just commentary march 2013

Vol 13, No.03 March 2013

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ARTICLES

By Kevin Zeese & Margaret Flowers

CHAVEZ:THE REVOLUTION WILL CONTINUE

.DRONE WARFARE: THE HEGEMON’S LATEST WEAPON BY EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE, JUST......P5

.ONE IN EVERY EIGHT PEOPLE ON EARTH GOES TO BED

HUNGRY EACH NIGHT

BY COUNTERCURRENTS.ORG...................................P 11

STATEMENTS

.ENSURE JUSTICE IN WAR CRIMES TRIAL BY EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE, JUST......P6

The death of Hugo Chávez is a greatloss to the people of Venezuela who

have been lifted out of poverty and havecreated a deep participatory democracy.Chavez was a leader who, in unity withthe people, was able to free Venezuelafrom the grips of US Empire, broughtdignity to the poor and working class,and was central to a Latin American revoltagainst US domination.

Chávez grew up a campesino, apeasant, raised in poverty. His parentswere teachers, his grandmother anIndian whom he credits with teachinghim solidarity with the people. Duringhis military service, he learned aboutSimon Bolivar, who freed Latin Americafrom Spanish Empire. This graduallyled to the modern Bolivarian Revolutionhe led with the people. The Cháveztransformation was built on manyyears of a mass political movement thatcontinued after his election, indeedsaved him when a 2002 coup brieflyremoved him from office. The realityis Venezuela’s 21st Century democracy

is bigger than Chávez, this willbecome more evident now that he isgone.

The Lies They Tell UsIf Americans knew the truth about

the growth of real democracy inVenezuela and other Latin Americancountries, they would demandeconomic democracy and participatorygovernment, which together wouldthreaten the power of concentratedwealth. Real democracy creates ahuge challenge to the oligarchs andtheir neoliberal agenda because it isdriven by human needs, not corporategreed. That is why major media in the

US, which are owned by sixcorporations, aggressively misinformthe public about Chávez and theBolivarian Revolution.

Mark Weisbrot of the Center forEconomic and Policy Research writes,“The Western media reporting has beeneffective. It has convinced most peopleoutside of Venezuela that the countryis run by some kind of dictatorship thathas ruined it.” In fact, just the oppositeis true. Venezuela, since the election ofChávez, has become one of the mostdemocratic nations on Earth. Its wealthis increasing and being widely shared.But Venezuela has been made so toxicthat even the more liberal media outletspropagate distortions to avoid beingcriticized as too leftist.

We spoke with Mike Fox, who wentto Venezuela in 2006 to see for himselfwhat was happening. Fox spent yearsdocumenting the rise of participatorydemocracy in Venezuela and Brazil. He

.ISRAEL GAVE BIRTH CONTROL TO ETHIOPIAN JEWS

WITHOUT THEIR CONSENT

BY ALISTAIR DAWBER...........................................P 10

.HACKING INCIDENTS AND THE RISE OF THE NEW

CHINESE BOGEYMAN

BY HAROON MEER...............................................P 6

.IRAQ AT THE BRINK: A DECADE AFTER THE INVASION

BY RAMZY BAROUD..............................................P 8

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found a grassroots movement creatingthe economy and government theywanted, often pushing Chávez furtherthan he wanted to go.

They call it the “revolution withinthe revolution.” Venezuelan democracyand economic transformation arebigger than Chávez. Chávez opened adoor to achieve the people’s goals:literacy programs in the barrios, morepeople attending college, universalaccess to health care, as well asworker-owned businesses andcommunity councils where peoplemake decisions for themselves. Changecame through decades of struggleleading to the election of Chávez in1998, a new constitution and ongoingwork to make that constitution a reality.

Challenging American EmpireThe subject of Venezuela is taboo

because it has been the most successfulcountry to repel the neoliberal assaultwaged by the US on Latin America.This assault included OperationCondor, launched in 1976, in which theUS provided resources and assistanceto bring friendly dictators whosupported neoliberal policies to powerthroughout Latin America. Thesepolicies involved privatizing nationalresources and selling them to foreigncorporations, de-funding andprivatizing public programs such aseducation and health care, deregulatingand reducing trade barriers.

In addition to intense politicalrepression under these dictators

between the 1960s and 1980s, whichresulted in imprisonment, murder anddisappearances of tens of thousandsthroughout Latin America, neoliberalpolicies led to increased wealthinequality, greater hardship for the poorand working class, as well as a declinein economic growth.

Neoliberalism in Venezuela arrivedthrough a different path, not through adictator. Although most of its 20thcentury was spent under authoritarianrule, Venezuela has had a long historyof pro-democracy activism. The lastdictator, Marcos Jimenez Perez, wasousted from power in 1958. After that,Venezuelans gained the right to electtheir government, but they existed in astate of pseudo-democracy, much likethe US currently, in which the wealthyruled through a managed democracythat ensured the wealthy benefitedmost from the economy.

