November 2013
Vol 13, No.11
AFFIRMING LIFE TOGETHER IN THE FACE OF BELLIGERENT EMPIRE By Participants of 3rd People’s Forum of Peace for Life
The JUST Commentary carries below a statement issued by participants at an International People’s Forum in Jeju, South Korea from 23rd to 27th October 2013, on the above theme. –editor We note with concern that the will militarise the sea of East Asia. 3 rd massacre in 1948 of tens of government of the Republic of Korea We witnessed the strong resistance thousands of Jeju islanders. The has enforced a naval base of the historic tradition of Jeju women people of Gangjeong village present a construction in Gangjeong village, Jeju lived out in the Gangjeong village strong call to open a new era of peace Island since 2007, without proper struggle against the base construction. and cooperation in East Asia for consultation with villagers and They have been accompanied by themselves and for all of us. consideration of villagers’ right to activist groups from around the world. environment, land and peace. We are The Catholic Church, in particular, has The Not-so-Innocent Language of distressed to witness how a large- been a presence for the last two Empire: Toward a Counterscale development profiting big years, offering mass every day to Narrative corporations can destroy peace in a draw attention to this travesty. The emerging US national security village under the name of protecting state is a symptom of an increasingly national security. For seven years the We, the participants of the 3rd desperate empire seeking to maintain people of Gangjeong village have People’s Forum, stand in solidarity its hegemony, harming the living resisted the base construction and with the people of Gangjeong village conditions of many of its own and other suffered unjustly from abuse by in their peaceful struggle against peoples while repressing dissent at home authorities in response to their non- maritime militarisation. Jeju people and in politically “hot” regions. The violent campaign against the have a full right to resist the repeat imperial system wages war on the construction of a naval base which of the last century’s tragedy, the April Turn to next page
ARTICLES . T HE M ILITARY - I NDUSTRIAL - P UNDIT
COMPLEX BY AMY GOODMAN & JUAN GONZALEZ.................P 4
. MORE THAN JIHADISM OR IRAN, CHINA’S ROLE
IN AFRICA IS OBAMA’S OBSESSION BY JOHN PILGER...................................................P 6
. HOW THE W ORLD H EALTH O RGANISATION
COVERED UP IRAQ’S NUCLEAR NIGHTMARE BY NAFEEZ AHMAD...............................................P 8 .HOW THE SUNNI- SHIA SCHISM IS DIVIDING
THE WORLD BY ROBERT FISK....................................................P 10
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people of the world. It is defined by the nexus of the national security state and predatory corporate capitalism. Beginning with the end of the Second World War, the US led imperial model has been imposed in several parts of the world, in Central and Latin America, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Africa. Key instruments of the imperial system are militarization and coups, capture of international financial and trade institutions, neoliberal market economy, and socio-cultural controls of media, communication, and education. The Empire employs deceptive language and consciousness to legitimize its ambitions. In the solidarity mission to Jeju, we noted the ruthlessness of the innocent-sounding “US pivot to Asia.” Instead of increasing friendly relations with Asia, it involves the new geo-political imperatives of Empire regarding China and the American presence in this economically dynamic region. Nuclear weapons and nuclear power are two dimensions of one reality, which the nuclear military industrial complex promotes and benefits from. There is no peaceful use of nuclear power (“Atoms for Peace”), as the disaster at Fukushima shows. Forced evacuation of 150,000 people continues, highly radioactive contaminated water has not been brought under control, and efforts to restart nuclear power plants are underway, as well as export of such plants. The Empire claims to “fight terror”, “protect national security,” and “advance democracy and human and women’s rights.” These discourses of “Western” values advance imperial dominance. Activism for justice and peace is branded as “terrorism”, and Muslims resisting colonization and
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wars in their lands are termed terrorists. The imperial promotion of human and women’s rights has the opposite effect of what is proclaimed. We need to expose the moral and political-intellectual bankruptcy of these imperial claims, and advance a counter-understanding of the threats to the lives of both the human- and non-human living world, as well as the life of the planet. We must offer alternative approaches in order to live justly, sustainably, and peacefully in this world. Toward an Interfaith Praxis of Resistance to Empire We are at a time when a global, powerful, and meaningful phenomenon like religion can no longer ignore the multiple crises surrounding it and catastrophically affecting its adherents. In particular, the “war on terror” has harmed Muslim-Christian relations in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. One of the most effective legitimating factors for the violence of the powerful in the world today is religion in general, and especially some powerful institutional actors located within the various religious traditions. This trend needs to change and there are increasing voices which are calling on their religious leaders and communities to rekindle the real liberating spirit and ethos of their religious traditions. This is a time when all of the great, lively religious and spiritual traditions that provide fundamental values of justice, sustainability, and peace are under pressure to be co-opted by the powerful to support ongoing injustice and inequality in the world. We meet here to affirm that these traditions must have no tolerance for the widespread, unfolding genocide taking place against the world’s
