Sunday Roundup - November 30, 2014

This is the weekly selection of news from sources outside the US mainstream corporate media.  Today we look at Ferguson, the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Iran, Iraq, and, in brief, Ebola and Ukraine.

Ferguson

Photo appeared in BBC News post
Demonstrators gathered in Parliament Square after walking down Oxford Street

The grand jury investigating the shooting death of an unarmed eighteen-year-old African-American by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri decided not to indict the officer. Protests against the decision flared in Ferguson and across the United States.  We may never know the exact timeline of events that led to this shooting death.  The shooter says he acted in self-defense and that he would or could have changed nothing.  Eyewitnesses and law enforcement experts both support and repudiate these statements. What we do know is that the grand jury did not return an indictment, that the proceedings of that grand jury were deeply flawed, and that there is an underlying assumption about the actions of young black men that leads to tragic and unnecessary deaths.  

In a Mother Jones article posted days after the shooting, Jaeah Lee writes: The killing of Michael Brown by police in Ferguson, Missouri, was no anomaly....But quantifying that pattern is difficult....No agency appears to track the number of police shootings or killings of unarmed victims in a systematic, comprehensive way.  We do know some of the data and Lee presents them:

• Previous attempts to analyze racial bias in police shootings have ...found that there were a disproportionately high number of African Americans among police shooting victims.
• Often, the police officers do not get convicted or sentenced. 
• Between 2003 and 2009, the DOJ reported that 4,813 people died while in the process of arrest or in the custody of law enforcement. 
• Black people are more likely than whites or Hispanics to experience a police officer's threat or use of force.  
• The Justice Department has investigated possible systemic abuse of power by police in at least 15 cities. 
• Police shootings of unarmed black people aren't limited to poor or predominantly black communities.   

People protesting the grand jury decision to not indict Officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown took to the streets in cities across the country, from Los Angeles to New York City, for a second night on Tuesday.  Protests were held in Los Angeles, New York, Oakland, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Seattle, Washington, Albuquerque, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Cleveland and other cities. Rallies were [also] held in Michigan, Maine, Georgia, Wisconsin and other states. [Al Jazeera, Nov. 25]  London saw thousands of protesters march on Wednesday.  Thousands protested in London on Wednesday in sympathy with demonstrations across the US over the killing of a black teenager by a white police officer.  The roughly five thousand London protesters held signs reading "Black lives matter" and chanted "Hands up, don't shoot", the slogan adopted by protesters in the US. [AFP, mirrored by Yahoo News, Nov. 26]

The Left Bank Cafe post of December 3 will have more on the eyewitness testimony and the grand jury proceedings.

Occupied Palestinian Territory
For obvious reasons, Palestinians are particularly sympathetic to the Ferguson protests - some even tweeted advice to the US protesters on dealing with tear gas.  
In Gaza on November 23, a Palestinian man was shot dead by Israeli forces as he ventured into one of the "no-go" zones near the Israeli border.  Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian in the northern Gaza Strip on Sunday, the first such fatality since the 50-day Gaza war ended in August....The ministry identified the man as Fadel Mohammed Halawa, 32, and said he was shot by soldiers east of Jabaliya refugee camp.  One of Halawa’s relatives said he had been searching for songbirds, which nest in trees near the Israeli border and command high prices in Gaza markets.  [The Guardian, Nov. 23] 
The United Nations has declared a state of emergency in the Gaza Strip after two days of heavy rains and flooding in the war-battered enclave.  The UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) declared the state of emergency in Gaza City on Thursday, after torrential rain overwhelmed some areas and caused flooding. [Al Jazeera, Nov. 28]
With demolition orders already issued for the family homes of the two men responsible for the attack on the Jerusalem synagogue, Israel announced draft legislation for a new regime of collective punishment against the families of attackers and "violent" protesters.  These steps include revoking the residency rights of attackers and their families. Those who are accused of "inciting" against Israel will no longer receive state benefits. Also among the provisions is jail time for those who wave Palestinian flags at what are deemed "violent protests" and deportation to the Gaza Strip if certain conditions are met....The Association for Civil Rights in Israel has condemned the Netanyahu-proposed bill..."The absurd proposals raised involve serious human rights violations and acts of collective punishment – which bear no relation to an actual war on terror," the group said. [Al Jazeera, Nov. 27]

Iran
Although a final agreement in the Iran nuclear talks was not reached by the November 24, the talks are being extended.  Negotiations over Iran’s nuclear programme have been extended until the end of June next year in the hope that the broad outlines of a deal can be agreed within three months.  The extension was announced on Monday after nine months of negotiations culminated in a week of talks in Vienna that failed to close gaps between Iran and a six-nation negotiating group over the scale of a future Iranian nuclear programme and the speed with which international sanctions would be lifted. [The Guardian, Nov. 24]  Both sides were optimistic when they emerged from Monday's discussions, but they understand that the longer the international standoff over Iran’s suspect nuclear programme continues, the more dangerous and volatile the situation becomes....By extending the talks again they have avoided a total collapse, but they have also raised the stakes, ensuring that failure, if that is what eventually transpires, will be all the more cataclysmic.   There is a growing sense that a the window of opportunity may be closing.  Those opposing a deal can now be expected to intensify their efforts to kill the extended talks.  This can come about in any number of ways - for example, by increased US sanctions passed by a Republican-controlled Congress, by Iranian hardliners replacing West-friendly negotiators to undermine Rouhani, or by Israeli military action against Iran.  [The Guardian, Nov. 24]

Iraq
Tom Englehardt writes of the recent US escalation in the Middle East in an excellent article at TomDispatch.com.  The article is well worth reading in its entirety and begins with a thought experiment asking what would be the reaction if Russia or China were the power re-entering the region militarily after the failure of its earlier interventions.  Here are a few selections:

...after 13 years of doing its damnedest, on one side of the Greater Middle East this power has somehow overseen the rise of the dominant narco-state on the planet with monopoly control over 80%-90% of the global opium supply and 75% of the heroin. On the other side of the region, it’s been complicit in the creation of the first terrorist mini-oil state in history, a post-al-Qaeda triumph of extreme jihadism....If this had been the work of any other power we thought less well of than we do of ourselves, imagine the blazing headlines right now

When it comes to a path “forward” in Iraq, it’s been ever deeper into Iraq War 3.0.  Since a limited, “humanitarian” bombing campaign began in August, the Obama administration and the Pentagon have been on the up escalator: more air strikes, more advisers, more weaponry, more money.  Two and a half weeks ago, the president doubled the corps of American advisers (plus assorted other U.S. personnel) there to 3,000-plus.  Last week, the news came in that they were being hustled into the country faster than expected...For those of a certain age, the escalatory path the Obama administration has set us on in Iraq has a certain resonance and so, not surprisingly, at the edges of our world, familiar words like “quagmire” are again rising.

General Dempsey can’t know how long (or short) its lifespan in the region may be.  One thing we do know, however: as long as the global giant, the United States, continues to escalate its fight against the Islamic State, it gains a credibility and increasing popularity in the world of jihadism that it would never otherwise garner.

