(GLOBALRESEARCH) Israel: Gas, Oil and Trouble in the Levant
By Felicity Arbuthnot
Global Research, December 30, 2013
Region: Middle East & North Africa
Israel is set to become a major exporter of gas and some oil, if all goes to plan. The giant Leviathan natural gas field, in the eastern Mediterranean, discovered in December 2010, is widely described as “off the coast of Israel.”
At the time the gas field was: “ … the most prominent field ever found in the sub-explored area of the Levantine Basin, which covers about 83,000 square kilometres of the eastern Mediterranean region.” (i)
Coupled with Tamar field, in the same location, discovered in 2009, the prospects are for an energy bonanza for Israel, for Houston, Texas based Noble Energy and partners Delek Drilling, Avner Oil Exploration and Ratio Oil Exploration.
Also involved is Perth, Australia-based Woodside Petroleum, which has signed a memorandum of understanding for a thirty percent stake in the project, in negotiations which have been described as “up and down.” There is currently speculation that Woodside might pull out of the deal: “ …since the original plans to refrigerate the gas for export were pursued when relations between Israel and Turkey were strained. That has changed, more recently, which has opened the door for gas to be piped to Turkey.”
The spoils of the Leviathan field has already expanded from an estimated 16.7 trillion cubic feet (tcf ) of gas to nineteen trillion – and counting:
”We’ve discovered nearly 40 tcf of gas, and we have roughly 19 tcf of that gas that’s available for export to both regional and extra-regional markets. We see exports reaching 2 billion cubic feet a day in capacity in the next decade. And we continue to explore.”, stated Noble Vice Chairman Keith Elliot (ii) There are also estimated to be possibly six hundred million barrels of oil, according to Michael Economides of energytribune.com (“Eastern Mediterranean Energy – the next Great Game.”)
However, even these estimates may prove modest. In their: “Assessment of Undiscovered Oil and Gas Resources of the Levant Basin Province, Eastern Mediterranean”, the US Department of the Interior’s US Geological Survey, wrote in 2010: “We estimated a mean of 1.7 billion barrels of recoverable oil and a mean of 122 trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas in this province using a geology based assessment methodology.”
Nevertheless, Woodside Petroleum, might also be hesitant to become involved in further disputes, since they are already embroiled, with the Australian government, in a protracted one in East Timor relating to the bonanaza of energy and minerals beneath the Timor Sea, which has even led to East Timor accusing Australia “of bugging East Timorese officials during the negotiations over the agreement.”(iii)
Woodside’s conflict in East Timor however, may well pale against what might well erupt over the Leviathan and Tamar fields. The area is not for nothing called the Levantine Basin. Whilst Israel claims them as her very own treasure trove, only a fraction of the sea’s wealth lies in Israel’s bailiwick as maps (iv, v, see below) clearly show. Much is still unexplored, but currently Palestine’s Gaza and the West Bank between them show the greatest discoveries, with anything found in Lebanon and Syria’s territorial waters sure to involve claims from both countries.
In a pre-emptive move, on Christmas Day, Syria announced a deal with Russia to explore 2,190 kilometres (850 Sq. miles) for oil and gas off its Mediterranean coast, to be: “… financed by Russia, and should oil and gas be discovered in commercial quantities, Moscow will recover the exploration costs.”
Syrian Oil Minister, Ali Abbas said during the signing ceremony that the contract covers “25 years, over several phases.”
Syria, increasingly crippled by international sanctions, has seen oil production plummet by ninety percent since the largely Western fermented unrest began in March 2011. Gas production has nearly halved, from thirty million cubic metres a day, to 16.7 cubic metres daily.
The agreement is reported to have resulted from “months of long negotiations” between the two countries. Russia, as one of the Syrian government’s main backers, looks set to also become a major player in the Levant Basin’s energy wealth. (vi)
Lebanon disputes Israel’s map of the Israeli-Lebanese maritime border, filing their own map and claims with the UN in 2010. Israel claims Lebanon is in the process of granting oil and gas exploration licenses in what Israel claims as its “exclusive economic zone.”
That the US in the guise of Vice President Joe Biden, as honest broker, acting peace negotiator in the maritime border dispute would be laughable, were it not potential for Israel to attack their neighbour again. In a visit to Israel in March 2010, Biden announced: “There is absolutely no space between the United States and Israel when it comes to Israel’s security- none at all”, also announcing on arrival in Israel:”It’s good to be home.”
Given US decades of “peace brokering” between Israel and Palestine, this is already a road of pitfalls, one sidedness and duplicity, well traveled. There is trouble ahead.
Oh, and in demonology, Leviathan is one of the seven princes of Hell.
Notes
i. http://www.offshore-technology.com/projects/leviathan-gas-field-levantine-israel/
ii. http://m.theage.com.au/business/options-widen-for-woodsides-leviathan-partners-20131219-2znu6.html
iii. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-04/east-timor-offers-funds-for-onshore- gas-processing/4933106
iv. http://www.offshore-technology.com/projects/leviathan-gas-field-levantine-israel/leviathan-gas-field-levantine-israel1.html
v. http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Leviathan+gas+project+Israel+map&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=ntC2UvO7IcPE7Ab7rIDYCQ&ved=0CEQQsAQ&biw=1017&bih=598
vi. http://www.phantomreport.com/syria-inks-oil-gas-deal-with-russia-firm#more-20238
Labels: ISRAEL, OIL
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(GLOBALRESEARCH) “Blood Diamonds” and Israel’s Diamond Export Industry
By Sean Clinton
Global Research, December 20, 2013
Self-regulation has failed; civil society must act to end the trade in all blood diamonds. In November, members of the Kimberley Process (KP), meeting in plenary in South Africa, squandered what was probably their last good opportunity to ban the sale of all blood diamonds, including cut and polished blood diamonds which are an important source of funding for the nuclear armed regime in Israel which stands accused of the crime of apartheid, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The governments with a vested interest in the diamond industry, that set up and control the KP, failed to amend the definition of a “conflict diamond” which is restricted to “rough diamonds used by rebel movements or their allies to finance conflict aimed at undermining legitimate governments”. All other diamonds associated with human rights violations evade the KP regulations.
The failure was well flagged in advance as key stakeholders, including South Africa which chaired the KP in 2013, had voiced opposition to reforms that would broaden the remit of the KP to embargo diamonds associated with human rights violations by government forces.
Some jewellers refuse to sell diamonds sourced in the Marange area of Zimbabwe where government forces are reported to have killed 200 miners. However, most if not all, of the worlds leading jewellers sell diamonds processed in Israel where the industry generates about $1 billion annually for the Israeli military which is guilty of grievous human rights violations in Palestine .
With the KP chair passed to China for 2014, and Angola in line for 2015, no one believes they will implement the changes necessary to ban the trade in all blood diamonds.
Corporate Posturing
Corporate social responsibility statements – the moral beacons of wannabe ethically progressive companies – amount to little more than window-dressing unless they are supported by rigorous enforcement. No amount of charitable support for a company’s favourite worthy causes can mitigate, directly or indirectly, providing a revenue stream for rogue regimes guilty of gross human rights violations.
Anglo American plc owns 85% of De Beers making it one of the worlds leading diamond companies with interests at all stages of the supply pipe from mining to retail. De Beers promote their own “Forevermark” diamonds many of which are crafted in Israel . Their promotional literature claims “Forevermark is committed to upholding the highest business, social and environmental standards and practices across its and its partners businesses”.
Anglo American’s Sustainable Development Policy stipulates that suppliers are expected to uphold “fundamental human rights and fair labour practices, in line with internationally recognised standards”. Suppliers must also
“oppose corruption, bribery, fraud…. and must not tolerate any form of money laundering or participate in other illegal incentives in business”.
Despite this, De Beers continues to sell diamonds crafted in Israel even though the Israeli diamond industry is notorious for discrimination in the workplace against non-Jews – a fact confirmed by data from the Israeli Bureau of Statistics and a recent government-funded initiative to encourage ultra-Orthodox Jews to take up employment in the diamond industry without a similar initiative for non-Jews. Furthermore, although authorities uncovered the “world’s largest illegal bank”, involving fraudulent trading worth billions of shekels, in the Israeli Diamond Exchange in 2012, Anglo American continues trading with Israeli diamond companies.
Anglo American’s failure to abide by their own standards exposes their hypocrisy – a double-standard that permeates the jewellery industry when it comes to blood diamonds from Israel .
The Steinmetz Diamond Group, one of Tiffany’s biggest suppliers and a “unique partner” of Sotheby’s Diamonds, through the Steinmetz Foundation, funds and supports a Unit of the Givati Brigade of the Israeli military. The Givati Brigade is guilty of the massacre of at least 21 members of the Samouni family in Gaza – a war crime documented by the UNHRC and other human rights organisations.
Other world-leading jewellers including Harry Winston, Cartier, Ritani, Blue Nile, Zales, Brilliant Earth, Graff Diamonds, Chow Tai Fook, Chopard and many more, sell diamonds from Israel which are tarnished with Palestinian blood – one of the most recent victim being a 15 year old child, Wajih Wajdi al-Ramahi, shot in the back and killed by the Givati Brigade on 7th December. He was the 26th Palestinian to be killed by the Israeli military this year.
The imperative for all businesses to respect human rights and ensure their business relationships are not contributing to adverse human rights impacts is a well established tenet affirmed in the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the UN Global Compact, and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. The fact that the diamond industry, which accounted for 31.2% of Israel ’s manufacturing exports in 2011, is a very significant source of revenue for the regime in Israel means jewellers that sell diamonds processed in Israel help fund the commission of war crimes and suspected crimes against humanity.
Shareholders of companies that sell diamonds linked to atrocities and bloodshed are exposed to financial and legal hazard. The fraudulent misrepresentation of such diamonds as conflict-free leaves jewellers open to challenge by patrons angered by the fact that diamonds they purchased in good faith are de-facto blood diamonds. Companies complicit in human rights violations may be liable for reparations, which, in the case of victims of Israeli violence in Palestine , could amount to billions of dollars.
Despite Israel ’s record as a serial human rights offender and it’s nuclear weapons stockpile which it refuses to submit to international regulation, the leaders of the global diamond industry continue to give Israel refuge in the KP tent.
Consumer power
If consumers are to have confidence in the ethical credentials of diamonds civil society needs to regain the initiative. This can be done by putting the jewellery industry under the spotlight and demanding that jewellers guarantee the diamonds they sell are not a source of funding for, or in any way associated with, serious human rights violations – i.e. they are not blood diamonds.
As cut and polished blood diamonds from Israel legally enter the diamond market in vast quantities (50% of the US market), diamond buyers should demand to know where a diamond was sourced, cut and polished if they want to avoid buying a blood diamond.
Diamond buyers should not allow jewellers to fob them off with assurances about “conflict diamonds” – the sacrificial offering which only encompasses rough diamonds that fund rebel violence against legitimate governments. This distracts from, and blinds consumers to, the extensive trade in cut and polished blood diamonds which continues unchecked and largely unreported by media.
“Ethically sourced” are some of the buzz words hammered into the conscience of diamond buyers. Rough diamonds at source represent but a small fraction of the value of the cut and polished diamonds sold by jewellers. Ethically sourced diamonds can still be blood diamonds if revenue they generate after sourcing is used to fund human rights violations. “The “ethically sourced” pitch is a scam – it offers zero protection from blood diamonds.
Another example of the duplicity of the jewellery industry is the widespread abuse of the term conflict-free. This is part of a bogus System of Warranties introduced by the World Diamond Council which allows sellers to self-certify diamonds as conflict-free based on the fact that they are in compliance with the discredited Kimberley Process which gives legal cover to blood diamonds that fund government forces.
Sean Clinton is a human rights activists from Ireland with a particular interest in Israel/Palestine and the role diamonds play in funding the Zionist project in Palestine . He has authored several articles about the double-standard in the diamond industry which facilitates the trade in cut and polished blood diamonds.
Labels: ANGLO AMERICAN CORPORATION, DEBEERS, DIAMONDS, ISRAEL
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(GLOBALRESEARCH, CRAIG MURRAY) Israel has granted oil exploration rights inside Syria, in the occupied Golan Heights
By Craig Murray
Global Research, August 26, 2013
craigmurray.org 21 February 2013
Israel Grants Oil Expl. Rights in Syria To Lord Jacob Rothschild, (4th Baron Rothschild and direct descendant of the 1st Lord Rothschild who funded Cecil Rhodes), Rupert Murdoch, Dick Cheney. - MrK
Israel has granted oil exploration rights inside Syria, in the occupied Golan Heights, to Genie Energy.
Major shareholders of Genie Energy – which also has interests in shale gas in the United States and shale oil in Israel – include Rupert Murdoch and Lord Jacob Rothschild. This from a 2010 Genie Energy press release:
Claude Pupkin, CEO of Genie Oil and Gas, commented, “Genie’s success will ultimately depend, in part, on access to the expertise of the oil and gas industry and to the financial markets.
