Jun 2013
Vol 13, No.06
AN APPEAL TO SUNNI AND SHI’A MUSLIMS For the first time in modern Muslim history, two prominent personalities, one a Sunni and the other a Shia, have come together to appeal to Sunni and Shia Muslims to stop the bloodshed and the killings that have blighted their relations for a long while. Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, the former Prime Minister of Malaysia, and Muhammad Khatami, the former President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, made the plea in Putrajaya, the administrative capital Malaysia, on the 22nd of May 2013. Khatami was represented by his special adviser, Mr. Ali Khoshroo.
This Joint Appeal was initiated by Dr. Chandra Muzaffar as President of the International Movement for a Just World (JUST).
We, the undersigned, are greatly saddened by the violence and bloodshed which have characterised Sunni-Shi’a relations over time. Thousands have been killed in feuds between the two, mostly in certain Muslim countries. It is tragic that many innocent women and children have been among the victims. Sunni-Shi’a animosity and antagonism have clearly weakened the Muslim ummah. It has made us more vulnerable to the manipulations and machinations of outside elements determined to subvert the unity and integrity of the ummah. It has allowed those who seek to establish their hegemonic power over us to succeed in their objectives. It is indisputable that Sunni-Shi’a antagonism and conflicts which have resulted in massacres have tarnished the image and dignity of the ummah in the eyes of the world. Few other occurences in recent times have had such a negative impact. We appeal to all Sunnis and Shi’as, bound as we are by the same faith in Allah, guided by the same Noble Quran, honouring the same last Messenger of Allah, and facing the same Kiblah, to desist from massacring and killing one another immediately. Turn to next page
ARTICLES .THESYRIAN CONFLICT:QARADAWI’SINCITEMENT TO VIOLENCE
BY CHANDRA MUZAFFAR.......................................P 3 .MALAYSIA ON SYRIA IN THE UN
BY CHANDRA MUZAFFAR........................................P 4 .GMO AND THE MARCH OF MILLIONS BY COUNTERCURRENTS..........................................P 5
.THE ECONOMY UNDER NEW OWNERSHIP (PART II)
BY MARJORIE KELLY............................................P 6 . M ALAYSIA : F AILURE O F U.S. T O S UBVERT THE
ELECTIONS AND INSTALL A “PROXY REGIME” BY TONY CARTALUCCI..........................................P 7
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NO MORE VIOLENCE
NO MORE BLOODSHED
NO MORE KILLINGS
The two of us – a former Prime Minister from a Sunni majority state, and a former President from an overwhelmingly Shi’a nation – also address this appeal to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) which represents all Muslims of whatever sect or doctrine. The OIC could perhaps set up a task force that will examine the Sunni-Shi’a divide in depth and submit concrete proposals for the political and religious leaders of the ummah to act upon.
We also appeal to sincere, concerned individuals and civil society groups from all over the world to join in this endeavour to stop the violence and bloodshed and to promote peace and understanding between Sunnis and Shi’as.
This joint appeal will be widely circulated mainly through the online media. We shall follow up on this appeal with other activities and programmes.
May Allah Subhanahuwataala guide us in all our humble efforts to serve Him.