As it did in other parts of the world,the US pushed its neoliberal agenda onVenezuela through the InternationalMonetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank.These institutions required StructuralAdjustment Programs (SAP) as termsfor development loans. As John Perkinswrote in Confessions of an EconomicHit Man, great pressure was placed ongovernments to take out loans fordevelopment projects. The money wasloaned by the US, but went directly toUS corporations who were responsiblefor the projects, many of which failed,leaving nations in debt and not betteroff. Then the debt was used as leverageto control the government’s policies sothey further favored US interests. AnupShah explains the role of the IMF andWorld Bank in more detail in StructuralAdjustment - a Major Cause of Poverty.

Neoliberalism Leads to the Rise of ChávezA turning point in the Venezuelan

struggle for real democracy occurredin 1989. President Carlos Andres Perezran on a platform opposing

neoliberalism and promised to reformthe market during his second term. Butfollowing his re-election in 1988, hereversed himself and continued toimplement the “WashingtonConsensus” of neoliberal policies -privatization and cuts to socialservices. The last straw came whenhe ended subsidies for oil. The priceof gasoline doubled and publictransportation prices rose steeply.

Protests erupted in the townssurrounding the capitol, Caracas, andquickly spread into the city itself.President Perez responded by revokingmultiple constitutional rights to protestand sending in security forces whokilled an estimated 3,000 people, mostof them in the barrios. This becameknown as the “Caracazo” (“the Caracassmash”) and demonstrated that thepresident stood with the oligarchs, notwith the people.

Under President Perez, conditionscontinued to deteriorate for all but thewealthy in Venezuela. So peopleorganized in their communities andwith Lieutenant Colonel Hugo Chávezattempted a civilian-led coup in 1992.Chávez was jailed, and so the peopleorganized for his release. Perez wasimpeached for embezzlement of 250million bolivars and the next president,Rafael Caldera, promised to releaseChávez when he was elected. Chávezwas freed in 1994. He then traveledthroughout the country to meet withpeople in their communities andorganizers turned their attention tobuilding a political movement.

Chávez ran for president in 1998on a platform that promised to hold aconstituent assembly to rewrite theconstitution saying, “I swear before mypeople that upon this moribundconstitution I will drive forth thenecessary democratic transformationsso that the new republic will have a

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Magna Carta befitting these newtimes.” Against the odds, Chávez wonthe election and became president in1999.

While his first term was cautiousand center-left, including a visit byChávez to the NY Stock Exchange toshow support for capitalism andencourage foreign investment, he kepthis promise. Many groups participatedin the formation of the newconstitution, which was gender-neutraland included new rights for women andfor the indigenous, and created agovernment with five branches addinga people’s and electoral branches. Thenew constitution was voted into placeby a 70 percent majority within theyear. Chávez also began to increasefunding for the poor and expanded andtransformed education.

Since then, Chávez has been re-elected twice. He was removed frompower briefly in 2002, jailed andreplaced by Pedro Carmona, the headof what is equivalent to the Chamberof Commerce. Fox commented that themedia was complicit in the coup byblacking it out and putting out falseinformation. Carmona quickly movedto revoke the constitution and disbandthe legislature. When the people becameaware of what was happening, theyrapidly mobilized and surrounded thecapitol in Caracas. Chávez wasreinstated in less than 48 hours.

One reason the Chávez election iscalled a Bolivarian Revolution is becauseSimon Bolivar was a military politicalleader who freed much of Latin Americafrom the Spanish Empire in the early1800s. The election of Chávez, the newconstitution and the people overcomingthe coup set Venezuela on the path tofree itself from the US empire. Thesechanges emboldened the transformationto sovereignty, economic democracyand participatory government.

In fact, Venezuela paid its debts tothe IMF in full five years ahead ofschedule and in 2007 separated fromthe IMF and World Bank, thus severingthe tethers of the Washington Consensus.Instead, Venezuela led the way to createthe Bank of the South to provide fundsfor projects throughout Latin Americaand allow other countries to freethemselves from the chains of the IMFand World Bank too.

The Rise of Real DemocracyThe struggle for democracy

brought an understanding by thepeople that change only comes if theycreate it. The pre- Chávez era is seenas a pseudo Democracy, managed forthe benefit of the oligarchs. The peopleviewed Chávez as a door that wasopened for them to createtransformational change. He was ableto pass laws that aided them in theirwork for real democracy and betterconditions. And Chávez knew that ifthe people did not stand with him, theoligarchs could remove him frompower as they did for two days in 2002.

With this new understanding andthe constitution as a tool, Chávez andthe people have continued to progressin the work to rebuild Venezuela basedon participatory democracy andfreedom from US interference.Chávez refers to the new system as“21st century socialism.” It is very muchan incomplete work in progress, butalready there is a measurable difference.

