Just Commentary July 2014

July 2014

Vol 14, No.07

ISRAEL BOMBS GAZA; MASSES ARMY

ON

BORDER

By Patrick Martin Israeli warplanes struck the Gaza Strip , hitting at least 15 targets in the blockaded Palestinian territory, causing extensive damage and wounding at least 10 people, including a pregnant woman and a 65-year-old man.

The Israel Defense Forces moved tanks and artillery units towards Gaza, positioning them in advance of any order from the cabinet to invade the densely populated enclave, with nearly two million people crammed into an area of less than 200 square miles. The IDF also called up an undisclosed number of reservists for duty.

The military mobilization was the largest on the border of Gaza since Israel’s last major attack on the Palestinian territory, eight days of bloody bomb and missile strikes in November 2012.

An Israeli military spokesman claimed the sites targeted by bombs and missiles

were linked to Hamas, the Islamic party that has ruled Gaza since it won elections in 2006. The Israeli government has declared Hamas responsible for the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank, although that territory is controlled by the secular Palestinian party Fatah, with Israeli support.

The killing of the three teenagers, whose bodies were found on June 30 outside Hebron, is being used as a pretext by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to escalate tensions with Hamas and threaten an invasion or reoccupation of the Gaza Strip. Israeli military forces and settlers were withdrawn from Gaza in 2005.

Thursday’s bombing was the latest in a series of tit-for-tat exchanges, with Israeli jets dropping bombs or firing missiles at targets in Gaza, while Palestinian militants launch primitive

unguided rockets from Gaza at nearby Israeli towns, particularly the border town of Sderot.

The Israeli attacks, using high-tech weaponry, much of it supplied by the United States, are far more destructive and lethal. On Tuesday, Israeli air strikes hit 34 targets in Gaza, after attacks over the weekend.

Bombs and missiles in Gaza have been combined with brutal military-police operations on the West Bank, where 500 Palestinians were arrested, dozens injured, and six killed in the four weeks since the kidnappings on the West Bank.

Tensions on the West Bank exploded Wednesday after the killing of a Palestinian youth, 16-year-old Muhammad Hussein Abu Khudair, who was abducted from the street outside his home in East Jerusalem, apparently Turn to next page

STATEMENT .THE CUBAN FIVE TERRORISM AS A WEAPON OF HEGEMONY BY CHANDRA MUZAFFAR......................P2

ARTICLES . PEACE MOVEMENT ’S

VISIION-THE

. EGYPT’S SO CALLED JUSTICE SYSTEM IS THE GUILTY

MILITARISM

BY MAIREAD MAGUIRE........................................P 4

PARTY AND THE WORLD SHOULD ACT

BY ALAN HART............................................P 11

. THE ISLAMIC STATE, THE “CALIPHATE”AND

.2014 COUP : OLD WINE IN A NEW BOTTLE?

BY SULAK SIVARAKSA........................................P 11

COMMON

ABOLITION OF

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“GLOBAL WAR ON TERRORISM”

BY MICHELCHOSSUDOVSKY..................................P 6 .THE MALAYSIAN LINK

TO TERROR IN SYRIA

BY CHANDRA MUZAFFAR.....................................P8

. TONY BLAIR, PHANTOM OF THE OPERA

BY PEPE ESCOBAR...............................................P 13

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by ultra-right Jewish settlers vowing “revenge” for the killing of the three Israeli youth. Khudair’s body was found miles away, badly burned and bearing marks of violence.

Thousands of Palestinians took to the streets Wednesday in East Jerusalem in response to the news of Khudair’s murder, throwing rocks, bottles and firecrackers at police and setting up barricades. The neighborhoods of Shuafat and Beit Hanina, where the violence was concentrated, were relatively quiet on Thursday, as the residents prepared for the funeral service, and Israeli troops sealed off access to that part of the city.

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Late Thursday, the Khudair family said the funeral was postponed until Friday because of the delay in conducting an autopsy in Tel Aviv, where a Palestinian doctor was to observe the procedure.

Elsewhere in Jerusalem, protesters threw rocks and built barricades of burning tires.

Israeli police fired stun grenades but otherwise did not directly engage the protesters.

Israeli police officials claimed that despite an intensive investigation, “the motive for the murder cannot be determined at present.” Eyewitnesses described the attackers as Jewish, however, and Palestinian officials have charged that the attackers were Israeli extremists.

L E A D A R T I C L E While witnesses supplied police with the license plate number of the vehicle used by the kidnappers, the police have not publicly identified the killers.

The murdered youth’s family criticized police inaction. Hussein Abu Khudair, Muhammad’s father, declared: “If things were different, and an Arab kidnapped an Israeli, it would have been uncovered in moments.”

04 July, 2014 Patrick Martin served as The Globe’s Foreign Editor and as a Comment Editor Source : WSWS.org

STATEMENT THE CUBAN FIVE TERRORISM

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By Chandra Muzaffar Once again, the International Movement for a Just World (JUST) joins hands with the people of Cuba and justice-loving people in every nook and cranny of the planet, in demanding the immediate release of the three remaining prisoners from the Cuban Five who are still languishing in US jails, after 13 years.

Tw o w e r e r e l e a s e d a f t e r completing their prison terms — Rene Gonzales on the 7 th of October 2011, and Fernando Gonzales on the 27th of February 2014. It is important to emphasize that they walked to freedom with their dignity intact.

The three who are still in jail — Gerardo Hernandez, Antonio Guerrero and Ramon Labanino — deserve our fullest support and

solidarity. We should continue to campaign for them with all our heart and soul.

To reiterate, the imprisonment of all five is a travesty of justice. The Cuban Five were monitoring Cuban exile groups in the US in the nineties who had a proven record of committing terrorist acts against the Cuban people.

They were gathering information about the terrorist missions that these groups were planning and had informed the US authorities about what they (the Cuban Five) were doing. And yet they were arrested and jailed after an unfair and unjust trial.

