Just Commentary January 2015

Vol 15, No.01 January 2015

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ARTICLES

PARIS-A DASTARDLY ACT OF TERROR

By Chandra Muzaffar

. VIVA CUBA!

BY MIKE FAULKNER.......................................P 6

.THE NANJING GENOCIDE AND THE FUTURE OF ASIA

BY CHANDRA MUZAFFAR.....................................P3

.THE MASSACRE IN PESHAWAR

BY HASSANAL NOOR RASHID...........................P5

. PUTIN TO DONATE 50,000 TONS OF RUSSIA COAL

DAILY TO UKRAINE FOR HEAT

BY ERIC ZUESSE...............................................P 10

.FIGHTING “ISLAMIC STATE” IS NOT THE ISRAELI PRIORITY

BY NICOLA NASSER.........................................P 10

. ANOTHER MH17 COVER-UP: HIDING A KEY

AUTOPSY

BY ERIC ZUESSE...........................................P 13

. THE OIL PRICE CRASH OF 2014

BY RICHARD HEINBERG.................................P 14

STATEMENTS

. PAKISTAN: A FAILURE TO UNDERSTAND

BY MARYAM SAKEENAH...............................P 17

It is not surprising that Muslim

governments, organizations and

individuals right across the globe have

condemned the heinous murder of 12

persons — 10 journalists and two

police — at the headquarters of the

satirical weekly, Charlie Hebdo, in

Paris in the late morning of the 7th of

January 2015. This dastardly act of

terror, allegedly carried out by two

Muslims, violates every norm in the

Islamic faith.

If it is true that the killers were trying to

avenge the sanctified memory of the

Prophet Muhammad who has been the

subject of continuous ridicule and

contempt in the weekly, murdering its

cartoonists and editors is clearly an

abomination. One should respond to

satirical cartoons with cartoons and

other works of art that expose the

prejudice and bigotry of the

cartoonists and editors of Charlie

Hebdo. One should use the Charlie

Hebdo cartoons as a platform to

educate and raise the awareness of

the French public about what the

Quran actually teaches and who the

Prophet really was and the sort of

noble values that distinguished his life

and struggle. To assassinate those

who mock the Prophet in such a

barbaric manner shows that the

terrorists have no understanding at

all of how the Prophet himself

responded to those who poured their

venom and hatred upon him when

he was conveying the message of

justice and compassion that is the

kernel of Islam to the people of

Mecca and Medina in the early 7th

century.

Of course, provoking the six million

Muslims in France and the larger

1.8 billion Muslims worldwide

through constant insults and

indignities directed at the Prophet

and the religion — albeit through

the medium of cartoons — isnot

only utterly reprehensible but also

an affront to inter-religious

harmony and social stability. It is

an example of the reckless abuse

of the freedom of expression which

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

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continued from page 1

L E A D A R T I C L E

brings much grief to everyone.

Freedom of expression is not the

freedom to denigrate and desecrate

a Prophet who is so deeply cherished

by millions and millions of Muslims.

If the advocates of human rights

regard the freedom of a handful of

cartoonists as crucial for human

civilization, they should also show

some appreciation for the honor and

dignity of an entire people. Surely, the

right to protect one’s dignity — the

dignity of a collectivity — is also a

fundamental human right.

The Charlie Hebdo episode has

underscored yet again the importance

of exercising freedom with a deep

sense of responsibility. Restraints are

part and parcel of rights. It is by

balancing rights with restraints that

one ensures the well-being of the

whole.

This balance is especially critical at a

time like this in Europe. Negative

feelings towards non-European

migrants are getting stronger in

various parts of the continent.

Islamophobia is part of this though

as a phenomenon it is centuries old.

If attitudes towards Muslims and

migrants in general have hardened in

recent years, it is partly because of

rising unemployment and stagnating

economies. As it often happens in

such situations, the “outsider”

becomes the scapegoat.

If in the midst of all this, elements from

the majority, established community

in Europe continue to provoke a

minority which by and large views

religion from a different perspective

than the majority, and if some

individuals from that minority react to

the provocations through mindless

violence, tension and conflict will

become the order of the day. This is

why both sides should be responsible

and restrained.

Indeed, both the majority and the

minority should realize that acts of

terror can also be manipulated to

serve the agenda of some political

actor or other. In the context of

Charlie Hebdo, shouldn’t we ask if

the killing spree on the 7th of January

was also a message of sorts to the

French ruling elite? Was some group

sending a warning to the elite that it

should not have supported

Palestine’s recent failed bid in the UN

Security Council toobtain

endorsement for its goal of

establishing an independent,

sovereign state within a short time

frame?Was that group the master-

mind behind 7th January?

Questions of this sort strengthen the

case for an independent investigation

preferably under the aegis of the UN

Secretary-General into the Paris

massacre. The truth behind the

massacre may tell us a great deal

about terrorism itself in our time.

9 January 2015.

POSTSCRIPT.

Since the above was written, there

has been a major development in the

Paris massacre. The two brothers

responsible for the massacre, Cherif

and Said Kouachi, were gunned

down by the French police on the

9th of January, as they emerged from

a small printing firm in the Northeast

of Paris where they were hiding after

their widely condemned act of evil.

A third person, purportedly an

accomplice, who was holed up in a

supermarket elsewhere in the city was

also killed by the police.

By killing these terrorists — which

may have been inevitable from a

security standpoint — it has now

become more difficult to find out if

the three acted on their own or if they

were part of a larger group and

supported by an ideologically driven

network. Were they, especially the

Kouachi brothers, motivated solely

by a desire to punish Charlie Hebdo

for its despicable cartoons of the

Prophet as claimed by one of them

according to the media or were they

also fulfilling some other cleverly

concealed agenda, unknown to

them?

This is a valid question to ask

because the cartoons which have

enraged a lot of French Muslims have

become a regular feature of the

Charlie Hebdo weekly for at least

eight years now. There has been no

report of any specific cartoon in

recent days eliciting a particularly

potent reaction from any section of

the French Muslim community.

Incidentally, the weekly also

lampoons revered personalities from

other religions.

It has been suggested that it was not

just the cartoons that incensed the

terrorists. France’s aggressive role in

fighting so-called Islamic jihadists in

central Africa may have also been a

factor. This argument is somewhat

compromised by the fact that the

French government was directly and

indirectly on the side of the jihadists

in Libya in the brutal overthrow of

the secular Muammar Gaddafi in

2011. Even more significant, the

French clearly share the same trench

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S T A T E M E N T S

as Islamic rebels of different shades

who have been fighting another secular

leader, President Bashar Al-Assad of

Syria, for almost four years now. So

there is no reason to believe that it is

France’s adventures in other parts of

the world which have angered Islamic

jihadists. This story about the country’s

stand against jihadists in other lands may

have been deliberately put out by the

media to divert attention from some

other more plausible explanation for the

Charlie Hebdo massacre.

The massacre may well be a Mossad

operation to arrest the growing tide of

support and sympathy for the

Palestinians in their struggle for

statehood among people in France and

in a number of other European

countries. This is the one really

momentous development of the last few

months that has impacted upon the

Israeli government and global Zionism.

continued from page 2 Parliaments in Sweden and Spain to

Ireland and Britain have adopted

resolutions endorsing the Palestinian

struggle. France has also taken a similar

step. In my main article I alluded to the

French vote in the UN Security Council

which some analysts have described

as the culmination of a major shift in

the public mood vis-a-vis the Israel-

Palestine conflict within Europe.

By staging a massacre which once

again reinforces the image of the

Muslim as a terrorist opposed to

civilized values such as the freedom of

expression and incapable of living in

harmony with the majority population,

Mossad and the Israeli government

may be seeking to drive a wedge

between the majority European

citizenry and the Muslim minority.

The aim may be to dissuade

governments and citizens in Europe

from moving any further along their

newly discovered path of

engagement with Palestinians who

they are now beginning to see as

victims rather than as aggressors

which is how they have been

portrayed all these years by the Israeli

elite and the Zionist controlled media.

What better way of doing this than by

reviving that deeply entrenched image

of the Muslim in the European mind as

a violence prone creature hell-bent on

wiping out the innocent?

What has always enabled the Mossad

and Israel to achieve their objective is

the readiness of some Muslim groups

to resort to violence in order to redeem

the honor of Islam which invariably

leads to the vilification of the religion

and the denigration of its adherents.

