Peace and Justice Post

Democracy activist Liu Xianbin has already served 10 years in prison for subversion

Associated Press, The Guardian, March 25, 2011

Chinese police monitor Tiananmen Square. Authorities want to stamp out unrest inspired by uprisings in the Arab world. Photograph: Goh Chai Hin/AFP/Getty Images

The bailouts of banks, speculators and manufacturers served their real purposes: the multi-millionaires became billionaires and the later became multi-billionaires.

James Petras, Information Clearing House, March 25, 2011

According to the annual report of the business magazine Forbes there are 1,210 individuals – and in many cases family clans – with a net value of $1 billion dollars (or more). There total net worth is $4 trillion, 500 billion dollars, greater than the combined worth of 4 billion people in the world. The current concentration of wealth exceeds any previous period in history; from King Midas, the Maharajahs, and the Robber Barons to the recent Silicon Valley – Wall Street moguls of the present decade.

An analysis of the source of wealth of the super-rich, the distribution in the world economy and the methods of accumulation highlights several important differences with major political consequences. We will proceed to identify these specific features of the super-rich, starting with the United States and follow with an analysis of the rest of the world.

The Super-Rich in the US: Greatest Living Parasites

The US has the most billionaires in the world (413), better than one third of the total, the greatest proportion among the “big countries in the world. A closer look also reveals that among the top 200 billionaires (those with $5.2 billion and more) there are 57 from the US (29%). Over one third made their fortune through speculative activity, predators on the productive economy and exploiters of the property and stock market. This is the highest percentage of any major country in Europe or Asia (with the exception of England). The enormous concentration of wealth in the hands of this tiny parasitical ruling class is one reason why the US has the worst inequalities of any advanced economy and among the worst in the entire world . . .

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Every evening, at the end of the PBS News Hour, one of the most respected news programs in the U.S., one can see the images of the U.S. soldiers killed the previous day. They usually are young men, generally between 20 and 25 years of age. Even the most hardened person cannot but feel a pang of anguish looking at these young people whose lives were cut short by an irrational war. And one can imagine how many vibrant lives were lost and will be lost until the war in Afghanistan ends.

Awful as these losses are, another reality should be considered –the photos of these same soldiers degrading Afghan prisoners. Through these photos we can see that these soldiers’ lives have been compromised by war but, equally terrifying, that war has changed them, has made them lose that essential humanity that makes us respect other people at their most basic level. And thus we suddenly have a vision of the essential evilness of war.

These thoughts are brought to mind after looking at three photographs recently released by the German newspaper Der Spiegel, part of 4,000 photos and videos taken by the soldiers. The photos are among a number seized by U.S. Army investigators investigating the deaths of three unarmed Afghan civilians during 2010.

Twelve soldiers from the Bravo company unit of the Fifth Stryker Combat Brigade in Kandahar province are accused of serious crimes against Afghan civilians. Those accused include Special Sergeant Jeremy Morlock, 22, and three other men who were allegedly following orders from Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs, 25.  These soldiers are accused of killing Afghan civilians for sport and collecting their body parts –including a human skull- as trophies.

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By Nasir Khan,  March 24, 2011

As the Libyan crisis continues, we witness a vast array of views within the ranks of anti-imperialist activists and radical writers. Richard Falk’s present article is one such example (Qaddafi, Moral Interventionism, Libya, and the Arab Revolutionary Moment). In this article he has raised many questions about the military intervention by the Western powers and the role of the Libyan opposition who have challenged Qaddafi’s long dictatorial regime.

Although he rightly says that Qaddafi had forfeited the legitimacy of his rule because of his long rule, maintained by an oppressive closed system, his views on the opposition that rose to challenge the despot need some critical assessment. I am commenting on only one or two points.

Does the anti-Qaddafi opposition that eventually rose against the dictator has no political identity or no political aspirations? For the last 41 years, the vast majority of Libyans had seen only the oppressive political order of Qaddafi; they had no chance to evolve an independent political identity. He did not allow any such activity,  any freedom to meet or any opposing views  against his rule. He had a vast authoritarian system in place throughout Libya where no opposite viewpoint was tolerated. Despite such an oppressive system, it is quite possible that ordinary men and women were dissatisfied with his rule and his policies. Not hard to imagine that they must had their hopes and aspirations for freedom, democracy and the end of his tyranny. This is despite the fact that he has some loyal followers who have been mesmerised by their ‘great leader’.

We should keep in mind that the pro-democracy movement that challenged Qaddafi cannot be regarded to have arisen due to some sort of conspiracy either. There were discontented elements within the military, bureaucracy and civil society. Libya was and is part of the common ossified Arab political order in the Middle East and North Africa. But the uprising that started in Tunisia gave inspiration to the Arab masses everywhere including Libya. That also means that Libyan pro-democracy movement has a general political context.

