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Journalism & Mass Communication / What is the Common Good?: Noam Chomsky

« on: March 10, 2015, 05:00:49 PM »

What is the Common Good?
Noam Chomsky
Truthout, January 7, 2014
(Adapted from a lecture by Noam Chomsky at Columbia University on December 6, 2013)

Humans are social beings, and the kind of creature that a person becomes depends crucially on the social, cultural and institutional circumstances of his life.
We are therefore led to inquire into the social arrangements that are conducive to people's rights and welfare, and to fulfilling their just aspirations -- in brief, the common good.

For perspective I'd like to invoke what seem to me virtual truisms. They relate to an interesting category of ethical principles: those that are not only universal, in that they are virtually always professed, but also doubly universal, in that at the same time they are almost universally rejected in practice.

These range from very general principles, such as the truism that we should apply to ourselves the same standards we do to others (if not harsher ones), to more specific doctrines, such as a dedication to promoting democracy and human rights, which is proclaimed almost universally, even by the worst monsters -- though the actual record is grim, across the spectrum.

A good place to start is with John Stuart Mill's classic "On Liberty." Its epigraph formulates "The grand, leading principle, towards which every argument unfolded in these pages directly converges: the absolute and essential importance of human development in its richest diversity."

The words are quoted from Wilhelm von Humboldt, a founder of classical liberalism. It follows that institutions that constrain such development are illegitimate, unless they can somehow justify themselves.

Concern for the common good should impel us to find ways to cultivate human development in its richest diversity.

Adam Smith, another Enlightenment thinker with similar views, felt that it shouldn't be too difficult to institute humane policies. In his "Theory of Moral Sentiments" he observed that "How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it."

Smith acknowledges the power of what he calls the "vile maxim of the masters of mankind": "All for ourselves, and nothing for other people." But the more benign "original passions of human nature" might compensate for that pathology.

Classical liberalism shipwrecked on the shoals of capitalism, but its humanistic commitments and aspirations didn't die. Rudolf Rocker, a 20th-century anarchist thinker and activist, reiterated similar ideas.

Rocker described what he calls "a definite trend in the historic development of mankind" that strives for "the free unhindered unfolding of all the individual and social forces in life."

Rocker was outlining an anarchist tradition culminating in anarcho-syndicalism -- in European terms, a variety of "libertarian socialism."

This brand of socialism, he held, doesn't depict "a fixed, self-enclosed social system" with a definite answer to all the multifarious questions and problems of human life, but rather a trend in human development that strives to attain Enlightenment ideals.

So understood, anarchism is part of a broader range of libertarian socialist thought and action that includes the practical achievements of revolutionary Spain in 1936; reaches further to worker-owned enterprises spreading today in the American rust belt, in northern Mexico, in Egypt, and many other countries, most extensively in the Basque country in Spain; and encompasses the many cooperative movements around the world and a good part of feminist and civil and human rights initiatives.

This broad tendency in human development seeks to identify structures of hierarchy, authority and domination that constrain human development, and then subject them to a very reasonable challenge: Justify yourself.

If these structures can't meet that challenge, they should be dismantled -- and, anarchists believe, "refashioned from below," as commentator Nathan Schneider observes.

In part this sounds like truism: Why should anyone defend illegitimate structures and institutions? But truisms at least have the merit of being true, which distinguishes them from a good deal of political discourse. And I think they provide useful stepping stones to finding the common good.

For Rocker, "the problem that is set for our time is that of freeing man from the curse of economic exploitation and political and social enslavement."

It should be noted that the American brand of libertarianism differs sharply from the libertarian tradition, accepting and indeed advocating the subordination of working people to the masters of the economy, and the subjection of everyone to the restrictive discipline and destructive features of markets.

Anarchism is, famously, opposed to the state, while advocating "planned administration of things in the interest of the community," in Rocker's words; and beyond that, wide-ranging federations of self-governing communities and workplaces.

Today, anarchists dedicated to these goals often support state power to protect people, society and the earth itself from the ravages of concentrated private capital. That's no contradiction. People live and suffer and endure in the existing society. Available means should be used to safeguard and benefit them, even if a long-term goal is to construct preferable alternatives.

In the Brazilian rural workers movement, they speak of "widening the floors of the cage" -- the cage of existing coercive institutions that can be widened by popular struggle -- as has happened effectively over many years.

We can extend the image to think of the cage of state institutions as a protection from the savage beasts roaming outside: the predatory, state-supported capitalist institutions dedicated in principle to private gain, power and domination, with community and people's interest at most a footnote, revered in rhetoric but dismissed in practice as a matter of principle and even law.

Much of the most respected work in academic political science compares public attitudes and government policy. In "Affluence and Influence: Economic Inequality and Political Power in America," the Princeton scholar Martin Gilens reveals that the majority of the U.S. population is effectively disenfranchised.

About 70 percent of the population, at the lower end of the wealth/income scale, has no influence on policy, Gilens concludes. Moving up the scale, influence slowly increases. At the very top are those who pretty much determine policy, by means that aren't obscure. The resulting system is not democracy but plutocracy.

Or perhaps, a little more kindly, it's what legal scholar Conor Gearty calls "neo-democracy," a partner to neoliberalism -- a system in which liberty is enjoyed by the few, and security in its fullest sense is available only to the elite, but within a system of more general formal rights.

In contrast, as Rocker writes, a truly democratic system would achieve the character of "an alliance of free groups of men and women based on cooperative labor and a planned administration of things in the interest of the community."

No one took the American philosopher John Dewey to be an anarchist. But consider his ideas. He recognized that "Power today resides in control of the means of production, exchange, publicity, transportation and communication. Whoever owns them rules the life of the country," even if democratic forms remain. Until those institutions are in the hands of the public, politics will remain "the shadow cast on society by big business," much as is seen today.

These ideas lead very naturally to a vision of society based on workers' control of productive institutions, as envisioned by 19th century thinkers, notably Karl Marx but also -- less familiar -- John Stuart Mill.

Mill wrote, "The form of association, however, which if mankind continue to improve, must be expected to predominate, is . the association of the labourers themselves on terms of equality, collectively owning the capital with which they carry on their operations, and working under managers electable and removable by themselves."

The Founding Fathers of the United States were well aware of the hazards of democracy. In the Constitutional Convention debates, the main framer, James Madison, warned of these hazards.