10 January 2015

Dr. Chandra Muzaffar is the

President of the International

Movement for a Just World (JUST)

THE NANJING GENOCIDE AND THE FUTURE OF ASIA

STATEMENT

By Chandra Muzaffar

For the first time in its history, China

commemorated the Nanjing

genocide on the 13th of December

as a National Memorial Day.

The mass killings and systematic

rapes perpetrated by some

Japanese soldiers against civilians

and disarmed combatants in

Nanjing, then the capital of China,

for a period of six weeks or so,

starting on the 13th of December

1937, is undoubtedly one of the

most brutal chapters in the history

of 20th century Asia. This genocide

occurred in the thick of the

Japanese invasion of China.

Though estimates differ, it is

generally accepted that between

140,000 and 300,000 Chinese

perished at the hands of the

Japanese during those six weeks

of incredible moral depravity and

unspeakable human cruelty.

The Nanjing genocide is not just

recorded in Chinese archives and

etched in the collective memory of

the Chinese people. There are

numerous well-documented

accounts of what happened in

Nanjing by Western doctors,

missionaries, businessmen,

journalists and diplomats who were

living there at that time. Japanese

writers and activists have also

attempted to tell the truth and some

have been campaigning for justice

for the people of Nanjing and

China for decades.

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S T A T E M E N T S

I had some exposure to some of

these individuals when I was a

guest lecturer on a Japanese Peace

Boat — an NGO committed to the

promotion of peace — in February

2005. The passengers, almost all

of whom were Japanese, were

deeply concerned about their

country’s role in Nanjing. Their

concern, I gathered from the

organizer of the peace voyage, was

a reflection of how a lot of

Japanese felt about a dark blot in

their history.

It is important for Japanese who

are aware of Nanjing to become

more vocal and get more organized

at this juncture in the nation’s

politics. This is because right-wing

nationalists are more emboldened

now to push for their agenda since

the prevailing political climate in

Japan appears to favor them. A

number of these elements continue

to argue that the genocide never

took place!

They have forgotten that two

tribunals established after the

Second World War, the

International Military Tribunal for

the Far East and the Nanjing War

Crimes Tribunal, had convicted

some of the men responsible for the

Nanjing genocide of war crimes

and put them to death. And, on

the 15th of August 1995, on the 50th

anniversary of Japan’s surrender at

the end of WW 2, the then Prime

Minister, TomiichiMuruyama,

apologized publicly for Japan’s

aggression, including the atrocities

committed in Nanjing, and for the

“great suffering” his country had

inflicted upon the people of Asia.

He should have also provided a

continued from page 3 written apology.

Muruyama’s successors have failed

to build upon his outstanding

initiative. Instead, some of them

have hardened their position on

Japan’s past misdeeds. A couple

of them have visited the Yasukuni

Shrine where the remains of some

‘Class A’ war criminals including

those implicated in the Nanjing

genocide are preserved.

If Japanese leaders are sincere

about removing one of the

longstanding causes of friction

between their country and their

neighbors in Asia, they should

cease making these visits

immediately. It would assure Asian

societies that were victims of

Japanese aggression seven

decades ago that Japan has finally

repudiated its militaristic past. The

present Japanese leadership

should also make a much more

earnest attempt to resolve its

territorial dispute in the East China

Sea over what it calls the Senkaku

Islands and what the Chinese call

the Diaoyu Islands.

At this moment, in the wake of the

APEC Summit in Beijing in

November 2014, there is a slight

thaw in the otherwise tense

relations between the Japanese

and Chinese governments. That

thaw offers some hope for dialogue

in view of Chinese President Xi

Jinping’s mature approach to the

commemoration of the Nanjing

genocide. He made it very clear in

his speech at the commemoration

that one should not “bear hatred

against an entire nation because of

a small minority of militarists who

had launched aggressive wars.”

Given this positive signal from

President Xi, can ASEAN, which

is geographically, politically and

economically close to both Japan

and Chinaplay a role in reducing

the differences and narrowing the

gap between these two Asian

neighbors? Can ASEAN as a

collective entity encourage the

two countries to address the

thorny issues that separate them

through a carefully planned stage

by stage dialogue? Shouldn’t

Malaysia as the incoming ASEAN

Chair for 2015 craft a mechanism

for Sino-Japanese dialogue which

could lead to a lasting peace

between two nations whose

di l igence , d isc ip l ine and

dynamism (3Ds) when applied in

unison could well change the

world?

Peace between China and Japan

is therefore vital for the future of

Asia and indeed the world. We

should do all we can to achieve

this precious peace within a short

span for an obvious reason. There

are actors within and without the

region who are already exploiting

Sino-Japanese tensions in pursuit

of their own agendas. We should

not a l low them to succeed

through default.

22 December 2014.


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THE MASSACRE IN PESHAWAR

By Hassanal Noor Rashid

A R T I C L E S

The International Movement for a

Just world (JUST) joins together

with many other organizations,

enraged individuals and

communities in condemning the

Taliban in Pakistan (TTP) for the

barbaric and mindless massacre of

145 people in a Pakistani school

in Peshawar on the 16 th

December 2014. The vast majority

of the victims—132 to be exact—

were school children between the

ages of 12 and 16. This is what

makes the cruel massacre — the

worst in Pakistani history —

utterly reprehensible.

The actions of the gunmen who

had commit ted these v i le

atrocities, which have notably

been criticised by the Taliban in

Afghanistan, are representative

of a virulent ideology and a

perverse view of Islam which

utilizes the religion to justify the

actions of brutal murderers.

The misrepresentation of the

Islamic faith by these groups is

an increasingly worrying trend

that has resul ted in many

unwarranted tragedies, but like

in many other instances of events

such as these, religion is not the

core driving motivation.

The rationalization given by the

group responsible for this heinous

act was to avenge the killings of

hundreds of innocent tribesmen in

provinces such as South

Waziristan, North Waziristan and

the Khyber Agency according to a

spokesperson of the TTP.

The military actions by the

Pakistani government within these

provinces are reflective of its

flawed approach to the fight against

terrorism, an approach

continuously found within the

rhetoric of various Washington

pundits that persists in the post- 9/

11 political environment, 13 years

later.

The government’s response to

these perceived terrorist threats has

been one where laws are

introduced which curtails civil

rights, andlegitimizes the use of

torture and assassinations.

All these have created a political

and social environment which in

fact diminishes security and endows

extremists with a sense of

perceived legitimacy to carry out

their morally disengaged and ill-

conceived actions.

The injustices that have befallen the

Palestinian people which have also

been a large part of the Muslim

world’s conscious reality, have

served to be an ideological focal

point for many militants and has

contributed further to the rise of

militancy.

These terrorists’ worldview is

ultimately an ideological response

to the invasive activities of countries

like the United States of America

and its allies, who are seeking to

dictate and influence how the

structures of power in the region

benefit their own interests and

agendas.

These countries and their nefarious

hegemonic agendas are as much

responsible for facilitating the rise

of extremist militancy, as they are

in many ways responsible for the

brutal slaughter of hundreds of

thousands of people at the hands

of the extremists.

The victims of this ideological

dogma however, as this incident has

shown, are rarely Western civilians.

They tend to, more often than not,

be other Muslims, who are seen by

these militants as colluding with the

foreign aggressor and therefore

traitors to the nation and the

religion.

So long as these policies and

practices continuously persist, and

alternative actions are not

implementedto engage with these

threats more effectively and

sustainably, atrocities like these may

well become a political-social norm.

Justice demands we never let that

happen, and Muslims all over have a

responsibility to not allow Islam to be

hijacked by peddlers of violence.

20 December 2014

Hassanal Noor Rashid is

Programme Coordinator at JUST.


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A R T I C L E S

VIVA CUBA!By Mike Faulkner

ARTICLES

“Cuba and the United States have

quite a curious – in fact, unique

status in international relations. There

is no similar case of such a sustained

assault by one power against another

– in this case the greatest superpower

against a poor, Third World country

– for forty years of terror and

economic warfare.” — Noam

Chomsky. Rogue States: The Rule of

Force in World Affairs. 2000.

Chomsky wrote that more than

fourteen years ago. Nothing much

has changed since then. The punitive

US blockade of Cuba is still in place.

In October 2014, for the 23rd

successive year the UN General

Assembly voted overwhelmingly in

favour of the Cuban draft resolution

calling for the lifting of the blockade.

Unsurprisingly for the 23rd year the

United States voted against the

resolution. Perhaps more surprisingly

for those uninformed about this

annual event, will be the fact that the

US casts its vote against Cuba in

almost complete isolation.