Given the history of this last period, even if the Islamic State were to collapse tomorrow under American pressure, there would likely be worse to come.  It might not look like that movement or anything else we’ve experienced thus far, but it will predictably shock American officials yet again.  Whatever it may be, rest assured that there’s a solution for it brewing in Washington and you already know what it is.  Call it Iraq War 4.0.

Whatever the bloody horror, fragmentation, and chaos in the Middle East today, 40 years from now the fears and fantasies that led Washington into such repetitively destructive behavior will look no less foolish than the domino theory does today.   

In Brief
Ebola
"How world’s worst Ebola outbreak began with one boy’s death" [BBC News, Nov. 26]

"Number of Ebola cases nears 16,000 as Sierra Leone loses ground: WHO" [Reuters/Yahoo News, Nov. 26]  The death toll in the world's worst Ebola epidemic has risen to 5,689 out of 15,935 cases reported in eight countries by the end of Nov. 23...Almost all cases and all but 15 deaths have been in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

"Ebola vaccine 'promising' say scientists after human trial" [BBC News, Nov. 26]


Ukraine
"Why Ukraine Must Bargain for Peace with Russia"  [Foreign Policy, Nov.26]
The "let's make a deal" moment has arrived for Kiev and Moscow. But by pushing a hard-line agenda against Putin, the United States and Europe are only making things worse for Ukraine....The contours of the compromise would likely include: reaffirmation of the reality of Ukraine's nonalignment; mutually satisfactory trade arrangements among Russia, Ukraine, and the EU; implementation of a decentralization plan somewhat more ambitious than Poroshenko's June proposals, but significantly less far-reaching than Russia's March proposals; a return of full Ukrainian control over its border with Russia, perhaps with an international peacekeeping force on the ground in the Donbas... 

Sunday Roundup - November 9, 2014

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US mainstream corporate media. Today we look at the US midterm elections, Brussels austerity protests, Ukraine, the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and, in brief, China's slowdown, Ebola, and Syria.

US Midterm Elections
Republicans made gains across the board in Tuesday's midterm elections.  Most importantly, with their gains in the Senate, they now control both houses of Congress.  The Democrats' get-out-the-vote effort failed to overcome the dark money, the voter suppression laws, and their own inadequate and defensive explanations of their policies.

Democrats failed to motivate their base, particularly the young.
Voter turnout was 36.6% - 4 points lower than in the 2010 midterms and 21 points lower than in the 2012 Presidential elections.  In exit polls from Tuesday's midterms, only 13 percent of voters were under 30.  Nonvoters are also more racially diverse than the voting population....More than 40 percent of likely nonvoters in the 2014 elections identified as Hispanic, black or other racial/ethnic minorities, compared with 22 percent of likely voters...On average, the populations who are likely to avoid the polls are also the populations likely to vote for a Democrat. [US News & World Report Data Mine, Nov. 5]

Voter suppression played a key role in close races.
The voter restrictions passed in Republican-controlled states were aimed to reduce the minority and youth vote.  For the most part, the restrictions worked.  The Brennan Center for Justice examined the results from North Carolina, Kansas, Virginia and Florida and concluded The Republican electoral sweep in yesterday’s elections has put an end to speculation over whether new laws making it harder to vote in 21 states would help determine control of the Senate this year. ...A quick look at the numbers shows that in several key races, the margin of victory came very close to the likely margin of disenfranchisement.  [Brennan Center for Justice, Nov. 5]

Republicans controlled the political conversation and framed the terms of the election.
Stirring up their base with a vigorous anti-Obama campaign, Republicans motivated them to come out and vote.  Democrats did nothing to counteract it and, for the most part, "ran away" from the President.  Jeff Schweitzer, blogging at the Huffington Post, has one of the best analyses of the election . Speaking of Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell's absurd statement that the way to end gridlock was to put Republicans in control of the Senate, Schweitzer writes: This story highlights the major failure of the left. Democrats have not defined the agenda or narrated the story. This capitulation creates a void of reason such that absurdities like McConnell's claim can take hold without everybody doubling over in laughter. Like frightened children Democrats run from Obama's record, as defined by the right, rather than championing his amazing successes as defined by fact. 
Although the rampant, fact-free antagonism to the Affordable Care Act was a major factor, the economy was the issue most on people's minds.  In spite of a recovering economy (unemployment down to 5.8% in October), exit polls indicated that 45% of the voters chose this as the #1 issue.  What's the deal, then? As President Obama alluded to in Wednesday's press conference and the Washington Post's Matt O'Brien explained Tuesday on Wonkblog, the recovery of the economy as a whole has not created wage or income gains for most people. In fact, those gains have gone almost exclusively to the "1 percent" folks you might have heard about.  The beauty of the Republican campaign was that they somehow convinced the American public that this uneven recovery was Obama's fault!  Voting for a party whose representatives in Congress are proud of opposing every Obama proposal to increase public-service spending or raise taxes on high-income individuals isn't necessarily the obvious way to address this issue.  [Slate, Nov. 6]  But then, as H. L. Mencken said many years ago, "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public."

Money wins elections.  
SCOTUS's Citizens United and McCutcheon decisions unleashed virtually unlimited money to be spent on the elections - much of it in the form of dark money (i.e., money from undisclosed sources) . The combined totals for both parties for the most expensive midterms in history was nearly $3.7 billion.   Even in some places where Democrats had an advantage in donations, they lost - although in some states voter suppression may have played a part.  Counting all forms of spending — by candidates, parties and outside groups — Team Red is projected to have spent $1.75 billion, while Team Blue’s spending is projected to ring in at $1.64 billion. CRP’s analysis of last night’s results finds that in House races, the candidate who spent the most prevailed 94.2 percent of the time; the Senate figure is slightly lower, 81.8 percent. [OpenSecrets.org, Nov. 5]

In Brief / Related Links - What will Republican control of the Senate look like?

"Republicans Just Took Over the Senate—Here’s Why That Sucks" From staffing the executive branch through keeping the government open, The Nation describes eight reasons why this new alignment is going to be hugely problematic for progressive governance—perhaps for governance, period. [The Nation, Nov. 4]

"The Pressure to Escalate: The Phantasmagoric World of Washington"  Tom Englehardt asks us to think of this otherwise drab midterm campaign as the escalation election.  Republican candidates will arrive in Washington having beaten the war and disease drums particularly energetically, and they’re not likely to stop. [TomDispatch, Nov. 4]

"A Red Tide Swamps the US Political Landscape"  What do we have to look forward to from this extremist Congress and a ham-strung moderate President in the next two years? [The Left Bank Cafe, Nov. 5]

"How a Republican Congress could Entangle the US further in the Middle East" [Informed Comment, Nov. 5]

Brussels Austerity Protests
Europe's recovery from the Great Recession of 2008 has been much slower than that in the US. Unemployment remains above 10% for the region as a whole, ranging from a low of  5% in Germany to a high of 26% in Greece.  One of the reasons for the slower recovery has been the austerity (deficit reduction) measures demanded by the European Central Bank.  The Guardian reported on Thursday's labor protests in Brussels:  About 100,000 workers marched across Brussels on Thursday to protest against government free-market reforms and austerity measures, and the demonstration ended in violence when people set fire to cars and threw cobblestones and police responded with tear gas and water cannons.  About 50 people were injured and 30 detained, police said, in one of biggest postwar labour demonstrations in Belgium, a country long vaunted as a shining example of an efficient welfare state.  The violence overshadowed a raucous but largely peaceful march for better protection of workers during the economic crisis. The workers were angry at government policies that will raise the pension age, freeze wages and cut into public services.