Naturally taking England as his model, Madison observed that "In England, at this day, if elections were open to all classes of people, the property of landed proprietors would be insecure. An agrarian law would soon take place," undermining the right to property.

The basic problem that Madison foresaw in "framing a system which we wish to last for ages" was to ensure that the actual rulers will be the wealthy minority so as "to secure the rights of property agst. the danger from an equality & universality of suffrage, vesting compleat power over property in hands without a share in it."

Scholarship generally agrees with the Brown University scholar Gordon S. Wood's assessment that "The Constitution was intrinsically an aristocratic document designed to check the democratic tendencies of the period."

Long before Madison, Artistotle, in his "Politics," recognized the same problem with democracy.

Reviewing a variety of political systems, Aristotle concluded that this system was the best -- or perhaps the least bad -- form of government. But he recognized a flaw: The great mass of the poor could use their voting power to take the property of the rich, which would be unfair.

Madison and Aristotle arrived at opposite solutions: Aristotle advised reducing inequality, by what we would regard as welfare state measures. Madison felt that the answer was to reduce democracy.

In his last years, Thomas Jefferson, the man who drafted the United States' Declaration of Independence, captured the essential nature of the conflict, which has far from ended. Jefferson had serious concerns about the quality and fate of the democratic experiment. He distinguished between "aristocrats and democrats."

The aristocrats are "those who fear and distrust the people, and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher classes."

The democrats, in contrast, "identify with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest and safe, although not the most wise depository of the public interest."

Today the successors to Jefferson's "aristocrats" might argue about who should play the guiding role: technocratic and policy-oriented intellectuals, or bankers and corporate executives.

It is this political guardianship that the genuine libertarian tradition seeks to dismantle and reconstruct from below, while also changing industry, as Dewey put it, "from a feudalistic to a democratic social order" based on workers' control, respecting the dignity of the producer as a genuine person, not a tool in the hands of others.

Like Karl Marx's Old Mole -- "our old friend, our old mole, who knows so well how to work underground, then suddenly to emerge" -- the libertarian tradition is always burrowing close to the surface, always ready to peek through, sometimes in surprising and unexpected ways, seeking to bring about what seems to me to be a reasonable approximation to the common good.

SOURCE: http://www.chomsky.info/articles/20140107.htm

17

Journalism & Mass Communication / The Politics of Red Lines

« on: March 10, 2015, 04:57:56 PM »

The Politics of Red Lines: Putin's takeover of Crimea scares U.S. leaders because it challenges America's global dominance
Noam Chomsky
In These Times, May 1, 2014

The current Ukraine crisis is serious and threatening, so much so that some commentators even compare it to the Cuban missile crisis of 1962.
Columnist Thanassis Cambanis summarizes the core issue succinctly in The Boston Globe: "[President Vladimir V.] Putin's annexation of the Crimea is a break in the order that America and its allies have come to rely on since the end of the Cold War -- namely, one in which major powers only intervene militarily when they have an international consensus on their side, or failing that, when they're not crossing a rival power's red lines."

This era's most extreme international crime, the United States-United Kingdom invasion of Iraq, was therefore not a break in world order -- because, after failing to gain international support, the aggressors didn't cross Russian or Chinese red lines.

In contrast, Putin's takeover of the Crimea and his ambitions in Ukraine cross American red lines.

Therefore "Obama is focused on isolating Putin's Russia by cutting off its economic and political ties to the outside world, limiting its expansionist ambitions in its own neighborhood and effectively making it a pariah state," Peter Baker reports in The New York Times.

American red lines, in short, are firmly placed at Russia's borders. Therefore Russian ambitions "in its own neighborhood" violate world order and create crises.

The point generalizes. Other countries are sometimes allowed to have red lines -- at their borders (where the United States' red lines are also located). But not Iraq, for example. Or Iran, which the U.S. continually threatens with attack ("no options are off the table").

Such threats violate not only the United Nations Charter but also the General Assembly resolution condemning Russia that the United States just signed. The resolution opened by stressing the U.N. Charter ban on "the threat or use of force" in international affairs.

The Cuban missile crisis also sharply revealed the great powers' red lines. The world came perilously close to nuclear war when President Kennedy rejected Premier Khrushchev's offer to end the crisis by simultaneous public withdrawal of Soviet missiles from Cuba and American missiles from Turkey. (The U.S. missiles were already scheduled to be replaced by far more lethal Polaris submarines, part of the massive system threatening Russia's destruction.)

In this case too, the United States' red lines were at Russia's borders, and that was accepted on all sides.

The U.S. invasion of Indochina, like the invasion of Iraq, crossed no red lines, nor have many other U.S. depredations worldwide. To repeat the crucial point: Adversaries are sometimes permitted to have red lines, but at their borders, where America's red lines are also located. If an adversary has "expansionist ambitions in its own neighborhood," crossing U.S. red lines, the world faces a crisis.

In the current issue of the Harvard-MIT journal International Security, Oxford University professor Yuen Foong Khong explains that there is a "long (and bipartisan) tradition in American strategic thinking: Successive administrations have emphasized that a vital interest of the United States is to prevent a hostile hegemon from dominating any of the major regions of the world."

Furthermore, it is generally agreed that the United States must "maintain its predominance," because "it is U.S. hegemony that has upheld regional peace and stability" -- the latter a term of art referring to subordination to U.S. demands.

As it happens, the world thinks differently and regards the United States as a "pariah state" and "the greatest threat to world peace," with no competitor even close in the polls. But what does the world know?

Khong's article concerns the crisis in Asia, caused by the rise of China, which is moving toward "economic primacy in Asia" and, like Russia, has "expansionist ambitions in its own neighborhood," thus crossing American red lines.

President Obama's recent Asia trip was to affirm the "long (and bipartisan) tradition," in diplomatic language.

The near-universal Western condemnation of Putin includes citing the "emotional address" in which he complained bitterly that the U.S. and its allies had "cheated us again and again, made decisions behind our back, presenting us with completed facts with the expansion of NATO in the East, with the deployment of military infrastructure at our borders. They always told us the same thing: 'Well, this doesn't involve you.' "

Putin's complaints are factually accurate. When President Gorbachev accepted the unification of Germany as part of NATO -- an astonishing concession in the light of history -- there was a quid pro quo. Washington agreed that NATO would not move "one inch eastward," referring to East Germany.

The promise was immediately broken, and when Gorbachev complained, he was instructed that it was only a verbal promise, so without force.