S. Muhammad Khatami
Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad
President of the Islamic Republic
Prime Minister of Malaysia
Of Iran (1997-2005)
(1981-2003)
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ARTICLES THE SYRIAN CONFLICT: QARADAWI’S INCITEMENT TO VIOLENCE By Chandra Muzaffar
Any human being who abhors violence and bloodshed would be shocked by remarks made by a leading religious personality, Sheikh Youssef alQaradawi, on the 1st of June 2013. At a rally in Doha, he urged Sunni Muslims in the region to go to Syria and fight the Bashar al-Assad government and its supporters, the Hezbollah and Iran. He regarded it as a “jihad.” He claimed that Iran and the Hezbollah want to exterminate, to “devour” the Sunnis. Between Sunnis and Shias, he insisted, there was no common ground. Qaradawi’s remarks came in the midst of the ongoing critical battle between Syrian government forces and rebels for control of the key border town of Qasair. The Lebanese based Hezbollah is helping government forces. A large number of foreign militants are fighting on the side of the rebels. Inciting Sunnis to fight Shias will only escalate a bloody conflict that has already claimed tens of thousands of lives. Religious leaders in particular should lend their moral weight to efforts to achieve a political solution. They should be imploring all sides to cease fighting immediately. Besides, Qaradawi should know that the conflict in Syria is not a simple Sunni-Shia clash. It is rooted in the larger politics of hegemony, Israel and the tussle for power among regional actors. It began as a peaceful protest against Assad’s authoritarian rule in March 2011. Assad reacted with harsh reprisals. Within a couple of weeks, groups and individuals from some neighbouring countries started to supply arms to a segment of the protesters perhaps at the behest of the
while and have on occasions coloured politics in the region in the past. But it was only after the Iranian Revolution of 1979 which represented a major challenge to Western hegemony and Israeli interests that these differences have been accentuated and manipulated mainly by US ally, Saudi Arabia, to divide Sunnis from Shias. centres of power in the West and Israel who have always sought to eliminate the Assad government which in the context of its close ties with both Hezbollah and Iran is seen as a challenge to their control and dominance of the region. Indeed, Iran, Hezbollah and the Assad government constitute the only organised, sustained resistance to the US-British-French and Israeli attempt to perpetuate their hegemonic hold over West Asia and North Africa (WANA). It was Hezbollah, it will be recalled, that drove Israel out of Lebanon from 2000 onwards, and in 2006, thwarted its diabolical design to gain control over Lebanon. It is this party, Hezbollah( the party of God) that Qaradawi in his Doha speech described as “the party of shaitan ( satan).” Because these forces of resistance happen to be Shia, close allies of the Western powers in WANA who happen to be Sunni, such as Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, are trying very hard to project the resistance as a Shia attempt to dominate the region. As a result, the more significant issues of Western hegemony, resistance within WANA and the role of Israel which continues to occupy the Golan Heights in Syria, are all submerged in a cleverly contrived Sunni-Shia narrative. Of course, Sunni-Shia differences have existed for a long
It is against this backdrop that we should view Qaradawi’s remarks. There was a time when he had a positive attitude towards Sunni-Shia rapprochement. But when some Western states began to re-assert their power in WANA in the midst of the Arab uprisings, Qaradawi appeared to legitimise their role. He was among the earliest public figures to endorse NATO’s air strikes over Libya. In the middle of last year he even opined that if the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) came back today, he would support NATO. This earned him the derisive moniker ‘NATO Mufti’ among some Arab commentators. It is Qaradawi’s legitimisation of Western hegemony by invoking religious authority that makes his role so perfidious. What is worse, he has been appealing to sectarian religious sentiments which pit Muslim against Muslim, which have led to murders and massacres on a massive scale, in order to perpetuate the interests of both regional actors and global powers. It is a glaring example of the crude abuse of religion by someone who dons the garb of religion. 3 June, 2013 Dr. Chandra Muzaffar is the President of the International Movement for a Just World (JUST).
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MALAYSIA ON SYRIA IN THE UN By Chandra Muzaffar
It is disappointing that Malaysia chose to support the UN General Assembly resolution on Syria on 15 May 2013. Even if we did not want to vote against it — which is what 12 governments did, including Russia, China, Iran and Cuba — we could have at least abstained, together with countries such as Indonesia, India, South Africa, Brazil and 55 other sovereign states. There is no need to reiterate that the resolution sponsored by Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the US and France, among others, was terribly biased and one-sided. While it condemned the Syrian government for its “increased use of heavy weapons”, its use of “chemical weapons” and its “widespread and systematic gross violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms,” the resolution had hardly anything to say about the brutal violence of the militants fighting Bashar al-Assad or their human rights abuses.
is also more obvious now than it was a year ago. Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey provide more massive material assistance to the armed and unarmed opposition to Bashar than ever before.
One, the horrendous violence perpetrated by the militants which has reached unspeakable proportions. It is not just the massacres they have committed in residential suburbs, markets, schools, universities and media centres that have shocked the world. The cruelty and barbarity of their violence has been an even greater shock. The video that has gone viral depicting a militant eating the liver of a murdered Syrian army soldier is a case in point. Even on the question of chemical weapons, it is the militants, according to UN investigator, Carla Del Ponte, who had resorted to sarin nerve gas attacks.
The UN resolution also revealed its bias by recognising the Syrian National Coalition “as the effective interlocutor needed for a political transition.” That the SNC is just one of many groups in a highly fragmented opposition and commands very little support within Syria itself is conveniently glossed over. Imposing the SNC upon the Syrian people in this manner is a clumsy attempt to effect a regime change of sorts.
