Stephen Lendman

"Liberating struggles throughout the region just began. Expect no resolution easily or quickly."

Despite months of heroic Middle East/North African uprisings in over a dozen countries from Morocco to Syria to Oman, none so far has achieved any [significant] change, suggesting months, perhaps years, of sustained struggles lie ahead.

Media commentators first used term Arab Spring in March 2005 to suggest a beneficial Iraq war spinoff, what, of course, never happened nor could it, given Washington's intent to prevent any emerging democracies.

However, it partly succeeded in Lebanon after Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri's February 14, 2005 assassination. Afterwards, "Cedar Revolution" anger erupted, ending Syria's occupation, reducing, but not eliminating the Bashar al-Assad regime's influence in the country.

In late 2010, the term resurfaced to reflect regional uprisings still ongoing, on and off, across the Middle East/North Africa. In recent days, notably they've occurred in Yemen, Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Egypt.

Libya is noticeably different - a Western influenced insurrection now war to replace one despot with another, discussed in numerous previous articles.

Throughout most of the region, people want jobs, decent pay, better services, ending corruption and repression, as well as liberating democratic change in a part of the world where poverty, unemployment and despotism reflect daily life for tens of millions.

A previous AWIP article headlined, "Hold the Celebration: Egypt's Struggle Just Began," saying everything changed but stayed the same, a common bait and switch scheme, notably because a military junta replaced Mubarak, assuring no possibility of democracy and social justice without sustained heroic pressure forcing it, though never easily against powerful pro-Western rulers.

As a result, after initial jubilation, Egyptians know their struggle just began against adversarial military leaders, continuing the same Mubarak era policies.

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Yuri Gavrilechko
Strategic Culture Foundation

The presidential race opened in the US this April when incumbent B. Obama officially announced a re-election bid via various outlets including YouTube, saying that the second term in the White House would enable him to implement the plans that failed to materialize during his first presidency. Jim Messina is to take charge as the future campaign chief, and Obama expects to raise at least $1b – an amount unprecedented in the US history – to advance his candidacy.

Obama's campaign total was reported at $750m when he ran for president in 2008. The fund-raising was largely Internet-based, prompting talks about the importance in today's world of blogging and social media to a politician's public image. If re-elected, Obama will, on top of becoming America's first black president, be the first black president in the US to count two terms in office, the US presidential candidate with the biggest ever campaign fund, and the first presidential hopeful in the US history to avoid pouring his own money into the race to the White House.

These days, social media like Facebook and Twitter are instrumental not only in promoting political figures but also in coordinating mass protests, as the recent unrest in Tunisia, Egypt, Algeria, and Yemen clearly showed. To a large extent, Obama can be credited with pioneering the wide-scale use of new media in politics.

Truly speaking, the incumbent cannot boast considerable success over the three years since being elected. While Obama relied on a reformist image to sell his candidacy, his policies in many respects failed to depart from those of his Republican predecessor G. Bush. Some watchers even went as far as to liken Obama to the Soviet Union's first and last president M. Gorbachev, the leader who epitomizes overturned expectations, though there was a time when Obama's promised role – beating the crisis, achieving economic growth, reducing unemployment – seemed almost messianic.

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Stephen Lendman

A previous article explained that America's led NATO war on Libya was long-planned. All military interventions require months of preparation, including:

● strategy and conflict objectives;
● enlisting coalition partners;
● selecting targets;
● promoting political and public support;
● deploying troops;
● in Libya, recruiting, funding, and arming so-called rebels; and
● post-conflict imperial plans.

Washington wants one despot replaced with another, a useful puppet to salute and obey orders, not independent-minded ones like Gaddafi who went along most often but not always on all issues, some major enough to want him ousted. An important overlooked one is discussed below.

Other objectives are to colonize Libya, balkanize it like Yugoslavia and Iraq, prevent democracy from emerging, privatize its state enterprises, exploit its people, establish new Pentagon bases, and control its oil, gas and other resources, a key one getting little attention - Libya's Great Man-Made River (GMMR).

The Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System (NSAS) lies beneath four North African countries - Chad, Egypt, Sudan and Libya, called the world's largest fossil water system because it's ancient and non-renewable. In fact, the Qur'an's (Koran) Surah 2, Verse 74 says:

"For among rocks there are some from which rivers gush forth; others there are which when split asunder send forth water."

In fact, three major aquifers lie beneath the Sahara, NSAS the largest, containing an estimated 375,000 cubic km of water.

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Stephen Lendman

Since taking office, Obama shamelessly betrayed his constituents by:

● ignoring popular needs during America's greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression;
● giving Wall Street crooks trillions of taxpayer dollars;
● spending another $1.5 trillion annually on militarism, imperial wars, and related policies at a time America has no enemies;
● waging war on organized labor and public education, as well as civil and human rights; and
● claiming "tough choices" demand class warfare through neoliberal austerity for working Americans, mainly middle and lower income ones least able to afford it.

On April 13, he announced his latest plan through $4 trillion in largely social spending budget cuts over the next 12 years. More on them below.

The same day, New York Times writers Mark Landler and Michael Shear headlined, "Obama's Debt Plan Sets Stage for Long Battle Over Spending," saying:

Obama's Wednesday George Washington University speech "propos(ed) a mix of long-term spending cuts, tax increases, and changes to social welfare programs," omitting that they harm working Americans most.

A Times editorial headlined, "President Obama, Reinvigorated," saying:

"The man America elected president has re-emerged." His budget speech "was a reasonable basis for a conversation and is far better than its most prominent competitors. That is because it is grounded in themes of generosity and responsibility....(I)t was a relief to see Mr. Obama standing up for the values that got him to the table."

These aren't surprising comments from a broadsheet long associated with wealth and power interests, now pretending hammering working Americans is fair and just.

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Stephen Lendman

[War Crime:] The Israeli army used white phosphorus, a weapon
with a highly incendiary effect, in densely populated civilian resi-
dential areas of Gaza City, according to indisputable evidence.

"Over 18 months after publication, no contrary facts have been determined. [We] "have yet to establish a convincing basis for any claims that contradict the findings of the mission's report."

A previous article addressed chairman Richard Goldstone's fall from grace, accessed through this link.

It discussed his shameless retraction of irrefutable evidence he and other commission members found - namely, that Israel willfully committed crimes of war and against humanity by attacking Gazan civilians and non-military targets in clear violation of international law. Moreover, it was done disproportionately to cause mass deaths, injuries and destruction.

Shockingly, however, Goldstone accepted Israel's internal investigation findings, knowing facts were suppressed and distorted to justify policies. For whatever reasons, he capitulated, selling his soul at the expense of his honor, character, dignity, and high-mindedness, erased in his April 1 Washington Post op-ed too late to retract.

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Alex Lantier
WSWS

Stranded Egyptians who have fled Libya protest because of in-
sufficient food, water and shelter, in a camp on March 1, 2010 in
Ras Jdir, close to the border between Tunisia and Egypt. (Carlos
Spottorno/Getty Images)

Launched under the pretense of averting a humanitarian disaster, the war is reportedly becoming one itself.

The Contact Group, an assembly of foreign ministers from Western and Arab countries backing the Benghazi-based Libyan rebels of the Interim Transitional National Council (INC), met yesterday in Doha, Qatar. The meeting highlighted the INC’s role as a stooge of the imperialist powers, particularly the US, Britain and France, who are promoting it as their proxy force in a bitter civil war in Libya.

Qatar and Britain hosted the conference, with British Foreign Secretary William Hague issuing a statement in the early evening demanding that Colonel Muammar Gaddafi step down as Libyan head of state. Hague declared, “Gaddafi and his regime have lost all legitimacy and he must leave power.”

The conference praised the continued bombing of Libya by NATO forces, declaring: “These have exerted significant pressure on Gaddafi, protected civilians, including Benghazi, from violent attack and averted a humanitarian disaster.”