Ukraine
Elections were held in the separatist Donbass region in eastern Ukraine on Sunday November 2 - two weeks after the general election in the rest of Ukraine.  Kiev refuses to recognize the elections in eastern Urkaine – but has not provoked any hostilities either.  The Donbass elections resulted in a predictable outcome, bringing victory to Alexander Zakharchenko, head of the Oplot battalion, who scooped more than 70 percent of the votes. Turnout varied from 65 percent to 100 percent at 350 polling stations, where 1,148,000 people had registered to vote...Not a single shot has been fired in Donbass since November 2 – a situation unseen since spring, including the ceasefire declared in early September after the Minsk talks.  [Russia Times, Nov. 3]  Russia has backed the vote and called on the elected representatives "to hold negotiations with central Ukrainian authorities."  Russia has given cautious backing to a vote in separatist regions of east Ukraine, which local rebels said proved they would never again be ruled by Kiev. Russia has not recognised the Donetsk and Luhansk “people’s republics” as independent, but said the vote should be respected.  Kiev said it would open criminal cases against the organisers. Most other countries have dismissed the vote as illegitimate and there were no recognised international observers present. Nevertheless, the poll was one more step in the de facto separation of the region from the rest of Ukraine.  Moscow’s talk of negotiations between the separatists and Kiev, however, was at odds with comments from the separatists' electoral committee. [The Guardian, Nov. 3]

Occupied Palestinian Territory
East Jerusalem remains tense, and the International Criminal Court ruled on the Gaza Flotilla incident.

In an Al Jazeera op-ed, Daoud Kuttab, an award-winning Palestinian journalist and former Ferris professor of journalism at Princeton University, describes how "a silent intifada" is taking place in Jerusalem due to Israel's policy of denying Palestinians their natural rights.  After forty seven years of occupation, physical isolation, and weakening of leadership structures, the Palestinians of Jerusalem are totally stateless. The few Palestinians holding any sort of symbolic leadership position, such as members of the Palestinian Legislative Council, or religious leaders are regularly hauled to the Israeli police station for questions, short-term arrests and are sometimes forbidden to enter Islam's third holiest mosque, Al-Aqsa Mosque....Palestinians seeking housing permits are routinely denied because the requests are not based on an approved zoning plan. Arab East Jerusalem neighbourhoods have purposely not been planned, leaving the local communities to build illegally and then to suffer regular house demolitions for violating city laws. At the same time, Israel builds settlements in East Jerusalem in violation of international law.This has led to the rise of groups trying to fill the political void.  In several locations around Jerusalem,  local groups have sprouted attempting to organise their own community in defence of the Israeli onslaught that attempts to move them out of their homes and city with the goal of making Jerusalem an even more Jewish city.  While Israel regularly denies it, these Judaisation attempts are synchronised by the Israeli government, police, courts, Jewish settlers, radical groups and Knesset members, with each group doing its part.

The Guardian reported on November 6 of the International Criminal Court's decision on the Gaza Flotilla incident of 2010.  The international criminal court (ICC) will not prosecute over Israel’s raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla in 2010, in which 10 Turkish activists died, despite a “reasonable basis to believe that war crimes were committed”.  The chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, said there would be no investigation leading to a potential prosecution because the alleged crimes, including the killing of 10 activists by Israeli commandos, were not of “sufficient gravity”....Nine Turkish nationals died when Israeli commandos staged a botched raid on a six-ship flotilla seeking to break Israel’s naval blockade of the Gaza Strip on 31 May 2010. A 10th activist later died of his wounds.  The air-land-sea blockade, now more than seven years old, has devastated the economy of Gaza, and combined with Israeli sieges since 2007 have commentators warning that Gaza will be "unlivable" by 2020.

Gaza photo appeared in Al Jazeera/photo credit AFP

Let's just hope the ICC takes a much closer look at the war crimes committed in Gaza during this summer's Israeli siege.  More than 2000 Palestinians, the majority of whom were civilians, were killed during the 50 day assault.  Inger Andersen is responsible for World Bank strategy and operations throughout the Middle East and North Africa region.  In an op-ed piece, Andersen reports on her recent visit to Gaza: Throughout my career at the World Bank, and at the United Nations or even before, I have come across many war zones but none compare to what I have just seen in Gaza: no scene of destruction, desolation and despair I have witnessed is equal to the tragic stage of Gaza.  Today, I feel obliged to add my voice for the voiceless and to plead that none of us forget the Palestinian people. It is our collective and historic responsibility to step up support and mobilise a response commensurate to the needs of the Palestinian people....For the Palestinians struggling daily, the access to water, electricity and municipal services [is critical]. I saw the destroyed water reservoir in Al Monttar area (Shujayea) which would have serviced 250,000 people. I walked into the shell-struck electricity storage facility that now resembled a lunar landscape. While visiting al-Shifa hospital, I discussed with doctors the dire need for medical equipment and supplies, staff and fuel, all severely strained by shortages and outages.  Numbers fail to capture the human realities of the daunting scenes I witnessed at the hospital. As winter sets in, the partial or total destruction of 60,000 housing units has led to 100,000 people without shelter. [Al Jazeera, Nov. 6]

In Brief/Links
China
China's gross domestic product grew 7.3 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier, the weakest rate since the first quarter of 2009, adding to concerns the world's second-largest economy is becoming a drag on global growth.  [Reuters, Oct. 21]

Ebola
WHO released its data for the period up to Nov. 2 saying that Ebola has now been blamed for 4,818 reported deaths.  The group said that the weekly incidence of Ebola seems to be stable in Guinea, rising in Sierra Leone, and declining in Liberia   [NPR, Nov. 5]

Syria
"Syria: Mapping the conflict" According to the Syria Needs Analysis Project (Snap), IS jihadists are now in full control of the eastern region of Raqqa and hold significant swathes of territory in Aleppo to the north and Hassakeh and Deir al-Zour in the east. [BBC News, Nov. 7]
"US plan for proxy army to fight Isis in Syria suffers attack": Syrian opposition leader blames Washington for rout as air strikes on Isis seen as aiding Assad crackdown [The Guardian, Nov. 2]
"US Dilemma in Syria: Moderate Stronghold Falls to al-Qaeda, Fighters desert to Extremists" - Juan Cole analyzes the chaotic situation in Syria and potential consequences of arming and training so-called moderate rebels: a present Syrian moderate is all too often a future al-Qaeda member; many of these affiliations are not particularly ideological, but have to do with who is winning and who has more money. [Informed Comment, Nov. 3]

BBC News map of areas of control:

Map sources: areas of control and border crossings from the Syria Needs Analysis Project; all other geographical detail from humanitarian organisations and Google

Sunday Roundup - October 5, 2014

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US mainstream corporate media.  Today we look at recent court decisions on voting rights, the Hong Kong protests, Syria, Israel's growing isolation, and Ebola.