L E A D A R T I C L E peoples, and the concomitant ecocide of our home, planet Earth. The peoples of the world are suffering layer upon layer of injustice and brutality, and our religious and spiritual communities can no longer maintain their silence or just pay lip service to justice and peace. These communities must continue their prophetic and authentic missions of forcefully challenging the empire and its powerful allies, institutions, and policies and practices – in cooperation with like-minded social movements and people’s movements. We call upon our religious and spiritual communities to commit their leadership, constituencies, and resources to mobilize against these trends of domination, subordination, and destruction of peace-loving peoples, societies, and our ecosphere. Our Common Call We continue to be inspired by the heroic resistance waged by social movements in Latin America, the Philippines, India and many other places against neoliberalism and US hegemony, and call for meaningful support for and solidarity with these progressive forces. Inspired by the long history of ecumenical witness for improved North-South Korean relations, particularly between the two Christian communities, we offer our solidarity to a reinvigorated process of dialogue and exchange with a view to generating a political environment conducive for reunification, beginning with renewed engagement between the two sides to turn the Armistice into a peace treaty. We urge resistance to financial instruments and trade agreements, such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which undermine our commitment to place people and the environment continued next page
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before profit. We strongly condemn the corporate violence leashed out in Odisha, India, on the struggling communities and the environment by the POSCO company hand-in-glove with the Indian government. We demand the immediate release of people who are arrested and accused on fabricated cases. We demand the withdrawal of POSCO so that the communities can live in peace with nature. We ask the people of Gangjeong village in Jeju and other citizens of Republic of Korea to be in solidarity with the people in Odisha, India. We call on people of faith and conscience to continue their support of the Arab people’s resistance against tyranny and occupation, and to oppose the regional and global counterrevolutionary political actors denying their aspirations for human dignity and social justice. We especially reaffirm the need for steadfast support for Palestinian national liberation and maintain our commitment to our Palestine solidarity work. We call on the faith communities to actively combat the rising tide of Islamophobia, which facilitates greater imperial violence against Muslims. We strongly denounce the growing
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network of the U.S. military power both through building bases and expanding access through Visiting Forces and Status of Forces Agreements throughout the world, including here in the Republic of Korea, and the accompanying patriarchal and sexual violence, exploitation, and suffering inflicted on women. We are inspired by and give our unconditional solidarity to the heroic resistance waged by women against such barbarism. We deplore the state and private financing of bloated military budgets and the arms trade, and call for significant reduction in military expenditures and an end to the arms trade, so that these funds may be invested in life affirming programs. We call on religious communities and peoples committed to peace to condemn the introduction and use of drone warfare, and demand an end to their use. We affirm movements against nuclear power plants in Japan, India, and many other countries, and support their efforts to hold accountable governments and corporations for harm they have caused. We call on the peoples of the nuclear armed states and those states protected by them to join with the 124 nations resolving to never use nuclear
L E A D A R T I C L E weapons. We strongly encourage equitable negotiations between the US and Iran with a view to additional subsequent agreement on the imperative of establishing a Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone in the Middle East. We affirm that establishing similar zones in South Asia and Northeast Asia is also urgent. We remain committed to our critique of global injustices and global hegemony, although this in itself does not offer an alternative to the prevailing world order. Alternative structures, institutions, laws and policies must be premised upon an allembracing alternative consciousness which privileges attitudes and values that the Empire has hitherto ignored or downplayed. Love, for instance, should be foregrounded as a defining attribute of the individual and collective consciousness of the human family. When love begins to shape our behaviour and action in a profound manner, it will have a huge impact upon all spheres of society including economics and politics. For love has the potential to demolish ego-centric attitudes that boost the insane drive for power and wealth that often leads to hegemony. Adopted 27 October 2013 Jeju April 3 Peace Park, Republic of Korea
The 3rd People’s Forum also adopted another statement addressing specifically the struggles of the people of Jeju against the US naval base. Excerpts of the statement appear below. –editor
The Jeju Naval Base The Jeju naval base in fact will be used to realise the U.S. “Pivot to Asia,” especially via ROK-US missile defense interoperability. Jeju naval
base will be a critical outpost of the ROK-Japan-U.S. maritime military alliance targeting China which will draw the Republic of Korea even further into the escalation of this
regional conflict. In such a conflict, Jeju Island will become a primary target, leading to devastating loss of life and destruction. continued next page
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Gangjeong village is one of the oldest and the most beautiful villages in Jeju Island. Its coastal waters are a unique natural habitat, designated an Absolute Preservation Area and a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. Living within this area are many endangered species, including the world’s largest temperate soft coral forest. The community has a long tradition of venerating pools of water and ancient trees, threatened by existence of the base. A sacred 1.2 km lava rockbed called Gureombi has been blasted during the construction, and is currently being built over. People of the village feel that they have been following the law and that the local and national authorities and the base contractors are violating the law. Despite their “civil obedience,” villagers and their supporters have repeatedly been detained, charged, fined and imprisoned. One of the most serious abuses has come from the private security contractors hired by the construction corporations.
