Vol 15, No.06 June 2015

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ARTICLES

THE SECRET CORPORATE TAKEOVER

. THE GREAT GAME IN THE HOLY LAND

BY MICHAEL SCHWARTZ................................P 6

.THE ROHINGYAS- A GLIMMER OF HOPE BY CHANDRA MUZAFFAR....................P2

. ISRAELIS AND SAUDIS REVEAL SECRET TALKS

TO THWART IRAN

BY ELI LAKE....................................................P 10

.REACHING YARMOUK!

BY FATHER DAVE..........................................P 11

. THE SCENE OF THE CRIME (PART 2)

BY SEYMOUR M. HERSH................................P 15

. BHAKTI- SUFI TRADITIONS: UNITING HUMANITY

BY RAM PUNIYANI.........................................P 17

STATEMENTS

.BRICS AND THE FICTION OF “DE-DOLLARIZATION”

BY PROF MICHEL CHOSSUDOVSKY....................P12

. U.S. BACKED WAR ON YEMEN LEAVES 20 MILLION

WITHOUT FOOD, WATER, MEDICAL CARE

BY BILL VAN AUKEN.........................................P 5

By Joseph E. Stiglitz

The United States and the world are engaged

in a great debate about new trade agreements.

Such pacts used to be called “free-trade

agreements”; in fact, they were managed trade

agreements, tailored to corporate interests,

largely in the US and the European Union.

Today, such deals are more often referred to

as “partnerships,”as in the Trans-Pacific

Partnership (TPP). But they are not

partnerships of equals: the US effectively

dictates the terms. Fortunately, America’s

“partners” are becoming increasingly resistant.

It is not hard to see why. These agreements

go well beyond trade, governing investment

and intellectual property as well, imposing

fundamental changes to countries’ legal,

judicial, and regulatory frameworks, without

input or accountability through democratic

institutions.

Perhaps the most invidious – and most

dishonest – part of such agreements

concerns investor protection. Of course,

investors have to be protected against the

risk that rogue governments will seize their

property. But that is not what these

provisions are about. There have been very

few expropriations in recent decades, and

investors who want to protect themselves

can buy insurance from the Multilateral

Investment Guarantee Agency, a World

Bank affiliate (the US and other

governments provide similar insurance).

Nonetheless, the US is demanding such

provisions in the TPP, even though many

of its “partners” have property protections

and judicial systems that are as good as its

own.

The real intent of these provisions is to

impede health, environmental, safety, and,

yes, even financial regulations meant to

protect America’s own economy and

.THE ROHINGYAS- STOP PERSECUTION: END THE EXODUS BY HASSANAL NOOR RASHID.............P4

citizens. Companies can sue

governments for full compensation for

any reduction in their future expected

profits resulting from regulatory

changes.

This is not just a theoretical possibility.

Philip Morris is suing Uruguay and

Australia for requiring warning labels on

cigarettes. Admittedly, both countries

went a little further than the US,

mandating the inclusion of graphic images

showing the consequences of cigarette

smoking.

The labeling is working. It is discouraging

smoking. So now Philip Morris is

demanding to be compensated for lost

profits.

In the future, if we discover that some

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other product causes health problems

(think of asbestos), rather than facing

lawsuits for the costs imposed on us,

the manufacturer could sue governments

for restraining them from killing more

people. The same thing could happen if

our governments impose more stringent

regulations to protect us from the impact

of greenhouse-gas emissions.

When I chaired President Bill Clinton’s

Council of Economic Advisers, anti-

environmentalists tried to enact a similar

provision, called “regulatory takings.”

They knew that once enacted, regulations

would be brought to a halt, simply

because government could not afford to

pay the compensation. Fortunately, we

succeeded in beating back the initiative,

both in the courts and in the US

Congress.

But now the same groups are attempting

an end run around democratic processes

by inserting such provisions in trade bills,

the contents of which are being kept

largely secret from the public (but not

from the corporations that are pushing

for them). It is only from leaks, and from

talking to government officials who seem

more committed to democratic

processes, that we know what is

happening.

Fundamental to America’s system of

government is an impartial public

judiciary, with legal standards built up

over the decades, based on principles of

transparency, precedent, and the

opportunity to appeal unfavorable

decisions. All of this is being set aside,

as the new agreements call for private,

non-transparent, and very expensive

arbitration. Moreover, this arrangement

is often rife with conflicts of interest;

for example, arbitrators may be a “judge”

in one case and an advocate in a related

case.

The proceedings are so expensive that

Uruguay has had to turn to Michael

Bloomberg and other wealthy Americans

committed to health to defend itself

against Philip Morris. And, though

corporations can bring suit, others

cannot. If there is a violation of other

commitments – on labor and

environmental standards, for example –

citizens, unions, and civil-society groups

have no recourse.

If there ever was a one-sided dispute-

resolution mechanism that violates basic

principles, this is it. That is why I joined

leading US legal experts, including from

Harvard, Yale, and Berkeley, in writing a

letter to President Barack Obama

explaining how damaging to our system

of justice these agreements are.

American supporters of such agreements

point out that the US has been sued only a

few times so far, and has not lost a case.

Corporations, however, are just learning

how to use these agreements to their

advantage.

And high-priced corporate lawyers in the

US, Europe, and Japan will likely outmatch

the underpaid government lawyers

attempting to defend the public interest.

Worse still, corporations in advanced

countries can create subsidiaries in member

countries through which to invest back

home, and then sue, giving them a new

channel to bloc regulations.

If there were a need for better property

protection, and if this private, expensive

dispute-resolution mechanism were superior

to a public judiciary, we should be changing

the law not just for well-heeled foreign

companies, but also for our own citizens

and small businesses. But there has been

no suggestion that this is the case.

Rules and regulations determine the kind of

economy and society in which people live.

They affect relative bargaining power, with

important implications for inequality, a

growing problem around the world. The

question is whether we should allow rich

corporations to use provisions hidden in so-

called trade agreements to dictate how we

will live in the twenty-first century. I hope

citizens in the US, Europe, and the Pacific

answer with a resounding no.

13 May 2015

Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate in

economics and University Professor at

Columbia University, was Chairman of

President Bill Clinton’s Council of Economic

Advisers and served as Senior Vice

President and Chief Economist of the World

Bank.

Source : www.project-syndicate.org

THE ROHINGYAS- A GLIMMER OF HOPE

STATEMENTS

By Chandra Muzaffar

It is commendable that the Malaysian

government has undertaken a systematic

Search and Rescue (SAR) operation in

the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal

aimed at saving the lives of thousands

of stranded Rohingyas and Bangladeshis.

The right to life is the highest human

right and all the governments in ASEAN

should have committed themselves to

this sacred principle at the very outset

of the present crisis.

S T A T E M E N T

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Civil society organizations in the region

should also assist in whatever way they can.

In this regard, the effort of Malaysian

philanthropist, Tan Sri Vincent Tan, is

praiseworthy. He was not only among the

first to appeal to the Malaysian government

to launch a humanitarian mission on behalf

of the stranded Rohingyas and Bangladeshis

but has also on his own sent aid in the form

of medicines, food and water to the

Malaysian Navy and the Malaysian Maritime

Enforcement Agency (MMEA) to be

distributed to the refugees and migrants in

rickety boats at sea.

However, to conduct SAR operations

without taking other measures to stem the

flow of refugees and migrants into the

region would not be a wise thing to do.

There must also be a robust ASEAN policy

implemented immediately with the

cooperation of the governments of

Myanmar and Bangladesh to destroy people

smuggling syndicates in those two countries

and in the ASEAN region. Intelligence

gathering capabilities should be enhanced

to enable the authorities to act against the

kingpins in these syndicates before their

boats set sail. More important, corruption

which is one of the main reasons why

human trafficking thrives should be weeded

out. Enforcement agencies not only in

Myanmar and Bangladesh but also within

ASEAN should be purged of corrupt

personnel.

If this is done, it would be easier to repatriate

Bangladeshi migrants to their country. Unlike

the Rohingyas of Myanmar, the vast majority

of Bangladeshis appear to be economic

migrants escaping poverty at home and

hoping to secure decent jobs in Malaysia

and other ASEAN countries. It is revealing

that about 700 of the 1,100 people given

temporary shelter in Langkawi in northern

Malaysia in the last two weeks are actually

Bangladeshi migrants.

As far as the Rohingyas are concerned, the

Malaysian and other ASEAN governments

should increase persuasion and pressure

upon the Myanmar government to treat

these refugees as human beings and

citizens. The fetters imposed upon them

by the State on various aspects of their

lives — their right to employment, to

education, to health care, to free movement

— should be removed immediately. Most

of all, the citizenship of the Rohingya

minority which was rescinded by the

military junta in power in Myanmar in 1982,

should be restored. It is the loss of

citizenship which is the root cause of their

suffering. It is this that has rendered the

Rohingya one of the most persecuted

minorities in the world.