Jacob Rothschild and Rupert Murdoch are extremely well regarded by and connected to leaders in these sectors. Their guidance and participation will prove invaluable.”
“I am grateful to Howard Jonas and IDT for the opportunity to invest in this important initiative,” Lord Rothschild said. “Rupert Murdoch’s extraordinary achievements speak for themselves and we are very pleased he has agreed to be our partner.
Genie Energy is making good technological progress to tap the world’s substantial oil shale deposits which could transform the future prospects of Israel, the Middle East and our allies around the world.”
For Israel to seek to exploit mineral reserves in the occupied Golan Heights is plainly illegal in international law. Japan was succesfully sued by Singapore before the International Court of Justice for exploitation of Singapore’s oil resources during the second world war.
The argument has been made in international law that an occupying power is entitled to operate oil wells which were previously functioning and operated by the sovereign power, in whose position the occupying power now stands.
But there is absolutely no disagreement in the authorities and case law that the drilling of new wells – let alone fracking – by an occupying power is illegal.
Israel tried to make the same move twenty years ago but was forced to back down after a strong reaction from the Syrian government, which gained diplomatic support from the United States. Israel is now seeking to take advantage of the weakened Syrian state; this move perhaps casts a new light on recent Israeli bombings in Syria.
In a rational world, the involvement of Rothschild and Murdoch in this international criminal activity would show them not to be fit and proper persons to hold major commercial interests elsewhere, and action would be taken. Naturally, nothing of the kind will happen.
Labels: ISRAEL, JACOB ROTHSCHILD, OIL, SYRIA
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(TALKZIMBABWE) Hypocrisy: MDC-T leaders worked with Nikuv
This article was written by Our reporter on 16 August, at 12 : 05 PM
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change is crying foul over the alleged role of Nikuv International Projects in rigging Zimbabwe’s July 31 general elections, but party leader Morgan Tsvangirai, and his top brass have been dealing with the Israeli company.
A report by the Mail & Guardian newspaper shows that as early as last year Tsvangirai was working with a Nikuv subsidiary that deals in agricultural equipment.
Nikuv’s sister company, Pedstock Investments, supplied and installed drip irrigation equipment at Tsvangirai’s rural homestead in Humanikwa village in Buhera, Manicaland, last year.
Outgoing Deputy Prime Minister Thokozani Khuphe, the party’s vice-president, also bought the same drip irrigation equipment from the Nikuv company.
Tsvangirai’s trusted lieutenant and chief secretary, Ian Makone, and his wife, Theresa, who is the outgoing home affairs minister and the MDC-T Women’s Assembly leader, also had a drip irrigation system installed at her Domboshava home by the same company.
This week Theresa Makone confirmed that Pedstock had installed irrigation systems at her Domboshava home, at Tsvangirai’s Buhera home and at Khuphe’s home.
Makone tried to mask this affiliation by saying they were unaware of the links between the company and Nikuv, although all invoicing for the company is done by Nikuv.
Tsvangirai’s spokesperson, Luke Tamborinyoka, also confirmed that an irrigation system was installed at Tsvangirai’s rural home. He refused to comment on why Tsvangirai had purchased equipment from a company the MDC-T has been accussing for a long time of working with Zanu-PF.
he said the company had installed the equipment when he was in hospital and when Tsvangirai held a ‘field day’ in November last year during which the equipment was showcased.
Tamborinyoka said he would get back to the M&G with more information but he had not done so by the time of going to print.
It could not be established who paid for Tsvangirai’s irrigation system although Makone insisted all the officials had paid for their own. The irrigation system by Nikuv costs upwards of US$150,000.00
Said Makone: “If we had known that Nikuv is involved in stealing the elections from us, we would not have dealt with them.”
After the installation of the equipment, Tsvangirai invited MDC-T ministers and his neighbours to see the project, which he said was a model for how to alleviate hunger.
The Makones also held a field day on July 10 to show off their equipment and farming project.
Makone’s denial is in contrast with facts at hand.
Last year, she was hosted by Nikuv and Pedstock on official ministerial business as co-Home Affairs Minister
The purpose of the trip was to see the type of security systems that the company offers. On that trip, she met Nikuv and Pedstock officials.
She met Emmanuel Antebi, the founder of Nikuv, who made her aware of the link between Pedstock and Nikuv.
Makone also denied paying $150,000 quoted by Nikov, saying the amount she paid was ‘only’ $20000 for the equipment.
Makone said there was nothing sinister about the fact that she gave business to Pedstock because it had “appeared [to be] just like any other business”.
Labels: 2013 ELECTIONS (ZW), ISRAEL, MDC, MDC CORRUPTION, NIKUV INTERNATIONAL PROJECTS
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(LAND DESTROYER REPORT) Unprovoked Attack on Syria: US-backed Israel Commits Egregious International Crime
The US feigns disassociation with Hitlerian act of Israeli aggression - as was planned since 2007.
Image: The West has carefully cultivated Israel into "regional bully." Immune from international condemnation, it is now being used to commit egregious war crimes against neighboring Syria, in hopes of provoking a retaliation and giving the US and its regional axis the justification it has long sought to militarily intervene.
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May 5, 2013 (LD) - Unprovoked, Israel has attacked Syria numerous times over the past 2 days, including attacks on the Syrian capital of Damascus, in what appears to be a series of intentional provocations designed to drag the region into a wider conflict its US sponsors can then enter militarily. Neither attacked directly by Syria, nor able to cite credible evidence in regards to perceived threats Israel claims to be reacting to, the assault on Syria represents a Chapter VII breach of the United Nations Charter.
What's more, is that while the US feigns disassociation with Israel's breach of international peace, after jointly fueling a genocidal sectarian conflict within Syria's borders for the past two years, it is documented fact that the US and Saudi Arabia planned to use Israel to conduct military attacks against Iran and Syria, they themselves could not justify politically, legally, or strategically.
What is now hoped is that Syria and Iran retaliate militarily, allowing the "other shoe to drop," and for the US, UK, France, and their regional axis to directly intervene in Syria, and with any luck, Iran.
Insidious Ploy Engineered and Documented in 2007-2009
As early as 2007, it was reported that a US-Saudi-Israeli conspiracy to overthrow the governments of Iran and Syria by arming sectarian terrorists, many linked directly to Al Qaeda, was already set in motion. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh in his 2007 New Yorker article, "The Redirection," stated (emphasis added):
"To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda."
Of Israel and Saudi Arabia's partnership it specifically stated:
"The policy shift has brought Saudi Arabia and Israel into a new strategic embrace, largely because both countries see Iran as an existential threat. They have been involved in direct talks, and the Saudis, who believe that greater stability in Israel and Palestine will give Iran less leverage in the region, have become more involved in Arab-Israeli negotiations."
Additionally, Saudi Arabian officials mentioned the careful balancing act their nation must play in order to conceal its role in supporting US-Israeli ambitions across the region. It was stated even then, that using Israel to publicly carry out attacks on Iran would be preferable to the US, which would ultimately implicate the Saudis. It was stated:
"The Saudi said that, in his country’s view, it was taking a political risk by joining the U.S. in challenging Iran: Bandar is already seen in the Arab world as being too close to the Bush Administration. “We have two nightmares,” the former diplomat told me. “For Iran to acquire the bomb and for the United States to attack Iran. I’d rather the Israelis bomb the Iranians, so we can blame them. If America does it, we will be blamed.”"
This ploy was further developed in 2009 by the Fortune 500-funded (page 19) Brookings Institution in their document, "Which Path to Persia?" In regards to Iran, and now clearly being utilized against Syria, the gambit was described as follows (emphasis added):
"...it would be far more preferable if the United States could cite an Iranian provocation as justification for the airstrikes before launching them. Clearly, the more outrageous, the more deadly, and the more unprovoked the Iranian action, the better off the United States would be. Of course, it would be very difficult for the United States to goad Iran into such a provocation without the rest of the world recognizing this game, which would then undermine it. (One method that would have some possibility of success would be to ratchet up covert regime change efforts in the hope that Tehran would retaliate overtly, or even semi-overtly, which could then be portrayed as an unprovoked act of Iranian aggression.) " -page 84-85, Which Path to Perisa?, Brookings Institution.
And:
"Israel appears to have done extensive planning and practice for such a strike already, and its aircraft are probably already based as close to Iran as possible. as such, Israel might be able to launch the strike in a matter of weeks or even days, depending on what weather and intelligence conditions it felt it needed. Moreover, since Israel would have much less of a need (or even interest) in securing regional support for the operation, Jerusalem probably would feel less motivated to wait for an Iranian provocation before attacking. In short, Israel could move very fast to implement this option if both Israeli and American leaders wanted it to happen.
However, as noted in the previous chapter, the airstrikes themselves are really just the start of this policy. Again, the Iranians would doubtless rebuild their nuclear sites. They would probably retaliate against Israel, and they might retaliate against the United States, too (which might create a pretext for American airstrikes or even an invasion)." -page 91, Which Path to Perisa?, Brookings Institution.
And Israel not waiting for a plausible justification to attack Syria is exactly what has just happened. It should also be noted in particular, the last paragraph which gives insight into what the US-led axis plans to do after this egregious international crime - that is - to incrementally engulf the region into a conflict it finally can justify its own entry into open military aggression.
What Should Syria and its Allies Do?
Syria, Iran, Russia and other nations that support the besieged nation most certainly were aware of the Brookings document "Which Path to Persia?" and familiar with this strategy. It would be hoped that anything of value that the Israelis would seek to attack in order to provoke a much desired retaliation and subsequent war, would have been provided additional protection, or moved entirely out of range of potential Israeli attacks.
A media campaign to illustrate the hypocritical and very revealing convergence between Al Qaeda (the so-called Free Syrian Army or FSA) and Israeli interests would undermine whatever remaining support the battered and failing Western-backed terror campaign inside Syria may still have.
Additionally, Israel's selection by the US to carry out this attack was done specifically because Israel has long-ago exhausted its international legitimacy. What it is doing in Syria is a blatant international crime, in direct violation of international law. Currently, Syria and its allies hold the moral high ground against an enemy who is no longer fooling the world. If it is calculated that Syria can survive Israel's unprovoked brutality, it would be best to do little or nothing, and incur internationally the same outrage that accompanies Israel's brutality against the Palestinians.
In light of the US using Israel as its proxy against Syria, should Syria and its allies retaliate, it would be best to do so through any proxies they themselves have at their disposal. Just as Hezbollah and the Palestinians now routinely defeat Israel both strategically and politically, Syria now faces an opportunity to do so again, only on a much bigger scale.
The outrageous actions of Israel, the despicable double-game the US attempts to play by feigning disassociation with its regional beachhead in Tel Aviv, and the silent complicity of the UN, has people around the world desperately seeking retaliation from Syria, or Iran, or both. In reality, this is precisely what the West hopes to achieve - a wider conventional war in which they hold the advantage. By refusing to retaliate directly, Syria cripples the West politically, highlighting the unprovoked nature of their attacks on a nation they claim is a threat, yet fails to strike back even when its capital is under bombardment. By responding through its own plausibly deniable proxies, tactical and political pressure can be put on Israel to end its aggression.
It appears that the Western-backed terrorist front in Syria has been dealt a fatal blow and is in the process of complete collapse. The attack by Israel is a sign of desperation, seeking to expand a conflict that is about to end. Syria and its allies face difficult decisions and dangerous desperation in the coming days and weeks - with an axis of rogue states committing increasingly heinous atrocities in search of a response.
Labels: ISRAEL, MIDDLE EAST, SYRIA, TERRORISM
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COMMENT -
Baron Jacob Rothschild is the father of Nat Rothschild, who is a big influence on Glencore Internatioal PLC (which owns Mopani Mine, by the way).
Michael Steinhardt is an old familiar from the 1980s, and is mentioned in the book The Market Wizards, by Jack Schwager. In Marty Schwartz' book Pit Bull, he is simply referred to as 'Porky'.
The War on Syria: Israeli Licence to Cheney-Linked Energy Firm in Occupied Golan Heights
By Jim Lobe
Global Research, February 25, 2013
IPS
In a potential new source of contention between President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel has reportedly granted a U.S. energy firm with heavyweight political connections to explore for oil and gas in the occupied Golan Heights.
The company is a local subsidiary of New Jersey-based
Genie Energy Ltd. The Strategic Advisory Board of another subsidiary,
Genie Oil and Gas, includes former Vice President Dick Cheney, media magnate Rupert Murdoch, and former Republican Rep. Jim Courter.
It also includes several prominent investment managers, such as Jacob Rothschild, chairman of the J. Rothschild group, and Michael Steinhardt, a major contributor to Jewish and Zionist causes, notably Birthright Israel, a multi-million-dollar programme to bring young Diaspora Jews to Israel.
By their own admission, the Israeli government says it’s occupied territory. So why would they invest millions of dollars in occupied territory?