If the Cuban Five working under the direction of the Cuban government was determined to expose terrorist activities being

carried out against their motherland from US soil, it was mainly because Cuba and its leadership had been victims of US sponsored terror and violence for decades. In 1976, a Cuban commercial plane with 73 passengers on board, a number of them school children, was bombed, killing everyone. The alleged mastermind of this terrorist act, Luis Posada Carriles, is still alive, protected by the US government. There was also an unsuccessful invasion of Cuba by groups in the US in 1961, the infamous ‘Bay of Pigs’ fiasco. A series of terrorist attacks targeting hotels and tourists in the nineties sought to cripple the Cuban economy. And there have been innumerable attempts to assassinate the continued next page

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Leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro, right through the 47 years that he was in power. Add to all this the crippling economic sanctions imposed upon Cuba by every US Administration since 1961 and we will get a complete picture of how a small nation of 11 million people has had to endure the terror unleashed against it by its superpower neighbor.

Why has Cuba been the target of terrorism in all its manifestations for so long? The reason is simple. The US elite will not accept in its neighborhood, a nation which is determined to choose its own path to the future without being dictated to, or dominated by, the US. It will not tolerate a people who are committed to defending their independence and sovereignty.

To put it in another way, the US drive for hegemony does not permit another nation— especially a nation with a different worldview — to preserve and enhance its dignity.

This hegemonic attitude is borne out by the US’s treatment of other countries in Latin America.

Whenever a nation steps out of line, the US line, it is clobbered.

Sometimes through terror and violence. Look at Nicaragua, El Salvador, Panama, Uruguay, Ecuador, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, at different times and in different circumstances. Even in West Asia, terror has been employed to both undermine governments which want to maintain a degree of independence from the US and the West and to create instability

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and chaos in society. This is the story of Somalia and Sudan, of Libya and Lebanon, of Iraq and Syria. In Southeast Asia too, the Vietnamese, the Cambodians and Laotians have all experienced US terror, just as the people of the Philippines had in the past. Weren’t the citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki also exposed to a US “rain of terror” in 1945?

L e t ’s b e c l e a r a b o u t t h i s .

Terrorism is a tool for dominance and control. Terrorism is a weapon of hegemony. The US — like some other states too—uses this weapon in both ways. It employs terror when it suits its interests. It also fights against terrorism when it serves its agenda. This is why for the US there are “good terrorists” and “bad terrorists.” It is quite happy to collude with the former and crush the latter.

This was obvious in Iraq following the Anglo-American occupation of the land in 2003.

In the initial phase the occupier encouraged the Shia militias to fight the Sunni remnants of the Saddam Hussein regime. Once the Shias got into power through the democratic process and moved closer to Iran, the US

S T A T E M E N T became worried and backed Sunni militias fighting the Shia dominated government. Now of course, Sunni-Shia clashes, compounded by various other forces, have assumed a life of their own.

In Syria, it is an open secret that the US and other Western and regional actors have been actively involved in supporting the armed rebels against the Bashar al-Assad government in Damascus. Some of the rebels are favored more than others by the US just as other rebels are linked to some of the other external players. The good terrorists from the US perspective receive a lot of assistance including weapons and funds through channels connected to US allies in the region. Are there bad terrorists in the Syrian conflict? While the US may not approve of the tactics used by some of the rebels, it has refrained from strong denunciation of them since it shares their overriding objective of eliminating Assad.

So it is Assad who is the bad terrorist in the eyes of the US. Assad is bad because he has been consistent in his opposition to US-Israeli hegemony over West Asia.

There is a parallel of sorts to the Cuban situation. All those individuals and groups opposed to the Cuban government, however violent they may be, are good terrorists and have been bestowed with all kinds of aid by US agencies through various continued next page

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through the media.

conduits. Fidel Castro, and his successor, Raul Castro, are the bad ones. Fidel in particular was demonized in the mainstream Western media as few other leaders had been. Needless to say, it was because of his principled position against US helmed hegemony, articulated with such depth and clarity, that a grossly negative image of the man was disseminated

But Fidel Castro and the Cuban Five have demonstrated that in the ultimate analysis truth will triumph.

Today, Fidel commands a lot of respect and affection among ordinary men and women everywhere for what he has accomplished for his people and indeed for the people of Latin America and the Global South.

S T A T E M E N T Similarly, the cause of the Cuban Five has become one of the major rallyingpoints in the worldwide struggle for human freedom and human dignity because it symbolizes the struggle of the powerless against the powerful.

Dr. Chandra Muzaffar is the President of the International Movement for a Just World (JUST).

16 June 2014

ARTICLES PEACE MOVEMENT’S COMMON VISION - THE ABOLITION

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MILITARISM

By Mairead Maguire We are all aware that this is the 100th anniversary of the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo which led to the start of the First World War in l9l4. What started here in Sarajevo was a century of two global wars, a Cold War, a century of immense, rapid explosion of death and destruction technology, all extremely costly, and extremely risky.

A huge step in the history of war, but also a decisive turning point in the history of peace. The peace movement had never been as strong politically as in the last three decades before the break-out of WWl. It was a factor in political life, literature, organization, and planning, the Hague Peace Conferences, the Hague Peace Palace and the International Court of Arbitration, the bestseller of Bertha von Suttner’s ‘Lay Down your Arms’. The optimism was high as to what this ‘new science’ of peace could mean to humankind.

Parliaments, Kings, and Emperors, great cultural and business personalities involved themselves.

The great strength of the Movement was that it did not limit itself to civilizing and slowing down

militarism, it demanded its total abolition.

People were presented with an alternative, and they saw common interest in this alternative road forward for humankind. What happened in Sarajevo a hundred years ago was a devastating blow to these ideas, and we have never really recovered. Now, 100 years later, must be the time for a thorough reappraisal of what we had with this vision of disarmament, and what we have done without it, and the need for a recommitment, and a new ambitious start offering new hope to a humanity suffering under the scourge of militarism and wars.

People are tired of armaments and war. They have seen that they release uncontrollable forces of tribalism and nationalism. These are dangerous and murderous forms of identity and which we need to take steps to transcend, lest we unleash further dreadful violence upon the world. To do this, we need to acknowledge that our common humanity and human dignity are more important than our different traditions.