It is encouraging that the Foreign Minister

of Myanmar in his meeting with his

Malaysian counterpart in Naypyitaw ( the

capital of Myanmar) yesterday indicated

that his government was prepared to

cooperate fully with Malaysia in trying to

resolve the crisis involving Rakhine state (

the province in Myanmar where the

Rohingya live). Other ASEAN governments

should also persuade the Myanmar

government to address the root cause of

the crisis. Indeed other Asian governments

such as China, India, Japan and South

Korea should also play their role. China in

particular with its extensive economic ties

with Myanmar — including investments

in Rakhine — should make it very clear

that it is deeply concerned about the plight

of the Rohingya people. It is a pity that it

has been rather quiet on this fundamental

question of human dignity. The United

States and the European Union who had

once imposed sanctions upon Myanmar

because of its appalling human rights record

underscored by the detention of Aung San

Suu Kyi should now apply maximum

diplomatic pressure upon Myanmar to

compel it to accord a modicum of respect

to the persecuted Rohingya minority. If the

Myanmar government does not respond

positively to world opinion, the United

Nations should once again focus upon

Myanmar and its abysmal treatment of the

Rohingya and other minorities.

This is perhaps the right time for the

world to act for two reasons. One, the

tragedy of thousands of human beings

struggling to survive — many have died

of starvation — in the open sea has

pierced the conscience of humanity as

never before at least on the question of

the fate of the Rohingyas. Two, there

are now influential voices within

Myanmar pleading with the government

to grant citizenship to the Rohingyas. In

a recent media interview, a spokesperson

of the National League for Democracy

(NLD), the main opposition party in the

country, has called upon the government

to recognize Rohingyas who have lived

in Myanmar for generations as citizens

with the same rights as other Myanmar

citizens. A leading Buddhist monk, U

Pinyasiha, has also asked the government

of Thein Sein to resolve the issue of

citizenship for the Rohingyas. From the

perspective of Buddhist principles, which

emphasize saving lives and showing

compassion to fellow human beings

regardless of religion, it is only right, he

has argued, to help the Rohingyas.

Let’s hope that the Myanmar

government will now listen and act.

*The NCD had subsequently denied

authority any such statement.

-editor.

22 May 2015

Dr. Chandra Muzaffar is the President

of the International Movement for a Just

World (JUST).

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S T A T E M E N T S

THE ROHINGYAS: STOP PERSECUTION: END THE EXODUS

By Hassanal Noor Rahshid

It is imperative that the Rohingya issue be

addressed as soon as possible.

The plight faced by these persecuted people

has been thrust into the headlines of

international news recently, following cases

of thousands of boat people stranded at sea

as well as reports of slave labour camps

and mass graves.

These Rohingya immigrants who sought

to escape persecution from a country that

has long eroded their cultural identity and

civil rights, entrusted themselves to

opportunistic and deceitful human

traffickers who see their plight not as a

humanitarian issue, but as nothing more than

a lucrative opportunity. This has resulted in

extreme cases where people were allegedly

thrown overboard, or whole ships left

abandoned, its passengers left to fend for

themselves against the harsh elements of

the sea, many suffering and succumbing

to malnutrition.

At least 30 mass graves have been

discovered at the identified slave camps near

the south of Thailand in the Songkla

province.Survivors of such camps report

of the deplorable conditions they have been

forced to live in as well as the alleged use of

coercion and violence to extort more money

from the Rohingya families.

As Malaysia shares the borders close to

where this incident has happened, it is feared

that such camps may exist within

Malaysia’s boundaries and perhaps Malaysia

has unknowingly facilitated the trafficking

and abuse of the Rohingya people.

However while the responses have been

mainly aimed towards the human

traffickers, with military action being

considered, there is a far greater crime being

played out that demands justice for these

people who have to suffer so much

unnecessary hardships.

The Myanmar government is equally, if not

wholly responsible, for the sorry state of

affairs the Rohingyas find themselves in.

As noted by the report published by the

Equal Rights Trust, the Rohingyas trace

their ancestral roots in the Rakhine region

several centuries back, long before the

creation of modern day Myanmar. The term

is derived from the word Rohang which is

the name of the Rakhine state. 1

This claim to historical ancestry is

rejected on many levels in Myanmar.The

Myanmar government claims that the

Rohingyas are in fact migrants from

Bangladesh and have no rights to

indigenous identity in Myanmar. The

term” Rohingya” is not recognized by

the government and the Rohingya people

— in spite of their protest and rejection

—- are referred to as Bengali.

The result of this unwillingness to recognize

that the Rohingyas are part of the Myanmar

demographic landscape, coupled with their

contentious religious relationship with the

majority Buddhist populace which denies

much of the historical Muslim influences

upon Rakhine state, have led to the

purposeful and systematic deprivation of

the civil rights of the Rohingya community.

The Rohingyas are prevented from using

the term in official documentation including

identity cards, passports and were even

disqualified from the country’s census of

March 2014 unless they agreed to the term

Bengali.

The consequence of this can be seen now

as many Rohingyas, who possess no legal

documentation, have become stateless and

have been forced to flee Myanmar in order

to escape persecution in a country that has

become —- as some have described it —

- an open-air prison.

The Rohingyas have no other alternatives

than to procure the services of smugglers,

who they pay a significant amount of money

in order to obtain passage to another

country. The problem then morphs into

human trafficking.These refugees are

unknowingly trading one prison for another.

It is therefore not enough to address the

issue of human trafficking by bringing the

traffickers themselves to justice. It is

necessary to make the Myanmar

government accountable for this travesty,

addressing the problem of ethnic

persecution within the country itself and

ensuring that the civil rights of the Rohingyas

are restored, or, at the very least, their basic

human rights respected.

The only significant hindrance would be the

strict adherence to the non-interference

policy which ASEAN governments have

maintained. Malaysia and Indonesia have

turned away many of the boats opting to

send these refugees back to the country that

does not recognize their basic humanity. The

Malaysian and Indonesian governments do

not want to be inundated with illegal

immigrants that they just cannot cope with.

There is a distinction that needs to be

made between refugees and illegal

immigrants, as the current discourse

labels the Rohingyas mainly as the latter,

when in fact given the mentioned

historical and political context, it would

be more appropriate to term the

Rohingyas as political refugees.

With the increasing outflow of these

refugees from Myanmar, the ASEAN policy

of non-interference has proven to be

untenable, given the humanitarian crisis

which has gotten far worse over the years.

The Malaysian, Indonesian and Thai

governments should apply diplomatic

pressure immediately upon the Myanmar

government to address the root problem

which is the persecution of the Rohingyas.

Once the persecution stops, the massive

exodus of refugees through land and sea

will also come to an end.

15 May 2015

Hassanal Noor Rashid is the Program

Coordinator of the International Movement

for a Just World (JUST)

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A R T I C L E S

ARTICLES

U.S.-BACKED WAR ON YEMEN LEAVES 20 MILLION WITHOUT

FOOD, WATER, MEDICAL CARE

By Bill Van Auken

The US-backed war against Yemen has

left some 20 million people—nearly 80

percent of the country’s population—

facing a humanitarian disaster, without

access to adequate food, water and

medical care, the United Nations top

aid official informed member nations

of the UN Security Council this week.

UN Emergency Relief Coordinator

Stephen O’Brien described the

situation confronting the population of

the Arab world’s poorest country as

“catastrophic,” placing much of the

blame on the Saudi-led air strikes that

have devastated Yemeni cities, and

Saudi Arabia’s blockade of Yemen’s

ports, which have prevented not only

the arrival of emergency relief supplies

but also the basic flow of goods that

existed before the war.

“The blockade means it’s impossible

to bring anything into the country,”

Nuha Abdul Jaber, Oxfam’s

humanitarian program director in the

Yemeni capital of Sanaa told the

Guardian newspaper. “There are lots

of ships, with basic things like flour,

that are not allowed to approach. The

situation is deteriorating, hospitals are

now shutting down, without diesel.

People are dying of simple diseases. It

is becoming almost impossible to

survive.”

The Guardian , citing a report by the

aid group Save the Children, reported

that hospitals have closed down in at

least 18 of the country’s 22 governates,

along with 153 health centers that

provided nutrition to at-risk children

and 158 outpatient clinics that treated

children under five. “At the same time,

due to lack of clean water and

sanitation, cholera and other diseases

are on the rise,” the paper reported.

“A dengue fever outbreak has been

reported in Aden.”

The Saudi monarchy, meanwhile, has

provided none of the $274 million for

an emergency humanitarian fund that

it promised to create when, in late

April, it announced an end to what it

had dubbed “Operation Decisive

Storm” and declared that it would shift

from military operations to “the

political process.”

Since then, along with the blockade,

the air war against Yemen’s

impoverished population, now in its

third month, has continued unabated.

On Wednesday and Thursday alone,

at least 58 civilians were reported killed,

as bombs struck a number of areas

including in the north near the Saudi

Arabian border, where 48 people,

mostly women and children, were

reported killed in a single village.

According to the UN’s estimate, at

least 2,000 civilians have lost their lives

since the onset of the war.

The Obama administration has provided

the Saudis with logistical and

intelligence support, helping to select

targets for bombardment, sending

refueling planes to keep the bombers

of Saudi Arabia and its Gulf monarchy

allies in the air and rushing bombs and

missiles to replace those dropped on

Yemen.