The popular uprising against Qaddafi was not confined to any one place even though Qaddafi had his major base of support in Tripoli. The people who stood against the heavily armed forces of Qaddafi are mostly ordinary people who had little or no training in the use of weapons. Their weapons have been small arms and rifles that are hardly a match to what the Qaddafi’s loyal forces have. When Qaddafi and his son Saif (the ‘PhD’ man!) threatened to take Benghazi by military force without any mercy to the rebels they meant what they said. By a clever propaganda trick the regime announced the first ceasefire and used the interval to bring the army and heavy weapons to crush Benghazi. The bloodbath in Benghazi was averted when the French intervened and destroyed Libyan tanks and heavy armour.

Witnesses said the initial attack lasted about three hours and heavy gunfire echoed through the streets all day

By Anna McCaffrey in Damascus, The Independent, March 24, 2011

AP 

Protesters in the southern Syrian city of Daraa yesterday. Several Facebook and human rights groups are calling for more demonstrations in Damascus and other cities tomorrow

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Chris Stanton, The National,  Mar 24, 2011

CAIRO // Egyptian military personnel tortured a group of female detainees with forced “virginity tests” and other forms of humiliation at a prison in the capital this month, Amnesty International said yesterday.

The international human rights group’s report of torture against 17 female protesters arrested on March 9 came after Monday’s calls for an investigation from a coalition of Egyptian human rights groups.

The new report follows a number of other allegations — some documented on YouTube videos with alleged victims displaying ugly bruises and lacerations — that military forces have beaten and abused protesters arrested in recent weeks.

“The Egyptian authorities must halt the shocking and degrading treatment of women protesters,” Amnesty International said yesterday. “Women fully participated in bringing change in Egypt and should not be punished for their activism.”

The report quotes a female detainee by name who said she was arrested by the military while participating in a sit-in in Tahrir Square, transferred to a prison, and forced to take off all her clothing and undergo a virginity test by a man in a white coat along with 16 other detainees. According to the report, which was reportedly corroborated by other unnamed victims who spoke to Amnesty International, the military personnel “tried to further humiliate the women by allowing men to watch and photograph what was happening”.

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AP / Jerome Delay

Fallout: During a Tuesday trip organized by Libyan authorities, a supporter of Moammar Gadhafi salutes amid the wreckage of what was described as a maintenance warehouse hit by two missiles Monday evening. The site was at a naval base near Tripoli.

It’s the black gold that drives nations mad and inevitably raises the question of whether America and the former European colonial powers give a damn about human rights as the basis for military intervention. If Libya didn’t have more oil than any other nation in Africa, would the West be unleashing high-tech military mayhem to contain what is essentially a tribal-based civil war? Once again an American president summons the passions of a human rights crusade against a reprehensible ruler whose crimes, while considerable, are not significantly different from those of dictators the U.S. routinely protects.

It is difficult to escape the conclusion that Moammar Gadhafi must now go not because his human rights record is egregious but rather because his erratic hold on power seems spent. After all, from the London School of Economics to Harvard, influential foreign policy experts were all too happy until quite recently to accept Libyan payoffs in exchange for a more benign view of Gadhafi’s prospects for change under the gentle guidance of what Harvard’s Joseph Nye celebrated as “soft power.”

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Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox, March 21, 2011

Dear War Loving (Democratic or Republican) Fraud,

I know many of you don’t really care, but in exactly 15 days, it will be seven years since my oldest son (whom I never “abandoned” and raised with his father and three siblings until he went into the Army when he was 21), Casey was killed in this Empire’s insane War OF Terror. Was Casey the first, or the last? No–but he was my first and the shock knocked me out of my quiet complacency–which was just as wrong as the Empire’s unending wars.

When I began protesting, Bush was president and my protest and the energy that grew around it was used by you Democrats to regain political power in the federal government. Four years later and a change of Executive, this nation is still mired in Arab countries waging a war against Arabs of all, or no, faith. Now brought to us by the Blue Team.

Three days after the current evil Emperor was installed by the oligarchy, he ordered a drone bombing in Northern Pakistan (a country that we are supposedly not at war with) that killed 36 civilians and since then, he has been absolutely mad about drone bombings, increasing Bush’s total over 300 percent in far fewer years. Even though I never supported Obama who funded wars as a Senator and who is NOT a peace president, I said at the time: “Three days in and already a war criminal.” I was thoroughly attacked by Democrats who once affiliated as “peace” activists for not giving Obama “time.”

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