The conference also agreed to fund the INC: “Participants agreed that a Temporary Financial Mechanism could provide a method for the INC and international community to manage revenue to assist with short-term financial requirements and structural needs in Libya.”

INC member Mahmoud Chammam called on the US government to “liberate the funds” of the Gaddafi regime—that is, an estimated $30 billion of Libyan oil earnings held by Western banks. Normally used to pay for Libyan social spending and public sector workers’ salaries, these funds would be stolen by the major banks to pay for INC weapons and supplies.

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Stephen Lendman

"All Americans were once immigrants. It's high time newcomers were embraced like early arrivals in colonial times. They were welcomed and helped, not spurned the way Latinos and other people of color are today. It's a sad testimony to today's America, repressive at home and belligerent abroad against people who "aren't like us." Imagine the difference under leaders like them."

Founded by long-time human rights activist/former baseball executive Enrique Morones in 1986, Border Angels.org tries to save lives by

"stop(ping) unnecessary deaths of individuals traveling through the Imperial Valley desert (and mountain) areas....surrounding San Diego County, as well (locations) around the" US-Mexican border.

Extreme heat and cold conditions take lives. Desert summer temperatures reach 127 degrees so water is crucial to survive. Volunteers provide it throughout the spring and summer months, in violation of US law. In fall and winter, life-saving stations are maintained in mountain areas, providing warm clothes, food, and water.

A recent article covered Obama's immigration agenda, accessed through this link.

It discussed the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (NNIRR) recent report on repressive immigrant policing. It accused Washington and growing numbers of states of running "a brutal system of immigration control and policing that criminalizes immigration status, normalizes the forcible separation of families, destabilizes communities and workplaces, and fuels widespread civil rights violations."

It also fuels racial discrimination and hate violence against anyone perceived to be foreign, especially people of color, notably from south of the border. They risk cruel and unusual punishment, even death, NNIRR reporting at least two migrant fatalities daily, and for every body found "at least ten others are believed to have disappeared."

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Stephen Lendman

A wounded Bahraini demonstrator is treated in Manama. Photo-
graph: Joseph Eid/AFP/Getty Images

Last summer sporadic protests began. By mid-February, major ones erupted. Demonstrators held firm against King Sheikh Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa's regime. Repression and several deaths were reported from live fire.

Anti-government protesters occupied Manama's Pearl Roundabout, Bahrain's equivalent of Cairo's Tahrir Square. They demanded democratic elections, ending sectarian discrimination favoring Sunnis over Shias, equitable distribution of the country's oil wealth, and resignation of the king's uncle, Sheikh Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa, prime minister since 1971. They also want political prisoners released and state terror ended.

For weeks, many thousands defied government demands, braving police attacks with tear gas, beatings, rubber bullets, live fire, arrests, torture, and disappearances.

On February 14, Canada's National Post writer Peter Goodspeed headlined, "Trouble in tiny Bahrain carries big implications," saying:

If Bahrain becomes democratic, people throughout the region will be inspired to demand it. As a result, "the ramifications for US foreign policy could be severe. Bahrain is home to the US Navy's Fifth Fleet," the Pentagon "station(ing) 15 warships, including an aircraft battle group, in the very heart of the Persian Gulf."

"The island state off the coast of Saudi Arabia provides Washington with a perfect base from which it can protect the (region's) flow of oil, keep an eye on Iran and support pro-Western monarchies against potential threats."

On March 14, fearing uprisings against their own regimes, over 1,500 Saudi Arabia-led Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) military and police security forces invaded Bahrain guns blazing. They attacked peaceful protesters, arrested opposition leaders and activists, occupied the country, denied wounded men and women medical treatment, and imposed police state control in support of the hated monarchy.

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Ellen Brown
The Web of Debt

"So is this new war all about oil or all about banking? Maybe both – and water as well."

Several writers have noted the odd fact that the Libyan rebels took time out from their rebellion in March to create their own central bank – this before they even had a government.

