EGYPT: Solidarity With Gaza Brings Jail

March 3, 2009

By Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani | Inter Press Service

CAIRO, Mar 3 (IPS) – Magdi Hussein, secretary-general of Egypt’s suspended Socialist Labour Party, has been sentenced to two years in prison by a military tribunal. Hussein, along with two others, was charged with “infiltrating” into the Gaza Strip following Israel’s recent campaign against the coastal enclave.

Protests against his arrest continue to be ineffective.

“It was an illegitimate, vindictive sentence, for which there is no moral or legal excuse,” Gamal Fahmi, managing editor of opposition weekly Al-Arabi Al- Nassiri, and board member of the Egyptian Journalists Syndicate told IPS.

Hussein was arrested by Egyptian authorities Feb. 1 while returning to Egypt via the Rafah crossing, the sole transit point along Egypt’s 14-kilometre border with the Gaza Strip. Hussein was on his way back from a week-long visit to the territory, still reeling from Israel’s military campaign from Dec. 27 to Jan. 17.

“People are free to travel from one country to another,” Hussein told independent daily Al-Dustour shortly after his arrest. “When did it become a crime to visit our besieged Arab brethren?”

While in the Gaza Strip, governed by Palestinian resistance faction Hamas, Hussein witnessed the destruction wrought by Israel’s recent campaign, during which more than 1,300 Palestinians were killed, and infrastructure demolished. Hussein visited numerous bombed-out mosques and homes, as well as the badly damaged Palestinian parliament building, Gaza’s Islamic University and the Shifa Hospital, teeming with critically injured civilians.

While in Gaza, Hussein also spoke to the Hamas-run Al-Aqsa television channel and Sout al-Aqsa radio station. In live interviews, he criticised Egypt’s official stance vis-à-vis the conflict, particularly Egypt’s insistence on keeping the Rafah border crossing closed to both people and badly needed humanitarian aid.

Ever since Hamas wrested control of the strip in the summer of 2007, Egypt – like Israel – has kept its border with the territory sealed for the most part. Despite the increasingly desperate need for food, medicine and fuel supplies among Gaza’s roughly 1.5 million people, Egyptian authorities have continued to keep the border sealed both during and after the conflict.

Given the sensitive nature of the border area, which has come under frequent Israeli attack in recent weeks, Hussein’s expedition was not treated lightly by the authorities.

On Feb. 5, he was brought before a military tribunal in the canal city of Ismailiya on charges of “illicitly infiltrating across Egypt’s eastern border.” Independent daily Al-Bedeel reported the next day that Hussein’s lawyers had been banned from the courtroom and that his defence would be conducted by three state-appointed military attorneys.

In a second court session on Feb. 11, Hussein was slapped with a sentence of two years in prison in addition to a monetary fine. Outside the courtroom, security forces reportedly beat back dozens of Hussein’s supporters who had gathered to protest the harsh verdict.

One day earlier, two other activists – Ahmed Dumma and Ahmed Kemal Abdel-Aal – received one year in prison each on charges of “infiltrating” into the Gaza Strip.

On Feb. 12, the Journalists Syndicate organised a protest march in front of the syndicate’s Cairo headquarters to express its disapproval of the stiff sentencing.

“We strongly reject the trying of civilians before military courts,” Mohamed Abdel Qaddous, head of the syndicate’s freedoms committee, was quoted as saying by Al-Bedeel. “The committee will do whatever it can to secure Magdi’s release.”

According to Fahmi, the court’s accusations against the defendants have no basis in Egyptian law.

“There’s nothing in Egyptian law about ‘illicit infiltration’ over the borders,” he said. “Egyptians are frequently caught trying to immigrate to Europe illegally, and they are merely questioned and released – not sentenced to prison on charges of ‘infiltration’.”

Fahmi went on to say that, aside from a small protest march and a handful of angry statements, the Journalists Syndicate had done “nothing at all” to help Hussein, who was himself a syndicate board member from 1999 to 2003.

“Most of the syndicate’s board members are also members of the ruling National Democratic Party,” Fahmi said. “Their positions, therefore, generally reflect their affiliation to the regime rather than their loyalty to the syndicate or to their fellow journalists.”

The trial hardly represents Hussein’s first brush with the law. He was arrested twice in the past – in 1985 and 1991 – for organising protests against normalised relations with Israel and the first U.S.-led war against Iraq.

From 1987 to 1990, Hussein was an MP for Egypt’s Islamist-leaning Socialist Labour Party (SLP), established in 1978. In 1993, he became editor-in-chief of the party’s daily newspaper Al-Shaab. Four years later, Hussein was made party secretary-general.

In 2000, state authorities shut down Al-Shaab – after it ran a series of articles critical of high-level government officials – and officially suspended the SLP. Despite a number of subsequent administrative court rulings overturning the decision, the party has remained suspended, and Al-Shaab banned.

Even after the party’s suspension, however, Hussein continued to be a vocal critic of Egyptian state policy, especially as it pertained to the long-running Israel-Palestine dispute.

During Israel’s recent assault on the Gaza Strip, Hussein blasted the regime’s approach to the crisis, which he said favoured Israel at the expense of the Hamas-led Palestinian resistance. In the first days of the campaign, Hussein told IPS that there had been “indications” of Egyptian coordination with Israel in advance of the attack.

Hussein’s wife, Naglaa al-Qalioubi, told Al-Dustour that the harsh verdict represented “a settling of scores” between the government and her husband. “It also has to do with the fact that Magdi was planning to call for a peaceful march on Feb. 25 calling for (President Hosni) Mubarak to step down,” she was quoted as saying Feb. 12.

According to Fahmi, the stiff sentence constitutes a warning to other would- be Gaza sympathisers. “It was a message to others not to make any show of solidarity with the people of Gaza, the way Magdi did.”

The use of military tribunals is permitted under the terms of Egypt’s controversial 28-year-old emergency law. In 2007, a constitutional amendment gave the president the additional right to refer civilians to military courts if the case in question “has a bearing on Egypt’s national security.”

Last year, 40 members of the Egyptian Brotherhood opposition movement were brought before a military tribunal on charges of money laundering and promoting terrorism in a months-long trial that ended with stiff jail sentences for most of the defendants.

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From Bush to Obama: War is still a racket

March 2, 2009

By Krystalline Kraus | ZNet, March 2, 2009
Source: Rabble

War ain’t cheap. But it’s better for big business the longer it lasts. Defense contractors don’t care about death tolls and MIA lists, only dollars and cents. The colour of blood is green.

