. Friday’s talks yielded no significant progress, said a European Union official briefed on them. While the visit to Brussels produced no breakthroughs, it did avoid the angry polemics of some previous meetings.
“We’ve had worse summits,†the official said.
In Syria, meanwhile, activists reported fierce fighting in Hama Province, where rebel forces have spent days attacking checkpoints and other government positions. Opposition commanders described the moves as part of a broad offensive aimed at controlling a strategic link between the north, where the rebels control broad areas of territory, and the government strongholds in the center.
Abu Hadi, an activist in the village of Kafar Zita, north of Hama city, said the village and others had come under heavy government shelling on Friday. “The situation is very bad,†he said. “People are panicking in the streets.â€
The bloc has demanded that Gazprom open its export pipelines that run through member countries to other gas producers.
Mr. Putin complained that European energy regulation violated an earlier agreement on Russia-European Union economic relations, a claim the Europeans rejected. “It creates confusion and undermines confidence in our mutual work,†he said ahead of talks with Mr. Barroso and Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the European Council, which represents the governments of the member states.
Ellen Barry contributed reporting from Brussels, and Hania Mourtada and Hwaida Saad from Beirut, Lebanon.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
Oct. 29 — Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych’s ruling party got more votes than its rivals in parliamentary elections, boosting stocks and bonds before monitors deliver a verdict on the ballot later today.
The Party of Regions had almost 35 percent of party-list votes and was leading ballots in more than half of the 450-seat legislature’s 225 single-mandate constituencies, preliminary results showed. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe will hold a news conference on the elections at 2:30 p.m. in the capital, Kiev.
Yanukovych, 62, whose government wants the election deemed democratic to revitalize its European relations, trumpets stability, economic expansion and the Euro 2012 soccer tournament among his party’s achievements. While ties with the European Union have soured and growth may reverse in the second half of the year, opponents have struggled since ex-Premier Yulia Tymoshenko was imprisoned in 2011.
“Given that key opposition figures remain in jail, and were unable to campaign in these elections, it will be difficult for the West to call the elections fully free and fair,†Timothy Ash, a London-based strategist at Standard Bank Plc, wrote in an e-mailed note.
Bonds, Stocks
Ukraine’s dollar Eurobond due 2017 climbed for a fourth day, cutting the yield 22 basis points, or 0.22 percentage point, to 7.067 percent, the lowest level since the notes were sold in July. That’s the biggest decline since Oct. 16.
The benchmark UX equity index added 4.7 percent to 862.84, rising for a second day as all 10 stocks in the gauge climbed. The hryvnia fell 0.6 percent to 8.1805 per dollar.
The Party of Regions garnered 34.86 percent, compared with 22.07 percent for opposition groups united under Tymoshenko, with 52 percent of ballots counted in party-list voting as of 1 p.m., the Kiev-based Central Electoral Commission said on its website.
Heavyweight titleholder Vitali Klitschko’s UDAR won 12.88 percent of ballots, the Communists, Yanukovych’s current coalition partner, received 14.86 percent and the nationalist party Svoboda had 8.44 percent. Ukraine Forward, for which soccer star Andriy Shevchenko campaigned, didn’t meet the 5 percent parliamentary entry threshold, the figures showed.
Free, Democratic
Turnout at the election was 58 percent at 8 p.m. yesterday, according to the Central Electoral Commission. Final election results will be published tomorrow.
“Free and democratic elections have been conducted,†Prime Minister Mykola Azarov, who leads the Party of Regions’ party list, said yesterday in a statement on the party’s website. “We’ve won in an absolutely honest fight.â€
Ukraine’s foreign-currency bonds have returned 24 percent this year, the most after Venezuelan debt, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s EMBI Global Index, which gauges the yield difference relative to U.S. Treasuries.
Still, after expanding 5.2 percent last year and 4.7 percent in 2010, the economy will contract in the second half because of lower prices for steel, Ukraine’s main export earner, Erste Bank AG and HSBC Holdings Plc have predicted.
Single-Mandate Races
The Party of Regions prevailed in 117 single-seat constituencies after 54 percent of votes were counted, with the Tymoshenko-led opposition winning 35 races, according to the Central Electoral Commission’s website.
