Vol 12, No.04 April 2012

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.WORSENING TRENDS IN GLOBAL ARMS TRANSFERS

BY CHANDRA MUZAFFAR.........................................................P 2. THE GLOBAL MARCH TO JERUSALEM

BY CHANDRA MUZAFFAR.............................................................P 3

.ORGANIZERS SAY JERUSALEM MARCH ACHIEVED GOALS

BY MA’AN NEWS AGENCY.............................................................P 4

ARTICLES

AFGHAN KILLINGS - NERVOUSBREAKDOWN?

By Gholamali Khoshroo

.THE WASHINGTON- “MODERATE ISLAM” ALLIANCE:CONTAINING REBELLION; DEFENDING EMPIRE (PART II)BY JAMES PETRAS ...............................................................P 10

Although news about the ruthlesskilling of 16 innocent Afghan

women and children by a US soldierin Kandahar has shocked the world,the incident was by no meansunexpected. A statement issued by theHead of NATO command in that regionnoted that the assailant committed thecrime in a fit of nervous breakdown.

A mother, whose young child waskilled in the incident, was crying outasking if her two-year child has been

a Taliban fighter to deserve such adeath? The bereaved mother knewbetter than NATO commanders thatthe attack was not the result of anervous breakdown, but the result ofIslamophobia to which this region,especially Afghanistan, has been avictim during the past 10 years. Thisphenomenon of Islamophobia can beclearly seen in the disastrous eventswhich have befallen Afghanistan in thepast few months.

Just a few weeks ago, there wereimages of NATO soldiers oninternational media showing thosesoldiers urinating on dead bodies ofthe victims of the Afghan war. Thoseimages shocked the entire world, butlet’s not forget that the people ofAfghanistan are daily victims ofsimilar cases of violence. Many ofthese cases are never caught oncamera and are regularly denied.

Nobody will believe that this has beenthe first or even the last case ofNATO soldiers urinating on deadbodies; they have done this both inAfghanistan and elsewhere in theworld.

The catastrophic burning of the Quranat the NATO military base in Bagramhas upset Muslims across the world.NATO claimed that it had been just amistake and the Quran pages havebeen burned along with useless paperson mistake. The question is why somany volumes of the Quran have beenincluded among useless papers at thatmilitary base? Had NATO soldierscollected those Qurans from people’shomes or Afghan prisoners asexamples of dangerous bookspromoting violence before consigningthem to fire? Who believes that NATOsoldiers give a damn about the religiousvalues of their victims?

STATEMENTS

.KONY 2012: US “HUMANITARIAN” INTERVENTION IN

AFRICA

BY BILL VAN AUKEN.........................................................P 6

.WHY PUTIN IS DRIVING WASHINGTON NUTS

BY PEPE ESCOBAR....................................................................P 5

.BRICS SUMMIT 2012: MEMBER NATIONS SIGN PACTS

TO PROMOTE TRADE IN LOCAL CURRENCY

BY THE TIMES OF INDIA.................................................................P 4

.AL JAZEERA EXODUS

BY RT.COM..............................................................................P 8

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continued from page 1In reality, however, in order to attacka country, you should first fan theflames of hatred toward that countryso high that the military will be readyto embark on a war with no guiltyconscience. Perhaps, the soldier whohas attacked poor people in a remotevillage using his automatic gun thoughtwhy should they wait a number ofyears and see those children grow intomature men who would take up armsto fight them. So, he concluded, itwould be better to nip that violence inthe bud. Didn’t the US DefenseSecretary under President RonaldReagan once say that the United Statesshould eradicate Iranians as a nation?Aren’t Israelis making daily calls onthe United States to wage a new warin the Middle East? Aren’t the USpresidential candidates engaged in a hotrace over putting more pressure onand waging a military attack on Iran?

At a time when this is the mentality atthe highest decision-making level in theUnited States, how can a simplesoldier, who is facing horrors inKandahar instead of having a good timein Florida, be expected not to go down

with a nervous breakdown? A closerlook will show us that his nervous fitwas, in fact, a result of similar nervousfits of high-ranking commanders whowage wars and call for a war on terror,or adopt a hypocritical stance againstthe proliferation of weapons of massdestruction. The real person withnervous fit is the US president, whoinstead of insisting on freeing theMiddle East from nuclear weapons,takes pride in his heartfelt love for andstrategic alliance with Israel whichalready possesses the most destructivearsenal of weapons of massdestruction in the Middle East. Whenthe US Joint Chief of Staff threatensthe entire region with war andconstantly talks about a military optionto solve the United States’ domesticand international problems, it is himwho has gone down with a nervousbreakdown.

What happened from Abu GhraibPrison to Bagram airbase and fromBagram airbase to Kandahar and fromKandahar to arrogant urination ofNATO troops on dead bodies ofbearded men, all convey the samemessage of Islamophobia. From the

viewpoint of American strategists,Islam is the most important identityelement in the Muslim Middle East. Thecall of “God is the greatest,” is heardin all Muslim countries many times aday. Therefore, killing of Afghanchildren should not be simplisticallyreduced to nervous attack of anAmerican soldier, but should beconstrued within a broader frameworkof Islamophobic policies and strategiesof the West.