President Clinton proceeded to expand NATO much farther to the east, to Russia's borders. Today there are calls to extend NATO even to Ukraine, deep into the historic Russian "neighborhood." But it "doesn't involve" the Russians, because its responsibility to "uphold peace and stability" requires that American red lines are at Russia's borders.

Russia's annexation of Crimea was an illegal act, in violation of international law and specific treaties. It's not easy to find anything comparable in recent years -- the Iraq invasion is a vastly greater crime.

But one comparable example comes to mind: U.S. control of Guantanamo Bay in southeastern Cuba. Guantanamo was wrested from Cuba at gunpoint in 1903 and not relinquished despite Cuba's demands ever since it attained independence in 1959.

To be sure, Russia has a far stronger case. Even apart from strong internal support for the annexation, Crimea is historically Russian; it has Russia's only warm-water port, the home of Russia's fleet; and has enormous strategic significance. The United States has no claim at all to Guantanamo, other than its monopoly of force.

One reason why the United States refuses to return Guantanamo to Cuba, presumably, is that this is a major harbor and American control of the region severely hampers Cuban development. That has been a major U.S. policy goal for 50 years, including large-scale terror and economic warfare.

The United States claims that it is shocked by Cuban human rights violations, overlooking the fact that the worst such violations are in Guantanamo; that valid charges against Cuba do not begin to compare with regular practices among Washington's Latin American clients; and that Cuba has been under severe, unremitting U.S. attack since its independence.

But none of this crosses anyone's red lines or causes a crisis. It falls into the category of the U.S. invasions of Indochina and Iraq, the regular overthrow of parliamentary regimes and installation of vicious dictatorships, and our hideous record of other exercises of "upholding peace and stability."

SOURCE: http://www.chomsky.info/articles/20140501.htm

18

Journalism & Mass Communication / The Sledgehammer Worldview: Noam Chomsky

« on: March 10, 2015, 04:55:50 PM »

The Sledgehammer Worldview
Noam Chomsky
Truthout, July 7, 2014

The front page of The New York Times on June 26 featured a photo of women mourning a murdered Iraqi.
He is one of the innumerable victims of the ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) campaign in which the Iraqi army, armed and trained by the U.S. for many years, quickly melted away, abandoning much of Iraq to a few thousand militants, hardly a new experience in imperial history.

Right above the picture is the newspaper's famous motto: "All the News That's Fit to Print."

There is a crucial omission. The front page should display the words of the Nuremberg judgment of prominent Nazis -- words that must be repeated until they penetrate general consciousness: Aggression is "the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."

And alongside these words should be the admonition of the chief prosecutor for the United States, Robert Jackson: "The record on which we judge these defendants is the record on which history will judge us tomorrow. To pass these defendants a poisoned chalice is to put it to our own lips as well."

The U.S.-U.K. invasion of Iraq was a textbook example of aggression. Apologists invoke noble intentions, which would be irrelevant even if the pleas were sustainable.

For the World War II tribunals, it mattered not a jot that Japanese imperialists were intent on bringing an "earthly paradise" to the Chinese they were slaughtering, or that Hitler sent troops into Poland in 1939 in self-defense against the "wild terror" of the Poles. The same holds when we sip from the poisoned chalice.

Those at the wrong end of the club have few illusions. Abdel Bari Atwan, editor of a Pan-Arab website, observes that "the main factor responsible for the current chaos [in Iraq] is the U.S./Western occupation and the Arab backing for it. Any other claim is misleading and aims to divert attention [away] from this truth."

In a recent interview with Moyers & Company, Iraq specialist Raed Jarrar outlines what we in the West should know. Like many Iraqis, he is half-Shiite, half-Sunni, and in preinvasion Iraq he barely knew the religious identities of his relatives because "sect wasn't really a part of the national consciousness."

Jarrar reminds us that "this sectarian strife that is destroying the country ... clearly began with the U.S. invasion and occupation."

The aggressors destroyed "Iraqi national identity and replaced it with sectarian and ethnic identities," beginning immediately when the U.S. imposed a Governing Council based on sectarian identity, a novelty for Iraq.

By now, Shiites and Sunnis are the bitterest enemies, thanks to the sledgehammer wielded by Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney (respectively the former U.S. Secretary of Defense and vice president during the George W. Bush administration) and others like them who understand nothing beyond violence and terror and have helped to create conflicts that are now tearing the region to shreds.

Other headlines report the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Journalist Anand Gopal explains the reasons in his remarkable book, No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban, and the War through Afghan Eyes.

In 2001-02, when the U.S. sledgehammer struck Afghanistan, the al-Qaida outsiders there soon disappeared and the Taliban melted away, many choosing in traditional style to accommodate to the latest conquerors.

But Washington was desperate to find terrorists to crush. The strongmen they imposed as rulers quickly discovered that they could exploit Washington's blind ignorance and attack their enemies, including those eagerly collaborating with the American invaders.

Soon the country was ruled by ruthless warlords, while many former Taliban who sought to join the new order recreated the insurgency.

The sledgehammer was later picked up by President Obama as he "led from behind" in smashing Libya.

In March 2011, amid an Arab Spring uprising against Libyan ruler Moammar Gadhafi, the U.N. Security Council passed Resolution 1973, calling for "a cease-fire and a complete end to violence and all attacks against, and abuses of, civilians."

The imperial triumvirate -- France, England, the U.S. -- instantly chose to violate the Resolution, becoming the air force of the rebels and sharply enhancing violence.

Their campaign culminated in the assault on Gadhafi's refuge in Sirte, which they left "utterly ravaged," "reminiscent of the grimmest scenes from Grozny, towards the end of Russia's bloody Chechen war," according to eyewitness reports in the British press. At a bloody cost, the triumvirate accomplished its goal of regime change in violation of pious pronouncements to the contrary.

The African Union strongly opposed the triumvirate assault. As reported by Africa specialist Alex de Waal in the British journal International Affairs, the AU established a "road map" calling for cease-fire, humanitarian assistance, protection of African migrants (who were largely slaughtered or expelled) and other foreign nationals, and political reforms to eliminate "the causes of the current crisis," with further steps to establish "an inclusive, consensual interim government, leading to democratic elections."

The AU framework was accepted in principle by Gadhafi but dismissed by the triumvirate, who "were uninterested in real negotiations," de Waal observes.

The outcome is that Libya is now torn by warring militias, while jihadi terror has been unleashed in much of Africa along with a flood of weapons, reaching also to Syria.