First, let’s start with Iraq. A December 2008 Washington Post poll [2] found, “Seventy percent say President-elect Barack Obama should fulfill his campaign promise to withdraw U.S. forces from the country within 16 months.” It now appears Obama will miss fulfilling that timeline by at least three months [3].

Bush’s pre-emptive declaration of victory

But, the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq? How can you end a war that has already ended?

I remember President ‘W’ Bush standing on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003, behind a huge banner that read: ‘Mission Accomplished.’ [4]

And wait, didn’t we – the free world – actually win this war?

The U.S. Commander-in-chief told the nation later that night in May, 2003, that, “Major combat operations in Iraq have ended.” He then congratulated the U.S. military’s effort in Iraq, saying, “Because of you, our nation is more secure. Because of you, the tyrant has fallen, and Iraq is free.”

Of course, Bush also said, “The transition from dictatorship to democracy will take time but it is worth every effort. Our coalition will stay until our work is done.” (Five years after the May 1 declaration and for Bush’s departure, the White House did try and rewrite history by claiming the “Mission Accomplished” banner was meant to refer only to the sailors on that particular ship. No alterations to his speech have been made.)

But we still won, right? Right? We won somewhere back in 2003. All the terrorists are now safely locked away in Gitmo and all the IEDs are out of the ground? The U.S. has cleaned up all the depleted uranium and cluster bombs? So it’s all good, tab settled, check paid? What left over work could there to be done according to the tone of Bush’s speech? He seemed so proud of himself [5].

The economics of death

For a war that’s already ended and when the free world has already won, how come so many are still dying over there if the major combat operations have ended? Why is the supposed aftermath of a war causing more deaths than the war itself? Why does democracy look more like a war zone?

According to the casualty counter (yes, there is such a thing. It was last updated on February 9, 2009) on www.antiwar.com [6], 4243 American Forces deaths have been recorded since the war began on March 19, 2003, with 4104 of those deaths having occurred after the “Mission” was declared “Accomplished” on May 1, 2003. If the mission was so accomplished, why do two-thirds of Americans polled in the Washington Post article state they did not believe the war in Iraq was worth fighting? Was it ever?

War for profit

If someone is making bullets, then someone is making money. This is true in regards to defense contractors working in the Iraq theatre of conflict, where the U.S. treasury has become a virtual money exchange where you insert money to buy bullets and private security guards instead of school books and expensive patented medicine. Every year millions of tax dollars siphoned from domestic and international aid programs are diverted to feed the war machine.

A 2007 Rolling Stone magazine article, ‘The Great Iraq Swindle [7],’ by Matti Taibbi, outlines how Bush, “allowed an Army of for-profit contractors to invade the U.S. Treasury.”

“What the Bush administration has created in Iraq is a sort of paradise of perverted capitalism … Operation Iraqi Freedom, it turns out, was never a war against Saddam ­Hussein’s Iraq. It was an invasion of the federal budget, and no occupying force in history has ever been this efficient,” Taibbi wrote.

The Internet site, Business Pundit, has a July 22, 2008 list of the twenty-five most vicious war profiteers; including names the public has heard before, like Halliburton and Veritas Capital Fund/DynCorp. You can view the list here [8].

Which brings me to the next point, or man. Sad to say, even with Washington under new management, these companies will still be raking through the bloodshed for gold coins. No one should be blinded by the bright light of Obama’s supposed luminary change until it actually happens. The financial interests that were backing up Bush will be propping up the new administration behind the scenes as well.

To Obama’s credit, he did come forward with a campaign promise to withdraw US Forces from Iraqi soil within sixteen months. Perhaps this will finally end the war that has already ended and the free world has already won?

From Bush to Obama

The ongoing-legacy of the Iraq war is heartbreaking, death statistics spill like oil from the giant hole called victory in Iraq. Along with death statistics from enemy combat, we are faced with the horrific news from the United States Army report released early February, 2009, regarding suicide rates among soldiers [9], reporting an alarming spike in suicides among soldiers in January, 2009.

“In January, we lost more soldiers to suicide than to Al Qaeda,” Paul Rieckhoff, the director of the Iraq and Afghanistan veterans of America [10], stated in a related press release.

In the Army’s annual report, it stated that soldiers were killing themselves at the highest rates on record in 2008. Yearly increases in suicide rates have been reported since 2004.

Turns out, the blood on Bush’s hands is also from his own soldiers, and in the handshake transference of power to Obama, he has inherited these spoils of war.

From Iraq to Afghanistan

Obama, like his predecessor, has pledged to continue the fight against terrorism. Although he has declared his intentions to pull out of Iraq, just like in the game Risk, he is simply sliding his army across the map from Iraq to Afghanistan, America’s forgotten war.

Speaking at the annual Munich Security Conference last week [11] U.S. government envoy, Richard Holbrooke warned that Afghanistan would be, “much tougher than Iraq.” He said the war Obama inherits there is “a situation of very grand rhetoric with inadequate, insufficient resources.” Holbrooke added, “I have never seen anything like the mess we have inherited.”

This is the sendoff 30,000 U.S. troops received as they prepare — over the course of 2009 — to deploy to Afghanistan, ready to join the 32,500 NATO troops already stationed there as of December 1, 2008. An additional 17,000 troops were just announced, with 8,000 Marines going to southern Afghanistan in late spring, another 4,000 soldiers in summer and 5,000 support troops throughout the year.

When Obama visited Ottawa last week he did not ask Canada to deploy any more of its NATO troops to Afghanistan, instead choosing to praise the nation for its involvement. I wonder how soon victory will be declared there, before or after Canada troops are predicted to withdraw in 2011?

Obama’s war

Every president needs a war. Bush Sr. and Jr. both had theirs. For Obama, he was against the war in Iraq before his presidency. While he rarely mentioned Afghanistan on the campaign trail, now as President, he has settled on his choice of enemy.

He has also chosen who will profit from this war. Just as with Bush’s legacy of war profiteering, it seems that the Obama that swore during the campaign he would not invite lobbyists to the White House has appointed former Raytheon (a Canadian missile systems corporation) lobbyist, William Lynn [12], as deputy defense secretary on Wednesday, February 11, 2009.

The total cost for Iraq is predicted at three trillion dollars [13]. How much money private contractors will make off the war, the public will never know. I guess victory ain’t cheap.

Those figures are only in dollars, not drops of blood. How much more does Obama expect his nation to pay? Let alone the rest of the world?

This whole war business just doesn’t add up.


Krystalline Kraus is a Toronto-based writer.

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Religion and money, the way to complete power – or not?