No show of power and militarydeployment can destroy Islam, but itsimply draws NATO into the vortexof a deadly whirlpool. The best wayof interaction between Islam and theWest is not through fanning the flamesof war, but is opening up some spacefor dialogue. Islamophobia will onlygive birth to catastrophic violence. Thesole way of interaction between Islamand the West is through dialogue basedon understanding as well as cooperationaway from dictatorship and bullyingand founded on justice and freedom.

14 March, 2012

Gholamali Khoshroo is the Senior Editor ofthe Encyclopedia of Contemporary Islam.Source: iranreview.org

WORSENING TRENDS IN GLOBAL ARMS TRANSFERS

STATEMENTS

The Stockholm InternationalPeace Research Institute (SIPRI) hasin its 2011 Report highlighted trends inglobal arms transfers which any sanehuman being would describe as“worsening.”

SIPRI shows that “the volumeof international transfers of majorconventional weapons was 24 percent higher in the period 2007-11than in 2002-2006 .” The topsuppl ie r o f a rms dur ing bo thperiods was the United States ofAmerica. Its exports increased by24 per cent in the latter period. TheUS accounted for 30 per cent of

all arms exports between 2007 and2011.

The US was followed by Russiawhose exports increased by 12 per centbetween 2002-2006 and 2007-2011.Russia accounted for 24 per cent ofall exports. Germany, France andBritain were the other three big armssuppliers.

The top 5 suppliers accounted for75 per cent of the total volume of allglobal arms exports.

The 5 biggest arms importers in2007-2011 were India, South Korea,

Pakistan, China and Singapore in thatorder. India was also the top importerin 2002-2006. Asia as a whole was thebiggest importer of arms in 2007-2011,accounting for 44 per cent of imports.However, the largest arms deal for “atleast two decades was Saudi Arabia’sorder for 84 new and 70 rebuilt F-15SGcombat aircraft.” The beneficiary ofthis purchase concluded in 2011 wasthe US.

What is the larger significance ofthese worsening trends in global armstransfers?

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continued from page 2S T A T E M E N T S

One, global security has notincreased one iota as a result ofincreased arms transfers. Wars andarmed conflicts continue unabated.The underlying causes of conflicts andtensions in West Asia and North Africa(WANA), the Korean Peninsula, EastAsia, South Asia and parts of sub-Saharan Africa remain unresolved. Ifanything, escalating export and importof arms may even have exacerbatedtensions between states within a region— tensions arising from a relentlessarms race between neighbours.

Two, increased arms transfers arehappening at a time when the globalconomy is mired in deep crisis. It is acrisis that has caused massiveunemployment in some parts of theworld, compounded national debts,aggravated inflationary trends,increased food and fuel prices, and

reduced growth rates worldwide. Tofocus upon buying and selling armswhen economies are crumbling andcollapsing, and millions of people arewithout jobs or are struggling to makeends meet, is utterly, despicably,immoral and unconscionable.Governments and elites everywhere,including those who reap huge profitsfrom the arms industry, should beconcentrating upon those economicactivities that conduce towards life,dignity and justice — not an enterprisethat promotes death, violence anddestruction.

Given this conjuncture between anincrease in arms transfers, on the onehand, and a global economy in crisis,on the other, citizens the world overshould persuade and pressuregovernments and elites to reduce andeventually eliminate the production andconsumption of all major conventional

weapons. It goes without saying thatthis cannot be done on a national orregional basis. It has to be a truly globalendeavour. Governments should cometogether and formulate a timetable forglobal disarmament. This is one ofhumankind’s time-honoured, muchcherished dreams — a world free fromall weapons of death and destruction.Translating it into reality we realise isa monumental challenge which goesbeyond the cessation of the productionand consumption of conventionalweapons. But let the citizens of theworld at least demand that those whorule in their name put disarmament onthe global agenda as an urgent item thatrequires immediate attention.

Dr Chandra Muzaffar,President,

International Movement for a JustWorld (JUST).2 April, 2012.

THE GLOBAL MARCH TO JERUSALEMThe International Movement for

a Just World (JUST) expresses itssolidarity with the Global March toJerusalem on 30th March 2012. TheMarch will “demand freedom forJerusalem and its people and to put anend to the Apartheid, ethnic cleansingand Judaisation policies affecting thepeople, land and sanctity ofJerusalem.” The organisers of theMarch also seek “to highlight the causeof Jerusalem (the City of Peace)which is considered the key to peaceand war in the region and the world.The March will confirm that thepolicies and practices of the racistZionist state of Israel against Jerusalem

and its people are a crime not onlyagainst Palestinians but against allhumanity.”

People from all over the world, ofdifferent religious and culturalbackgrounds are expected to join theMarch. The diversity itself will signalthe commitment of the world’s citizensto the Palestinian struggle for justiceand freedom. It will help convinceeveryone that there will be no peaceon earth unless the dignity of Jerusalemand the people of Palestine is respectedand restored to the fullest. At the coreof Jerusalem’s dignity is its characteras a truly multi-religious city that

embodies the diversity of the humanfamily.