Since 1992 no more than three

member states have ever voted with

the US against the Cuban resolution,

but until the late 1990s significant

numbers abstained. There were, for

example, 71 abstentions with 59 in

favour in 1992. In recent years there

have been only a handful of

abstentions – between 1 and 3 – and

since 2012 a consistent voting pattern

has emerged: 188 for the Cuban

resolution: 2 against: 3 abstentions.

The only ally the US now has in its

vindictive hostility towards Cuba is

Israel. Even lickspittle lackeys such

as Albania, Romania and Uzbekistan

have deserted. Israel, however, has

never faltered, standing steadfast

with Goliath against David every year

since 1992.

If one needed an object lesson in

imperial arrogance, hypocrisy and

impunity one need look no further

than the US treatment of Cuba since

1959. Actually, the bullying started

much earlier than that – as far back

as the beginning of the 20thcentury.

But after the triumph of the revolution

in 1959 US hostil i ty became

remorseless, aimed at the overthrow

of the new government and

restoration of the status quo ante. The

US has never been reconciled to the

Cuban revolution. Failure to destroy

it by armed intervention and terrorist

assassination plots against its leaders

during the 1960s and 1970s did not

lead to abandonment of the mission.

US power has been used relentlessly

to impose the most draconian

economic blockade, to deny the

country its sovereign right to trade

freely, and to intimidate and penalise

national states, commercial

companies and individuals who are

deemed to be in breach of the policy

of extra-territorial sanctions imposed

unilaterally by the US in the 1960s

and stil l in force. The

extraterritoriality underpinning the

blockade violates the United Nations

Charter, the Organization of American

States and the fundamentals of

international law. All US

administrations invoke “The

International Community”, in whose

interests they claim to act. Yet in this

vicious and vindictive exercise of

overweening power by one state

against another (which is without

parallel in modern history) the United

States has persistently ignored the

wishes of the overwhelming majority

of member states of the United

Nations. And the allies of the United

States who vote to lift the blockade

of Cuba, do nothing to take their

disagreement with the superpower

beyond the politics of pain-free

gesture. Annually for the past 47

years US presidents have extended

the Trading with the Enemy Act

(TWEA) against Cuba. The TWEA

dates back to 1917 when it was

enacted by President Wilson on the

eve of US entry into the First World

War, in order to prohibit or regulate

trade with a wartime adversary. It is

the basis of all the sanctions against

Cuba, a country with which the US

has never been formally at war. In

September of this year President

Obama extended TWEA for another

year. It is estimated by the Cuban

government that over the past 55

years the economic sanctions,

measured in current prices, have

cost the country US$116.8 billion in

lost trade. When the depreciation of

the dollar against the price of gold is

taken into account, the figure is

US$1.11 trillion. This reality reveals

the purpose of the economic

blockade- to cripple Cuba

economically.

Ronald D. Godard, US Senior Area

Adviser for Western Hemisphere

Affairs, opposing the Cuban draft

resolution at the UN, stated bluntly

that the Cuban economy would not

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thrive until the government “permits

a free and fair labour market, freely

empowers Cuban

entrepreneurs….opens state

monopolies to private competition and

adopts the sound macro-economic

policies that have contributed to the

success of Cuba’s neighbours in

Latin America”. This means that the

economic blockade will not be lifted

until Cuba abandons its efforts to

build a socialist society and submits

to the untrammelled operation of the

neo-liberal “free market”. In referring

to Cuba’s Latin American

neighbours, he evidently did not have

in mind countries such as Bolivia,

Dominica, Ecuador, Nicaragua and

Venezuela that have in recent years

rejected that model. He must have

been referring to those like Cuba’s

close neighbours in Central America

who have not: Guatemala and

Honduras, the two countries

suffering from the most extreme

social inequality in the hemisphere.

But in spite of the crippling impact

of US sanctions, Cuba, with a

population of 11 million has once

again provided the world with a

glowing example of selfless

internationalism. In early October

Cuba sent 63 doctors and 102 nurses

to Sierra Leone in response to the

Ebola crisis. They joined a team of

23 Cuban doctors who were already

working there. Another 300 health

workers are being trained and will

soon join their colleagues. The WHO

has praised the Cuban contribution,

pointing out that while other

countries have offered money, no

other country has matched the

numbers of health professionals sent

from Cuba to work in the most

difficult circumstances. Soon the

Cubans plan to have an aid presence

in Guinea and Liberia. The 461

selected for the task were from a

larger group of 15,000 health care

workers who volunteered. Cuba’s

response to the Ebola crisis is the

latest in a long record of aid given to

other nations at time of need. 2,465

health workers went to Pakistan to

provide emergency care in the wake

of the Kashmir earthquake; in 2010

Cuba was the first country to

responds to the devastating

earthquake that hit Haiti . The

Independent reported (26. December

2010) that Cuba’s “doctors and

nurses put the US effort to shame.”

“A medical brigade of 1,200 Cubans

is operating all over earthquake-torn

and cholera-infected Haiti as part of

Fidel Castro’s international medical

mission which has won the socialist

state many friends but l i t t le

international recognition…Amid the

fanfare and publicity surrounding the

arrival of help from the US and UK,

hundreds more Cuban doctors, nurses

and therapists arrived with hardly a

mention.”

As far as the British media is

concerned the same may be said of

Cuba’s response to the Ebola

epidemic in West Africa. Apart from

an early report in the Observer ,

which echoed the New York Times,

there has been almost no mention of

Cuba’s involvement. It is difficult to

believe that this is not deliberate.

Either that or the equally damning

conclusion that so deeply ingrained

is the anti-Cuban bias in the

consciousness of supposedly

objective journalists that they do not

consider the extraordinary

contribution of this small Caribbean

island in the face of a humanitarian

crisis to be worthy of mention.

Because most of the communications

media in Britain, together with the

British government, are so

subservient to the US government,

particularly in matters of foreign

policy, it is worth recalling a few of

the pivotal episodes in the 55 year

history of implacable US hostility

towards Cuba. This will draw largely

on an account (Cuba and the United

States: A Personal Reflection on

Thirty-Five years of Conflict) by this

writer, published in Monthly Review

in February 1996:

“In the distorted account of the

breakdown of US-Cuba relations it

is suggested that Eisenhower ’s

administration broke off relations

with Cuba as a consequence of

Castro’s embracing Marxism-

Leninism. This turns the truth on its

head. In 1960 Fidel’s ‘26th July

Movement’ had no organizational

links with the small Communist Party

and the members of that movement,

formed during the guerrilla war

against the Batista dictatorship,

explicitly denied that they were

communists. But Fidel was branded

a communist on his first and only visit

to Washington in 1959; a visit

undertaken to win US aid. He was

snubbed by Eisenhower and virtually

ignored by Vice-President Nixon,

who, when told about the planned

agrarian reform concluded that

Castro was ‘obviously a Red.’ Nixon,

who a year earlier had warmly

embraced the butcher Batista on a

visit to Havana to boost US arms

supplies to the embattled dictator,

thus set the scene for his

government’s future relations with

Castro.

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“The land reform which was the

most thorough and the most popular

ever undertaken in Latin America, was

denounced as ‘Communist.’ In the

spring of 1960 the Cubans purchased

cheap Soviet crude oil in the teeth of

hostil i ty from the Western oil

companies. When the Western-

owned refineries refused to refine the

Soviet oil, Castro, with mass popular

support for his actions, took over the

refineries. This was the decisive

turning point which put Cuba on a

collision course with the United

States. The Eisenhower

administration responded to this

exercise of sovereignty by a small,

poor country by cancelling the sugar

quota, which meant that 70 percent

of Cuba’s sugar production was left

without a market. The intention was

clear: to cripple Cuba economically

in the shortest possible time and to

bring down Castro.

“I was in Cuba shortly after this

episode. The tension was palpable.

Khrushchev…agreed to buy the sugar

that the US had refused to take. The

USSR became very popular

overnight, but still, for the majority

of Cubans, this didn’t mean that they

had chosen Communism, or that they

considered that it was being imposed

upon them. A popular expression of

sentiment in Cuba at the time was

‘Sin Cuota; Sin Amo’ (without quota;

without bosses). At the time US

newspapers were still available in

Havana. I recall in Early August of

1960 reading the most crude

distortions of what was happening in

Cuba. Most of the US press was

claiming that Castro was clamping a

Communist dictatorship upon an

unwilling, oppressed people.

“One of my most vivid recollections

from that time was attending a mass

rally on August 6. (1960) in the

Havana Sports stadium Fidel

addressed a crowd of about 70,000.