Voting Rights (or lack thereof) 

As the US midterm elections draw near, voting rights proponents have sued in Federal court, contesting various voter suppression laws passed in Republican-controlled states.  With SCOTUS's gutting of the Voting Rights Act and their unleashing of unlimited campaign money by the Citizens United and McCutcheon decisions, the voter suppression laws are the third part of the shameful Troika of Plutocracy that promises to turn this year's election into the least democratic since the days of Jim Crow. As summarized by the Brennan Center for Justice: Since the 2010 election, new voting restrictions are slated to be in place in 22 states. Unless these restrictions are blocked — and there are court challenges to laws in six of those states — voters in nearly half the country could find it harder to cast a ballot in the 2014 midterm election than they did in 2010. The new laws range from photo ID requirements to early voting cutbacks to voter registration restrictions. Partisanship and race were key factors in this movement. Most restrictions passed through GOP-controlled legislatures and in states with increases in minority turnout.
Ohio - “There is no right more basic in our democracy than the right to participate in electing our political leaders,” Roberts wrote in the court’s main opinion in McCutcheon.  Evidently that right does not extend to minorities in Ohio without cash to throw into campaigns.  Think Progress reported on September 29:  ...the Supreme Court returned from its summer vacation for the “Long Conference,” the day when the justices consider the backlog of petitions asking them to hear cases that built up while they were away for the summer. Yet, despite the fact that the justices typically face hundreds of petitions that they must consider during this conference, five of them still found time on Monday to make it harder for Ohio residents to cast a vote. In a 5-4 decision that divided entirely along partisan lines, the Court allowed cuts to Ohio’s early voting days to go into effect. Notably, this decision came down just 16 hours before polling places were set to open in that state.
Wisconsin - The American Civil Liberties Union and other rights groups are bringing Wisconsin's voter ID law to the Supreme Court.  Arguing that one in ten voters already registered in Wisconsin may not actually get to cast their ballots this year, civil rights and citizens’ advocacy groups asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to bar a new requirement to produce a photo ID before voting.  By a vote of five to five, a federal appeals court has permitted enforcement for this year’s general election, already underway with absentee voting.  The plea for the Supreme Court to step in now was filed with Justice Elena Kagan, who handles emergency filings from the geographic area that includes Wisconsin.  She can act on her own, or share the issue with her colleagues. [SCOTUS blog, October 2]
North Carolina - Several provisions of North Carolina's harsh voter suppression laws were struck down by a three-judge panel of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals.  It's now headed to the Supreme Court.  In a 2-1 ruling, a panel of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals has blocked provisions of a North Carolina voting law that would have ended same-day registration and eliminated the counting of votes cast outside one's precinct. But it left intact a lower court decision that affirmed the law's reducing the number of early voting days, expanding what can be done to challenge voters and eliminating the discretion of county election boards from adding an extra hour on election day in extraordinary circumstances. [Daily Kos, Oct 1]

Hong Kong

Photo is by AP and appeared in The Independent
The "Umbrella Revolution": Riot police launch tear gas into the crowd
 as thousands of protesters surround the government headquarters in Hong Kong

In another "democracy" story, the Hong Kong student protests sparked by the announcement of the 2017 election framework continued.  On Thursday the protesters were demanding the resignation of Hong Kong's Chief Executive Leung Chung-Ying as Beijing hardened its line on the protests.  Bolstered by a vote of confidence in the People's Daily, Leung shows no sign of resigning but has agreed to have a high ranking official in his administration meet with the protesters.  Speaking at the end of a fifth day of protests, Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying refused to meet demonstrators’ demands to resign but said his top official, Carrie Lam, would hold a meeting with students to discuss political reforms...The protests represent the biggest challenge to Chinese rule over its special autonomous region since its handover from the UK in 1997. They were sparked by dissatisfaction over a framework handed down by Beijing for the election of Mr Leung’s successor in 2017. Under the model, candidates would have to achieve the support of at least 50 per cent of a 1,200-strong committee, which opponents say is stacked with Beijing loyalists.  [The Independent, Oct 2]  On Friday, The Guardian reported that  violent scuffles broke out in one of Hong Kong’s most famous and congested shopping districts..., as supporters of Chinese rule stormed tents and ripped down banners belonging to pro-democracy protesters.  [The Guardian, Oct 3]

Syria 

April 2014 Photo is from The Independent

The Syrian Civil War has been raging for 3-1/2 years. As of the end of August, more than 191,000 Syrians had been killed in the conflict.  More than 3,000,000 Syrians have sought refuge in other countries and 6,500,000 have been internally displaced.  Neither the government nor the rebels have been able to defeat the other side and the continuing flow of arms to both sides has only prolonged the conflict.  In a massive display of ignorance, the US Congress recently voted $500 million to arm and train the Syrian rebels.  Military experts and others warn that arming the rebels will embolden and inadvertently aid ISIS.  Writing in the Huffington Post on September 17 prior to the Congressional vote, Kate Gould and (retired) Colonel Lawrence B. Wilkerson warned "If Congress signs this check for the FSA, IS will help cash it. For years, IS has recruited former FSA fighters and seized weapons funneled to Iraq and Syria from the U.S. and other countries."  That this aid to the rebels will worsen the civil war is an obvious and foregone conclusion.  The organization Win Without War adds: "After more than a decade of war, it's clear that military force will not stop extremism in the region. Instead of dumping additional weapons into Syria, Congress should support alternatives to combat the threat of ISIS and to end the Syrian civil war."  The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) published an article by Yezid Sayigh that argues that, in the face of the growing power of Islamic State, now is the time to seek a truce in the Syrian Civil War.  Specifically Sayigh recommends that the two sides observe independent truces implemented in parallel.  This approach would not require a formal diplomatic agreement, just robust endorsement and timely coordination by the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Iran—the government’s and the opposition’s external backers that are most engaged in Iraq...Now is the moment for [these] three outside actors in particular...to pressure the regime and rebels alike to commit to separate unilateral truces, coordinating the process indirectly to ensure these are implemented in parallel.  A major advantage of this approach is that it sidesteps tortuous discussions about political preconditions and the status of the Syrian parties of the sort that rendered the otherwise commendable Geneva 1 communiqué of June 2012 stillborn.