We need to recognize our life and the lives of others are sacred and we can solve our problems without killing each other. We need to accept and celebrate diversity and otherness. We need to work to heal the ‘old’ divisions and misunderstandings, give and accept forgiveness, and choose non-killing and non-violence as ways to solve our problems. So too as we disarm our hearts and minds, we can also disarm our countries and our world.

We are also challenged to build structures through which we can cooperate and which reflect our interconnected and interdependent relationships. The vision of the European Union founders to link countries together, economically, in order to lessen the likelihood of war amongst the nations, is a worthy endeavour. Unfortunately instead of putting more energy into providing help for EU citizens, we are witnessing the growing militarization of Europe, its role as a driving force for armaments, and its dangerous path, under the leadership of the USA/ NATO, towards a new ‘cold’ war and continued next page

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military aggression. The European Union and many of its countries, who used to take initiatives in the UN for peaceful settlements of conflicts, particularly allegedly peaceful countries, like Norway and Sweden, are now one of US/NATO’s most important war assets. The EU is a threat to the survival of neutrality. Many nations have been drawn into being complicit in breaking international law through US/UK/NATO wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, etc.,

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abolition of armies, holding Peace Congresses. It is important the Nobel Committee be faithful to his wishes and that prizes go to the true Champions of Peace that Nobel had in mind.

This 100 year old Programme for Disarmament challenges those of us in the Peace Movement to confront militarism in a fundamental way. We must not be satisfied with improvements and reforms, but rather offer an alternative to militarism, which is an aberration and a system of dysfunction, going completely against

I believe NATO should be abolished.

The United Nations should be reformed and strengthened and we should get rid of the veto in the Security Council so that it is a fair vote and we don’t have one power ruling over us. The UN should actively take up its mandate to save the world from the scourge of war.

But there is hope. People are mobilizing and resisting non-violently. They are saying no to militarism and war and insisting on disarmament. Those of us in the Peace Movement can take inspiration from many who have gone before and worked to prevent war insisting on disarmament and peace.

Such a person was Bertha Von Suttner, who was the first woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize in l905, for her activism in the women’s rights and peace movement. She died in June, l9l4, 100 years ago, just before WWl started. It was Bertha Von Suttner who moved Alfred Nobel to set up the Nobel Peace Prize Award and it was the ideas of the peace movement of the period that Alfred Nobel decided to support in his testament for the Champions of Peace, those who struggled for disarmament and for replacing power with law and international relations. That this was the purpose is clearly confirmed by three expressions in the will, creating the fraternity of nations, work for

the true spirit of men and women, which is to love and be loved and solve our problems through co-operation, dialogue, non-violence, and conflict resolution.

Thanks to the organizers for bringing us together. In the coming days we shall feel the warmth and strength of being among thousands of friends and enriched by the variety of peace people, and ideas. We shall be inspired and energized to pursue our different projects, be it arms trade, nuclear, nonviolence, culture of peace, drone warfare, etc., Together we can lift the world! But soon we shall be back home, on our own, and we know all too well how we all too often are being met with either indifference or a remote stare. Our problem is not that people do not like what we say, what they understand correctly is that they believe little can be done, as the world is so highly militarized. There is an answer

A R T I C L E to this problem: we want a different world and want people to believe that peace and disarmament are possible.

Can we agree, that diverse as our work is, a common vision of a world without arms, militarism and war, is indispensable for success? Does not our experience confirm that we will never achieve real change if we do not confront and reject militarism entirely, as the aberration/dysfunction it is in human history? Can we agree to work so that all countries come together in an Agreement to abolish all weapons and war and to commit to always sort out our differences through International Law and Institutions?

We cannot here in Sarajevo make a common peace program, but we can commit to a common goal. If our common dream is a world without weapons and militarism, why don’t we say so? Why be silent about it? It would make a world of difference if we refused to be ambivalent about the violence of militarism. We should no longer be scattered attempts to modify the military, each one of us should do our thing as part of a global effort, across all divisions of national borders, religions, races. We must be an alternative, insisting on an end to militarism and violence. This would give us an entirely different chance to be listened to and taken seriously.

Let the Sarajevo where peace ended, be the starting point for the bold beginning of a universal call for peace through the wholesale abolition of militarism.

The above is a keynote address delivered at the Sarajevo Peace Event on the 6th of June 2014.

Mairead Maguire is a Nobel Peace Laureate. She is also a member of JUST’s International Advisory Panel (IAP).

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“CALIPHATE” PROJECT WAR ON TERRORISM

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By Michel Chossudovsky The Al Qaeda legend and the threat of the “Outside Enemy” is sustained through extensive media and government propaganda.

In the post 9/11 era, the terrorist threat from Al Qaeda constitutes the building block of US-NATO military doctrine.

It justifies –under a humanitarian mandate– the conduct of “counterterrorism operations” worldwide.

Known and documented, Al Qaeda affiliated entities have been used by USNATO in numerous conflicts as “intelligence assets” since the heyday of the Soviet-Afghan war. In Syria, the Al Nusrah and ISIS rebels are the footsoldiers of the Western military alliance, which in turn oversees and controls the recruitment and training of paramilitary forces.

While the US State Department is accusing several countries of “harboring terrorists”, America is the Number One “State Sponsor of Terrorism”: The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) –which operates in both Syria and Iraq– is covertly supported and financed by the US and its allies including Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Moreover, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham’s Sunni caliphate project coincides with a longstanding US agenda to carve up both Iraq and Syria into separate territories: A Sunni Islamist Caliphate, an Arab Shia Republic, a Republic of Kurdistan, among others.

The US-led Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) constitutes the cornerstone of US military doctrine. “Going after Islamic terrorists” is part and parcel of non-conventional warfare. The

underlying objective is to justify the conduct of counter-terrorism operations worldwide, which enables the US and its allies to intervene in the affairs of sovereign countries.