There was nothing dragooned (or

restrained) about the audience. It was

composed of people of all ages;

workers’ and peasants’ milit ia,

students’ militia, men and women –

many armed. The rally marked

another decisive stage in the

radicalization of the Cuban revolution

and in Cuba’s relations with the United

States. cubaFidelSpeech-098It was

the occasion on which he announced

the expropriation of all US companies

and assets in Cuba. The crowd went

wild with delirious excitement. The

next day (or rather, later the same day,

as the rally didn’t end until 5 am on

August 7), the streets of Havana were

thronged with thousands of people

celebrating their freedom from

‘Yanqui imperialism.’ Numerous

buildings were festooned with

banners announcing that ‘this

company is the property of the people

of Cuba.’ Young militia women, rifles

slung over their shoulders, stood

guard in front of the buildings. Feeling

somewhat apprehensive about how

Uncle Sam might react to this

demonstration of sovereignty by its

small and ‘uppity’ Latin neighbour, we

frequently asked people whether they

were worried that the marines might

come ashore soon. The response was

almost always immediate and uniform:

‘Let ‘em come! We’ll deal with them!’

“In late August the United States

tightened the screws further. At a

conference of the Organization of

American States in Costa Rica, the

State Department, through its

manipulation of many Latin American

delegations, secured Cuba’s

expulsion from the OAS and

demanded in the so-called

‘Declaration of San Jose’ that Castro

open his country to an OAS

inspection. The Cubans, aware of the

debacle that had just occurred in the

newly independent Congo,

supposedly under the auspices of

the U.N., had no intention of

complying.

“While working [as members of the

first ever international work brigade

to visit Cuba] with picks and shovels

in the Sierra Maestra [on the

construction of the first residential

school in that remote area] we read

reports in the New York herald

Tribune of a State Department

document presented to the Cost Rica

conference claiming that our work

brigade was in fact a Soviet trained

international communist guerrilla

force, smuggled into Cuba to

reinforce the supposedly

demoralized Castro militia and help

to spread red revolution throughout

the hemisphere. It was, the

statement claimed, a common Soviet

ruse to disguise such contingents as

‘work brigades’. This was the kind

of ‘evidence’ the State Department

invented in order to swing their Latin

American client states into line

against Cuba.

“On September 2 the Cuban

government answered the

accusations emanating from the

State Department via the OAS

meeting. Fidel spoke at a rally in

Havana attended by 1 million

peoplewho enthusiastically packed

the Plaza Civica [now the Plaza de

la Revolution]. From that historic

meeting came the first ‘Declaration

of Havana’ which was essentially a

declaration of independence and an

assertion of the right to formulate a

foreign policy without pressure or

interference from the United States

or anyone else. Each clause of the

declaration was submitted for the

approval of the ‘assembly of the

Cuban people.’ In this fashion

Cuba’s foreign policy alignment


9

A R T I C L E S


changed overnight. I remember

listening to that address, relayed

from Havana, in a Cuban army barrak

near the top of the highest mountain

in the Sierra Maestra. The

proceedings went on until the elrly

hours of the morning, depriving us

of much needed sleep.

“Our work schedule at the Camilo

Cienfuegos site was frequently

interrupted whether by invitations to

this or that celebration or by visits

from this or that delegation. The most

memorable of these events was a visit

by Che Guevara, who was at that

time Minister of Industry.

Representatives of a dozen or more

countries packed into a fairly small

building to listen to him and to ask

questions. My impression was that

he differed from all the other political

leaders I had listened to in Cuba (and

by that time I had heard many) in his

less volatile delivery, and the cool,

completely undemagogic way he

dealt with questions. I did not know

then that he was an Argentinian and

not a Cuban, though whether this in

any way accounted for his style, I

have no idea.

“We met hundreds of young people,

mainly women, from Santiago,

Havana and elsewhere, enrolled as

‘agrarian instructors’ in the first

stage of the albeto campaign, which

resulted a few years later in the virtual

elimination of illiteracy in Cuba –

many years short of the time the UN

predicted it would take. It was almost

inconceivable that anyone but the

most bone-headed reactionary bigot

could have failed to be impressed and

deeply moved by the Cuban

revolution in those early years. But

few of i ts achievements were

reported in the western world.

“Successive US administrations,

Republican and Democratic, have

treated Cuba’s attempts to break free

from US tutelage and build a socialist

society as a criminal offense to be

punished with the utmost severity.

The catalogue of real offenses

perpetrated against Cuba is endless.

Distortions of fact, lies and chicanery

have been the commonplace

accompaniments of the thirty-five

year old vendetta against Castro and

his country. In 1961 the Bay of Pigs

invasion organized by the CIA was

preceded by a clumsy provocation

involving the mendacious claim that

the Cuban air force had rebelled; CIA

terrorism and sabotage against Cuba

was routine in the 1960s and the

numerous well-documented attempts

to assassinate Castro sit uneasily with

the US public opposition to terrorism;

the so-called missile crisis of 1962

seems to have had its immediate origin

in a secret planned invasion of the

island that became known to the

Cubans; the retention to the present day

of the provocative base on Cuban soil

at Guantanamo is in blatant violation

of Cuban sovereignty and against the

expressed demand of the Cuban

government for its removal. But worst

of all perhaps is the 34 year old

blockade of the country, which, until

1990 guaranteed Cuba’s heavy

dependence on the Soviet bloc.

“The US treatment of Cuba doesn’t

differ in any essentials from its

treatment of other cases of radical

nationalism in the hemisphere.

Guatemala in 1954, the Dominican

Republic in 1963, El Salvador and

Nicaragua, Chile and Grenada – all

examples of what happens when

attempts are made to overthrow

oppressive puppet regimes. Radical

reforming governments or movements

in these countries have, like Cuba, been

subjected to political and economic

destabilization, murderous terrorism by

US armed and trained death squads,

sabotage, embargo, blockades, US

backed military coup and outright

invasion. In each case the pretense has

been to ‘restore democracy’.

That was written nearly twenty years

ago. Much has changed since then.

But if the prospects of real, radical

change in the Latin America now

seem brighter than they were then,

it is no thanks to any change of heart

on the part of the United States.

Changes in the balance of class

forces in countries such as

Venezuela, Bolivia, Uruguay and

Ecuador and less radical, but

nonetheless encouraging signs of

resistance on the part of countries

such as Brazil and Argentina

encourage the hope that the tide is

turning and that the challenge to the

neo-liberal model imposed on so

many countries will permanently

weaken the economic hegemony of

US imperialism in the hemisphere.

And, for all the difficulties it still

faces, Cuba is no longer alone. Its

example has been an important factor

in stimulating the determination of

millions to fight for the better world

which is possible. Viva Cuba!

07 December, 2014

Mike Faulkner is a British citizen.

He lives in London where for many

years he taught history and political

science at Barnet College, until his

retirement in 2002.

Source: Greanvillepost.com


10

A R T I C L E S

continued next page

PUTIN TO DONATE 50,000 TONS OF RUSSIA’S COAL DAILY TO UKRAINE

FOR HEAT

By Eric Zuesse

On Saturday, December 27th, Russian

President Vladimir Putin decided that

though Ukraine cannot now pay for coal

and will soon go bankrupt, so that any

‘sale’ of coal to Ukraine will be a

donation, Russia will nonetheless supply

50,000 tons of coal per day to Ukraine

in order to help them through the winter.

The official announcement said that “this

is a demonstration of good will of

President Vladimir Putin to provide real

support for the Ukrainian people.”

In a bill that had passed both houses of

the U.S. Congress, with more than 98%

support from members of both houses,

and which U.S. President Barack Obama

then signed into law on December 18th,

the United States has made available to

the Ukrainian Government the possibility

of up to $450 million to aid its war against

the residents in Ukraine’s far-eastern

region, Donbass. The Ukrainian

Government is killing the residents there

because the vast majority of them don’t

recognize the legitimacy of the U.S. coup

on 22 February 2014 that overthrew

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych,

for whom the people in that now-

rebelling region had voted 90%. Obama

has said that this military aid will not

immediately be supplied, and that he will

hold this expense and threat in abeyance

for the time being.

So, the Ukrainian Government either is,

or will be, receiving donations, or

possible donations, from the taxpayers

in both the United States and Russia.

An earlier announcement from Russia’s

Deputy Prime Minister, Dmitry Kozak,

said that Russia would supply Ukraine

with “up to a total of 1 million tons of

coal per month, … to remove energy

problems that arise in that country.”

