Peace and Justice Post

Imagine that the New York Times revealed that five Senators were known to be taking bribes from a particular corporation.  Some days later the Washington Post runs a story saying they had independent sources suggesting that four Senators were taking bribes from that same corporation but goes on to state that this was nothing new as the story was already covered, neglecting to mention that three of the four names were different than those previously reported by the Times.  This is hard to imagine because eight named Senators in a scandal is not the same as five named Senators, and because healthy competition between papers would tend to point out the information missed by a rival. Yet, this is, at least numerically, what happened following the October 22^nd, 2010 release of the Iraq War Logs by WikiLeaks.

The release which supposedly included over 391,000 classified DoD  reports described violent events after 2003 including 109,000 deaths,  the majority (66,000) being Iraqi civilians.  At the time of the release, the most commonly cited figure for civilian casualties came from Iraqbodycount.org (IBC), a group based in England that compiles press and other descriptions of killings in Iraq.  In late October, IBC estimated the civilian war death tally to be about 104,000.  Virtually all authorities, including IBC themselves, acknowledge that this count must be incomplete, although the fraction missed is debated.  The press coverage of the Iraq War Logs release tended to focus on the crude consistency between the number recorded by WikiLeaks, 66,000 since the start of 2004, and the roughly 104,000 recorded deaths from Iraqbodycount since March of 2003.  The Washington Post even ran an editorial entitled, “WikiLeaks’s leaks mostly confirm earlier Iraq reporting” concluding that the Iraq War Log reports revealed nothing new.

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The swell of people power across the Middle East and North Africa in recent weeks has laid bare the human yearning for freedom from the injustices of authoritarian dictatorships. Across an entire region the calls for democracy and human rights have shown that oppressed peoples cannot indefinitely tolerate corrupt leaders who shore up power through fear and violence. Consequently, it is no surprise the Chinese government has cast a nervous glance at the outbreak of protests in a region rife with tyrannical rulers.

In his February 22 speech, Muammar Gaddafi invoked the brutal suppression of pro-democracy demonstrators on Tienanmen Square in 1989 by the People’s Liberation Army as a warning to his own people that he will not leave quietly. It should alarm the free world that the murderous actions of the Chinese state against its own citizens are now seen as a blueprint for establishing legitimacy of power.

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by Shah Marai, CommonDreams.og, March 6, 2011

Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Sunday told US General David Petraeus, the commander of international troops, that his apology after nine children died in a NATO air strike was “not enough”.

Afghan protestors hold a placard during a demonstration in Kabul on Sunday. A roadside bomb ripped through a car in eastern Afghanistan, killing 12 civilians, as hundreds of people protested angrily in Kabul over the deaths of nine children in a NATO air raid. (AFP/Shah Marai) Hundreds of angry demonstrators also rallied in central Kabul over the deaths in an air raid by coalition helicopters in the eastern province of Kunar on Tuesday.

NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said the children — who were collecting firewood in the province’s Dar-e-Pech district when they were killed — were mistaken for rebels.

Petraeus and US President Barack Obama both apologised.

The Western-backed Karzai, who has shaky relations with Washington, had already condemned the deaths, but on Sunday addressed Petraeus directly at a cabinet meeting at which the US general was present.

“President Karzai said that David Petraeus’s apology is not enough,” a statement from the Afghan presidency said.

“The civilian casualties are a main cause of worsening the relationship between Afghanistan and the US,” the statement quoted Karzai as saying.

“The people are tired of these things and apologies and condemnations are not healing any pain.

“On behalf of the people of Afghanistan I want you to stop the killings of civilians.”

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By Samir Amin, Pambazuka.org,  Feb 24, 2011, Issue 518

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cc H HSamir Amin discusses the role played by four key components of the opposition to Mubarak – the youth, the radical left, middle-class democrats and the Muslim Brotherhood – and the strategies used to oust the regime.

SAMIR AMIN: In a previous paper, I wanted to stress the strategy of the enemy, that is, the strategy of the USA and the ruling class of Egypt. Many people do not understand this. Now I would like to discuss the components and the strategies of the movement.

There are four components of the opposition. One is the youth. They are politicised young people, they are organised very strongly, they are more than one million organised, which is not at all a small number. They are against the social and economic system. Whether they are anti-capitalist is a little theoretical for them, but they are against social injustice and growing inequality. They are nationalist in the good sense, they are anti-imperialist. They hate the submission of Egypt to the US hegemony. They are therefore against so-called peace with Israel, which tolerates Israel’s continued colonisation of occupied Palestine. They are democratic, totally against the dictatorship of the army and the police. They have decentralised leadership. When they gave the order to demonstrate, the mobilisation was one million. But within a few hours, the actual figure was not one million, but fifteen million, everywhere throughout the whole nation, and in the quarters of small towns and villages. They had an immediate gigantic positive echo in the whole nation.

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Recent polls suggest that while a majority of U.S. people disapprove of the war in Afghanistan, many on grounds of its horrible economic cost, only 3% took the war into account when voting in the 2010 midterm elections.  The issue of the economy weighed heavily on voters, but the war and its cost, though clear to them and clearly related to the economy in their thinking, was a far less pressing concern.