Many progressive writers, including alternative media, while focusing on

recent developments in Iraq, fail to understand the logic behind the “Global War on Terrorism.” The Islamic State of Iraq and al sham (ISIS) is often considered as an “independent entity” rather than an instrument of the Western military alliance. Moreover, many committed anti-war activists – who oppose the tenets of the USNATO military agenda– will nonetheless endorse Washington’s counterterrorism agenda directed against Al Qaeda:. The Worldwide terrorist threat is considered to be “real”: “We are against the war, but we support the Global War on Terrorism”.

The Caliphate Project and The US National Intelligence Council Report A new gush of propaganda has been set in motion. The leader of the now defunct Islamic State of Iraq and al sham (ISIS) Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi announced on June 29, 2014 the creation of an Islamic State:

Fighters loyal to the group’s proclaimed “Caliph Ibrahim ibn Awwad”, or Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as he was known until Sunday’s July 1st announcement, are inspired by the Rashidun caliphate, which succeeded the Prophet Muhammad in the seventh century, and is revered by most Muslims.” (Daily Telegraph, June 30, 2014) In a bitter irony, the caliphate project as an instrument of propaganda has been on the drawing board of US intelligence for more than ten years.

In December 2004, under the Bush Administration, the National Intelligence Council (NIC) predicted that in the year 2020 a New Caliphate extending from the Western Mediterranean to Central Asia and South East Asia would emerge, threatening Western democracy and Western values.

The “findings” of the National Intelligence Council were published in a 123 page unclassified report entitled “Mapping the Global Future”.

“A New Caliphate provides an example of how a global movement fueled by radical religious identity politics could constitute a challenge to Western norms and values as the foundation of the global system” (emphasis added) The NIC 2004 report borders on ridicule; it is devoid of intelligence, let alone historical and geopolitical analysis. Its fake narrative pertaining to the caliphate, nonetheless, bears a canny resemblance to the June 29, 2014 highly publicized PR announcement of the creation of the continued next page

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Caliphate by ISIS leader Abu Bakr alBaghdadi.

The NIC report presents a so-called “fictional scenario of a letter from a fictional grandson of Bin Ladin to a family relative in 2020.” It is on this basis that it makes predictions for the year 2020. Based on an invented bin Laden grandson letter narrative rather than on intelligence and empirical analysis, the US intelligence community concludes that the caliphate constitutes a real danger for the Western World and Western civilization.

From a propaganda standpoint, the objective underlying the Caliphate project –as described by the NIC– is to demonize Muslims with a view to justifying a military crusade:

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able to establish both spiritual and temporal authority over a territory— which historically has been the case for previous Caliphates. At the end of the scenario, we identify lessons to be drawn.”(“Mapping the Global Future”. p. 83) This “authoritative” NIC “Mapping the Global Future” report was not only presented to the White House, the Congress and the Pentagon, it was also dispatched to America’s allies. The “threat emanating from the Muslim World” referred to in the NIC report (including the section on the caliphate project) is firmly entrenched in USNATO military doctrine.

“The fictional scenario portrayed below provides an example of how a global movement fueled by radical religious identity could emerge.

Under this scenario, a new Caliphate is proclaimed and manages to advance a powerful counter ideology that has widespread appeal.

It is depicted in the form of a hypothetical letter from a fictional grandson of Bin Ladin to a family relative in 2020.

He recounts the struggles of the Caliph in trying to wrest control from traditional regimes and the conflict and confusion which ensue both within the Muslim world and outside between Muslims and the United States, Europe, Russia and China. While the Caliph’s success in mobilizing support varies, places far outside the Muslim core in the Middle East—in Africa and Asia— are convulsed as a result of his appeals.

The scenario ends before the Caliph is

A R T I C L E S standpoint, the caliphate constitutes a broad area in which the US is seeking to extend its economic and strategic influence. In the words of Dick Cheney pertaining to the 2004 NIC’s report: “They talk about wanting to reestablish what you could refer to as the Seventh Century Caliphate. This was the world as it was organized 1,200, 1,300 years, in effect, when Islam or Islamic people controlled everything from Portugal and Spain in the West; all through the Mediterranean to North Africa; all of North Africa; the Middle East; up into the Balkans; the Central Asian republics; the southern tip of Russia; a good swath of India; and on around to modern day Indonesia. In one sense from Bali and Jakarta on one end, to Madrid on the other.” Dick Cheney (emphasis added) What Cheney is describing in today’s context is a broad region extending from the Mediterranean to Central Asia and South East Asia in which the US and its allies are directly involved in a variety of military and intelligence operations.

The NIC document was intended to be read by top officials. Broadly speaking it was part of the “Top official” (TOPOFF) propaganda campaign which targets senior foreign policy and military decision-makers, not to mention scholars, researchers and NGO “activists”. The objective is to ensure that “top officials” continue to believe that Islamic terrorists are threatening the security of the Western World.

The underpinnings of the caliphate scenario is the “Clash of Civilizations”, which provides a justification in the eyes of public opinion for America to intervene worldwide as part of a global counter- terrorism agenda.

From a geopolitical and geographic

The stated aim of the NIC report was “to prepare the next Bush administration for challenges that lie ahead by projecting current trends that may pose a threat to US interests”.

The NIC intelligence document was based, lest we forget, on “a hypothetical letter from a fictional grandson of Bin Ladin to a [fictional] family relative in [the year] 2023 . “The Lessons Learnt” as outlined in this “authoritative’ NIC intelligence document are as follows: the caliphate project “constitutes a serious challenge to the international order”.

“The IT revolution is likely to amplify the clash between Western and Muslim

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worlds…”

The document refers to the appeal of the caliphate to Muslims and concludes that: “the proclamation of the Caliphate would not lessen the likelihood of terrorism and in fomenting more conflict”. [sic] The NIC’s analysis suggests that the proclamation of a caliphate will generate a new wave of terrorism emanating from Muslim countries thereby justifying an escalation in America’s Global War on Terrorism

The proclamation of the caliphate … could fuel a new generation of terrorists intent on attacking those opposed to the caliphate, whether inside or outside the Muslim World.” (emphasis added) What the NIC report fails to mention is that US intelligence in liaison with Britain’s MI6 and Israel’s Mossad are covertly involved in supporting both the terrorists and the caliphate project.