There is plenty of evidence of the consequences of resort to the sledgehammer. Take the Democratic Republic of Congo, formerly the Belgian Congo, a huge country rich in resources -- and one of the worst contemporary horror stories. It had a chance for successful development after independence in 1960, under the leadership of Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba.

But the West would have none of that. CIA head Allen Dulles determined that Lumumba's "removal must be an urgent and prime objective" of covert action, not least because U.S. investments might have been endangered by what internal documents refer to as "radical nationalists."

Under the supervision of Belgian officers, Lumumba was murdered, realizing President Eisenhower's wish that he "would fall into a river full of crocodiles." Congo was handed over to the U.S. favorite, the murderous and corrupt dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, and on to today's wreckage of Africa's hopes.

Closer to home it is harder to ignore the consequences of U.S. state terror. There is now great concern about the flood of children fleeing to the U.S. from Central America.

The Washington Post reports that the surge is "mostly from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras" -- but not Nicaragua. Why? Could it be that when Washington's sledgehammer was battering the region in the 1980s, Nicaragua was the one country that had an army to defend the population from U.S.-run terrorists, while in the other three countries the terrorists devastating the countries were the armies equipped and trained by Washington?

Obama has proposed a humanitarian response to the tragic influx: more efficient deportation. Do alternatives come to mind?

It is unfair to omit exercises of "soft power" and the role of the private sector. A good example is Chevron's decision to abandon its widely touted renewable energy programs, because fossil fuels are far more profitable.

Exxon Mobil in turn announced "that its laserlike focus on fossil fuels is a sound strategy, regardless of climate change," Bloomberg Businessweek reports, "because the world needs vastly more energy and the likelihood of significant carbon reductions is 'highly unlikely.'"

It is therefore a mistake to remind readers daily of the Nuremberg judgment. Aggression is no longer the "supreme international crime." It cannot compare with destruction of the lives of future generations to ensure bigger bonuses tomorrow.

SOURCE: http://www.chomsky.info/articles/20140707.htm

19

Journalism & Mass Communication / How Many Minutes to Midnight? Hiroshima Day 2014: Noam Chomsky

« on: March 10, 2015, 04:53:00 PM »

How Many Minutes to Midnight? Hiroshima Day 2014
Noam Chomsky
TomDistpatch.com, August 5, 2014

If some extraterrestrial species were compiling a history of Homo sapiens, they might well break their calendar into two eras: BNW (before nuclear weapons) and NWE (the nuclear weapons era). The latter era, of course, opened on August 6, 1945, the first day of the countdown to what may be the inglorious end of this strange species, which attained the intelligence to discover the effective means to destroy itself, but -- so the evidence suggests -- not the moral and intellectual capacity to control its worst instincts.
Day one of the NWE was marked by the "success" of Little Boy, a simple atomic bomb. On day four, Nagasaki experienced the technological triumph of Fat Man, a more sophisticated design. Five days later came what the official Air Force history calls the "grand finale," a 1,000-plane raid -- no mean logistical achievement -- attacking Japan's cities and killing many thousands of people, with leaflets falling among the bombs reading "Japan has surrendered." Truman announced that surrender before the last B-29 returned to its base.

Those were the auspicious opening days of the NWE. As we now enter its 70th year, we should be contemplating with wonder that we have survived. We can only guess how many years remain.

Some reflections on these grim prospects were offered by General Lee Butler, former head of the U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM), which controls nuclear weapons and strategy. Twenty years ago, he wrote that we had so far survived the NWE "by some combination of skill, luck, and divine intervention, and I suspect the latter in greatest proportion."

Reflecting on his long career in developing nuclear weapons strategies and organizing the forces to implement them efficiently, he described himself ruefully as having been "among the most avid of these keepers of the faith in nuclear weapons." But, he continued, he had come to realize that it was now his "burden to declare with all of the conviction I can muster that in my judgment they served us extremely ill." And he asked, "By what authority do succeeding generations of leaders in the nuclear-weapons states usurp the power to dictate the odds of continued life on our planet? Most urgently, why does such breathtaking audacity persist at a moment when we should stand trembling in the face of our folly and united in our commitment to abolish its most deadly manifestations?"

He termed the U.S. strategic plan of 1960 that called for an automated all-out strike on the Communist world "the single most absurd and irresponsible document I have ever reviewed in my life." Its Soviet counterpart was probably even more insane. But it is important to bear in mind that there are competitors, not least among them the easy acceptance of extraordinary threats to survival.

Survival in the Early Cold War Years

According to received doctrine in scholarship and general intellectual discourse, the prime goal of state policy is "national security." There is ample evidence, however, that the doctrine of national security does not encompass the security of the population. The record reveals that, for instance, the threat of instant destruction by nuclear weapons has not ranked high among the concerns of planners. That much was demonstrated early on, and remains true to the present moment.

In the early days of the NWE, the U.S. was overwhelmingly powerful and enjoyed remarkable security: it controlled the hemisphere, the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and the opposite sides of those oceans as well. Long before World War II, it had already become by far the richest country in the world, with incomparable advantages. Its economy boomed during the war, while other industrial societies were devastated or severely weakened. By the opening of the new era, the U.S. possessed about half of total world wealth and an even greater percentage of its manufacturing capacity.

There was, however, a potential threat: intercontinental ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads. That threat was discussed in the standard scholarly study of nuclear policies, carried out with access to high-level sources -- Danger and Survival: Choices About the Bomb in the First Fifty Years by McGeorge Bundy, national security adviser during the Kennedy and Johnson presidencies.

Bundy wrote that "the timely development of ballistic missiles during the Eisenhower administration is one of the best achievements of those eight years. Yet it is well to begin with a recognition that both the United States and the Soviet Union might be in much less nuclear danger today if [those] missiles had never been developed." He then added an instructive comment: "I am aware of no serious contemporary proposal, in or out of either government, that ballistic missiles should somehow be banned by agreement." In short, there was apparently no thought of trying to prevent the sole serious threat to the U.S., the threat of utter destruction in a nuclear war with the Soviet Union.

Could that threat have been taken off the table? We cannot, of course, be sure, but it was hardly inconceivable. The Russians, far behind in industrial development and technological sophistication, were in a far more threatening environment. Hence, they were significantly more vulnerable to such weapons systems than the U.S. There might have been opportunities to explore these possibilities, but in the extraordinary hysteria of the day they could hardly have even been perceived. And that hysteria was indeed extraordinary. An examination of the rhetoric of central official documents of that moment like National Security Council Paper NSC-68 remains quite shocking, even discounting Secretary of State Dean Acheson's injunction that it is necessary to be "clearer than truth."