The granting of the licence by Israel’s Ministry of Energy and Water Resources, which was initially reported by Dow Jones Thursday, comes amidst continuing civil war in Syria, which has demanded the return of the Heights since Israel took them in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War.
It also comes a month before Obama is scheduled to make his first visit to Israel as president.
Some analysts here compared the move to previous announcements by the Netanyahu government of new settlement construction on the West Bank or East Jerusalem — either on the eve of or during meetings with top U.S. officials – that have clearly contributed to thinly veiled tensions that exist between the two leaders.
The administration remained tight-lipped about the move Friday, confining itself only to issuing a terse statement by the State Department acknowledging the press reports about the licence.
“We intend to discuss this issue with the Israeli Government,” it said.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if this is part of Netanyahu’s plan to put additional pressure on the U.S., as he’s done with President Obama in the past,” Charles Ebinger, an energy and Middle expert at the Brookings Institutions, told IPS. “He keeps changing the facts on the ground through expansion of settlements and now this on the Golan.
“He keeps taking these actions, whether with the Palestinians or the Syrians. It makes it more and more difficult for the Arabs to come to the table,” he added. “It’s definitely contrary to international law and goes against any number of U.N. Security Council resolutions.”
“The move probably was not intended primarily to stick a thumb in the eye of the United States,” noted Paul Pillar, a former top Middle East analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), “but coming only a month before President Obama’s scheduled trip to Israel, it demonstrates again that the Netanyahu government evidently is not bothered by doing just that.
“The Israelis may be anticipating a replacement of the (President Bashar Al-)Assad regime by new Syrian rulers who would push harder for return of the Golan Heights. The idea from Israel’s perspective would be to try to strengthen its claim to the territory by creating still more facts not only on the ground but underground,” he told IPS in an email exchange.
Unlike East Jerusalem, Israel has not tried to “annex” the Golan Heights, although in 1981 it extended Israeli law and administration to the territory – a move that was declared “null and void” by the U.N. Security Council. The U.S., which at various times has tried to mediate a peace accord between Syria and Israel, has never recognised the Jewish State’s occupation there.
The Heights, which successive Israeli governments have said they are prepared to return to Damascus under certain conditions, currently hold 32 Jewish settlements with a total population of around 20,000.
In 2008, Turkey reportedly came close to mediating a peace accord between Israel and Syria that included a return of the Heights, but the effort fell apart when Israel launched its “Cast Lead” military operation in Gaza late that year.
Despite the ongoing civil war in Syria, hostilities between Assad’s forces and rebel groups have only rarely crossed the border into the Israeli-controlled territory.
Some analysts said the move appeared designed in part to take advantage of the ongoing chaos inside Syria.
Successive Israeli governments rejected drilling applications in the past mainly out of a desire to avoid inflaming tensions with Damascus, according to one knowledgeable source who declined to be identified.
“With no effective government in Damascus, I guess they figured no harm would come from going ahead,” the source said.
One prominent U.S.-based anti-Assad activist, Husam Aldairi, expressed astonishment at the move, asking “How is it possible to give a licence for drilling in occupied territory?”
Aldairi, who has served as the president of the U.S. section of the Syrian National Council and now serves as vice chairman of the opposition’s National Coalition’s Tribal Council, said the move “will only serve the purpose of supporting Assad against the revolution.”
“I truthfully think that is a very negative thing to do at this point,” he told IPS in an interview in which he stressed that he was speaking in his personal capacity only.
“You’re only agitating the Syrian people. At this point, they will not be too worried about it, but, in the long run, there has to be a peaceful resolution over the Golan Heights. By their own admission, the Israeli government says it’s occupied territory. So why would they invest millions of dollars in occupied territory?”
The licence, which was reportedly contested by the affected settler communities for environmental among other reasons, will permit Genie Israel Oil and Gas Ltd to conduct exploratory drilling in most of the southern part of the Heights.
Genie, which has an exploration licence in the Shfela region of central Asia through another Israeli subsidiary, Israel Energy Initiatives (IEI), and a joint venture with France’s Total to produce shale oil in the U.S. state of Colorado, said it believes the southern Golan contains “significant quantities of conventional oil and gas in relatively tight formations”.
It’s not clear whether the licence approval may have been affected by the political clout and sympathies of the Strategic Advisory Board members, such as Cheney who was a staunch advocate of Israel’s rightist governments during his vice-presidency from 2001 to 2009.
Murdoch’s media empire, which includes Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, has also been a reliable advocate of Netanyahu’s Likud Party positions over the past 15 years, and particularly since 9/11. Until he sold it several years ago, Murdoch also financed William Kristol’s “Weekly Standard”, a hard-line neo-conservative journal.
Steinhardt provided major funding for the Foundation for the Defense of the Democracy (FDD), a particularly hawkish lobby group whose views are close to those of the Likud Party, from its launch just a few days after 9/11 until at least 2008, according to tax records.
Like Cheney and Murdoch’s U.S. publications, FDD championed the Iraq invasion and, in more recent years, has played an important role in drafting and lobbying for draconian sanctions against Iran.
He also co-founded and has donated millions of dollars to Birthright Israel, a programme that provides 10-day, all-expenses-paid trips to Israel to tens of thousands young Jews from around the world each year. In an interview with U.S. journalist Max Blumenthal at a Birthright rally and dance in Israel last year, Steinhardt insisted that “there was no Palestinian people.”
*Jim Lobe’s blog on U.S. foreign policy can be read at http://www.lobelog.com.
Labels: DICK CHENEY, ISRAEL, SYRIA
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Saudis warn will intercept Israeli jets
Published: Aug. 9, 2012 at 6:53 AM
JERUSALEM, Aug. 9 (UPI) -- Saudi Arabia warned it will intercept Israeli fighter jets that enter its airspace en route to an attack on Iran, the Hebrew daily Yedioth Ahronoth says. The warning was relayed via Washington and raised by top U.S. administration officials who recently visited Jerusalem.
The Hebrew language daily reported Thursday sources in Jerusalem said it appeared the Obama administration was "leveraging the Saudi threat in an attempt to dissuade Israel from launching a unilateral offensive on Iran's nuclear facilities," the newspaper said.
Other sources said they believe Riyadh would permit Israeli jets to enter its airspace if Israel coordinates the military strike with Washington and doesn't carry out a military operation unilaterally.
In the event of a military strike on Iran's nuclear sites, Israel has three route options: a northern route, which requires flying over Turkey and Syria; a southern route over Saudi Arabia; or a central route over Jordan and Iraq.
Due to the deteriorated relationship between Jerusalem and Ankara since a 2010 Israeli commando attack in which nine activists on the Turkish boat Mavi Marmara, which sought to break the Gaza blockade, were killed, it is unlikely Turkey would permit Israeli fighter jets to enter its airspace, Yedioth Ahronoth said. However, there is a possibility Turkey would "turn a blind eye" because of commitments to its NATO partner, the United States, the newspaper said.
Concerning the next leg of the journey, which would require entering Syrian airspace, the Syrian air force is still operational but its capabilities are considered weak. However Syria's air defense systems are considered to be advanced, the newspaper said.
The option of entering Jordanian and Iraqi airspace is considered to be the preferred route for Israel, though it isn't clear whether Jordan would turn a "blind eye" to Israeli jets entering its airspace heading east, or whether it would consider such an act a threat to its sovereignty, which may jeopardize the peace treaty between the countries, Yedioth Ahronoth said.
Labels: ISRAEL, SAUDI ARABIA, SYRIA
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Irrigation set to boost smallholder farmer capacity
Friday, 13 July 2012 11:42
Agriculture Reporter
Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development Minister Joseph Made, recently met the
Israeli ambassador for Africa, Mr Dan Shaham, to discuss ways of boosting the irrigation sector. Minister Made said the revival of the irrigation sector was expected to boost the capacity of smallholder farmers.
He said the two parties have been working together in the agriculture sector and this led to the establishment of several institutions related to the irrigation sector. These include the Irrigation Centre at the Institute of Agriculture Engineering and Mechanisation among others.
“The ambassador visited the Irrigation Centre on Tuesday and has seen the state-of-the-art machinery. We have agreed to re-establish the Irrigation Centre, which is very important in training personnel from Mozambique, Zambia and Malawi among other Southern African countries,” said Minister Made.
He said a regional irrigation company, Netafim, would also help the centre through the replacement of computers at the institution.
“We are grateful to experts who are going to work with a local irrigation company, Pedstock, in irrigation re-establishment,” said Minister Made.
The two parties will sign a Memorandum of Understanding soon, which is being drafted. The signing of other agreements at business level will follow the MoU. The meeting also discussed other areas of development and co-operation in the agriculture sector, including mechanisation.
“Israel is a leader in uplifting smallholder farmers from subsistence to commercial level and we are going to use the same system,” said Minister Made. “We are also interested in phytosanitary matters.”
Minister Made said although irrigation development was important, there was need to look at plant and animal diseases that may come with it. Zimbabwe and Israel will also co-operate in the control of animal diseases.
“Israel leads in dairy production and has worked in China, Kenya and Botswana,” said Minister Made.
“We are happy that we are going to strengthen the capacity of our scientists in extension, training and research.”
Ambassador Shaham said the meeting was fruitful. “We have reached a concrete level. We spoke to professionals and got suggestions on how we can help the small holder farmers through irrigation system,” he said.
Labels: IRRIGATION, ISRAEL, JOSEPH MADE, MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE MECHANISATION AND IRRIGATION (ZIMBABWE)
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The Assassination of Yasser Arafat had been Ordered by the Israeli Cabinet
by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research, July 6, 2012
The 2004 assassination of Yasser Arafat was part of a broader military and intelligence agenda to destroy the Palestinian Authority.
What recent news reports fail to mention is that the extra-judicial assassination had been ordered by the Israeli cabinet in 2003. It was subsequently approved by the US which vetoed a United Nations Security Resolution condemning the 2003 Israeli Cabinet decision to "get rid of Arafat". "We will choose the right way and the right time to kill Arafat."
(See Michel Chossudovsky, The Invasion of Gaza: "Operation Cast Lead", Part of a Broader Israeli Military-Intelligence Agenda, Global Research, November 2009)
The assassination of Yasser Arafat had been on the drawing board since 1996 under "Operation Fields of Thorns". According to an October 2000 document "prepared by the security services, at the request of then Prime Minister Ehud Barak, stated that 'Arafat, the person, is a severe threat to the security of the state [of Israel] and the damage which will result from his disappearance is less than the damage caused by his existence'". (Tanya Reinhart, Evil Unleashed, Israel's move to destroy the Palestinian Authority is a calculated plan, long in the making, Global Research, December 2001. Details of the document were published in Ma'ariv, July 6, 2001.).
Arafat's assassination was ordered in 2003 by the Israeli cabinet. It was approved by the US which vetoed a United Nations Security Resolution condemning the 2003 Israeli Cabinet decision. Reacting to increased Palestinian attacks, in August 2003, Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz declared "all out war" on the militants whom he vowed "marked for death."
"In mid September, Israel's government passed a law to get rid of Arafat. Israel's cabinet for political security affairs declared it "a decision to remove Arafat as an obstacle to peace." Mofaz threatened; "we will choose the right way and the right time to kill Arafat." Palestinian Minister Saeb Erekat told CNN he thought Arafat was the next target. CNN asked Sharon spokesman Ra'anan Gissan if the vote meant expulsion of Arafat. Gissan clarified; "It doesn't mean that. The Cabinet has today resolved to remove this obstacle. The time, the method, the ways by which this will take place will be decided separately, and the security services will monitor the situation and make the recommendation about proper action." (See Trish Shuh, Road Map for a Decease Plan, www.mehrnews.com November 9 2005)
The assassination of Arafat was part of the 2001 Dagan Plan. In all likelihood, it was carried out by Israeli Intelligence. It was intended to destroy the Palestinian Authority, foment divisions within Fatah as well as between Fatah and Hamas. Mahmoud Abbas is a Palestinian quisling. He was installed as leader of Fatah, with the approval of Israel and the US, which finance the Palestinian Authority's paramilitary and security forces.
To Read complete Article:
The Invasion of Gaza: "Operation Cast Lead", Part of a Broader Israeli Military-Intelligence Agenda
- by Michel Chossudovsky - 2009-01-04
Labels: ASSASSINATION, ISRAEL, PALESTINE
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Israeli pilot pleads not guilty to diamond possession
Friday, 30 March 2012 00:00
Court Reporter
The Israeli pilot who was allegedly found with US$2 million worth of diamonds yesterday pleaded not guilty to unlawful possession of the gems and entry into Zimbabwe by evasion.
Shmuel Kainan Klein (58) appeared before a Harare magistrate and denied being in unlawful possession of diamonds and contravening Section 12 (1) of the Immigration Act Chapter 4:02, which criminalises entry by evasion. After the court session, Klein was re-arrested by immigration officials who were under the impression that he was in the country illegally.