Robert Wenzel wrote in the Economic Policy Journal:

I have never before heard of a central bank being created in just a matter of weeks out of a popular uprising. This suggests we have a bit more than a rag tag bunch of rebels running around and that there are some pretty sophisticated influences.

Alex Newman wrote in the New American:

In a statement released last week, the rebels reported on the results of a meeting held on March 19. Among other things, the supposed rag-tag revolutionaries announced the “[d]esignation of the Central Bank of Benghazi as a monetary authority competent in monetary policies in Libya and appointment of a Governor to the Central Bank of Libya, with a temporary headquarters in Benghazi.”

Newman quoted CNBC senior editor John Carney, who asked, “Is this the first time a revolutionary group has created a central bank while it is still in the midst of fighting the entrenched political power? It certainly seems to indicate how extraordinarily powerful central bankers have become in our era.”

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Vincent Di Stefano

Our times are not entirely graced by an abundance of wisdom in those who would rule. We are all now engulfed in the consequences of decisions made in the offices of politician-economists, investment bankers and corporate technocrats.

The rule of philosopher-kings remains a distant ideal that periodically resurfaces from the time it was first given voice by Socrates and Plato in the fifth century BCE. It found some expression in the Chakravartin king Ashoka who renounced war and conquest while at the height of his powers in third century BCE India. And it was thwarted in the attempts of the noble-hearted Boethius to reform the decadent politics of a corroded Roman empire during the sixth century CE.

Regardless, we are where we are, and it is probably useful to continue to actively seek out those rare and occasional carriers of the wisdom that would guide us towards a more equitable world, a more peaceful world, and a more sustainable world than that which we presently inhabit.

Leopold Kohr was professor of economics and public administration at a number of universities in North America, Puerto Rico, and the United Kingdom from the early 1940s to the 1970s. As a younger man, he spent time in Spain as a journalist, sharing an office with Ernest Hemingway, and a friendship and many conversations with Eric Blair, who was later to publish his own writings under the pen name of George Orwell. Even then, Kohr's sharp pen thrust at the Fascism of Franco, the Nazism of Hitler, and the Communism of Stalin.

Shocked by the destruction occurring in Europe at the hands of the great powers of the time, he began to focus his thoughts and marshal his powers of concentration in 1941. Over the next ten years, he gave them form in a manuscript entitled The Breakdown of Nations, which was completed in 1951. Throughout that time, Kohr lectured in economics at the University of Toronto and contributed occasional editorials to the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times.

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Bruce Ackerman & Yochai Benkler
New York Reviev of Books

Bradley Manning is the soldier charged with leaking US government documents to Wikileaks. He is currently detained under degrading and inhumane conditions that are illegal and immoral.

For nine months, Manning has been confined to his cell for twenty-three hours a day. During his one remaining hour, he can walk in circles in another room, with no other prisoners present. He is not allowed to doze off or relax during the day, but must answer the question “Are you OK?” verbally and in the affirmative every five minutes. At night, he is awakened to be asked again “Are you OK?” every time he turns his back to the cell door or covers his head with a blanket so that the guards cannot see his face. During the past week he was forced to sleep naked and stand naked for inspection in front of his cell, and for the indefinite future must remove his clothes and wear a “smock” under claims of risk to himself that he disputes.

The sum of the treatment that has been widely reported is a violation of the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment and the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee against punishment without trial. If continued, it may well amount to a violation of the criminal statute against torture, defined as, among other things, “the administration or application…of… procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality.”

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Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson
Monthly Review

Statement to the international media by the President of Iceland Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson [.pdf]

The Icelandic nation has now delivered its verdict and shouldered unequivocally the responsibility it is granted by the Constitution. The turnout was high by Western standards, and this, together with the extensive and thorough debate in the run-up to the referendum, shows clearly how important the issue was to the nation.

The people have now spoken clearly on this matter on two occasions in accordance with the democratic tradition which is Europe's most important contribution to world history. The leaders of other states and international institutions will have to respect this expression of the national will.

