Collapse of the European Left
May 28, 2007
Jean Bricmont presents an excellent analysis of the developments that have made the European Left increasingly irrelevant. I haven’t read his new book Humanitarian Imperialism yet, but a good friend of mine rates it very highly. I’ll post a review here when I get around to reading it.
Once upon a time, there were, in France and in Europe, two ways to be on the left. One was fighting for social reforms, both in the factories (strengthening of the unions) and at the state level (extension and democratization of education and build-up of strong public services); this was the program of the social democrats but also, in France, for the second part at least, by the Gaullists. The other way to be on the left was hoping, or waiting, for a revolution, usuallly thought to be proletarian, similar to the Soviet revolution, or at least to what the dominant interpretation of that revolution was. That was the communist line, along with the one of smaller groups, trotzkyist or anarchist. No such revolution occurred, but, in practice, the two wings were helping each other–the fear of a revolution, which was overrated also by the right, for Cold War purposes, helped the reformists and, in any case, the communists were fighting energetically for reforms, while waiting for better times. Even the communists and the Gaullists, for all their rhetorical differences, were in practice quite close to each other : both were in favour of decolonization, a strong social state and an independent foreign policy. However, because De Gaulle was rather conservative, the social democratization of France was probably less pronounced that in Scandinavia or in Britain.
Then came the Mitterrand victory in 1981. His program was in essence social-democratic, but sold to some extent as revolutionary (“changing life”). But it came at a time when the reaction was gaining ground worldwide, with the election of Reagan, Thatcher and the crisis of communism. The victory of Mitterrand was not overwhelming, and was to some extent due to people being tired of the long conservative rule (from 1958 to 1981). France was certainly not in a revolutionary mood and not ready to cut itself off from the rest of Europe. So, after two years, Mitterrand changed course, with the “turn of rigour”, as they called it, and from then on, followed a “mainstream”social and economic policy, neoliberal in essence, but sometimes without the enthusiasm that existed elsewhere. When the Gaullists came back to power with Chirac in 1995, they followed similar policies, because no alternative was available, but maybe with even less enthusiasm than the socialists, since those policies were opposite to those of de Gaulle and the Gaullists, unlike the socialists, did not feel to have been proven wrong.
But once the left had been in power and, after merely two years, had admitted that its socio-economic program was inapplicable, what was it going to do? Basically, it went into moralism. The discourse changed from advocating concrete economic policies to praising “values”– antiracism, anti-antisemitism, and antifascism. The one concrete policy that it did support was “European construction”, meaning strengthening the powers of the European Union. This was partly justified in the name of values, mostly anti-nationalism, without seriously discussing what it meant in concrete socio-economic terms. What it did mean is to render social-democratic policies impossible : now, most European countries don’t even control their currency, run by “independent”experts at the European central bank. But without control over the currency, an independent economic policy is impossible and everything else (social policies) depends on that. Besides, many important laws now enacted by European parliaments are merely adaptations of directives from the European Commission, itself a highly undemocratic bureaucracy, very privileged and totally committed to neo-liberalism. It is a government which is not under the control of any parliament, since the European Parliament barely merits that title, and, with 25 countries and so many languages, could hardly function as a parliament. Contrary to appearences, radical social changes are far more possible in the United States than in Europe, because the basic democratic structures still exist in the United States, while they have been destroyed in Europe.
European construction was part of the collateral damage of the anti-nationalist “value oriented”left, which included the Greens and most of the post-68 new left (many of whom joined the socialists). Their line of thought was that all evils came from the European nation-states, held responsible for the two World Wars. To the extent that this was true, it did not apply to the post-World War II social-democratic states : there was nothing criminal or genocidal or racist in Olof Palme policies, or in those of De Gaulle, Bruno Kreisky, Willy Brandt, and Clement Atlee. Nor is there anything criminal in the foreign policy of Switzerland, the one European state that has preserved its independence, and which is committed to non-intervention in the internal affairs of other countries.
Thus, the first problem of this value oriented left is that, for all its talk about democracy and human rights, it has effectively emptied democracy of its content and made practically illegal the economic policies of the old left that had created, by the end of the seventies, a relatively peaceful, well educated and tolerant Europe.
The second problem, which is hardly ever mentioned, is that the whole notion of politicians moralizing the citizens is totally undemocratic. In a democracy, those who are elected are supposed to be the servants of the people, not their masters. In particular, they are supposed to propose specific policies and, if elected, implement them. But it is not their job to lecture us about what we should think or about our “attitudes”. In particular, one may hope that racism will regress if people are better educated, mix with each other and feel secure. The role of governments is to make these things possible, not to tell the populace how evil racism is.
The third problem is that, once the Left went into the “value” game, the Right did so too and much more effectively. Most people prefer to hear discourses about restoring authority, family values and patriotism to being told that their private thoughts about women, foreigners or gays, which may very well not be politically correct, are responsible for all sorts of horrors.
The fourth problem is that much of this leftist talk about values is centered around antifascism, as if this were the main issue today. The fact is that fascism was defeated more than sixty years ago and that nobody, not even Le Pen, seriously thinks of bringing it back, at least in its original form, namely a one party dictatorship, headed by a major leader. The left, specially the far left, loves to talk about “Vichy France”, forgetting that the Vichy regime was the result of a foreign invasion and would not have existed without it. Before the war, France was probably the least fascist among the countries of continental Europe. Moreover, the vast majority of french people were not born during that period (or during the Algerian war - another favorite theme of the far left) and it would be difficult to find lots of people that are really nostalgic about that period. There is nothing moral or politically effective about making people feel guilty for crimes that they have not committed; yet a lot of the discourse on the left and the far left does just that.