In turn, the media has embarked on a new wave of lies and fabrications, focusing on “a new terrorist threat”

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emanating not only from the Muslim World, but from “home grown Islamist terrorists” in Europe and North America.

2 July 2014

Michel Chossudovsky is an awardwinning author, Professor of Economics (emeritus) at the University of Ottawa, Founder and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), Montreal and Editor of the globalresearch.ca website.

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By Chandra Muzaffar Since April 2014, the Malaysian media has carried numerous stories of Malaysians who are directly or indirectly linked to terrorist groups operating in Syria, and to a lesser extent, Iraq. We are told that they see themselves as “jihadis” who are fighting for an Islamic cause. There are unconfirmed reports that some of them have been killed in the on-going conflict in Syria.

Police intelligence appears to have mined a lot of information about the activities of these individuals and groups.

Their local training hideouts have been revealed and their regional and international links exposed. This has enabled the police to make several arrests.

Eliminating Muslim terrorist networks of this sort will not be a walk in the park.

The police, and indeed, the majority of the Malaysian populace share the same faith as the individuals associated with these terrorist operations. A lot of Malaysian Muslims may also harbor

some of the misconceptions and prejudices which impelled some of these jihadis to take the road to Damascus.

What would have motivated them to tread this perilous path? What would have persuaded thousands of Muslims from some 80 countries — according to a certain estimate — to join the armed rebels against the Bashar AlAssad government in Syria? Why are they so determined to topple Bashar?

It must be remembered that this is not the first time in recent decades that Muslims from various parts of the world have come together to do battle on behalf of a common cause. The global Muslim campaign against the occupation ofAfghanistan by the Soviet Union in the nineteen eighties was in a sense even more extensive and sustained. Muslims from Malaysia were also involved in that campaign which they saw rightly as the foreign occupation of a Muslim land. Repelling occupation is a Quranic imperative.

But Syria today is not occupied the way

Afghanistan was in the eighties. If there is any occupation in Syria, it is Israeli occupation of the strategic Golan Heights since 1967 which should concern Muslims and others who cherish justice and sovereignty. And yet the jihadis from Malaysia and the rebels who are their comrades-inarms do not seem to be bothered about the liberation of the Golan Heights. On the contrary, it is an open secret that Israel has colluded with some of the rebels — by providing training and supplying intelligence — —in the fight against Bashar since the middle of 2011. Israel itself has conducted a series of military strikes within Syria in the course of the last two years with the aim of sapping the strength of the Syrian army.

Mission If the rebels are not fighting alien occupation, what is their mission? It is obvious that the Malaysian jihadis, like their counterparts from other countries, see themselves as defending the Sunnis

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of Syria against alleged oppression by the Shia ruling elite. There is a parallel perception of Shia suppression of Sunnis in Iraq. Both these perceptions are part of a wider view fostered by various influential groups in West Asia (including Israel) and in some parts of the West that an arc of Shia power is rising from Iran through Bahrain to Iraq and Lebanon and this is a threat to the Sunni majority in the region.Adding to this phobia of the Shias — Shiaphobia — especially in the case of Syria is the rebels’ opposition to secularism and the secular state. It is a state which in their reckoning has to be replaced by a Caliphate — a Global Sunni Caliphate — which has now become the rallyingcry of some of the rebels, specifically the terrorist group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS).

This narrative of Sunnis being suppressed; of Shia power; of the illegitimacy of the secular state; of a Sunni Caliphate, has reached a crescendo in the last few years in the midst of the Syrian conflict. Leading religious personalities in West Asia especially from the Gulf monarchies have been vitriolic in their denunciation of the Shias. In mosques and through the media, they have succeeded in fuelling hatred of this minority sect within and beyond the region while creating a sense of siege among the majority Sunni population. Consequently, the SunniShia divide has become more pronounced than ever before.

Because some of these Islamic personalities are highly revered in Malaysia, their utterances command a substantial constituency. They have legitimized the already prevailing antipathy towards the Shias among the local ulama (religious scholars).As a result, the anti-Shia campaign led by

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the ulama has gained much prominence among the populace. Some of the ulama are part of the religious establishment; others are free-lance operators. Academics and media practitioners have also reinforced the vile bigotry emanating from some of the ulama. So have politicians from both the government and the opposition.

NGO activists have been equally vocal in conjuring an ominous Shia threat in a Sunni-Muslim majority nation where the sect is an insignificant minority.

Given how pervasive and intensive the targeting of this sect has been in recent months, propelled by the massive propaganda flowing from parts of the Arab world, it is not surprising that some impressionable youth in the country have been lured by the slogan of Sunnis facing the danger of extermination in Syria and now Iraq.

There are perhaps two additional factors that explain this fatal attraction.

For centuries, Sunni Muslims in Malaysia, as in some other parts of the Muslim world, have been somewhat uneasy about Shias— which is why any negative imaging of the sect is so readily absorbed. The videos on You Tube showing the alleged atrocities committed by the Syrian government in the course of the last three years have also had a huge impact upon Muslims here, as elsewhere. Indeed, cyber media as a whole has been a major tool in mobilizing Sunnis globally to defend themselves.

Critical Analysis While there is no denying that the Syrian Army and its affiliates have committed gross atrocities in trying to quell the armed rebellion, Muslims in Malaysia and other countries have unfortunately failed to subject the media blitz

A R T I C L E S launched by the rebels, their supporters in West Asia and in Western capitals to critical analysis. Independent investigations into a number of horrendous massacres for which the mainstream media had immediately blamed the Syrian authorities have now revealed that the rebels were actually culpable. The Khalidiya and Karm Allouz massacres in March 2012 and the Houla massacre in May 2012 would be outstanding examples. The most startling expose of all was the Ghouta sarin gas attack of August 2013, pinpointed upon the Bashar government, which the celebrated American investigative journalist, Seymour Hersh, showed through meticulous analysis was in fact the work of a rebel group carried out with the connivance of Turkey. Young Malaysian Muslims should realize that half-truths, outright lies and wholesale fabrication in order to demonize an adversary and to camouflage the truth are part and parcel of the arsenal of the powerful as they seek to perpetuate their interests.