Israel
Following on the heels of its brutal, war-crime-ridden assault on the Gaza Strip, the right-wing Israeli government announced its largest appropriation of Palestinian land in 30 years in September. Located as it is in the sensitive East Jerusalem area, the proposed settlement is one more indication of this government's lack of commitment to a just two-state solution and a viable Palestinian state.  Even the United States may have finally had enough of this intransigence.  Following a Wednesday meeting between President Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu in which the 2600 home settlement was discussed, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said "The United States is deeply concerned by reports the Israeli government has moved forward" with planning for settlements in a "sensitive area" of East Jerusalem...Earnest said Israel would send a "very troubling message" by following through with the settlement project, and in noticeably blunt language said that the step was contrary to Israel's stated goal of negotiating a permanent final status agreement with the Palestinians.  "This development will only draw condemnation from the international community, [and] distance Israel from even its closest allies," Earnest said.  He added that it would also "poison the atmosphere" - not only with the Palestinians but with "the very Arab governments" with which Netanyahu had said he wanted to build relations.  All Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian territory are illegal under international law  [Al Jazeera, October 2]

The EU likewise condemned the Israeli plan, calling it “highly detrimental” to diplomatic efforts for Israeli-Palestinian peace.  Brussels called on Israel to “urgently reverse” actions leading to settlement expansion in east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians hope to make the capital of a future state alongside Israel.  “This represents a further highly detrimental step that undermines prospects for a two-state solution and calls into question Israel’s commitment to a peaceful negotiated settlement with the Palestinians,” the EU’s diplomatic service said.  The housing units, which have been slated for construction since 2012 in the neighborhood of Givat Hamatos, were given final approval last week, according to the Peace Now watchdog. [Al-Arabiya/Agence France-Presse, October 3]

Meanwhile, Netanyahu was blaming the Israeli peace organization Peace Now for the United States' position on the new settlements, and he was appearing before the UN trying to conflate Hamas with ISIS.  It didn't work.  Nathan Brown, in a September 30 op-ed piece for CEIP, "Netanyahu's Convenient Lies About ISIS and Hamas", writes: Speaking at the General Assembly this week, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu repeated a refrain he has sounded for three decades (since his days as Israeli ambassador to the U.N.) — that all forms of terrorism are different sides of the same coin and have civilization as their target...But is it accurate? Well, yes of course — in the same sense that France’s François Hollande, North Korea’s Kim Jong-un and Israel’s HaPoel Tel Aviv all spring from the same socialist movement. It’s not clear how such claims aid understanding, analysis or policy.  I'm not sure how to define terrorism.  Perhaps we should look at the number of civilian deaths, all of which are inexcusable and should be considered war crimes.  1462 civilians in Gaza were killed by Israeli firepower.  6 civilians were killed by Hamas' flying pipe bombs (referred to in the press as "rockets").   Seems that the IDF assault against Gaza did a pretty good job of terrorizing the impoverished and blockaded enclave.

Ebola
[Mother Jones, October 1] On Tuesday, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed the first case of Ebola diagnosed in the United States; the infected patient was a man who traveled from Liberia to visit family in Texas. It's the latest development in the ever-worsening outbreak of the virus, which so far has sickened more than 6,500 people and killed more than 3,000. The United States government has pledged to send help to West Africa to help stop Ebola from spreading—but the main agencies tasked with this aid work say they're hamstrung by budget cuts from the 2013 sequester.  Sequestration caused budget cuts in the National Institute of Health's budget affecting every area of medical research.  Cuts to international aid budgets and to USAID totaling $700 million affected the detection and containment of the disease.  Dr. Beth Bell of the CDC testifying before a Senate committee, argued that the epidemic could have been stopped if more had been done sooner to build global health security... "If even modest investments had been made to build a public health infrastructure in West Africa previously, the current Ebola epidemic could have been detected earlier, and it could have been identified and contained."
Update: On Friday, the World Health Organization reported the latest Ebola figures: 3,431 people killed by the disease out of 7,470 confirmed or suspected cases in west Africa

Sunday Roundup - September 21, 2014

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US mainstream corporate media.  Today we look at Ebola, Ukraine, rebuilding Gaza, Islamic State, and, in brief, Scotland, Obamacare, and the impact of unemployment benefits.

Ebola

Map is from WHO website

The death toll in the Ebola outbreak afflicting west Africa has now surpassed 2,600.  Besides the west African nations of Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, cases have also been reported in Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo and Senegal.  Healthcare workers, already in very short supply in the impoverished countries hardest-hit by the outbreak, have paid an especially heavy price. 318 of them have been infected across four west African countries, 151 of whom have died.     Al Jazeera reported on Thursday: More than 700 more Ebola cases have emerged in West Africa in the past week week, a statistic that showed the outbreak was rapidly accelerating, the World Health Organisation has said....Later on Thursday, the UN Security Council declared the outbreak a "threat to international peace and security" and called on all states to provide urgent resources and assistance to help tackle the crisis. The alarm came as Sierra Leone readied for an unprecedented three-day nationwide lockdown to contain the spread of the Ebola in a controversial move which experts claimed could worsen the epidemic. The population of six million will be confined to their homes from midnight on Thursday as almost 30,000 volunteers go door-to-door uncovering patients and bodies hidden in people's homes.  The US has pledged to send 3,000 troops to help in the fight the disease. In addition, Cuba, Uganda, and China are all sending medical teams to the afflicted area.   As reported in The Guardian on September 16: President Barack Obama called the Ebola epidemic in west Africa a potential threat to global security as the White House pledged to send 3,000 troops to fight the worst ever outbreak of the disease in history...Almost $1bn (£620m) is needed to contain the Ebola epidemic raging across Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, which could infect up to 20,000 people if unchecked by the end of the year, the UN warned..."If not dealt with effectively now, Ebola could become a major humanitarian crisis in countries currently affected," Valerie Amos, the UN humanitarian chief, told reporters in Geneva. The capacity of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia to provide even the most basic necessities was, she warned, "on the brink of collapse".  Scientific American posted a response to a NYT op-ed that raised the specter of the virus mutating to an airborne pathogen: Interviews with several infectious diseases experts reveal that whereas such a mutation—or more likely series of mutations—might physically be possible, it’s highly unlikely.  Let's hope so.

Ukraine

Map is from Al Jazeera February 27 article

The September 5 ceasefire in the Ukraine appears to be holding in spite of sporadic violations. The Independent reported on September 15: The conflict-wracked eastern Ukraine city of Luhansk had a rare day of jubilation yesterday as pro-Russian fighters paraded military vehicles victoriously through city streets – as other areas saw continued shelling in the conflict between government forces and the rebels...Luhansk’s population of about 250,000 people, reduced because of the war, emerged to celebrate “city day” yesterday, which opened on a sombre note as priests led hundreds of residents in prayer in commemoration of those killed during a government-mounted siege of the city.  Speaking at the open-air service by the Mother of Sorrows Church, local separatist leader Igor Plotnitsky mourned those that had been killed and in an unusually conciliatory public statement called for forgiveness for those responsible. Luhansk has suffered more casualties and damage from the conflict than any other city.  Alec Luhn, in a September 16 Foreign Policy dispatch, writes of the rebuilding effort there.  The pause in fighting has...been the first chance to assess the damage to the city and hopefully begin reconstruction. Residents have been trying to rebuild their homes, but most workplaces and banks have shut down, and many government benefits and pensions have not been paid for months. Construction materials, especially glass and artificial roofing, are in short supply. Winter is coming, but the gas pipes in many places have been shredded by shelling. And there's no guarantee that the fragile peace will last....If the cease-fire holds, the task of rebuilding will be the first test of the separatist government's ability to not just foment rebellion but also to run a state. "Life is returning to normal," the new head of the self-declared [Luhansk People's Republic], Igor Plotnitsky, told journalists after sharing a glass of champagne with a newly married couple accompanied by rebel groomsmen in camouflage. Not all residents are so optimistic.  Luhn quotes a woman selling spices in the midst of a burned out marketplace.  "We're hoping for the best, but we expect the shelling to start again...The number of [Ukrainian] troops outside the city is increasing." 