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The Gangjeong villagers’ rights to peace and environment, freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, and freedom of association must be guaranteed at all times. All the rights of peace activists and international human rights defenders in solidarity with people of Gangjeong village should be protected and promoted at all times. Everyone has the right to live in peace. We, the participants of the 3rd People’s Forum, stand in solidarity with the people of Gangjeong village in their peaceful struggle against maritime militarisation. The Jeju people have the full right to resist a repeat of last century’s tragedy, the April 3rd massacre of tens of thousands of Jeju islanders in 1948. The people of Gangjeong villager present a strong call to open a new era of peace and cooperation in East Asia for themselves and for us all.
L E A D A R T I C L E - Guarantee the human rights to peace, environment, and freedom of expression for the people of Gangjeong village. - Allow Gangjeong village to remain a community of life and peace, and keep Jeju Island as the Island of World Peace. -Immediately release and drop all charges against all peace defenders and villagers who, seeking justice, peacefully protested against the naval base construction. - Say no to the militarisation of the sea. Make the sea of East Asia the Sea of Peace. - Say no to an arms race in the Asia Pacific. Say Yes to peace in the Asia Pacific.
We strongly urge the following: - Stop the Jeju naval base construction immediately.
Adopted 27 October 2013 Jeju April 3 Peace Park, Republic of Korea
THE MILITARY- INDUSTRIAL- PUNDIT COMPLEX By Amy Goodman & Juan Gonzalez
This transcript is taken from Democracy Now!’s October 18 broadcast. –editor 111 times, their links to military firms Public Accountability Initiative, a cowere disclosed only 13 of those times. author of the report. The report focuses largely on Stephen Hadley, who served as national AMY GOODMAN: This is security adviser to President George Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, W. Bush. During the debate on Syria, The War and Peace Report, as we he appeared on CNN, MSNBC, Fox move on now to a very interesting News and Bloomberg TV. None of study that has just come out. Juan? these stations informed viewers that New research shows many so-called Hadley currently serves as a director JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, new experts who appeared on television of the weapons manufacturer research shows many so-called making the case for U.S. strikes on Raytheon that makes Tomahawk experts who appeared on television Syria had undisclosed ties to military cruise missiles widely touted as the making the case for U.S. strikes on contractors. A new report by the weapon of choice for bombing Syria. Syria had undisclosed ties to military Public Accountability Initiative He also owns over 11,000 shares of contractors. The report by the Public identifies 22 commentators with Raytheon stock, which traded at all- Accountability Initiative identifies 22 industry ties. While they appeared on time highs during the Syria debate. commentators with the industry. television or were quoted as experts We speak to Kevin Connor of the continued next page
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While they appeared on television or were quoted as experts 111 times, their links to military firms were disclosed only 13 of those times. Let’s take a look at how some of those pundits were identified during recent television appearances. JAKE TAPPER: For insight into this high-stakes diplomatic mission, I’m joined by former secretary of state to the Clinton administration, Madeleine Albright. GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: OK, let’s analyze all this now with our panel of experts. Former vice chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General James Cartwright. GREGG JARRETT: General Jack Keane joins us, Fox News military analyst, served as four-star general and Army vice chief of staff. General, good to see you, as always. JAKE TAPPER: I want to bring in two former generals to talk about this. Anthony Zinni is the former commander-in-chief of CENTCOM, and Michael Hayden is the former CIA director. He’s now a principal with the Chertoff Group, a risk management firm. FOLLY BAH THIBAULT: Well, joining me now, live from Washington, D.C., is former U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen. Secretary Cohen, thank you for being on Al Jazeera. GRETA VAN SUSTEREN: Joining us is Ambassador John Negroponte. He served as the first U.S. director of national intelligence, as well as U.S. ambassador to Iraq and the United Nations, and many more posts, I should add. Nice to see you, sir. JOHN NEGROPONTE: Thank you.
