Saturday Round-Up August 31, 2013

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US mainstream media. Today's subject is the potential US military intervention in Syria.  Sources are The Guardian, Oxfam America, and The Nation.

The Obama Administration is scrambling to define a position justifying a potential strike on Syria for the alleged use of chemical weapons by that country's security forces.  There is no such justification for any unilateral, "a deux" or "coalition of the willing" military action. Two bodies are already established to try and punish perpetrators of international crimes - the International Court of Justice (United Nations) and the International Criminal Court established by the Rome Statute of 2002.

The Guardian reported on Thursday on the UK Parliament's vote against support for a United States airstrike on Syria.  The vote was 285-272 with many of PM Cameron's coalition joining Labour in opposition.  Asked by Labour leader Ed Miliband for an assurance that he would not use the royal prerogative to sanction British involvement in the military action, the prime minister told MPs: "I can give that assurance. ...it is clear to me that the British parliament, reflecting the views of the British people, does not want to see British military action. I get that and the government will act accordingly."

On Wednesday, prior to the vote, Guardian columnist Martin Kettle wrote:  After two years in which, tragically, the world has been unable to prevent Syria's catastrophe deepening ever further, the Cameron government is suddenly in a hurry to act. Partly this is because of the outrageous use of chemical weapons in Syria. But it is also because the US administration, having boxed itself in about responding to such horrors, now summons Britain to give support. But would the Obama administration, elected to end the war in Iraq and anxious to end the one in Afghanistan, really want to engage in Syria, even to the extent of an arm's-length bombing campaign, without either UN support or major international allies? ...It is arguable that a vote in the UK parliament could stay Washington's hand from a politically controversial, premature strike that would raise massive issues of legitimacy.

On Friday, a Guardian editorial praised the action of the MP's, noting:  There is no evidence that British public opinion has turned isolationist. There is plenty of evidence that it is fed up with the debilitating post 9/11 years of national sacrifice, with the humiliating excesses of US national security policy (not least its abuses of human rights and surveillance), with the unequal burden-sharing among allies and, above all, with the failures of policy. Iraq casts a very long, very dark shadow. As a result, right from the start of its spiralling civil war, Syria has felt like a sacrifice too far. When the latest call to arms came, though it came from a respected American president and was provoked by clearly intolerable war crimes, the answer was a clear one. Enough.

Addressing the plight of Syrians caught in middle of this civil war, Oxfam America condemns the attacks but makes a powerful case against military intervention:  Over more than two years of fighting, more than 100,000 lives have been lost and millions of people are in need of immediate humanitarian aid. It has been especially devastating for children: just last week, the UN announced that one million Syrian children are now refugees. Many have seen their homes bombed, their schools reduced to rubble, their communities destroyed.  The military intervention currently being debated will not – and is not aimed at – stopping the violence or helping these families start to rebuild. Instead of focusing on military options and arming the parties involved, President Obama, President Putin and other world leaders should intensify peaceful efforts to end the conflict, before Syria is destroyed and the region made even more unstable.

Finally, The Nation makes another powerful case against military intervention in an editorial.  After pointing out the illegitimacy of a US military attack without UN Security Council approval and the Administration's obligation to seek congressional authorization for such action, the editorial lists practical and humanitarian reasons to be opposed to military action:  On the practical level, there is little chance that limited airstrikes will have much deterrent effect on a ruthless regime that sees itself as engaged in an existential struggle for survival...It would make the United States a direct participant in what has become a regional sectarian conflict, further destabilizing Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Turkey...On the humanitarian level, there is a strong chance that US airstrikes, no matter how “surgical,” will kill innocent civilians...[and] could worsen what is already a disastrous refugee crisis.  Instead of military action, The Nation editorial calls for the United States to vastly increase aid to the 1.9 million refugees who have flooded across the country’s borders and join Russia in its effort to renew the Geneva negotiations.  The editorial concludes that Moscow and Washington share an interest in not widening the war and strengthening jihadi extremists. It’s long past time for the two powers to concede that neither Assad nor the rebels are going to be defeated anytime soon....if the United States and Russia work together, they could use their combined influence to choke off the flow of arms from the outside and contain the conflict as they work toward a cease-fire. If they don’t, Syria’s disintegration will spread throughout the region. 