His lawyer Mr Jonathan Samukange had made an application seeking to bar immigration officials from arresting his client and interfering with his bail conditions. The order was granted with the State’s consent by regional magistrate Mr Clever Tsikwa.
In his defence outline Klein said that he was in lawful possession of the diamonds and police had stolen some of them.
However, an official from the Minerals Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe, said the diamonds were from Marange and conceded that the diamonds were being smuggled out of the country. Klein denied committing the offence claiming he was an agent for Masri diamonds.
“He advised them that he would be flying that afternoon to Tel-Aviv, Israel, where he would be handing the diamonds to the owner.
“He also said that he carrying the diamonds on behalf of Masri diamonds and was to hand them to Mr Nisim Masri. He told them that he was acting as his agent for the purpose of possessing and carrying the diamonds to Tel-Aviv,” read part of Klein’s defence outline.
Mr Samukange told the court that some of his client’s diamonds were missing.
“He will state that he has been shown a copy of the affidavit by Mr Clever Sithole, which shows that the total carats were 8 486.66 and further state that there is missing about 2 140.34,” submitted Mr Samukange.
He further submitted that police must have stolen them since the diamonds were in their custody.
Mr Samukange also submitted that when the diamond parcel was opened by the assayer, Klein was not represented.
He argued that the valuation of the diamonds was “extremely exaggerated” valuing them at US$220 000.
The first witness in the case a Civil Aviation Authority security officer, Ms Wendy Gomo, who was being led by prosecutor Ms Tracy Mundanga, said Klein was shaky when he presented himself at the passenger screening point prompting her to request a further search of his luggage.
She said when she discovered the diamonds Klein told her that they were objects used in a plane.
During cross-examination, Ms Gomo said she was not in a position to comment on the shortfall as she did not conduct a physical search.
Another witness Detective Shamiso Tashu of the Police Border Control and Minerals Unit said when she counted the stones they totalled 1 446 although she did not know the caratage.
In cross-examination she conceded that some of the evidence was missing.
Mr Sithole of MMCZ said when he was given the diamonds he noticed that they were Marange diamonds after seeing the texture adding that every diamond has a trace element.
He said the Marange diamonds were brownish.
He said the diamonds in question weighed 1,7kg with a caratage of 8 486 and valued at US$2 437 708 22.
Mr Samukange doubted his qualifications saying, “the court needs to rely on a qualified person not someone who has gone for a seven day crash course programme”.
After the hearing, Mr Samukange tried to prevent immigration officials from arresting his client since the court had made an order barring them from arresting the Israeli.
Mr Samukange pulled his client’s left hand while an immigration official pulled his right hand.
The parties went to the police post at the Harare Magistrates’ Courts and three immigration officials finally emerged from the post holding Klein by his belt before whisking him away in a white Mazda pick-up truck.
Labels: DIAMONDS, ISRAEL
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Guide to why US seeks to make Iran a global pariah
Saturday, 19 November 2011 00:00
Stephen Gowans
Flipping idly through my morning newspaper, my eyes fell upon a headline, which, given its significance, should have appeared on the front page, but instead was tucked away at the back, on page A9. "Israel won't rule out attack on Iran".
Now, it's true that Israel's threatening to attack Iran is hardly news. Here was Ehud Barak, Israeli defence minister, over two years ago, talking about measures to dissuade Iran from continuing to process uranium: "We clearly believe that no option should be removed from the table. This is our policy. We mean it." And here was Barak just the other day: "We strongly believe that . . . no option should be removed from the table." Same defence minister. Same words. Same threat.
Yet while the threat may be old, its significance remains undiminished. One country is threatening to commit the supreme international crime: to attack another even though it, itself, has not been attacked by the country it rattles its sabre at. Were Iran to threaten Israel, the headline "Iran won't rule out attack on the Jewish state" wouldn't be tucked away inconspicuously in the back pages of my newspaper. Instead, it would be shouted in bold letters across the front page. "My God!", NATO state officials and editorialists would cry. "Iran is threatening to attack the Jewish state. Something must be done!"
But in this case it is Israel - which the Western media and governments have long embraced and set forth as the land of the good guys - that is issuing the threat against a country which has, since its escape from US domination in 1979, been limned as dark and menacing, and so while no one wants war, surely it's all perfectly understandable that the plucky Israelis should be declaring their determination to stand against the Judeophobic menace of the Islamic Republic. After all, isn't Iran building nuclear weapons to wipe Israel off the map? Well, if you listen to the Israelis and their US protector, the answer is yes.
The Strangelovian Israeli historian Benny Morris declares that Israel is "threatened almost daily with destruction by Iran's leaders." To eclipse this threat, Iran must be wiped off the map before Iran does any wiping of its own. "Israel has no option," Morris chillingly says, "but to use its nuclear arsenal to destroy Iran, unless the US uses its formidable military to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities first."
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu warns: "Iran is even arming itself with nuclear weapons to realise that goal (the obliteration of the Jewish state), and until now the world has not stopped it. The threat to our existence, is not theoretical. It cannot be swept under the carpet; it cannot be reduced. It faces us and all humanity, and it must be thwarted."
Ominous. But the idea that Iran intends to acquire nuclear weapons to obliterate Israel is pure flummery, as real as the threat King Kong poses to Manhattan; a work of fiction, intended to create a frisson of fear.
So, why do I say this? First, we don't know whether Iran intends to acquire nuclear
weapons, or only the capability of producing them, or even that. An International Atomic Energy Agency report, released yesterday, tables evidence that Iran is secretly working on a nuclear bomb. So let's assume for the moment that Iran's leaders do indeed intend to build nuclear weapons.
It's widely agreed that it's highly unlikely that Iran would be able to build nuclear weapons while its nuclear energy program is still under the scrutiny of UN inspectors.
A more likely scenario is that Tehran would develop the capability to produce a bomb from within the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and once it had reached the point of being able to do so, would turn its capability into reality by withdrawing from the treaty, ejecting inspectors, and making a mad dash to develop a rudimentary arsenal. That's what North Korea did, when, following the demise of the Soviet Union, the United States decided to re-target some its nuclear missiles from its old nemesis to the DPRK.
But would Iran ever get as far as being able to make a mad dash to status as the world's newest nuclear-weapons state? The United States and Israel have made plenty of noise about bombing Iran's nuclear facilities before Iran's nuclear scientists ever reach the point of having the capability of producing nuclear weapons.
Indeed, one of the reasons why the threat to attack Iran's nuclear facilities has been trotted out anew is because the steps the United States and Israel have taken to sabotage Iran's nuclear program - from the Stuxnet computer virus to the assassination of Iran's nuclear scientists to punitive sanctions - haven't stopped the program's development - although they have certainly slowed it. But let's make another assumption. Let's assume that despite US and Israeli efforts to cripple Iran's ability to produce nuclear weapons, that Iran, despite these impediments, brings this capability to fruition, and furthermore, manages against the concerted opposition of the United States and Israel to develop a few nuclear warheads. Does the possession of warheads mean that Iran will use them - either to wipe Israel off the map or attack the United States?
No, it does not.
The idea that Iran is an "existential" threat to Israel comes from Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's alleged promise to wipe Israel off the map. US and Israeli political leaders have been invoking this chestnut for years to justify the assassinations, economic warfare, covert destabilisation, and threats of military intervention used to undermine Iran's nuclear energy program. The problem is, the allegation is groundless.
The firestorm started when Nazila Fathi, then the Tehran correspondent of The New York Times, reported a story almost six years ago that was headlined: "Wipe Israel ‘off the map' Iranian says." The article attributed newly elected Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's remarks to a report by the ISNA press agency.
Then, specialists such as Juan Cole of the University of Michigan and Arash Norouzi of the Mossadegh Project pointed out that the original statement in Persian did not say that Israel should be wiped from the map, but instead that it would collapse.
Khamenei stated, "Iran's position, which was first expressed by the Imam (Khomeini) and stated several times by those responsible, is that the cancerous tumor called Israel must be uprooted from the region." He went on to say in the same speech that
"Palestinian refugees should return and Muslims, Christians and Jews could choose a government for themselves, excluding immigrant Jews."
Khamenei has been consistent, stating repeatedly that the goal is not the military destruction of the Jewish state but "the defeat of Zionist ideology and the dissolution of Israel through a ‘popular referendum.'"
To be sure, anyone who regards Israel as a "cancerous tumor" that "must be uprooted from the region" and replaced by a government freely chosen by the people who lived in Palestine prior to its conquest by Zionist settlers, is an existential threat to Zionism, as a living, breathing idea implanted in the soil of Palestine.
But while the designation of Iran as an existential threat to Israel is literally true (in the sense that Iran doesn't accept Zionism and therefore works against it by supporting such anti-Zionist groups as Hamas and Hezbollah), the phrase "existential threat" is twisted to mean something more than intended: military destruction rather than collapse through a referendum.
Political leaders are in the habit of turning non-threats into dire ones in order to manipulate public opinion to clear a path to get what they want. In other words, they manufacture consent for their policies by lying. A not particularly egregious example of this is provided by US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who, needing to defend the Pentagon's Brobdignagian budget against possible cuts, recently "cited North Korea and Iran as persistent threats, and said that the military had to maintain ‘the ability to deter and defeat them.'"
North Korea and Iran are not threats to the physical safety and welfare of a single US civilian, and anyone who says they are is using a trowel to liberally spread a thick film of bullshit upon the face of public discourse.
First, it should be noted that Iran's military is built for self-defence. It doesn't have aircraft carriers, a large fleet of warships, strategic bombers or foreign military bases. The United States, by contrast, bases its Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, within shouting distance of Iran, directly across the Persian Gulf. You won't find Iranian warships lingering menacingly in the Gulf of Mexico or patrolling the Atlantic and Pacific on the edges of US territorial waters, but the United States does the equivalent in Tehran's neighorhood.
Second, Iran's military spending, at US$20 billion per annum, pales in comparison to the budgets of the United States (US$700billion) and even that of the United States' regional allies (US$102 billion).
The US military budget is 35 times larger than Iran's, and the sum of that of the United States, its invariable military side-kick, the United Kingdom, and Washington's regional allies, is 43 times larger. The gulf in fighting ability supported by these expenditures is as yawning as the one between the New York City Police Department tactical squadron and a troop of Boy Scouts armed with BB guns.
As regards North Korea, the charge that it is a threat to the security of a single US civilian is even more absurd. Like Iran, North Korea's military is built for defence, and it too has no foreign military bases, no aircraft carriers, no nuclear armed submarines and no strategic bombers, and it has never - unlike its compatriot neighbour to the south - sent troops abroad to fight in other country's wars (South Korean troops fought in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan on behalf of its patron, the United States.)
North Korean military expenditures are even more modest than Iran's. Pyongyang spends an estimated US$10 billion on its military (and that's probably stretching it), many of whose members are engaged in agriculture and other civilian activities. By comparison, South Korea (on whose soil are resident close to 30 000 US troops), spends US$39 billion, while nearby Japan (home to 40 000 US troops) spends US$34 billion. Together, these two US allies outspend Pyongyang on their militaries by a factor of 7 to 1.
Add to this US defence expenditures and those of Britain - a country that can be counted on to docilely follow the United States into any war, no matter whether the Conservatives or Labour are in power - and North Korea, surrounded by US troops and warships and whose air borders are incessantly menaced by the US Air Force, is outspent over 80 to 1. A threat? The claim is laughable.
And that understates the imbalance. What military budgets don't reveal is the vastly superior destructive power of US military hardware (and that of many of its allies) compared to Iran's and North Korea's. The kill capacity of US strike aircraft, cruise missiles, and battleships is far in excess of the heavy artillery that figures so prominently in the North Korean armamentarium, for example.
And then there's nuclear weapons. North Korea may (or may not) have an arsenal of a few warheads, and Iran may (or may not) be seeking one, but these rudimentary collections pale in comparison with the US, British, and Israeli arsenals arrayed against them. Would Iran attack Israel, or North Korea attack South Korea, with one or two nuclear missiles, knowing that to do so would invite a retaliatory tsunami of missiles from the target (in the case of an attack on Israel) or its hyper-armed patron, the United States, or both? The outcome of so foolhardy an attack would be game-over for either country.
"During the Democratic primaries, then candidate Hilary Clinton (now US Secretary of State) warned that if Iran attacked Israel, the United States would ‘totally obliterate' Iran."
Three years ago, Israeli "Infrastructure Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer went on record saying, ‘We must tell them: ‘If you so much as dream of attacking Israel, before you even finish dreaming there won't be an Iran anymore.'" It's doubtful that the Iranians and North Koreans failed to get the message.
And then there's the matter of Washington's 2010 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR). If read superficially, the NPR would lead you to believe that US policy makers have finally figured out that the cardinal rule of nonproliferation is to abjure military aggression against non-nuclear states.
Countries that aren't threatened by nuclear powers have no need to develop nuclear weapons for self-defence. However, a closer reading of the review shows that nothing has changed. US president Barack Obama has stayed true to form, obscuring his pursuit of his predecessors' policies beneath honeyed phrases that create the impression of change, where no change of substance exists.