Whatever the size of the March,and regardless of whether theMarchers get anywhere close toJerusalem, the Global March toJerusalem marks an important turning-point in the peaceful, globalmobilization of the citizens of the worldfor justice in Palestine and the world.This is why all human beings whocherish peace should support itwholeheartedly.

Executive Committee, JUST29 March, 2012.

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Organizers of the Global March toJerusalem commemorating Land Daysay the march on Friday made bigstrides as most of its goals wererealized.

General coordinator of the march RibhiHalloum told Ma’an from Jordan thatthe organizers put forward three majorgoals. The first goal, he said, was tolay the grounds for future activities inline with this goal. The rally was dividedinto two parts the first of which wasorganizing rallies and sit-in strikes inJordan, Lebanon, Syria and Egypt.

Part two of this goal, added Halloum,was demonstrations and face-to-faceconfrontations with the occupationinside Palestine “to prove that thePalestinian people are still present and

are still holding fast to their land.”

The second goal, according toHalloum, was to maintain that thequestion of Palestine is no longer thecause of the Palestinian people alone,but rather a global cause, and that wasevident in the participation of solidarityactivists from 84 countries.

The third goal was to show thatoccupation will eventually disappear nomatter how long it might survive, hesaid.

The organizers, added Halloum, do notpay great attention to the number ofparticipants in the rallies, but rather tothe number of countries joining theprotests, as that reflects the supportfor Palestine.

Halloum highlighted that for the firsttime in Jordan more than 57,000Jordanian citizens joined in differentactivities commemorating Land Day.

For his part, member of the organizingcommittee from inside Israel ajaAghbariyya told Ma’an that the marchachieved its goals at an internationallevel and in Arab countries.

He highlighted that there are plans toorganize similar rallies on May 15commemorating the Nakbaanniversary. Preparations areunderway, he said.

31 March, 2012

Source: Ma’an News Agency

In an initiative to promote trade in localcurrencies, the BRICS nations todaysigned two agreements to provide lineof credit to business community anddecided to examine the possibility ofsetting up a development bank on linesof multilateral lending agencies.

The agreements were signed byofficials of five countries — Brazil,Russia, India, China and South Africa— at the fourth BRICS summit here.“The agreements signed today bydevelopment banks of BRICS countrieswill boost trade by offering credit inour local currency,” Prime MinisterManmohan Singh said in a mediastatement after the meeting.

The Master Agreement on ExtendingCredit Facility in Local Currency and

the Multilateral Letter of CreditConfirmation Facility Agreement arebeing perceived as a step towardsreplacing the dollar as the main unit oftrade between them.

Such intra-BRICS initiatives,according to officials, will not onlycontribute to enhanced trade andinvestments among the nations butwould also facilitate economic growthin difficult economic times.

As regards the initiative to set up aBRICS Development Bank on the linesof multilateral lending agency, Singhsaid the proposal would be examinedby the finance ministers.

A suggestion has been made to set upa BRICS development bank, we have

directed our FM to examine theproposal and report back by nextsummit,” Singh said.

The initiative to set up a BRICSDevelopment Bank on the lines of theWorld Bank would allow the membercountries to pool resources forinfrastructure development and couldalso be used to lend during the difficultglobal environment.

Intra-BRICS trade is about USD 230billion and has the potential of morethan doubling to USD 500 billion by2015.

29, March 2012

Source: The Times of India

ARTICLESORGANIZERS SAY JERUSALEM MARCH ACHIEVED GOALS

By Ma’an News Agency

By The Times of India

BRICS SUMMIT 2012: MEMBER NATIONS SIGN PACTS TO

PROMOTE TRADE IN LOCAL CURRENCY

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5A R T I C L E S

Forget the past (Saddam, Osama,Gaddafi) and the present (Assad,Ahmadinejad). A bet can be made overa bottle of Petrus 1989 (the problem iswaiting the next six years to collect);for the foreseeable future,Washington’s top bogeyman - and alsofor its rogue North Atlantic TreatyOrganization partners and assortedmedia shills - will be none other thanback-to-the-future Russian PresidentVladimir Putin.

And make no mistake; Vlad thePutinator will relish it. He’s backexactly where he wants to be; asRussia’s commander-in-chief, incharge of the military, foreign policyand all national security matters.

Anglo-American elites still squirm atthe mention of his now legendaryMunich 2007 speech, when he blastedthe then George W Bush administrationfor its obsessively unipolar imperialagenda “through a system which hasnothing to do with democracy” andnon-stop overstepping of its “nationalborders in almost all spheres”.”

So Washington and its minions havebeen warned. Before last Sunday’selection, Putin even advertised his roadmap The essentials; no war on Syria;no war on Iran; no “humanitarianbombing” or fomenting “colorrevolutions” - all bundled into a newconcept, “illegal instruments of softpower”. For Putin, a Washington-engineered New World Order is a no-go. What rules is “the time-honoredprinciple of state sovereignty”.

No wonder. When Putin looks atLibya, he sees the graphic, regressiveconsequences of NATO’s “liberation”through “humanitarian bombing”; afragmented country controlled by al-Qaeda-linked militias; backwardCyrenaica splitting from moredeveloped Tripolitania; and a relative

of the last king brought in to rule thenew “emirate” - to the delight of thosemodel democrats of the House ofSaud.