President Putin has decided instead on

1.5 million tons per month. He did this

despite Russia’s own economic

hardships from the Obama-imposed

economic sanctions against Russia, and

from the Saudis’ agreement with U.S.

Secretary of State John Kerry in

September to flood the global markets

with oil in order to drive down oil prices

enough to hurt Russia, which both the

U.S. and Saudi aristocracies want to

destroy. Russia, Saudi Arabia, and the

U.S. are all major exporters of oil and

gas. The Saudi and American

aristocracies want to control the

aristocrats in Russia, who are currently

controlled by Russia’s President Putin,

whom U.S. and Saudi aristocrats want

to replace.

Putin seems to be saying that the

Americans and the Saudis will not dictate

his policies, and that he is more interested

in ameliorating the extreme hardships

that are being suffered by the victims of

Obama’s February coup in Ukraine.

Perhaps this response from Putin will

anger Obama even more, but what can

Obama do about it?

Probably, things are not playing out in

the way that things had been gamed

out inside the U.S. White House at the

time when the Ukrainian coup was

being planned by President Obama,

Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of

State John Kerry, CIA Director John

Brennan, and the other Obama

advisors. However, only future

historians will be able to write about

that; no reporter today can.

28 December, 2014

Eric Zuesse is the author, most

recently, of They’re Not Even Close:

The Democratic vs. Republican

Economic Records, 1910-2010.

Source: Countercurrents.org

FIGHTING THE “ISLAMIC STATE” IS NOT THE ISRAELI PRIORITY

By Nicola Nasser

Defying a consensus that it is a priority

by the world community comprising

international rivals like the United

States, Europe, Russia and China and

regional rivals like Iran, Syria and Saudi

Arabia, Israel, like Turkey, does not eye

the U.S. – led war on the IS as its

regional priority. Nor fighting Israel is

an IS priority.

The Israeli top priority is to dictate its

terms to Syria to sign a peace treaty

with Israel before withdrawing its

forces from the occupied Syrian Golan

Heights, Palestinian territories and

Lebanese southern lands.

For this purpose, Israel is determined

to break down the Syria – Iran alliance,

which has been the main obstacle

preventing Israel from realising its

goals. Changing the ruling regime in

either Damascus or Tehran would be

a step forward. Towards this Israeli

strategic goal the IS could not be but

an Israeli asset.


11

continued next page


“To defeat ISIS (The Islamic State in

Iraq and Syria as the IS was previously

known) and leave Iran as a threshold

nuclear power is to win the battle and

lose the war,” Prime Minister Benjamin

Netanyahu told the UN General

Assembly last September.

Therefore, “it should not come as a

surprise that the (Benjamin) Netanyahu

government has not yet taken any

immediate steps against IS,” according

to Amos Harel, writing in Foreign

Policy on September 15.

However, information is already

surfacing that Israel is “taking steps”

in the opposite direction, to empower

the IS and other terrorist groups

fighting and infighting in Syria.

Israeli daily Haaretz on last October 31

quoted a “senior Northern Command

officer” as saying that the U.S. – led

coalition “is making a big mistake in

fighting against ISIS … the United

States, Canada and France are on the

same side as Hezbollah, Iran and

[Syrian President Bashar al-] Assad.

That does not make sense.”

Regardless, on September 8 Israeli

daily The Jerusalem Post reported that

Israel has provided “satellite imagery

and other information” to the coalition.

Three days later Netanyahu said at a

conference in Herzliya: “Israel fully

supports President [Barack] Obama’s

call for united actions against ISIS …

We are playing our part in this

continued effort. Some of the things

are known; some of the things are less

known.”

Obama’s call was the green light for

Israel to support Syrian and non- Syrian

rebels. Syrian official statements claim

that Israel has been closely coordinating

with the rebels.

Israeli statements claim theirs is

confined to “humanitarian” support to

“moderate” Syrian opposition, which

the U.S. has already pledged to train

and arm in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and

Turkey. A significant portion of the $64

billion earmarked for conflicts abroad

in the budget legislation signed by

Obama on December 19 will go to

these “moderates.”

Both Israel and the U.S. have no

headaches about whether the

“moderates” would remain as such

after being armed with lethal weapons

or whether it remains appropriate to

call them “opposition.”

But the Israeli “humanitarian” claim is

challenged by the fact that Israel is the

only neighbouring country which still

closes its doors to Syrian civilian

refugees while keeping its doors wide

open to the wounded rebels who are

treated in Israeli hospitals and allowed

to return to the battle front after

recovery.

IS close to Israeli borders

The Israeli foreign ministry on last

September 3 confirmed that the U.S.

journalist Steven Sotloff whom the IS

had beheaded was an Israeli citizen as

well. In a speech addressed to Sotloff’s

family, Netanyahu condemned the IS

as a “branch” of a “poisonous tree”

and a “tentacle” of a “violent Islamist

terrorism.”

On the same day Israeli Defense

Minister Moshe Ya’alon officially

outlawed the IS and anyone associating

with it.

On September 10, Netanyahu

convened an urgent security meeting

to prepare for the possible danger of

the IS advancing closer to the Israeli

border, a prospect confirmed by the

latest battles for power between the IS

and the al – Nusra Front on the

southern Syrian – Lebanese borders

and in southern Syria, within the

artillery range of Israeli forces.

On November 9, Ansar Bait al-Maqdis

(ABM), which has been operating

against the Egyptian army, released an

audio clip pledging allegiance to the IS

to declare later the first IS Wilayah

(province) in the Egyptian Sinai

Peninsula, south of Israel.

On last November 14 The Israeli Daily

quoted Netanyahu as saying in a private

defense meeting that the IS is

“currently operating out of Lebanon …

close to Israel’s northern border. We

must take this as a serious threat.”

However, “in truth, as most of Israel’s

intelligence community has been quick

to point out, there are no signs that

anything of the sort is actually

happening,” according to Amos Harel,

writing in Foreign Policy five days later.

Moshe Ya’alon told journalists in

September that “the organization

operates far from Israel” and thus

presents no imminent threat. Israeli

peace activist Uri Avnery, on November

14, wrote: “The present and former

generals who shape Israel’s policy can

only smile when this ‘danger ’ is

mentioned.”

Israel “certainly does not see the group

as an external threat” and the “Islamic

State also does not yet pose an internal

threat to Israel,” according to Israeli

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 DA R T I C L E S

12


journalist and Associate Policy Fellow

at the European Council on Foreign

Relations, Dimi Reider, writing in a

Reuters blog on last October 21.

What Netanyahu described as a

“serious threat” in the north does not

yet dictate any Israeli action against it

because “we must assume that

Hizballah,” which is allied to Syria and

Iran, “does not have its house in order,”

according to the Israeli premier.

The presence of the IS Wilayah on its

southern border with Egypt is

preoccupying the country with an

internal bloody anti-terror conflict that

would prevent any concrete Egyptian

contribution to the stabilization of the

Arab Levant or support to the

Palestinians in their struggle to end the

Israeli occupation of their land, let alone

the fact that this presence is already

pitting Egypt against Israel’s

archenemy, Hamas, in the Palestinian

Gaza Strip and creating a hostile

environment that dictates closer

Egyptian – Israeli security coordination.

Therefore, Israel is not going to

“interfere” because “these are internal

issues of the countries where it is

happening.” Israel is “informally …

ready to render assistance, but not in a

military way and not by joining the

(U.S. - led) coalition” against the IS,

according to the deputy head of the

Israeli embassy in Moscow, Olga Slov,

as quoted by Russian media on

November 14.

Jordan is another story

However, Israel’s eastern neighbours

in Jordan and Syria seem another story.

“Jordan feels threatened by IS. We will

cooperate with them one way or

another,” ambassador Slov said.

Jordanian media has been reporting that

more than 2000 Jordanians had already

joined al-Qaeda splinter the IS, al-

Qaeda’s branch al-Nusra Front or other

rebels who are fighting for an “Islamic”

state in Syria. Hundreds of them were

killed by the Syrian Arab Army.

The Daily Beast on last June 27 quoted

Thomas Sanderson, the co-director for

transnational threats at the Center for

Strategic and International Studies, as

saying that Israel considers the survival

of Jordan as “a paramount national

security objective.”

If Jordan requested Israeli assistance

in protecting its borders, Israel would

have “little choice” but to help, the

Beast quoted the director of the Israeli

National Security Council, Yaakov

Amidror, as saying.

As a precaution measure, Israel is

building now a 500-kilometre “security

fence” on its border with Jordan.