It was reported Thursday that the

leadership of the Houthi rebels have

agreed to attend UN-brokered peace

talks in Geneva on June 14. Agence

France Presse quoted Daifallah al-

Shami, a politburo member of the

Houthi militia’s political wing as saying,

“We accepted the invitation of the

United Nations to go to the negotiating

table in Geneva without preconditions.”

The rebels have refused to submit to a

one-sided resolution pushed through

the United Nations Security Council in

April by the US and its allies (with

Russia abstaining), imposing an arms

embargo directed solely against the

Houthi rebels, while demanding that

they disarm, cede territory under their

control and recognize the government

of President Abd Rabbuh Mansour

Hadi, a puppet of Washington and Saudi

Arabia, who fled the country in March.

The Security Council resolution made

no criticism whatsoever of the Saudi

air strikes, launched against a civilian

population in violation of international

laws against aggressive war.

Representatives of Hadi, who is holed

up in Riyadh, are also reported to have

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A R T I C L E S

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agreed to attend the Geneva talks.

Previously, Hadi had demanded that the

Houthis bow to the UN Security

Council resolution before any peace

talks.

Also expected to join the talks are

representatives of former president and

longtime strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh,

whose loyalists allied themselves with

the Houthis.

Not expected to participate are rebel

factions in the south of Yemen who

have resisted the Houthis but have no

interest in restoring Hadi to power,

fighting instead for the independence

of South Yemen, a former British

colony which existed as an independent

state aligned with the former Soviet

Union before its unification with the

north in 1990. That unity broke down

in 1994, resulting in a civil war that

ended with the secessionist south

defeated and forced back into

unification.

The war in Yemen has led to a

ratcheting up of tensions throughout

the region, with the Saudi monarchy

and Washington both charging Iran with

supporting the Houthis, who are based

among the Zaidi Shiites, and who make

up approximately one third of Yemen’s

population, dominating the north of the

country.

Washington has repeatedly charged

Tehran with supplying arms to the

Houthis, while presenting no evidence.

Iran has denied the charges.

06 June 2015

Bill Van Auken is a politician and

activist for the Socialist Equality Party

and was a presidential candidate in the

U.S. presidential election of 2004,

announcing his candidacy on January

27, 2004. His running mate was Jim

Lawrence.

Source: WSWS.org

THE GREAT GAME IN THE HOLY LAND

By Michael Schwartz

How Gazan Natural Gas Became the

Epicenter of An International Power

Struggle

Guess what? Almost all the current wars,

uprisings, and other conflicts in the Middle

East are connected by a single thread, which

is also a threat: these conflicts are part of an

increasingly frenzied competition to find,

extract, and market fossil fuels whose future

consumption is guaranteed to lead to a set

of cataclysmic environmental crises.

Amid the many fossil-fueled conflicts in the

region, one of them, packed with threats,

large and small, has been largely overlooked,

and Israel is at its epicenter. Its origins can

be traced back to the early 1990s when

Israeli and Palestinian leaders began sparring

over rumored natural gas deposits in the

Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Gaza.

In the ensuing decades, it has grown into a

many-fronted conflict involving several

armies and three navies. In the process, it

has already inflicted mindboggling misery

on tens of thousands of Palestinians, and it

threatens to add future layers of misery to

the lives of people in Syria, Lebanon, and

Cyprus. Eventually, it might even immiserate

Israelis.

Resource wars are, of course, nothing new.

Virtually the entire history of Western

colonialism and post-World War II

globalization has been animated by the effort

to find and market the raw materials needed

to build or maintain industrial capitalism. This

includes Israel’s expansion into, and

appropriation of, Palestinian lands. But fossil

fuels only moved to center stage in the

Israeli-Palestinian relationship in the 1990s,

and that initially circumscribed conflict only

spread to include Syria, Lebanon, Cyprus,

Turkey, and Russia after 2010.

The Poisonous History of Gazan Natural

Gas

Back in 1993, when Israel and the Palestinian

Authority (PA) signed the Oslo Accords that

were supposed to end the Israeli occupation

of Gaza and the West Bank and create a

sovereign state, nobody was thinking much

about Gaza’s coastline. As a result, Israel

agreed that the newly created PA would

fully control its territorial waters, even

though the Israeli navy was still patrolling

the area. Rumored natural gas deposits there

mattered little to anyone, because prices

were then so low and supplies so plentiful.

No wonder that the Palestinians took their

time recruiting British Gas (BG) — a major

player in the global natural gas sweepstakes

— to find out what was actually there. Only

in 2000 did the two parties even sign a

modest contract to develop those by-then

confirmed fields.

BG promised to finance and manage their

development, bear all the costs, and operate

the resulting facilities in exchange for 90%

of the revenues, an exploitative but typical

“profit-sharing” agreement. With an already

functioning natural gas industry, Egypt

agreed to be the on-shore hub and transit

point for the gas. The Palestinians were to

receive 10% of the revenues (estimated at

about a billion dollars in total) and were

guaranteed access to enough gas to meet

their needs.

Had this process moved a little faster, the

contract might have been implemented as

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written. In 2000, however, with a rapidly

expanding economy, meager fossil fuels,

and terrible relations with its oil-rich

neighbors, Israel found itself facing a

chronic energy shortage. Instead of

attempting to answer its problem with

an aggressive but feasible effort to

develop renewable sources of energy,

Prime Minister Ehud Barak initiated the

era of Eastern Mediterranean fossil fuel

conflicts. He brought Israel’s naval

control of Gazan coastal waters to bear

and nixed the deal with BG. Instead, he

demanded that Israel, not Egypt, receive

the Gaza gas and that it also control all

the revenues destined for the Palestinians

— to prevent the money from being used

to “fund terror.”

With this, the Oslo Accords were

officially doomed. By declaring

Palestinian control over gas revenues

unacceptable, the Israeli government

committed itself to not accepting even

the most limited kind of Palestinian

budgetary autonomy, let alone full

sovereignty. Since no Palestinian

government or organization would agree

to this, a future filled with armed conflict

was assured.

The Israeli veto led to the intervention of

British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who

sought to broker an agreement that would

satisfy both the Israeli government and

the Palestinian Authority. The result: a

2007 proposal that would have delivered

the gas to Israel, not Egypt, at below-

market prices, with the same 10% cut

of the revenues eventually reaching the

PA. However, those funds were first to

be delivered to the Federal Reserve Bank

in New York for future distribution,

which was meant to guarantee that they

would not be used for attacks on Israel.

This arrangement still did not satisfy the

Israelis, who pointed to the recent victory

of the militant Hamas party in Gaza

elections as a deal-breaker. Though

Hamas had agreed to let the Federal

Reserve supervise all spending, the Israeli

government, now led by Ehud Olmert,

insisted that no “royalties be paid to the

Palestinians.” Instead, the Israelis would

deliver the equivalent of those funds “in

goods and services.”

This offer the Palestinian government

refused. Soon after, Olmert imposed a

draconian blockade on Gaza, which

Israel’s defense minister termed a form

of “‘economic warfare’ that would

generate a political crisis, leading to a

popular uprising against Hamas.” With

Egyptian cooperation, Israel then seized

control of all commerce in and out of

Gaza, severely limiting even food imports

and eliminating its fishing industry. As

Olmert advisor Dov Weisglass summed

up this agenda, the Israeli government

was putting the Palestinians “on a diet”

(which, according to the Red Cross,

soon produced “chronic malnutrition,”

especially among Gazan children).

When the Palestinians still refused to

accept Israel’s terms, the Olmert

government decided to unilaterally extract

the gas, something that, they believed,

could only occur once Hamas had been

displaced or disarmed. As former Israel

Defense Forces commander and current

Foreign Minister Moshe Ya’alon

explained, “Hamas... has confirmed its

capability to bomb Israel’s strategic gas

and electricity installations... It is clear

that, without an overall military operation

to uproot Hamas control of Gaza, no

drilling work can take place without the

consent of the radical Islamic

movement.”

Following this logic, Operation Cast Lead

was launched in the winter of 2008.

According to Deputy Defense Minister

Matan Vilnai, it was intended to subject

Gaza to a “shoah” (the Hebrew word

for holocaust or disaster). Yoav Galant,

the commanding general of the

Operation, said that it was designed to

“send Gaza decades into the past.” As

Israeli parliamentarian Tzachi Hanegbi

explained, the specific military goal was

“to topple the Hamas terror regime and

take over all the areas from which rockets

are fired on Israel.”

Operation Cast Lead did indeed “send

Gaza decades into the past.” Amnesty

International reported that the 22-day

offensive killed 1,400 Palestinians,

“including some 300 children and

hundreds of other unarmed civilians, and

large areas of Gaza had been razed to

the ground, leaving many thousands

homeless and the already dire economy

in ruins.” The only problem: Operation

Cast Lead did not achieve its goal of

“transferring the sovereignty of the gas

fields to Israel.”

More Sources of Gas Equal More

Resource Wars

In 2009, the newly elected government

of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

inherited the stalemate around Gaza’s gas

deposits and an Israeli energy crisis that

only grew more severe when the Arab

Spring in Egypt interrupted and then

obliterated 40% of the country’s gas

supplies. Rising energy prices soon

contributed to the largest protests

involving Jewish Israelis in decades.