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AMY GOODMAN: A sampling of recent TV coverage on Syria. All the pundits interviewed currently have ties to military and intelligence contractors, investment firms with a significant defense or intelligence focus, or ties to consulting firms with a focus on defense or intelligence. General Jack Keane, for example, is on the board of General Dynamics. General Anthony Zinni is on the board of BAE Systems. General James Cartwright is on the board of Raytheon. Joining us now from San Francisco, Kevin Connor, director and cofounder of the Public Accountability Initiative, co-author of the report called “Conflicts of Interest in the Syria Debate.” Lay out what you found, Kevin. KEVIN CONNOR: Sure. The report really maps out the extent to which the policy conversation on the airwaves around Syria was really dominated by individuals with ties to the defense industry. And these ties, as you laid out there, really were never disclosed - rarely disclosed, only 13 times out of 111 appearances that we identified during the Syria debate. Now, the importance of that is that readers and viewers at home, who are, you know, seeing these people comment, are introduced to them as having gravitas and credibility former secretaries of state, diplomats, generals with expertise. You would think these are independent experts who probably retired with a healthy pension, when in fact they’re representing interests that would profit from heightened military activity abroad in Syria. So that has a corrupting effect on the public discourse around an issue like Syria that’s so - so important. And it really
A R T I C L E S goes back to the responsibility of media outlets to disclose these ties and also the individuals here who are implicated in the culture of corruption and the revolving door in Washington. Anjali mentioned earlier, on the first segment, about the jobs program for the defense industry. And there’s a jobs program in place for the foreign policy establishment as they move out of their public positions onto the boards of these corporations. These aren’t these are part-time positions, but they’re very high-paying positions. They have financial incentives and fiduciary responsibilities to companies that are profiting from war, profiting from current levels of defense spending. And this is something that viewers at home should be notified of. And it perhaps should preclude their involvement in debates like this, or perhaps they should not get the podium and platform they’re given for their views, given the fact that they have these conflicts of interest that are quite serious in some cases. JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Kevin, your report focuses largely on Stephen Hadley, who served as a national security adviser to President George W. Bush. During the debate on Syria, he appeared on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, Bloomberg TV. None of these stations informed viewers that Hadley currently serves as a director of the weapons manufacturer Raytheon that makes Tomahawk cruise missiles. He also owns over 11,000 shares of Raytheon stock, which traded at alltime highs during the Syria debate. Here’s Stephen Hadley being interviewed by Greta Van Susteren on Fox News about the so-called red line on Syria. GRETA VAN SUSTEREN: Did he, or didn’t he? And does it matter who did, as we sort of fuss about this red continued next page
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line? Joining us is Stephen Hadley, former national security adviser to the Bush administration. Doesn’t - does it did he set the line? And does it matter? STEPHEN HADLEY: He did set the line, and it probably doesn’t matter, because the line is set, and the credibility of the country is on - is on the line. And in some sense, the Congress needs to act in such a way so as not to undermine the credibility of President Obama. You know, we only have one president at a time, and he embodies the United States. So if his credibility is undermined, the country’s credibility is undermined. And I think that’s an argument that people are beginning to think about on the - on Capitol Hill. JUAN GONZÁLEZ: That was Stephen Hadley. And, of course, the Tomahawk missile that Raytheon produces was the one that was going to be used in the attack on Syria. Kevin, your response? KEVIN CONNOR: Well, this is just a really egregious, significant conflict of interest that people should have been notified of. When Hadley was making the rounds to the outlets you mentioned, he also published an oped in The Washington Post arguing strenuously for war, and at the time,
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as you mentioned, serves on the board of Raytheon, has nearly $900,000 worth of stock in that company, makes $130,000 a year in cash compensation, actually chairs the public affairs committee for Raytheon, which means that he has oversight of sort of the company’s public profile and image in the media and in policy circles. So this is really a quite clear conflict of interest, and it should have been disclosed to readers and viewers. The fact that AMY GOODMAN: The Washington Post has also been criticized for failing to inform its readers about Stephen Hadley’s defense ties. On September 8th, as you said, Kevin, the paper published an op-ed by Hadley that was headlined “To Stop Iran, Obama Must Enforce Red Lines with Assad.” The article described Hadley simply as a former national security adviser in the George W. Bush administration. Fred Hiatt, editorial page editor at the Post, defended the paper’s move. Hiatt said, quote, “More disclosure is generally better than less, but I’m confident that Hadley’s opinion piece, which was consistent with the worldview he has espoused for many years, was not influenced by any hypothetical, certainly marginal, impact to Raytheon’s bottom line.” That was Hiatt’s statement. Kevin Connor, your response?
KEVIN CONNOR: Well, first, you know, I would like to say kudos to The Washington Post for actually covering the report and really requiring Hiatt to respond. But his response is really absurd. It demonstrates a really fuzzy understanding of conflicts of interest and ethical issues. This is a clear conflict of interest. The conflicts of interest actually raise the possibility of corruption, the corruption of one’s motives. There are relationships that might call into question one’s motives, and this clearly does. And nothing Hiatt said really, you know, defends against that. Hiatt might, you know, have special insight into Hadley’s inner thinking, given that they are perhaps in the same foreign policy circles. Hiatt has written glowing articles about Hadley in the past, so, you know, this is fairly standard for him in terms of his worldview and his sort of milieu. AMY GOODMAN: Kevin Connor, we want to thank you for being with us, and we’ll certainly link to your report. Kevin is director and cofounder of the Public Accountability Initiative, co-author of the report called “Conflicts of Interest in the Syria Debate,” which was released last week. 18 October, 2013 Source: Democracy Now!