The NPR declares "that the United States will not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states", even if they attack the United States, its vital interests or allies and partners with chemical or biological weapons.
This differs, but only on the surface, from the policy of preceding administrations which refused to renounce the use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states. There are a number of reasons why the difference is apparent only.
While nuclear weapons are widely regarded as being unparalleled in their destructive power (and they are), the United States is able to deliver overwhelming destructive force through its conventional military capabilities.
A promise not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states is not the same as an assurance not to use or threaten to use devastating military force. Six decades ago it was possible to obliterate a city through conventional means, as the Western Allies demonstrated in the firebombing of Dresden.
If a city could be destroyed by conventional means more than half a century ago, imagine what the Pentagon could do today through conventional forces alone. Indeed, the NPR makes clear that the United States is prepared to shrink its nuclear arsenal partly because "the growth of unrivalled US conventional military capabilities" allows Washington to fulfill its geostrategic goals "with significantly lower nuclear force levels and with reduced reliance on nuclear weapons."
The NPR also provides a number of escape hatches that allow Washington to continue to dangle a nuclear sword of Damocles over the heads of Iran and North Korea. One is that nuclear weapons can be used, or their used threatened, against a country that is not "party to the NPT" even if the country doesn't yet have nuclear weapons, or it is unclear whether it does.
This is the North Korea escape clause. It allows Washington to continue to threaten North Korea with nuclear obliteration, just as it has done since the early 1990s when the US Strategic Command announced it was re-targeting some of its strategic nuclear missiles on the DPRK (the reason why North Korea withdrew from the NPT.)
Another escape clause allows Washington to reach for the nuclear trigger whenever it deems a country to have fallen short of "compliance with [its] nuclear non-proliferation obligations," even if the country doesn't have nuclear weapons and is a party to the NPT. This is the Iran escape hatch, intended to allow Washington to maintain the threat of nuclear annihilation vis-à-vis Iran or any other country Washington unilaterally declares to be noncompliant with the treaty's obligations.
As for the United States' commitment to refrain from reaching for its nuclear arsenal in response to a chemical or biological attack on itself, its vital interests (a term that defies geography and democracy, for how is it that the United States' vital interests extend to other people's countries?) its allies and its partners, this too is verbal legerdemain. As a careful reading of the NPR makes clear, the truth of the matter is that the United States will attack any country with nuclear weapons if such an attack is deemed necessary by Washington to protect its interests, which is to say, the interests of the corporations, banks and investors whose senior officials and representatives dominate policy formulation in Washington and provide the major funding, and post-political jobs, to the country's politicians. According to the NPR, "the United States reserves the right to make any adjustment in [its commitment] that may be warranted..." Translation: We won't attack non-nuclear weapons states with nuclear weapons unless we decide it's in our interests to do so.
Finally, we need to ask whether either Iran or North Korea have a motive to attack the United States, and whether Iran has a motive to attack Israel. Iran's leaders may abhor the Zionist conquest of what they see as territory important to Islam, but that doesn't mean they're willing to take on a suicide mission to deal a one- or two-nuclear missile blow to Israel-one which, by the way, probably wouldn't completely destroy Israel, but would incinerate Iran in the hail of retaliatory blows that followed. As for tangling with the United States, neither country wants that. What they want is peaceful coexistence-to be left alone to develop in their own way.
The trouble is, the United States hasn't the barest interest in peaceful coexistence, and the reason why is the key, not only to understanding US foreign policy, but to understanding why a US-led NATO spent months bombing Libya to drive the former regime from power.
But first, a digression. As a matter for inquiry, the approaches critics of US foreign policy take to explain their subject-if they explain it at all-is as interesting as US foreign policy itself. The usual tack is to expose US hypocrisy.
For example, critics might point out that the United States defends Israel, which has nuclear weapons and doesn't belong to the NPT, while threatening to attack Iran, which belongs to the NPT, and doesn't have nuclear weapons. Or that NATO bombed Libya to prevent the government there from using its military to put down an uprising but allowed Bahrain and Saudi Arabia to use their militaries to put down an uprising in Bahrain. Some critics stop there, reasoning that if they're going to muster opposition to US foreign policy, it's enough to show that it's built on hypocrisy. Or they denounce US behavior as immoral, undemocratic or against international law, because it is, and they figure that showing this will rouse the indignation of people of good conscience. Other US foreign policy critics cogently show why US foreign policy couldn't possibly be guided by the objectives US leaders say it is guided by. But they stop there, leaving their audiences to scratch their heads, wondering, if not for the reasons stated, then why?
Liberals insist that US foreign policy makes no sense and the reason why is because US leaders are confused, myopic, poorly motivated, or just plain dumb. An example of this point of view is offered by former US president Jimmy Carter, who contends that the conflict with North Korea can be resolved in half a day. Apparently US leaders have neither the political will nor smarts to do so.
The truth of the matter is that there is nothing to be gained for the corporations, investors and banks that dominate US foreign policy-the one percent who really matter in the United States-from peaceful coexistence with North Korea. For one thing, peaceful coexistence implies that each side poses a threat to the other, but North Korea, despite the rhetorical nonsense of political leaders seeking to justify Pentagon budgets, poses no threat to the United States. A $10B defense budget against a $700B one; aging aircraft whose pilots are grounded most of the time due to shortages of fuel; a puny arsenal of nuclear weapons; an army whose training time is partly displaced by engagement in farming; the most sanctioned country on earth, whose economy has been crippled by six decades of US economic warfare; a country of 24 million hemmed in to the south and east by the troops of a country of 300 million; no, North Korea is not a threat.
So how is it that peaceful coexistence would deliver anything in the way of improved security for Americans, which they already have in abundance anyway? It wouldn't. The demand for peaceful coexistence is little more than a Quixotic plea from Pyongyang to be left alone to develop in a self-directed manner in exchange for giving up a few nuclear weapons that at best, are, to use an Edward Herman term, a "threat of self-defense." The benefits of peaceful coexistence are all on the North Korean side.
After all, what does the United States get for promising to leave North Korea to develop in its own way? An open door for exports and investments? Hardly. North Korea's integration into a US-dominated system of global capitalism? No. US troops on North Korean soil? Absolutely not. North Korea's incorporation into a US-led military alliance against China? No possibility. What it gets is North Korea giving up a deterrent to attack in exchange for the United States promising not to attack. This is a one-sided deal. No wonder North Korea wants it, and Washington keeps turning it down. David Straub, director of the US State Department's Korea desk from 2002 to 2004 sums up nicely why peaceful coexistence isn't on Washington's Korea agenda.
"North Korea's closed economic and social system means the country has virtually nothing of value to offer the United States." (12) What the United States wants from North Korea (an open door to investment, exports, ownership and political influence) is the opposite of what North Korea offers (a closed door and a prickly sense of independence-both political and economic). Washington abandoned the policy of peaceful coexistence with the USSR, which was militarily strong enough to make the US a miserable place in which to live if the Pentagon ever decided to start a US-Soviet war. So why would it accept peaceful coexistence with a hated closed system that poses a minor threat at best?
Other critics of US foreign policy explain their subject in terms of power. US leaders want to preserve or expand US power (or primacy or hegemony) against such "peer competitors" as China or Russia or such regional powers as Iran. Of course, it's never said what US leaders (or Chinese or Russian leaders) want power for. To believe these critics, power is what everyone wants, and the quest for it, as an end in itself, is what makes the world go around. But the trick here is to inquire into why power is sought. Washington doesn't seek to enlarge its power so that it can strong-arm governments around the world into furnishing their citizens with public healthcare, guaranteed employment and free education. On the contrary, it seeks power to do the very opposite. Power serves some end, and in the case of US state power, it serves the end of protecting and enlarging the big business interests of the big business people who run the state of a big business country; it protects profits and establishes the conditions that allow them to grow-both at home and overseas.
It's curious that the power-is-the-alpha-and-omega-of-world-politics view should hold such a strong sway among some critics of US foreign policy, when in the internal affairs of capitalist countries the organizing principle is private business, and the alpha and omega of private business, is profits. Sure, it's understood that business leaders want power, but not so they can lord it over others, and take pleasure in its trappings, but so they can enlarge their capital. Power is a means to an end.
So why should foreign policy be any different? The moment Gaddafi was toppled by NATO bombs, a stream of NATO foreign ministers traipsed to Benghazi, their countries' corporate CEOs in tow, to line up new business deals. It was clear the National Transitional Council (NTC), whose key members-one, an exile who had been teaching economics in the United States for years; another, who earned his PhD in 1985 from the University of Pittsburgh under the late Richard Cottam, a former US intelligence official in Iran; and a third, who had been living within hailing distance of CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, before being spirited back to Libya- would be a good deal more accommodating of US business interests than Gaddafi had ever been. For all his turning over a new leaf to befriend the West, Gaddafi had irked the US State Department by practicing "resource nationalism" and trying to "Libyanize" the economy, which is to say, turn foreign investment to the advantage of Libyans. His threat in 2009 to re-nationalize Libya's oil fields, stirred up old fears. Now, the NTC-with its US-friendly principals-was promising juicy plums to the countries whose bombs had ousted Gaddafi.
The US ambassador to Libya, Gene A. Cretz, channeling the ghost of uber-imperialist, Cecil Rhodes, acknowledged that Libyan oil was "the jewel in the crown" but that there would be broader profit-making opportunities to lay hold of, now that Gaddafi had been bombed from power. Even "in Qaddafi's time," he observed, the Libyans "were starting from A to Z in terms of building infrastructure and other things. If we can get American companies here on a fairly big scale, which we will try to do everything we can to do that, then this will redound to improve the situation in the United States with respect to our own jobs." US Senator John McCain, for his part, noted that "American investors were watching Libya with keen interest and wanted to do business" in Libya as soon the country was pacified.
The New York Times' Scott Shane summed up the excitement.
Western security, construction and infrastructure companies that see profit-making opportunities receding in Iraq and Afghanistan have turned their sights on Libya, now free of four decades of dictatorship. Entrepreneurs are abuzz about the business potential of a country with huge needs and the oil to pay for them, plus the competitive advantage of Libyan gratitude toward the United States and its NATO partners.
A week before Colonel Qaddafi's death on Oct. 20, a delegation from 80 French companies arrived in Tripoli to meet officials of the Transitional National Council, the interim government. Last week, the new British defense minister, Philip Hammond, urged British companies to "pack their suitcases" and head to Tripoli.
Shane's summing up provides a pretty good account of what the NATO bombing campaign had been all about, with one exception. Western security, construction and infrastructure companies aren't turning their sights on Libya, because it is now free of four decades of dictatorship, but because it is now free of four decades of economic nationalism-an economic nationalism that once privileged Libyans over Western banks, investors and corporations. The country is now open for business...on the West's terms.
The view that US foreign policy is shaped by considerations related to preserving and enlarging profit-making opportunities for investors, banks and corporations headquartered in the United States is based on two realities.
• The formulation of US foreign policy is dominated by the CEO's, corporate lawyers and major investors who circulate between Wall Street and Washington.
• The countries that the United States has singled out for regime change, without exception, pursue self-directed economic policies aimed at fostering self-development and therefore deny or limit US investment and export opportunities.
Every rich country, with the exception of Britain, became rich through active state intervention in their economies to create industries, subsidize them and protect them from competition while they grew. The United States, as much as Germany, Japan, and other now rich industrialized countries, followed this path. At one point, the United States had the world's highest tariff barriers, which it used to shelter its nascent manufacturing industries against competition from established British firms. As protected industries matured under the guiding hand of a dirigiste state, they naturally sought to expand beyond their borders, as the possibilities offered by national markets were exhausted. Now, the policies that served their development so ably in the past, became fetters. Rather than protected markets at home, they needed open markets abroad. Poor countries couldn't be allowed to emulate the policies that made the rich countries rich, because state-ownership, subsidies and trade barriers would eclipse the further development of the once protected industries of the rich countries. Poor countries would have to open themselves up as fields for exploitation by the banks, investors and corporations of the rich countries that had grown fat on the dirigiste policies some poor countries were now seeking to emulate.
A glance through the US Library of Congress's country study on Iran reveals a truth that US officials never mention and that US foreign policy critics seem unaware of. Iran is not the kind of place an enterprising US business can hope to make money in. "The public sector dominates the economic scene, and the subordination of the private sector is observed in all industries and commerce." Worse, "Public-sector investments in transportation...utilities, telecommunications, and other infrastructure have grown over time." "The government plays a significant role in Iran's economy, either directly through participation in the production and distribution of goods and services, or indirectly through policy intervention." Indeed, Iran's constitution defines the public sector as primary, and "the private sector as the means of furnishing the government's needs rather than responding to market requirements."