More key essentials; no US basesencircling Russia; no US missiledefense without strict admission, inwriting, that the system will nevertarget Russia; and increasingly closecooperation among the BRICS groupof emerging powers.

Most of this was already implied inPutin’s previous road map - his paperA new integration project for Eurasia:The future in the making. That wasPutin’s ippon - he loves judo - againstthe North Atlantic Treaty Organization(NATO), the International MonetaryFund and hardcore neo-liberalism. Hesees a Eurasian Union as a “moderneconomic and currency union”stretching all across Central Asia.

For Putin, Syria is an important detail(not least because of Russia’s navalbase in the Mediterranean port ofTartus, which NATO would love toabolish). But the meat of the matter isEurasia integration. Atlanticists willfreak out en masse as he puts all hisefforts into coordinating “a powerfulsupranational union that can becomeone of the poles of today’s world whilebeing an efficient connecting linkbetween Europe and the dynamic Asia-Pacific Region”.

The opposite roadmap will be Obamaand Hillary’s Pacific doctrine. Now how

exciting is that?

Putin plays PipelineistanIt was Putin who almost single-handedly spearheaded the resurgenceof Russia as a mega energysuperpower (oil and gas accounts fortwo-thirds of Russia’s exports, half ofthe federal budget and 20% of grossdomestic product). So expectPipelineistan to remain key.

And it will be mostly centered on gas;although Russia holds no less than 30%of global gas supplies, its liquid naturalgas (LNG) production is less than 5%of the global market share. It’s not evenamong the top ten producers.

Putin knows that Russia will needbuckets of foreign investment in theArctic - from the West and especiallyAsia - to keep its oil production above10 million barrels a day. And it needs tostrike a complex, comprehensive,trillion-dollar deal with China centeredon Eastern Siberia gas fields; the oilangle has been already taken care ofvia the East Siberian Pacific Ocean(ESPO) pipeline. Putin knows that forChina - in terms of securing energy -this deal is a vital counterpunch againstWashington’s shady “pivoting” towardsAsia.

Putin will also do everything toconsolidate the South Stream pipeline- which may end up costing astaggering $22 billion (the shareholderagreement is already signed betweenRussia, Germany, France and Italy.South Stream is Russian gas deliveredunder the Black Sea to the southern partof the EU, through Bulgaria, Serbia,Hungary and Slovakia). If SouthStream is a go, rival pipeline Nabuccois checkmated; a major Russian victoryagainst Washington pressure andBrussels bureaucrats.

WHY PUTIN IS DRIVING WASHINGTON NUTSBy Pepe Escobar

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Everything is still up for grabs at thecrucial intersection of hardcoregeopolitics and Pipelineistan. Onceagain Putin will be facing yet anotherWashington road map - the not exactlysuccessful New Silk Road (See US’spost-2014 Afghan agenda falters, AsiaTimes Online, Nov 4, 2011.)

And then there’s the joker in the pack- the Shanghai CooperationOrganization (SCO). Putin will wantPakistan to become a full member asmuch as China is interested inincorporating Iran. The repercussionswould be ground-breaking - as inRussia, China, Pakistan and Irancoordinating not only their economicintegration but their mutual securityinside a strengthened SCO, whosemotto is “non-alignment, non-confrontation and non-interference inthe affairs of other countries”.

Putin sees that with Russia, Central Asiaand Iran controlling no less than 50%of world’s gas reserves, and with Iranand Pakistan as virtual SCO members,the name of the game becomes Asiaintegration - if not Eurasia’s. The SCOdevelops as an economic/securitypowerhouse, while, in parallel,Pipelineistan accelerates the fullintegration of the SCO as acounterpunch to NATO. The regionalplayers themselves will decide whatmakes more sense - this or a New SilkRoad invented in Washington.

Make no mistake. Behind the relentlessdemonization of Putin and the myriadattempts to delegitimize Russia’spresidential elections, lie some veryangry and powerful sections ofWashington and Anglo-American elites.They know Putin will be an ultra toughnegotiator on all fronts. They knowMoscow will apply increasingly closer

coordination with China; on thwartingpermanent NATO bases inAfghanistan; on facilitating Pakistan’sstrategic autonomy; on opposingmissile defense; on ensuring Iran is notattacked.

He will be the devil of choice becausethere could not be a more formidableopponent in the world stage toWashington’s plans - be they codedas Greater Middle East, New SilkRoad, Full Spectrum Dominance orAmerica’s Pacific Century. Ladies andgentlemen, let’s get ready to rumble.

9 March, 2012

Pepe Escobar is the roving correspondentfor the Asia Times. His latest book is ObamaDoes Globalisation (Nimble Books, 2009).He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.

Source: Asia Times

KONY 2012: US “HUMANITARIAN” INTERVENTION IN AFRICABy Bill Van Auken

The campaign launched around Kony2012, a 30-minute video targeting theleader of Uganda’s Lord’s ResistanceArmy, Joseph Kony, is aimed atfurthering US military intervention onthe African continent under the guiseof humanitarianism.

The video has been viewed on YouTubetens of millions of times, and itsdepiction of the suffering of the people,and particularly the children, of Ugandaas the result of the protracted militaryconflict between the LRA and the US-backed government of PresidentYoweri Museveni has no doubt strucka chord with many, particularlyyounger people with little knowledgeof the complex history of the regionand the many interests involved.