As it happened, however, the Netanyahu

regime also inherited a potentially

permanent solution to the problem. An

immense field of recoverable natural gas

was discovered in the Levantine Basin, a

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mainly offshore formation under the

eastern Mediterranean. Israeli officials

immediately asserted that “most” of the

newly confirmed gas reserves lay “within

Israeli territory.” In doing so, they

ignored contrary claims by Lebanon,

Syria, Cyprus, and the Palestinians.

In some other world, this immense gas

field might have been effectively exploited

by the five claimants jointly, and a

production plan might even have been

put in place to ameliorate the

environmental impact of releasing a future

130 trillion cubic feet of gas into the

planet’s atmosphere. However, as Pierre

Terzian, editor of the oil industry journal

Petrostrategies, observed, “All the

elements of danger are there... This is a

region where resorting to violent action

is not something unusual.”

In the three years that followed the

discovery, Terzian’s warning seemed ever

more prescient. Lebanon became the first

hot spot. In early 2011, the Israeli

government announced the unilateral

development of two fields, about 10%of

that Levantine Basin gas, which lay in

disputed offshore waters near the Israeli-

Lebanese border. Lebanese Energy

Minister Gebran Bassil immediately

threatened a military confrontation,

asserting that his country would “not

allow Israel or any company working for

Israeli interests to take any amount of

our gas that is falling in our zone.”

Hezbollah, the most aggressive political

faction in Lebanon, promised rocket

attacks if “a single meter” of natural gas

was extracted from the disputed fields.

Israel’s Resource Minister accepted the

challenge, asserting that “[t]hese areas

are within the economic waters of Israel...

We will not hesitate to use our force and

strength to protect not only the rule of

law but the international maritime law.”

Oil industry journalist Terzian offered this

analysis of the realities of the

confrontation:

“In practical terms... nobody is going to

invest with Lebanon in disputed waters.

There are no Lebanese companies there

capable of carrying out the drilling, and

there is no military force that could protect

them. But on the other side, things are

different. You have Israeli companies that

have the ability to operate in offshore

areas, and they could take the risk under

the protection of the Israeli military.”

Sure enough, Israel continued its

exploration and drilling in the two disputed

fields, deploying drones to guard the

facilities. Meanwhile, the Netanyahu

government invested major resources in

preparing for possible future military

confrontations in the area. For one thing,

with lavish U.S. funding, itdeveloped the

“Iron Dome” anti-missile defense system

designed in part to intercept Hezbollah and

Hamas rockets aimed at Israeli energy

facilities. It also expanded the Israeli navy,

focusing on its ability to deter or repel

threats to offshore energy facilities.

Finally, starting in 2011 it launched

airstrikes in Syria designed, according to

U.S. officials, “to prevent any transfer

of advanced... antiaircraft, surface-to-

surface and shore-to-ship missiles” to

Hezbollah.

Nonetheless, Hezbollah continued to

stockpile rockets capable of demolishing

Israeli facilities. And in 2013, Lebanon

made a move of its own. It began

negotiating with Russia. The goal was to

get that country’s gas firms to develop

Lebanese offshore claims, while the

formidable Russian navy would lend a

hand with the “long-running territorial

dispute with Israel.”

By the beginning of 2015, a state of

mutual deterrence appeared to be setting

in. Although Israel had succeeded in

bringing online the smaller of the two

fields it set out to develop, drilling in the

larger one was indefinitely stalled”in light

of the security situation.” U.S.

contractor Noble Energy, hired by the

Israelis, was unwilling to invest the

necessary $6 billion dollars in facilities

that would be vulnerable to Hezbollah

attack, and potentially in the gun sights

of the Russian navy. On the Lebanese

side, despite an increased Russian naval

presence in the region, no work had

begun.

Meanwhile, in Syria, where violence was

rife and the country in a state of armed

collapse, another kind of stalemate went

into effect. The regime of Bashar al-

Assad, facing a ferocious threat from

various groups of jihadists, survived in

part by negotiating massive military

support from Russia in exchange for a

25-year contract to develop Syria’s

claims to that Levantine gas field.

Included in the deal was a major

expansion of the Russian naval base at

the port city of Tartus, ensuring a far

larger Russian naval presence in the

Levantine Basin.

While the presence of the Russians

apparently deterred the Israelis from

attempting to develop any Syrian-

claimed gas deposits, there was no

Russian presence in Syria proper. So

Israel contracted with the U.S.-based

Genie Energy Corporation to locate and

develop oil fields in the Golan Heights,

Syrian territory occupied by the Israelis

since 1967. Facing a potential violation

of international law, the Netanyahu

government invoked, as the basis for

its acts, an Israeli court ruling that the

exploitation of natural resources in

occupied territories was legal. At the

same time, to prepare for the inevitable

battle with whichever faction or factions

emerged triumphant from the Syrian

civil war, it began shoring up the Israeli

military presence in the Golan Heights.

And then there was Cyprus, the only

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Levantine claimant not at war with

Israel. Greek Cypriots had long been

in chronic conflict with Turkish

Cypriots, so it was hardly surprising

that the Levantine natural gas discovery

triggered three years of deadlocked

negotiations on the island over what to

do. In 2014, the Greek Cypriots signed

an exploration contract with Noble

Energy, Israel’s chief contractor. The

Turkish Cypriots trumped this move

by signing a contract with Turkey to

explore all Cypriot claims “as far as

Egyptian waters.” Emulating Israel and

Russia, the Turkish government

promptly moved three navy vessels into

the area to physically block any

intervention by other claimants.

As a result, four years of maneuvering

around the newly discovered Levantine

Basin deposits have produced little

energy, but brought new and powerful

claimants into the mix, launched a

significant military build-up in the

region, and heightened tensions

immeasurably.

Gaza Again — and Again

Remember the Iron Dome system,

developed in part to stop Hezbollah

rockets aimed at Israel’s northern gas

fields? Over time, it was put in place

near the border with Gaza to stop

Hamas rockets, and was tested during

Operation Returning Echo, the fourth

Israeli military attempt to bring Hamas

to heel and eliminate any Palestinian

“capability to bomb Israel’s strategic

gas and electricity installations.”

Launched in March 2012, it replicated

on a reduced scale the devastation of

Operation Cast Lead, while the Iron

Dome achieved a 90% “kill rate” against

Hamas rockets. Even this, however,

while a useful adjunct to the vast

shelter system built to protect Israeli

civilians, was not enough to ensure the

protection of the country’s exposed oil

facilities. Even one direct hit there

could damage or demolish such fragile

and flammable structures.

The failure of Operation Returning Echo

to settle anything triggered another round

of negotiations, which once again stalled

over the Palestinian rejection of Israel’s

demand to control all fuel and revenues

destined for Gaza and the West Bank.

The new Palestinian Unity government

then followed the lead of the Lebanese,

Syrians, and Turkish Cypriots, and in late

2013 signed an “exploration concession”

with Gazprom, the huge Russian natural

gas company. As with Lebanon and

Syria, the Russian Navy loomed as a

potential deterrent to Israeli interference.

Meanwhile, in 2013, a new round of

energy blackouts caused “chaos” across

Israel, triggering a draconian 47%

increase in electricity prices. In response,

the Netanyahu government considered

a proposal to begin extracting domestic

shale oil, but the potential contamination

of water resources caused a backlash

movement that frustrated this effort. In

a country filled with start-up high-tech

firms, the exploitation of renewable

energy sources was still not being given

serious attention. Instead, the

government once again turned to Gaza.

With Gazprom’s move to develop the

Palestinian-claimed gas deposits on the

horizon, the Israelis launched their fifth

military effort to force Palestinian

acquiescence, Operation Protective Edge.

It had two major hydrocarbon-related

goals: to deter Palestinian-Russian plans

and to finally eliminate the Gazan rocket

systems. The first goal was apparently

met when Gazprom postponed (perhaps

permanently) its development deal. The

second, however, failed when the two-

pronged land and air attack — despite

unprecedented devastation in Gaza —

failed to destroy Hamas’s rocket

stockpiles or its tunnel-based assembly

system; nor did the Iron Dome achieve

the sort of near-perfect interception rate

needed to protect proposed energy

installations.

There Is No Denouement

After 25 years and five failed Israeli

military efforts, Gaza’s natural gas is still

underwater and, after four years, the

same can be said for almost all of the

Levantine gas. But things are not the

same. In energy terms, Israel is ever

more desperate, even as it has been

building up its military, including its navy,

in significant ways. The other claimants

have, in turn, found larger and more

powerful partners to help reinforce their

economic and military claims. All of this

undoubtedly means that the first quarter-

century of crisis over eastern

Mediterranean natural gas has been

nothing but prelude. Ahead lies the

possibility of bigger gas wars with the

devastation they are likely to bring.

26 February, 2015

Michael Schwartz, an emeritus

distinguished teaching professor of

sociology at Stony Brook University, is

a TomDispatch regular and the author

of the award-winning books Radical

Protest and Social Structure and The

Power Structure of American Business

(with Beth Mintz). His TomDispatch

book,War Without End, focused on how

the militarized geopolitics of oil led the

U.S. to invade and occupy Iraq.