MORE THAN JIHADISM OR IRAN, CHINA’S ROLE OBAMA’S OBSESSION
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By John Pilger Where America brings drones, the Chinese build roads. Al- Shabaab and co march in lockstep with this new imperialism. Countries are “pieces on a chessboard upon which is being played out a great game for the domination of the world”, wrote Lord Curzon, the viceroy of
India, in 1898. Nothing has changed. The shopping mall massacre in Nairobi was a bloody facade behind which a full-scale invasion of Africa and a war in Asia are the great game. The al-Shabaab shopping mall killers came from Somalia. If any country is an imperial metaphor, it is Somalia.
Sharing a language and religion, Somalis have been divided between the British, French, Italians and Ethiopians. Tens of thousands of people have been handed from one power to another. “When they are made to hate each other,” wrote a British colonial official, “good continued next page
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governance is assured.” Today Somalia is a theme park of brutal, artificial divisions, long impoverished by World Bank and IMF “structural adjustment” programmes, and saturated with modern weapons – notably President Obama’s personal favourite, the drone. The one stable Somali government, the Islamic Courts, was “well received by the people in the areas it controlled”, reported the US Congressional Research Service, “[but] received negative press coverage, especially in the west”. Obama crushed it; and last January Hillary Clinton, then secretary of state, presented her man to the world. “Somalia will remain grateful to the unwavering support from the United States government,” effused President Hassan Mohamud. “Thank you, America.” The shopping mall atrocity was a response to this – just as the Twin Towers attack and the London bombings were explicit reactions to invasion and injustice. Once of little consequence, jihadism now marches in lockstep with the return of unfettered imperialism. Since Nato reduced modern Libya to a Hobbesian state in 2011, the last obstacles to Africa have fallen. “Scrambles for energy, minerals and fertile land are likely to occur with increasingly intensity,” report Ministry of Defence planners. As “high numbers of civilian casualties” are predicted, “perceptions of moral legitimacy will be important for success”. Sensitive to the PR problem of invading a continent, the arms mammoth BAE Systems, together with Barclays Capital and BP, warns that “the government should define its international mission as managing risks on behalf of British citizens”. The cynicism is lethal. British governments are repeatedly warned, not least by the
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parliamentary intelligence and security committee, that foreign adventures beckon retaliation at home.
With minimal media interest, the US African Command (Africom) has deployed troops to 35 African countries, establishing a familiar network of authoritarian supplicants eager for bribes and armaments. In war games a “soldier to soldier” doctrine embeds US officers at every level of command from general to warrant officer. The British did this in India. It is as if Africa’s proud history of liberation, from Patrice Lumumba to Nelson Mandela, is consigned to oblivion by a new master’s black colonial elite – whose “historic mission”, warned Frantz Fanon half a century ago, is the subjugation of their own people in the cause of “a capitalism rampant though camouflaged”. The reference also fits the son of Africa in the White House. For Obama, there is a more pressing cause – China. Africa is China’s success story. Where the Americans bring drones, the Chinese build roads, bridges and dams. What the Chinese want is resources, especially fossil fuels. Nato’s bombing of Libya drove out 30,000 Chinese oil industry workers. More than jihadism or Iran, China is Washington’s obsession in Africa and beyond. This is a “policy” known as the “pivot to Asia”, whose threat of world war may be as great as any in the modern era. This week’s meeting in Tokyo between John Kerry, the US secretary of state,
A R T I C L E S Chuck Hagel, the defence secretary, and their Japanese counterparts accelerated the prospect of war. Sixty per cent of US naval forces are to be based in Asia by 2020, aimed at China. Japan is re-arming rapidly under the rightwing government of Shinzo Abe, who came to power in December with a pledge to build a “new, strong military” and circumvent the “peace constitution”. A US-Japanese anti-ballistic-missile system near Kyoto is directed at China. Using long-range Global Hawk drones the US has sharply increased its provocations in the East China and South China seas, where Japan and China dispute the ownership of the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands. Both countries now deploy advanced vertical take-off aircraft in Japan in preparation for a blitzkrieg. On the Pacific island of Guam, from where B-52s attacked Vietnam, the biggest military buildup since the Indochina wars includes 9,000 US marines. In Australia this week an arms fair and military jamboree that diverted much of Sydney is in keeping with a government propaganda campaign to justify an unprecedented US military build-up from Perth to Darwin, aimed at China. The vast US base at Pine Gap near Alice Springs is, as Edward Snowden disclosed, a hub of US spying in the region and beyond; it is also critical to Obama’s worldwide assassinations by drone. ‘We have to inform the British to keep them on side,” McGeorge Bundy, an assistant US secretary of state, once said. “You in Australia are with us, come what may.” Australian forces have long played a mercenary role for Washington. However, China is Australia’s biggest trading partner and largely responsible for its evasion of the 2008 recession. Without China, there would be no minerals boom: no continued next page