Moreover, the “antifascist” mythology perfectly fits the United States and even the Israeli policies. Indeed, since the end of the war, every single opponent of Western policies, communists, third world nationalists, or islamists (Ahmadinejad in particular) has been branded a “new Hitler”, “fascist”, etc. It is curious, but nevertheless true, that radical criticism of United States imperialism or of Israeli policies is almost automatically suspected of “lacking vigilance” against fascism or “islamo-fascism” or of sympathies for it, so that such criticisms are rarely heard. This suspicion extends to people like Chavez, and it has become difficult to say a nice word about Cuba, even in communist circles. There were no protest against the Kosovo or Afghan wars and very little, compared to other European countries, against the Iraq war. Besides, information on the crisis that the current situation in Iraq creates in the United States is almost inexistent.
A further problem is that, partly as a result of this shift towards values, the intellectual left is in a terrible state in France. Those who remember Sartre, or even Foucault, as the dominant French intellectuals, may not always realize how much things have changed. There is very good work being done around Le Monde Diplomatique and the “global justice” movement Attac, as well as among successors of Pierre Bourdieu, but almost no progressive thought elsewhere, particularly in the universities. The dominant thinkers are the media stars, the “nouveaux philosophes” (not so new since they have been around for at least 30 years) who use human rights to beat the drums against the Third World and to change the subject when Israel’s policies are mentioned. There are almost no Marxist or Keynesian economists left; political science is entirely “liberal”in the peculiar sense of being “anti-state”but seeing nothing wrong with the concentration of the media in a few private hands (often linked to the military industries) or with the worldwide power of the United States. Finally, there are very few rationalist philosophers — the right wing ones being the human rights crusaders and the “left-wing ones”being postmodern in one sense or another. There are no intellectual equivalents of Chomky, Herman, Zinn, Blum, Parenti, Petras, etc. There is very little alternative press of quality, and no websites comparable to CounterPunch, Znet or Antiwar.com.
Given the magnitude of the crisis of the French left, the surprising fact is not that Sarkozy won, but that Ségolène Royal nevertheless got 47% of the vote, much of which expressed a rejection of Sarkozy rather than endorsement or her non-existent alternative. This is a testimony to the resilience of the French population to the dominant pro-capitalist and pro-imperialist discourse, to which the intellectual and political leaders of the left offer absolutely no answer. This resilience, which also expressed itself in the no vote to the European constitutional treaty, may be the basis of a future reconstruction of the left; but a lot of rethinking wlll have to be done before this happens.
The Israelization of Fatah
May 27, 2007
Since the beginning of the Oslo process, Fatah has been acting as Israel’s enforcer in the Occupied Territories. Khaled Amayreh raises a timely question:
Careful to ensure that the “shortcomings” of last year’s war with Hizbullah were not repeated, the Israeli army continued to bomb Palestinian residential neighbourhoods in Gaza and surrounding areas, inflicting death and destruction on the defenceless population.
Last Sunday evening, an Israeli F-16 bomber launched two missiles at the home of Khalil Al-Hayya, a Palestinian lawmaker representing the pro-Hamas Reform and Change Party.
The missiles destroyed his home, killed at least six members of his family, including his wife and a number of his children. Another two visitors in the Al-Hayya home were also killed in the attack which Israeli officials suggested were designed to cause “shock and awe”. Al-Hayya, however, escaped injury.
Earlier, the Israeli airforce carried out a number of sorties against government buildings, injuring many civilians and causing untold damage to the infrastructure.
Tuesday afternoon, Israeli warplanes, including Apache helicopters and unmanned surveillance drones bombed a number of metal workshops, claiming that the family businesses were involved in manufacturing Qassam missiles.
Approximately 30 Palestinians were killed, over half of them unarmed and with no connection to any armed groups. The Israelis claimed that the attacks were carried out in response to a barrage of Qassam missiles that were launched into Israeli towns, such as Sderot, near the Gaza border.
However, the Qassams are notoriously inaccurate and although they make a lot of noise and smoke, and cause some destruction, they have killed very few people. This is why they are viewed by Israelis and many Palestinians as primarily a psychological weapon that fosters a collective feeling of anxiety amongst the Israeli population, especially those in Sderot.
This anxiety was exacerbated when one Israeli woman was killed in Sderot. So far, this was the sole casualty caused by the firing of more than 60 Qassams, a clarion testimony to the relatively ineffectiveness of these projectiles.
Indeed, the majority of Israeli “casualties” have been people suffering from shock. But if “suffering from shock” is viewed as “an injury” or a “casualty” then the Palestinians can rightfully claim that the entire Palestinian population of Gaza (nearly a million and a half) are suffering from even greater shock due to the nearly daily bombardment and indiscriminate killing to which they are subjected.
There is no doubt that the fundamental motivation behind the latest Israeli incursion into Gaza has far more to do with the Israeli government’s desire to compensate for the shortcomings of the Lebanon war and to implement the Winograd Committee’s recommendations. This followed the strong criticisms made against the political-military establishment by the committee which issued accusations of mismanagement and claimed that these had allowed Hizbullah to inflict high casualties on the Israeli side.
Some observes speculated that the disproportionate attacks on Hamas, coupled with renewed threats to assassinate Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and Hamas politburo chief Khaled Mashaal constitute pro-active Israeli intervention in the intermittent confrontations between Hamas and the so-called “pro-American trend” within Fatah, headed by Mohamed Dahlan.
Indeed, Israeli military leaders were hesitant about attacking Hamas while the infighting between the two Palestinian organisations raged. However, when it died down, the Israeli army moved specifically against Hamas.
Last week, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that unnamed Western governments, including presumably the US, had asked Israel to help Fatah defeat Hamas, following the example of Ethiopian intervention in Somalia against the former Union of Islamic Courts’ fighters.