March 2, 2009

By Siv O’Neall | Axis of Logic, Feb 28, 2009, 12:10

Religion and money have always been the sacred pillars of American civilization, ever since the time when it was a British colony, ever since the Puritans in New England branded the philosophy of the new country as a god-fearing and materialistic new world. Thus it was and thus it still is. Today’s merciless invasions and bombings of various foreign countries is simply a continuation of the century-old U.S. expansionist strategy that has from the very beginning been the trade mark of the self-righteous and the most powerful country in the New World.

Expansionism is part of their religion

Long before Hollywood, television and Disney World surfaced on the horizon of the entertainment-hungry masses, the worship of money and the mostly innocent belief that the one and only God created the world in seven days were the solid corner stones of their society. From there came the convenient belief that the colonists and later the Unites States government had the moral right to decimate the native Americans, to wipe out their culture and to take over their healthy lands in exchange for barren desert land where their souls were stifled, even in those whose bodies survived.

The endless ‘Westering’ was later followed by cruel wars of conquest and the moral rights of the governments seemed never to be questioned by the people. After the Louisiana Purchase from France in 1803, which added vast new territories west of the Mississippi in what is now the enormous center of the country, the appetite for new lands was only whetted for further forays in the surrounding areas. The remaining areas of what is today the United States of America were added in various wars during the course of the 19th century, mainly the Mexican-American war and later the Spanish-American war. The U.S. governments grabbed huge new territories from Mexico and from the Spanish conquistadores to add to their own country as if it were their god-given right to kill and rob and plunder.

Greed, religion and patriotism

Human beings have always looked for approval from their fellowmen. We all need to feel that we belong somewhere, to some group or community. Religion and wealth both serve the purpose of making us feel accepted and, at the same time, making us escape from the barrenness and the drudgery of our everyday existence. There is hardly any escape more powerful than religion, but in the United States it is also a way of gaining a high standing in our communities

On the other hand, crass profiteering serves both as a goal in itself and as a way of getting accepted in society. It’s the sure path to power. There is hardly any country in the world where greed and religion have combined in such perfect harmony as in the United States of America.

‘Greed is good’ has become the national anthem. God rewards those who work hard and thus it is a mark of honor to be among the wealthy few who are chosen to govern the communities and the nation. It is the old Puritan way of seeing wealth as the proof that God is with you. The arms manufacturers and the corporate chieftains are the Elect who will be saved on the day of the Rapture and we, the poor sinners, are doomed to a life in hell.

If it had not been for the worship of money which underlies all other values in the United States of America, it would have been impossible for Wall Street to act with such total impunity in their shameless scheme to con the U.S. citizens out of their savings and modest wealth.

Add to this poisonous brew of intolerant, fundamentalist religion and the puritan worship of money, the unrestricted faith in the country’s superiority over all other countries, that is their unquestioning patriotism, their second religion, the die-hard belief that their country can do no wrong, and you get to where the country is today.

Deregulation and the silencing of the opposition

The superficiality of the U.S. citizens in accepting a man like George W. Bush as the President of the country seems perfectly unbelievable to most people outside the U.S. We know now how this was brought about, however, and it was not achieved from the superficial image of Bush as a man you’d like to have a beer with, the man with the friendly smirk, the popular appeal. No, it was much more carefully planned. And the sine qua non was to get a harmless president ‘elected’, that is get him parachuted into the White House so speedily that people wouldn’t have time to react.  We know how the neo-conservatives were all maneuvering to grab total power ever since the 1980s. The two essential preconditions for getting their scheme to succeed were the complete submission of the media and the buying up of the Congress via the lobbies. They succeeded in both enterprises beyond belief.

The deregulation movement got started under Ronald Reagan who instigated laws in favor of Big Business, which made it possible for this psychopathic set of neocons to scheme their way to power. This continuous trend in economic policies towards the Milton Friedmanesque [1] free market as the gospel for ‘progress’ killed off all the humanitarian laws that had been instituted by Franklin Delano Roosevelt with the New Deal after the Great Depression; now we are regressing towards tax cuts for the wealthy, deregulation of the savings and loan industry. Opening the floodgates for increased media consolidation and the war on Labor were also some of the major features pointing towards the radical take-over of the wealthy elite during the Reagan presidency. These deregulating trends were followed up faithfully by the succeeding administrations. This very much includes Bill Clinton who signed the horrendous NAFTA agreement declaring that “NAFTA means jobs, American jobs, and good-paying American jobs.” (It is also pure nonsense that Reagan should be in any way credited with bringing down the Soviet Union and ending the Cold War, but that is the subject for another essay.)

The neocon gospel

This more or less underground neocon set of power-hungry lunatics was determined to achieve complete domination over all aspects of the United States, have total command over the three branches of government and, finally, most likely install a police state where elections and a government would not be needed any more. Democracy had become an empty word and unfettered capitalism was going to rule the world. The multinationals with their financial center in the United States were going to have complete economic control over the world and they managed very well with the major Asian economies during the Asian financial crisis, beginning in 1997. This severe crisis that threatened to bring about a global systemic financial meltdown was enhanced or, as some claim, even brought about by the “fast-track capitalism” methods of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. [2]

And what about the working people and the middle class who were going to see their comfortable living conditions disappear? Don’t worry, said the neocons. They won’t know what happened until it’s too late. All the money goes to the clique that runs the corporations and the little people will be left with their religion. Drive up the hysteria and the coming of Armageddon to the boiling point and the fundamentalists will be so convinced that they are the ones who will be saved on the Day of Judgment they won’t even worry about their money and their good lives trickling away. They are the ones who will go to Heaven, they and the good men and women in the government who believe, the way they themselves do, that God is with them, the people who pray for the country, for victory in the morally right wars and for all those who are convinced that the United States will always be the unrivaled leader of the world.

An important part of the neocon gospel consisted of depriving the poor of valid education and cutting down on entitlements that could serve to create more livable conditions for the poor and the middle class. Starving the beast was their motto. By the use of relentless propaganda and making sure they are kept in profound ignorance of the greed and corruption that are the true leaders of the country, the poor people who are the principal victims of this ‘disaster capitalism’ [3] are still the blind believers in this absurd system of government. There is no way you can make them believe that democracy is dead and that nobody in Washington cares a whit for their being totally left behind. [4]

What about the rest of the world? The neocons say ‘We’ll buy them up’. We’ll get so much influence over the Middle East, India, China, Russia that nobody will have enough power to fight us. We’ll hit them so fast they won’t even have the time to put their pants on. The nukes the other countries have are firecrackers next to ours. If one country gets unruly, we’ll take out its nukes in one big blow. Their arsenals are antiquated or they have just one or two tiny bombs for show. Africa and Latin America are powerless and if they ever go against the system we have set up, we will show them who has the muscles. Muscles, spelled B-O-M-B-S.