Source: TomDispatch.com

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By Eli Lake

ISRAELIS AND SAUDIS REVEAL SECRET TALKS TO THWART IRAN

Since the beginning of 2014,

representatives from Israel and Saudi

Arabia have had five secret meetings to

discuss a common foe, Iran. On

Thursday, the two countries came out

of the closet by revealing this covert

diplomacy at the Council on Foreign

Relations in Washington.

Among those who follow the Middle East

closely, it’s been an open secret that Israel

and Saudi Arabia have a common interest

in thwarting Iran. But until Thursday,

actual diplomacy between the two was

never officially acknowledged. Saudi

Arabia still doesn’t recognize Israel’s

right to exist. Israel has yet to accept a

Saudi-initiated peace offer to create a

Palestinian state.

It was not a typical Washington think-

tank event. No questions were taken

from the audience. After an introduction,

there was a speech in Arabic from Anwar

Majed Eshki, a retired Saudi general and

ex-adviser to Prince Bandar bin Sultan,

the former Saudi ambassador to the U.S.

Then Dore Gold, a former Israeli

ambassador to the United Nations who

is slotted to be the next director general

of Israel’s foreign ministry, gave a speech

in English.

While these men represent countries that

have been historic enemies, their message

was identical: Iran is trying to take over

the Middle East and it must be stopped.

Eshki was particularly alarming. He laid

out a brief history of Iran since the 1979

revolution, highlighting the regime’s acts

of terrorism, hostage-taking and

aggression. He ended his remarks with a

seven-point plan for the Middle East.

Atop the list was achieving peace

between Israel and the Arabs. Second

came regime-change in Iran. Also on the

list were greater Arab unity, the

establishment of an Arab regional military

force, and a call for an independent

Kurdistan to be made up of territory now

belonging to Iraq, Turkey and Iran.

Gold’s speech was slightly less

grandiose. He, too, warned of Iran’s

regional ambitions. But he didn’t call for

toppling the Tehran government. “Our

standing today on this stage does not

mean we have resolved all the

differences that our countries have

shared over the years,” he said of his

outreach to Saudi Arabia. “But our hope

is we will be able to address them fully

in the years ahead.”

It’s no coincidence that the meetings

between Gold, Eshki and a few other

former officials from both sides took

place in the shadow of the nuclear talks

among Iran, the U.S. and other major

powers. Saudi Arabia and Israel are

arguably the two countries most

threatened by Iran’s nuclear program, but

neither has a seat at the negotiations

scheduled to wrap up at the end of the

month.

The five bilateral meetings over the last

17 months occurred in India, Italy and

the Czech Republic. One participant,

Shimon Shapira, a retired Israeli general

and an expert on the Lebanese militant

group Hezbollah, told me: “We

discovered we have the same problems

and same challenges and some of the

same answers.” Shapira described the

problem as Iran’s activities in the region,

and said both sides had discussed political

and economic ways to blunt them, but

wouldn’t get into any further specifics.

Eshki told me that no real cooperation

would be possible until Israel’s prime

minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, accepted

what’s known as the Arab Peace

Initiative to end the Israeli-Palestinian

conflict. The plan was first shared with

New York Times columnist Tom

Friedman in 2002 by Saudi Arabia’s late

King Abdullah, then the kingdom’s crown

prince.

Israel’s quiet relationships with Gulf Arab

states goes back to the 1990s and the

Oslo Peace Process. Back then, some

Arab countries such as Qatar allowed

Israel to open trade missions. Others

allowed an Israeli intelligence presence,

including Abu Dhabi, the capital of the

United Arab Emirates.

These ties became more focused on Iran

over the last decade, as shown by

documents released by WikiLeaks in

2010. A March 19, 2009, cable quoted

Israel’s then-deputy director general of

the foreign minister, Yacov Hadas, saying

one reason for the warming of relations

was that the Arabs felt Israel could

advance their interests vis-a-vis Iran in

Washington. “Gulf Arabs believe in

Israel’s role because of their perception

of Israel’s close relationship with the

U.S. but also due to their sense that they

can count on Israel against Iran,” the

cable said.

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But only now has open cooperation

between Saudi Arabia and Israel become

a possibility. For Gold, it represents

something of a sea change. In 2003, he

published a book, “Hatred’s Kingdom,”

about Saudi Arabia’s role in financing

terrorism and Islamic extremism. He

explained Thursday that he wrote that

book “at the height of the second intifada

when Saudi Arabia was financing and

fundraising for the murder of Israelis.”

Today, Gold said, it is Iran that is primarily

working with those Palestinian groups

that continue to embrace terrorism.

Gold went on to say that Iran is now

outfitting groups such as Hezbollah in

Lebanon with precision-guided missiles,

as opposed to the unguided rockets Iran

has traditionally provided its allies in

Lebanon. He also said Iranian

Revolutionary Guard Corps forces

propping up the Bashar al-Assad regime

are now close to the Israeli-Syrian border.

A few years ago, it was mainly Israel

that rang the alarm about Iranian

expansionism in the Middle East. It is

significant that now Israel is joined in this

campaign by Saudi Arabia, a country that

has wished for its destruction since 1948.

The two nations worry today that

President Barack Obama’s efforts to

make peace with Iran will embolden that

regime’s aggression against them. It’s

unclear whether Obama will get his

nuclear deal. But either way, it may end

up that his greatest diplomatic

accomplishment will be that his

outreach to Iran helped create the

conditions for a Saudi-Israeli alliance

against it.

4 June 2015

Eli Lake is a Bloomberg View

columnist who writes about politics and

foreign affairs. He was previously the

senior national security correspondent

for the Daily Beast.

Source: www.bloombergview.com

REACHING YARMOUK!By Father Dave

It was quite surreal – enjoying the

sunshine as we stood on the doorstep of

Yarmouk – an area that the United

Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-

moon, recently described as Syria’s

“deepest circle of hell”! Admittedly, we

were on the right side of the dividing line

between the ISIS-controlled section of

Yarmouk and the greater area controlled

by the Syrian Arab Army (SAA). Even

so, we were “within sniper range”, or

so we were warned.

I didn’t take the sniper warning too

seriously until one of our guides pointed

to a mosque that was only about 300

metres away. “They certainly have

snipers in that minaret” he said. He spoke

calmly, as tour-guides do when pointing

out landmarks. And he wasn’t running

for cover either, and neither were the

children who were milling about with us

at the end of the street. Presumably the

takfiri had more important targets to

occupy themselves with.

We went into a school, the entrance of

which was only a few metres from

where we were standing. It was a ‘safe

place’ – a compound where the army

had relocated families who had fled the

ISIS advance. The complex was dotted

with mothers with young children and

elderly men. Nonetheless, it was

evidently still functioning as a school too.

We didn’t speak to the leadership team

initially but instead went out into the

courtyard and got our boxing gear out.

Within moments we had a team of

children around us. At first they were

reluctant to try on the gloves, but after

the first brave recruit had given it a go,

there was a predicable clamor of ‘me

next’ that lasted until we had worked our

way through the entire group.

I assume ‘me next’ was what they were

saying anyway. I must learn some

Arabic! I’m certain it wasn’t anything

nasty. The kids were lovely. They were

kids, though some of them must have

already seen more than a lifetime’s quota

of violence.

It was a fantastic experience – making it

to Yarmouk, playing with the kids,

laughing and taking photos with the SAA

boys. It was exactly what we’d traveled

half way around the world to do!

Of course we hadn’t just come to teach

boxing. We’d come to see for ourselves

the truth behind the media narrative.

Various media sources were depicting the

people of Yarmouk as the meat in the

sandwich – hammered by ISIS on the

one hand and pounded by the Syrian Arab

Army on the other! From my friends in

Syria though I’d been receiving a

difference story – that the Syrian Arab

Army was doing all it could to relocate

people stuck in Yarmouk to safe places

outside the firing zone. Of course we

couldn’t see the whole of what was

going on, but from our end of Yarmouk

it was obvious that the Syrian Army was

doing all it could to help these kids.

“We lack pillows” the School Principal

said to me afterwards, as we debriefed

in his office. “We have food and blankets

now but no pillows”.

I don’t think he really expected me to

bring a quantity of pillows with me on

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my next visit. Even so, he was focused

on his job and ready to accept help from

any source.

In truth, the greatest help we can give

these people is not to send our troops

into their country. Contrary to popular

opinion, that’s not the sort of help they

want from us.

That’s the update for now, fellow

fighters. Thank you for your support in

helping us get to Yarmouk.

I hope you can see the significance of

this visit. Bringing some joy to these kids

and leaving them with gloves and pads

(courtesy of our friends at SMAI) was

of great value but there is something of

much greater significance I hope we can

achieve for these children though this visit

– namely, help discredit the media

narrative that threatens to unleash further

violence upon them!

Whatever you think of the Syrian

government, it was crystal clear to me

from our day in Yarmouk that these

people do NOT want our foreign military

intervention. That will only lead to more

death and suffering.

I’ll be back to you soon. Until then I

remain …

Your brother in the Good Fight,

28 April 2015

Dave Smith, also known as Fighting

Father Dave, is an Anglican Parish Priest,

based in Australia.

BRICS AND THE FICTION OF “DE-DOLLARIZATION”By Michael Chussudovsky

The financial media as well as segments

of the alternative media are pointing to

a possible weakening of the US dollar

as a global trading currency resulting

from the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India,

China, South Africa) initiative.