The united opposition and Svoboda agreed Oct. 19 to form a coalition and Klitschko said yesterday his party may join them in parliament.
“We’ll sit and discuss joint actions,†Klitschko said. “We see possible cooperation with those forces that support a democratic, European future for Ukraine. I reiterate: we won’t cooperate with the Party of Regions or the Communists.â€
The EU has delayed indefinitely a planned Association Agreement with Ukraine because of Tymoshenko’s conviction for abuse of office while premier. It’s urged Yanukovych and his government to conduct fair elections, calling them “a litmus test†of Ukraine’s democratic credentials.
The government is striving to ensure the elections meet international standards in a bid to “reset†relations with the EU, First Deputy Prime Minister Valeriy Khoroshkovskiy said in an Oct. 18 interview.
“The record number of observers that have come here from North America, Europe and Central Asia for this event underscores the importance we as the international community place on Ukraine’s democratic progress,†the OSCE, the Council of Europe, the European Parliament and NATO said yesterday in an e-mailed statement. “We hope to see the citizens of Ukraine participate fully in Sunday’s vote.â€
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
Two Kentucky men have been acquitted of hate-crimes charges in a first federal hate crimes trial of its kind trial involving an attack on a gay man. But jurors found both Anthony Ray Jenkins and his cousin David Jason Jenkins guilty on the charges of kidnapping and conspiracy to a kidnapping in connection with the assault on 29-year-old Kevin Pennington last year at a rural state park.
They had been charged with violating a section of a federal hate-crimes law that has not previously been prosecuted in the U.S.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Hydee Hawkins told the jury earlier that the two men used anti-gay slurs while kicking, beating and stomping on Pennington.
“You don’t have to agree with his lifestyle, but he’s a human being, and he deserved better than this,” Hawkins said.
CBS affiliate WKYT in Kentucky reports two female relatives of the defendants testified to the use of gay slurs in the assault.
Pennington sat in the courtroom occasionally wiping tears from his eyes as the attorneys spoke.
Throughout the trial, the defense argued that any dispute between the Jenkinses and Pennington was over a drug deal gone sour.
Andrew Stephens, the attorney for David Jason Jenkins, argued that his client had at least 21 beers on the day of the assault and was too drunk to have formulated a plan for such an attack.
“These people who were stoned and drunk were going to form a plan? When this event took place, they were all about drugs,” Stephens said.
Attorney Willis Coffey, who represents Anthony Jenkins, argued that his client has an IQ of roughly 75 and was merely a follower who does not hate gay people. He called the allegations “the nearest thing to nothing I have ever seen.”
Coffey said Pennington pushed the idea that he was attacked for being gay to serve his own political agenda. Coffey invoked the name of the Democratic president who is unpopular in Kentucky and lost badly there four years ago.
“If the government and President Obama want to bow to the special interest groups, that’s their business, but they picked the wrong case,” Coffey said.
U.S. Justice Department civil rights attorney AeJean Cha told jurors that the Jenkins cousins and two women planned to kidnap, beat and kill Pennington because of his sexual orientation.
“This is not about drugs, this is about the fact that Kevin is gay,” Cha said.
Hawkins also played a tape of Pennington’s 911 call after the attack. On the tape, Pennington’s voice can be heard cracking as he tries to describe the attack and relay information about the Jenkinses.
“They’re trying to kill me,” Pennington told the 911 operator on April 4, 2011. “I didn’t know what they were going to do. I think it’s because I’m gay.”
“Today is the day for accountability, ladies and gentlemen,” Hawkins said.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
In modern society, grandmothers are often called upon to babysit. But a few million years ago, when primate grandmothers first started doing that, they apparently had a major impact on human evolution. Scientists believe it’s a big reason why we live much longer than other primates. It’s called the “grandmother hypothesis.” University of Utah Anthropology Professor Kristen Hawkes says humans are distinct among primates when it comes to longevity.
“One of the things that’s really different about us humans, compared to our closest living relatives, the other great apes, is that we have these really long lifespans. We reach adulthood later and then we have much longer adult lives. And an especially important thing about that is that women usually live through the childbearing years and are healthy and productive well beyond,” she said.
Other primates are not as lucky.