One indication of possible opportunities to blunt the threat was a remarkable proposal by Soviet ruler Joseph Stalin in 1952, offering to allow Germany to be unified with free elections on the condition that it would not then join a hostile military alliance. That was hardly an extreme condition in light of the history of the past half-century during which Germany alone had practically destroyed Russia twice, exacting a terrible toll.

Stalin's proposal was taken seriously by the respected political commentator James Warburg, but otherwise mostly ignored or ridiculed at the time. Recent scholarship has begun to take a different view. The bitterly anti-Communist Soviet scholar Adam Ulam has taken the status of Stalin's proposal to be an "unresolved mystery." Washington "wasted little effort in flatly rejecting Moscow's initiative," he has written, on grounds that "were embarrassingly unconvincing." The political, scholarly, and general intellectual failure left open "the basic question," Ulam added: "Was Stalin genuinely ready to sacrifice the newly created German Democratic Republic (GDR) on the altar of real democracy," with consequences for world peace and for American security that could have been enormous?

Reviewing recent research in Soviet archives, one of the most respected Cold War scholars, Melvyn Leffler, has observed that many scholars were surprised to discover "[Lavrenti] Beria -- the sinister, brutal head of the [Russian] secret police -- propos[ed] that the Kremlin offer the West a deal on the unification and neutralization of Germany," agreeing "to sacrifice the East German communist regime to reduce East-West tensions" and improve internal political and economic conditions in Russia -- opportunities that were squandered in favor of securing German participation in NATO.

Under the circumstances, it is not impossible that agreements might then have been reached that would have protected the security of the American population from the gravest threat on the horizon. But that possibility apparently was not considered, a striking indication of how slight a role authentic security plays in state policy.

The Cuban Missile Crisis and Beyond

That conclusion was underscored repeatedly in the years that followed. When Nikita Khrushchev took control in Russia in 1953 after Stalin's death, he recognized that the USSR could not compete militarily with the U.S., the richest and most powerful country in history, with incomparable advantages. If it ever hoped to escape its economic backwardness and the devastating effect of the last world war, it would need to reverse the arms race.

Accordingly, Khrushchev proposed sharp mutual reductions in offensive weapons. The incoming Kennedy administration considered the offer and rejected it, instead turning to rapid military expansion, even though it was already far in the lead. The late Kenneth Waltz, supported by other strategic analysts with close connections to U.S. intelligence, wrote then that the Kennedy administration "undertook the largest strategic and conventional peace-time military build-up the world has yet seen... even as Khrushchev was trying at once to carry through a major reduction in the conventional forces and to follow a strategy of minimum deterrence, and we did so even though the balance of strategic weapons greatly favored the United States." Again, harming national security while enhancing state power.

U.S. intelligence verified that huge cuts had indeed been made in active Soviet military forces, both in terms of aircraft and manpower. In 1963, Khrushchev again called for new reductions. As a gesture, he withdrew troops from East Germany and called on Washington to reciprocate. That call, too, was rejected. William Kaufmann, a former top Pentagon aide and leading analyst of security issues, described the U.S. failure to respond to Khrushchev's initiatives as, in career terms, "the one regret I have."

The Soviet reaction to the U.S. build-up of those years was to place nuclear missiles in Cuba in October 1962 to try to redress the balance at least slightly. The move was also motivated in part by Kennedy's terrorist campaign against Fidel Castro's Cuba, which was scheduled to lead to invasion that very month, as Russia and Cuba may have known. The ensuing "missile crisis" was "the most dangerous moment in history," in the words of historian Arthur Schlesinger, Kennedy's adviser and confidant.

As the crisis peaked in late October, Kennedy received a secret letter from Khrushchev offering to end it by simultaneous public withdrawal of Russian missiles from Cuba and U.S. Jupiter missiles from Turkey. The latter were obsolete missiles, already ordered withdrawn by the Kennedy administration because they were being replaced by far more lethal Polaris submarines to be stationed in the Mediterranean.

Kennedy's subjective estimate at that moment was that if he refused the Soviet premier's offer, there was a 33% to 50% probability of nuclear war -- a war that, as President Eisenhower had warned, would have destroyed the northern hemisphere. Kennedy nonetheless refused Khrushchev's proposal for public withdrawal of the missiles from Cuba and Turkey; only the withdrawal from Cuba could be public, so as to protect the U.S. right to place missiles on Russia's borders or anywhere else it chose.

It is hard to think of a more horrendous decision in history -- and for this, he is still highly praised for his cool courage and statesmanship.

Ten years later, in the last days of the 1973 Israel-Arab war, Henry Kissinger, then national security adviser to President Nixon, called a nuclear alert. The purpose was to warn the Russians not to interfere with his delicate diplomatic maneuvers designed to ensure an Israeli victory, but of a limited sort so that the U.S. would still be in control of the region unilaterally. And the maneuvers were indeed delicate. The U.S. and Russia had jointly imposed a cease-fire, but Kissinger secretly informed the Israelis that they could ignore it. Hence the need for the nuclear alert to frighten the Russians away. The security of Americans had its usual status.

Ten years later, the Reagan administration launched operations to probe Russian air defenses by simulating air and naval attacks and a high-level nuclear alert that the Russians were intended to detect. These actions were undertaken at a very tense moment. Washington was deploying Pershing II strategic missiles in Europe with a five-minute flight time to Moscow. President Reagan had also announced the Strategic Defense Initiative ("Star Wars") program, which the Russians understood to be effectively a first-strike weapon, a standard interpretation of missile defense on all sides. And other tensions were rising.

Naturally, these actions caused great alarm in Russia, which, unlike the U.S., was quite vulnerable and had repeatedly been invaded and virtually destroyed. That led to a major war scare in 1983. Newly released archives reveal that the danger was even more severe than historians had previously assumed. A CIA study entitled "The War Scare Was for Real" concluded that U.S. intelligence may have underestimated Russian concerns and the threat of a Russian preventative nuclear strike. The exercises "almost became a prelude to a preventative nuclear strike," according to an account in the Journal of Strategic Studies.