U.S. people, if they do read or hear of it, may be shocked at the apparent unconcern of the crews of two U.S. helicopter gunships, which attacked and killed nine children on a mountainside in Afghanistan’s Kumar province, shooting them “one after another” this past Tuesday March 1^st.  (“The helicopters hovered over us, scanned us and we saw a green flash from the helicopters. Then they flew back high up, and in a second round they hovered over us and started shooting.” (NYT 3/2/11)).

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by James Petras, Dissident Voice,  March 3rd, 2011

Introduction

Most accounts of the Arab revolts from Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Morocco, Yemen, Jordan, Bahrain, Iraq and elsewhere have focused on the most immediate causes:  political dictatorships, unemployment, repression and the wounding and killing of protestors.  They have given most attention to the “middle class”, young, educated activists, their communication via the internet ¹ and, in the case of Israel and its Zionists conspiracy theorists, “the hidden hand” of Islamic extremists.²

What is lacking is any attempt to provide a framework for the revolt which takes account of the large scale, long and medium term socio-economic structures as well as the immediate ‘detonators’ of political action.  The scope and depth of the popular uprisings, as well as the diverse political and social forces which have entered into the conflicts, preclude any explanations which look at one dimension of the struggles.

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Pakistan’s mullahs and muftis have managed to blur the line between what God says and what they say

Mohammad Hanif, The Guardian, March 3, 2011

Two months ago, after Governor Salmaan Taseer’s murder and the jubilant support for the policeman who killed him, religious scholars in Pakistan told us that since common people don’t know enough about religion they should leave it to those who do – basically anyone with a beard.

Everyone thought it made a cruel kind of sense. So everyone decided to shut up: the Pakistan Peoples party (PPP) government because it wanted to cling to power, liberals in the media because they didn’t want to be the next Taseer. The move to amend the blasphemy law was shelved.

It was an unprecedented victory for Pakistan’s mullah minority. They had told a very noisy and diverse people to shut up and they heard back nothing but silence. After Pakistan’s only Christian federal minister, Shahbaz Bhatti – the bravest man in Islamabad – was murdered on Tuesday, they were back on TV, this time condemning the killing, claiming it was a conspiracy against them, against Islam and against Pakistan. The same folk who had celebrated one murder and told us how not to get murdered were wallowing in self pity.

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In his article entitled ‘‘Till September: The PA’s Meaningless Deadlines’’, dated February 26, Ramzy Baroud fails to present the real picture of the Palestinian situation today.

Characterizing the Palestinian leadership as a ‘‘self designated Palestinian leadership in the West Bank’’, Mr. Baroud wittingly ignores some facts while distorting others. In fact, it was Hamas that has refused until this day to sign the Egyptian-brokered reconciliation agreement.   The so-called “Palestine papers” have not revealed a single official agreement or document that offers concessions.  Rather, the majority of the documents were internal draft summaries of meetings taken in shorthand and intended for personal use only.

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WASHINGTON – J Street, the Washington-based “Pro-Israel, Pro-Peace” advocacy group, drew a large crowd to its annual conference this year despite criticism over its controversial calls for the Barack Obama administration not to veto a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank.

Palestinian protesters hold a banner during a rally against Israeli settlements. (AFP/Abbas Momani) In the end, the administration vetoed the resolution, but the controversy appeared to have had no negative effect on the organisation’s turnout for the just-ended conference, which had 2,400 participants – 900 more than last year – and over 500 students participating.

Over 50 members of Congress were in attendance and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg made a surprise appearance to honour Kathleen Peratis, vice chair of the J Street Education Fund and the recipient of the group’s Tzedek V’Shalom award.

With pro-democracy revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya dominating the headlines over the past week, uncertainty about the shifting geopolitics in the region was a recurring theme in the remarks delivered by J Street leadership, panelists and an Obama administration senior Middle East adviser.

Jeremy Ben-Ami, J Street’s president, told attendees, “We know in our hearts that it’s not just the status quo in the Arab world that is bound to change, it is the status quo between Israel and the Palestinian people that has to change as well,” at the conference’s kickoff on Saturday night.

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Gathafi’s troops appear poorly armed, under-trained as Libyan leader had concentrated power in elite Tripoli-based brigade.

Middle East Online, March 3, 2011

By Danny Kemp – CAIRO

‘The rest of the army is history’ Libyan strongman Moamer Gathafi is relying on militias, mercenaries and Soviet-era airpower to prop up his regime as he tries to fight back against rebels in the east, analysts said. A bid by Gathafi loyalists to retake the eastern oil port of Brega has thrown the spotlight on the relative strengths of the regime’s forces and the ragtag opposition army. On paper, Gathafi has 115,000 troops and militiamen but most are poorly armed and under-trained because for years Gathafi has concentrated power in an elite Tripoli-based brigade led by one of his sons. Coupled with thousands of African mercenaries being hired for up to $2,000 (1,435 euros) a day, the militias are his only real hope of resisting the challenge to his 41-year rule. “There is an army within an army. There are special brigades that are run by his most trusted people. The rest of the army is history,” Saad Djebbar, a London-based Libya analyst and lawyer, said. In 2010, Libya’s armed forces had a nominal strength of 76,000, most of them conscripts, according to The Military Balance, a survey published by the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) in Britain. But Gathafi knows the perils that a strong military can pose to an unpopular ruler, having seized power himself as a young colonel in 1969 in a coup that toppled King Idris. Continues >>