“In other great apes, females, if they make it to adulthood, they usually die in their childbearing years and they get to be old, frail and gray and less able to do all the things that we associate with getting old. Well, of course, it happens to all of us, but it happens slower and later to us compared to the other great apes,” she said.
Hawkes said climate change may have set things in motion by affecting food supplies. Savannahs started replacing forests in Africa.
“One of the things it did was restrict the availability of the kinds of things that little kids, little apes, can feed themselves on. So that meant that ancestral moms had two choices. They could either follow the retreating forests, or if they stayed in those environments, then they just would have to feed their kids themselves. The kids couldn’t do it,” she said.
So, if mothers decided to feed their offspring themselves they would not be able to give birth as often. They’d just be too busy finding food. Here’s where granny primate steps in to help.
She said, “It would also mean that older females, whose fertility was coming to an end, could now make a big difference in their fitness by helping their daughters feed those grandchildren. And that would mean that moms could wean earlier.”
The act of early babysitting had long-range effects.
“That whole array of changes could account for why we have longer adult lifespans. We age more slowly. We mature later. Our kids are actually dependent longer, but we wean them earlier than the other apes do. And that hypothesis has been on the table for a while,” said Hawkes.
The caring for their daughters’ offspring may have triggered genetic changes that allowed older females to live longer. Those changes were eventually passed down. Computer simulations show that chimps, who reached adulthood at age 13, lived another 15 or 16 years. But humans in developed countries, who reached adulthood at 19, generally lived another 60 years or more.
Hawks and her colleagues believe the lengthening of the lifespan happened pretty quickly in scientific terms – between 24,000 and 60,000 years.
“This combination of grandmothering and increased longevity go together. When there’s grandmothering that makes more grandmothers. And it makes longevity increase from an apelike range into a humanlike range,” she said.
The “grandmother hypothesis” had its roots in research done in the 1980s. Hawkes and anthropologist James O’Connell lived among the hunter-gatherer Hadza people in Tanzania. Older women in that community spent their day gathering food for their grandchildren.
Hawkes says grandmothering made us more socially dependent on each other and “prone to engage each other’s attention.”
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
This is the second of a two-part article by Noam Chomsky on the decline of US power. You can read the first part here.
Cambridge, MA – In the years of conscious, self-inflicted decline at home, “losses” continued to mount elsewhere. In the past decade, for the first time in 500 years, South America has taken successful steps to free itself from western domination, another serious loss. The region has moved towards integration, and has begun to address some of the terrible internal problems of societies ruled by mostly Europeanised elites, tiny islands of extreme wealth in a sea of misery. They have also rid themselves of all US military bases and of IMF controls. A newly formed organisation, CELAC, includes all countries of the hemisphere apart from the US and Canada. If it actually functions, that would be another step in US decline, in this case in what has always been regarded as “the backyard”.
The MENA countries have been regarded as ‘one of the greatest material prizes in world history’ [GALLO/GETTY]
Even more serious would be the loss of the MENA countries – Middle East/North Africa – which have been regarded by planners since the 1940s as “a stupendous source of strategic power, and one of the greatest material prizes in world history”, Control of MENA energy reserves would yield “substantial control of the world”, in the words of the influential Roosevelt advisor AA Berle. To be sure, if the projections of a century of US energy independence based on North American energy resources turn out to be realistic, the significance of controlling MENA would decline somewhat, though probably not by much: the main concern has always been control more than access. However, the likely consequences to the planet’s equilibrium are so ominous that discussion may be largely an academic exercise.
The Arab Spring, another development of historic importance, might portend at least a partial “loss” of MENA. The US and its allies have tried hard to prevent that outcome – so far, with considerable success. Their policy towards the popular uprisings has kept closely to the standard guidelines: support the forces most amenable to US influence and control. Favoured dictators are supported as long as they can maintain control (as in the major oil states). When that is no longer possible, then discard them and try to restore the old regime as fully as possible (as in Tunisia and Egypt). The general pattern is familiar: Somoza, Marcos, Duvalier, Mobutu, Suharto, and many others. In one case, Libya, the three traditional imperial powers intervened by force to participate in a rebellion to overthrow a mercurial and unreliable dictator, opening the way, it is expected, to more efficient control over Libya’s rich resources (oil primarily, but also water, of particular interest to French corporations), to a possible base for the US Africa Command (so far restricted to Germany), and to the reversal of growing Chinese penetration. As far as policy goes, there have been few surprises.