Two, it is now acknowledged even by the UN-Arab League mediator, Lakhdar Brahimi, that there are thousands of Muslim foreign fighters in Syria. According to some sources, they come from as many as 30 countries. Their involvement lends credence to the view that radical militants are being sponsored and supported by foreign governments and external agencies determined to oust the Bashar government by force.
More than the contents of the resolution, Malaysia should have taken cognisance of certain critical developments in Syria and the region in the last few months which should have persuaded us to adopt a different stand. After all, a number of other UN member states appear to have been influenced by these developments as reflected in the voting pattern on the resolution.
Three, in the last few months it has become clear that a powerful hidden hand in the Syrian upheaval is now openly aggressing against the Syrian state. This is Israel which has conducted two bombing raids inside Syria. The direct involvement of the US, France and Britain in undermining the Syrian government through political and logistical support for the militants
Four, it is because the mortal threat to Syrian sovereignty from foreign fighters and foreign aggressors and manipulators is so stark that President Bashar’s support among his people has also increased significantly. Add to this the legitimate fear that the majority of Syrians harbour about bigoted, often violent interpretations of Islam which many of the militants from abroad subscribe to and one can understand why the people are now rallying around their President. This is a factor that anyone voting on the UN resolution should have also taken into account. The Syrian people’s support for Bashar does not mean that the UN member states should ignore his excessive use of force in the course of defending his state from the threats it is facing. Neither should one downplay the tortures committed by his secret police against protesters and dissidents. Nonetheless, they should be evaluated in the context of the larger scenario that impacts upon Syria and the entire region. It is because a number of UN member states were cognisant of the larger scenario that they chose NOT to support the lopsided resolution of 15th May 2013. It is significant that compared to August 2012 when 133 states voted for a similar resolution, this time the figure had dropped to 107. The number of abstentions had also increased substantially to 59, up from 31 nine months ago. Malaysia should have made it 60. 26 May, 2013
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GMO AND THE MARCH OF MILLIONS By Countercurrents.org
More than two million people, marched a few days ago against Monsanto, the agro-monster, in more than 400 cities in 52 countries. There is confusion among many regarding GMO. The following information provided by Earth Open Source* helps us understand the issue: Genetically modified (GM) crops are promoted on the basis of a range of far-reaching claims from the GM crop industry and its supporters. They say that GM crops: • Are an extension of natural breeding and do not pose different risks from naturally bred crops • Are safe to eat and can be more nutritious than naturally bred crops • Are strictly regulated for safety • Increase crop yields • Reduce pesticide use • Benefit farmers and make their lives easier • Bring economic benefits • Benefit the environment • Can help solve problems caused by climate change • Reduce energy use • Will help feed the world. However, a large and growing body of scientific and other authoritative evidence shows that these claims are not true. On the contrary, evidence presented in this report indicates that
GM crops: • Are laboratory-made, using technology that is totally different from natural breeding methods, and pose different risks from non-GM crops • Can be toxic, allergenic or less nutritious than their natural counterparts • Are not adequately regulated to ensure safety • Do not increase yield potential • Do not reduce pesticide use but increase it • Create serious problems for farmers, including herbicide-tolerant “superweeds”, compromise soil quality, and increase disease susceptibility in crops • Have mixed economic effects • Harm soil quality, disrupt ecosystems, and reduce biodiversity • Do not offer effective solutions to climate change • Are as energy-hungry as any other chemically-farmed crops • Cannot solve the problem of world hunger but distract from its real causes - poverty, lack of access to food and, increasingly, lack of access to land to grow it on. Based on the evidence presented in this report, there is no need to take risks with GM crops when effective, readily available, and sustainable solutions to the problems that GM technology is claimed to address already exist.