Democratic socialists will be shocked to discover that this is the very same economic model that such New Left socialists as Ralph Miliband defined as emblematic of what a democratic socialism ought to be (which isn't to say that Iran is a democratic socialist state, only that economically it is very close to what many socialist thinkers have envisaged for Western socialism.) In any event, it will be conceded that any economy that bears even a passing resemblance to that favored by radical democratic socialists is not likely to get a ringing endorsement from the kinds of people who formulate US foreign policy.
Other reasons why Iran's economic policies are likely to have provoked the animosity of the US State Department: Despite its leaders making noises about going on a privatizing binge, Iran's public sector has soberly grown rather than shrunk. What's more, large sectors of Iran's economy remain off-limits to private ownership. "Since the Revolution, the government has retained monopoly rights to the extraction, processing, and sales of minerals from large and strategic mines." Iran's "agricultural policy is intended to support farmers and encourage production of strategically important crops", not to open doors to US agribusiness. "After the Revolution, many transportation companies, banks, and insurance companies were nationalized" while price controls and subsidies have been used to make important consumer goods affordable (though many subsidies have been lifted recently.)
Wall Street and the US State Department dislike state-owned enterprises that serve the self-directed development goals of independent foreign countries, because they displace private investment by US capital. They abhor the practice of foreign governments subsidizing and protecting local business enterprises because it makes the task of US firms competing in overseas markets more difficult, and thereby limits the overseas profits of US firms. They revile regulations that protect local populations from pollution, desperation wages and deplorable working conditions, because they cut into profits. Some or all of these practices form significant parts of the economic policies of every country in the cross-hairs of US foreign policy, including Libya under Gaddafi and Iran today.
Washington doesn't want to bring about a change of regime in Tehran to install a pliant government that will help expand US power. It wants to bring about a change of regime in Tehran that will cancel economic policies aimed at Iran's self-development and replace them with policies that will open up the country's resources, markets, labor and land to US banks, corporations and investors. It wants the holy trinity
Labels: IRAN, ISRAEL, MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD, STEPHEN GOWANS
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COMMENT - Interesting observations from this 2010 interview, and what is really going on in Zimbabwe:
my estimate that within 2-3 years we may get 25-30 million carats a year from Zimbabwe, at a time when the entire world, without Zimbabwe, sees production leveling off around 110-120 million carats.
And...
In neighboring Mozambique, in Manica, just 20 minutes from the Zimbabwean border, in a little place in the middle of nowhere - all of a sudden you see a housing boom, brought about by hundreds of Lebanese living there … Lebanese who are very closely associated with Hezbollah and other organizations like that.
We cannot afford, as the diamond industry, not just Israel, but as the diamond industry, that a major supply channel gets in the hands of these kinds of criminals, and maybe, terrorists.
Chaim Even-Zohar: 'Kosher' Zimbabwean Diamond Exports in Industry's Best Interests
05.09.10 / World
Chaim Even Zohar
Diamond industry analyst Chaim Even-Zohar granted the Israel Diamond Institute an interview to discuss some of the most important issues facing the diamond industry today: Zimbabwe and its status in the international diamond sector, the direction of De Beers following the recently announced departure of Gareth Penny, and also the United States appeals court recent rejection of a nearly $300 million class action settlements concerning the company’s antitrust issues.
De Beers
What change of direction might De Beers make following Gareth Penny's departure?
It's speculation because we don’t know. We don’t know what the shareholders really want. I would assume De Beers will concentrate on its core business which is mining, I will assume that they want to find better mining properties. If I look at the intended sale of the Finsch Mine – the Finsch Mine has become 'marginally profitable' –they want to spend their money where they can be hugely profitable. So I think that we'll see a company that wants to make good margins, or fantastic margins from mining and will drop anything that doesn’t give them the margins. Selling off will give them money in order to invest in other properties.
Who may take the helm at De Beers following Gareth Penny?
I do know that chairman Nicky Oppenheimer has instructed an executive search company to look externally for the right candidate, and I'm aware that there is quite an interest in that position, because it is a very interesting job. It has also not been excluded that the appointment would come from within.
The key issue here is what the shareholders really want. We see that De Beers is going through serious changes. We see that they are selling off a lot of mining assets - at the moment the Finsch Mine and also the Namaqualand properties are for sale - and it is really unclear what direction De Beers is going.
Gareth has finished what he set out to do - he consolidated the financial strength of De Beers, and he has done ruthless cutting of costs; He has led De Beers through the most serious crisis we've had since World War II and his work is done. De Beers is moving to the next chapter. The next chapter is not going to be written by the CEO, it will be written by the shareholders, and here there are a lot of question marks, but I guess we’ll find out very soon, because the current interim management is meant to be for the shortest possible time – they don’t expect a long transition, so we'll know soon. It's exciting.
A US court recently rejected De Beers' nearly $300 million class action settlement over the company’s antitrust issues. What implications does this decision have?
In the American legal system no decision is ever final. There are appeals, and there are other reconsiderations and there is always going back, so let's not think that the whole thing is off and the money will go back to De Beers and that's it.
The most immediate impact on De Beers is the Forevermark. The Forevermark is De Beers own proprietary mark that has been successfully launched in Asia, Hong Kong, China and the Far East, and it is De Beers’ own mark - its own product. That's a bit problematic now, and they will have to delay the launch of Forevermark in the United States. De Beers has invested huge amounts of money and resources and other things in the development of the Forevermark. So if you ask what are the consequences, or the immediate consequence that would be first of all the Forevermark.
The second immediate consequence is that the whole issue of De Beers being legal or not legal etc stays on the table. Now, it's really not a cartel any more. It's selling its own output, its market share is declining, I would say almost by the day, but it's still a dominant company because it's still a large mining company. But the decision is not good, not good for the image. I think that De Beers would have preferred the whole thing to be settled. Give it time and it probably will be.
Zimbabwe
What do you think of the recent agreement made over Zimbabwe diamond exports?
I find it difficult to say much because, as you know, I was the WDC representative in the review mission that has just come back from Zimbabwe; the review mission has not made its report yet and has not made all its conclusions.
In a more general way I can say that we have not had any serious complaints, or any complaints actually, about human rights abuses or police brutality. Law and order has returned to the territories, to the Marange area, and the personal safety and security of people is much better, and the military has totally withdrawn from the three large mining concessions, and the concessions themselves, Mbada, Canadile and even Anjin which is going to start only in December but it's building up its infrastructure, they are all world class, fully compliant mines.
The whole problem with the Kimberley Process is that it's a political process and there is also the difficulty of the mission that it is not driven by the industry but primarily by governments and governments have different interests than industries. I'm not saying that in any sad, negative way - that's the reality.
If the same rules that the Kimberley Process applies to Zimbabwe would apply to other countries in Africa you would see a different picture. Yes, there is smuggling, but there is smuggling in Congo, Angola, Sierra Leone, Guinea – wherever you want. And yes there are illegal diggings in alluvial areas in Zimbabwe, but if I compare it to other countries where you have such a huge illegal smuggling sector and almost no official exports, then sometimes you feel discomfort that there may be one rule for certain countries and another rule for other countries.
Having said that, there is no doubt that Zimbabwe has a problematic government, but then other countries have problematic governments. Certain governments are more problematic than others, no doubt about it.
Why do you thing there is such preoccupation with Zimbabwe?
You know, we have a precedent. We saw that Venezuela wasn’t compliant, and couldn’t care less and decided to suspend itself from the Kimberley Process. All the output of Venezuela has been smuggled out and is getting into the markets. Nobody really cares because it's insignificant.
Zimbabwe is gradually emerging as a major diamond producer and it has now at least a handful of operating mines including River Ranch and Murowa and three mines in the Marange area, but there will be more. They have identified some 60 concession areas; they have 50 applications of investors that want to invest and it is my estimate that within 2-3 years we may get 25-30 million carats a year from Zimbabwe, at a time when the entire world, without Zimbabwe, sees production leveling off around 110-120 million carats. So the impact is huge. Yes the values are low but there are higher than Argyle, MIBA and the Congo, and at the recent tenders the values reached about $50 average.
The impact on the diamond industry is tremendous. We have calculated that from 2-3 mines alone we'll see 250,000 jobs in India, because the goods are very labor-intensive, large goods but labor-intensive.
Zimbabwe will have an impact on everything – on unemployment in the industry, on marketing, on the kind of goods in the market and on prices. It is in the overriding interest of the industry - and that is the most important thing I can say about Zimbabwe - to have regular, robust, legally transparent exports from Zimbabwe. The goods will come out of the ground one way or the other. If we don’t make it possible for Zimbabwe to export legally with KP certificates, those goods will reach us illegally. You'll have all kinds of criminals drawn into the process.
In neighboring Mozambique, in Manica, just 20 minutes from the Zimbabwean border, in a little place in the middle of nowhere - all of a sudden you see a housing boom, brought about by hundreds of Lebanese living there … Lebanese who are very closely associated with Hezbollah and other organizations like that.
We cannot afford, as the diamond industry, not just Israel, but as the diamond industry, that a major supply channel gets in the hands of these kinds of criminals, and maybe, terrorists. That is why we have to do everything to make sure Zimbabwe stays part of the Kimberley system and that its exports will be done openly, transparently and in a way that also the respectable large companies, or the respectable middle size and small companies will be the buyers, and not to force all kinds of outside parties to become the buyers of those goods. Its complicated.
Zimbabwe is considered a pariah state - probably for good reasons, but I'm looking at the best interest of the diamond industry and I thing that really sums it up.
Thank you, Chaim Even-Zohar
By: Michelle Moshelian
Labels: DEBEERS, DIAMONDS, ISRAEL, KIMBERLEY PROCESS, NEOCOLONIALISM
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Israel and Libya: Preparing Africa for the “Clash of Civilizations”
Introduction by Cynthia McKinney
by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya
Global Research, October 11, 2011
Third of Four Installments on Libya: Israel and Libya
Once again, Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya peels away the veneer of legitimacy and deception enveloping the U.S./NATO genocide currently taking place in Libya. In his first article, Nazemroaya exposed the mechanism by which the world came to "know" of the need for a humanitarian intervention in the Libyan Arab Jamahirya and U.S./NATO admissions of targeted assassination attempts against the Leader of the 1969 Libyan Revolution, Muammar Qaddafi. In his first of these four installments since his return from Libya, Nazemraoya makes it clear that there never was any evidence given to the United Nations or the International Criminal Court to warrant or justify United Nations Resolutions 1970 and 1973 or current U.S./NATO operations inside Libya.
In his second article detailing this very sad story, Nazemroaya exposes the relationships between the major Libyan protagonists/NATO collaborators and the U.S. Congress-funded National Endowment for Democracy. Incredibly, when leading Members of Congress publicly proclaimed repeatedly that they did not know who the Libyan "rebel" NATO collaborators were, select so-called rebel leaders were political intimates with stakeholders at the National Endowment for Democracy.
The leaders of the National Transitional Council, contrived to appear highly influential to publics in former colonial capitals, have very little influence or support inside Libya, and can be likened to a Hamid Karzai type of morally bankrupt neo-colonial authority that presides over and gives a fig-leaf of "legitmacy" to those outsiders whose objective is the total destruction of recalcitrant citizens who demand self-determination over their own communities and country. Nazemroaya also exposes that, despite its Global War on Terror, the U.S. government actually financed Libyan terrorists and criminals wanted by INTERPOL.
In this, his third of four installments, Nazemroaya removes the U.S./NATO fig leaf and what he reveals are the abhorrent, obnoxious, inhumane, and cynical machinations of the pro-Israel Lobby that is the only political force that seems to be able to command the mightiest of militaries and the strongest of leaders to act in ways that threaten the peace and tranquility of their own political parties and national security of their own governments. Indeed, by its policy to support Israel, no matter how belligerent its policies, the United States has eroded its own national interest, as warnings from U.S. military leaders continue to point out.
In fact, my own personal experiences with the pro-Israel Lobby inside the United States demonstrate Israel's intense interest in Africa. I have written about my experience with "the pledge" to support Israel that is forced on every candidate for the U.S. Congress; refusal to sign it, as I did, means not one dollar of the millions expended each election cycle in campaign contributions and can ensure the most vicious media demonization as the major descriptor of the un-cooperating candidate.
The demonization of Alabama's first Black Member of Congress since Reconstruction, Earl Hilliard, in his 2002 re-election campaign, with specific regard to his visits to Libya, immediately come to mind. Weeks later, many of the New York contributors against his re-election, reappeared in my own opponent's campaign coffers. While I was portrayed in letters to supporters of the pro-Israel Lobby as anti-Israel, I will continue to believe that it was my very real activities in Africa that the pro-Israel Lobby found most threatening. From land reform to blood diamonds to various warnings I sent to certain African oil-producing countries to support for African self-determination and against artificial efforts to create divisions in Cote d'Ivoire, Zaire/Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, and Sudan, I found an incredible interest in all things African on the part of the pro-Israel Lobby.