Has anything changed?

Now, fortunately, this infantile attitude to anything the government does as being unquestionably right, has of late been watered down. The missteps and the disasters have become so numerous and so glaring that even an intellectually challenged and half-blind American might begin to see through the lies and the fear-and-theft tactics of their criminal leaders. The country has gradually been brought to the edge of disaster over the past eight years of misrule, and the financial global meltdown which is now progressing might well change the world so drastically that we can’t even guess at what is lying ahead.

However, the neocons have not given up on their free-for-all-to-see fight for global power. They are all set on destroying Barack Obama and the Democratic party and finally getting the complete power they were so close to achieving under the misrule of Bush/Cheney, the project they had insanely been working on for almost thirty years. [5] It might seem as if the Republicans wouldn’t really have to destroy the Democrats, since they are all so indebted to Big Money that they could easily melt into one party, but the neocons want more than that. They are aiming at dictatorial power without any form of intrusion from the few humanitarian-minded Democrats who are still left in the House and the Senate.

One thing is certain. The raving lunatics will be back. Nothing can stand in their way, not even self-destruction.

Notes:

[1] See Siv O’Neall: ‘The Big Con Game’, among multiple other sources on Milton Friedman, the father of the Chicago School of economics and the Free Market power-for-the-rich ideology. http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_29465.shtml

[2] Source: ‘IMF’s Role in the Asian Financial Crisis’ by Walden Bello

[3] Term used by Naomi Klein in her latest book ‘The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism’

[4] See for excellent background on Middle America: ‘Deer Hunting With Jesus’ by Joe Bageant

[5] PNAC – the Project for the New American Century See also Wikipedia

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With Iraq plan, Obama embraces US militarism

March 2, 2009
Patrick Martin |  WSWS, 2 March 2009

In extending the full-scale US occupation of Iraq for another 18 months, and acceding to the timetable already adopted by the Bush administration for a tentative pullout by the end of 2011, President Barack Obama has done more than betray the hopes of the millions of antiwar voters who supported his candidacy in 2008.

He has fully identified the incoming Democratic Party administration with the fraudulent arguments employed by the Bush White House to justify the ongoing war in Iraq, after its initial claims about “weapons of mass destruction” and ties between Iraq and the 9/11 terrorist attacks had been proven to be lies.

Obama’s speech to thousands of Marines at Camp Lejeune was an effort to legitimize the US conquest and occupation of Iraq and present the American military as an instrument of liberation rather than imperialist war and oppression.

While candidate Obama described the Iraq war as one that “should never have been authorized and never been waged,” President Obama gave a much different reading. “You have fought against tyranny and disorder,” he told the assembled troops. “You have bled for your best friends and for unknown Iraqis. And you have borne an enormous burden for your fellow citizens, while extending a precious opportunity to the people of Iraq.”

No one would know from this effusive description that the US intervention’s main effect upon “unknown Iraqis” was to kill, maim and displace them. Some 1 million people have died since the US invasion in March 2003, including hundreds of thousands killed by US bombs, missiles and shells fired at civilian neighborhoods. Countless Iraqi civilians have been murdered at US checkpoints for the crime of not slowing down quickly enough.

As for the “precious opportunity” allegedly extended to the people of Iraq, it is the right to vote for parties and politicians sponsored by the US occupation regime to preside over a society that has been virtually destroyed.

Nearly six years after the US conquest, Iraq still does not have running water, electricity, adequate sewage and other necessities of modern life; unemployment is estimated at 50 percent of the adult population; there are some 4 million refugees in internal or external exile; and most Iraqi cities are divided into ethnic and religion-based neighborhoods separated by blast walls and checkpoints.

Obama did not acknowledge, let alone disavow, the real motive for the US military onslaught—Iraq’s vast oil wealth and strategic position at the center of the Middle East. That silence only demonstrates that the new president shares the fundamental goal of his predecessor, to strengthen the grip of American imperialism over the Middle East and Central Asia, source of the bulk of the world’s oil and gas supplies.

This fact was immediately recognized by the most fervent defenders of the Bush administration’s aggression, including Senator John McCain, Obama’s Republican opponent in the presidential election, other congressional Republicans, and the right-wing press. The Wall Street Journal, for instance editorialized in praise of Obama’s Camp Lejeune speech, calling it “Obama’s Bush Vindication.”

The Journal gushed: “Mr. Obama delivered a sober speech, offering a policy worthy of the Commander in Chief he now is.” It singled out “Mr. Obama’s implicit repudiation of his own positions as a candidate” by agreeing to keep a large US military presence in Iraq, as many as 50,000 troops, after the nominal August 2010 withdrawal date, an action that seeks to maintain “the strategic advantage” of a US puppet regime in the Persian Gulf.

As Obama explained in his speech, a major reason for the redeployment of some US forces out of Iraq is to have sufficient military power available to confront both “the challenge of refocusing on Afghanistan and Pakistan,” and “comprehensive American engagement across the region.”

Millions of Americans voted for Obama, not because they believed that the war in Iraq was a distraction from the pursuit of broader imperialist goals, but because they regarded the unprovoked invasion and conquest of a sovereign nation as a crime, and opposed the predatory character of American foreign policy as a whole.

Their voices have not the slightest impact on the formulation of policy in the Obama White House. As the events of last week demonstrate, it is the military-intelligence apparatus that calls the shots here. Obama did not make an independent decision as commander-in-chief, but rubber-stamped the course backed by one faction of the military establishment against the other.

According to press accounts that followed Obama’s speech at Camp Lejeune, the 19-month “withdrawal” plan selected by Obama was the preferred option of Defense Secretary Robert Gates and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Gates confirmed, in an interview Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press”, that the Iraq field commanders, headed by Gen. Raymond Odierno, preferred a 23-month schedule for withdrawal, while the Pentagon brass, concerned about the need for troops in Afghanistan and being stretched too thin to engage in other potential conflicts, opted for the shorter timeframe.

Obama did not replace any of the Bush administration’s principal military decision makers when he took office. Instead, he retained Gates, Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Odierno and General David Petraeus, head of the US Central Command and architect of the “surge” in Iraq.

His embrace of militarism was demonstrated in the very fact that Obama chose to give the speech at a Marine base to an audience of uniformed troops, not in a civilian setting or through a televised White House address. The effect was to suggest that in the America of 2009, decisions on war and peace are of concern primarily to the military, with the American people relegated to the role of bystanders.