Conventional plant breeding, in some cases helped by safe modern technologies like gene mapping and marker assisted selection, continues to outperform GM in producing highyield, drought-tolerant, and pest- and disease-resistant crops that can meet our present and future food needs. Books • The Organic & Non-GMO Report Newsletter - The Best Resource to Keep Updated on GE Foods. • Genetic Roulette by Jeffrey Smith The Health Risks of GE Foods Resources • Watch the documentary Unnatural Selection and the entire GMO Trilogy Film Series free online. • Hazards of GE Foods and Crops Why We Need a Global Moratorium by Ronnie Cummins • Download this PowerPoint by Frank Kutka on the effects of the biotech industry and the call for sustainable agriculture. • The Truth about PLU Codes • Doctors: Pesticides Used on GMOs Are “Real Chemical Weapons” * Organic Consumers Association, “GMO Myths and Truths”, http:// w w w. o r g a n i c c o n s u m e r s . o r g / gelink.cfm 29 May, 2013 Source: Countercurrents.org
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THE ECONOMY: UNDER NEW OWNERSHIP (PART II) By Marjorie Kelly What unites generative designs are the living purposes at their core, and the beneficial outcomes they tend to generate. More research remains to be done, but there is evidence that these models create broad benefits and remain resilient in crisis. We’ve seen this, for example, in the success of the state-owned Bank of North Dakota, which remained strong in the 2008 crisis, even as other banks foundered; this led more than a dozen states to pursue similar models. We’ve seen it in the behavior of credit unions, which tended not to create toxic mortgages, and required few bailouts.
artisans banded together to form the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers, the first modern, consumer-owned cooperative, selling food to members who couldn’t otherwise afford it.
banks, and distrust high-earning CEOs, there’s growing distaste for the business-as-usual Wall Street model. Meanwhile, the Internet has enabled the expansion of informal cooperation on an unprecedented scale—with the Creative Commons, for example, now encompassing more than 450,000 works. As the speculative, massproduction economy hits limits, cooperatives may be uniquely suited to a post-growth world, for they are active in sectors related to fundamental needs (agriculture, insurance, food, finance, and electricity comprise the top five co-op sectors).
We’ve seen it in the fact that workers at firms with employee stock ownership plans enjoy more than double the defined-benefit retirement assets of comparable employees at other firms. And we’ve seen it in the fact that the Basque region of Spain— home to the massive Mondragon cooperative—has seen substantially lower unemployment than the country as a whole.
During the Great Depression in the United States, the Federal Credit Union Act—ensuring that credit would be available to people of meager means— was intended to help stabilize an imbalanced financial system. Today, credit union assets total more than $700 billion. In the recent financial crisis, their loan delinquency rates were half those of traditional banks. Since the crisis, credit unions have added more than 1.5 million members. In Argentina in 2001, when a financial meltdown created thousands of bankruptcies and saw many business owners flee, workers—with government support—took over more than 200 firms and ran these empresas recuperadas themselves, and they’re still running them.
If many of us fail to recognize an emerging ownership shift as a sign of progress, it may be because it arises from an unexpected place—not from government action, or protests in the streets, but from within the structure of our economy itself. Not from the leadership of a charismatic individual, but from the longing in many hearts, the genius of many minds, the effort of many hands to build what we know, instinctively, that we need.
Together, these various models might one day form the foundation for a generative economy, where the intent is to meet human needs and create conditions in which life can thrive. Generative ownership aims to do what the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker have always done: make a living by serving the community. The profit-maximizing corporation is the real detour in the evolution of ownership, and it’s a relatively recent detour at that. The resilience of generative design is a key reason that people have often turned to these models in times of crisis. When the Industrial Revolution was forcing many skilled workers into poverty in the 1840s, weavers and
Last year, with financial and ecological crises mounting worldwide, the U.N. named 2012 the Year of the Cooperative, and cooperative activity, is advancing around the globe. Cooperatives were largely sidelined during the rise of the industrial age. But current trends indicate that conditions may be ripe for a surge in cooperative enterprises. As people lose faith in the stock market, feel mounting anger at
This goes much deeper than legal or financial engineering. It’s about a shift in the cultural values that underpin social institutions. History has seen such shifts before—in the values that underlay the monarchy, racism, and sexism. What’s weakening today is a different kind of systemic bias. It’s capital bias: capital-ism—the belief system that maximizing capital matters more than anything else. The cooperative economy—and the broader family of generative ownership models—is helping to reawaken an ancient wisdom about living together in community, something largely lost in the spread of continued next page