One of the central arguments in this

debate on competing World currencies

hinges on the BRICS initiative to create

a development bank which, according

to analysts, challenges the hegemony

of Wall Street and the Washington

based Bretton Woods institutions.

The BRICS New Development Bank

(NDB) was set up to challenge two

major Western-led giants – the World

Bank and the International Monetary

Fund. NDB’s key role will be to serve

as a pool of currency for infrastructure

projects within a group of five

countries with major emerging national

economies – Russia, Brazil, India,

China and South Africa. (RT, October

9, 2015, emphasis added)

More recently, emphasis has been

placed on the role of China’s new Asia

Infrastructure Investment Bank

(AIIB), which, according to media

reports, threatens to “transfer global

financial control from Wall Street and

City of London to the new

development banks and funds of

Beijing and Shanghai”.

There has been a lot of media hype

regarding BRICS.

While the creation of BRICS has

significant geopolitical implications,

both the AIIB as well as the proposed

BRICS Development Bank (NDB) and

its Contingency Reserve Arrangement

(CRA) are dollar denominated entities.

Unless they are coupled with a multi-

currency system of trade and credit,

they do not threaten dollar hegemony.

Quite the opposite, they tend to sustain

and extend dollar denominated lending.

Moreover, they replicate several

features of the Bretton Woods

framework.

Towards a Multi-Currency

Arrangement?

What is significant, however, from a

geopolitical standpoint is that China

and Russia are developing a ruble-yuan

swap, negotiated between the Russian

Central Bank, and the People’s Bank

of China,

The situation of the other three BRICS

member states (Brazil, India, South

Africa) with regard to the

implementation of (real, rand rupiah)

currency swaps is markedly different.

These three highly indebted countries

are in the straightjacket of IMF-World

Bank conditionalities. They do not

decide on fundamental issues of

monetary policy and macro-economic

reform without the green light from the

Washington based international

financial institutions.

Currency swaps between the BRICS

central banks was put forth by Russia

to:

“facilitate trade financing while

completely bypassing the dollar. “At the

same time, the new system will also

act as a de facto replacement of the

IMF, because it will allow the members

of the alliance to direct resources to

finance the weaker countries.” (Voice

of Russia)

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While Russia has formally raised the

issue of a multi-currency arrangement,

the Development Bank’s structure does

not currently “officially” acknowledge

such a framework:

“We are discussing with China and our

BRICS parters the establishment of a

system of multilateral swaps that will

allow to transfer resources to one or

another country, if needed. A part of

the currency reserves can be directed

to [the new system]” (Governor of the

Russian Central Bank, June 2014,

Prime news agency)

India, South Africa and Brazil have

decided not to go along with a multiple

currency arrangement, which would

have allowed for the development of

bilateral trade and investment activities

between BRICs countries, operating

outside the realm of dollar denominated

credit. In fact they did not have the

choice of making this decision in view

of the strict loan conditionalities

imposed by the IMF.

Heavily indebted under the brunt of

their external creditors, all three

countries are faithful pupils of the IMF-

World Bank. The central bank of these

countries is controlled by Wall Street

and the IMF. For them to enter into a

“non-dollar” or an “anti-dollar”

development banking arrangement with

multiple currencies, would have

required prior approval of the IMF.

The Contingency Reserve Arrangement

The CRA is defined as a “framework

for provision of support through

liquidity and precautionary instruments

in response to actual or potential short-

term balance of payments pressures.”

(Russia India Report April 7, 2015). In

this context, the CRA fund does not

constitute a “safety net” for BRICS

countries, it accepts the hegemony of

the US dollar which is sustained by

large scale speculative operations in the

currency and commodity markets.

In essence the CRA operates in a

similar fashion to an IMF precautionary

loan arrangement (e.g. Brazil

November 1998) with a view to

enabling highly indebted countries to

maintain the parity of their exchange

rate to the US dollar, by replenishing

central bank reserves through

borrowed money.

The CRA excludes the policy option

of foreign exchange controls by BRICS

member states. In the case of India,

Brazil and South Africa, this option is

largely foreclosed as a result of their

agreements with the IMF.

The dollar denominated $100 billion

CRA fund is a “silver platter” for

Western “institutional speculators”

including JP Morgan Chase, Deutsche

Bank, HSBC, Goldman Sachs et al,

which are involved in short selling

operations on the Forex market.

Ultimately the CRA fund will finance

the speculative onslaught in the

currency market.

Neoliberalism firmly entrenched

An arrangement using national

currencies instead of the US dollar

requires sovereignty in central bank

monetary policy. In many regards,

India, Brazil and South Africa are (from

the monetary standpoint) US proxy

states, firmly aligned with IMF-World

Bank-WTO economic diktats.

It is worth recalling that since 1991,

India’s macroeconomic policy was

under under the control of the Bretton

Woods institutions, with a former

World Bank official, Dr. Manmohan

Singh, serving first as Finance Minister

and subsequently as Prime Minister.

Moreover, while India is an ally of

China and Russia under BRICS, it has

entered into a new defense

cooperation deal with the Pentagon

which is (unofficially) directed against

Russia and China. It is also cooperating

with the US in aerospace technology.

India constitutes the largest market

(after Saudi Arabia) for the sale of US

weapons systems. And all these

transactions are in US dollars.

Similarly, Brazil signed a far-reaching

Defense agreement with the US in

2010 under the government of Luis

Ignacio da Silva, who in the words of

the IMF’s former managing director

Heinrich Koeller, “Is Our Best

President”, “… I am enthusiastic [with

Lula’s administration]; but it is better

to say I am deeply impressed by

President Lula, indeed, and in particular

because I do think he has the

credibility” (IMF Managing Director

Heinrich Koeller, Press conference, 10

April 2003 ).

In Brazil, the Bretton Woods

institutions and Wall Street have

dominated macro-economic reform

since the outset of the government of

Luis Ignacio da Silva in 2003. Under

Lula, a Wall Street executive was

appointed to head the Central Bank, the

Banco do Brazil was in the hands of a

former CitiGroup executive. While

there are divisions within the ruling PT

party, neoliberalism prevails. Economic

and social agenda in Brazil is in large

part dictated by the country’s external

creditors including JPMorgan Chase,

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

14

continued from page 13

continued next page

Bank America and Citigroup.

Central Bank Reserves and The

External Debt

India and Brazil (together with Mexico)

are among the World’s most indebted

developing countries. The foreign

exchange reserves are fragile. India’s

external debt in 2013 was of the order

of more than $427 billion, that of Brazil

was a staggering $482 billion, South

Africa’s external debt was of the order

of $140 billion. (World Bank, External

Debt Stock, 2013).

External Debt Stock (2013)

Brazil $482 billion

India $427 billion

South Africa $140 billion

All three countries have central banks

reserves (including gold and forex

holdings) which are lower than their

external debt (see table below).

Central Bank Reserves (2013)

Brazil $359 billion

India: $298 billion

South Africa $50 billion

The situation of South Africa is

particularly precarious with an external

debt which is almost three times its

central bank reserves.

What this means is that these three BRICS

member states are under the brunt of their

Western creditors. Their central bank

reserves are sustained by borrowed

money. Their central bank operations

(e.g. with a view to supporting domestic

investments and development programs)

will require borrowing in US dollars.

Their central banks are essentially

“currency board” arrangements, their

national currencies are dollarized.

The BRICs Development Bank (NDB)

On 15 July 2014, the group of five

countries signed an agreement to create

the US$100 billion BRICS Development

Bank together with a US dollar

denominated “ reserve currency pool”

of US$100 billion. These commitments

were subsequently revised.

Each of the five-member countries “is

expected to allocate an equal share of the

$50 billion startup capital that will be

expanded to $100 billion. Russia has

agreed to provide $2 billion from the

federal budget for the bank over the next

seven years.” (RT, March 9, 2015).

In turn, the commitments to the

Contingency Reserve Arrangement are as

follows;

Brazil, $18 billion

Russia $18 billion

India $18 billion

China $41 billion

South Africa $5 billion

Total $100 billion

As mentioned earlier, India, Brazil and

South Africa, are heavily indebted

countries with central bank reserves

substantially below the level of their

external debt. Their contribution to the

two BRICs financial entities can only be

financed:

by running down their dollar denominated

central bank reserves and/or

by financing their contributions to the

Development Bank and CRA, by

borrowing the money, namely by

“running up” their dollar denominated

external debt.

In both cases, dollar hegemony prevails.

In other words, the Western creditors

of these three countries will be required

to “contribute” directly or indirectly to

the financing of the dollar denominated

contributions of Brazil, India and South

Africa to the BRICS development bank

(NDB) and the CRA.

In the case of South Africa with Central

Bank reserves of the order of 50 billion

dollars, the contribution to the BRICS

NDB will inevitably be financed by an

increase in the country’s (US dollar

denominated) external debt.

Moreover, with regard to India, Brazil

and South Africa, their membership in

the BRICS Development Bank was no

doubt the object of behind closed doors

negotiations with the IMF as well as

guarantees that they would not depart

from the “Washington Consensus” on

macro-economic reform.