Crucially, it is important to reduce the threat of functioning democracy, in which popular opinion will significantly influence policy. That again is routine, and quite understandable. A look at the studies of public opinion undertaken by US polling agencies in the MENA countries easily explains the western fear of authentic democracy, in which public opinion will significantly influence policy.
Israel and the Republican Party
Similar considerations carry over directly to the second major concern addressed in the issue of Foreign Affairs cited in part one of this piece: the Israel-Palestine conflict. Fear of democracy could hardly be more clearly exhibited than in this case. In January 2006, an election took place in Palestine, pronounced free and fair by international monitors. The instant reaction of the US (and of course Israel), with Europe following along politely, was to impose harsh penalties on Palestinians for voting the wrong way.
“For 35 years the US has led the rejectionist camp on Israel-Palestine.”
That is no innovation. It is quite in accord with the general and unsurprising principle recognised by mainstream scholarship: the US supports democracy if, and only if, the outcomes accord with its strategic and economic objectives, the rueful conclusion of neo-Reaganite Thomas Carothers, the most careful and respected scholarly analyst of “democracy promotion” initiatives.
More broadly, for 35 years the US has led the rejectionist camp on Israel-Palestine, blocking an international consensus calling for a political settlement in terms too well known to require repetition. The western mantra is that Israel seeks negotiations without preconditions, while the Palestinians refuse. The opposite is more accurate. The US and Israel demand strict preconditions, which are, furthermore, designed to ensure that negotiations will lead either to Palestinian capitulation on crucial issues, or nowhere.
The first precondition is that the negotiations must be supervised by Washington, which makes about as much sense as demanding that Iran supervise the negotiation of Sunni-Shia conflicts in Iraq. Serious negotiations would have to be under the auspices of some neutral party, preferably one that commands some international respect, perhaps Brazil. The negotiations would seek to resolve the conflicts between the two antagonists: the US and Israel on one side, most of the world on the other.
The second precondition is that Israel must be free to expand its illegal settlements in the West Bank. Theoretically, the US opposes these actions, but with a very light tap on the wrist, while continuing to provide economic, diplomatic and military support. When the US does have some limited objections, it very easily bars the actions, as in the case of the E-1 project linking Greater Jerusalem to the 39,000-resident settlement of Ma’aleh Adumim, virtually bisecting the West Bank, a very high priority for Israeli planners (across the spectrum), but which raised some objections in Washington, so that Israel has had to resort to devious measures to chip away at the project.
The pretence of opposition reached the level of farce in February 2011 when Obama vetoed a Security Council resolution calling for implementation of official US policy (also adding the uncontroversial observation that the settlements themselves are illegal, quite apart from their expansion). Since that time there has been little talk about ending settlement expansion, which continues, with studied provocation.
Thus, as Israeli and Palestinian representatives prepared to meet in Jordan in January 2011, Israel announced new construction in Pisgat Ze’ev and Har Homa, West Bank areas that it has declared to be within the greatly expanded area of Jerusalem, annexed, settled, and constructed as Israel’s capital – all in violation of direct Security Council orders. Other moves carry forward the grander design of separating whatever West Bank enclaves will be left to Palestinian administration from the cultural, commercial, political centre of Palestinian life in the former Jerusalem.
It is understandable that Palestinian rights should be marginalised in US policy and discourse. Palestinians have no wealth or power. They offer virtually nothing to US policy concerns; in fact, they have negative value, as a nuisance that stirs up “the Arab street”.
Israel, in contrast, is a valuable ally. It is a rich society with a sophisticated, largely militarised high-tech industry. For decades, it has been a highly valued military and strategic ally, particularly since 1967, when it performed a great service to the US and its Saudi ally by destroying the Nasserite “virus”, establishing the “special relationship” with Washington in the form that has persisted since. It is also a growing centre for US high-tech investment. In fact, high-tech – particularly military – industries in the two countries are closely linked.