While Israel is willing and getting ready

to “interfere” in Jordan, it is already

deeply interfering in Syria, where the

real battle has been raging for less than

four years now against terrorists led

by the IS.

A few weeks ago The Associated Press

reported that the IS and the al-Nusra

had concluded an agreement to stop

fighting each other and cooperate on

destroying the U.S. – trained and

supported rebels (The Syrian

Revolutionaries Front and the Hazm

movement) as well as the Syrian

government forces in northern Syria.

But in southern Syria all these and other

terrorist organizations are coordinating

among themselves and have what Lt.

Col. Peter Lerner, a spokesman for the

Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) called

“a gentleman’s agreement” with Israel

across the border, according to Colum

Lynch in Foreign Policy on June 11.

Last October, Al-Qaeda branch in

Syria, al-Nusra, was among the rebel

groups which overtook the only border

crossing of Quneitra between Syria and

the Israeli – occupied Golan Heights.

Israel has yet to demonstrate its

objection.

“Many Sunnis in Iraq and the Gulf

consider ISIS a bullet in their rifles

aimed at Shiite extremism, in their bid

to restore their lost standing,” Raghida

Dergham, a columnist and a senior

diplomatic correspondent for the

London – based Arabic Al-Hayat daily,

wrote in the huffingtonpost on

September 19.

A political public agreement between

Israel and the Gulf Arabs has developed

on a mutual understanding that the

dismantling of the Syria – Iran alliance

as a prelude to a “regime change” in

both countries is the regional priority,

without loosing sight of the endgame,

which is to dictate peace with Israel

as the regional power under the U.S.

hegemony. The IS is “the bullet in their

rifles.” From their perspective, the U.S.

war on the IS is irrelevant, for now at

least.

24 December, 2014

Nicola Nasser is a veteran Arab

journalist based in Birzeit, West Bank

of the Israeli-occupied Palestinian

territories.



13

continued next page

ANOTHER MH17 COVER-UP: HIDING A KEY AUTOPSY

By Eric Zuesse

Decisive evidence as to how the July

17th shooting-down of the MH17

Malaysian airliner occurred is being

hidden by the four-nation team that’s

doing the official ‘investigation’ into the

plane-downing incident.

This decisive evidence is the coroner’s

report on the corpse of the airliner’s

pilot. If the pilot was killed by bullets,

then the standard ‘explanation’ of the

downing (that the plane was downed

by a ground-fired missile) isn’t just

false, it’s an outright hoax. So: where’s

the pilot’s autopsy?

This investigation is important because

stringent economic sanctions against

Russia were instituted immediately

after the downing; these sanctions were

based upon never-substantiated

charges from the Ukrainian

Government, and from its sponsor the

U.S. Government, alleging that the

plane had been downed by rebels who

were supported by Russia. (The “Buk”

missile launcher charged by Ukraine as

the cause was actually manned by

Ukraine’s soldiers.)

The same Government, the U.S., that

had lied its way into invading Iraq,

might now be orchestrating still-more-

dangerous frauds, with the potential

even for a nuclear war against Russia.

The four nations doing the official

investigation and report into the airliner-

downing are: Ukraine, Australia,

Belgium, and Netherlands. All four are

U.S. allies; and, one of them, Ukraine,

is one of the two main suspects in this

case, the other being separatists against

the Ukrainian Government. (They’re

not represented in this ‘investigation.’)

The United States and Ukraine say that

the airliner was downed by separatists

who mistakenly thought that they were

shooting down a Ukrainian bomber

instead of an airliner. (Even if that had

been true, the U.S. would still have

been the ultimate cause of the downing.

The whole cover-story was designed

to be believed only by fools.)

However, the Ukrainian Government,

which until now has maintained

steadfastly that there is only one

possible explanation for the downing

— their explanation, that it had been

downed by a “Buk” ground-fired

missile controlled by the rebels —

finally changed their tune on December

21st, and announced that maybe it

wasn’t. Apparently, the other three

nations on the team are refusing to sign

their names onto a joint report from all

four (according to the secret agreement

signed by them all on August 8th, this

report will be unanimous or else it

won’t be at all) that commits to

Ukraine’s ‘explanation,’ because the

real evidence is overwhelmingly against

it — as will herein be explained and

documented.

According to London’s Daily Mail on

December 5th, a video documentary

from a Russian journalist “suggested”

that, “pieces of 30mm rounds were

found in the bodies of the pilots.”

30mm bullets are the same size of

bullets that come from the types of

fighter-jet planes that are in the

Ukrainian Air Force, including the

following jets: Su-25, Su-27, and Mig-

29. 30mm bullets are very different

from missile-shrapnel, which the U.S.

and Ukraine allege had brought down

this airliner.

A retired Lufthansa pilot, Peter

Haisenko, examined a remarkably clear

photo of the key piece of evidence on

the downing, which is the side-panel

of the fuselage right next to the pilot;

this panel was riddled with what he

said were 30mm bullet holes, shot right

into the spot where the pilot’s belly

would be. Apparently (if Haisenko is

correct), the airliner ’s pilot was

machine-gunned to death, his belly was

ripped into by a hail of bullets, after

which the attacking jet or jets fired a

missile into the airliner’s body, and the

airliner then promptly plummeted to

earth. No ground-fired missile was

involved. (The ground-fired “Buk”

would have been 33,000 feet below,

much too far away for precise

targeting at the plane’s pilot; and

shrapnel-holes are not round; they’re

very different from bullet-holes.)

What’s in question is whether the

approximately two-foot-diameter gash

into the fuselage right next to the pilot

was the result of hundreds of bullets

fired into the pilot’s belly, as Haisenko

alleges. If any bullets at all were

involved in this downing, then the

Ukrainian Government is the guilty

party in it, because only they have an

Air Force; the separatists do not. The

separatists had no way to machine-gun

the plane’s pilot to death. The

separatists were never that close to the

airliner.

Because of the allegation in the Daily

Mail, I consulted the source of that

allegation, which was a documentary

film that had been made by Russian

journalist Andrei Karaulov. Because it’s

in Russian, I engaged a Russian

translator, who found that the source

of the Daily Mail’s allegation was at

3:50-5:00 on this video.

It says there:


14


continued next page

“Judging by the cockpit fragments

photos, the cockpit was shot by 30-

mm cannon projectiles. There should

be plenty of them in the pilots’ bodies.

As announced, the bodies of the

passengers were transferred to

relatives, but the bodies of both main

and support jet crews (currently kept

in the Netherlands), were in bad

condition due to (1) heavy shelling

targeted at the cockpit, and (2) crashing

to earth. The projectiles must have been

found by now, most certainly. Their

type must have been definitely

ascertained. Why are these findings not

announced? There is but one inference:

the high professionals on the

international investigation board are

severely pressured by some powers,

which don’t want certain of the

findings to be publicly disclosed.”

“One month ago [from the time of

shooting the video] the international

commission announced that it found

certain ‘objects’ in pilots’ bodies. I

believe these were 30mm cannon

projectile particles. When we were in

Copenhagen, we were told by the

international investigation commission

that investigation results would be

made public on 9 October. To this day

it hasn’t been done.”

So: Where’s this crucial autopsy-

report? We’ve seen the side-panel with

its bullet-holes; were bullets lodged in

the corpse?

(Here are photos of the Pilot’s coffin

and funeral-procession.)

What we have gotten instead is the

Ukrainian Government backing away

from the ‘explanation’ that U.S.

President Barack Obama, who installed

their regime, endorsed, and used as his

excuse for the EU to hike sanctions

against Russia — an act of war, which

now has been followed by the President

and Congress virtually declaring war

against Russia by taking over Ukraine

on Russia’s very border. Based totally

on lies.

Evidently, Obama believes that if

George W. Bush could fool the

American public into invading Iraq,

Obama can fool them into invading

Russia. Can it be: he’s aiming to out-

do even Bush?

PS: a note that my translator wants to

append:

I have now read the Daily Mail article

for the first time — what a distortion

of the facts stated in the

documentary!!!

1. They claim that, according to the

Russian media, the air traffic controller

and the pilot fled together, which was

never said (nor even suggested) in the

documentary. This was apparently

done in order to make the

documentary look ridiculous and far-

fetched, which it is not.

2. They forget to mention, that

authorities of Borispol [the airport]

tower, when contacted by A.

Karaulov’s team, said they never had

anyone by the name of Anna Petrenko

[the alleged fighter-jet’s alleged

girlfriend] on staff, when the opposite

was said by lower rank employees.

And when the journalists contacted

some unnamed boss, s/he just hung

up the phone on them.