Gaza Reconstruction
Haaretz reported on Tuesday's announcement that the United Nations had brokered an agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority that would allow reconstruction of the devastated Gaza Strip to proceed.  [UN Middle East envoy Robert] Serry told the UN Security Council that the United Nations had brokered the deal "to enable work at the scale required in the strip, involving the private sector in Gaza and giving a lead role to the Palestinian Authority in the reconstruction effort, while providing security assurances through UN monitoring that these materials will not be diverted from their entirely civilian purpose."  Damage to Gaza from the Israeli siege has been estimated to be as high as $7.8 billion.  On September 18, Haaretz also carried a Reuters report on Saudi Arabia's pledge of $500 million to help rebuild Gaza.  Saudi Arabia's commitment comes ahead of a conference in Cairo on Oct. 12 when Palestinian leaders hope other donors, including Turkey, Qatar, the European Union and United States, will step forward with promises of support. 

Islamic State

On September 18, the US Congress completed its approval of Obama's plan to provide arms and training for Syrian rebel forces, primarily Sunnis in a civil war with Syria's primarily Shia government.  Sunni Saudi Arabia lobbied Congressional leaders prior to the vote.  As the US begins its military action against Islamic State, getting ourselves into a sectarian fight that we should have no part in, many commentators see a danger of escalation.  Spencer Ackerman in The Guardian  argues that unclear military goals have been an American tradition for decades - resulting in the loss of countless lives and dollars.  A military lesson the United States seems doomed to constantly forget and painfully re-learn: unclear goals invite escalation.  Referring to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff's testimony before Congress that US military may engage in "close combat advising", Ackerman writes: Dempsey’s euphemism bursts the seams of Barack Obama’s insistence that US troops will not return to combat in Iraq. That was itself a rhetorical escalation from the White House’s earlier assurance against troops on the ground, full stop, which has proved difficult to square with the current 1,700 US troops now in Iraq, 1,600 more than were there in June. Perhaps more candidly, Dempsey said Obama has asked the general to come back for “case-by-case” authorization on involving US troops in combat, even as the president again forswore ground combat in a speech at MacDill air force base on Wednesday.  Obama's stated objectives in this third Iraq war are not clearly defined and there may be no way of knowing when they are achieved.  Ackerman continues: Obama follows in an ignominious presidential tradition. George W Bush’s goals for the second Iraq war pivoted from the mirage of eliminating weapons of mass destruction to the overthrow of Saddam Hussein to the preservation of something resembling democracy....The pattern has held, with few exceptions, since the second world war ended. Korea’s “police action” resulted in a gruesome stalemate once Douglas MacArthur reinvented the war from the preservation of a US ally in Seoul to the destruction of Moscow’s ally in Pyongyang. As many as two generations of US policymakers wish to get over Vietnam, their unrealistic guarantees to foreign proxies and preference for military solutions to entrenched, obscure political challenges repeat the central mistakes contributing to a traumatizing escalation.  US wars are more likely to end through an exogenous event – such as Russia’s diplomatic restraint of Serbia to end the 1999 Kosovo air war or Libyan rebels’ killing of Muammar Gaddafi to end the 2011 Libya air war – than through the deliberate application of military force.  

In Brief/Links

Scottish voters rejected independence from the UK on Thursday by a 55 - 45 percent vote.  The Scotsman reported on the promises from Labour and the Conservatives on greater autonomy for Scotland and on the resignation of Scotland's First Prime Minister, Alex Salmond, "after his lifelong dream of an independent Scotland was rejected by the people."  In the last weeks before the referendum. numerous British politicians came to Scotland to argue for a "no" vote.   The Independent had an interesting list of "eight things you never realized were Scottish". [The Independent, Sep 17]

Finally, here are two (more) stories that put the lie to fallacious GOP talking points.
Re: "People insured through the state and federal health care exchanges are not paying their premiums" - More than 90% of the estimated 8 million people originally signed up to get  their health insurance through the state and federal healthcare exchanges (7.3 million) are paying their premiums and remain in the program. [Kaiser Health News, Sep 19]
Re: "Extending unemployment benefits makes people lazy and drop out of the labor force."
Extending benefits to unemployed workers beyond the 26 weeks provided by most states has little effect on the unemployment rate and essentially no impact on labor force participation, a recent working paper released by the Federal Reserve Board found.  [Daily Kos, Sep 12]   Daily Kos blogger Dartagnan adds: Republicans have blocked every attempt to provide extended  benefits to the long- term unemployed since 2013...[and] haven't passed a single piece of job-creating legislation.  So what has been the result of this "experiment?"  The Labor Force participation rate is at a record low in this country: A record 92,269,000 Americans 16 and older did not participate in the labor force in August, as the labor force participation rate matched a 36-year low of 62.8 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

No threat to us and not our fight

Obama's proposed airstrikes against Islamic State are wrong on many levels.  To quote Phyllis Bennis, writing in The Progressive,  "We have to recognize that military attacks are not only wrong in a host of ways (illegal in international law, immoral because of civilian casualties, a distraction from vitally needed diplomacy) but also that those strikes are making real solutions impossible." Incredibly, we are now hearing bleatings from hawks for "boots on the ground" (again) in Iraq and (at last) in Syria to fight ISIS as well as calls for arming Syrian rebel forces.  This is a sectarian war - the discordant rumblings among Arab nations in the so-called coalition makes this eminently clear.  We should take no part in it.  In spite of the rhetoric from neocons, from various failed presidential and vice-presidential candidates, and from "perpetual war" believers, ISIS poses no imminent threat to the United States.  Islamic State has never made any threat to take the sectarian war being fought in the Middle East to the United States.

We've made mistakes before based on nonexistent threats - remember Iraq's weapons of mass destruction?  That's right - there were none.  Our unnecessary and unjustifiable invasion of Iraq set the stage for the creation of jihadist groups in the region. By destroying Iraq's government, military, and institutions, we ensured the rise of terrorist groups in countries where they were previously absent.  There was no al Qaeda in Iraq before our invasion brought them there.  There was no Islamic State in Iraq and Syria before we installed a partisan Shia to lead Iraq.  In spite of our role in destabilizing the Middle East by our totally misguided actions over the past 13 years, this is not our fight.

Why are we still giving any credence to those who misled us into those wars or to those who supported them?  Why is Obama caving in to the hawks and neocons, who should have lost all credibility by now?  The United States cannot be the world's policeman.  We tried that and failed.  The neocon dream of a new American century where all do our bidding is dangerous, costly and, ultimately, harmful to America.  Somehow we fail to understand that there is no military solution to this war.

A comprehensive diplomatic solution for both Iraq and Syria must be sought.  It is indeed the only solution to the sectarian strife now raging there.  Everyone in the region needs to be at the table - and that includes Iran.  (John Kerry, please take note.)