Apart from such elementary considerations of great power politics as these, there are cultural factors that should not be ignored. Christian Zionism in Britain and the US long preceded Jewish Zionism, and has been a significant elite phenomenon with clear policy implications (including the Balfour Declaration, which drew from it). When General Allenby conquered Jerusalem during World War I, he was hailed in the US press as “Richard the Lion-Hearted”, who had at last won the Crusades and driven the pagans out of the Holy Land.
The next step was for the Chosen People to return to the land promised to them by the Lord. Articulating a common elite view, President Franklin Roosevelt’s Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes described Jewish colonisation of Palestine as an achievement “without comparison in the history of the human race”. Such attitudes find their place easily within the Providentialist doctrines that have been a strong element in popular and elite culture since the country’s origins: the belief that God has a plan for the world, and that the US is carrying it forward under divine guidance, as articulated by a long list of leading figures.
Moreover, evangelical Christianity is a major popular force in the US. Further towards the extremes, End Times evangelical Christianity also has enormous popular outreach, invigorated by the establishment of Israel in 1948, revitalised even more by the conquest of the rest of Palestine in 1967 – all signs that End Times and the Second Coming are approaching.
These forces have become particularly significant since the Reagan years, as the Republicans have abandoned the pretence of being a political party in the traditional sense, while devoting themselves in virtual lockstep uniformity to servicing a tiny percentage of the super-rich and the corporate sector. However, the small constituency that is primarily served by the reconstructed party cannot provide votes, so they have to turn elsewhere.
The only choice is to mobilise tendencies that have always been present, though rarely as an organised political force: primarily nativists trembling in fear and hatred, and religious elements – extremists by international standards if not in the US. One outcome is reverence for alleged Biblical prophecies, hence not only support for Israel and its conquests and expansion, but passionate love for Israel, another core part of the catechism that must be intoned by Republican candidates – with Democrats, again, not too far behind.
These factors aside, it should not be forgotten that the “Anglosphere” – Britain and its offshoots – consists of settler-colonial societies, which rose on the ashes of indigenous populations, suppressed or virtually exterminated. Past practices must have been basically correct, in the US case even ordained by Divine Providence. Accordingly there is often an intuitive sympathy for the children of Israel when they follow a similar course. But primarily, geostrategic and economic interests prevail, and policy is not graven in stone.
The Iranian ‘threat’ and the nuclear issue
Let us turn finally to the third of the leading issues addressed in the establishment journals cited earlier, the “threat of Iran”. Among elites and the political class this is generally taken to be the primary threat to world order – though not among populations. In Europe, polls show that Israel is regarded as the leading threat to peace. In the MENA countries, that status is shared with the US, to the extent that, in Egypt, on the eve of the Tahrir Square uprising, 80 per cent felt that the region would be more secure if Iran had nuclear weapons. The same polls found that only ten per cent regard Iran as a threat – unlike the ruling dictators, who have their own concerns.
In the United States, before the massive propaganda campaigns of the past few years, a majority of the population agreed with most of the world that, as a signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran has a right to carry out uranium enrichment. And even today, a large majority favours peaceful means for dealing with Iran. There is even strong opposition to military engagement if Iran and Israel are at war. Only a quarter regard Iran as an important concern for the US altogether. But it is not unusual for there to be a gap, often a chasm, dividing public opinion and policy.
Why exactly is Iran regarded as such a colossal threat? The question is rarely discussed, but it is not hard to find a serious answer – though not, as usual, in the fevered pronouncements. The most authoritative answer is provided by the Pentagon and the intelligence services in their regular reports to Congress on global security. They report that Iran does not pose a military threat. Its military spending is very low, even by the standards of the region – minuscule, of course, in comparison with the US.
“It makes very good sense to try to prevent Iran from joining the nuclear weapons states, including the three that have refused to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty – Israel, India and Pakistan – all of which have been assisted in developing nuclear weapons by the US, and are still being assisted by them.”
Iran has little capacity to deploy force. Its strategic doctrines are defensive, designed to deter invasion long enough for diplomacy to set it. If Iran is developing nuclear weapons capability, they report, that would be part of its deterrence strategy. No serious analyst believes that the ruling clerics are eager to see their country and possessions vaporised, the immediate consequence of their coming even close to initiating a nuclear war. And it is hardly necessary to spell out the reasons why any Iranian leadership would be concerned with deterrence, under existing circumstances.