3. The article doesn’t give any proof

of the girl and the pilot still being alive,

which makes it seem even more

sinister [i.e.: did the Government kill

them, to silence them?].

24 December, 2014

Eric Zuesse is the author, most

recently, of They’re Not Even Close:

The Democratic vs. Republican

Economic Records, 1910-2010.


THE OIL PRICE CRASH OF 2014By Richard Heinberg

Oil prices have fallen by half since late

June. This is a significant development

for the oil industry and for the global

economy, though no one knows exactly

how either the industry or the economy

will respond in the long run. Since it’s

almost the end of the year, perhaps this

is a good time to stop and ask: (1) Why

is this happening? (2) Who wins and

who loses over the short term?, and

(3) What will be the impacts on oil

production in 2015?

1. Why is this happening?

Euan Mearns does a good job of

explaining the oil price crash here.

Briefly, demand for oil is softening

(notably in China, Japan, and Europe)

because economic growth is faltering.

Meanwhile, the US is importing less



15

continued next page

petroleum because domestic supplies

are increasing—almost entirely due to

the frantic pace of drilling in “tight” oil

fields in North Dakota and Texas, using

hydrofracturing and horizontal drilling

technologies—while demand has

leveled off.

Usually when there is a mismatch

between supply and demand in the

global crude market, it is up to Saudi

Arabia—the world’s top exporter—to

ramp production up or down in order

to stabilize prices. But this time the

Saudis have refused to cut back on

production and have instead unilaterally

cut prices to customers in Asia,

evidently because the Arabian royals

want prices low. There is speculation

that the Saudis wish to punish Russia

and Iran for their involvement in Syria

and Iraq. Low prices have the added

benefit (to Riyadh) of shaking at least

some high-cost tight oil, deepwater,

and tar sands producers in North

America out of the market, thus

enhancing Saudi market share.

The media frame this situation as an

oil “glut,” but it’s important to recall

the bigger picture: world production of

conventional oil (excluding natural gas

liquids, tar sands, deepwater, and tight

oil) stopped growing in 2005, and has

actually declined a bit since then. Nearly

all supply growth has come from more

costly (and more environmentally

ruinous) resources such as tight oil and

tar sands. Consequently, oil prices have

been very high during this period (with

the exception of the deepest, darkest

months of the Great Recession). Even

at their current depressed level of $55

to $60, petroleum prices are still above

the International Energy Agency’s high-

price scenario for this period contained

in forecasts issued a decade ago.

Part of the reason has to do with the

fact that costs of exploration and

production within the industry have

risen dramatically (early this year Steve

Kopits of the energy market analytic

firm Douglas-Westwood estimated that

costs were rising at nearly 11 percent

annually).

In short, during this past decade the

oil industry has entered a new regime

of steeper production costs, slower

supply growth, declining resource

quality, and higher prices. That all-

important context is largely absent

from most news stories about the price

plunge, but without it recent events are

unintelligible. If the current oil market

can be characterized as being in a state

of “glut,” that simply means that at

this moment, and at this price, there

are more willing sellers than buyers; it

shouldn’t be taken as a fundamental

or long-term indication of resource

abundance.

2. Who wins and loses, short-term?

Gail Tverberg does a great job of teasing

apart the likely consequences of the oil

price slump here. For the US, there will

be some tangible benefits from falling

gasoline prices: motorists now have

more money in their pockets to spend

on Christmas gifts. However, there are

also perils to the price plunge, and the

longer prices remain low, the higher

the risk. For the past five years, tight

oil and shale gas have been significant

drivers of growth in the American

economy, adding $300 to 400 billion

annually to GDP. States with active

shale plays have seen a significant

increase of jobs while the rest of the

nation has merely sputtered along.

The shale boom seems to have resulted

from a combination of high petroleum

prices and easy financing: with the Fed

keeping interest rates near zero, scores

of small oil and gas companies were

able to take on enormous amounts of

debt so as to pay for the purchase of

drilling leases, the rental of rigs, and

the expensive process of fracking. This

was a tenuous business even in good

times, with many companies subsisting

on re-sale of leases and creative

financing, while failing to show a clear

profit on sales of product. Now, if

prices remain low, most of these

companies will cut back on drilling and

some will disappear altogether.

The price rout is hitting Russia quicker

and harder than perhaps any other

nation. That country is (in most

months) the world’s biggest producer,

and oil and gas provide its main sources

of income. As a result of the price

crash and US-imposed economic

sanctions, the ruble has cratered. Over

the short term, Russia’s oil and gas

companies are somewhat cushioned

from impact: they earn high-value US

dollars from sales of their products

while paying their expenses in rubles

that have lost roughly half their value

(compared to the dollar) in the past five

months. But for the average Russian

and for the national government, these

are tough times.

There is at least a possibility that the

oil price crash has important

geopolitical significance. The US and

Russia are engaged in what can only

be called low-level warfare over

Ukraine: Moscow resents what it sees

as efforts to wrest that country from

its orbit and to surround Russia with

NATO bases; Washington, meanwhile,

would like to alienate Europe from

Russia, thereby heading off long-term

economic integration across Eurasia

(which, if it were to transpire, would

undermine America’s “sole

superpower” status; see discussion

here); Washington also sees Russia’s

annexation of Crimea as violating

international accords. Some argue that

the oil price rout resulted from

Washington talking Saudi Arabia into



16

continued next page

flooding the market so as to hammer

Russia’s economy, thereby neutralizing

Moscow’s resistance to NATO

encirclement (albeit at the price of

short-term losses for the US tight oil

industry). Russia has recently

cemented closer energy and economic

ties with China, perhaps partly in

response; in view of this latter

development, the Saudis’ decision to

sell oil to China at a discount could be

explained as yet another attempt by

Washington (via its OPEC proxy) to

avert Eurasian economic integration.

Other oil exporting nations with a high-

price break-even point—notably

Venezuela and Iran, also on

Washington’s enemies list—are

likewise experiencing the price crash

as economic catastrophe. But the pain

is widely spread: Nigeria has had to

redraw its government budget for next

year, and North Sea oil production is

nearing a point of collapse.

Events are unfolding very quickly, and

economic and geopolitical pressures

are building. Historically,

circumstances like these have

sometimes led to major open conflicts,

though all-out war between the US and

Russia remains unthinkable due to the

nuclear deterrents that both nations

possess.

If there are indeed elements of US-led

geopolitical intrigue at work here (and

admittedly this is largely speculation),

they carry a serious risk of economic

blowback: the oil price plunge appears

to be bursting the bubble in high-yield,

energy-related junk bonds that, along

with rising oil production, helped fuel

the American economic “recovery,”

and it could result not just in layoffs

throughout the energy industry but a

contagion of fear in the banking sector.

Thus the ultimate consequences of the

price crash could include a global

financial panic (John Michael Greer

makes that case persuasively and, as

always, quite entertainingly), though it

is too soon to consider this as anything

more than a possibility.

3. What will be the impacts for oil

production?

There’s actually some good news for

the oil industry in all of this: costs of

production will almost certainly decline

during the next few months.

Companies will cut expenses wherever

they can (watch out, middle-level

managers!). As drilling rigs are idled,

rental costs for rigs will fall. Since the

price of oil is an ingredient in the price

of just about everything else, cheaper

oil will reduce the costs of logistics and

oil transport by rail and tanker.

Producers will defer investments.

Companies will focus only on the most

productive, lowest-cost drilling

locations, and this will again lower

averaged industry costs. In short order,

the industry will be advertising itself

to investors as newly lean and mean.

But the main underlying reason

production costs were rising during the

past decade—declining resource

quality as older conventional oil

reservoirs dry up—hasn’t gone away.

And those most productive, lowest-

cost drilling locations (also known as

“sweet spots”) are limited in size and

number.

The industry is putting on a brave face,

and for good reason. Companies in the

shale patch need to look profitable in

order to keep the value of their bonds

from evaporating. Major oil companies

largely stayed clear of involvement in

the tight oil boom; nevertheless, low

prices will force them to cut back on

upstream investment as well. Drilling

will not cease; it will merely contract

(the number of new US oil and gas well

permits issued in Novemberfell by 40

percent from the previous month).

Many companies have no choice but

to continue pursuing projects to which

they are already financially committed,

so we won’t see substantial production

declines for several months. Production

from Canada’s tar sands will probably

continue at its current pace, but will

not expand since new projects

willrequire an oil price at or higher than

the current level in order to break even.