Mark Weisbrot of CEPR points out

that real GDP per capita in Venezuelaexpanded by 24 percent since 2004. Inthe 20 years prior to Chávez, real GDPper person actually fell. Venezuela has lowforeign public debt, about 28 percent ofGDP, and the interest on it is only 2percent of GDP. Weisbrot writes: “From2004-2011, extreme poverty wasreduced by about two-thirds. Povertywas reduced by about one-half, and thismeasures only cash income. It does notcount the access to health care thatmillions now have, or the doubling ofcollege enrollment - with free tuition formany. Access to public pensions tripled.Unemployment is half of what it waswhen Chávez took office.” Venezuela hasreduced unemployment from 20 percentto 7 percent.

As George Galloway wrote uponChávez’s death, “Under Chávez’revolution the oil wealth was distributedin ever rising wages and above all inambitious social engineering. He builtthe fifth largest student body in theworld, creating scores of newuniversities. More than 90% ofVenezuelans ate three meals a day forthe first time in the country’s history.Quality social housing for the massesbecame the norm with the pledge thatby the end of the presidential term, nowcut short, all Venezuelans would live ina dignified house.”

Venezuela is making rapid progresson other measures too. It has a highhuman development index and a lowand shrinking index of inequality.Wealth inequality in Venezuela is halfof what it is in the United States. It israted “the fifth-happiest nation in theworld” by Gallup. And Pepe Escobarwrites that,”No less than 22 publicuniversities were built in the past 10years. The number of teachers wentfrom 65,000 to 350,000. Illiteracy hasbeen eradicated. There is an ongoingagrarian reform.” Venezuela hasundertaken significant steps to build

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food security through land reform andgovernment assistance. New homes arebeing built, health clinics are opening inunderserved areas and cooperatives foragriculture and business are growing.

Venezuelans are very happy withtheir democracy. On average, they gavetheir own democracy a score of sevenout of ten while the Latin Americanaverage was 5.8. Meanwhile, 57percent of Venezuelans reported beinghappy with their democracy comparedto an average for Latin Americancountries of 38 percent, according toa poll conducted by Latinobarometro.While 81 percent voted in the lastVenezuelan election, only 57.5 percentvoted in the recent US election.

Chávez won that election handily ashe has all of the elections he has run insince 1999. As Galloway describes him,Chávez was “the most elected leader inthe modern era.” He won his last electionwith 55 percent of the vote but wasnever inaugurated due to his illness.

Beyond Voting: The Deepening ofDemocracy in Venezuela

This is not to say that the processhas been easy or smooth. The newconstitution and laws passed by Chávezhave provided tools, but thegovernment and media still containthose who are allied with the oligarchyand who resist change. People havehad to struggle to see that what iswritten on paper is made into a reality.For example, Venezuelans now have theright to reclaim urban land that isfallow and use it for food and living.Many attempts have been made tooccupy unused land and some havebeen met by hostility from thecommunity or actual repression fromthe police. In other cases, attempts tobuild new universities have been heldback by the bureaucratic process.

It takes time to build a new

democratic structure from the bottomup. And it takes time to transition froma capitalist culture to one based onsolidarity and participation. In“Venezuela Speaks,” one activist, IraidaMorocoima, says “Capitalism left uswith so many vices that I think ourgreatest struggle is against these badhabits that have oppressed us.” Shegoes on to describe a necessary cultureshift as, “We must understand that weare equal, while at the same time weare different, but with the same rights.”

Chávez passed a law in 2006 thatunited various committees in poorbarrios into community councils thatqualify for state funds for localprojects. In the city, communitycouncils are composed of 200 to 400families. The councils electspokespeople and other positions suchas executive, financial and “socialcontrol” committees. Thecouncilmembers vote on proposals ina general assembly and work withfacilitators in the government to carrythrough on decisions. In this way,priorities are set by the community andfunds go directly to those who cancarry out the project such as buildinga road or school. There are currentlymore than 20,000 community councilsin Venezuela creating a grassroots basefor participatory government.

A long-term goal is to form regionalcouncils from the community councilsand ultimately create a national council.Some community councils alreadyhave joined as communes, a group ofseveral councils, which then have thecapacity for greater research and toreceive greater funds for largeprojects.

The movement to place greaterdecision-making capacity and controlof local funds in the hands ofcommunities is happening throughoutLatin America and the world. It is calledparticipatory budgeting and it began in

Porto Alegre, Brazil in 1989 and hasgrown so that as many as 50,000 peoplenow participate each year to decide asmuch as 20 percent of the city budget.There are more than 1,500 participatorybudgets around the world in LatinAmerica, North America, Asia, Africa,and Europe. Fox produced adocumentary, Beyond Elections:Redefining Democracy in the Americas,which explains participatory budgetingin greater detail.

The Unfinished Work of HugoChávez Continues

The movements that brought himto power and kept him in power havebeen strengthened by Hugo Chávez.Now the “revolution within therevolution” will be tested. In 30 daysthere will be an election and former vicepresident, now interim president,Nicolas Maduro will likely challenge theconservative candidate Chávez defeated.

If the United States and the oligarchsthink the death of Chávez means theend of the Bolivarian Revolution he led,they are in for a disappointment. Thisrevolution, which is not limited toVenezuela, is likely to show to itself andthe world that it is deep and strong.The people-powered transformationwith which Chávez was in solidaritywill continue.