In fact, I was invited to lease my "Black" face to these very interests and get arrested in front of the Sudan Embassy to sow the very "Black versus Arab" narrative being tragically created in Libya which Nazemroaya describes so thoroughly in this current text. I note here that some Blacks inside and outside of the U.S. Congress did choose to accept this particular invitation and get arrested. My representative was present at the meeting where these activities were planned, finance was arranged, and actions put in motion. This was a purposeful manipulation of U.S. policy and more importantly, of the despicable behaviors in Sudan that led to human rights abuses and crimes against humanity. My own legislation to de-list corporations from the U.S. stock exchange that aided or abetted or engaged in any way in human rights abuses in Sudan was deemed by guardians of the pro-Israel agenda inside the Congress to be an unacceptable answer to the very real abuses taking place in that country.
Additionally, while I was in prison in Israel, the point of the mostly African female prisoners on my Ramle Prison cell block was that they were adherents of "the wrong religion." The purging of Christians inside Israel is a fact. The scribblings on the wall of my Israeli holding room in another prison complex before my release made it clear that those Christians being deported were not wanted in Israel and they felt that it was because of their religion. Israel's recent push, despite its non-Jewish residents, to identify itself as a "Jewish state" is telling.
While in Libya, I met many Africans who said that they chose to live there because of the pan-Africanism of the policies of the Libyan Jamahirya. In fact, while at an "Africans in the Diaspora Conference" there in January/February of 2011, I personally witnessed, along with a delegation of others from the United States, Muammar Qaddafi pledge $90 billion to a "United States of Africa" that would work together to build the Continent and counter the efforts to penetrate and recolonize it. Blacks in the United States who struggled for dignity, self-determination, and against U.S. oppression and imperialism during the 1960s and 1970s have a relationship with Muammar Qaddafi and the Jamahirya government that goes back decades. At the 29-stops of my Libya Truth Tour, I met many U.S. citizens who reminded the audiences of the contributions of Muammar Qaddafi and the Jamahirya government against British imperialism in Northern Ireland. Continental Africans attending these Tour-stops reminded audiences of Muammar Qaddafi's support for Nelson Mandela and Africans struggling to rid the Continent of Apartheid at a time when Israel shared an alliance with that government. They also noted the Jamahirya government's current support for many development projects throughout the Continent and for the budget of the African Union, itself. Therefore, many alarmed observers have pointed out that the U.S./NATO attack on Libya is actually an attack on all of Africa. Nazemroaya eloquently makes this point while revealing the underlying motives for the "uber-violence" that we see in Libya and that is opposed by large majorities of voters in NATO member states, if reported polling results can be trusted. What comes to my mind is how anyone who identifies with the peace community could support such an attack on Libya, especially while the people of Libya valiantly resist NATO domination.
Nazemroaya makes the essential point: "An attempt to separate the merging point of an Arab and African identity is underway." The Voice of America has exposed the psychological aspects of its brutal intervention and hints at the mindset of the U.S./NATO Libyan pawns; several stories suggest that the "new" Libya will turn more toward its Arab identity than its African identity. And U.S./NATO successful imposition of the psychological chains of identity denial are the most longlasting of chains. While in Tunisia, I actually came face to face with the fruits of this project when a taxi driver born in Tunisia told me that he was not African! Muammar Qaddafi drove home to all Libyans that Libya, as its geography dictates, is an African country. It seems ludicrous on its face to have to reiterate such a fact except for the racism, brainwashing, and psychological underpinnings of current U.S./NATO policy and its colonial antecedents that Nazemroaya exposes.
Finally, Walter H. Kansteiner has moved in and out of various positions within the foreign policy apparatus of the United States government and has been the voice for exactly the policies described by Nazemroaya. Among Kansteiner's positions are stints as Africa Director at the State Department and National Security Council Director for African Affairs during the Presidency of George Herbert Walker Bush and Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs during the Presidency of George W. Bush. During these stints, Mr. Kansteiner was in a position to initiate the balkanization of Africa that we now see reaching fruition on the Continent. I was forced to write a letter to President Bush in 2001 expressing my alarm at his suggestions for Democratic Republic of Congo. In my opinion, Laurent Kabila was murdered because he refused to balkanize Congo. (He personally related his last conversation with a certain U.S. representative who encouraged him to betray Congo. In his last words to me, "I will never betray Congo.")
Cynthia McKinney, 10 October 2011.
Cynthia McKinney is a former U.S. Congresswoman who served in two different Georgia federal districts in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1993 to 2003 and from 2005 to 2007 as a member of the U.S. Democratic Party. She was also the U.S. Green Party presidential candidate in 2008. While in the U.S. Congress she served on the U.S. Banking and Finance Committee, the U.S. National Security Committee (later renamed the U.S. Armed Services Committee), and the U.S. Foreign Affairs Committee (later renamed the U.S. International Relations Committee). She also served on the U.S. International Relations subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights. McKinney has conducted two fact-finding missions to Libya and also recently finished a nationwide speaking tour in the United States sponsored by the ANSWER Coalition regarding the NATO bombing campaign on Libya.
America's Conquest of Africa: The Roles of France and Israel
- by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, Julien Teil - 2011-10-06
Terrorists not only fight for Washington on the ground, they also act as frontmen for regime change through so-called human rights organizations that promote democracy. Introduction by Cynthia McKinney
Libya and the Big Lie: Using Human Rights Organizations to Launch Wars
- by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya - 2011-09-29
The war against Libya is built on fraud. The UN Security Council passed two resolutions against Libya on the basis of unproven claims that Qaddafi was killing his own people in Benghazi...
ISRAEL AND LIBYA: PREPARING AFRICA FOR THE "CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS"
Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya
Under the Obama Administration the United States has expanded the "long war" into Africa. Barack Hussein Obama, the so-called "Son of Africa" has actually become one of Africa's worst enemies. Aside from his continued support of dictators in Africa, the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) was unhinged under his watch. The division of Sudan was publicly endorsed by the White House before the referendum, Somalia has been further destabilized, Libya has been viciously attacked by NATO, and U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) is going into full swing.
The war in Libya is just the start of a new cycle of external military adventurism inside Africa. The U.S. now wants more military bases inside Africa. France has also announced that it has the right to militarily intervene anywhere in Africa where there are French citizens and its interests are at risk. NATO is also fortifying its positions in the Red Sea and off the coast of Somalia.
As disarray and turmoil are once again uprooting Africa with external intervention, Israel sits silently in the background. Tel Aviv has actually been deeply involved in the new cycle of turmoil, which is tied to its Yinon Plan to reconfigure its strategic surrounding. This reconfiguration process is based on a well established technique of creating sectarian divisions which eventually will effectively neutralize target states or result in their dissolution.
Many of the problems afflicting the contemporary areas of Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Southwest Asia, South Asia, East Asia, Africa, and Latin America are actually the result of the deliberate triggering of regional tensions by external powers. Sectarian division, ethno-linguistic tension, religious differences, and internal violence have been traditionally exploited by the United States, Britain, and France in various parts of the globe. Iraq, Sudan, Rwanda, and Yugoslavia are merely a few recent examples of this strategy of "divide and conquer" being used to bring nations to their knees.
The Upheavals of Central-Eastern Europe and the Project for a "New Middle East"
The Middle East, in some regards, is a striking parallel to the Balkans and Central-Eastern Europe during the years leading up to the First World War. In the wake of the First World War, the borders of the multi-ethnic states in the Balkans and Central-Eastern Europe were redrawn and reconfigured by external powers, in alliance with local opposition forces. Since the First World War until the post-Cold War period the Balkans and Central-Eastern Europe have continued to experience a period of upheaval, violence and conflict that has continuously divided the region.
For years, there have been advocates calling for a "New Middle East" with redrawn boundaries in this region of the world where Europe, Southwest Asia, and North Africa meet. These advocates mostly sit in the capitals of Washington, London, Paris, and Tel Aviv. They envisage a region shaped around homogenous ethno-religious states. The formation of these states would signify the destruction of the larger existing countries of the region. The transition would be towards the formation of smaller Kuwait-like or Bahrain-like states, which could easily be managed and manipulated by the U.S., Britain, France, Israel, and their allies.
The Manipulation of the First "Arab Spring" during World War I
The plans for reconfiguring the Middle East started several years before the First World War. It was during the First World War, however, that the manifestation of these colonial designs could visibly be seen with the "Great Arab Revolt" against the Ottoman Empire.
Despite the fact that the British, French, and Italians were colonial powers which had prevented the Arabs from enjoying any freedom in countries like Algeria, Libya, Egypt, and Sudan, these colonial powers managed to portray themselves as the friends and allies of Arab liberation.
During the "Great Arab Revolt" the British and the French actually used the Arabs as foot soldiers against the Ottomans to further their own geo-political schemes. The secret Sykes–Picot Agreement between London and Paris is a case in point. France and Britain merely managed to use and manipulate the Arabs by selling them the idea of Arab liberation from the so-called "repression" of the Ottomans.
In reality, the Ottoman Empire was a multi-ethnic empire. It gave local and cultural autonomy to all its peoples, but was manipulated into the direction of becoming a Turkish entity. Even the Armenian Genocide that would ensue in Ottoman Anatolia has to be analyzed in the same context as the contemporary targeting of Christians in Iraq as part of a sectarian scheme unleashed by external actors to divide the Ottoman Empire, Anatolia, and the citizens of the Ottoman Empire.
After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, it was London and Paris which denied freedom to the Arabs, while sowing the seeds of discord amongst the Arab peoples. Local corrupt Arab leaders were also partners in the project and many of them were all too happy to become clients of Britain and France. In the same sense, the "Arab Spring" is being manipulated today. The U.S., Britain, France, and others are now working with the help of corrupt Arab leaders and figures to restructure the Arab World and Africa.
The Yinon Plan
The Yinon Plan, which is a continuation of British stratagem in the Middle East, is an Israeli strategic plan to ensure Israeli superiority. It insists and stipulates that Israel must reconfigure its geo-political environment through the balkanization of the Middle Eastern and Arab states into smaller and weaker states.
Israeli strategists viewed Iraq as their biggest strategic challenge from an Arab state. This is why Iraq was outlined as the centerpiece to the balkanization of the Middle East and the Arab World. In Iraq, on the basis of the concepts of the Yinon Plan, Israeli strategists have called for the division of Iraq into a Kurdish state and two Arab states, one for Shiite Muslims and the other for Sunni Muslims. The first step towards establishing this was a war between Iraq and Iran, which the Yinon Plan discusses.
The Atlantic, in 2008, and the U.S. military's Armed Forces Journal, in 2006, both published widely circulated maps that closely followed the outline of the Yinon Plan. Aside from a divided Iraq, which the Biden Plan also calls for, the Yinon Plan calls for a divided Lebanon, Egypt, and Syria. The partitioning of Iran, Turkey, Somalia, and Pakistan also all fall into line with these views. The Yinon Plan also calls for dissolution in North Africa and forecasts it as starting from Egypt and then spilling over into Sudan, Libya, and the rest of the region.
Note: The following map was drawn by Holly Lindem for an article by Jeffery Goldberg. It was published in The Atlantic in January/February 2008.
Map Copyright: The Atlantic, 2008.
Note: The following map was prepared by Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Peters.
It was published in the Armed Forces Journal in June 2006, Peters is a retired colonel of the U.S. National War Academy.
Map Copyright Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Peters 2006.
The Eradication of the Christian Communities of the Middle East
It is no coincidence that Egyptian Christians were attacked at the same time as the South Sudan Referendum and before the crisis in Libya. Nor is it a coincidence that Iraqi Christians, one of the world's oldest Christian communities, have been forced into exile, leaving their ancestral homelands in Iraq. Coinciding with the exodus of Iraqi Christians, which occurred under the watchful eyes of U.S. and British military forces, the neighbourhoods in Baghdad became sectarian as Shiite Muslims and Sunni Muslims were forced by violence and death squads to form sectarian enclaves. This is all tied to the Yinon Plan and the reconfiguration of the region as part of a broader objective.
In Iran, the Israelis have been trying in vain to get the Iranian Jewish community to leave. Iran's Jewish population is actually the second largest in the Middle East and arguably the oldest undisturbed Jewish community in the world. Iranian Jews view themselves as Iranians who are tied to Iran as their homeland, just like Muslim and Christian Iranians, and for them the concept that they need to relocate to Israel because they are Jewish is ridiculous.
In Lebanon, Israel has been working to exacerbate sectarian tensions between the various Christian and Muslim factions as well as the Druze. Lebanon is a springboard into Syria and the division of Lebanon into several states is also seen as a means to balkanizing Syria into several smaller sectarian Arab states. The objectives of the Yinon Plan are to divide Lebanon and Syria into several states on the basis of religious and sectarian identities for Sunni Muslims, Shiite Muslims, Christians, and the Druze. There could also be objectives for a Christian exodus in Syria too.