It was even more dangerous than that, as we learned last September, when the BBC reported that right in the midst of these world-threatening developments, Russia's early-warning systems detected an incoming missile strike from the United States, sending its nuclear system onto the highest-level alert. The protocol for the Soviet military was to retaliate with a nuclear attack of its own. Fortunately, the officer on duty, Stanislav Petrov, decided to disobey orders and not report the warnings to his superiors. He received an official reprimand. And thanks to his dereliction of duty, we're still alive to talk about it.

The security of the population was no more a high priority for Reagan administration planners than for their predecessors. And so it continues to the present, even putting aside the numerous near-catastrophic nuclear accidents that occurred over the years, many reviewed in Eric Schlosser's chilling study Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety. In other words, it is hard to contest General Butler's conclusions.

Survival in the Post-Cold War Era

The record of post-Cold War actions and doctrines is hardly reassuring either. Every self-respecting president has to have a doctrine. The Clinton Doctrine was encapsulated in the slogan "multilateral when we can, unilateral when we must." In congressional testimony, the phrase "when we must" was explained more fully: the U.S. is entitled to resort to "unilateral use of military power" to ensure "uninhibited access to key markets, energy supplies, and strategic resources." Meanwhile, STRATCOM in the Clinton era produced an important study entitled "Essentials of Post-Cold War Deterrence," issued well after the Soviet Union had collapsed and Clinton was extending President George H.W. Bush's program of expanding NATO to the east in violation of promises to Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev -- with reverberations to the present.

That STRATCOM study was concerned with "the role of nuclear weapons in the post-Cold War era." A central conclusion: that the U.S. must maintain the right to launch a first strike, even against non-nuclear states. Furthermore, nuclear weapons must always be at the ready because they "cast a shadow over any crisis or conflict." They were, that is, constantly being used, just as you're using a gun if you aim but don't fire one while robbing a store (a point that Daniel Ellsberg has repeatedly stressed). STRATCOM went on to advise that "planners should not be too rational about determining... what the opponent values the most." Everything should simply be targeted. "t hurts to portray ourselves as too fully rational and cool-headed ... That the U.S. may become irrational and vindictive if its vital interests are attacked should be a part of the national persona we project." It is "beneficial [for our strategic posture] if some elements may appear to be potentially ‘out of control,'" thus posing a constant threat of nuclear attack -- a severe violation of the U.N. Charter, if anyone cares.

Not much here about the noble goals constantly proclaimed -- or for that matter the obligation under the Non-Proliferation Treaty to make "good faith" efforts to eliminate this scourge of the earth. What resounds, rather, is an adaptation of Hilaire Belloc's famous couplet about the Maxim gun (to quote the great African historian Chinweizu):

"Whatever happens, we have got,

The Atom Bomb, and they have not."

After Clinton came, of course, George W. Bush, whose broad endorsement of preventative war easily encompassed Japan's attack in December 1941 on military bases in two U.S. overseas possessions, at a time when Japanese militarists were well aware that B-17 Flying Fortresses were being rushed off assembly lines and deployed to those bases with the intent "to burn out the industrial heart of the Empire with fire-bomb attacks on the teeming bamboo ant heaps of Honshu and Kyushu." That was how the prewar plans were described by their architect, Air Force General Claire Chennault, with the enthusiastic approval of President Franklin Roosevelt, Secretary of State Cordell Hull, and Army Chief of Staff General George Marshall.

Then comes Barack Obama, with pleasant words about working to abolish nuclear weapons -- combined with plans to spend $1 trillion on the U.S. nuclear arsenal in the next 30 years, a percentage of the military budget "comparable to spending for procurement of new strategic systems in the 1980s under President Ronald Reagan," according to a study by the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.

Obama has also not hesitated to play with fire for political gain. Take for example the capture and assassination of Osama bin Laden by Navy SEALs. Obama brought it up with pride in an important speech on national security in May 2013. It was widely covered, but one crucial paragraph was ignored.

Obama hailed the operation but added that it could not be the norm. The reason, he said, was that the risks "were immense." The SEALs might have been "embroiled in an extended firefight." Even though, by luck, that didn't happen, "the cost to our relationship with Pakistan and the backlash among the Pakistani public over encroachment on their territory was ... severe."

Let us now add a few details. The SEALs were ordered to fight their way out if apprehended. They would not have been left to their fate if "embroiled in an extended firefight." The full force of the U.S. military would have been used to extricate them. Pakistan has a powerful, well-trained military, highly protective of state sovereignty. It also has nuclear weapons, and Pakistani specialists are concerned about the possible penetration of their nuclear security system by jihadi elements. It is also no secret that the population has been embittered and radicalized by Washington's drone terror campaign and other policies.

While the SEALs were still in the bin Laden compound, Pakistani Chief of Staff Ashfaq Parvez Kayani was informed of the raid and ordered the military "to confront any unidentified aircraft," which he assumed would be from India. Meanwhile in Kabul, U.S. war commander General David Petraeus ordered "warplanes to respond" if the Pakistanis "scrambled their fighter jets." As Obama said, by luck the worst didn't happen, though it could have been quite ugly. But the risks were faced without noticeable concern. Or subsequent comment.

As General Butler observed, it is a near miracle that we have escaped destruction so far, and the longer we tempt fate, the less likely it is that we can hope for divine intervention to perpetuate the miracle.

SOURCE: http://www.chomsky.info/articles/20140805.htm

20

Journalism & Mass Communication / Outrage: Noam Chomsky

« on: March 10, 2015, 04:50:50 PM »

Outrage
Noam Chomsky
chomsky.info, August 14, 2014

Almost every day brings news of awful crimes, but some are so heinous, so horrendous and malicious, that they dwarf all else. One of those rare events took place on July 17, when Malaysian Airlines MH17 was shot down in Eastern Ukraine, killing 298 people.
The Guardian of Virtue in the White House denounced it as an “outrage of unspeakable proportions,” which happened “because of Russian support.” His UN Ambassador thundered that “when 298 civilians are killed” in the “horrific downing” of a civilian plane, “we must stop at nothing to determine who is responsible and to bring them to justice.” She also called on Putin to end his shameful efforts to evade his very clear responsibility.

True, the “irritating little man” with the “ratlike face” (Timothy Garton Ash) had called for an independent investigation, but that could only have been because of sanctions from the one country courageous enough to impose them, the United States, while Europeans cower in fear.