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capitalism. Economic historian Karl Polanyi describes this in his 1944 work, The Great Transformation, tracing the crises of capitalism to the fact that it “disembedded” economic activity from community. Throughout history, he noted, economic activity had been part of a larger social order that included religion, government, families, and the natural world. The Industrial Revolution upended this. It turned labor and land into commodities to be “bought and sold, used and destroyed, as if they were simply merchandise,” Polanyi wrote. But these were fictitious commodities. They were none other
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than human beings and the earth itself. Generative design decommodifies land and labor, putting them again under the control of the community. It’s no accident that the deep redesign of our economy isn’t beginning in Washington, D.C. It is rooted in relationships: to the living earth and to one another. The generative economy finds fertile soil for its growth within the human heart. The ownership revolution is part of the “metaphysical reconstruction” that E.F. Schumacher said would be needed to transform our economy. When
A R T I C L E S economic relations are designed in a generative way, they’re no longer about sole and despotic dominion. Economic activity is no longer about squeezing every penny from something we imagine that we own. It’s about being interwoven with the world around us. It’s about a shift from dominion to community. 28 February, 2013 Part I of this article appeared in the May 2013 JUST Commentary. Marjorie Kelly is a fellow with the Tellus Institute in Boston and director of ownership strategy with Cutting Edge Capital. Source: YES! Magazine
MALAYSIA: FAILURE OF U.S. TO SUBVERT THE ELECTIONS AND INSTALL A “PROXY REGIME” By Tony Cartalucci
Wall Street and London’s hegemonic ambitions in Asia, centered around installing proxy regimes across Southeast Asia and using the supranational ASEAN bloc to encircle and contain China, suffered a serious blow this week when Western-proxy and Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim’s party lost in general elections.While Anwar Ibrahim’s opposition party, Pakatan Rakyat (PR) or “People’s Alliance,” attempted to run on an anti-corruption platform, its campaign instead resembled verbatim attempts by the West to subvert governments politically around the world, including most recently in Venezuela, and in Russia in 2012.
Just as in Russia where so-called “independent” election monitor GOLOS turned out to be fully funded by the US State Department through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), Malaysia’s so-called election monitor, the Merdeka Center for Opinion Research, is likewise funded directly by the US through NED. Despite this, Western media outlets, in pursuit of promoting the Western-backed People’s Alliance, have repeatedly referred to Merdeka as “independent.” The BBC in its article, “Malaysia election sees record turnout,” lays out the well-rehearsed cries of “stolen elections” used by the West to undermine the legitimacy of polls it fears its proxy candidates may lose – with the US-funded Merdeka Center cited in attempts to bolster these claims. Their foreign funding and compromised objectivity is never mentioned (emphasis added) : Allegations of election fraud surfaced before the election. Some of those who voted in advance told BBC
News that indelible ink – supposed to last for days – easily washed off. “The indelible ink can be washed off easily, with just water, in a few seconds,” one voter, Lo, told BBC News from Skudai. Another voter wrote: “Marked with “indelible ink” and voted at 10:00. Have already cleaned off the ink by 12:00. If I was also registered under a different name and ID number at a neighbouring constituency, I would be able to vote again before 17:00!” The opposition has also accused the government of funding flights for supporters to key states, which the government denies. Independent pollster Merdeka Center has received unconfirmed reports of foreign nationals being given IDs and allowed to vote. However, an election monitoring organization funded by a foreign continued next page
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government which openly seeks to remove the current ruling party from Malaysia in favor of long-time Wall Street servant Anwar Ibrahim is most certainly not “independent.” The ties between Anwar Ibrahim’s “People’s Alliance” and the US State Department don’t end with the Merdeka Center, but continue into the opposition’s street movement, “Bersih.” Claiming to fight for “clean and fair” elections, Bersih in reality is a vehicle designed to mobilize street protests on behalf of Anwar ’s opposition party. Bersih’s alleged leader, Ambiga Sreenevasan, has admitted herself that her organization has received cash directly from the United States via the National Endowment for Democracy’s National Democratic Institute (NDI), and convicted criminal George Soros’ Open Society. The Malaysian Insider reported on June 27, 2011 that Bersih leader Ambiga Sreenevassan: “…admitted to Bersih receiving some money from two US organisations — the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and Open Society Institute (OSI) — for other projects, which she stressed were unrelated to the July 9 march.” A visit to the NDI website revealed indeed that funding and training had been provided by the US organization – before NDI took down the