As analysis by David Hughes of Post

Carbon Institute shows, even without

the price crash production in the

Bakken and Eagle Ford plays would

have been expected to peak and begin

a sharp decline within the next two or

three years. The price crash can only

hasten that inevitable inflection point.

How much and how fast will world oil

production fall? Euan Mearns offers

three scenarios; in the most likely of

these (in his opinion) world production

capacity will contract by about two

million barrels per day over the next

two years as a result of the price

collapse.

We may be witnessing one of history’s

little ironies: the historic

commencement of an inevitable,

overall, persistent decline of world

liquid fuels production may be ushered

in not by skyrocketing oil prices such

as we saw in the 1970s or in 2008, but

by a price crash that at least some

pundits are spinning as the death of

“peak oil.” Meanwhile, the economic

and geopolitical perils of the unfolding

oil price rout make expectations of

business-as-usual for 2015 ring rather

hollow.

20 December, 2014

Richard Heinberg is a senior fellow

at the Post Carbon Institute

Source: Post Carbon Institute Blog

PAKISTAN: A FAILURE TO UNDERSTAND.

continued next page


17

By Maryam Sakeenah

The Peshawar school attack is a

tragedy that sends senses reeling, an

enormity that confounds the senses.

It does not help however, to dismiss

the people who committed this foul

atrocity as ‘inhuman’, or to say they

were not really Muslims. It is a

convenient fiction that implies a most

frustrating unwillingness and inability

to understand how human beings are

dehumanized and desensitized so they

commit such dastardly acts under the

moral cover of a perverted religiosity.

This unwillingness and inability to

understand is deeply distressing

because it shows how far away we

are from even identifying what went

wrong, and where- and hence, how

far we are from any solution.

The international media has reflected-

not surprisingly- a superficial, flat

and ludicrously shallow grasp of the

issues in Pakistan. The CNN (and

other channels) repeatedly portrayed

the incident as ‘an attack on children

for wanting to get an education. ’ In

fact, the UK Prime Minister himself

tweeted: “The news from Pakistan is

deeply shocking. It’s horrifying that

children are being killed simply for

going to school.” It actually reeks of

how the media’s portrayal and use

of Malala’s story has shaped a rather

inaccurate narrative on Pakistan.

Years ago shortly after 9/11, former

CIA analyst Michael Scheuer had

lamented Western politicians’ dim-

witted understanding of terrorism and

the motives behind it . Scheuer

highlighted how dishonestly and

dangerously Western leaders

portrayed that the terrorists were

‘Against Our Way of Life’; that they

were angry over the West’s progress

as some deranged barbarians battling

a superior civilization out of rank

hatred. This rhetoric from Western

politicians and the media ideologized

terrorism and eclipsed the fact that

terror tactics were actually a reaction

to rapacious wars in Muslim (and

other) lands often waged or

sponsored by Western governments.

It diverted focus from the heart of

the problem and created a misleading

and dangerous narrative of ‘Us versus

Them’, setting global politics on a

terrible ‘Clash of civilizations’ course.

Today, I remembered Scheuer again,

browsing through responses to the

Peshawar tragedy both on local social

media as well as from people in

positions of power- most reflected a

facile understanding of the motives

of terrorism. The Taliban spokesman

Umar Khorasani states: “We selected

the army’s school for the attack

because the government is targeting

our families and females. We want

them to feel the pain.”

Certainly, this is twisted and

unacceptable logic. What is most

outrageous is his attempt to give

religious justification to it by twisting

religious texts.

Certainly, the leadership of the TTP

is guilty of a criminal abuse of

religious sources to legitimize its vile

motives and sell i t to their

conservative Pashtun following who

are on the receiving end of Pakistan’s

military offensive in the tribal areas.

The TTP leaders have hands

drenched in innocent blood. Even the

Afghan Taliban have rejected the use

and justification of such means by

the TTP as unacceptable by any

standards in an official statement.

But I wonder at those human beings

chanting Arabic religious expressions

who blew themselves up for the

‘glorious cause’ of taking revenge

from innocent unsuspecting school

children. I wonder how they had

gone so terribly, terribly wrong in

their humanity, their faith. Certainly,

they were taken in with the TTP’s

malevolent ideological justification

for the rank brutality they

committed. Certainly, they allowed

themselves to be taken in because

they perceived their miserable lives

had no intrinsic worth except in being

given up in order to exact vengeance.

I understood too when I heard a

victim student writing in pain,

vowing revenge. ‘I will grow up and

make their coming generations learn

a lesson’, he said. In that line, I

understood so much about human

psychology and the psychology of

victimhood, and the innate need for

avenging wrongdoing.

The problem with the public

perception of the war in Pakistan is

that we see only part of it: we see

the heartrending images from

Peshawar and elsewhere in the urban

centres where terrorists have struck.

But there is a war that we do not see,

hidden from public view. This is the

war in the tribal north. The familiar



18

images we see from the war divide

the Pakistani victims of this war into

Edward Herman’s ‘worthy’ and

‘unworthy’ victims- both, however,

are innocent victims- the ones we see

and the ones we do not. But because

some victims are unworthier than

others, the unworthy victim claims

worth to his condemned life in dying,

misled into thinking that death by

killing others can be a vindication.

But sometimes the ones we are not

allowed to see, make themselves

visible in horrible, ugly ways; they

become deafeningly loud to claim

notice. And in the process, they make

other victims- our own flesh and

blood... And so it is our bloody

burden to bear for fighting a war that

was not ours, which has come to

haunt us as our own.

The work of some independent

journalists has highlighted the war we

do not see in Waziristan- their work,

however, has not made it to

mainstream news. Such work has

brought to light enormous ‘collateral

damage’ figures. Some independent

journalists have also focused on the

plight of IDPs who feel alienated and

forgotten by the Pakistani state and

nation. It must be noted, however,

that there is no access to the media

in the areas where the army’s

operation is going on. The news we

get from the war zone is solely

through the Pakistan Army- there is,

hence, absolutely no counternarrative

from Waziristan. And hence our one-

sided vision eludes a genuine

understanding.

This unwillingness and inability to

understand reflects in our

uninsightful militarist approach to the

problem in Waziristan. While the

necessity of using military means to

combat a real and present danger is

understood, the need for it to be

precisely targeted, limited in scope

and time, and planned to eliminate or

at least substantively minimize

collateral damage is equally

important. The need to efficiently

manage the fallout of such an

operation and rehabilitate affectees

cannot be overemphasized. On all

these counts, we need to have done

more.

But perhaps the most vital

understanding is that military

operations are never the enduring

solution. They may be needed to

achieve specific necessary targets,

but only with the aforementioned

conditionalities to minimize the

fallout. Moreover, the bigger, deeper

problems have to be dealt with

through a wider, more insightful non-

military approach: listening and

understanding, dialogue, mutual

compromise and reconciliation,

rehabilitation and peacebuilding.

There are numerous examples in the

past- even the recent past- of how

war-ravaged communities drenched

in the memory of oppression and

pain, seething with unrelenting hate,

have successfully undertaken

peacebuilding. There have been

temporary respites in this war in

Pakistan whenever the two sides

agreed to a ceasefire. That spirit

ought to have lasted.

I understand that this sounds

unreasonable on the backdrop of the

recent atrocity, but there is no other

way to give peace a chance.

Retributive justice using force will

prolong the violence and make more

victims.

Since religion is often appealed to in

this conflict, its role in peacebuilding

has to be explored and made the best

of. To break this vicious, insane cycle,

there has to be a revival of the spirit of

‘Ihsan’ for a collective healing- that is,

not indiscriminate and unrelenting

retributive justice but wilful, voluntary

forgiveness (other than for the direct,

unrepentant and most malafide

perpetrators). This must be followed

by long-term, systematic peacebuilding

in Pakistan’s war-ravaged tribal belt in

particular and the entire nation in

general. Such peacebuilding will

involve religious scholars, educators,

journalists, social workers and other

professionals. Unreasonable as it may

sound, it is perhaps the only enduring

strategy to mend and heal and rebuild.

The spirit of ‘Ihsan’ has tremendous

potential to salvage us, and has to be

demonstrated from both sides. But

because the state is the grander

agency, its initiative in this regard is

instrumental as a positive overture to

the aggrieved party.

But this understanding seems to have

been lost in the frenzy, just when it was

needed most pressingly. I shudder to

think what consequences a failure to

understand this vital point can bring.

The Pakistani nation has already paid

an enormously heavy price.

17 December, 2014

Maryam Sakeenah is a Pakistan-

based independent researcher and

freelance writer on International

politics, human rights and Islam.


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