The whole process demonstrates the erosion of American democracy. The American people cannot, through voting in election after election, effect any change in the foreign and military policy of the government. The war in Iraq goes on, and the war in Afghanistan is being escalated, regardless of popular sentiments.

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Death Toll Continues to Rise in Sri Lanka

March 2, 2009

The Associated Press, March 1, 2009

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka – At least 10 Sri Lankan civilians were killed and dozens more wounded Sunday when artillery shells fell inside a government-designated “safe zone” in the heart of Tamil Tiger rebel territory, a health official said.

[Mumbai's Tamil community members hold placards during a protest rally in Mumbai, India, Sunday, March 1, 2009, demanding a cease-fire in Sri Lanka. (AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade)]Mumbai’s Tamil community members hold placards during a protest rally in Mumbai, India, Sunday, March 1, 2009, demanding a cease-fire in Sri Lanka. (AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade)

Government forces have driven the rebels from most of their strongholds in recent months and have boxed them into a tiny coastal territory in the northeast. A 7.5-mile (12-kilometer) -long “safe zone” serves as a haven for tens of thousands of civilians trapped inside rebel territory. Dr. Thurairaja Varatharajah said six people died at a makeshift hospital inside rebel territory, and he saw four more bodies scattered among the huts of displaced people.

He said 48 wounded civilians were also admitted to the hospital, which he runs out of a school. Many of the victims suffered burns from the exploding shells, Varatharajah said.

It was unclear who fired the shells. Varatharajah said they appeared to have come from an area where government forces are stationed.

The military and rebels did not comment. Government officials have repeatedly denied targeting civilians.

Humanitarian groups estimate that 200,000 people are trapped in the fighting zone and face the risk of being caught in the crossfire.

Top United Nations humanitarian officials urged the rebels Friday to allow civilians to flee the fighting, saying there are “credible reports” that some people trying to leave have been shot.

Tamil Tiger rebels have fought since 1983 to create an independent state for ethnic minority Tamils, who have suffered marginalization by successive governments controlled by ethnic majority Sinhalese.

More than 70,000 people have been killed in the violence.

© 2009 Associated Press

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US Influence in Iraq Far From Over

March 2, 2009

by Eric Margolis | Toronto Sun, March 2, 2001

Barack Obama won the votes of many Americans by promising to swiftly end the Iraq War and bring U.S. troops home. He denounced George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq as a “violation of international law.”

So will U.S. troops leave Iraq? Will those responsible for this trumped-up war face justice?

No, on both counts.

President Obama says U.S. combat troops will leave Iraq by August 2010. However, the U.S. military occupation will not end. What we are seeing is a public relations shell game.

The U.S. has 142,000 soldiers and nearly 100,000 mercenaries occupying Iraq. Obama’s plan calls for withdrawing the larger portion of the U.S. garrison but leaving 50,000-60,000 troops in Iraq.

To get around his promise to withdraw all “combat” troops, the president and his advisers are rebranding the stay-behind garrison as “training troops, protection for American interests, and counterterrorism forces.”

At a time when the U.S. is bankrupt and faces a $1.75 trillion deficit, the Pentagon’s gargantuan $664 billion budget (50% of total global military spending) will grow in 2009 and 2010 by another $200 billion to pay for the occupation of Iraq and Obama’s expanded war in Afghanistan. Throw in another $40 billion to $50 billion for the CIA and other intelligence agencies.

Obama insists the U.S. will withdraw from Iraq. But his words are belied by the Pentagon, which continues to expand bases in Iraq, including Balad and Al-Asad, with 4,400-metre runways for heavy bombers and transports.

AIR BRIDGE

They are key links in the U.S. Air Force’s new air bridge that extends from Germany to Bulgaria and Romania, Iraq and the Gulf, then onward to Afghanistan and Central Asia.

Besides Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone and U.S. embassy (the world’s largest), the Pentagon reportedly wants to retain 58 permanent bases in Iraq (by comparison, there are 36 in South Korea), total control of its air space and immunity from Iraqi law for all U.S. troops.

The U.S. also will retain major bases in neighbouring Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and Diego Garcia. U.S. oil companies are moving in to exploit Iraq’s vast energy reserves, the Mideast’s second largest after Saudi Arabia.

U.S. troop levels will remain high during Iraq’s December elections to ensure “security,” according to the Pentagon. In other words, ensuring the U.S.-selected regime “wins” the vote. Iraqi parties, notably Baath, opposing the U.S. occupation, are banned from running. Many Iraqis believe the U.S. will never leave their nation.

In short, contrary to all Obama’s high-blown rhetoric about pulling out of Iraq, Washington clearly intends it will remain a U.S. military, political and economic protectorate. Washington is following exactly the same control model the British Empire used to rule Iraq, and exploit its oil: Install a figurehead ruler, keep him in power using a “native” army (read today’s Iraqis army and police). RAF units based in Iraq (read U.S. air bases) bomb any rebellious areas. Smaller British ground units based in non-urban areas are on call to put down attempted coups against the king. The U.S. plan for Iraq is identical.

Obama made clear that officials responsible for the Iraq war, torture, kidnapping or assassination will not be prosecuted. The theft of over $50 billion in U.S. “reconstruction” funds sent to Iraq is being hushed up.

By contrast, Britons are demanding release of cabinet documents leading to war that are likely to expose Tony Blair’s lies and illegalities.

BYGONES

There is no corresponding call for justice in the United States. Obama tells the public, let bygones be bygones. Unless, of course, it’s Osama bin Laden.

Between 600,000 and one million Iraqis died as a result of President George W. Bush’s aggression, which cost nearly $1 trillion and some 4,500 U.S. dead. Four million Iraqis remain refugees. The U.S. holds over 20,000 Iraqi political prisoners.

Mr. President, this is not a bygone. It’s a historic crime that demands justice. Keep your word about withdrawing from Iraq. Enough with the Bush doubletalk.

© 2009 Toronto Sun

Eric Margolis is a columnist for The Toronto Sun. A veteran of many conflicts in the Middle East, Margolis recently was featured in a special appearance on Britain’s Sky News TV as “the man who got it right” in his predictions about the dangerous risks and entanglements the US would face in Iraq. His latest book is American Raj: Liberation or Domination?: Resolving the Conflict Between the West and the Muslim World

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Israel may face war crimes trials over Gaza

March 2, 2009

• International pressure grows over conflict

• Court looks at whether Palestinians can bring case

An injured Palestinian boy

A Palestinian man carries an injured boy into Shifa hospital in Gaza City during an Israeli attack on Gaza in January. Photograph: Khalil Hamra/AP

The international criminal court is considering whether the Palestinian Authority is “enough like a state” for it to bring a case alleging that Israeli troops committed war crimes in the recent assault on Gaza.