Fatah angrily dismissed these accusations as any veracity thereof would portray them as proxies of the Israelis and Americans fighting Patriotic Palestinians.
On Sunday, Urayeb Rantawi, a Palestinian commentator based in Jordan, urged Fatah to confirm their raison d’être and clarify their goals. “We want to know and the Palestinian people want to know, is Fatah still the glorious liberation movement that started and maintained the struggle for freedom and liberation over the decades or has it turned into an Israelised group that is being financed and armed by the United States and Israel?”
Meanwhile, the latest clashes between Fatah and Hamas seem to have ended for the time being, mainly due to intensive mediation efforts by Egypt. Surprisingly there has been no mediation efforts by other Arab states.
The last bout of infighting, which lasted more than a week, left as many as 45 Palestinians dead, and many more injured. Furthermore, the fighting exacerbated the psychological chasm between the two movements and may have set the stage for future armed confrontations if comprehensive resolutions are not reached in the near future.
Gaza journalist Salah Al-Naami, an expert on Israeli affairs and correspondent for the London- based pan-Arab newspaper, Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, wrote on Monday that unless Hamas and Fatah agreed to a true partnership, the latest ceasefire would be a mere hiatus or a brief respite in the fratricidal fighting .
Al-Naami also suggested that traditional forms of reconciliation between the clans and families of Gaza, who have lost sons in the internal fighting, be adopted whereby “bloody money” or diyya, is paid to each and every bereaved family.
Al-Naami called on rich Arab states to undertake this task, saying that such an undertaking would be considered a radical treatment of the problem.
On the political level, it is also safe to assume that confrontations will resume sooner rather than later if the forces and militias answerable to Dahlan, and Hamas’s Executive Force continue to refuse to answer to the Palestinian Interior Ministry.
Indeed, it was due to this refusal that Hani Al-Qawasmeh, the former interior minister, angrily quit his job recently, arguing that the militias ignored orders from the Interior Ministry.
More to the point, it is also imperative that the Palestinian leadership make sure that the Fatah forces sever all contacts and coordination with American representatives, such as the United States Security Coordinator to the PA and Israel, Keith W Dayton, who make no secret of their desire to stoke the fire of civil war among Palestinians, apparently for the purpose of serving Israeli interests.
Britcon Beaten in Russia
May 27, 2007
Just now on Aljazeera I watched Britcon pro-War campaigner Peter Tatchell, famous for blaming all the world’s ills (including Russian antipathy towards homosexuals) on Muslims, being punched in the face by a Russian Orthodox Christian at a Gay Pride parade in Moscow. He was subsequently arrested by the Russian Police. We will no doubt discover that Iran was behind this attack, and the grand parents of the man who punched him had Muslims for neighbors.
The Allies It Deserves
May 27, 2007
Blair’s New Labour has played the race card in a manner that would make even Tory’s cringe. From the execrable Blunkett, to Reid to the Poodle himself — no race-related political opportunity has gone unexploited. It is no surprise then that New Labour leaders should receive the endorsement of the Far-right BNP. Observer reports:
The British National Party has supported Margaret Hodge in calling for British-born families to take priority over immigrants in the queue for council homes.
They have seized on the Labour MP’s comments as a vindication of its extremist policies. ‘Labour MP Margaret Hodge deserves a word of compliment from the BNP for her efforts to raise the thorny issue of social housing for native Britons, an issue that has been in our manifesto for years,’ the far right party says on its website. ‘Britain is full and there is no more room for any economic migrants, whatever language they speak, what religion they practice and what they look like.’
And it talks about how Hodge has gifted the BNP a win-win situation. ‘If native Britons and long-established immigrant families get preference to homes over recent arrivals then the BNP’s position has not only been legitimised but fulfilled,’ the BNP states. ‘If on the other hand hopes are falsely raised by Mrs Hodge’s comments and Labour fail to deliver, many more desperate families looking for a home of their own will be moving closer to considering voting BNP.’
Further pressure is heaped on the DTI minister in today’s Observer. A letter signed by 98 lawyers and barristers, sent to this paper, calls on the minister to ‘resign or be sacked’ from her post. It says that the remarks were wrong, and adds: ‘To suggest that lengthy council house waiting lists are caused by immigrants is pandering to racism and untrue.’
So how does the rest of the ‘progressive’ Labour party respond when one of its leaders makes such blatant use of the race card?
With Hodge’s ministerial career hanging by a thread, the six MPs standing for Labour’s deputy leadership yesterday threw her a lifeline by refusing to back calls for her to resign. At a hustings near Bristol, Education Alan Johnson was scornful of the idea that Hodge should go, although last week he criticised her opinions. When asked if she should resign Johnson said: ‘No, I don’t agree with that. She’s raised an important issue and ministers have to be able to discuss difficult subjects.’
Deputy leadership rival, Hazel Blears, said: ‘I think she has got the issue a bit wrong, I think housing is about the shortage of supply – we haven’t got enough homes for people either to rent or to buy.’
Neither Hilary Benn or Peter Hain would comment on the resignation issue. Benn said: ‘We need to show people that housing allocation is fair.’ And Hain said: ‘I do not believe that we should make policy on the hoof in the way that she did.’
The kindest comments came from Harriet Harman, who has won Hodge’s vote in the deputy leadership race. ‘I very much admire the work she has done as a local MP and as a minister, and she is a close personal friend of mine, but even close friends sometimes disagree about politics,’ Hodge said. ‘My own view is that if we have allowed people to be here because they are afraid of persecution or if we need them to work here, then they and their children must be treated equally.’