On CNN, former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor assured the world that the irritating little man “is clearly responsible ... for the shoot down of this airliner.” For weeks, lead stories reported the anguish of the families, details of the lives of the murdered victims, the international efforts to claim the bodies, the fury over the horrific crime that “stunned the world,” as the press reports daily in grisly detail.

Every literate person, and certainly every editor and commentator, instantly recalled another case when a plane was shot down with comparable loss of life: Iran Air 655 with 290 killed, including 66 children, shot down in Iranian airspace in a clearly identified commercial air route. The crime was not carried out “with U.S. support,” nor has its agent ever been uncertain. It was the guided-missile cruiser USS Vincennes, operating in Iranian waters in the Persian Gulf.

The commander of a nearby U.S. vessel, David Carlson, wrote in the U.S. Naval Proceedings that he “wondered aloud in disbelief” as “'The Vincennes announced her intentions” to attack what was clearly a civilian aircraft. He speculated that “Robo Cruiser,” as the Vincennes was called because of its aggressive behavior, “felt a need to prove the viability of Aegis (the sophisticated anti-aircraft system on the cruiser) in the Persian Gulf, and that they hankered for the opportunity to show their stuff.”

Two years later, the commander of the Vincennes and the officer in charge of anti-air warfare were given the Legion of Merit award for “exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding service” and for the “calm and professional atmosphere” during the period of the destruction of the Iranian Airbus. The incident was not mentioned in the award.

President Reagan blamed the Iranians and defended the actions of the warship, which “followed standing orders and widely publicized procedures, firing to protect itself against possible attack.” His successor, Bush I, proclaimed that “I will never apologize for the United States — I don't care what the facts are ... I'm not an apologize-for-America kind of guy.”

No evasions of responsibility here, unlike the barbarians in the East.

There was little reaction at the time: no outrage, no desperate search for victims, no passionate denunciations of those responsible, no eloquent laments by the US Ambassador to the UN about the “immense and heart-wrenching loss” when the airliner was downed. Iranian condemnations were occasionally noted, and dismissed as “boilerplate attacks on the United States.”

Small wonder, then, that this insignificant earlier event merited only a few scattered and dismissive words in the U.S. media during the vast furor over a real crime, in which the demonic enemy might (or might not) have been indirectly involved.

One exception was in the London Daily Mail, where Dominick Lawson wrote that although “Putin's apologists” might bring up the Iran Air attack, the comparison actually demonstrates our high moral values as contrasted with the miserable Russians, who try to evade their responsibility for MH 17 with lies while Washington at once announced that the US warship had shot down the Iranian aircraft — righteously.

We know why Ukrainians and Russians are in their own countries, but one might ask what exactly the Vincennes was doing in Iranian waters. The answer is simple. It was defending Washington’s great friend Saddam Hussein in his murderous aggression against Iran. For the victims, the shoot-down was no small matter. It was a major factor in Iran’s recognition that it could not fight on any longer, according to historian Dilip Hiro.

It is worth remembering the extent of Washington’s devotion to its friend Saddam. Reagan removed him from the terrorist list so that aid could be sent to expedite his assault on Iran, and later denied his murderous crimes against the Kurds, blocking congressional condemnations. He also accorded Saddam a privilege otherwise granted only to Israel: there was no notable reaction when Iraq attacked the USS Stark with missiles, killing 37 crewmen, much like the case of the USS Liberty, attacked repeatedly by Israeli jets and torpedo ships in 1967, killing 34 crewmen.

Reagan’s successor, Bush I, went on to provide further aid to Saddam, badly needed after the war with Iran that he launched. Bush also invited Iraqi nuclear engineers to come to the US for advanced training in weapons production. In April 1990, Bush dispatched a high-level Senate delegation, led by future Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole, to convey his warm regards to his friend Saddam and to assure him that he should disregard irresponsible criticism from the “haughty and pampered press,” and that such miscreants had been removed from Voice of America. The fawning before Saddam continued until he turned into a new Hitler a few months later by disobeying orders, or perhaps misunderstanding them, and invading Kuwait, with illuminating consequences that are worth reviewing once again though I will leave the matter here.

Other precedents had long since been dismissed to the memory hole as also without significance. One example is the Libyan civilian airliner that was lost in a sandstorm in 1973 when it was shot down by US-supplied Israeli jets, two minutes flight time from Cairo, towards which it was heading. The death toll was only 110 that time. Israel blamed the French pilot, with the endorsement of the New York Times, which added that the Israeli act was “at worst ... an act of callousness that not even the savagery of previous Arab actions can excuse.” The incident was passed over quickly in the United States, with little criticism. When Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir arrived in the US four days later, she faced few embarrassing questions and returned home with new gifts of military aircraft.

The reaction was much the same when Washington’s favored Angolan terrorist organization UNITA claimed to have shot down two civilian airliners at the same time, among other cases.

Returning to the sole authentic and horrific crime, the New York Times reported that American UN ambassador Samantha Power “choked up as she spoke of infants who perished in the Malaysia Airlines crash in Ukraine [and] The Dutch foreign minister, Frans Timmermans, could barely contain his anger as he recalled seeing pictures of ‘thugs’ snatching wedding bands off the fingers of the victims.” At the same session, the report continues, there was also “a long recitation of names and ages — all belonging to children killed in the latest Israeli offensive in Gaza.” The only reported reaction was by Palestinian envoy Riyad Mansour, who “grew quiet in the middle of” the recitation.

The Israeli attack on Gaza in July did, however, elicit outrage in Washington. President Obama “reiterated his ‘strong condemnation’ of rocket and tunnel attacks against Israel by the militant group Hamas,” The Hill reported. He “also expressed ‘growing concern’ about the rising number of Palestinian civilian deaths in Gaza,” but without condemnation. The Senate filled that gap, voting unanimously to support Israeli actions in Gaza while condemning “the unprovoked rocket fire at Israel” by Hamas and calling on “Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to dissolve the unity governing arrangement with Hamas and condemn the attacks on Israel.”

As for Congress, perhaps it’s enough to join the 80% of the public who disapprove of their performance, though the word “disapprove” is rather too mild in this case. But in Obama’s defense, it may be that he has no idea what Israel is doing in Gaza with the weapons that he was kind enough to supply to them. After all, he relies on US intelligence, which may be too busy collecting phone calls and email messages of citizens to pay much attention to such marginalia. It may be useful, then, to review what we all should know.