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weekly mining return of up to a billion dollars. The dangers this presents are rarely debated publicly in Australia, where Rupert Murdoch, the patron of the prime minister, Tony Abbott, controls 70% of the press. Occasionally, anxiety is expressed over the “choice” that the US wants Australia to make. A report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute warns that any US
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plan to strike at China would involve “blinding” Chinese surveillance, intelligence and command systems. This would “consequently increase the chances of Chinese nuclear preemption … and a series of miscalculations on both sides if Beijing perceives conventional attacks on its homeland as an attempt to disarm its nuclear capability”. In his address to the nation last month, Obama said: “What makes America different, what makes us exceptional, is that we are
A R T I C L E S dedicated to act.” 9 October, 2013 John Pilger is an Australian journalist based in London. He has twice won Britain's Journalist of the Year Award. His documentaries, screened internationally, have gained awards in Britain and worldwide. The journalist has also received several honorary doctorates. His new film, Utopia, was released on 15 November. Source: The Guardian
HOW THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANISATION COVERED UP IRAQ’S NUCLEAR NIGHTMARE By Dr. Nafeez Ahmad
birth defects in Iraq.” Jaffar Hussain, WHO’s Head of Mission in Iraq, said that the report is based on survey techniques that are “renowned worldwide” and that the study was peer reviewed “extensively” by international experts.
Ex- UN, WHO officials reveal political interference to suppress scientific evidence of postwar environmental health catastrophe. Last month, the World Health Organisation (WHO) published a long awaited document summarising the findings of an in-depth investigation into the prevalence of congenital birth defects (CBD) in Iraq, which many experts believe is linked to the use of depleted uranium (DU) munitions by Allied forces. According to the ‘summary report’: “The rates for spontaneous abortion, stillbirths and congenital birth defects found in the study are consistent with or even lower than international estimates. The study provides no clear evidence to suggest an unusually high rate of congenital
Backtrack But the conclusions contrasted dramatically from previous statements about the research findings from Iraqi Ministry of Health (MOH) officials involved in the study. Earlier this year, BBC News spoke to MOH researchers who confirmed the joint report would furnish “damning evidence” that rates of birth defects are higher in areas experiencing heavy fighting in the 2003 war. In an early press release, WHO similarly acknowledged “existing MOH statistics showing high number of CBD cases” in the “high risk” areas selected for study. The publication of this ‘summary document’ on the World Health Organisation’s website has raised questions from independent experts and former United Nations and WHO officials, who question the validity of
its findings and its anonymous authorship. They highlight the existence of abundant research demonstrating not only significant rates of congenital birth defects in many areas of Iraq, but also a plausible link to the impact of depleted uranium. For years, medical doctors in Iraq have reported “a high level of birth defects.” Other peer-reviewed studies have documented a dramatic increase in infant mortality, cancer and leukaemia in the aftermath of US military bombardment. In Fallujah, doctors are witnessing a “massive unprecedented number” of heart defects, and an increase in the number of nervous system defects. Analysis of pre-2003 data compared to now showed that “the rate of congenital heart defects was 95 per 1,000 births - 13 times the rate found in Europe.” The purpose of the WHO study was to probe the data further, but some say the project is deeply flawed. Politicised science Dr. Keith Bavistock of the Department of Environmental continued next page
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Science, University of Eastern Finland, is a retired 13-year WHO expert on radiation and health. He told me that the new ‘summary document’ was at best “disappointing.” He condemned the decision from “the very outset to preclude the possibility of looking at the extent to which the increase of birth defects is linked to the use of depleted uranium”, and further slammed the document’s lack of scientific credibility. “This document is not of scientific quality. It wouldn’t pass peer review in one of the worst journals. One of the biggest methodological problems, among many, is that the document does not even attempt to look at existing medical records in Iraqi hospitals - these are proper clinical records which document the diagnoses of the relevant cases being actually discovered by Iraqi doctors. These medics collecting clinical records are reporting higher birth defects than the study acknowledges. Instead, the document focuses on interviews with mothers as a basis for diagnosis, many of whom are traumatised in this environment, their memories unreliable, and are not qualified to make diagnosis.” I asked Dr. Baverstock if, given the document’s avoidance of analysing the key evidence - clinical records compiled by Iraqi medics - there was reason to believe the research findings were compromised under political pressure. He said: “The way this document has been produced is extremely suspicious. There are question marks about the role of the US and UK, who have a conflict of interest in this sort of study due to compensation issues that might arise from findings determining a link between higher birth defects and DU.