The deliberations would potentially open the way to putting Israeli military commanders in the dock at The Hague over the campaign, which claimed more than 1,300 lives, and set an important precedent for the court over what cases it can hear.

As part of the process the court’s head of jurisdictions, part of the office of the prosecutor, is examining every international agreement signed by the PA to decide whether it behaves – and is regarded by others – as operating like a state.

Following talks with the Arab League’s head, Amr Moussa, and senior PA officials, moves have accelerated inside the court to deliver a ruling on whether it may be able to insist on jurisdiction over alleged war crimes perpetrated in Gaza, with a decision from the prosecutor’s office expected within “months, not years”.

The issue arises because although the ICC potentially has “global jurisdiction” to investigate crimes which fall into its remit no matter where they were committed, Israel – despite having signed the Rome statute that founded the court and having expressed “deep sympathy” with the court’s goals – is not a party.

The ICC, which has 108 member states, has not so far recognised Palestine as a sovereign state or as a member.

The latest moves in The Hague come amid mounting international pressure on Israel and a growing recognition in Israeli government circles that it may eventually have to defend itself against war crimes allegations. The Guardian has also learned that a confidential inquiry by the International Committee of the Red Cross into the actions of Israel and Hamas during the recent conflict in Gaza is expected to accuse Israel of using “excessive force” – prohibited under the fourth Geneva convention.

The Red Cross has been collecting information for two parallel inquiries, one into the conduct of Israel and a second into Hamas, both of which will be presented in private to the parties involved.

In the case of Israel, the Red Cross is expected to highlight three areas of concern: the Israeli Defence Forces’ “use and choice of weapons in a complex and densely populated environment”; the issue of “proportionality”; and concerns over the IDF’s lack of distinction between combatants and non-combatants during Operation Cast Lead. Hamas is likely to be challenged over its use of civilian facilities as cover for its fighters; its summary executions and kneecappings of Palestinians during the campaign; and its indiscriminate firing of rockets into civilian areas.

Meanwhile, sources at the ICC say it is considering two potential tracks that would permit it to investigate what happened in Gaza. As well as determining whether the PA is recognised internationally as a sufficiently state-like entity, the head of jurisdictions in the office of the international criminal court’s prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, is looking at whether the court can consider war crimes allegations on the basis of the dual nationality of either victims or alleged perpetrators whose second passport is with a country party to the court.

The court’s deliberations follow more than 220 complaints about Israel’s actions in Gaza. “It does not matter necessarily whether the Palestinian National Authority is in charge of its own borders,” said a source at the court. “Right now the court is looking at everything from agreements it has signed on education to the constitution of its legal system.”

Yesterday, Ehud Olmert, Israel’s prime minister, warned Palestinian militants their continuing rocket attacks on Israel would not go unpunished. He said further strikes would “be answered with a painful, harsh, strong and uncompromising response from the security forces”. More than 100 rockets and mortars have exploded in Israel in the six weeks since it ended its air and ground assault on Gaza, to which the government has responded with airstrikes.

Olmert’s warning came as Israel’s attorney general notified the prime minister that he was considering indicting him on charges of allegedly taking cash-stuffed envelopes from a Jewish-American businessman. Five corruption cases are pending against Olmert, although he has denied all wrongdoing. His spokesman said yesterday the charges against the prime minister would “disappear in the end”.

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Political prisoners in Mexico

March 1, 2009
Lourdes Garcia Larque | Green Left, 28 February 2009

After seven-and-a-half years of unjust imprisonment, on February 16, the brothers Hector and Antonio Cerezo were released.

Together with their younger brother Alejandro Cerezo (released in 2005) and two other men, they were detained in August 2001, under the false accusations of being responsible for placing explosive artefacts in three branches of a bank and of being members of the People´s Revolutionary Armed Forces.

They were charged with “organised crime”, and “possession of weapons, ammunition and explosives”.

The Cerezo brothers were detained with no search or arrest warrant. During the detention they were tortured for 12 hours.

For over a year they were held in high security prisons without being charged. One of their lawyers, the human rights activist Digna Ochoa, was assassinated while representing them.

The detainees have suffered continuous harassment during their time in prison, including constant psychological torture, and long periods of isolation. In addition, their siblings outside jail and members of the human rights organisation Comite Cerezo have been constantly harassed and persecuted.

The case of the Cerezo brothers is not an isolated case of unjust imprisonment for political reasons. There are more than 500 political prisoners in Mexico today, the highest number since the “dirty war” of the ’60s and ’70s.

Since 2000, when the conservative National Action Party took office, a total of 900 people have been detained or persecuted for political reasons.

As was the case during the ’70s, the police and military have taken measures to stop and dissolve any political opposition. The dirty war of the ’60s and ’70s left us the inheritance of more than 500 disappeared, and several accounts of assassinations, torture and imprisonment.

Many of the prisoners in Mexico are indigenous people who were not even given an interpreter for their defence. Many are environmental activists who oppose transnational corporations stealing the natural wealth, or defend forests from being destroyed.

Many of them had been captured in frame-ups and massive police operations to stop social mobilisations, as was the case during the 2006 uprising in the state of Oaxaca.

In the Mexican jails there are several Zapatista supporters, students, and people defending their right to the land, human rights activists and sacked workers demanding the right to work.

There are prisoners of the insurgent groups the Popular Revolutionary Army and the Insurgent People’s Revolutionary Army.

Some famous cases include the Atenco leaders of the People´s Front in Defence of the Land, Ignacio del Valle and others, condemned to more than 67 years in prison — an exaggerated sentence that not even the most infamous professional and cruel kidnappers would face.

The military personnel and police officers who take part in the illegal detentions, physical aggression and sexual abuse of the victims, walk free on the streets and get promoted.

On the afternoon of February 16, Antonio Cerezo, now free, shouted to the crowd of activists waiting outside the jail: “Now we will keep fighting to release all the political prisoners in Mexico, and for all the disappeared from the past and the present”.

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The High-Minded Illiteracy Of the Indian Elite

March 1, 2009

By Badri Raina | ZNet, Feb 29, 2009

“No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law”

(Article 21, Constitution of India)

I

The atavistic blood-lust of India’s corporate-media elite has again been to the fore.

Same “premier” English channel; same “top-billed” programme (viz., Face the Nation), same uninterruptibly high-pitched compere, shriekingly anguished about the State’s less-than-murderous response to terrorist crimes.