The Cabal Strikes Back
May 27, 2007
I was going to comment on Steve Clemons’ important report on the machinations of Cheney and his neocon clique, but it appears Justin Raimondo has already dealt with it here:
You would think that a political tendency such as the neoconservatives, one that has presided over a disastrous war which is increasingly unpopular, and which has unleashed a wave of resentment and even hatred against them, would just crawl back under the rock from whence they sprang and lay low for the duration. Not the neocons, however: they may be down, but they are far from out, as this report from Washington policy wonk Steve Clemons makes all too ominously clear:
“Multiple sources have reported that a senior aide on Vice President Cheney’s national security team has been meeting with policy hands of the American Enterprise Institute, one other think tank, and more than one national security consulting house and explicitly stating that Vice President Cheney does not support President Bush’s tack towards Condoleezza Rice’s diplomatic efforts and fears that the President is taking diplomacy with Iran too seriously.
“This White House official has stated to several Washington insiders that Cheney is planning to deploy an ‘end run strategy’ around the President if he and his team lose the policy argument. The thinking on Cheney’s team is to collude with Israel, nudging Israel at some key moment in the ongoing standoff between Iran’s nuclear activities and international frustration over this to mount a small-scale conventional strike against Natanz using cruise missiles (i.e., not ballistic missiles).”
The President, reined in by his party’s fear of electoral disaster and his nation’s war weariness, has hesitated to go all the way with the neocons’ plan to open up the second phase of their bid to “transform” the Middle East into a pile of “democratic” rubble: no one in this country but Dick Cheney and his boys think going to war with Iran is such a grand idea, but that isn’t stopping the neocons from trying to pull it off anyway. Clemons informs us that the plan is to have the Israelis mount the first strike, after which the Iranians will retaliate against U.S. troops in Iraq – and the fight will be on.
Further evidence of this “end run” around the White House is the recent leak to ABC News of a plan by the administration to destabilize Iran’s economy, including “a coordinated campaign of propaganda, disinformation and manipulation of Iran’s currency and international financial transactions.” Bush reportedly signed a “non-lethal presidential finding” authorizing the plan: such “findings” are supposed to be kept secret, with only the Senate and House intelligence committees in the know. The leak could only have been prompted, as Laura Rozen points out, by those with a desire to spike talks with Tehran – and perhaps even invite retaliation from the mullahs, who could easily interpret this program as an act of war.
Another component of this set-up is Lebanon, where a Sunni Muslim militant group has gotten into a major confrontation with the Lebanese army – and this barely a few months after Seymour Hersh reported in The New Yorker that the administration was covertly – albeit indirectly – funding Lebanese Salafist (Sunni) extremists in a bid to counter the Shi’ite Hezbollah, which is currently mobilizing to topple the pro-Washington government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora. Hezbollah, seen by the Americans and the Israelis (or do I repeat myself) as Tehran’s sock-puppet, is yet another tripwire laid down in the path of the stumbling American Gulliver, who is about to be dragged down into a wider Middle Eastern war.
The Cheney administration, in alliance with the Israel lobby and the currently dominant “red-state fascist” wing of the GOP, is determined to gin up a war with Iran, and they just may get away with it. Politically, there is almost no opposition to or even much awareness of this headlong rush to war, with all “major” presidential candidates committed to confronting Iran militarily, if “necessary,” over the nuclear issue.
And while the War Party is currently frustrated in its attempts to persuade the Dear Leader that bombing Tehran would be timely, the vast network of American-funded –and-sponsored covert actions around the world built up under the reign of Rumsfeld is being utilized to create provocations on every front – even to the extent of giving aid and comfort to the very folks who attacked us on 9/11, such as Fatah-al-Islam in Lebanon, which is affiliated with al Qaeda. That the Siniora government has now had to crack down on the very extremist groups they and their Saudi patrons were nurturing with cash and care should make clear even to Rudy Giuliani the exact meaning of “blowback.”
In an interview with CNN, Hersh explains the relevance of his reporting on US covert operations in Lebanon to the current outbreak of violence in that war-torn country:
“What I was writing about was sort of a private agreement that was made between the White House, we’re talking about Richard – Dick – Cheney and Elliott Abrams, one of the key aides in the White House, with Bandar [Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi national-security adviser]. And the idea was to get support, covert support from the Saudis, to support various hard-line jihadists, Sunni groups, particularly in Lebanon, who would be seen in case of an actual confrontation with Hezbollah – the Shia group in the southern Lebanon – would be seen as an asset, as simple as that.”
Notice how he talks about an agreement between the White House – “Cheney and Elliott Abrams” – and Prince Bandar. George W. Bush is totally out of the loop. The Cheney cabal is mobilizing all its considerable power to launch a final Middle Eastern offensive, and their Lebanese excursion – reportedly a major reason for the sudden reassignment of John Negroponte to the State Department – is just the beginning of what they have in store for us.
In the end, however, when it comes down to launching a full frontal assault on Iran, it all depends on the Israelis. The War Party is counting on them to strike the first blow, with the guarantee that the Americans will strike the second, third, fourth, and fifth blows, ad infinitum. Blows directed not only at Iran, but also against Syria, Hezbollah, and the Palestinians.
If the sentiments expressed by Michael Freund are any indication of the general sentiment in Israel, then I wouldn’t be surprised at all if they agreed to go along for the ride. Freund, as I think any objective observer of my debate with him on the Jewcy.com Web site will conclude, simply repeated talking points, and was not interested in any objections – either moral or strategic – to his program of bombing Tehran. Facts, logic, and the possible blowback – including radioactive blowback – from a nuclear “event” in Iran: none of this seemed to penetrate his armor. He was impervious to it all, and didn’t even acknowledge let alone answer the multiplicity of objections raised – not the least of which was that the American and Israeli perspectives on this question are inevitably different. Yet Freund made no such unsubtle distinctions. Nor did he ever address the moral questions involved, such as how to justify the certain deaths of tens of thousands of Iranians and others in the name of – what, exactly? Israel’s survival? A possible Iranian nuclear strike on the U.S.? Freund actually raised this last point, which is so far-fetched that it wouldn’t even make a good episode of 24 – but I have to wonder, does he really believe this nonsense?