Indeed, even allegations about the suppression of Sunnis who are the majority in Syria should be examined with greater objectivity. Sunnis constitute the bulk of the Syrian armed forces and are at the core of the top brass. The current defense minister is Sunni. His predecessor was a Christian assassinated by the rebels. Some of the most influential positions in the dominant public sector are held by Sunnis while major businesses in the private sector are Sunni owned. The highest religious authority in Syria, the Grand Mufti, is a Sunni from the Shafie doctrinal school, the same mazhab as the Muslims of Malaysia. continued next page

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It is because many Muslims trapped in the web of propaganda spun by certain elements in West Asia and the West refuse to come to grips with realities that they do not want to acknowledge that Syria is one of the few countries in the region that has succeeded in integrating the majority community with the minorities and has developed an inclusive Syrian citizenship that transcends religious boundaries. This is also the reason why the Syrian leadership has always been opposed to any notion of an exclusive Muslim religious identity in politics peddled by groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood.

Just as the question of an inclusive versus exclusive idea of citizenship is fundamental to Malaysia’s own quest for national identity, so is the other issue that appears to have attracted some Muslims to the Syrian rebellion, the issue of Syria’s fidelity to Islam. For most of the armed rebels and the Malaysian Muslims who have joined them, one of the reasons why they regard the Bashar government as not ‘Islamic’ is because it has not implemented the Islamic penal code, erroneously interpreted as hudud. They may not be aware that in the Syrian Constitution Islamic jurisprudence is a main source of legislation and the President of the Syrian Republic has to be a Muslim, the faith of the vast majority of the citizenry. More than that, there are many aspects of governance — free education, universal healthcare, specific worker representation in public decision-making and so on— which would make Syria Islamic. By the same token, there are other aspects of the Bashar administration which violate Islamic norms such as the ubiquitous

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role of its secret police, the curtailment of dissent, and the persistence of corruption.

However, Bashar’s Syrian opponents and their Malaysian friends do not adopt a balanced, rational approach when it comes to determining the credentials of a government. They are more inclined towards labelling a government as ‘Islamic’ or ‘secular’ driven by their own shallow, superficial

approach to religion and politics. In this regard, they would view an absolute monarchy that denies basic rights to the people but implements hudud as ‘Islamic’ while condemning a state that applies the rule of law to all its citizens and provides space to women and men to participate in politics but does not include hudud in its legal system, as ‘secular.’

This then is the nub of the issue. It is a shallow, superficial understanding of what is happening in Syria that has pushed some Malaysian Muslims into the arms of the Syrian conflict. Their ignorance has been exacerbated by distorted information and skewed analysis.

There is hardly any appreciation among these jihadis of the underlying causes of the conflict and how they are linked to regional and global politics with long-term significance. That the Syrian conflict epitomizes the perennial US-Israeli goal of crushing resistance to their hegemony over

A R T I C L E S West Asia is something that escapes our jihadis.

This is why there is an urgent need to develop a deeper, broader understanding of the conflict among religious elites, politicians, activists, youths, students, academics and the media. This is as important as intelligence gathering and effective action against the culprits based upon law. A more profound appreciation of conflicts such as Syria should be accompanied by a serious endeavor to impart an understanding of Islam that is inclusive, universal, progressive and enlightened through our educational institutions, religious bodies and the media.

The national leadership has a particularly important role to play in this. It should be clear in its total rejection of the sort of religious extremism that breeds terror and violence. In both its domestic and foreign policies it should demonstrate through deeds — not words — that it subscribes to a “justly balanced” outlook, as prescribed in the Quran.

There can be no room for ambiguity or ambivalence in its approach to issues that hint of religious bigotry and dogmatism.

As a nation, we should not be under any illusion. Malaysians with a terrorist orientation, willing to exploit religion in pursuit of their agenda, are now operating in other countries. There is no reason to believe that they and their kind will not turn their guns upon local targets one day. We should not let that happen — which is why we must act now.

30 June 2014

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By Alan Hart Could it be that the three Al-Jazeera journalists have been found guilty and each sentenced to seven years in jail to enable Egyptian President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi to pardon and free them in order to give the impression that he is a kind, forgiving man and not on his way to becoming the Arab world’s most ruthless and repressive tyrant?

Only the coming days or weeks will give us the answer but while we wait I think the governments of the world should act. What could they do? For starters they could isolate Sisi’s Egypt diplomatically by expelling its ambassadors and withdrawing their own.

The conviction of Peter Greste, Mohammed Fahmy and Bahar Mohamed for allegedly supporting a terrorist organization has nothing whatsoever to do with justice. It’s all about sending a Zionist-like message to the world – “The truth is whatever the masters of Egypt say it is and anybody who

tells and spreads an alternative version of events will be punished.”

On the social networks there was instant and universal condemnation of the Egyptian court’s politically motivated decision but there is no reason to suppose that governments will act.

freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association.”

The U.S. has, in fact, rewarded Sisi for his intimidation and suppression of all opposition to date. The day before the Egyptian court delivered its decision, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was in Cairo and with him came the announcement that the U.S. has released $575 million in military aid to Egypt that had been frozen since the removal of President Mohammed Morsi in a coup last year.

Kerry also pledged that Washington would “stand with the Egyptian people in the fight for the future they want.”

In what were described as “candid” talks with Sisi, Kerry emphasised “our strong support for upholding the universal rights and freedoms of all Egyptians including the

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If Kerry and his boss truly believe that Sisi has any intention of upholding those rights and freedoms they are, to say the least, naive in the extreme.

I find myself wondering what America’s position will be when in that fight Egyptians turn against Sisi.

24 June 2014 Alan Hart is a former ITN and BBC Panorama foreign correspondent. He is author of Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews Source : Alanhart.net

NEW BOTTLE?

By Sulak Sivaraksa At first sight, the most recent coup d’état on 22 May 2014 seemed to have learned admirably well from the failures of the previous coup in 2006. But what have and what haven’t the military leaders learned from the 2006 coup? Here are some observations.