Question posed for the day: should the lone Pakistani terrorist, Ajmal Kasab, now in Indian custody and duly chargesheeted, be given a fair trial? To wit, does he deserve to be so given etc.,

Argument: since everyone saw the chap on video going about his terrorist business, do we not need only to find the most convenient lamp-post to hang him by?

Indeed, does it matter what the Constitution of the Republic of India stipulates in matters of life, liberty, or death? And, in any case, should not an elite mob have the privilege to consider the Constitution amended through high-minded soundbyte? A self-evidently patriotic procedure that would save the state much money, and peremptorily assuage the damaged prestige of the wounded clan of celebrities who, after all, speak for the whole nation—slumdog and all; at the least those slumdogs who have now become celebrities.

Interestingly, we have not heard such lawless bloodthirstiness expressed in relation to the accused in the Malegaon terrorist blast case. Recall that those accused are also in custody, and have equally made admissible confessions with regard to their guilt. Indeed, in the latest of those confessions, Dayanand Pandey has averred that the money for the Malegaon terrorist act came from the ISI of Pakistan (no less), and through the agency of two senior leaders of the RSS, under the patronage and protection of the top man himself, namely, Shri Mohan Bhagwat.

A senior advocate on the programme clearly had a hard time balancing his soundbyte on the question posed about Ajmal Kasab, since he happens to be defending the accused in the Malegaon case.

Much as he would have liked to concur with the compere, he must have known how indefensible his defence of Sadhvi Pragya Thakur— allegedly, one of the chief perpetrators of the Malegaon blast—would have instantly become had he been tempted by the force of his cultural sympathies to argue that the Constitutional provisions of due process and fair trial need not apply to Kasab. After all, what is sauce for the goose must be sauce for the gander as well—at least for a practicing lawyer!


II

The instructive inference from all this is the following: India’s fattened, free-market elite never tire of singing praises of India’s democratic system, and of cocking a snook at the poor relations next door in Pakistan and Bangladesh where democracy never seems to take root.

But to this day, some sixty years after the Republic came into existence via the adoption of the Constitution, the further thought that its founding stipulations with regard to freedom and equality are compellingly grounded in the rule of laws and in their impartial and non-partisan application has not sunk in.

Or the fact that even when the rights of people are circumscribed, that too must happen through the enactment of legislative procedures. Something that Indira Gandhi did during the infamous Internal Emergency of the seventies.

And remember what howls that raised among precisely the sorts of people compering the programme I have talked about!

So that when our no-nonsense elite laud the no-nonsense confinement of “vicious” people in Guantanamo, they do not stop to think why the now thankfully bygone Bush had to find a place for them outside the juridical limits of them United States of America.

Because had they been confined within the territory of the State, they would have automatically, as per American law, become eligible to all the procedures and privileges that American laws furnish to its own citizens.

And that circumstance would have disallowed both torture and kangaroo justice of the kind that our own madam compere seemed to think warranted in the case of Kasab.


III

Indeed, a further compliment is due to American democracy.

Study any American election post the dismantling of racist discrimination and segregation, and you will find that it is never a matter of debate whether laws should apply differently to different people. What those laws should be invariably is the crux of the contentions, in relation either to domestic or foreign concerns.

Alas, we are not there yet.

Thus, in law, white-skinned Americans or Britons or others who have gone over to the Al Qaeda are as much terrorists as those whose skin colour is different, or who espouse a different faith. Those that did the Oklahoma killings found few voices that claimed that they could not be terrorists because they were white and Christian-born. Certainly, no TV channel spoke for them.

India is a different matter altogether: do we not hear from honourable right-wing leaders who aspire to lead the governance of the Republic that Hindus cannot be terrorists, because, being Hindus they must ipso facto be regarded as “nationalists”?

The sort of reason, after all, why no mention of the Malegaon accused—all Hindus—came up at all in the programme I have alluded to.

Or why the killers of the Bombay pogrom of 1992-93 or of Gujarat, 2002 are sought to be viewed through glasses of another make.

Imagine that even after the Special Investigation Team (SIT) mandated by the Supreme Court of India to reinvestigate some of the more unconscionably gruesome episodes of the Gujarat pogrom has reported on affidavit how the state machinery upto its eyebrows was complicit in the pogrom, how a senior minister of Modi’s cabinet, one thought especially close to him, was on the scene of the carnage, distributing swords to the mob and firing from her own pistol, how two of the most upright police officers swore to being asked by Modi personally to lay off the Hindu leaders of the pogrom, none of India’s premier channels has squeaked even to ask for the concerned minister to resign, not to speak of Modi to be indicted! Do recall that during the Gujarat pogrom, among the rapes and hackings, a woman’s womb was cut up and the foetus flung from the point of a sword.

To this day, no one, least of all Modi, has expressed regret, not to speak of owning up responsibility. Even as the chief perpetrators continue to roam free, the state has sought at every step to subvert the procedures and reach of the law—all that testified to by the SIT.

If anything, don’t you know, the same Modi is the cynosure today of some of India’s leading industrialists, and of TV channels busily projecting him as the most desirable candidate to be India’s Prime Minister.

Let it be said that even under the Bush regime, this would never have happened in America.


IV

The Hindu-elite-Indian’s take on the regime of laws and jurisprudence is illustrated literally everyday, of course, in one circumstance or the other But here is another notable instance, also pertaining to Gujarat.

Some months ago, the POTA Review Committee examining the cases of some 135 Muslims who have been rotting in Gujarat’s jails for seven long years as persons allegedly culpable in the Godhra train-burning episode under provisions of that draconian Act (since repealed by the current Indian government), determined that the Act did not apply to these persons, since the train-burning event did not qualify as a “terrorist” Act in the first place! The Committee held that the violence ensued as a consequence of an altercation between the karsevaks (the goons who were returning home after demolishing the Babri mosque, and traveling ticketless as well), and the vendors on the railway station at Godhra.

A finding that has since been upheld first by the Gujarat High Court, and now by the Supreme Court.

Any Gujarat heads rolled for this perfidy? Not a one. Any TV channel ask for such a head or two to roll? Forget it. They are all Muslims, after all! And Modi is the engine of a projected Hindu Rashtra (Theocratic Hindu State), one that promises much to billionaire fat-cats out to make further killings in socially neutered conditions.

Futile to recount what screams go up among the channels here when some elite suspect is held by the police just overnight in confinement, provided of course he is not Muslim.