I doubt it. Like most war propaganda, it’s just a cynical attempt to brazenly manipulate peoples’ deepest fears, to raise the decibel level of the “debate” until rational discussion is no longer possible.
In any case, there are reasons to believe the current Israeli government would like to be the spearhead of the coming blitz, especially if it rehabilitates leaders who have lost all credibility with the stark failure of the IDF’s most recent incursion into Lebanon. The neocons reportedly were quite displeased with the Israelis for not going all out to smash Hezbollah and this could be a way for Tel Aviv to make up for it.
The idea that the US would have to “finish the job” if the Israelis started it shows how we have become the prisoners of our own satellites. According to the scenario as presented by Clemons, Israel is to be the catalyst that forces the hand of a reluctant President and traps us in a regional conflagration that will make the Iraq war seem like a mere skirmish. Yet, as Clemons makes clear, the real catalytic element here is Cheney, widely regarded as Bush’s co-president, the patron and protector of neoconservative ideologues whose agenda involves much more than advancing Israeli interests.
As Colin Powell told Bob Woodward, after 9/11, the neocons centered around the office of the vice president set up “a separate government.” That government – widely discredited, and reeling from the recent trial and conviction of one its principal figures – is now engaged in a struggle for power with the legal and duly constituted government, the outcome of which has yet to be determined. What is clear, however, is that the Cheney administration will stop at nothing in its effort to win that fight – even if it means starting World War IV. This is an outcome the neocons would dearly love to see, and I have to say that, sadly, their chances of success are quite good.
Return of al-Sadr
May 27, 2007
Patrick Cockburn on the return of Muqtada al-Sadr:
The nationalist Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has reappeared before thousands of supporters for the first time in months to call for American troops to end the occupation of Iraq.
In an impassioned sermon to 6,000 worshippers in a mosque in the holy city of Kufa al-Sadr, wearing a white martyr’s cloak thrown over his dark robes, he cried: “No, no to Satan! No, no to America! No, no to the occupation! No, no to Israel!”…
In his sermon yesterday he forcefully demanded an end to the US-led occupation and offered reconciliation to Sunni Arabs…
Surrounded by guards and aides in Kufa al-Sadr, Mr Sadr declared: “I renew my demand for the occupiers to leave or draw up a timetable for withdrawal, and I ask the government not to let the occupiers extend the occupation even for one day.” He has removed six Sadrist ministers from the government, citing its failure to set a timetable for American departure.
Mr Sadr’s demand for an end to the occupation is likely to resonate in Iraq where the Sunni community has favoured this since the invasion of 2003 and the majority Shia community has increasingly wanted a timetable for a withdrawal, according to opinion polls. The Sadrists have been meeting with anti-al-Qa’ida Sunni tribal leaders from Anbar to discuss forming a common front. Sectarian suspicions between Shia and Sunni are so deep and bitter, however, that differences will be difficult to bridge.
There has been escalating intra-Shia fighting in southern Iraq over the past two months with skirmishes in all the main Shia cities. Often the police and security forces are simply militiamen in uniform…
In an attempt to refurbish his reputation as a non-sectarian nationalist, Mr Sadr said he was ready to co-operate with Sunnis “on all issues”. He added: “I am completely ready to defend them [Sunnis and Christians] and be their armour against their enemies.”
Mr Sadr has been out of Iraq in Iran and Lebanon according to one of his aides, abandoning the Sadrist claim that he never left Iraq…
The Sadrist movement’s blend of Islam, Iraqi nationalism and populism has proved highly attractive to Shia, particularly those who are very poor. The US tried and failed to eliminate Mr Sadr in two armed confrontations in April and August 2004. The Sadrist movement survived and went on to do well in the parliamentary elections of 2005, gaining 32 seats in the 275-member national assembly and six ministerial posts.
A further reason for Mr Sadr’s return now is the growing competition between his supporters and those of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC) led by the ailing Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, who has been diagnosed with lung cancer. SIIC, formed under Iranian auspices in Tehran in 1982, has been trying with some success to rid itself of the imputation that it is subservient to Iran.
The Sadrists, by contrast, were traditionally hostile to Iran but under US pressure have increasingly come to depend on Tehran’s support.
Enduring Freedom — and Mud
May 26, 2007
News from liberated Afghanistan, which is apparently still US delivered freedom. Matt Waldman of Oxfam reports:
Millions of Afghans have seen little material improvement in their lives since 2001, and most still live in desperate poverty. From the start, the damage inflicted by a quarter-century of war was underestimated; this is not about repairing the state but building it from scratch…
In provinces where Oxfam works such as Daikundi, there is no mains water or electricity, and virtually no paved roads. Average life expectancy in Daikundi is 42 and one in five children dies before the age of five. Afghan children chew on mud they scratch from the walls of their homes to stave off hunger.
Most reconstruction work has focused on urban centres and national institutions and structures. It has been supply-driven, not needs-driven. Development urgently needs to go local, but there is confusion among state institutions about their roles, and district councils provided for by the constitution have yet to be elected. For ordinary Afghans, the local or tribal council of elders – the shura or jirga – constitutes the central authority. Yet these bodies have been largely neglected in the state-building process…
Close to half of US development assistance goes to the five biggest US contractors in the country. Too much money is lost to high salaries and living costs, non-Afghan resources and corporate profits. The overall cost of one expatriate consultant is about half a million dollars a year…
There is rising anger about civilian casualties, particularly at the hands of US units outside Nato command – a recent assault in western Afghanistan left 50 civilians dead, and in the past six weeks coalition forces have killed up to 100 civilians, compared with about 230 for the whole of 2006…
Achieving peace in Afghanistan is not an impossible task. But the mistakes of Iraq are being repeated; without a change of course the consequences are too awful to imagine.