The new head of the Maronite Catholic Syriac Church of Antioch, the largest of the autonomous Eastern Catholic Churches, has expressed his fears about a purging of Arab Christians in the Levant and Middle East. Patriarch Mar Beshara Boutros Al-Rahi and many other Christian leaders in Lebanon and Syria are afraid of a Muslim Brotherhood takeover in Syria. Like Iraq, mysterious groups are now attacking the Christian communities in Syria. The leaders of the Christian Eastern Orthodox Church, including the Eastern Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, have also all publicly expressed their grave concerns. Aside from the Christian Arabs, these fears are also shared by the Assyrian and Armenian communities, which are mostly Christian.
Sheikh Al-Rahi was recently in Paris where he met President Nicolas Sarkozy. It is reported that the Maronite Patriarch and Sarkozy had disagreements about Syria, which prompted Sarkozy to say that the Syrian regime will collapse. Patriarch Al-Rahi's position was that Syria should be left alone and allowed to reform. The Maronite Patriarch also told Sarkozy that Israel needed to be dealt with as a threat if France legitimately wanted Hezbollah to disarm.
Because of his position in France, Al-Rahi was instantly thanked by the Christian and Muslim religious leaders of the Syrian Arab Republic who visited him in Lebanon. Hezbollah and its political allies in Lebanon, which includes most the Christian parliamentarians in the Lebanese Parliament, also lauded the Maronite Patriarch who later went on a tour to South Lebanon.
Sheikh Al-Rahi is now being politically attacked by the Hariri-led March 14 Alliance, because of his stance on Hezbollah and his refusal to support the toppling of the Syrian regime. A conference of Christian figures is actually being planned by Hariri to oppose Patriarch Al-Rahi and the stance of the Maronite Church. Since Al-Rahi announced his position, the Tahrir Party, which is active in both Lebanon and Syria, has also started targeting him with criticism. It has also been reported that high-ranking U.S. officials have also cancelled their meetings with the Maronite Patriarch as a sign of their displeasure about his positions on Hezbollah and Syria.
The Hariri-led March 14 Alliance in Lebanon, which has always been a popular minority (even when it was a parliamentary majority), has been working hand-in-hand with the U.S., Israel, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and the groups using violence and terrorism in Syria. The Muslim Brotherhood and other so-called Salafist groups from Syria have been coordinating and holding secret talks with Hariri and the Christian political parties in the March 14 Alliance. This is why Hariri and his allies have turned on Cardinal Al-Rahi. It was also Hariri and the March 14 Alliance that brought Fatah Al-Islam into Lebanon and have now helped some of its members escape to go and fight in Syria.
A Christian exodus is being planned for the Middle East by Washington, Tel Aviv, and Brussels. It is now being reported that Sheikh Al-Rahi was told in Paris by President Nicolas Sarkozy that the Christian communities of the Levant and Middle East can resettle in the European Union. This is no gracious offer. It is a slap in the face by the same powers that have deliberately created the conditions to eradicate the ancient Christian communities of the Middle East. The aim appears to be the resettling of the Christian communities outside of the region so as to delineate the Arab nations along the lines of being exclusively Muslim nations. This falls into accordance with the Yinon Plan.
Re-Dividing Africa: The Yinon Plan is very Much Alive and at Work...
In the same context as the sectarian divisions in the Middle East, the Israelis have outlined plans to reconfigure Africa. The Yinon Plan seeks to delineate Africa on the basis of three facets:
(1) ethno-linguistics;
(2) skin-colour;
(3) religion.
It seeks to draw dividing lines in Africa between a so-called "Black Africa" and a supposedly "non-Black" North Africa. This is part of a scheme to create a schism in Africa between what are assumed to be "Arabs" and so-called "Blacks."
An attempt to separate the merging point of an Arab and African identity is underway.
This objective is why the ridiculous identity of an "African South Sudan" and an "Arab North Sudan" have been nurtured and promoted. This is also why black-skinned Libyans have been targeted in a campaign to "colour cleanse" Libya. The Arab identity in North Africa is being de-linked from its African identity. Simultaneously there is an attempt to eradicate the large populations of "black-skinned Arabs" so that there is a clear delineation between "Black Africa" and a new "non-Black" North Africa, which will be turned into a fighting ground between the remaining "non-Black" Berbers and Arabs.
In the same context, tensions are being fomented between Muslims and Christians in Africa, in such places as Sudan and Nigeria, to further create lines and fracture points. The fuelling of these divisions on the basis of skin-colour, religion, ethnicity, and language is intended to fuel disassociation and disunity in Africa. This is all part of a broader African strategy of cutting North Africa off from the rest of the African continent.
Israel and the African Continent
The Israelis have been quietly involved on the African continent for years. In Western Sahara, which is occupied by Morocco, the Israelis helped build a separation security wall like the one in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. In Sudan, Tel Aviv has armed separatist movements and insurgents. In South Africa, the Israelis supported the Apartheid regime and its occupation of Namibia. In 2009, the Israeli Foreign Ministry outlined that Africa would be the renewed focus of Tel Aviv.
Israel's two main objectives in Africa are to impose the Yinon Plan, in league with its own interests, and to assist Washington in becoming the hegemon of Africa. In this regard, the Israelis also pushed for the creation of AFRICOM. The Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies (IASPS), an Israeli think-tank, is one example.
Washington has outsourced intelligence work in Africa to Tel Aviv. Tel Aviv is effectively involved as one of the parties in a broader war not just "inside" Africa, but "over" Africa. In this war, Tel Aviv is working alongside Washington and the E.U. against China and its allies, which includes Iran.
Tehran is working alongside Beijing in a similar manner as Tel Aviv is with Washington. Iran is helping the Chinese in Africa through Iranian connections and ties. These ties also include Tehran's ties to private Lebanese and Syrian business interests in Africa. Thus, within the broader rivalry between Washington and Beijing, an Israeli-Iranian rivalry has also unfolded within Africa. [1] Sudan is Africa's third largest weapons producer, as a result of Iranian support in weapons manufacturing. Meanwhile, while Iran provides military assistance to Khartoum, which includes several military cooperation agreements, Israel is involved in various actions directed against the Sudanese. [2]
Israel and Libya
Libya had been considered as "a spoiler" which undermined the interests of the former colonial powers in Africa. In this regard, Libya had taken on some hefty pan-African development plans intended to industrialize Africa and transform Africa into an integrated and assertive political entity. These initiatives conflicted with the interests of the external powers competing with one another in Africa, but it was especially unacceptable to Washington and the major E.U. countries. In this regard, Libya had to be crippled and neutralized as an entity supportive of African progress and pan-African unity.
The role of Israel and the Israeli lobby was fundamental in opening the door to NATO's military intervention in Libya. According to Israeli sources, it was U.N. Watch that actually orchestrated the events in Geneva to remove Libya from the U.N. Human Rights Council and to ask the U.N. Security Council to intervene. [3] U.N. Watch is formally affiliated with the American Jewish Committee (AJC), which has influence in the formulation of U.S. foreign policy and is part of the Israeli lobby in the United States. The International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH), which helped launch the unverified claims about 6,000 people being slaughtered by Qaddafi, is also tied to the Israeli lobby in France.
Tel Aviv had been in contact simultaneously with both the Transitional Council and the Libyan government in Tripoli. Mossad agents were also in Tripoli, one of which was a former station manager. At about the same time, French members of the Israeli lobby were visiting Benghazi. In a case of irony, the Transitional Council would claim that Colonel Qaddafi was working with Israel, while it made pledges to recognize Israel to president Sarkozy's special envoy Bernard-Henri Lévy who would then convey the message to Israeli leaders [4]. A similar pattern (to that of Israel's links to the Transitional Council) had also developed at an earlier stage in South Sudan, which was armed by Israel.
Despite the Transitional Council's position on Israel, its followers still tried to demonize Qaddafi by claiming he was secretly Jewish. Not only was this untrue, but it was also bigoted. These accusations were intended to be a form of character assassination that equated being a Jew as something negative.
In reality, Israel and NATO are in the same camp. Israel is a de facto member of NATO. Had Qaddafi been conniving with Israel while the Transitional Council was working with NATO, this would mean that both sides were actually being played as fools against one another.
Preparing the Chessboard for the "Clash of Civilizations"
It is at this point that all the pieces have to be put together and the dots have to be connected.
The chessboard is being staged for a "Clash of Civilizations" and all the chess pieces are being put into place.
The Arab World is in the process of being cordoned off and sharp delineation lines are being created. These lines of delineation are replacing the seamless lines of transition between different ethno-linguistic, skin-colour, and religious groups.
Under this scheme, there can no longer be a melding transition between societies and countries. This is why the Christians in the Middle East and North Africa, such as the Copts, are being targeted. This is also why black-skinned Arabs and black-skinned Berbers, as well as other North African population groups which are black-skinned, are facing genocide in North Africa.
What is being staged is the creation of an exclusively "Muslim Middle East" area (excluding Israel) that will be in turmoil over Shiite-Sunni fighting. A similar scenario is being staged for a "non-Black North Africa" area which will be characterized by a confrontation between Arabs and Berber. At the same time, under the "Clash of Civilizations" model, the Middle East and North Africa are slated to simultaneously be in conflict with the so-called "West" and "Black Africa."
This is why both Nicolas Sarzoky, in France, and David Cameron, in Britain, made back-to-back declarations during the start of the conflict in Libya that multiculturalism is dead in their respective Western European societies. [5]
Real multiculturalism threatens the legitimacy of the NATO war agenda. It also constitutes an obstacle to the implementation of the "Clash of Civilizations" which constitutes the cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy. In this regard, Zbigniew Brzezinski, former U.S. National Security Advisor, explains why multiculturalism is a threat to Washington and its allies: "[A]s America becomes an increasingly multicultural society, it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues [e.g., war with the Arab World, China, Iran, or Russia and the former Soviet Union], except in the circumstances of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat. Such a consensus generally existed throughout World War II and even during the Cold War [and exists now because of the 'Global War on Terror']." [6]
Brzezinski's next sentence is the qualifier of why populations would oppose or support wars: "[The consensus] was rooted, however, not only in deeply shared democratic values, which the public sensed were being threatened, but also in a cultural and ethnic affinity for the predominantly European victims of hostile totalitarianisms." [7]
Risking being redundant, it has to be mentioned again that it is precisely with the intention of breaking these cultural affinities between the Middle East-North Africa (MENA) region and the so-called "Western World" and sub-Saharan Africa that Christians and black-skinned peoples are being targeted.
Ethnocentrism and Ideology: Justifying Today's "Just Wars"
In the past, the colonial powers of Western Europe would indoctrinate their people. Their objective was to acquire popular support for colonial conquest. This took the form of spreading Christianity and promoting Christian values with the support of armed merchants and colonial armies.
At the same time, racist ideologies were put forth. The people whose lands were colonized were portrayed as "sub-human," inferior, or soulless. Finally, the "White Man's burden" of taking on a mission of civilizing the so-called "uncivilized peoples of the world" was used. This cohesive ideological framework was used to portray colonialism as a "just cause." The latter in turn was used to provide legitimacy to the waging of "just wars" as a means to conquering and "civilizing" foreign lands.
Today, the imperialist designs of the United States, Britain, France, and Germany have not changed. What has changed is the pretext and justification for waging their neo-colonial wars of conquest. During the colonial period, the narratives and justifications for waging war were accepted by public opinion in the colonizing countries, such as Britain and France. Today's "just wars" and "just causes" are now being conducted under the banners of women's rights, human rights, humanitarianism, and democracy.
Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya is a Sociologist and Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), Montréal. He specializes on the Middle East and Central Asia. He was on the ground in Libya for over two months and was also a Special Correspondent for Flashpoints, which is a program based in Berkeley, California. Nazemroaya has been releasing these articles about Libya in conjunction with aired discussions with Cynthia McKinney on Freedom Now, a show aired on KPFK, Los Angeles, California.
NOTES
[1] The Economist, "Israel and Iran in Africa: A search for allies in a hostile world," February 4, 2011.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Tova Lazaroff, "70 rights groups call on UN to condemn Tripoli," Jerusalem Post, February 22, 2011.
[4] Radio France Internationale, "Libyan rebels will recognise Israel, Bernard-Henri Lévy tells Netanyahu," June 2, 2011.
[5] Robert Marquand,"Why Europe is turning away from multiculturalism," Christian Science Monitor, March 4, 2011.
[6] Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives (New York: Basic Books October 1997), p.211
[7] Ibid.
ANNEX I: MAP OF DIFFERENT WORLD CIVILIZATIONS REFLECTING SAMUEL HUNTINGTON'S MODEL
* These civilizational divisions and categories are incorrect. There are no clearcutting divisions between many of these so-called and supposedly "distinct civilizations."
ANNEX II: MODEL OF SAMUEL HUNTINGTON'S "CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS"
Global Research Articles by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya
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Labels: CYNTHIA MCKINNEY, ISRAEL, LIBYA, NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR DEMOCRACY, NEOCOLONIALISM
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