 

Musical Interlude

One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain. - Bob Marley

Congress gets back to "work" in a week or so.  Expect to see a full court misinformation campaign to bring down Obamacare.  Meanwhile, the Obama Administration seems determined to hit Syria with cruise missiles.  Whatever happened to the peace initiative of earlier this summer?  As the forces of ignorance gather, I've pulled together a few good YouTube video links to keep our spirits up.  Apologies for the commercials on some of them. Heck if we could get through the Vietnam War, the Reagan and Thatcher years, the neocon fantasies of the twenty-aughts, we should be able to get through the next few months.   

U2 - "Beautiful Day"
It's a beautiful day
Don't let it get away
It's a beautiful day.

Talking Heads - "Once In A Lifetime"

You may ask yourself, what is that beautiful house?

You may ask yourself, where does that highway lead to?
You may ask yourself, am I right, am I wrong?
 [The original YouTube link was blocked by one or more of the copyright holders.  If it's still blocked:  Here's a link to a live performance of Once In A Lifetime.]

The Clash - "London Calling"

The ice age is coming, the sun is zooming in

Engines stop running, the wheat is growin' thin

A nuclear era, but I have no fear

'Cause London is drowning, and I, I live by the river

Bob Marley and The Wailers - "One Love (People Get Ready)"

One love

One heart

Let's get together and feel alright

Bob Marley and The Wailers - "Get Up Stand Up"

You can fool some people sometimes,

But you can't fool all the people all the time.

So now we see the light,

We gonna stand up for our rights!

Bob Marley and The Wailers - "No, Woman, No Cry"

Everything's gonna be all right, yeah!

Everything's gonna be all right!

So no, woman, no cry;

No, woman, no cry.

I seh, O little - O little darlin', don't shed no tears;

No, woman, no cry, eh.

The Clash - "Should I Stay or Should I Go?"

Version 1 - technically more polished
Version 2 - raw concert footage

If you say that you are mine

I'll be here 'til the end of time

So you got to let me know

Should I stay or should I go?

Eddy Grant - "Electric Avenue"

Ho, we gonna rock down to Electric Avenue

And then we'll take it higher

Who is to blame in what country?

Never can get to the one

Dealin' in multiplication

And they still can't feed everyone

Bruce Springsteen - "Land of Hope & Dreams (This Train)"

Well darlin' if you're weary

Lay your head upon my chest

We'll take what we can carry

Yeah, and we'll leave the rest

Well, big wheels roll through fields where sunlight streams

Meet me in a land of hope and dreams

Photo Credits (clockwise from top left): favim.com, tumblr, The Clash - MetroLyrics.com, Talking Heads - last.fm, ProverbsAndQuotations.com, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band - allgoodseats.com, Eddy Grant - musicstack.com, U2 - Rolling Stone



Sunday Round-Up - August 25, 2013

This is the weekly selection of articles and opinion from sources outside the US mainstream media.  Today we look at the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, Syria, and the growing disenchantment with the Eurozone's austerity measures in the Netherlands, heretofore a supporter of those policies.  Sources are Haaretz, Al Jazeera America, and The World Policy Blog. 


Haaretz reported on Thursday on a meeting between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and a delegation from Meretz, an Israeli left-wing party.  According to the report, Abbas "wants a negotiated peace agreement to include a clause stating that the conflict with Israel is over."  Abbas further clarified that "in any peace settlement the Palestinian state would agree to be demilitarized."  There apparently has been no progress during the last three rounds of negotiations according to Abbas.  He hoped to accelerate the meetings "to take place every day or every second day, and not once a week or every 10 days like the Israelis want. I don’t know why they don’t want to. We don’t have much time.”  Abbas wants the talks to lead to a final agreement, not an interim one and "noted that the negotiations have to deal with future borders of the Palestinian state. He said that Palestinians would accept changes to the 1967 borders as part of land swap agreements and left the door open to some Jewish settlements remaining under Palestinian sovereignty.  For their part, Meretz leader Zahava Gal-On "told Abbas that Meretz would provide Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with a 'safety net' if he makes progress toward the establishment of a Palestinian state."