1) The martial law was declared two days in advance of the actual seizure of state power. The Senate was allowed to linger on for a brief while and was subsequently dissolved. Power was seized and monopolized by one leader.

Royal endorsement only came on 26 May at a ceremony in which the king was not present. The president of the

Privy Council didn’t seem to play any role in this process too. And the junta leaders didn’t have an audience with the king. These measures were taken to show that there wasn’t any connection between the monarchy and the coup; the military alone was responsible for it.

Whether or not this is plausible is entirely a different matter.

2) This time the coup group, officially known as the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO),* didn’t appoint a prime minister to govern on their behalf.

The junta has moved swiftly to undermine or destroy Thaksin Shinawatra’s power-base by transferring

to inactive posts the Ministry of Defense permanent secretary and the National Police Chief—along with a number of senior police officers and provincial governors who are said to be connected to Thaksin. We will have to see whether or not the military junta will be successful in eradicating Thaksin and Co’s political power this time; the 2006 coup failed dismally in this feat.

3) The junta’s appointment of Mr. Pridiyathorn Devakula and Somkid Jatusipitak as advisors to handle economic and foreign affairs matters respectively is interesting. Both men belong to the opposite poles. They are continued next page

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however honest and highly competent.

It will be interesting to see if they can work together and whether or not NCPO listens to their advice.

Professor Yongyut Yuttawong is also capable and upholds a strong sense of ethics. Ultimately, how many more qualified technocrats will be enlisted to work for NCPO—aside from the legal experts who have served under every recent military dictatorship?

4) We have to wait and see whether or not the new set of administrators will courageously work to dismantle structural injustice and to what extent they understand the sources of poverty, oppression and exploitation faced by the majority of people in the country. Moreover, will they continue to denigrate local knowledge forms as well as autonomy? Will they attempt to move beyond the populist and corrupt policies of Thaksin and Yingluck?

NCPO’s plans to construct roads and dams around Bangkok may prove as disastrous as Yingluck’s approval of a massive budget for dam construction in the name of flood relief. Is it farfetched to demand that NCPO call for a referendum before launching any massive construction projects?

5) The creation of the Military Court is a double-edged dagger. If the objective is to improve the justice process in the country, then it must be accompanied by the nourishment of mindfulness, emancipatory knowledge, and tolerance—and not to say of a major overhaul of the education and Sangha systems. I’m afraid these issues are not on the priority list of NCPO. 6) Summoning individuals to report to the junta or detaining them seems to have spiraled out of control. It may lead

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to a culture of misinforming and denouncing innocent persons, a kind of McCarthyism. The sooner this path is avoided, the better. (The suspension of US military aid to Thailand is simply a weak PR ploy. The US has always had deep ties with every postwar military dictatorship in the country.)

7) As shocking as this may sound but the present military leaders should look to Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat as a role model. Despite his terrifying flaws Sarit was also pretty clever. Sarit’s closest confidant as well as advisor was very talented. The Field Marshal was able to make highly competent individuals work for the wellbeing of the country such as Puey Ungphakorn in the domain of finance and economics and Tawee Boonyaket in the field of constitutional drafting.

8) NCPO won some praise as it disbursed payment to rice farmers under the rice pledging scheme of the previous government. But in the wake of the 2006 coup in an effort to reduce public dissent, the price of certain essential commodities was also cut.

The 2006 coup-makers justified their action under the pretext of fighting corruption. Arguably, they ended up being even more corrupt than the deposed government.

9) Hopefully, the drafting of a new constitution and formation of a civilian government will not take an inordinate amount of time as during the Sarit years. Likewise, let’s hope that oppositional intellectuals and politicians will not be liquidated as during the Sarit dictatorship.

10) The Sangha Act of 1962 issued by Sarit is a root cause of the Sangha’s downfall in the country. If this Act is not amended or revoked, the future of Buddhism looks bleak in the kingdom.

A R T I C L E S PS Perhaps, the leader of NCPO should take the time to study the life of Pompey, a great military-generalturned-political-leader. In his biography of Pompey Plutarch writes: “Life out of uniform can have the dangerous effect of weakening the reputation of famous generals….

They are poorly adapted to the equality of democratic politics. Such men claim the same precedence in civilian life that they enjoy on the battlefield…. So when people find a man with a brilliant military record playing an active part in public life they undermine and humiliate him. But if he renounces and withdraws from politics, they maintain his reputation and ability and no longer envy him.”

Anthony Everitt adds that “The trouble was that Pompey was a poor political tactician and also an uninspiring public speaker.”

I am aware that the leader of NCPO doesn’t have the time to read this article. But if his trustworthy and clever subordinates alert him to the message in this postscript it may be beneficial to the present situation. *The English name of £ Ê ª is National Council for Peace and Order.

Its Latin equivalent would be “otium cum dignitate.” That is, peace/leisure (otium) is inextricable from dignity (dignitate). If human rights are trammeled on and freedom of expression is denied, then an order is peaceful only in name. It will be a false peace.

25 June 2014 Sulak Sivaraksa is one of Thailand’s (Siam as Sulak refers to his country) leading public intellectuals. He is also a member of JUST’s International Advisory Panel (IAP).

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By Pepe Escobar The Phantom of the (tragic) Middle East Opera is back. A killer without a clue, he can’t be blamed for not being consistent.

His most recent opus speaks for itself; like a Kabuki mask high on Earl Grey tea, the Phantom is eviscerated by his own mighty pen, actually sword.

The fact that the Phantom keeps getting away with his vast desert of convoluted lies – instead of languishing in some rotten, extraordinary rendition hotel - spells out all we need to know about socalled Western “elites”, of which he’s been a faithful, and handsomely rewarded, servant.

So Western “inaction” in Syria has led to the latest Iraq tragedy? Sorry, Tony; it was yours and “Dubya’s” 2003 Shock and Awe “action” that set the whole Shakespearean tragedy in motion.

The Phantom always wanted the Obama administration to bomb Syria, as much as he labored for “Dubya” to destroy Iraq. Phantom logic never considered that would have installed in Damascus the same Islamic State of Iraqi and the Levant (ISIL) that is now making a push towards Baghdad.