This article is a modified version of“The Secret Rise of 21st CenturyDemocracy,”which originally appeared inTruthout.

6 March, 2013

Kevin Zeese JD & Margaret Flowers MD

co-host Clearing the FOG on We Act Radio

1480 AM Washington, DC and on Economic

Democracy Media, co-direct It’s Our

Economy and are organizers of the

Occupation of Washington, DC.

Source: Countercurrents.org

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DRONE WARFARE: THE HEGEMON’S LATEST WEAPON

STATEMENTSS T A T E M E N T

Deafening silence can no longer betolerated in the face of the United Statesof America’s covert drone warfareprogram. Since the Bush administration,the United States has deployedunmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) tonumerous countries around the worldincluding Pakistan, Afghanistan,Somalia, Yemen, and most recently,Niger and Mali. Under the Obamaadministration, UAVs have been theprimary vehicle through which the UShas conducted foreign warfare. Despitenot formally deploying troops to thesevarious countries, the Obamaadministration is directly responsiblefor the deaths of thousands of civilianswho were assassinated on the groundsthat they were thought to be Al-Qaedaoperatives or terrorists hostile to theUS. Researchers at Stanford Universityand New York University publishedtheir ‘Living Under Drones’ report inSeptember 2012, which found thatonly about 2 percent of drone casualtiesare militants.

Both the Executive and Legislativebranches of the US government havenot formally offered any kind ofcasualty estimate. The CentralIntelligence Agency (CIA), theorganization that oversees the droneprogram, has failed to confirm manystrikes, despite various mediaorganizations presenting harrowingfirst-hand accounts from survivors of

the attacks. US Senator LindseyGraham, who has sought to expandthe role of drone warfare in America’sforeign wars, has recently made publicthe alarming casuality figures behindthe controversial program. Accordingto the senator, 4,700 casualtiesresulted from US drone strikethroughout the world. Pakistan’sInterior Minister has said that around80 percent of drone deaths in hiscountry were suffered by civilians. USSecretary of Defense Leon Panettamaintains that since 9/11, the US hasengaged in a global war on terror, anddrone strikes are an effective tool toeliminate Al-Qaeda militants planningterror attacks on America.

Operatives in these countries whoare targeted are killed without a courtverdict or any form of due process.Panetta has also rejected the idea thatoverseas drone operations should beturned over from CIA control to theUS military, which would require openreporting on every operation, insistingthat the program must stay covert toremain effective. US-born Anwar al-Awlaki, along with another Americancitizen and al-Awlaki’s sixteen-year oldson, were killed in a US drone strikein Yemen in 2011, prompting hugecontroversy at home and abroad.Members of the US Congress, suchas Dennis Kucinich, have condemnedthe ongoing extrajudicial slayings of

Americans and foreigners overseasusing unmanned drones, demandingmore transparency from the Obamaadministration. An overwhelming lackof transparency surrounds the droneprogram, and the “kill list” whichPresident Obama reportedly reviewsduring regularly scheduled weeklycounterterrorism meetings, as reportedby the New York Times.

The United States drone-warfareoperation is a deeply reprehensibleprogram that further solidifiesAmerica’s standing as an immoral andhegemonic state. During just the firstten days of 2013, 40 Pakistanis werekilled with drones, and at least 11 ofthem are reported to have been civilians.The drone program is an extension ofthe pathological logic of US foreignpolicy, one that enables extremismwhile claiming a just and moral position.In January 2013, the UN launched aprobe into civilian casualties from USand UK drone strikes and their legalimplications. The global citizenry mustdo more to make its voice heard loudlyin opposition to continued US militarismand aggression.

Executive Committee, JUST28 February, 2013


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S T A T E M E N T

ENSURE JUSTICE IN WAR CRIMES TRIALNine top ranking leaders ofBangladesh’s Jamaat-e-Islami party, thelargest Islamic political party inBangladesh with representation in almostall parliaments since independence, arecurrently on trial under allegations ofhaving committed war crimes during theLiberation War of 1971.

Critics have accused the trial ofbeing politically motivated for severalreasons. The allegation of war crimeshas been raised against Jamaat leadersafter almost 40 years. The BangladeshAwami League, the ruling party,released a list of 36 individuals fromthe Jamaat-e-Islami party who wereguilty of war crimes before thecommencement of the trial.

Several of the individuals on the listwere between 4 and 8 years old duringthe war in 1971. When Bangladesh’sGovernment drew up a list of 195 warcriminals after Independence, onlymembers of Pakistan’s armed forces

and other Pakistani nationals werementioned, with no acknowledgement ofthe involvement of the individuals on trialtoday. All 195 individuals were laterpardoned in a diplomatic agreement.

Mr. Motiur Raman Nizami, the chiefof Jamaat, Allama Delwar HossainSayeedee, deputy chief and Mr. AliAhsan Mujahid, the Secretary Generalhave been jailed since June 2010 onthe allegation of having committed warcrimes during the Liberation War of1971. The nine detained individualshave been denied medical treatment.One of them a former leader of theJamaat Professor Ghulam Azam is 90years old and in a frail condition.