The arms flow to all parties must be stopped and the US should not arm any faction in these civil and sectarian wars.  Here again, diplomacy - diplomacy to weaken support for ISIS - is the right answer.  Continuing the arms flow to the combatants just prolongs these wars, adds to the death toll and ensures the continued misery of the civilian populations.

There's much that can be done short of military action.  Why these other courses of action are not being accorded the highest priority speaks volumes about the failure of political imagination and the downright stupidity gripping political "leaders".  "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."  The quote sometimes attributed to Albert Einstein pretty much sums it up.  Our political leaders are in the throes of military insanity.  They can't even learn from past mistakes.

Sunday Roundup - September 14, 2014

This is the weekly selection of news from sources outside the US mainstream corporate media. Today we look at Islamic State, Gaza, Texas politics, and in brief, the latest greenhouse gas data and the Scottish independence vote. 

Islamic State
The drums of perpetual war are beating again on the banks of the Potomac.  Without a Congressional vote or debate, American military might is being thrown at Islamic State (aka ISIS) in the midst of the sectarian war that has been gripping the Middle East.  On September 9, Sarah Lazare at Commondreams.org reported on a recently released study on the strange parallel between the arming of Islamic State and al Qaeda.  The Islamic State (IS) is now in possession of lethal weapons formerly owned by so-called "moderate" Syrian rebels, as well as large quantities of arms produced in the United States, a new report reveals.  The study — conducted by Conflict Armament Research, a research organization that tracks weapons proliferation in war zones — documents arms and ammunition captured by Kurdish People's Protection Units and Peshmerga forces from IS in Iraq and Syria from from mid-June to early August 2014...."This is one more piece of evidence of why military solutions have devastating consequences in the immediate and long terms," said Phyllis Bennis, senior fellow at Institute for Policy Studies, in an interview with Common Dreams. "We see an example of the consequences of the over-arming of the region if we look back at Afghanistan in the 1980s during the anti-Soviet War when the U.S. provided stinger missiles that can bring down aircraft to mujahedin guerrillas who morphed into al Qaeda."  We have 13 years of experience in knowing what doesn't work in these conflicts and here we are doing it again.

There are other options short of war to weaken ISIS. The above-quoted Phyllis Bennis wrote in The Progressive on September 10: We have to recognize that military attacks are not only wrong in a host of ways (illegal in international law, immoral because of civilian casualties, a distraction from vitally needed diplomacy) but also that those strikes are making real solutions impossible....weakening ISIS requires ending the support it relies on from tribal leaders, military figures, and ordinary Iraqi Sunnis.   Bennis then presents six steps short of war to accomplish this:  

• Stop the airstrikes. 
• Make real the commitment for “No boots on the ground.”  
• Organize a real diplomatic partnership to deal with ISIS. Even though the U.S. is carrying out airstrikes and deploying new troops in Iraq, everyone agrees there is no military solution. 
• Initiate a new search for broader diplomatic solutions in the United Nations. That means working to build a real coalition aimed at using diplomatic and financial pressures, not military strikes, at the international level in both Iraq and Syria.
• Push the UN...to restart real negotiations on ending the civil war in Syria. That means everyone involved needs to be at the table.
• Massively increase US humanitarian contributions to U.N. agencies for the now millions of refugees and IDPs in and from both Syria and Iraq.

Related

As usual in these poorly thought-out rushes to military action, some of the best analysis comes from The Nation.  Here are links to a trio of relevant articles.

Phyllis Bennis, "The Speech on Diplomacy That Obama Should Have Given Last Night"

Zoe Carpenter, "Is the War on ISIS Illegal?"

William Grieder, "Obama’s Long War in the Middle East"

Gaza

As Egypt gets ready to host a donor conference for the devastated enclave of Gaza on October 12, Noam Chomsky's September 9 article for TomDispatch.com "Ceasefires in Which Violations Never Cease - What’s Next for Israel, Hamas, and Gaza?" should be required reading for every pundit on the planet and for anyone wanting to understand the situation in Gaza.  Tom Englehardt's introduction makes clear that if what Israel wanted to accomplish in Operation Protective Edge was to destroy support for Hamas, they failed miserably.  Englehardt quotes a Palestinian poll taken just before the current ceasefire went into effect:  If new presidential elections are held today and only two [candidates] were nominated, [the Hamas candidate] Haniyeh, for the first time since we have started asking about his popularity about eight years ago, would receive a majority of 61% and Abbas would receive 32%.  

Chomsky notes the history of these ceasefires whose terms have basically remained the same since Hamas came to power in the 2006 elections.  The regular pattern is for Israel, then, to disregard whatever agreement is in place, while Hamas observes it -- as Israel has officially recognized -- until a sharp increase in Israeli violence elicits a Hamas response, followed by even fiercer brutality. These escalations, which amount to shooting fish in a pond, are called "mowing the lawn" in Israeli parlance. The most recent was more accurately described as "removing the topsoil" by a senior U.S. military officer, appalled by the practices of the self-described "most moral army in the world."  Chomsky has much to say about Israel's disengagement from Gaza in 2005, the world reaction to the internationally monitored 2006 elections that brought Hamas to power in Gaza and the West Bank, Operations Cast Lead and Pillar of Defense, the recently concluded Operation Protective Edge, and the latest Israeli land grab in the West Bank.  On the land grab: As Operation Protective Edge ended, Israel announced its largest appropriation of West Bank land in 30 years, almost 1,000 acres.  Israel Radio reported that the takeover was in response to the killing of the three Jewish teenagers by "Hamas militants." A Palestinian boy was burned to death in retaliation for the murder, but no Israeli land was handed to Palestinians, nor was there any reaction when an Israeli soldier murdered 10-year-old Khalil Anati on a quiet street in a refugee camp near Hebron on August 10th, while the most moral army in the world was smashing Gaza to bits, and then drove away in his jeep as the child bled to death. 

Quoting Israeli scholars, journalists, military and political leaders, Chomsky concludes that a viable two-state solution is not a strong consideration in Israeli political circles: The realistic alternative to a two-state settlement is that Israel will continue to carry forward the plans it has been implementing for years, taking over whatever is of value to it in the West Bank, while avoiding Palestinian population concentrations and removing Palestinians from the areas it is integrating into Israel...Gaza will likely remain under its usual harsh siege, separated from the West Bank.  And the Syrian Golan Heights -- like Jerusalem, annexed in violation of Security Council orders -- will quietly become part of Greater Israel.  In the meantime, West Bank Palestinians will be contained in unviable cantons, with special accommodation for elites in standard neocolonial style.....For a century, the Zionist colonization of Palestine has proceeded primarily on the pragmatic principle of the quiet establishment of facts on the ground, which the world was to ultimately come to accept.  It has been a highly successful policy.  There is every reason to expect it to persist as long as the United States provides the necessary military, economic, diplomatic, and ideological support.  For those concerned with the rights of the brutalized Palestinians, there can be no higher priority than working to change U.S. policies, not an idle dream by any means.