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I can say that the US and UK have been very reluctant to disclose the locations of DU deployment, which might throw further light on this correlation.” If so, it would not be the first time the WHO had reportedly quashed research on DU potentially embarrassing for the Allies. In 2001, Baverstock was on the editorial board for a WHO research project clearing the US and UK of responsibility for environmental health hazards involved in DU deployment. His detailed editorial recommendations accounting for new research proving uranium’s nature as as a genotoxin (capable of changing DNA) were ignored and overruled: “My editorial changes were suppressed, even though some of the research was from Department of Defense studies looking at subjects who had ingested DU from friendly fire, clearly proving that DU was genutoxic.” Baverstock then co-authored his own scientific paper on the subject arguing for plausibility of the link between DU and high rates of birth defects in Iraq, but said that WHO blocked publication of the study “because they didn’t like its conclusions.” “The extent to which scientific principles are being bent to fit politically convenient conclusions is alarming”, said Baverstock. Environmental contamination from the Iraq War Other independent experts have also weighed in criticising the WHO study. The British medical journal, The Lancet, reports that despite the study’s claims, a “scientific standard of peer review... may not have been fully achieved.”
A R T I C L E S One scientist named as a peerreviewer for the project, Simon Cousens, professor of epidemiology and statistics at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), told The Lancet that he “attended a relatively brief meeting of around one and a half hours, so just gave some comments on an early presentation of the results. I wouldn’t classify that as thorough peer review.” Just how distant the new WHOsponsored study is from the last decade’s scientific literature is clear from a new report released earlier this year by a Tokyo-based NGO, Human Rights Now (HRN), which conducted a review of the existing literature as well as a fact-finding mission to Fallujah. The HRN report investigated recorded birth defects at a major hospital in Fallujah for the year 2012, confirmed first hand birth defect incidences over a one-month period in 2013, and interviewed doctors and parents of children born with birth defects. The report concluded there was: “... an extraordinary situation of congenital birth defects in both nature and quantity. The investigation demonstrated a significant rise of these health consequences in the period following the war... An overview of scientific literature relating to the effects of uranium and heavy metals associated with munitions used in the 2003 Iraq War and occupation, together with potential exposure pathways, strongly suggest that environmental contamination resulting from combat during the Iraq War may be playing a significant role in the observed rate of birth defects.” The report criticised both the UN and continued next page
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the WHO for approaches that are “insufficient to meet the needs of the issues within their mandate.” Definitive evidence According to Hans von Sponeck, former UN assistant secretary general and UN humanitarian coordinator for Iraq, the gap between previous claims made by MOH researchers about the study, and the new ‘summary document’, justified public scepticism. “The brevity of this report is unacceptable”, he told me: “Everybody was expecting a proper, professional scientific paper, with properly scrutinised and checkable empirical data. Although I would be guarded about jumping to conclusions, WHO cannot be surprised if people ask questions about whether the body is giving into
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bilateral political pressures.” Von Sponeck said that US political pressure on WHO had scuppered previous investigations into the impact of DU on Iraq: “I served in Baghdad and was confronted with the reality of the environmental impact of DU. In 2001, I saw in Geneva how a WHO mission to conduct on-spot assessments in Basra and southern Iraq, where depleted uranium had led to devastating environmental health problems, was aborted under US political pressure.” I asked him if such political pressure on the UN body could explain the unscientific nature of the latest report. “It would not be surprising if such US pressure has continued”, he said: “There is definitive evidence of an alarming rise in birth defects, leukaemia, cancer and other
A R T I C L E S carcinogenic diseases in Iraq after the war. Looking at the stark difference between previous descriptions of the WHO study’s findings and this new report, it seems that someone, somewhere clumsily decided that they would not release these damning findings, but instead obscure them.” The International Coalition to Ban Depleted Uranium (ICBUW) has called for WHO to release the project’s data-set so that it can be subjected to independent, transparent analysis. The UN body continues to ignore these calls and defend the integrity of the research.
13 October, 2013 Dr Nafeez Ahmed is executive director of the Institute for Policy Research & Development and author of A User’s Guide to the Crisis of Civilisation: And How to Save It among other books. Source: The Guardian
HOW THE SUNNI- SHIA SCHISM IS DIVIDING THE WORLD By Robert Fisk The Muslim world’s historic – and deeply tragic – chasm between Sunni and Shia Islam is having worldwide repercussions. Syria’s civil war, America’s craven alliance with the Sunni Gulf autocracies, and Sunni (as well as Israeli) suspicions of Shia Iran are affecting even the work of the United Nations. Saudi Arabia’s petulant refusal last week to take its place among nonvoting members of the Security Council, an unprecedented step by any UN member, was intended to express the dictatorial monarchy’s displeasure with Washington’s refusal to bomb Syria after the use of chemical weapons in Damascus – but it also represented Saudi fears that Barack Obama might respond to Iranian
overtures for better relations with the West.
just because of its failure to attack Syria but for its inability to produce a fair Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement. What this “major shift” might be – save for the usual Saudi hot air about its independence from US foreign policy – was a secret that the prince kept to himself.