It would appear that the issue ofwar crimes committed during liberationhas been revived to persecute thepolitical opponents of the BangladeshAwami League. Leaders of the IslamicMovement are being tried under theInternational Crimes Act of 1973,

which the international community hascriticized as falling far belowinternational standards and contrary tothe Bangladesh Constitution.

The International Movement for aJust World (JUST) believes that thistrial should be conducted in accordancewith international norms and standards.International observers should beallowed to monitor the trial. This isimportant especially since one of theaccused has already been sentenced todeath and another has been sentencedto life imprisonment. Other verdictsare pending. To ensure that whatappear to be politically motivatedverdicts are not perpetuated, thegovernment of Bangladesh and thejudiciary should do all they can toconvince the international communitythat there will be no travesty of justice.

Executive Committee, JUST13 February, 2013

ARTICLESHACKING INCIDENTS AND THE RISE OF THE NEW CHINA BOGEYMAN

By Haroon MeerFebruary kicked off with reports fromthe New York Times that theircomputer networks had been breachedby Chinese hackers. A few weeks later,US Computer Security firm Mandiant,released a report which purported tolink Chinese cyber attacks against 141US companies to a section of thePeople’s Liberation Army (Unit 61398).Just two days after the release of thereport, the US government announceda new strategy for dealing with suchattacks and released a 142- page policydocument on “Mitigating the Theft ofUS Trade Secrets”.

This all makes for excellent drama.State sponsored villainy, high-techskullduggery and victims facing clear

and present danger. The media frenzythat followed is understandable,predictable and completely dangerous.We have seen this movie before andwith the ever-growing moves tomilitarise the internet, it would behooveus to pause for a bit before hauling outthe pitchforks.

Does China have a military unitdedicated to Computer NetworkOperations (CNO)? Certainly. But thisis perfectly normal for most developedcountries today. Wikipedia claims thatIsraeli unit 8200 is the largest unit inthe Israeli army and the American NSAhas always taken pride in the numberof PhD mathematicians it employs.Lots of ink has been dedicated over

the past few years to the formation ofUS Cyber Command which isdedicated to US CyberspaceOperations and there have been just asmany articles written on the drive todraft cyber warriors into the military(recently, the DoD even created newmedals to hand out for this “new”theatre of war).

So the existence of a dedicatedChinese unit signals intelligence andcyberwar is not news, and the fact thatthis unit would recruit from scienceand engineering faculties of Chineseuniversities should hardly come as asurprise. What is surprising is theunfaltering belief that since attacks

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come from IP addresses in the samegeographic region as a PLA unit, ipsofacto, the attacks are state sponsored andneed some sort of government response.

For context, the area in question isabout the size of Los Angeles andhouses over 5 million people (makingit roughly the equivalent of the secondmost populated US city). Claiming thatattacks originating from anywhere inthis city must imply the involvementof Unit 61398 is a stretch and ignoresa raft of other possibilities.

So why do so many people soreadily believe that attacks from Chinaare state sponsored?

An argument is made that theattacks show coordination and sharedpurpose that implies a state sponsoredmission. We know from recent historythat the one does not imply the other.When Anonymous (and its splintergroup Lulzsec) relentlessly attacked theJapanese Sony Corporation andbrought down the Playstation network(and compromising Sony sitesworldwide), was the naturalassumption that this was a US statesponsored attack against Japan? Whenthe US hosts hundreds of conferencesevery year dedicated to hacking andcomputer security, are they accusedof promoting cyber terrorism?

Another weak argument that isoften bandied about is that the attacksshow a scale that must imply theemployment of thousands dedicated tothe task (which must imply governmentfunding). Again, we know that this isnot true. The internet is a forcemultiplier and allows a handful of smartengineers to build infrastructure thatscales exponentially. Don’t believe me?Ask Instagram, who managed to use adozen engineers to build a service thatscales to service millions (whilegenerating billions in income).

Many assume that the existence ofthe “Great Firewall of China” meansthat the PLA has tight control over theentire Chinese internet space. A briefglance through the address spaceshows that this simply isn’t true. In2011, a security researcher discoveredthat a popular Chinese entertainmentprogramme inadvertently opened up anopen proxy on all machines that ranthe software. Presto, with one pieceof misconfigured software, we have“100 million open proxies in China”.An open proxy means that we can co-opt the proxy to act on our behalf(which probably explains why so manyattacks seem to be coming fromChinese address-space).

The thought of state sponsoredattackers helps us feel better about thefact that we are so easilycompromised, but the truth of thematter is that we are so easilycompromised because for the mostpart, we haven’t figured out yet howto properly defend ourselves on theinternet. This is another topic foranother day, but one I have previouslywritten about here.

Even if we accept the premise of theMandiant report, the squeals from theUS about these cyber espionage attacksignore some ironic bits of history.