Then there’s the gift that keeps on giving – the endlessly recycled, repackaged Global War on Terror (GWOT), of which the Phantom was the prime sidekick. So Phantom had to be on board the latest US craze – which brands ISIL as the avatar of a new 9/11.

In Syria, Phantom has been one of the prime instigators of the “rebel with a cause” ISIL and Jabhat alNusra-infested gang. If the Phantom’s bombing logic had won in Syria – he was preaching Damascus as a replay of 2003 Baghdad - Aleppo would be, for a while now, an avatar of Mosul.

The deeper we get into it, the Phantom looks and sounds like the heir of – also clueless - British commanders in 19th century

Afghanistan. Look, for instance, at this unintended consequence of the 2001 American bombing of Afghanistan; now we have Hazaras – Afghan Shi’ites – fighting side by side with Iranians, alongside Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian army, against the Phantom-supported Syrian “rebels”.

Oh Tony; not even your old cohort Peter “Lord of Darkness” Mandelson could have explained that.

By the way, the Phantom has always been a firm believer in the “evil” of Iran, constantly “warning” that Tehran was on the verge of assembling a nuclear weapon (old habits – as in the Phantom’s Saddam syndrome – die hard.) So imagine his Dick Cheney-worthy stupor when Washington and Tehran are on the verge of discussing in Vienna the set-

up of some sort of joint action to fight ISIL in Iraq, and even “uber-hawks” such as Republican Senator Lindsey Graham utter the unimaginable words, “We are probably going to need [Iran’s] help to hold Baghdad.”

The Phantom would be incapable of connecting the geopolitical dots from Afghanistan and Iraq to Libya and Syria; the bottom line he would be unable to identify is that there is absolutely no strategic, long-term Anglo-American foreign policy project in what the Pentagon still calls the “arc of instability”. If there ever was a motto, it was “Dubya’s” “you’re either with us or with the terrorists”. A motto turned on its head, because until this very moment Anglo-American power was “with the terrorists”, from Libya to Syria; a predictable perversion of timetested Divide and Rule.

The Obama administration is going no holds barred to get a SOFA in Afghanistan – code for Enduring Freedom forever (with “discreet” Special Forces as the invisible stars.)

Washington has already admitted it is sending lethal “assistance” to “moderate” rebels in Syria (as, in theory, the Islamic Front goons, not Jabhat al-Nusra or ISIL). As if Hollywoodish CIA assets wouldn’t know that these weapons will certainly be bought and/or stolen by hardcore jihadis.

ISIL in the borderless desert between Syria and Iraq is already a protoCaliphate. Blowback from this weaponizing of so-called “moderates” – there are no continued next page

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They saw it, they tracked it, and they kept mum. That’s straight f r o m t h e E m p i r e o f C h a o s ’s playbook. Why not advance murderous “Divide and Rule” between Sunnis and Shiites? Let them eat corpses – and kill each other to kingdom come, as in the eight-year Iran-Iraq war. “moderates”, as there are no Taliban “moderates” – will be no less than staggering. Victims includes Kurds in Syria, Iraq, Turkey and Iran; Turkmen in Iraq (as it’s already happening this week); and of course Christians all over (as it already happened in Syria).

Bomb them into democracy, again The Phantom now is preaching for American “intervention” in Iraq; first you starve them; then you bomb them into a wasteland and call it “democracy”; then you occupy them; then you infest them with jihadis; then they kick you out; then the jihadis raise hell (now flush with $425 million stolen from a government vault in Mosul, apart from loads of cash from Wahhabis in the Gulf to buy all those white Toyotas and RPGs); then you reoccupy them softly. It IS the gift that keeps on giving.

As for the notion – equally peddled by the Phantom and US neo-cons – that ISIL is a threat to Western security (“trying to do harm to Europe, to America and other people”, in Kerry’s words), that’s nonsense; a joke as monumental as that maze of American satellites incapable of tracking a long line of white Toyotas advancing in the Western Iraqi desert – leading to the swift disintegration of four

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Iraqi army divisions.

ISIL’s push is a remix of the SunniShi’ite civil war of 2006-2007, whose effects, pre-American surge, I documented in my reportage book Red Zone Blues. At the time, it was all centered in Baghdad; when al-Qaeda in Iraq took over the Dora neighborhood in Baghdad, that lasted only a short while. Sunnis themselves rebelled against the medieval jihadi “worldview”.

T h e P h a n t o m , a n y w a y, g o t h i s wish; Iraq is for all practical purposes broken, irretrievably fragmented, and cannot be “fixed” (Colin Powell’s terminology). The Kurds have already solved one of the most intractable problems of p o s t - S h o c k a n d Aw e ; t h e y ’ v e already rearranged Sykes-Picot by taking over oil-rich Kirkuk (not to mention the Nineveh plateau).

And as further proof ISIL has nothing to do with a threat to Western security, the tanks and heavy artillery they captured in Iraq were redirected to Syria, in their push to fight Damascus.

This is all too much for the Phantom to digest. Perhaps he should start by reading this - as in Iraqi works rejecting everything that happened even before 2003, and even before the Phantom’s limelight moment.

As for the Phantom’s key argument that what’s happening now in Iraq is the result of less – and not more – Western warmongering, call it phantom hubris. The “Middle East” – in fact Southwest Asia – is a Western fiction imposed by colonial powers on the local populations.

What the Pentagon described since the early 2000s as the “arc of instability” is a self-fulfilling projection of anarchy, with some patches of “peace” represented by those repellent GCC petromonarchies (after we need “our” oil).

And then there’s the slowly but surely inevitable process of progressive integration of Eurasia – along the myriad, Chinese-driven

new silk roads. That’s anathema for the empire of chaos and its “special relationship” minion. So Southwest Asia in perpetual chaos is more than welcomed. Expect hubristic Phantom to call for increased fuel to be added to this Western-concocted opera already on fire.

17 June 2014 Pepe Escobar is the roving correspondent for Asia Times/Hong Kong, an analyst for RT and TomDispatch, and a frequent contributor to websites and radio shows ranging from the US to East Asia.

Source: Rt.com

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