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information and replaced it with a more benign version purged entirely of any mention of Bersih. For funding Ambiga claims is innocuous, the NDI’s rushed obfuscation of any ties to her organization suggests something far more sinister at play. The substantial, yet carefully obfuscated support the West has lent Anwar should be of no surprise to those familiar with Anwar’s history. That Anwar Ibrahim himself was Chairman of the Development Committee of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 1998, held lecturing positions at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, was a consultant to the World Bank, and a panelist at the NeoCon lined National Endowment for Democracy’s “Democracy Award” and a panelist at a NED donation ceremony – the very same US organization funding and supporting Bersih and so-called “independent” election monitor Merdeka – paints a picture of an opposition running for office in Malaysia, not for the Malaysian people, but clearly for the corporate financier interests of Wall Street and London. In reality, Bersih’s leadership along with Anwar and their host of foreign sponsors are attempting to galvanize the very real grievances of the Malaysian people and exploit them to propel themselves into power. While many may be tempted to suggest that “clean and fair elections” truly are Bersih and Anwar’s goal, and that US funding via NED’s NDI are entirely innocuous, a thorough examination of these organizations, how they operate, and their admitted agenda reveals the proverbial cliff Anwar and Bersih are leading their followers and the nation of Malaysia over. As Bersih predictably mobilizes in the streets on behalf of Anwar ’s opposition party in the wake of their
A R T I C L E S collective failure during Malaysia’s 2013 general elections, it is important for Malaysians to understand the true nature of the Western organizations funding their attempts to politically undermine the ruling party and divide Malaysians against each other, and exactly why this is being done in the greater context of US hegemony in Asia. Anwar & Bersih’s US State Department Backers The US State Department’s NED and NDI are most certainly not benevolent promoters of democracy and freedom.Does Boeing, Goldman Sachs, Exxon, the SOPA, ACTA, CISPA-sponsoring US Chamber of Commerce, and America’s warmongering Neo-Con establishment care about promoting democracy in Malaysia? Or in expanding their corporate-financier interests in Asia under the guise of promoting democracy? Clearly the latter. The NDI, which Bersih leader Ambiga Sreenevasan herself admits funds her organization, is likewise chaired by an unsavory collection of corporate interests. The average Malaysian, disenfranchised with the ruling government as they may be, cannot possibly believe these people are funding and propping up clearly disingenuous NGOs in direct support of a compromised Anwar Ibrahim, for the best interests of Malaysia.The end game for the US with an Anwar Ibrahim/People’s Alliance-led government, is a Malaysia that capitulates to both US free trade schemes and US foreign policy. In Malaysia’s case, this will leave the extensive economic independence achieved since escaping out from under British rule, gutted, while the continued next page
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nation’s resources are steered away from domestic development and toward a proxy confrontation with China, just as is already being done in Korea, Japan, and the Philippines. Stitching ASEAN Together with Proxy Regimes to Fight China That the US goal is to use Malaysia and other Southeast Asian nations against China is not merely speculation. It is the foundation of a longdocumented conspiracy dating back as far as 1997, and reaffirmed by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as recently as 2011. In 1997, Fortune 500-funded (page 19) Brookings Institution policy scribe Robert Kagan penned, “What China Knows That We Don’t: The Case for a New Strategy of Containment,” which spells out the policy Wall Street and London were already in the process of implementing even then, albeit in a somewhat more nebulous manner. In his essay, Kagan literally states (emphasis added):
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people, but of the immense corporatefinancier interests of the AngloAmerican establishment. Kagan continues (emphasis added): “In truth, the debate over whether we should or should not contain China is a bit silly. We are already containing China — not always consciously and not entirely successfully, but enough to annoy Chinese leaders and be an obstacle to their ambitions. When the Chinese used military maneuvers and ballistic-missile tests last March to intimidate Taiwanese voters, the United States responded by sending the Seventh Fleet. By this show of force, the U.S. demonstrated to Taiwan, Japan, and the rest of our Asian allies that our role as their defender in the region had not diminished as much as they might have feared. Thus, in response to a single Chinese exercise of muscle, the links of containment became visible and were tightened.
“The present world order serves the needs of the United States and its allies, which constructed it. And it is poorly suited to the needs of a Chinese dictatorship trying to maintain power at home and increase its clout abroad. Chinese leaders chafe at the constraints on them and worry that they must change the rules of the international system before the international system changes them.”