Related
For a discussion of what has happened to Palestinians politically and territorially, see "The Map: A Palestinian Nation Thwarted & Speaking Truth to Power" - Informed Comment (reprinted July 13, 2014)

Map is from Friends of Sabeel - North America website
and Informed Comment

Lone Star Politics
Over the past year or so, there have been various surges of optimism over the possibility of Democrats picking up a governorship or a US Senate seat now held by a Republican in a red state. The latest bit of unfounded optimism is the Kansas Senate race.  The Democrat is dropping out of the race and Democrats are supporting the independent.  Whether this last bit of optimism pans out or not, we'll have to see.  Earlier would-be upsets are now long forgotten and Democrats are trying desperately to hold onto Senate seats in swing states.  One of the early examples of this unfounded optimism was in the Texas governor's race.  As Rolling Stone journalist Mark Binelli noted in a July article: This was supposed to be the year Texas turned blue, or at least purple, the year female and Hispanic voters turned out in droves and carried Democrat state Sen. Wendy Davis to the governor's mansion. Battleground Texas, a group founded last year with the bold goal of transforming Texas into a swing state, targeted the swelling Latino population, which by 2020 is projected to overtake the white population of Texas....By Memorial Day, however, the Battleground Texas narrative, at least in this election cycle, had begun to look like Daily Kos fan fiction. Davis was trailing Abbott by 14 points. Meanwhile, back in her old Fort Worth Senate district, a Tea Party Republican named Konni Burton seems well-placed to win Davis' old seat in the fall.  The Abbott lead over Davis is still hovering in low to mid double digits and our second most populous state looks like it will remain "red.  The article "Lone Star Crazy: How Right-Wing Extremists Took Over Texas" explains how Texas fell "into the hands of gun nuts, border-sealers and talk-radio charlatans":  After nearly six years of pumping out cynical horror stories involving our nefarious president and a Washington bureaucracy run amok, the right-wing fear machine has managed to reduce its target audience to a quivering state of waking nightmare, jumping at shadows.  Binelli sees a parallel with the 1960's.  In the years after JFK's murder, Dallas was known as the City of Hate, an image which the city struggled for years to erase.  Nowadays, the City of Hate era has grown so distant that hate has been allowed to return as a winning campaign slogan in Texas. ...Then as now, the pot was stirred by reactionary preachers..., wealthy string-pullers.., political opportunists...and organized interest groups.  

Links/In Brief
Scotland
With less than a week until Scotland votes on independence from the UK on September 18, the most recent polls are saying that it is too close to call.  [The Guardian, Sep 12]

If the vote is for independence, a whole slew of constitutional questions arise.  And the exit of the overwhelmingly Labour Scottish MP's from Westminster has led to a (perhaps ill-founded) hope among Tories that Scottish independence will consign the rest of the UK to permanent Conservative government.  [The New Statesman, Feb 20]

Greenhouse Gases
Surging carbon dioxide levels have pushed greenhouse gases to record highs in the atmosphere, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) has said.  Concentrations of carbon dioxide, the major cause of global warming, increased at their fastest rate for 30 years in 2013, despite warnings from the world’s scientists of the need to cut emissions to halt temperature rises. [The Guardian, Sep 9]

Earth to Hillary: We don't need an ignorant hawk in the White House.

The 2016 elections are more than two years away, so anything might happen between now and then. As of today, though, Democrats are giving overwhelming support for a Hillary Clinton run and she is ahead of presumptive Republican candidates by 6 or 7 points.  As a one-term Secretary of State, she accomplished nothing of note.  Today, her rhetoric on foreign policy as she gears up for the 2016 campaign is becoming hawkish to the point of stupidity.  She is distancing herself from Obama's more moderate policies, getting in line with AIPAC's support of Likud policies, and, just may be, endangering the last chance for a two-state solution and a just settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian crisis.

Andy Kroll in an August 15 Mother Jones post writes:  "In a recent interview with The Atlantic, Hillary Clinton went to great lengths to separate herself from her former boss, President Obama, in the realm of foreign policy. She unabashedly defended Israel's actions in the ongoing war in Gaza, chalked up civilian casualties in that conflict to 'the fog of war,' drew a hard line on Iran, and argued that the 'failure' of the Obama administration to arm Syrian rebel forces led to the rise of the Islamic State."  Her comments are decidedly not those of a future President - at least not anyone that I'd like to support.  We've already had the Bush-era neocons lead us into unjustifiable wars and drain the Treasury of at least $4 trillion.

How any fair-minded person can defend Israel's actions against Gaza - killing at least 1400 civilians including more than 400 children, destroying more than 10,000 homes and the enclave's only power plant, shelling six UN shelters for persons displaced by the assault, to name a few - is beyond imagination.  These actions are war crimes - not something to be sloughed off as consequences of "the fog of war."  She's signaling AIPAC that they should not abandon the Democrats because of Obama's policies and comments - tepid as they are in light of the magnitude of the humanitarian crisis brought about by the Israeli assault.  Hell, the Israelis don't really believe anyone will prosecute the war crimes committed in Gaza - they never have been held accountable in the past.  By the time the war crimes inquiry has recommendations to make, Hillary, with her bizarre take on the destruction in Gaza, will be on the horizon as potentially the next President.

And you can bet that Netanyahu and the right-wing thugs that are in power in Israel today are also taking note.  Clinton's statements are basically saying to Bibi and his crowd, "Don't worry. I won't be as tough on you as Obama."  (Not that Obama was in any sense tough but at least when Kerry became Secretary of State the US made an attempt to bring about a just peace in the region.)  The Israelis stonewalled the Kerry negotiations for nine months and then sabotaged them by escalating settlement construction.  Seeing the handwriting on the wall, the Palestinian Authority formed a unity government with Hamas.  Netanyahu and his crowd then had the gall to blame that unity government for the breakdown of the peace talks.  If they can drag their feet and be counterproductive for nine months while the world's eyes were focused on them, how easy it will be for them to delay any serious talks to produce a two-state solution for the next two years. Rebuilding Gaza and ending the seven-year blockade that has devastated that region will (or should) take up much of the world community's attention.  Compared to what the IDF did to Gaza, the general oppression of the Palestinians seems "benign" - as some of the more ludicrous Israeli commentators and politicians describe the 47 year Occupation.

As for Clinton's comments blaming the rise of ISIS on Obama's failure to arm the Syrian rebels, one can only wonder if she has any comprehension at all at what is happening there.  The Syrian civil war is a sectarian one.  Assad and the Syrian government are primarily Shia.  The rebel forces and ISIS are primarily Sunni.  I'm trying to understand the logic of how arming the Sunni rebel forces would stop the rise of Sunni ISIS forces.  That's right - there is no logic to the argument.

The Mother Jones article has an amusing "Who Said It, Clinton or McCain?" quiz.  If I wanted John McCain to be President, I'd have voted for him in 2008.  There's no groundswell of American support for a more belligerent foreign policy.  Other than currying AIPAC support, I'm not sure why Clinton is making these comments.

It's difficult to support someone with these views and the Democratic Party needs a serious wake up call.  It has been drifting rightward since the 1980's and its policies are centrist at best.  Just saying "we're not as bad as the Republicans" is not good enough.  Let's hope that Hillary gets a bit wiser on foreign policy in the next 2 years.  Let's hope she gets to be more of a twenty-first century leader and less of a twentieth-century hawk.