To date, the largest documentedoffensive cyber operations in the worldwere conducted by the USA and Israelin the form of 2010’s Stuxnet andFlame attacks against Iran. Evenrelatively passive countries that wereavoiding the topic of cyberwar wereforced to re-evaluate their positionspost-Stuxnet.

But this is state sponsored corporateespionage, not cyberwar, which makesit all different. Once more, a brief historylesson makes sense.

The European Parliamentary

Session Document from 2001covering the USA’s echelon programlists a number of egregious instancesof US cyber espionage being used tobenefit US- based corporations overtheir European counterparts.

Examples include:- The NSA intercepted

communication between Airbus and theSaudi Arabian government duringcontract negotiations and forwardedthis communication to Boeing andMcDonnell-Douglas (who went on towin the contract instead).

- The NSA forwarded technicaldetails of an engineering design to aUS- based firm (who then patented thedesign before the original inventors).

- The CIA hacked into the JapaneseTrade Ministry to obtain detailsinforming their negotiation on quotasfor US cars.

- The NSA interceptedcommunications between VW andLopez (and then forwarded thisinformation to General Motors).

-The NSA surveillance of theThomson-CSF/Brazil negotiations (fora billion dollar contract) wereforwarded to Raytheon (who werelater awarded the contract instead).

So China doesn’t exactly have themonopoly on cyber warfare orindustrial espionage. In fact, it is fairlywell understood that most modernstates are engaged in similar activitiesagainst each other.

The new policy document pushedthrough by the White House includesthe promise of “Enhanced DomesticLaw Enforcement Operations” and“Improved Domestic Legislations” astwo of its five strategic action items.

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The penny drops.

First comes the bogeyman, andthen comes the protection we need -more legislation and more lawenforcement. Again, this all has astrangely familiar feeling.

There is a huge lobby in the USdesperate to reclaim engineering jobsthat have been shipped to China, andthere is a huge lobby of hawks whoare beginning to realise that the military

digital complex can be even moreprofitable than the military industrialcomplex was. There is a powerful lobbythat constantly pushes for increasedregulation and there is an ever-increasing call for freedom-restrictingtechnology that limits anonymity andonline whistle-blowing.

All of them benefit from hyping theChinese-Cyber-Demon and we wouldbe well advised to make sure that wedon’t let scary headlines, injured prideand our desire for online safety make

us give up essential online liberties. Wehave made this mistake before.

25 February, 2013

Haroon Meer is the founder of Thinkst, an

applied Research company with a deep

focus on information security.

Source: Aljazeera.com

By Ramzy BaroudIRAQ AT THE BRINK: A DECADE AFTER THE INVASION

Soon after the joint US-British bombingcampaign ‘Operation Desert Fox’devastated parts of Iraq in Dec 1998,I was complaining to a friend in thelobby of the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad.

I was disappointed with the factthat our busy schedule in Iraq – mostlyvisiting hospitals packed with injuredor Depleted Uranium Victims - left meno time to purchase a few Arabicbooks for my little daughter back inthe States. As I got ready to embarkon the long bus journey back to Jordan,an Iraqi man with a thick moustacheand a carefully designed beardapproached me. “This is for yourdaughter,” he said with a smile as hehanded me a plastic bag. The bagincluded over a dozen books withcolorful images of traditional Iraqichildren stories. I had never met thatman before, nor did we ever meet

again. He was a guest at the hotel andsomehow he learned of my dilemma.As I profusely, but hurriedly thankedhim before taking my seat on the bus,he insisted that no such words wereneeded. “We are brothers and yourdaughter is like my own,” he said.

I was not exactly surprised by this.Generosity of action and spirit is adistinct Iraqi characteristic and Arabsknow that too well. Other Iraqi qualitiesinclude pride and perseverance, theformer attributed to the fact thatMesopotamia – encompassing most ofmodern day Iraq – is the ‘cradle ofcivilization’ and later due to the untoldhardship experienced by Iraqis in theirmodern history.

It was Britain that triggered Iraq’smodern tragedy, starting with its seizureof Baghdad in 1917 and the haphazardreshaping of a country to perfectly fitthe colonial needs and economicinterests of London. One could arguethat the early and unequalled messcreated by the British invaderscontinued to wreak havoc, manifestingitself in various ways – spanningsectarianism, political violence andborder feuds between Iraq and itsneighbors – until this very day.

But of course, the US nowdeserves most of the credit ofreversing whatever has been achievedby the Iraqi people to acquire theirever-elusive sovereignty. It was USSecretary of State James Baker, whoreportedly threatened Iraqi ForeignMinister Tariq Aziz in a Genevameeting in 1991 by saying that the USwould destroy Iraq and “bring it backto the stone age.” The US war whichextended from 1990 to 2011, includeda devastating blockade and ended witha brutal invasion. These wars wereas unscrupulous as they were violent.Aside from their overwhelming humantoll, they were placed within a horridpolitical strategy aimed at exploitingthe country’s existing sectarian andother fault lines therefore triggeringcivil wars and sectarian hatred fromwhich Iraq is unlikely to cover formany years.