The new China hands insist that the United States needs to explain to the Chinese that its goal is merely, as [Robert] Zoellick writes, to avoid “the domination of East Asia by any power or group of powers hostile to the United States.” Our treaties with Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, and Australia, and our naval and military forces in the region, aim only at regional stability, not aggressive encirclement.
Here, Kagan openly admits that the “world order,” or the “international order,” is simply American-run global hegemony, dictated by US interests. These interests, it should be kept in mind, are not those of the American
But the Chinese understand U.S. interests perfectly well, perhaps better than we do. While they welcome the U.S. presence as a check on Japan, the nation they fear most, they
A R T I C L E S can see clearly that America’s military and diplomatic efforts in the region severely limit their own ability to become the region’s hegemon. According to Thomas J. Christensen, who spent several months interviewing Chinese military and civilian government analysts, Chinese leaders worry that they will “play Gulliver to Southeast Asia’s Lilliputians, with the United States supplying the rope and stakes.” Indeed, the United States blocks Chinese ambitions merely by supporting what we like to call “international norms” of behavior. Christensen points out that Chinese strategic thinkers consider “complaints about China’s violations of international norms” to be part of “an integrated Western strategy, led by Washington, to prevent China from becoming a great power.” What Kagan is talking about is maintaining American preeminence across all of Asia and producing a strategy of tension to divide and limit the power of any single player vis-a-vis Wall Street and London’s hegemony. Kagan would continue (emphasis added): “The changes in the external and internal behavior of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s resulted at least in part from an American strategy that might be called “integration through containment and pressure for change.” Such a strategy needs to be applied to China today. As long as China maintains its present form of government, it continued next page
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cannot be peacefully integrated into the international order. For China’s current leaders, it is too risky to play by our rules — yet our unwillingness to force them to play by our rules is too risky for the health of the international order. The United States cannot and should not be willing to upset the international order in the mistaken belief that accommodation is the best way to avoid a confrontation with China. We should hold the line instead and work for political change in Beijing. That means strengthening our military capabilities in the region, improving our security ties with friends and allies, and making clear that we will respond, with force if necessary, when China uses military intimidation or aggression to achieve its regional ambitions. It also means not trading with the Chinese military or doing business with firms the military owns or operates. And it means imposing stiff sanctions when we catch China engaging in nuclear proliferation. A successful containment strategy will require increasing, not decreasing, our overall defense capabilities. Eyre Crowe warned in 1907 that “the more we talk of the necessity of economising on our armaments, the more firmly will the Germans believe that we are tiring of the struggle, and that they will win by going on.” Today, the perception of our military decline is already shaping Chinese calculations. In 1992, an internal Chinese
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government document said that America’s “strength is in relative decline and that there are limits to what it can do.” This perception needs to be dispelled as quickly as possible.”
Kagan’s talk of “responding” to China’s expansion is clearly manifested today in a series of proxy conflicts growing between US-backed Japan, and the US-backed Philippines, and to a lesser extent between North and South Korea, and even beginning to show in Myanmar. The governments of these nations have capitulated to US interests and their eagerness to play the role of America’s proxies in the region, even at their own cost, is not a surprise. To expand this, however, the US fully plans on integrating Southeast Asia, installing proxy regimes, and likewise turning their resources and people against China. In 2011, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton unveiled the capstone to Kagan’s 1997 conspiracy. She published in Foreign Policy magazine, a piece titled, “America’s Pacific Century” where she explicitly states: “In the next 10 years, we need to be smart and systematic about where we invest time and energy, so that we put ourselves in the best position to sustain our leadership, secure our interests, and advance our values. One of the most important tasks of American statecraft over the next decade will therefore be to lock in a substantially
A R T I C L E S increased investment — diplomatic, economic, strategic, and otherwise — in the Asia-Pacific region.” To “sustain our leadership,” “secure our interests,” and “advance our values,” are clearly hegemonic statements, and indicates that the US’ goal for “substantially increased investment,” including buying off NGOs and opposition parties in Malaysia, seeks to directly serve US leadership, interests, and “values,” not within US borders, but outside them, and specifically across all of Asia. Clinton continues: “At a time when the region is building a more mature security and economic architecture to promote stability and prosperity, U.S. commitment there is essential. It will help build that architecture and pay dividends for continued American leadership well into this century, just as our post-World War II commitment to building a comprehensive and lasting transatlantic network of institutions and relationships has paid off many times over — and continues to do so.” The “architecture” referred to is the supranational ASEAN bloc – and again Clinton confirms that the US’ commitment to this process is designed not to lift up Asia, but to maintain its own hegemony across the region, and around the world. Clinton then openly admits that the US seeks to exploit Asia’s economic growth: “Harnessing Asia’s growth and dynamism is central to American economic and strategic interests