Nahr al-Bared: The Welch Club
May 26, 2007
Franklin Lamb provides important background on the Nahr al-Bared standoff:
The camp population all say that Fatah Al-Islam came in September-October 2006 and have no relatives in the camp. They are from Saudi, Pakistan, Algeria, Iraq, and Tunisia and elsewhere. No Palestinians among them except some hanger ons. Most say they are paid by the Hariri group.
Reports that Fateh al-Islam helps people in Bared are denied. ” All they do is pray, one woman told me..and do military training.. They are much more religious than the Shia” she said…
I was told the army will have to destroy every house in Bared to remove Fateh al Islam…
Given Bush administration debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan and its encouragement for Israel to continue its destruction of Lebanon this past summer, the situation in Lebanon mirrors, in some respects, the early 1980′s when groups sprung up to resist the US green lighted Israeli invasion and occupation. But rather than being Shia and pro-Hezbollah, today’s groups are largely Sunni and anti-Hezbollah. Hence they qualify for US aid, funneled by Sunni financial backers in league with the Bush administration which is committed to funding Islamist Sunni groups to weaken Hezbollah.
This project has become the White House obsession following Israel’s July 2006 defeat.
The Welch Club
To understand what is going on with Fatah al-Islam at Nahr el-Bared one would want a brief introduction to Lebanon’s amazing, but shadowy ‘Welch Club’.
The Club is named for its godfather, David Welch, assistant to Secretary of State Rice who is the point man for the Bush administration and is guided by Eliot Abrams. Key Lebanese members of the Welch Club (aka: the ‘Club’) include:
The Lebanese civil war veteran, warlord, feudalist and mercurial Walid Jumblatt of the Druze party( the Progressive Socialist Party or PSP)
Another civil war veteran, warlord, terrorist (Served 11 years in prison for massacres committed against fellow Christians among others) Samir Geagea. Leader of the extremist Phalange party and its Lebanese Forces (LF) the group that conducted the Israel organized massacre at Sabra-Shatilla (although led by Elie Hobeika, once Geagea’s mentor, Geagea did not take part in the Sept. 1982 slaughter of 1,700 Palestinian and Lebanese).
The billionaire, Saudi Sheikh and Club president Saad Hariri leader of the Sunni Future Movement (FM).
Over a year ago Hariri’s Future Movement started setting up Sunni Islamist terrorist cells (the PSP and LF already had their own militia since the civil war and despite the Taif Accords requiring militia to disarm they are now rearmed and itching for action and trying hard to provoke Hezbollah).
The FM created Sunni Islamist ‘terrorist’ cells were to serve as a cover for (anti-Hezbollah) Welch Club projects. The plan was that actions of these cells, of which Fatah el-Islam is one, could be blamed on al Qaeda or Syria or anyone but the Club.
To staff the new militias, FM rounded up remnants of previous extremists in the Palestinian Refugee camps that had been subdued, marginalized and diminished during the Syrian occupation of Lebanon. Each fighter got $700 per month, not bad in today’s Lebanon.
The first Welch Club funded militia, set up by FM, is known locally as Jund-al-Sham (Soldiers of Sham, where “Sham” in Arabic denotes Syria, Lebanon, Palestine & Jordan) created in Ain-el-Hilwa Palestinian refugee camp near Sidon. This group is also referred to in the Camps as Jund-el-Sitt (Soldiers of the Sitt, where “Sitt” in Sidon, Ain-el-Hilwa and the outskirts pertain to Bahia Hariri, the sister of Rafiq Hariri, aunt of Saad, and Member of Parliament).
The second was Fateh-al-Islam (The name cleverly put together, joining Fateh as in Palestinian and the word Islam as in Qaeda). FM set this Club cell up in Nahr-al-Bared refugee camp north of Tripoli for geographical balance.
Fatah el-Islam had about 400 well paid fighters until three days ago. Today they may have more or fewer plus volunteers. The leaders were provided with ocean view luxury apartments in Tripoli where they stored arms and chilled when not in Nahr-al-Bared. Guess who owns the apartments?
According to members of both Fatah el-Islam and Jund-al-Sham their groups acted on the directive of the Club president, Saad Hariri. So what went wrong? “Why the bank robbery” and the slaughter at Nahr el-Baled?
According to operatives of Fatah el-Islam, the Bush administration got cold feet with people like Seymour Hirsh snooping around and with the White House post-Iraq discipline in free fall. Moreover, Hezbollah intelligence knew all about the Clubs activities and was in a position to flip the two groups who were supposed to ignite a Sunni Shia civil war which Hezbollah vows to prevent.
Things started to go very wrong quickly for the Club last week. FM “stopped” the payroll of Fateh el-Islam’s account at the Hariri family owned back.
Fateh-al-Islam, tried to negotiate at least ‘severance pay’ with no luck and they felt betrayed. (Remember many of their fighters are easily frustrated teenagers and their pay supports their families). Militia members knocked off the bank which issued their worthless checks. They were doubly angry when they learned FM is claiming in the media a loss much greater than they actually snatched and that the Club is going to stiff the insurance company and actually make a huge profit.
Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces (newly recruited to serve the bidding of the Club and the Future Movement) assaulted the apartments of Fatah-al-Islam Tripoli. They didn’t have much luck and were forced to call in the Lebanese army.