For the Americans, it was a merestrategy aimed at lessening thepressure placed on its and other allysoldiers as they faced stiff resistancethe moment they stepped foot in Iraq.For the Iraqis however, it was apetrifying nightmare that can neitherbe expressed by words or numbers.But numbers are of course barely


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lacking. According to UN estimationscitied by the BBC, between May andJune 2006 “an average of more than100 civilians per day (were) killed inviolence in Iraq.” The UN reservedestimates also placed the death toll ofcivilians during 2006 at 34,000. Thatwas the year that the US strategy ofdivide and conquer proved mostsuccessful.

Over the years, most people outsideIraq – as in other conflicts whereprotracted violence yields regular deathcounts – simply became desensitizedto the death toll. It is as if the morepeople die, the less worthy their livesbecome.

The fact remains, however that theUS and Britain had jointly destroyedmodern Iraq and no amount of remorseor apology – not that any was offeredto begin with – will alter this fact. Iraq’sformer colonial masters and its newones lacked any legal or moral groundfor invading the sanctions-devastatedcountry. They also lacked any senseof mercy as they destroyed a generationand set the stage for a future conflictthat promises to be as bloody as thepast.

When the last US combat brigadehad reportedly left Iraq in Dec 2011,this was meant to be an end of an era.Historians know well that conflictsdon’t end with a presidential decree ortroop deployments. Iraq merely entereda new phase of conflict and the US,

Britain and others, remain integralparties of that conflict.

One post-invasion and war realityis that Iraq was divided into areas ofinfluence based on purely sectarian andethnic lines. In western media’sclassification of winners and losers,Sunnis, blamed for being favored byformer Iraqi President SaddamHussein, emerged as the biggest loser.While Iraq’s new political elites weredivided between Shi’ite and Kurdishpoliticians (each party with its ownprivate army, some gathered inBaghdad and others in the autonomousKurdistan region), the Shi’itepopulation was held by various militantgroups responsible for Sunniunfortunates. On Feb 8, five car bombsblew up in what was quicklyrecognized as “Shi’ite areas”, killing 34people. A few days earlier, on Feb 4,22 people were also killed in a similarfashion.

The sectarian strife in Iraq whichis responsible for the death of tens ofthousands, is making a comeback.Iraqi Sunnis, including major tribes andpolitical parties are demanding equalityand the end of their disfranchisementin the relatively new, skewed Iraqipolitical system under Prime MinisterNouri al-Maliki. Massive protests andongoing strikes have been organizedwith a unified and clear politicalmessage. However, numerous otherparties are exploiting the polarizationin every way imaginable: to settle oldscores, to push the country back tothe brink of civil war, to amplify themayhem underway in various Arabcountries, most notably Syria, and insome instances to adjust sectarianboundaries in ways that could creategood business opportunities.

Yes, sectarian division and businessin today’s Iraq go hand in hand. Reutersreported that Exxon Mobil hired JeffreyJames, a former US ambassador to Iraq

(from 2010-12) as a ‘consultant.’ Sure,it is an example of how post-wardiplomacy and business are naturalallies, but there is more to the story.Taking advantage of the autonomy ofthe Kurdistan region, the giantmultinational oil and gas corporationhad struck lucrative deals that areindependent from the centralgovernment in Baghdad. The latter hasbeen amassing its troops near thedisputed oil-rich region starting late lastyear. The Kurdish government hasdone the same. Unable to determinewhich party has the upper hand in thebrewing conflict, thus future controlover oil resources, Exxon Mobile istorn: to honor its contracts with theKurds, or to seek perhaps morelucrative contracts in the south. Jamesmight have good ideas, especially whenhe uses his political leverage acquiredduring his term as US ambassador.

The future of Iraq is currently beingdetermined by various forces andalmost none of them are composed ofIraqi nationals with a uniting vision.Caught between bitter sectarianism,extremism, the power-hungry, wealthamassing elites, regional power players,western interests and a very violentwar legacy, the Iraqi people aresuffering beyond the ability of sheerpolitical analyses or statistics to capturetheir anguish. The proud nation ofimpressive human potential andremarkable economic prospects hasbeen torn to shreds.

UK-based Iraqi writer Hussein Al-alak wrote on the upcoming tenthanniversary of the Iraq invasion witha tribute to the country’s ‘silentvictims,’ the children. According toIraqi Ministry of Labor and SocialAffairs, he reported, there is anestimated 4.5 million children who arenow orphans, with a “shocking 70percent” of them having lost theirparents since the 2003 invasion.

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10


“From that total number, around600,000 children are living on thestreets, without either shelter or foodto survive,” Al-alak wrote. Those livingin the few state-run orphanages “arecurrently lacking in their most essentialneeds.”

I still think of the kindly Iraqi manwho gifted my daughter a collectionof Iraqi stories. I also think of hischildren. One of the books hepurchased was of Sindbad, presentedin the book as a brave, handsome childwho loved adventure as much as heloved his country. No matter how cruel

his fate had been, Sinbad alwaysreturned to Iraq and began anew, as ifnothing had ever happened.