The regime is doubtless a serious threat to much of its own population – and regrettably, is hardly unique on that score. But the primary threat to the US and Israel is that Iran might deter their free exercise of violence. A further threat is that the Iranians clearly seek to extend their influence to neighboring Iraq and Afghanistan, and beyond as well. Those “illegitimate” acts are called “destabilising” (or worse). In contrast, forceful imposition of US influence halfway around the world contributes to “stability” and order, in accord with traditional doctrine about who owns the world.
It makes very good sense to try to prevent Iran from joining the nuclear weapons states, including the three that have refused to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty – Israel, India and Pakistan – all of which have been assisted in developing nuclear weapons by the US, and are still being assisted by them. It is not impossible to approach that goal by peaceful diplomatic means. One approach, which enjoys overwhelming international support, is to undertake meaningful steps towards establishing a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East, including Iran and Israel (and applying as well to US forces deployed there), better still extending to South Asia.
Support for such efforts is so strong that the Obama administration has been compelled to formally agree, but with reservations: crucially, that Israel’s nuclear program must not be placed under the auspices of the International Atomic Energy Association, and that no state (meaning the US) should be required to release information about “Israeli nuclear facilities and activities, including information pertaining to previous nuclear transfers to Israel”. Obama also accepts Israel’s position that any such proposal must be conditional on a comprehensive peace settlement, which the US and Israel can continue to delay indefinitely.
This survey comes nowhere near being exhaustive, needless to say. Among major topics not addressed is the shift of US military policy towards the Asia-Pacific region, with new additions to the huge military base system underway right now, in Jeju Island off South Korea and Northwest Australia, all elements of the policy of “containment of China”. Closely related is the issue of US bases in Okinawa, bitterly opposed by the population for many years, and a continual crisis in US-Tokyo-Okinawa relations.
Revealing how little fundamental assumptions have changed, US strategic analysts describe the result of China’s military programs as a “classic ‘security dilemma’, whereby military programs and national strategies deemed defensive by their planners are viewed as threatening by the other side”, writes Paul Godwin of the Foreign Policy Research Institute. The security dilemma arises over control of the seas off China’s coasts. The US regards its policies of controlling these waters as “defensive”, while China regards them as threatening; correspondingly, China regards its actions in nearby areas as “defensive” while the US regards them as threatening. No such debate is even imaginable concerning US coastal waters. This “classic security dilemma” makes sense, again, on the assumption that the US has a right to control most of the world, and that US security requires something approaching absolute global control.
While the principles of imperial domination have undergone little change, the capacity to implement them has markedly declined as power has become more broadly distributed in a diversifying world. Consequences are many. It is, however, very important to bear in mind that – unfortunately – none lifts the two dark clouds that hover over all consideration of global order: nuclear war and environmental catastrophe, both literally threatening the decent survival of the species.
Quite the contrary. Both threats are ominous, and increasing.
To listen to Timothy MacBain’s latest Tomcast audio interview in which Chomsky offers an anatomy of US defeats in the Greater Middle East, click here, or download it to your MP3 player here.
A version of this piece was originally published on TomDispatch.com.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
The Iranian government, which captured a U.S. stealth drone in December, has agreed to give the top-secret spy craft back, but with a catch.
Instead of the original RQ-170 Sentinel drone, the Islamic Republic said Tuesday that it will send President Obama a tiny toy replica of the plane.
Iranian state radio said that the toy model will be 1/80th the size of the real thing. Iranian citizens can also buy their own toy copies of the drone, which will be available in stores for the equivalent of $4.
The White House formally requested return of the drone after the Iranians displayed it on state television. The U.S. says that the craft was operating over Eastern Afghanistan.
The Iranians claim they detected the drone well inside Iran’s border and then took control of the craft electronically and brought it down safely. The U.S. has denied that the craft came down for any reason other than technical malfunction.
On Dec. 11, after President Obama said he had requested the return of the drone, an Iranian general said that it was not going to happen. The general also warned on Iranian television of a “bigger response” to the “hostile act” of crossing into Iranian airspace.