The Saudi head of intelligence, Prince Bandar bin Sultan – a true buddy of President George W Bush during his 22 years as ambassador in Washington – has now rattled his tin drum to warn the Americans that Saudi Arabia will make a “major shift” in its relations with the US, not
Israel, of course, never loses an opportunity to publicise – quite accurately – how closely many of its Middle East policies now coincide with those of the wealthy potentates of the Arab Gulf. Hatred of the Shia/Alawite Syrian regime, an unquenchable suspicion of continued next page
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Shia Iran’s nuclear plans and a general fear of Shia expansion is turning the unelected Sunni Arab monarchies into proxy allies of the Israeli state they have often sworn to destroy. Hardly, one imagines, the kind of notion that Prince Bandar wishes to publicise. Furthermore, America’s latest contribution to Middle East “peace” could be the sale of $10.8bn worth of missiles and arms to Sunni Saudi Arabia and the equally Sunni United Arab Emirates, including GBU-39 bombs – the weapons cutely called “bunkerbusters” – which they could use against Shia Iran. Israel, of course, possesses the very same armaments. Whether the hapless Mr Kerry – whose risible promise of an “unbelievably small” attack on Syria made him the laughing stock of the Middle East – understands the degree to which he is committing his country to the Sunni side in Islam’s oldest conflict is the subject of much debate in the Arab world. His response to the Saudi refusal to take its place in the UN Security Council has been almost as weird. After lunch on Monday at the Paris home of the Saudi Foreign Minister, Saud al-Faisal, Kerry – via his usual anonymous officials – said that he valued the autocracy’s leadership in the region, shared Riyadh’s desire to de-nuclearise Iran and to bring an end to the Syrian war. But Kerry’s insistence that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his regime must abandon power means that a Sunni government would take over Syria; and his wish to disarm Shia Iran – however notional its nuclear threat may be – would ensure that Sunni military power would dominate the Middle East from the Afghan border to the Mediterranean.
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Few realise that Yemen constitutes another of the Saudi-Iranian battlegrounds in the region.
Saudi enthusiasm for Salafist groups in Yemen – including the Islah party, which is allegedly funded by Qatar, though it denies receiving any external support – is one reason why the postSaleh regime in Sanaa has been supporting the Zaidi Shia Houthi “rebels” whose home provinces of Sa’adah, al Jawf and Hajja border Saudi Arabia. The Houthis are – according to the Sunni Saudis – supported by Iran. The minority Sunni monarchy in Bahrain – supported by the Saudis and of course by the compliant governments of the US, Britain, et al – is likewise accusing Shia Iran of colluding with the island’s majority Shias. Oddly, Prince Bandar, in his comments, claimed that Barack Obama had failed to support Saudi policy in Bahrain – which involved sending its own troops into the island to help repress Shia demonstrators in 2011 – when in fact America’s silence over the regime’s paramilitary violence was the nearest Washington could go in offering its backing to the Sunni minority and his Royal Highness the King of Bahrain. All in all, then, a mighty Western love affair with Sunni Islam – a love that very definitely cannot speak its name in an Arab Gulf world in which “democracy”, “moderation”, “partnership” and outright dictatorship
A R T I C L E S are interchangeable – which neither Washington nor London nor Paris (nor indeed Moscow or Beijing) will acknowledge. But, needless to say, there are a few irritating – and incongruous – ripples in this mutual passion. The Saudis, for example, blame Obama for allowing Egypt’s decadent Hosni Mubarak to be overthrown. They blame the Americans for supporting the elected Muslim Brother Mohamed Morsi as president – elections not being terribly popular in the Gulf – and the Saudis are now throwing cash at Egypt’s new military regime. Assad in Damascus also offered his congratulations to the Egyptian military. Was the Egyptian army not, after all – like Assad himself – trying to prevent religious extremists from taking power? Fair enough – providing we remember that the Saudis are really supporting the Egyptian Salafists who cynically gave their loyalty to the Egyptian military, and that Saudi-financed Salafists are among the fiercest opponents of Assad. Thankfully for Kerry and his European mates, the absence of any institutional memory in the State Department, Foreign Office or Quai d’Orsay means that no one need remember that 15 of the 19 masskillers of 9/11 were also Salafists and – let us above all, please God, forget this – were all Sunni citizens of Saudi Arabia.
24 October, 2013 Robert Fisk is Middle East correspondent for The Independent newspaper. He is the author of many books on the region, including The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East. Source: The Independent
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