14 February, 2013Ramzy Baroud is an internationally-

syndicated columnist and the editor of

PalestineChronicle.com.

Source: Countercurrents.org

Israel has admitted for the first timethat it has been giving Ethiopian Jewishimmigrants birth-control injections,often without their knowledge orconsent.

The government had previouslydenied the practice but the Israeli HealthMinistry’s director-general has nowordered gynaecologists to stopadministering the drugs. According areport in Haaretz, suspicions were firstraised by an investigative journalist, GalGabbay, who interviewed more than30 women from Ethiopia in an attemptto discover why birth rates in thecommunity had fallen dramatically.

One of the Ethiopian women whowas interviewed is quoted as saying:“They [medical staff] told us they areinoculations. We took it every threemonths. We said we didn’t want to.”It is alleged that some of the womenwere forced or coerced to take thedrug while in transit camps in Ethiopia.

The drug in question is thought tobe Depo-Provera, which is injectedevery three months and is consideredto be a highly effective, long-lastingcontraceptive.

Nearly 100,000 Ethiopian Jewshave moved to Israel under the Lawof Return since the 1980s, but theirJewishness has been questioned bysome rabbis. Last year, the PrimeMinister, Benjamin Netanyahu, whoalso holds the health portfolio, warnedthat illegal immigrants from Africa“threaten our existence as a Jewish anddemocratic state”.

Haaretz published an extract froma letter sent by the Ministry of Healthto units administering the drug.Doctors were told “not to renewprescriptions for Depo Provera forwomen of Ethiopian origin if for anyreason there is concern that they mightnot understand the ramifications of thetreatment”.

Sharona Eliahu Chai, a lawyer forthe Association of Civil Rights in Israel(ACRI), said: “Findings frominvestigations into the use of DepoProvera are extremely worrisome,raising concerns of harmful healthpolicies with racist implications inviolation of medical ethics. TheMinistry of Health’s director-generalwas right to act quickly and put forthnew guidelines.”

27 January, 2013

Alistair Dawber is The Independent’sJerusalem correspondent. The paper’sformer foreign editor and deputyforeign editor.Source: The Independent

ISRAEL GAVE BIRTH CONTROL TO ETHIOPIAN JEWS WITHOUT THEIR CONSENTBy Alistair Dawber

I N T E R N A T I O N A L M O V E M E N T F O R A J U S T W O R L D A R T I C L E S

11

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Hunger haunts all. Hunger ultimatelydetermines path of politics. War againsthunger is going on for decades. Whatwill be the number of hungry people inthe world in 2013? The World FoodProgramme provides a list of 10 factsrelated to hunger.

A news item* of the WFP said:How many hungry people are there inthe world and is the number goingdown? What effect does hunger haveon children and what can we do to helpthem? Here is a list of 10 facts that gosome way to explaining why hunger isthe single biggest solvable problemfacing the world today.

1. Approximately 870 million people inthe world do not eat enough to behealthy. That means that one in everyeight people on Earth goes to bedhungry each night. (Source: FAO,2012)

2. The number of people living withchronic hunger has declined by 130million people over the past 20 years.For developing countries, theprevalence of undernourishment hasfallen from 23.2 to 14.9 percent overthe period 1990–2010 (Source: FAO,2012)

3. Most of the progress against hungerwas achieved before 2007/08. Sincethen, global progress in reducinghunger has slowed and leveled off.(Source: FAO, 2012)

4. Hunger is number one on the list ofthe world’s top 10 health risks. It killsmore people every year than AIDS,malaria and tuberculosis combined.(Source: UNAIDS, 2010; WHO,2011).

5. A third of all deaths in children underthe age of five in developing countriesare linked to undernutrition. (Source:IGME, 2011)

6. The first 1,000 days of a child’s life,from pregnancy through age two, arethe critical window in which to tackleundernutrition. A proper diet in this

period can protect children from themental and physical stunting that canresult from malnutrition. (Source:IGME, 2011)

7. It costs just US $0.25 per day toprovide a child with all of the vitaminsand nutrients he or she needs to growup healthy. (Source: WFP, 2011)

8. If women in rural areas had the sameaccess to land, technology, financialservices, education and markets asmen, the number of hungry peoplecould be reduced by 100-150 million.(Source: FAO, 2011)

9. By 2050, climate change and erraticweather patterns will have pushedanother 24 million children into hunger.Almost half of these children will livein sub-Saharan Africa. (Source: WFP,2009)10. Hunger is the single biggest solvableproblem facing the world today.

* World Food Programme, “10 ThingsYou Need To Know About Hunger In2013”, Jan. 2, 2013, http://www.wfp.org/stories/10-things-you-need-know-about-hunger-2013

4 January, 2013Source: Countercurrents.org

By Countercurrents.orgONE IN EVERY EIGHT PEOPLE ON EARTH GOES TO BED HUNGRY EACH NIGHT

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