“No one returns the symbol of aggression to the party that sought secret and vital intelligence related to the national security of a country,” Iranian Islamic Revolution Guards Corps [IRGC] Lt. Commander Gen. Hossein Salami said, according to Iran’s Fars News Agency.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that “given Iran’s behavior to date, we do not expect them to comply” with Obama’s request. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta also said he didn’t expect Iran to hand over the drone, but told reporters, “I think it’s important to make that request.”
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iran said on Saturday it had evidence Washington was behind the latest killing of one of its nuclear scientists, state television reported, at a time when tensions over the country’s nuclear program have escalated to their highest level ever.
In the fifth attack of its kind in two years, a magnetic bomb was attached to the door of 32-year-old Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan’s car during the Wednesday morning rush-hour in the capital. His driver was also killed.
U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton denied responsibility and Israeli President Shimon Peres said Israel had no role in the attack, to the best of his knowledge.
“We have reliable documents and evidence that this terrorist act was planned, guided and supported by the CIA,” the Iranian foreign ministry said in a letter handed to the Swiss ambassador in Tehran, state TV reported. The Swiss embassy represents U.S. interests in a country where Washington has no diplomatic ties.
The spokesman for Iran’s Joint Armed Forces Staff, Massoud Jazayeri, said: “Our enemies, especially America , Britain and the Zionist regime (Israel), have to be held responsible for their actions.”
Iran in the past has accused Israel of causing a series of spectacular and sometimes bloody mishaps to its nuclear programme. Israeli officials do not comment on any involvement in those events, although some have publicly expressed satisfaction at the setbacks.
Feeling the heat from unprecedented new sanctions, Iran’s clerical establishment has brandished its sword by threatening to block the main Mid-East oil shipping route, starting to enrich uranium at an underground bunker and sentencing an Iranian-American citizen to death on spying charges.
State TV said a “letter of condemnation” had also been sent to Britain, saying the killing of Iranian nuclear scientists began after the head of Britain’s MI6 spy service announced intelligence operations against states seeking nuclear weapons.
The West says Iran’s nuclear programme is aimed at building a bomb. Tehran says it has the right to peaceful nuclear power.
Tehran has urged the U.N. Security Council and Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to condemn the latest killing.
After years of international sanctions that had little impact on Iran, U.S. President Barack Obama signed new measures on New Year’s Eve that, if fully implemented, would make it impossible for most countries to pay for Iranian oil.
Washington is requiring that countries gradually reduce their purchases of Iranian oil in order to receive temporary waivers from the sanctions.
The European Union is expected to unveil similar measures next week, and announce a gradual oil embargo among its member states, who collectively buy about a fifth of Iran’s exports.
The combined measures mean Iran may fail to sell all of the 2.6 million barrels a day of exports it relies on to feed its 74 million people. Even if it finds buyers, it will have to offer steep discounts, cutting into its desperately-needed revenue.
On Tuesday shipping sources told Reuters Iran was storing an increasing supply of oil at sea – as much as 8 million barrels – and was likely to store more as it struggles to sell it.
Iran denies it is having trouble: “There has been no disruption in Iran’s crude exports through the Persian Gulf … We have not stored oil in the Gulf because of sanctions as some foreign media reported,” oil official Pirouz Mousavi told the semi-official Mehr news agency on Friday.
The sanctions are causing real hardship on the streets, where prices for basic imported goods are soaring, the rial currency has plummeted and Iranians have been flocking to sell rials to buy dollars to protect their savings.
The pain comes less than two months before a parliamentary election, Iran’s first since a presidential vote in 2009 that was followed by eight months of street demonstrations.
Iran’s authorities successfully put down that revolt by force, but since then the “Arab Spring” has shown the vulnerability of authoritarian governments in the region to protests fueled by anger over economic difficulty.
CLASH THREAT
Iran has threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz leading to the Gulf if sanctions are imposed on its oil exports, and has threatened to take unspecified action if Washington sails an aircraft carrier through the strait, an international waterway.
Military experts say Tehran can do little to fight the massive U.S.-led fleet that guards the strait, but the threats raise the chance of a miscalculation that could lead to a military clash and a global oil crisis.