The campaign’s message has beengreatly amplified by a series ofcelebrities, ranging from OprahWinfrey to George Clooney, Sean

“Diddy” Combs, Rhianna and four ofthe Kardashians, all of whom havetweeted their support. It has likewisereceived virtually uncritical promotionfrom the mass media, with televisionanchors in the US comparing it to theuse of social media during the massrevolts that shook Tunisia and Egyptlast year.

In reality, there is absolutely nothingradical or oppositional about Kony2012, whose explicitly stated aim is todrum up popular support for the

continuation and escalation of one ofthe first direct military interventionsby the Pentagon’s Africa Command(AFRICOM) on the African continent.In October of last year, the Obamaadministration announced its decisionto send 100 combat-equipped USmilitary “advisers,” most of themspecial forces troops, into CentralAfrica with the stated aim of huntingdown and either capturing or killingKony and other leaders of the LRA.

While Invisible Children claims itscampaign is for Kony to be deliveredto the International Criminal Court fortrial, the US government has refusedto be a party to the ICC and has madeno mention of the court in relation toits military operations in Central Africa.A March 7 open letter to PresidentBarack Obama, issued in conjunctionwith the release of the video, praisesthe Democratic president for his

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“leadership on this issue.”

“Your decision to deploy U.S. militaryadvisors to the region in October of2011 was a welcome measure offurther assistance for regionalgovernments in their efforts to protectpeople from LRA attacks,” the letterstates.

It continues, “However, we fear thatunless existing U.S. efforts are furtherexpanded, your strategy may notsucceed.” It touts the US military asthe sole force capable of providing“tactical airlift” together with “cross-border coordination.” It cautionsagainst any “premature” withdrawal ofUS special operations troops and urgesthe administration to utilize recentlyapproved Pentagon funding “to provideenhanced mobility, intelligence, andother support for ongoing operations.”The heads of three organizations signedthe letter: Invisible Children, the makerof the Kony 2012 video; the EnoughProject, a subsidiary of the Democratic-oriented think tank, the Center forAmerican Progress; and Resolve, ahuman rights group connected toCatholic missionary organizations.

Behind this campaign is an unholyalliance between the Christian right inthe US, which has chosen Uganda assomething of a laboratory for itsreactionary social and political outlook,and sections of well-heeled liberalswho have become a new constituencyfor imperialist intervention waged onthe pretext of upholding human rightsand protecting civilians.

The White House last week came outpublicly in support of the Kony 2012campaign, with spokesman Jay Carneystating that Obama “congratulates” allthose who responded to this “uniquecrisis of conscience” and vows tocontinue the US intervention.

Underlying the sudden and peculiar turnby Washington towards a “humanrights” crusade against the Lord’sResistance Army are very definiteeconomic and geo-strategic interests.These are bound up with the recentdiscovery of substantial oil reservesprecisely in the area where the huntfor the LRA is being staged andincreasingly fractious competitionbetween Washington and Beijing forgeo-political influence in resource-richAfrica. AFRICOM and militaryintervention have become crucialinstruments for the US in combatingthe wave of Chinese investments ininfrastructure projects aimed atfacilitating the extraction of African oiland mineral wealth.

What is peculiar about the interventionagainst the LRA is that it has beenlaunched under conditions in which themilitia group has already been reducedto a few hundred fighters and drivenout of Uganda. While it conductedbrutal attacks that claimed manycivilian lives and was responsible forabducting large numbers of children foruse as child soldiers a decade ago, itsoperations have been sharply curtailedin recent years and its atrocities farovershadowed by the mass killingcarried out in the resource wars beingwaged in the neighboring DemocraticRepublic of the Congo, whereMuseveni’s Ugandan troops andaffiliated militia groups are among thoseresponsible for the loss of nearly 6million lives since the mid-1990s.

The Kony 2012 video portrays Ugandaas it was a decade ago, therebygenerating false propaganda for the USmilitary intervention. At the same time,it casts the struggle between the

Ugandan government and the LRA asa morality play, pitting “good” against“evil.”

While the LRA has committedmassacres and crimes against theregion’s civilian population, it is hardlyunique in this regard. It is a product inthe final analysis of the divide-and-rulemethods utilized by British colonialism,which generated inter-ethnic conflictsthat independence and a rising nativeruling class only continued to foster.With the coming to power of Idi Aminin 1971, power shifted to thetraditionally oppressed north of thecountry and away from the south,which had been favored by the British.The Acholi, one of the main northernethnic groups, dominated the country’smilitary, which continued to exercisesignificant power even after Amin’souster in 1979.

In 1986, however, the country’smilitary ruler, Gen. Tito Okello, wasbrought down and the Acholi-dominated army disbanded afterMuseveni and his National ResistanceArmy, which preceded Kony in the useof child soldiers, swept to power.It was out of Museveni’s ruthlesssuppression of resistance in the norththat the LRA emerged. This repressionled to the forced relocation of muchof the north’s Acholi population into“protective villages,” effectivelyconcentration camps in which peoplewere deprived of their land andagriculture and many thousands diedfrom hunger and disease.Even the Museveni regime has

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Key staff from Al Jazeera’s BeirutBureau have resigned citing “bias” inthe channel’s stance on the conflict inSyria.