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continued from page 10 and a key priority for President Obama. Open markets in Asia provide the United States with unprecedented opportunities for investment, trade, and access to cutting-edge technology. Our economic recovery at home will depend on exports and the ability of American firms to tap into the vast and growing consumer base of Asia.” Of course, the purpose of an economy is to meet the needs of those who live within it. The Asian economy therefore ought to serve the needs and interests of Asians – not a hegemonic empire on the other side of the Pacific. Clinton’s piece could easily double as a declaration by England’s King George and his intentions toward emptying out the New World. And no empire is complete without establishing a permanent military garrison on newly claimed territory. Clinton explains (emphasis added): “With this in mind, our work will proceed along six key lines of action: strengthening bilateral security alliances; deepening our working relationships with emerging powers, including with China; engaging with regional multilateral institutions; expanding trade and investment; forging a broad-based military presence; and advancing democracy and human rights.” And of course, by “advancing democracy and human rights,” Clinton means the continuation of funding faux-NGOs that disingenuously leverage human rights and democracy promotion to politically undermine targeted governments in pursuit of installing more obedient proxy regimes. The piece is lengthy, and while a lot of readers may be tempted to gloss over
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some of the uglier, overtly imperial aspects of Clinton’s statement, the proof of America’s true intentions in Asia can be seen clearly manifested today, with the intentional encouragement of provocations between North and South Korea, an expanding confrontation between China and US proxies, Japan and the Philippines, and with mobs taking to the streets in Malaysia in hopes of overturning an election US-proxy Anwar Ibrahim had no chance of winning. Clean & Fair Elections? While the battle cry for Anwar Ibrahim, his People’s Alliance, and Bersih have been “clean and fair elections,” in reality, allegations of fraud began long before the elections even started. This was not because Anwar’s opposition party had evidence of such fraud – instead, this was to implant the idea into people’s minds long before the elections, deeply enough to justify claims of stolen elections no matter how the polls eventually turned out. At one point during the elections, before ballots were even counted, Anwar Ibrahim declared victory - a move that analysts across the region noted was provocative, dangerous, and incredibly irresponsible. Again, there could not have been any evidence that Anwar won, because ballots had not yet been counted. It was again a move meant to manipulate the public and set the stage for contesting Anwar’s inevitable loss – in the streets with mobs and chaos in typical Westernbacked color revolution style. One must seriously ask themselves, considering Anwar’s foreign backers, those backers’ own stated intentions for Asia, and Anwar’s irresponsible, baseless claims before, during, and after the elections – what is “clean and fair” about any of this?
A R T I C L E S proxy of foreign interests. His satellite NGOs, including the insidious Bersih movement openly funded by foreign corporate-financier interests, and the equally insidious polling NGO Merdeka who portrays itself as “independent” despite being funded directly by a foreign government, are likewise frauds – drawing in well-intentioned people through slick marketing, just as cigarette companies do. And like cigarette companies who sell what is for millions essentially a slow, painful, humiliating death sentence that will leave one broken financially and spiritually before ultimately outright killing them, Anwar’s US-backed opposition is also selling Malaysia a slow, painful, humiliating death. Unfortunately, also like cigarettes, well-intentioned but impressionable people have not gathered all of the facts, and instead have based their support on only the marketing, gimmicks, slogans, and tricks of a well-oiled, manipulative political machine. For that folly, Malaysia may pay a heavy price one day – but for Anwar and his opposition party today, they have lost the elections, and the cheap veneer of America’s “democracy promotion” racket is quickly peeling away. For now, America has tripped in mid-pivot toward its hegemonic agenda in Asia, with Malaysia’s ruling government providing a model for other nations in the region to follow, should they be interested in sovereignty and independent progress – no matter how flawed or slow it may be. 9 May, 2013 Tony Cartalucci is a geopolitical researcher and a writer based in Bangkok, Thailand. His work aims at covering world events from a Southeast Asian perspective as well as promoting self- sufficiency as one of the key sources to true freedom.
Anwar Ibrahim is a fraud, an overt
Source: Global Research
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