The Pentagon said on Friday that small Iranian boats had approached close to U.S. vessels in the strait last week, although it said it did not believe there was “hostile intent.”
The United States and Israel have not ruled out military action if diplomacy fails to resolve the nuclear dispute. Iran says it would retaliate if attacked.
The tension has caused spikes in global oil prices in recent weeks, although prices eased at the close of last week’s trading on the prospect of reduced demand in economically stricken European countries. Brent crude fell 82 cents to settle at $110.44 a barrel on Friday.
The chances for an imminent easing of tension look even more remote as the nuclear deadlock continues because of Iran’s refusal to halt the sensitive nuclear work.
Last week Iran began enriching uranium underground – the most controversial part of its nuclear programme – at a bunker deep below a mountain near the Shi’ite holy city of Qom.
Nuclear talks with major powers collapsed a year ago. Iran says it wants the talks to resume, but the West says there is no point unless it is willing to discuss a halt to uranium enrichment, which can be used to make material for a bomb.
(Additional reporting by Mitra Amiri; Writing by Parisa Hafezi; Editing by Peter Graff)
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
The US has condemned the killing of an Iranian nuclear scientist in a car bomb attack in north Tehran.
National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor said the US “had absolutely nothing to do” with the attack.
Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan, who worked at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility, died along with the driver of the car.
Several Iranian nuclear scientists have been assassinated in recent years, with Iran blaming Israel and the US.
Both deny any involvement.
Washington and its allies suspect Tehran of secretly developing a nuclear weapon but Iran insists its nuclear programme is peaceful.
“The United States had absolutely nothing to do with this. We strongly condemn all acts of violence, including acts of violence like this,” said Mr Vietor.
Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization described the killings as “a heinous act”.
Iranian Vice-President Mohammad Reza Rahimi said on state TV that the bomb attack would not stop “progress” in the country’s nuclear programme.
The assassination may now prompt Iran to try to respond in kind.
The murder in Tehran of Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan comes on top of a sophisticated cyber sabotage programme and two mysterious explosions at Iranian military bases, one of which in November killed the general known as ‘the godfather’ of Iran’s ballistic missile programme.
Regardless of who is behind these attacks, Iran is clearly being subjected to an undeclared campaign to slow down its nuclear programme.
Mr Ahmadi-Roshan, 32, was a university lecturer who supervised a department at the Natanz plant, the semi-official news agency Fars reported.
Iranian officials said two men on a motorcycle attached a magnetic bomb to his car during the morning rush hour and detonated it outside a university campus.
Mr Ahmadi-Roshan died immediately while his driver died later of his wounds, Fars reported. A third occupant of the Peugeot 405 was injured and taken to hospital.
The blast left debris hanging in nearby trees.
Iran says the attack was similar to the killings of three other scientists over the past two years.
A senior Israeli official described the attack as “revenge” but said he was unaware who had carried it out.
“I don’t know who took revenge on the Iranian scientist but I am definitely not shedding a tear,” military spokesman Brig Gen Yoav Mordechai wrote on his official Facebook page.
The attack comes amid rising tensions between Iran and the West.
The UN’s nuclear watchdog recently confirmed that Tehran had begun enriching uranium up to 20% at its underground northern Fordo plant near Qom.
The US said it was “a further escalation” of Iran’s violation of UN resolutions regarding its nuclear plans.
In a further attempt to pile pressure on Iran, Western UN envoys on Wednesday condemned Iran’s enrichment of uranium at the Fordo plant as a “clear breach” of UN resolutions.
France’s deputy envoy Martin Briens said Britain, France, Germany and the US raised concerns at the Security Council because the new plant has no “credible civilian use”.
Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan worked at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility
However, the BBC’s Barbara Plett at the UN says an agreement on further sanctions is unlikely.
The UN Security Council has passed six resolutions and four rounds of sanctions against Iran although Russia and China are expected to block any further measures.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov earlier told the Itar-Tass news agency that Moscow was firmly against any new sanctions on Iran, adding that they wouldn’t help nuclear non-proliferation.
Western nations are also imposing sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme. In response, Tehran has threatened to block the transport of oil through the Strait of Hormuz.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday described that threat as “provocative and dangerous”.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
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