Bureau Managing Director HassanShaaban reportedly quit last week, afterhis correspondent and producer hadwalked out in protest.

A source told the Lebanese paperAl Akhbar that Al Jazeera’s Beirutcorrespondent Ali Hashem had quit overthe channel’s stance on covering eventsin Syria. “… his position [which]

By Rt.comAL JAZEERA EXODUS

criticized the film’s distortions. “It istotally misleading to suggest that thewar is still in Uganda,” Fred Opolot, aspokesman for the Ugandangovernment, told the Telegraph. “Isuspect that if that’s the impressionthey [Invisible Children] are making,they are doing it only to garnerincreasing financial resources for theirown agenda.”

While no doubt the Ugandan regime iscritical for its own reasons, tied to itsown interests and concerns that animage of Uganda as a war zone willinterfere with the corrupt privatizationand investment schemes that haveenriched a narrow elite at the expenseof the masses of people, thegovernment spokesman has a point.

According to Invisible Children officialJason Russell, the group sold some500,000 $30 “action kits,” consistingof T-shirts, bracelets, stickers, postersand buttons, in just the first week sincethe posting of the video, translating into$15 million in revenue.

As Invisible Children freely admits, thebulk of this money does not go to aidthe impoverished population of Uganda.Barely one third of its spending lastyear supported programs in Central

Africa, while 20 percent coveredsalaries and expenses and 43 percentwas used for “awareness programs.”

Invisible Children’s previous fundingsources also merit critical examination.Among its biggest donors is theNational Christian Foundation and theChristian Community Foundation, twogrant-making groups that providefinancial backing to key organizationsof the Christian right, such as Focuson the Family and the Family ResearchCouncil, which promote anti-abortionand anti-gay legislation and religion inschool, as well as the DiscoveryInstitute, which advocates teaching“intelligent design,” or creationism.

Some of these same religious rightgroups have been deeply involved infostering anti-gay hysteria in Uganda,including the pushing of legislation thatwould make homosexual acts an

offense punishable by death.Invisible Children’s Jason Russell wasa featured speaker last November atLiberty University, the evangelicalChristian school in Lynchburg, Virginia.The school was founded by theextreme right-wing demagogue andBaptist preacher Jerry Falwell, adefender of segregation and SouthAfrica’s apartheid regime who becamea significant force within theRepublican Party.

The Kony 2012 campaign representsa cynical attempt to manipulate publicopinion in the interests of USintervention. It seeks to exploit theidealism of young people in order todistract them from the fundamentalsource of the tragic conditions facingmasses of people in Africa—theheritage of colonial oppression andcontinued imperialist domination. Andit proposes the US government and theUS military as the solution to humanrights abuses, as if the war crimes fromVietnam to Afghanistan, Iraq and Libyahad never happened.

14 March, 2012

Bill Van Auken is a politician and activist forthe Social Equality Party and was a Presidentialcandidate in the U.S. election od 2004. He is afulltime reporter for World Socialist Web SiteSource: WSWS.org

changed after the station refused toshow photos he had taken of armedfighters clashing with the Syrian Armyin Wadi Khaled. Instead [Al Jazeera]

lambasted him as a shabeeh [implyinga regime loyalist],” a source toldLebanese press.

Ali Hashem was also infuriated byAl Jazeera’s refusal to cover acrackdown by the King of Bahrainwhile twisting its Syria angle. “[InBahrain], we were seeing pictures of apeople being butchered by the ‘Gulf’soppression machine’, and for AlJazeera, silence was the name of thegame,” he said.

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The Beirut bureau’s producer alsoquit claiming Al Jazeera had totallyignored Syria’s constitutional reformreferendum, which saw a 57% turnoutwith 90% voting for change.

Ghassan Ben Jeddo, who hadbeen the head of the Beirut Bureaubefore resigning almost a year ago, saidthat Al Jazeera was biased in coveringthe Arab Spring, especially in Syria andBahrain.

“I do believe that Al Jazeera andother channels were not balanced indealing with the events,” he said. “Forinstance, with respect to the events inSyria and Bahrain, we started to inviteguests from America who only criticizethe regime in Syria and support theregime in Bahrain and persons whojustify NATO intervention. This isunacceptable.”

Journalist and author AfshinRattansi, who worked for Al Jazeera,told RT that, “sadly”, the channel hadbecome one-sided voice for the Qatarigovernment’s stance against Bashar al-Assad, having begun as the region’srevolutionary broadcaster.

“That has been ongoing since last

April of 2011,” Debar told RT. “Thehead of the bureau in Beirut quit, manyother people quit because of the biasedcoverage and outright hand of thegovernment in dictating editorial policyover Libya, and now Syria.”

‘There’s a chill, they’re controllingthings more at Al Jazeera’

Former Al Jazeera English-language blogger Ted Rall recounted hisown story of quitting the job. He saidhis blogs and columns were beingrejected on a regular basis.