On Friday, Al Jazeera America reported on Russia's call for a UN probe in the alleged Syrian gas attack earlier this week and on UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's request that the inspection take place without delay.  "Russia -- one of the most tenacious allies of the Syrian regime -- has called on the government of President Bashar al-Assad to allow a mission of United Nations inspectors to investigate alleged chemical attacks in the suburbs of Damascus and guarantee safe passage for U.N. workers entering the country, according to Reuters.  Russia has also called on forces opposed to Assad's government to guarantee the investigators' safety. Russia's appeal to Syria comes after months of warnings from Moscow against foreign intervention in the two-year civil war that has left more than 100,000 people dead and displaced nearly 2 million Syrians, including 1 million children....Syria's government, which has repeatedly denied the use of chemical weapons, offered no public response to the U.N. calls for its team to inspect the site of the attack."

Get ready for another round of Republican attempts to politicize the debt ceiling and threaten a government shutdown - this time in order to defund the Affordable Care Act.  The deficit/austerity hawks responsible for forcing the sequester on the country in a time of recession may have cost the US as many as 1.6 million jobs.  A government shutdown or threat to default on our debt would take another hammer to the still struggling economy.  So it was interesting to read that people in the Netherlands, who are among the strongest supporters of the austerity policies being applied in the European Union, are becoming fed up with the results.  The World Policy Blog had a post earlier this month on the growing opposition to the economic policies that have been unsuccessful in returning Europe to economic growth.  "The euro zone’s fifth largest economy is in its worst recession since the 1980s due to a sharp downturn in its property markets and high private sector debts following the global financial crisis of 2008. Last year the economy contracted by 0.9 percent and this year it could contract by another 1.4 percent."  Further austerity is not having a positive impact on the country's public sector debt, which "has grown from 45.3 percent in 2008 to an estimated 71.2 percent for 2013, according to Eurostat. The disenchantment is widespread across all parts of the population.  "Dutch economic policymakers must be exceedingly frustrated that austerity measures are not bringing about a reduction in the country’s debt burden or stimulating growth. The country’s debt-to-GDP level has actually risen over the past several years."

March on Washington

"I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood."

- Martin Luther King

 

 

Fifty years ago, on August 28, 1963, a quarter of a million people gathered in Washington, D.C.  The theme of the March on Washington, as it came to be called, was "jobs and freedom."  It was probably the largest rally for human rights in the history of the United States.  It was here that Dr. Martin Luther King delivered his historic "I Have a Dream" speech, a call for racial harmony and equality.  The March spurred the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which have done so much to ensure our democracy.  The latter legislation, renewed by overwhelming majorities in Congress in 2006, was effectively destroyed by SCOTUS' 5-4 decision in Shelby County vs. Holder.  Shelby County vs. Holder, coming at a time of Republican-orchestrated voter suppression efforts across the country, undoubtedly ranks among the worst Supreme Court decisions in history.

The Republic has come a long way since that day 50 years ago.  We have an African-American President.  De jure segregation has ended. De facto segregation is becoming less common.  Only in the most backwards parts of the country among the most backwards segments of society is blatant racism tolerated.  Still, challenges remain.  Voter suppression efforts are among the most obvious assaults against the freedoms won in the Civil Rights era.  Mistreatment of immigrants, discrimination based on sexual orientation, prejudice against Muslims, racial profiling - these all argue that we have a long way to go before true equality is reached in this nation.

This Saturday, August 24, a smaller crowd, though still numbering in the tens of thousands, gathered in Washington to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the historic event.  Speakers praised participants and leaders in the earlier civil rights movement and addressed today's equality issues.  There has been plenty of coverage of Saturday's rally and I'll just give a couple of links here...

CBS News' coverage of Saturday's rally - especially stirring is John Lewis' speech today - "the vote is precious...almost sacred..it is the most powerful non-violent tool we have in a democracy". Lewis was arrested 40 times during the 1960's and is the only surviving speaker from the 1963 March.

MSNBC's coverage of Saturday's rally

...and a link to MLK's speech

Link to Complete Audio and Text of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech (American Rhetoric website)

"And when this happens, and when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

                Free at last! Free at last!

                Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

- Martin Luther King

Military Injustice

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Quote of the Day

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” ― Martin Luther King Jr.

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This morning a military judge sentenced Army Pfc. Bradley Manning to 35 years in prison for leaking classified documents to Wikileaks. This is a travesty that should be condemned by all right-thinking people on this planet. Evidently it's less offensive to commit war crimes than to release documents of the crimes without the government's permission.