Under a scheme whereby these

countries were to be in be in full control

of their Central Bank monetary policy,

the contributions to the Development

Bank (NDB) would be allocated in

national currency rather than US dollars

under a multi-currency arrangement.

Needless to say under a multi-currency

system the contingency CRA fund

would not be required.

The geopolitics behind the BRICS

initiative are crucial. While the BRICS

initiative from the very outset has

accepted the dollar system, this does not

exclude the introduction, at a later stage

of a multiple currency arrangement,

which challenges dollar hegemony.

8 April 2015

Prof Michel Chossudovsky is a

Canadian economist and founder of the

website GlobalResearch.

Source : GlobalResearch.com

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THE SCENE OF THE CRIME

By Seymour M. Hersh

(This is the second part of a three part

article. The remaining last part will

appear in the next issue of the

Commentary … Editor)

Part 2

On my recent trip, I spent five days in

Hanoi, which is the capital of unified

Vietnam. Retired military officers and

Communist Party officials there told me

that the My Lai massacre, by bolstering

antiwar dissent inside America, helped

North Vietnam win the war. I was also

told, again and again, that My Lai was

unique only in its size. The most

straightforward assessment came from

Nguyen ThiBinh, known to everyone in

Vietnam as Madame Binh. In the early

seventies, she was the head of the

National Liberation Front delegation at the

Paris peace talks and became widely

known for her willingness to speak

bluntly and for her striking good looks.

Madame Binh, who is eighty-seven,

retired from public life in 2002, after

serving two terms as Vietnam’s Vice-

President, but she remains involved in

war-related charities dealing with Agent

Orange victims and the disabled.

“I’ll be honest with you,” she said. “My

Lai became important in America only

after it was reported by an American.”

Within weeks of the massacre, a

spokesman for the North Vietnamese in

Paris had publicly described the events,

but the story was assumed to be

propaganda. “I remember it well, because

the antiwar movement in America grew

because of it,” Madame Binh added,

speaking in French. “But in Vietnam there

was not only one My Lai—there were

many.”

One morning in Danang, a beach resort

and port city of about a million people, I

had coffee with Vo Cao Loi, one of the

few survivors of Bravo Company’s

attack at My Khe 4. He was fifteen at

the time, Loi said, through an interpreter.

His mother had what she called “a bad

feeling” when she heard helicopters

approaching the village. There had been

operations in the area before. “It was not

just like some Americans would show

up all of a sudden,” he said. “Before they

came, they often fired artillery and

bombed the area, and then after all that

they would send in the ground forces.”

American and South Vietnamese Army

units had moved through the area many

times with no incident, but this time Loi

was shooed out of the village by his

mother moments before the attack. His

two older brothers were fighting with

the Vietcong, and one had been killed in

combat six days earlier. “I think she was

afraid because I was almost a grown boy

and if I stayed I could be beaten up or

forced to join the South Vietnamese

Army. I went to the river, about fifty

metres away. Close, close enough: I

heard the fire and the screaming.” Loi

stayed hidden until evening, when he

returned home to bury his mother and

other relatives.

Two days later, Vietcong troops took Loi

to a headquarters in the mountains to the

west. He was too young to fight, but he

was brought before Vietcong combat

units operating throughout Quang Ngai

to describe what the Americans had done

at My Khe. The goal was to inspire the

guerrilla forces to fight harder. Loi

eventually joined the Vietcong and served

at the military command until the end of

the war. American surveillance planes and

troops were constantly searching for his

unit. “We moved the headquarters every

time we thought the Americans were

getting close,” Loi told me. “Whoever

worked in headquarters had to be

absolutely loyal. There were three circles

on the inside: the outer one was for

suppliers, a second one was for those

who worked in maintenance and logistics,

and the inner one was for the

commanders. Only division commanders

could stay in the inner circle. When they

did leave the headquarters, they would

dress as normal soldiers, so one would

never know. They went into nearby

villages. There were cases when

Americans killed our division officers, but

they did not know who they were.” As

with the U.S. Army, Loi said, Vietcong

officers often motivated their soldiers by

inflating the number of enemy

combatants they had killed.

The massacres at My Lai and My Khe,

terrible as they were, mobilized support

for the war against the Americans, Loi

said. Asked if he could understand why

such war crimes were tolerated by the

American command, Loi said he did not

know, but he had a dark view of the

quality of U.S. leadership in central

Vietnam. “The American generals had to

take responsibility for the actions of the

soldiers,” he told me. “The soldiers take

orders, and they were just doing their

duty.”

Loi said that he still grieves for his family,

and he has nightmares about the

massacre. But, unlike Pham Thanh

continued from page 15

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16

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Cong, he found a surrogate family almost

immediately: “The Vietcong loved me

and took care of me. They raised me.” I

told Loi about Cong’s anger at Kenneth

Schiel, and Loi said, “Even if others do

terrible things to you, you can forgive it

and move toward the future.” After the

war, Loi transferred to the regular

Vietnamese Army. He eventually became

a full colonel and retired after thirty-eight

years of service. He and his wife now

own a coffee shop in Danang.

Almost seventy per cent of the population

of Vietnam is under the age of forty, and

although the war remains an issue mainly

for the older generations, American

tourists are a boon to the economy. If

American G.I.s committed atrocities,

well, so did the French and the Chinese

in other wars. Diplomatically, the U.S. is

considered a friend, a potential ally

against China. Thousands of Vietnamese

who worked for or with the Americans

during the Vietnam War fled to the United

States in 1975. Some of their children

have confounded their parents by

returning to Communist Vietnam, despite

its many ills, from rampant corruption

to aggressive government censorship.

Nguyen Qui Duc, a fifty-seven-year-old

writer and journalist who runs a popular

bar and restaurant in Hanoi, fled to

America in 1975 when he was seventeen.

Thirty-one years later, he returned. In San

Francisco, he was a prize-winning

journalist and documentary filmmaker,

but, as he told me, “I’d always wanted

to come back and live in Vietnam. I felt

unfinished leaving home at seventeen and

living as someone else in the United

States. I was grateful for the

opportunities in America, but I needed a

sense of community. I came to Hanoi

for the first time as a reporter for National

Public Radio, and fell in love with it.”

Duc told me that, like many Vietnamese,

he had learned to accept the American

brutality in the war. “American soldiers

committed atrocious acts, but in war

such things happen,” he said. “And it’s a

fact that the Vietnamese cannot own up

to their own acts of brutality in the war.

We Vietnamese have a practical attitude:

better forget a bad enemy if you can gain

a needed friend.”

During the war, Duc’s father, Nguyen

Van Dai, was a deputy governor in South

Vietnam. He was seized by the Vietcong

in 1968 and imprisoned until 1980. In

1984, Duc, with the help of an American

diplomat, successfully petitioned the

government to allow his parents to

emigrate to California; Duc had not seen

his father for sixteen years. He told me

of his anxiety as he waited for him at the

airport. His father had suffered terribly

in isolation in a Communist prison near

the Chinese border; he was often unable

to move his limbs. Would he be in a

wheelchair, or mentally unstable?Duc’s

father arrived in California during a

Democratic Presidential primary. He

walked off the plane and greeted his son.

“How’s Jesse Jackson doing?” he said.

He found a job as a social worker and

lived for sixteen more years.

Some American veterans of the war have

returned to Vietnam to live. Chuck

Palazzo grew up in a troubled family on

Arthur Avenue in the Bronx and, after

dropping out of high school, enlisted in

the Marines. In the fall of 1970, after a

year of training, he was assigned to an

élite reconnaissance unit whose mission

was to confirm intelligence and to

ambush enemy missile sites and combat

units at night. He and his men sometimes

parachuted in under fire. “I was involved

in a lot of intense combat with many

North Vietnamese regulars as well as

Vietcong, and I lost a lot of friends,”

Palazzo told me over a drink in Danang,

where he now lives and works. “But the

gung ho left when I was still here. I

started to read and understand the politics

of the war, and one of my officers was

privately agreeing with me that what we

were doing there was wrong and

senseless. The officer told me, ‘Watch

your ass and get the hell out of here.’ “

Palazzo first arrived in Danang in 1970,

on a charter flight, and he could see

coffins lined up on the field as the plane

taxied in. “It was only then that I realized

I was in a war,” he said. “Thirteen

months later, I was standing in line, again

at Danang, to get on the plane taking me

home, but my name was not on the

manifest.” After some scrambling,

Palazzo said, “I was told that if I wanted

to go home that day the only way out

was to escort a group of coffins flying

to America on a C-141 cargo plane.” So

that’s what he did.

After leaving the Marines, Palazzo earned

a college degree and began a career as

an I.T. specialist. But, like many vets, he

came “back to the world” with post-

traumatic stress disorder and struggled

with addictions. His marriage collapsed.

He lost various jobs. In 2006, Palazzo

made a “selfish” decision to return to Ho

Chi Minh City. “It was all about me

dealing with P.T.S.D. and confronting

my own ghosts,” he said. “My first visit

became a love affair with the

Vietnamese.” Palazzo wanted to do all

he could for the victims of Agent Orange.