“For a long time I ascribed it toincompetence on their part because theyweren’t very good at getting back veryquickly, but over time I came to learnthrough various people there that thepolitics of the channel were changing,”he told RT. What he found out was thatleftist and progressive voices such ashis were not welcome anymore and thathe no longer needed to submit anything.

Rall noted that this change in policyonly took place recently.

“After September 11, Al Jazeerabecame a channel that could be countedupon for openness and transparency,certainly compared to most corporatebroadcast media in the West, particularlyrelated to the Middle East and CentralAsia and South Asia but that has reallychanged in the last year or so,” he said“There’s a chill, they’re controllingthings more.”

When Rall first went to work at AlJazeera, he says he was surprised thatit was actually owned by the Qatarigovernment. He compared their past

hands-off policy to that of RupertMurdoch when he owned the VillageVoice of New York City. But now, the“Qataris have decided to shape thepicture of the news a little more thanthey used to.”

While he rejected the notion ofobjectivity, Rall did note that the mediacould try to present a more balancedview.

“What you really want to see is abroad marketplace of ideas, where lotsof different ideas and stories are beingtold,” he summed up.

When it was first set up, AlJazeera English was intended to be asofter version of its Arabiccounterpart. Since then, the situationhas changed drastically, Middle Eastanalyst Tariq Ali told RT. “The channelI think, was largely set up to pleasethe west and its coverage showed thatvery clearly. There were few criticalprograms, compared to Arabic AlJazeera, but it seems now both areworking in tandem.”

12 March, 2012

Source: RT.com

continued from page 8

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continued next page

By James Petras

THE WASHINGTON-“MODERATE ISLAM” ALLIANCE:CONTAINING REBELLION; DEFENDING EMPIRE (PART II)

Contemporary History ofIslamist-Imperial Conflict

The relation between Islamist regimesand imperialism is complex, changingand full of examples of bloody conflict.

The US backed the “modernizing” freemarket dictatorship of the Shah in Iran,overthrowing the nationalistMosaddegh regime. They providedarms and intelligence for the Savak, theShah’s monstrous secret police as ithunted down and murdered tens ofthousands of nationalist-Islamists andleftist resistance fighters and critics inIran and abroad. The rise to power ofthe fundamentalist-anti-imperialistKhomeini regime fueled US armedattacks and provoked retaliatorymoves: Iran backed and financed anti-colonial Islamist groups in Lebanon(Hezbollah), Palestine (Hamas) andIraq (the Shia parties).

Subsequent to 9/11 the US invaded andoverthrew the Islamist Taliban regime,re-colonized the country, establishinga puppet regime under US-Europeanauspices. The Taliban and alliedIslamist and nationalist resistancefighters organized and established amass guerrilla army which has engagedin a decade long war with armedsupport from Pakistani Islamist forcesresponding to US military incursions.In Palestine: Washington, under theoverweening control of Israel’s Zionistfifth column, has armed and financedIsrael’s war against the popularlyelected Palestinian Islamist Hamasgovernment in Gaza. Washington’stotal commitment to the Jewish stateand its colonial expansion andusurpation of Palestinian (Muslim andChristian) lands and property inJerusalem and elsewhere reflects theprofound and pervasive influence ofthe Zionist power configurationthroughout the US political system

...They secure 90% votes in Congress,pledges of allegiance from the WhiteHouse, and senior appointments inTreasury, State Department and thePentagon.

What determines whether the USEmpire will have a collaborative orconflict-ridden relation with Islamdepends on the specific politicalcontext. The US allies with Islamistswhen faced with nationalist, leftist andsecular democratic regimes andmovements, especially where theiroptimal choice, a military-neo-liberalalternative is relatively weak. However,faced with a nationalist, anti-colonialIslamist regime (as is the case of theIslamic Republic of Iran), Washingtonwill side with pro-western liberals,dissident Muslim clerics, pliable tribalchiefs, separatist ethnic minorities andpro-Western generals.

The key to US-Islamist relations fromthe White House perspective is basedon the Islamists’ attitude towardempire, class politics, NATO and the“free market” (private foreigninvestment).

Today’s ‘moderate’ Islamist parties inTunisia, Egypt, Turkey, Morocco (andelsewhere), which have offered theirsupport to NATO and its wars againstLibya and Syria, uphold ‘privateproperty’ (i.e. foreign and imperialist

client control of key industries) andrepress independent working class andanti-imperialist parties: They are theEmpire’s “new partners” in the pillageof the resource-rich Middle East andNorth Africa.

The US-brokered counter-revolutionary alliance among moderateIslamists, the previous military rulersand Washington is fraught withtensions. The military demands totalimpunity and a continuation of itseconomic privileges; this includes aveto on any legislation addressing theprevious regime’s brutal crimes againstits own people. On the other hand, theIslamist parties uphold their electoralvictories and demand majority rule.Washington insists the alliance adhereto its policy toward Israel and abandontheir support for the Palestiniannational struggle. As these tensions andconflicts deepen, the alliance couldcollapse ushering in a new phase ofconflict and instability.