 

During the Iraq War, more than 4000 Iraqi civilians were killed at the hands of US-led coalition forces and there have been little to no repercussions. Certainly not to the leaders who brought us into this totally illegal invasion on totally erroneoous information. Bush, Cheney and the neocons who planned this war will live out the rest of their lives in freedom and wealth. Likewise, "all upper-level US government officials who presided over the bloodbath that was the US occupation of Iraq, including the years of 2004-2009 covered in the documents exposed by Manning, will face no punishment of any kind." [Josh Dougherty, Iraq BodyCount website post Aug 2, 2013]

 

In his post, Josh Dougherty notes that some lower-level US troops have faced punishment for specific actions but this has been "quite rare and the punishments have typically been relatively light even where they were sought."

• The US marines involved in the killing of 24 civilians in Haditha in November 2005 "faced virtually no legal consequences. One Marine was convicted of a minor offense for which he served no jail time, and the rest have all been acquitted or had all charges dropped."
• "[H]elicopter pilots who gunned down at least ten civilians, including two Reuters journalists and a father of two children who stopped to try to help the wounded, as documented in the "Collateral Murder" video exposed by Bradley Manning, face no punishment of any kind."
• The systematic torture of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison resulted in punishement of just eleven soldiers. "The heaviest sentence handed down to one soldier was 10 years in prison, for which he received parole after serving 6.5 years and is now free. Other sentences included reprimands, rank reductions, small fines or short prison terms."

 

So contrast that with the vindictive prosecution and sentencing of Bradley Manning for releasing documents the government chose to classify. 35 years for a victim-less crime. No one was killed. No one was tortured. This is so Kafka-esque that it defies belief.

 

Maybe the sentence will be reduced on appeal. After all, Lt. William Calley served just 3-1/2 years under house arrest at Fort Benning for his role in the 1968 My Lai massacre.   Lt. Calley, the only one of the 30 officers and enlisted men convicted, gave the order to the First Battalion to kill 70-80 My Lai villagers that had been rounded up.   The total massacred by various battalions of Charlie Company was at least 347.  These Vietnamese civilians included women, children and the elderly. 

 

But maybe not. Maybe Bradley Manning will spend the major portion of his remaining life in a military prison.  For Bradley Manning's crime has no victims.

 

Second Quote of the Day

“Some things you must always be unable to bear. Some things you must never stop refusing to bear. Injustice and outrage and dishonor and shame. No matter how young you are or how old you have got. Not for kudos and not for cash: your picture in the paper nor money in the back either. Just refuse to bear them.” ― William Faulkner, Intruder in the Dust

Link to Wikipedia article on My Lai Massacre

 

 

Freedom of the Press?

_____________________________________________________________________________
Quote of the Day

“There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.” ― George Orwell, 1984

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With all the bad examples of journalism and news reporting we've had in the past decade or so (think about the march into the Iraq War), it is disheartening to hear of the attempts to intimidate and muzzle The Guardian for its courageous reporting on the NSA spying scandal. I'm speaking, of course, of this weekend's nine-hour airport detention of David Miranda, partner of The Guardian's Glenn Greenwald who, working with information provided by Edward Snowden, broke the story.  "The detention of David Miranda is a disgrace and reinforces the undoubted complicity of the UK in U.S. indiscriminate surveillance of law-abiding citizens," Michael Mansfield, one of Britain's leading human rights lawyers, told Reuters. [Huffington Post/Reuters]

If that wasn't bad enough, we learned Monday of the raid by British security experts" from the U.K.'s GCHQ intelligence agency on the offices of The Guardian. The agents seized and destroyed hard drives in the basement of offices of the British newspaper.   As reported in the Huffington Post yesterday:

Despite this apparent attempt at intimidation, as well as the previously reported nine-hour detention of Glenn Greenwald's partner David Miranda at London's Heathrow airport, [Guardian editor] Rusbridger explained that The Guardian "will continue to do patient, painstaking reporting on the Snowden documents, we just won't do it in London."