Within the hour, Fatah-al-Islam retaliated against Lebanese Army posts, checkpoints and unarmed, off-duty Lebanese soldiers in civilian clothing and committed outrageous killings including severing at four heads.
Up to this point Fatah-al-Islam did not retaliate against the Internal Security forces in Tripoli because the ISF is pro-Hariri and some are friends and Fatah al-Islam still hoped to get paid by Hariri. Instead Fatah al Islam went after the Army.
The Seniora cabinet convenes and asks the Lebanese Army to enter the refugee camp and silence (in more ways than one) Fatah-al-Islam. Since entrance into the Camps is forbidden by the 1969 Arab league agreement, the Army refuses after realizing the extent of the conspiracy against it by the Welch Club. The army knows that entering a refugee camp in force will open a front against the Army in all twelve Palestinian refugee camps and tear the army apart along sectarian cracks.
The army feels set up by the Club’s Internal Security Forces which did not coordinate with the Lebanese Army, as required by Lebanese law and did not even make them aware of the “inter family operation” the ISF carried out against Fatah-al-Islam safe houses in Tripoli.
Today, tensions are high between the Lebanese army and the Welch Club. Some mention the phrase ‘army coup’.
The Club is trying to run Parliament and is prepared to go all the way not to ‘lose’ Lebanon. It still holds 70 seats in the house of parliament while the Hezbollah led opposition holds 58 seats. It has a dutiful PM in Fouad Siniora.
The club tried to seize control of the presidency and when it failed it marginalized it. Last year it tried to control of the Parliamentary Constitutional Committee, which audits the government’s policies, laws and watch dogs their actions. When the Club failed to control it they simply abolished the Constitutional Committee. This key committee no longer exists in Lebanon’s government.
The Welch Club’s major error was when it attempted to influence the Lebanese Army into disarming the Lebanese Resistance led by Hezbollah. When the Army wisely refused, the Club coordinated with the Bush Administration to pressure Israel to dramatically intensify its retaliation to the capture of the two soldiers by Hezbollah and ‘break the rules’ regarding the historically more limited response and try to destroy Hezbollah during the July 2006 war.
The Welch Club now considers the Lebanese Army a serious problem. The Bush administration is trying to undermine and marginalize it to eliminate one of the last two obstacles to implementing Israel’s agenda in Lebanon.
If the army is weakened, it can not protect _over 70% of the Christians in Lebanon who support General Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement. The F.P.M. is mainly constituted of well educated, middle class and unarmed Lebanese civilians. The only protection they have is the Lebanese Army which aids in maintaining their presence in the political scene. The other type of Christians in Lebanon is the minority, about 15% of Christians associated with Geagea’s Lebanese Forces who are purely militia. If the Club can weaken the Army even more than it is, then this Phalange minority will be the only relatively strong force on the Christian scene and become the “army” of the Club.Another reason the Club wants to weaken the Lebanese Army is that the Army is nationalistic and is a safety valve for Lebanon to ensure the Palestinian right of return to Palestine, Lebanese nationhood and the resistance culture led by Hezbollah, with which is has excellent relations.
For their part, the Welch Club wants to keep some Palestinians in Lebanon for cheap labor, ship others to countries willing to take them (and be paid handsomely to do so by American taxpayers) and allow at most a few thousand to return to Palestine to settle the ‘right of return’ issue while at the same time signing a May 17th 1983 type treaty with Israel with enriches the Club members and gives Israel Lebanon’s water and much of Lebanon’s sovereignty.
Long story short, Fatah el-Islam must be silenced at all costs. Their tale, if told, is poison for the Club and its sponsors. We will likely see their attempted destruction in the coming days.
Hezbollah is watching and supporting the Lebanese army.
Nahr al-Bared: The Saga Continues
May 26, 2007
The tragedy of the Palestinian refugees beseiged in the Nahr al-Bared camp continues. Here are new developments.
Nasrallah Speaks
“The problem in the north can be solved politically and through the judiciary in a way that protects the Lebanese army, our Palestinian brothers, the state and peace and stability without transforming Lebanon into a battleground in which we fight al-Qaida on behalf of the Americans,” he said in a televised address.
Nasrallah said the Fatah Islam fighters who attacked the military should be brought to justice. But he said Hizbullah opposed any military incursion into the camp to crush the militants…
“The Nahr el-Bared camp and Palestinian civilians are a red line. We will not accept or provide cover or be partners in this,” he said.
Nasrallah called a large airlifting of US military supplies to the Lebanese military to help in the Nahr el-Bared fight “a dangerous thing.”
“Does it concern us that we start a conflict with al-Qaida in Lebanon and consequently attract members and fighters of al-Qaida from all over the world to Lebanon to conduct their battle with the Lebanese army and the rest of the Lebanese?” he asked.
The Wretched of the Earth
Palestinians have been at the end of the stick ever since they were driven form their homes six decades back. Once again, they find themselves abandoned by the world and find themselves having to rely on others sharing their condition. Mayssoun Sukarieh reports from the Shatila Camp:
Coming into Shatila, I heard loudspeakers calling for donations for the displaced from the Nahr al-Bared camp…
I went to the site appointed for donations collection, and met a woman asking if clothes were among the needed items. “These are old clothes, like the ones we wear, I swear, I am not differentiating between my family and them. I wish I had money but this is all what I could find at home,” she said. “Thank you Hajjeh, anything is appreciated,” the social worker said.
In a bit another woman approached the donation site with a pot of food, saying, “As I was cooking, I heard the call for donations, I thought of sharing what I have. I am sorry it is not a meat dish, but the vegetarian grape leaves are good in the summer, they are tasty.” She ends her donation the same as the first woman, “I wish I had money I could give, this is what I have. May God bless you, sons.” She walked away from the site and then came back, suggesting that she could host one or two persons in her house. “I do not have relatives in Nahr al-Bared, so I am not expecting to be hosting anyone, if there are people who will come, please sign in my name. The mattress of the summer is large as we say — meaning that in the summer one can sleep anywhere.”