Emblematic of “moderate Islamiist”collaboration with US-EU imperialismis the role of Qatar, home to the‘respectable’ Arabic media giant, Al-Jazeera, and the demagogic Qatari“spiritual guide” Sheik Youssef al-Qaradawi. Sheik Youssef quotes theKoran and Islamic moral principles indefense of NATO’s 8-month aerialbombing of Libya, which killed over50,000 pro-regime Libyans(themselves Muslims). He calls forarmed imperial intervention in Syria tooverthrow the secular Assad regime,a position he shares comfortably withthe state of Israel. He urges the“moderate Islamists” in Egypt andTunisia to cease any criticism of theexisting economic order, ( see“Spiritual guide steers Arabs tomoderation”, Financial Times,

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continued from page 10December 9, 2011 - p5). In a word,this respectable Muslim cleric isNATO’s perfect Koran-quoting“moderate Islamist” partner - a dreamcome true.

The Strategic Utility of“Moderate” Islamist Parties

Islamist parties are approached by theEmpire’s policy elites only when theyhave a mass following and cantherefore weaken any popular,nationalist insurgency. Mass-basedIslamist parties serve the empire byproviding “legitimacy”, by winningelections and by giving a veneer ofrespectability to the pro-imperialmilitary and police apparatus retainedin place from the overthrown clientstate dictatorships.

The Islamist parties compete at the“grass roots” with the leftists. Theybuild up a clientele of supporters amongthe poor in the countryside and urbanslums through organized charity andbasic social services administered atthe mosques and humanitarian religiousfoundations. Because they reject classstruggle and are intensely hostile to theleft (with its secular, pro-feminist andworking-class agenda), they have been‘half-tolerated’ by the dictatorship,while the leftist activists are routinelymurdered. Subsequently, with theoverthrow of the dictatorship, theIslamists emerge intact with thestrongest national organizationalnetwork as the country’s ‘naturalleaders’ from the religious-bazaarmerchant political elite. Their leadersoffer to serve the empire and itstraditional native military collaboratorsin exchange for a ‘slice of power’,especially over morality, culture,religion and households (women), inother words, the “micro-society”.

For their part, they offer to marginalizeand undermine the left, anti-imperialistsecular democrats in the streets. In theface of mass popular rebellion callinginto question the imperial order, a

‘moderate’ Islamist-imperial partnershipis a ‘heavenly deal’ praised inWashington, Paris or London (as well asRiyadh and Tel Aviv). Conclusion: HowViable is the Imperial-Islamic Coalition?

Those who thought that thespontaneous pro-democracymovements spelled the end of theimperial order left out the role oforganized “moderate” Islamist electoralparties as able collaborators of Empire.The brutally repressed massmobilization of unemployed youth wasno match for the well-funded grassroots community organization of themoderate Islamists. This is especiallytrue when politics shifted from thestreet to the ballot box, a process thatthe Islamist parties facilitated. In theabsence of a mass revolutionary party,seeking state power, the existingmilitary-police state was able to workaround the mass protesters and puttogether a power sharing agreement atleast in the short-run.

In the November 2011 elections, theradical Egyptian Islamist party, Nour,gathered one-quarter of the vote inCairo and Alexandria. Their showingwas even higher among the urban poordistricts, which promises even greatersupport among poor ruralconstituencies in the coming elections.Essentially a Salafist Islamist party,Nour, unlike the Muslim Brotherhood,combined denunciations of classabuses and elite corruption with massappeals to a return to a mythicharmonious life. They used effectivegrass roots organizing around basicservices in order to gain a greaterproportion of the working class votethan all the leftist parties combined.Nour’s message of “class retributionagainst the …abuses of Egypt’s elitefueled Nour’s new found popularity”,(Financial Times 10 December, 2011 p6).

Despite the successes of the Islamist-Imperial partnership, the worldeconomic crises and especially thegrowing unemployment and misery in

the Arab countries will make it difficultfor the ‘respectable moderate’ Islamiststo stabilize their societies. They areinextricably constrained by theiralliances to function within theconfines of the ‘orthodox neo-liberalframework’ imposed by the Empire.For that reason, the “moderate”Islamists will try to co-opt some secularliberals, social democrats and even afew leftists as ‘minority partners’, sothat they won’t be held solelyresponsible for dashing the expectationsof the poor in their countries.

The fact of the matter is that the pro-imperial Islamist parties have absolutelyno answer to the current crises:Charities delivered from the mosqueduring the dictatorship won them masssupport; now more austerity programsimposed from their ministerial postswill certainly alienate and infuriate theirmass base. What will follow dependson who is best organized: Liberals arelimited to media campaigns and tied toeconomic orthodoxy; the leftists haveto advance from protest movementsin the downtown squares to organizedpolitical units operating in popularneighborhoods, workplaces, markets,villages and slums. Otherwise radicalfundamentalist, like the Salafists, willexploit the people’s outrage withmoderate Islamist betrayals andpromote their own version of a closedclerical society, opposing the Westwhile repressing the Left.

The US and EU may have ‘temporarily’avoided revolution by accommodatingelectoral reforms and adapting toalliances with “moderate” Islamists, buttheir ongoing military interventions andtheir own growing economic crisis willsimply postpone a more decisiveconflict in the near future.

13 December, 2011

James Petras is the author of more than 62books published in 29 languages, and over600 articles in professional journals.Part I can be read in March Commentaryonline: www.just-international.org

Source: Countercurrents.org

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