Solutions to disputes arising from financial crises and failures of banks must take account of the democratic principles which are the foundation of the constitutional structure of the West.

Iceland has demonstrated its willingness to negotiate agreements; we have shown fairness, but at the same time stuck firmly to our democratic and legal rights.

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Stephen Lendman

Fukushima's disaster will scar much, perhaps all of Japan for generations, including fetuses and newborns to be genetically harmed by radiation poisoning.

Kyodo News announced the latest news headlining, "Japan ups Fukushima nuke crisis severity to 7, same as Chernobyl," saying:

"The government's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) upgraded its provisional evaluation based on an estimate that radioactive materials far exceeding the criteria for level 7 have so far been released into the external environment...."

NISA and Japan's Nuclear Safety Commission (NSC) estimate that 370,000 - 630,000 terabecquerels of radioactive materials have been released from Units 1, 2 and 3. One terabecquerel equals one trillion becquerels.

In other words, with no crisis resolution in sight, enormous radiation amounts have already been released since March 11. Northern Japan has been contaminated. The rest of the country has been affected, and so have the Pacific rim and Northern Hemisphere.

In fact, rating Fukushima Level 7 understates it, especially since radiation emitted will continue for an indeterminate period - at least months, maybe years.

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Charles E. Carlson
WHTT

When the earthquake and 26 foot tidal wave hit Japan, a financial tsunami was also on the way to Washington DC, headed straight for the vulnerable dollar; not one in a thousand Americans knows a financial tsunami is on its way or why. The impact will sock some 80 or 90% of us consumers into much higher prices.

The undertow of dollar dilution had already arrived in every basic commodity from rolled oats to copper. But the tsunami wave is yet to arrive. World bankers are busy squandering for war as we write, trying to deny and delay the inevitable loss of buying power by artificially putting the blame on the Japanese people, who had nothing to do with creating the dilution problem.

Tsunami, a trigger for dollar dilution

It is forecast that Japan's government will have to come up with $200 billion (probably twice that much) to get Japan's industry running again. Where is Japan to get all this money? The answer is, Japan's treasury has enough US Treasury bonds and bills in hand to pay for two Tsunamis. But if they spend those dollars, it will drive down the value of every dollar Americans hold, driving up our prices. This is why the price of things, from petroleum to corn, cooking oil, meat, and especially valuable metals, are exploding.

If Japan sells even half of its $850 billion in US Treasuries, it will devastate the dollar. Worse, China holds many more dollar bonds than Japan, and has been resisting the temptation to sell for a long time. If Japan sells dollars, China will see the handwriting on the wall and also sell US spendthrift bonds... bringing the end of the dollar as a world reserve currency, and diluting our savings accounts and the buying power of government and state bonds.

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Stephen Lendman

In July 1944, 730 delegates from 44 nations met at the Mount Washington Hotel in Bretton Woods, NH for a UN Monetary and Financial Conference. Its purpose was to establish a post-war international monetary system of convertible currencies, fixed exchange rates, free trade, the US dollar as the world's reserve currency linked to gold, and those of other nations fixed to the dollar.

It also designed an institutional framework for market-based capital accumulation to assure newly liberated colonies would pursue capitalist economic development beneficial to victorious allies, mainly America.

In addition, the IMF and World Bank were established to integrate developing nations into the Global North-dominated world economy, using debt entrapment as the way to transfer their wealth to powerful Western bankers.

The scheme to this day obligates indebted nations to take new loans to service old ones, assuring rising indebtedness and structural adjustment harshness, including:

● privatization of state enterprises;
● mass layoffs;
● deregulation;
● deep social spending cuts;
● wage freezes or cuts;
● unrestricted free market access for western corporations;
● corporate-friendly tax cuts;
● crackdowns on or elimination of trade unionism; and
● harsh repression against those opposing a system incompatible with social democracy.

As a result, since WW II, public wealth shifted to powerful private hands, widening the gap between super-rich elitists and working households, a process more intense than ever now, including the amounts.

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