For years, the Veterans Administration,

citing the uncertainty of evidence,

refused to recognize a link between

Agent Orange and the ailments, including

cancers, of many who were exposed to

it. “In the war, the company commander

told us it was mosquito spray, but we

could see that all the trees and vegetation

were destroyed,” Palazzo said. “It

occurred to me that, if American vets

were getting something, some help and

compensation, why not the Vietnamese?”

Palazzo, who moved to Danang in 2007,

is now an I.T. consultant and the leader

of a local branch of Veterans for Peace,

an American antiwar N.G.O. He remains

active in the Agent Orange Action Group,

continued next page

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

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continued from page 16

which seeks international support to cope

with the persistent effects of the defoliant.

In Hanoi, I met Chuck Searcy, a tall, gray-

haired man of seventy who grew up in

Georgia. Searcy’s father had been taken

prisoner by the Germans in the Battle of the

Bulge, and it never occurred to Searcy to

avoid Vietnam. “I thought President

Johnson and the Congress knew what we

were doing in Vietnam,” he told me. In 1966,

Searcy quit college and enlisted. He was an

intelligence analyst, in a unit that was situated

near the airport in Saigon, and which

processed and evaluated American analyses

and reports.

“Within three months, all the ideals I had as

a patriotic Georgia boy were shattered, and

I began to question who we were as a

nation,” Searcy said. “The intelligence I was

seeing amounted to a big intellectual lie.”

The South Vietnamese clearly thought little

of the intelligence the Americans were

passing along. At one point, a colleague

bought fish at a market in Saigon and noticed

that it was wrapped in one of his unit’s

classified reports. “By the time I left, in June

of 1968,” Searcy said, “I was angry and

bitter.”

Searcy finished his Army tour in Europe.

His return home was a disaster. “My father

heard me talk about the war and he was

incredulous. Had I turned into a

Communist? He said that he and my mother

don’t ‘know who you are anymore. You’re

not an American.’ Then they told me to get

out.” Searcy went on to graduate from the

University of Georgia, and edited a weekly

newspaper in Athens, Georgia. He then

began a career in politics and public policy

that included working as an aide to Wyche

Fowler, a Georgia Democratic

congressman.

In 1992, Searcy returned to Vietnam and

eventually decided to join the few other

veterans who had moved there. “I knew,

even as I was flying out of Vietnam in 1968,

that someday, somehow, I would return,

hopefully in a time of peace. I felt even back

then that I was abandoning the Vietnamese

to a terribly tragic fate, for which we

Americans were mostly responsible. That

sentiment never quite left me.” Searcy

worked with a program that dealt with mine

clearance. The U.S. dropped three times

the number of bombs by weight in Vietnam

as it had during the Second World War.

Between the end of the war and 1998, more

than a hundred thousand Vietnamese

civilians, an estimated forty per cent of them

children, had been killed or injured by

unexploded ordnance. For more than two

decades after the war, the U.S. refused to

pay for damage done by bombs or by Agent

Orange, though in 1996 the government

began to provide modest funding for mine

clearance. From 2001 to 2011, the Vietnam

Veterans Memorial Fund also helped finance

the mine-clearance program. “A lot of

veterans felt we should assume some

responsibility,” Searcy said. The program

helped educate Vietnamese, especially

farmers and children, about the dangers

posed by the unexploded weapons, and

casualties have diminished.

Searcy said that his early disillusionment

with the war was validated shortly before

its end. His father called to ask if they could

have coffee. They hadn’t spoken since he

was ordered out of the house. “He and my

mother had been talking,” Searcy said. “And

he told me, ‘We think you were right and

we were wrong. We want you to come

home.’ “ He went home almost immediately,

he said, and remained close to his parents

until they died. Searcy is twice divorced,

and wrote, in a self-deprecating e-mail, “I

have resisted the kind efforts of the

Vietnamese to get me married off again.”

*An earlier version of this article misstated

the organization for which Neil Sheehan was

a reporter

27 March 2015

Seymour M. Hersh wrote his first piece

for The New Yorker in 1971 and has been

a regular contributor to the magazine since

1993.

BHAKTI- SUFI TRADITIONS: UNITING HUMANITY

By Ram Puniyani

In contemporary times, religions’

identity is being used as cover for

political agenda. Be it the terrorist

violence or the sectarian nationalism

in various parts of the World, religion

is used to mask the underlying

politics. While one was talking of

separation of religion and politics

many decades earlier, the times have

been showing the reverse trends,

more so in South Asia. Globally one

came across the news that American

President sent a chador [a ceremonial

sheet of cloth] to the annual

observation at the shrine of Khwaja

Moinuddin Chishti at Ajmer. (April

2015). Later one also read (April 22,

2015) that Sonia Gandhi, Atal Bihari

Vajpeyi, and Narendra Modi has also

offered chadors at the shrine.

Keeping the relation between state,

politics and religion apart, it is

interesting that some traditions within

religion have appeals cutting across

the religious boundaries. The Sufi and

Bhakti tradition in Pakistan-India,

South Asia are two such humane

trends from within Islam and

Hinduism respectively, which harp

more on unity of humanity as a whole

overcoming the sectarian divides.

The saints from these traditions had

appeal amongst people of different

religions and they were away from

continued from page 17

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

18

the centers of power, unlike the

clergy which was close ally of the

rulers in medieval times. We have seen

rich traditions of people like Kabir,

Tukaram, Narsi Mehta, Shankar Dev,

Lal Dedh, clearly from within Hindu

tradition, while Nizamuddin Auliya,

Moinuddin Chishti, Tajuddin Baba

Auliya, Ajan Pir, Nooruddin Noorani

(also known as Nund Rishi) coming

from a clear Islamic Sufi tradition

and Satya Pir, Ramdev Baba Pir,

having a mixed lineage where Bhakti

and Sufi themselves are deeply

intertwined.

Sant Guru Nanak did try a conscious

mixing of the two major religions of

India, Hinduism and Islam. He

traveled up to Mecca to learn the

wisdom of Islam and went to Kashi

to unravel the spiritual moral aspects

of Hinduism. His first follower was

Mardan and Miyan Mir was the one

who was respectfully invited to lay

the foundations of Golden Temple;

the holy Sikh Shrine. The Guru

Granth Sahib has an inclusive

approach to religious wisdom and it

takes the verses from Koran, couplets

from Kabir and other Bhakti saints.

No wonder people used to say of him

‘Baba Nanak Sant Fakir, Hindu ka

Guru Musalman ka Pir’ (Saint Nanak

is sant for Hindus and pir for

Muslims)

In today’s scenario the global

discussion has been centered round

religion due to its use in political

sphere. Now the renewed interest in

Sufi tradition at one level is

heartening. Sufism has been

prominent in South Asia from last ten

centuries. Word Sufi means coarse

wool fabric, the type of clothes

which were worn by Sufi mystics.

It grew within Shiaism but over time

some Sunnis also took to this sect.

It has strong streaks of mysticism

and gave no importance to rituals and

tried to have understanding of God

by transcending the anthropomorphic

understanding of Allah, looking at him

more as a spiritual authority. This is

so similar to the belief held by Bhakti

saints also. Many Sufis had

pantheistic beliefs and they articulated

their values in very humane way.

In the beginning the orthodox sects

started persecuting them but later

compromises were struck. The Sufis

formed the orders of roving monks,

dervishes. People of all religions in

many countries frequent their shrines,

this again is like Bhakti saints, who

have following amongst people of

different religions.

On parallel lines Bhakti is probably

the most outstanding example of the

subaltern trend in Indian religious

history. The Bhakti saints came from

different streams of society,

particularly from low caste. Bhakti

opposed the institutionalization of

religion, tried to decentralize it, and

declared that religion is a private

matter. It gave respectability to the

separation of state power and religion

and merged the concept of God

worship with the process of getting

knowledge. Travails of poor people

are the focus of bhakti saints’ work.

Bhakti traditions gave respectability

to many low castes. This tradition

had inclusive approach towards

Muslims as well. This tradition posed

a challenge to upper caste hegemony.

Bhakti tradition opposed the rituals,

hegemony of elite of society. They

adopted the languages more popular

with the masses. Also they talked of

one God. In India in particular Hindu

Muslim unity has been one of the

concerns expressed by many of the

saints from this tradition.

What one needs to realize is that there

are various tendencies with every

religion. The humane ones as

represented by Bhakti and Sufi are

the ones which united Humanity and

harped on morality-spirituality of

religions. The intolerant tendencies

have been usurped by political forces

for their political agenda. In sub

continent during the freedom

movement the declining sections of

society, Rajas, Nawabs, Land lords

came up with Muslim and Hindu

communalism to begin with. This

nationalism in the name of religion had

nothing to do with morality of

religions. It was use of religion’s

identity for political goals. In the

national movements we had people

like Gandhi, Maulana Abul Kalam

Azad who were religious but opposed

to religious nationalism.

The essence of Sufi and Bhakti

tradition are reminders to us that

spirituality, morality part of the

religion has been undermined in the

current times. The inclusive-humane

nature of these traditions needs to be

upheld and the divisive-exclusionary

versions of religions have to be

ignored for better future of humanity.

08 May, 2015

Ram Puniyani is a former professor

of biomedical engineering and former

senior medical officer affiliated with

the Indian Institute of Technology

Bombay.

Source: Countercurrents.org

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