Greenwald has been similarly undeterred by recent events. Following the detention of Miranda under the controversial schedule 7 portion of Britain's Terrorism Act, Greenwald stated, "I will be far more aggressive in my reporting from now. I am going to publish many more documents. I am going to publish things on England too. I have many documents on England's spy system. I think they will be sorry for what they did."

Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger wrote on Monday regarding these incidents and the growing threat to journalism:

The state that is building such a formidable apparatus of surveillance will do its best to prevent journalists from reporting on it. Most journalists can see that. But I wonder how many have truly understood the absolute threat to journalism implicit in the idea of total surveillance, when or if it comes – and, increasingly, it looks like "when".

We are not there yet, but it may not be long before it will be impossible for journalists to have confidential sources. Most reporting – indeed, most human life in 2013 – leaves too much of a digital fingerprint. Those colleagues who denigrate Snowden or say reporters should trust the state to know best (many of them in the UK, oddly, on the right) may one day have a cruel awakening. One day it will be their reporting, their cause, under attack. But at least reporters now know to stay away from Heathrow transit lounges.

Well said. An informed citizenry is a hallmark of and a necessity for a democracy. When exercising its rights responsibly, the press, the "Fourth Estate", can help inform citizens with that necessary knowledge. It can be a guardian (no pun intended) of that democracy.

Sunday Roundup - August 18, 2013

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US mainstream media.  Today the deteriorating situation in Egypt is discussed.  Source: Al Jazeera

The short-lived Egyptian democracy descended into chaos this past week. The violent crackdown on pro-Morsi protesters drew widespread condemnation from world leaders. An estimated 600 people were killed Wednesday when security forces broke up protest camps allied to the Muslim Brotherhood. New protests were held Thursday and Friday with dozens of fatalities.

Al Jazeera's coverage Friday included
reports on the day's clashes: 

At least a dozen people have been killed in fresh clashes in Egypt as anti-coup protesters returned to the streets to demand the end of the military-led regime...as crowds filled streets across Egypt to heed the Muslim Brotherhood's call for a "Day of Rage", following the deaths of hundreds of protesters on August 14 as police cleared sit-ins opposing the military coup and removal of president Mohamed Morsi.

the UN Security Council's call for maximum restraint :
The UN Security Council has called on the Egyptian government and the Muslim Brotherhood to exercise "maximum restraint", after an emergency meeting on Thursday: "The view of council members is that it is important to end violence in Egypt, and that the parties exercise maximum restraint," Argentine UN Ambassador Maria Cristina Perceval told reporters after the 15-member council met on the situation. "The members first of all expressed their sympathy to the victims and regretted the loss of lives," said Perceval, who is council president for August. "There was a common desire on the need to stop violence and to advance national reconciliation."

attacks against Egyptian Christians, who are seen as supportive of the transition: 

Amid the violence, alleged Morsi supporters carried out on dozens of attacks on churches and Christian-owned properties throughout the country. Mina Thabet, an activist with Christian rights group the Maspero Youth Union, told Al Jazeera on Friday that at least 32 churches had been “completely destroyed, burned or looted” in eight different governorates over the previous two days. The group also recorded dozens of other attacks on Christian-owned shops, businesses and schools around the country.

 

In the light of the week's violence, Al Jazeera's Inside Story video segment asks "what are the risks of ignoring the different groups within the country and how will the government deal with worldwide anger?" Besides the global condemnation of the government's action, interim Vice-President Mohamed El Baradei resigned in protest against the government's actions saying that he "could not be responsible for one drop of blood that could be avoided".

 

On Saturday, Al Jazeera reported that "Egyptian authorities have cleared a Cairo mosque of anti-coup protesters, following a day-long siege punctuated by gunfire, tear gas volleys and mob attacks." Apparently there were no deaths reported - unlike Friday when "at least 173 people were killed and 1,330 others were injured nationwide." Al Jazeera also reported that "Egyptian Prime Minister Hazemel-Beblawi...proposed the legal dissolution of the Muslim Brotherhood and the government is studying the idea."

 

On Sunday, Al Jazeera had these two feature articles on Egypt's future.

Will Egypt repeat Algeria's 'black decade'? Comparisons between Egypt's present crisis and the upheaval in 1990s Algeria gain credibility.

Egypt's fate in balance amid warnings of war: Armed conflict has been predicted by foreign commentators - but the greater threat is Egypt becoming a failed state.