V

India thus, in truth, is a democracy-in-the-making. Thankfully, a vast enough civil society remains fully engaged in ensuring that in addition to voting every five years, this democracy learns to recognize and accept that unless Indian democracy is also to descend to the arbitrary cronyisms of those that it fatuously derides, it must learn to embrace without question the tenets of citizenship, of universal human rights, and the dispassionate and egalitarian principles of equality before the laws, regardless of caste, creed, gender, language, or class which the Constitution mandates.

All this while many well-to-do Indians who have milked Indian democracy to the hilt thus far seem hell-bent to make of it a handmaiden to hate-filled, sectarian agendas, in addition to the interests of the class they represent and speak for.

Consider that everyday some right-winger or other is heard to scream why Afzal Guru, sentenced to death in the Parliament attack case, is still alive; but never asks the same question about Murugan, sentenced to death for the Rajiv Gandhi murder several years prior to the Parliament attack!

Simple enough reason: the one raises the possibility of causing an electorally fruitful sectarian divide among the polity, the other does not. So much for justice. And so much also for the corporate channels who never mention Murugan, even as Afzal is pressed into the service of talk shows and such-like intended to favour the communalists.

That the NDA government, led by the Hindu right-wind BJP (1998-2004) never did anything to carry out the Afzal or the Murugan sentences is of course another matter that concerns the media but scantily.

The fact is that even some Rajas and Mughal Kings of old had a more non-partisan devotion to the dispensation of justice than many of those who fulminate on behalf of Indian democracy in our day. Who more memorable than Jehangir as a dispenser of impartial justice?

________________________________________________________________
badri.raina@gmail.com

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Invaders of the mind

February 28, 2009
James Buchan on how an intellectual infiltration helped to civilise us

The theory of permanent Muslim-Christian enmity, though it flourishes in the caves of Tora Bora and parts of the American academy, was long ago exploded by the historians. In this clear and well-written book, Jonathan Lyons delves into all sorts of musty corners to show how Arabic science percolated into the Latin world in the middle ages and helped civilise a rude society.

  1. The House of Wisdom: How the Arabs Transformed Western Civilization
  2. by Jonathan Lyons
  3. 248pp,
  4. Bloomsbury,
  5. £20
  1. Buy at the Guardian bookshop

He tells how Arab advances in astronomy, mathematics, engineering, navigation, geography, medicine, architecture, chemistry, gardening, finance and verse passed into Europe by way of the Crusader kingdoms, Sicily and Spain and prepared the ground for both the Renaissance and the scientific advances of the 16th and 17th centuries. This infiltration of ideas has left traces in our language, from alcohol, algebra and algorithm to the Arabic names of the bright stars Betelgeuse and Aldebaran.

With the fall of the Roman empire in the west, Europe lost touch with much of its classical inheritance and was isolated by the Arab invasions from the Byzantine empire where some ancient learning survived. Lyons recounts how early medieval Christendom was unable accurately to measure the time of day for monastic offices, or fix the date of Easter, while dogmatic schemes of scripture and hierarchy left little scope for natural science. Aristotle’s influence was confined to the logic and rhetoric of the schools. Bishop Isidore of Seville promulgated the idea that the Earth was flat.

In contrast, when the Arabs conquered Iraq in the first half of the seventh century AD, they came upon living schools of Hellenistic learning in natural science and medicine, along with Indian mathematics and astronomy that had come by way of Iran. Systematic reasoning, driven out of Muslim jurisprudence in favour of precedents from the Prophet’s life and conduct, found a new field of inquiry in ancient geography and cosmology. After the founding of Baghdad in AD762, the Abbasid caliphs established a library and a team of translators at the Beit al-Hikma, the “House of Wisdom” of Lyons’s title.

A famous early catalogue of Arabic books known as the Fihrist lists as many as 80 Greek authors in Arabic translation, chief among them Aristotle, the mathematician Euclid and the medical philosophers Hippocrates and Galen. For this natural philosophy, the Arabs coined the word falsafa, and called its practitioners falasifa. The great Arabic philosophers such as Ibn Sina in Iran (known in Latin Europe as Avicenna, who died in 1037) and Ibn Rushd in Spain (Averroes, who died in 1198) found ways of inserting Aristotelian natural philosophy and Ptolemaic cosmology into a scriptural monotheism, which was precisely what the Latins needed. As Lyons writes, “Arabic replaced Greek as the universal language of scientific inquiry”.

He begins with a vivid contrast. In 1109, 10 years after the Crusaders sacked Jerusalem and put Muslims, Jews and eastern Christians to the sword, Adelard of Bath, a well-born scholar, set off for Antioch not to kill Muslims but, as he put it, “to investigate the studies of the Arabs” (studia arabum). As so often in medieval biography, a few “facts” are made to work hard, and some scholars (though not Lyons) doubt Adelard ever mastered Arabic. Nonetheless, he is thought to have taken part in translations from Arabic of Euclid’s geometric system, the elements, and the astronomical tables of al-Khwarizmi, and composed such original works as On the Use of the Astrolabe. For Lyons, Adelard is the “first man of science”. Such was the prestige of Arabic learning in England, according to a startling passage here, that partisans of King Henry II, during the quarrel with Rome over Thomas Becket, threatened the king would convert to Islam.

The new learning spread. By the middle of the 12th century, Euclid and Pythagoras are arrayed with the Virgin on the west front of Chartres cathedral. Lyons summons up a world of itinerant scholars such as Michael Scot, who (in the words of one monk) “in Paris seek liberal arts, in Orléans classics, at Salerno medicine, at Toledo magic, but nowhere manners and morals”. Scot found his way to the Arabising court of one of the “baptised Sultans”, the Emperor Frederick II, where he translated Arabic commentaries on Aristotle and helped promote the great mathematician Leonardo of Pisa. Leonardo, generally known as Fibonacci, gave a systematic account of the Arab/Indian numerical system and “the sign 0, which the Arabs call zephyr”, or rather sifr – and which we call the zero.

For the orthodox, these men reeked of brimstone, and Dante placed Michael with the wizards in the eighth circle of hell. St Thomas Aquinas brought a measure of peace to the church, but the systems of Aristotle and Ptolemy became rigid and brittle till they shattered in the Copernican revolution of the 16th century.

Why Muslim science and medicine remained in their medieval state in certain regions well into our lifetimes belongs to another book. For all Lyons’s wonder and admiration, the falasifa were always out of the mainstream of Muslim thought; they are best understood as a sort of sect, like the Shia, and were just as vulnerable to charges of heresy. The only small blemish in this fine book is that Lyons has printed a beautiful page of al-Biruni’s Arabic treatise on mathematics back to front, so the text can only be read in a mirror.

• James Buchan’s latest novel is The Gate of Air, published by Maclehose Press.

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