Nuhad, a social worker from the Najdeh Organization, said that they counted a hundred families in Shatila. Most of them are hosted by their relatives, or people who come from the same village in Palestine…
Nuhad, as well as almost everyone else I talked to in the camp, are very touched by an interview they heard with one of displaced, as he was leaving Nahr al-Bared. Apparently, someone had called for the extermination of Palestinians with chemical weapons…
The state of solidarity in Shatila has nothing to do with Fateh al-Islam…None of the people I spoke to in Shatila expressed any sympathy with Fateh al-Islam; they just showed concern and anger at the way the Lebanese Army is shelling the camp and destroying the houses of the people.
Nadia says that her cousin said seventy percent of his neighborhood in the camp is totally destroyed… As for why they had come there, most of the people have the same answer: they always referred to the unbearable conditions of the refugees in the camp, a fact that made them subject to all sorts of exploitation.
Abu Hicham, a seventy-year-old from Sheikh Daoud in Akka (Palestine) — as he insisted on being introduced — suggests that it seems they are hitting two birds with one stone. If the government is the party that armed the group in the first place, positioning them in one of the Palestinian camps, to later play on this fact in order to suggest that the camps are places of terror that need to be under total control of the government, maybe this is a step towards a war they will wage on us before our normalization.
…what is very obvious in the streets of Beirut is that, unlike the refugees’ feelings of total detachment from Fateh al-Islam, many Lebanese think that it is a Palestinian group and that there is a need to block any Palestinian armed activities. “Palestinians need to be dealt with in Lebanon as King Hussein of Jordan dealt with them. They should be imprisoned, we have got enough of them in previous years,” a sentiment that has been frequently expressed to the Palestinian students in the Arab University and that almost sparked a fight the other day. A sentence that I also have been hearing from many Lebanese in my neighborhood as well as in the media.
Professor Franklin Lamb brings the following account from a visit inside the camp:
15 to 70 percent of some areas destroyed. Some light shooting this morning and afternoon. Army shelling at rate of 10-18 shells per minute from 4:30 am to 10 am on Tuesday. Army will not allow Palestinian Red Crescent to move out civilians because they don’t trust them. Only the Lebanese Red Cross is allowed. It is possible to enter Bared from the back (east side). The Army taking cameras of journalists they catch. The Lebanese government is controlling the information and don’t want extent of damage known yet. Still unrecovered bodies. 40 per cent of the camp population have been evacuated. The rest don’t want to leave out of fear of being shot or that they are losing their homes for the 5th time or more for some.
No electricity and cell phone batteries are dying. Relatives who fled are telling families to stay because there are not enough mattresses at Bedawi Camp. Bared evacuees are living up to 25 in one room in Badawi schools etc. 3,000 evacuees in one school in Bedawi. UN aid is starting to arrive at Badawi but workers not able so far to deliver it to Bared due to attack on relief convoy on Tuesday…
Tabulated at more than 25%, Nahr el-Bared has the highest percentage of Palestinian refugees anywhere who are living in abject poverty and who are officially registered with the UN as “special hardship” cases.
Its residents, like all Palestinians in Lebanon are blatantly discriminated against and not even officially counted. They are denied citizenship and banned from working in the top 70 trades and professions (that includes McDonald’s and KFC in downtown Beirut) and cannot own real estate. Palestinians in Lebanon have essentially no social or civil rights and only limited access to government educational facilities. They have no access to public social services. Consequently most rely entirely on the UNRWA as the sole provider for their families needs…
Guardian’s War on Iran — Continued
May 26, 2007
New Labour rag Guradian continues its disinformation campaign against Iran with with a follow up on Simon Tisdall’s frontpage propaganda piece with a new one by neocon favorite, Robert Tait. In classic eco chamber approach, Tait follows the usual banalities about political repression in Iran with a reiteration of Tisdall’s unsubstantiated claims.
With Iran this week defying yet another security council deadline for suspending its uranium enrichment and the International Atomic Energy Agency declaring its nuclear programme to be making dramatic progress, the image projected abroad is one of powerful menace by a populist self-confident government. That view has been enhanced by US claims of an Iranian summer surge designed to force American troops out of Iraq.
A journalist covering Iran would surely know that Iran is well within its rights to enrich Uranium under the NPT. The UN resolution he refers to was obtained under pressure from the US, and it deals with the inspections agreed to voluntarily by Iran, not with its NPT obligations. The IAEA, on the other hand has been turning over information gathered during the inspections to US and Israel. Both the countries have prepared the detailed target lists for their planned bombing of Iran through the information provided by IAEA inspectors. There is no reason, therefore, that Iran should cooperate with an organization, whose sole purpose is to legitimize US-Israeli aggression against other sovereign states — especially, when it has shown no interest whatever in preventing, or for that matter containing, the vast Israeli nuclear program.
In a display of total contempt for the reader’s intelligence, Tait then goes on to dump Tisdall’s load of unsubstantiated tosh on the reader once more. As I had shown earlier, Tisdall’s airy claims are based entirely on unnamed official sources.
It is not until the last paragraph that the real purpose of the article becomes obvious. Tait ends by saying,
If the west really is headed towards a full-frontal confrontation with Iran, it will find itself up against a country not at ease, but at loggerheads, with itself.
While it is clear why the neocon extremist, Michael Ledeen should sing praises of Tait, it isn’t clear why a British liberal daily should have its foreign correspondent easing the apprehension of would-be invaders. The only thing missing here is a promise of ’sweet and flowers’.