Israel’s goal is simple: quiet-for-quiet, a return to the norm. What then is the norm? For the West Bank, the norm is that Israel continues with its illegal construction of settlements and infrastructure so that it can integrate into Israel whatever might be of value to it, meanwhile consigning Palestinians to unviable cantons and subjecting them to intense repression and violence.

For the past 14 years, the norm is that Israel kills more than two Palestinian children a week. The latest Israeli rampage was set of by the brutal murder of three Israeli boys from a settler community in the occupied West Bank. A month before, two Palestinian boys were shot dead in the West Bank city of Ramallah. That elicited no attention, which is understandable, since it is routine. “The institutionalised disregard for Palestinian life in the West helps explain not only why Palestinians resort to violence,” the respected Middle East analyst Mouin Rabbani reports, “but also Israel’s latest assault on the Gaza Strip.”

Quiet-for-quiet also enables Israel to carry forward its program of separating Gaza from the West Bank. That program has been pursued vigorously, always with US support, ever since the US and Israel accepted the Oslo accords, which declare the two regions to be an inseparable territorial unity. A look at the map explains the rationale. Gaza provides Palestine’s only access to the outside world, so once the two are separated, any autonomy that Israel might grant to Palestinians in the West Bank would leave them effectively imprisoned between hostile states, Israel and Jordan. The imprisonment will become even more severe as Israel continues its program of expelling Palestinians from the Jordan Valley and constructing Israeli settlements there.

The norm in Gaza was described in detail by the heroic Norwegian trauma surgeon Mads Gilbert, who has worked in Gaza’s main hospital through Israel’s most grotesque crimes and returned again for the current onslaught. In June 2014 he submitted a report on the Gaza health sector to UNRWA, the UN Agency that tries desperately, on a shoestring, to care for refugees.

“At least 57 % of Gaza households are food insecure and about 80 % are now aid recipients,” Gilbert reports. “Food insecurity and rising poverty also mean that most residents cannot meet their daily caloric requirements, while over 90 % of the water in Gaza has been deemed unfit for human consumption,” a situation that is becoming even worse as Israel again attacks water and sewage systems, leaving 1.2 million people with even more severe disruption of the barest necessity of life.

Gilbert reports that “Palestinian children in Gaza are suffering immensely. A large proportion are affected by the man-made malnourishment regime caused by the Israeli imposed blockage. Prevalence of anaemia in children <2yrs in Gaza is at 72.8%, while prevalence of wasting, stunting, underweight have been documented at 34.3%, 31.4%, 31.45% respectively.” And it gets worse as the report proceeds.

The distinguished human rights lawyer Raji Sourani, who has remained in Gaza through years of Israeli brutality and terror, writes that “The most common sentence I heard when people began to talk about ceasefire: everybody says it's better for all of us to die and not go back to the situation we used to have before this war. We don't want that again. We have no dignity, no pride; we are just soft targets, and we are very cheap. Either this situation really improves or it is better to just die. I am talking about intellectuals, academics, ordinary people: everybody is saying that.”

Similar sentiments have been widely heard: it is better to die with dignity than to be slowly strangled by the torturer.

For Gaza, the plans for the norm were explained forthrightly by Dov Weissglass, the confidant of Ariel Sharon who negotiated the withdrawal of Israeli settlers from Gaza in 2005. Hailed as a grand gesture in Israel and among acolytes and the deluded elsewhere, the withdrawal was in reality a carefully staged “national trauma,” properly ridiculed by informed Israeli commentators, among them Israel’s leading sociologist, the late Baruch Kimmerling.

What actually happened is that Israeli hawks, led by Sharon, realized that it made good sense to transfer the illegal settlers from their subsidized communities in devastated Gaza to subsidized settlements in the other occupied territories, which Israel intends to keep. But instead of simply transferring them, as would have been simple enough, it was considered more effective to present the world with images of little children pleading with soldiers not to destroy their homes, amidst cries of “Never Again,” with the implication obvious. What made the farce even more transparent was that it was a replica of the staged trauma when Israel had to evacuate the Egyptian Sinai in 1982. But it played very well for the intended audience abroad.

In Weissglass’s own description of the transfer of settlers from Gaza to other occupied territories, “What I effectively agreed to with the Americans was that [the major settlement blocs in the West Bank] would not be dealt with at all, and the rest will not be dealt with until the Palestinians turn into Finns” – but a special kind of Finns, who would accept rule by a foreign power. “The significance is the freezing of the political process,” Weissglass continued. “And when you freeze that process you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state and you prevent a discussion about the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem. Effectively, this whole package that is called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed from our agenda indefinitely. And all this with [President Bush's] authority and permission and the ratification of both houses of Congress.”

Weisglass added that Gazans would remain “on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger” – which would not help Israel’s fading reputation. With their vaunted technical efficiency, Israeli experts determined exactly how many calories a day Gazans needed for bare survival, while also depriving them of medicines, construction materials, or other means of decent life. Israeli military forces confined them by land, sea and air to what British Prime Minister David Cameron accurately described as a prison camp. The Israeli withdrawal left Israel in total control of Gaza, hence the occupying power under international law.

The official story is that after Israel graciously handed Gaza over to the Palestinians, in the hope that they would construct a flourishing state, they revealed their true nature by subjecting Israel to unremitting rocket attack and forcing the captive population to become martyrs to so that Israel would be pictured in a bad light. Reality is rather different.

A few weeks after Israeli troops withdrew, leaving the occupation intact, Palestinians committed a major crime. In January 2006, they voted the wrong way in a carefully monitored free election, handing control of the Parliament to Hamas. The media constantly intone that Hamas is dedicated to the destruction of Israel. In reality, its leaders have repeatedly made it clear and explicit that Hamas would accept a two-state settlement in accord with the international consensus that has been blocked by the US and Israel for 40 years. In contrast, Israel is dedicated to the destruction of Palestine, apart from some occasional meaningless words, and is implementing that commitment.

True, Israel accepted the Road Map for reaching a two-state settlement initiated by President Bush and adopted by the Quartet that is to supervise it: the US, the European Union, the United Nations, and Russia. But as he accepted the Road Map, Prime Minister Sharon at once added fourteen reservations that effectively nullify it. The facts were known to activists, but revealed to the general public for the first time in Jimmy Carter’s book “Palestine: Peace not Apartheid.” They remain under wraps in media reporting and commentary.

The (unrevised) 1999 platform of Israel’s governing party, Binyamin Netanyahu’s Likud, “flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan river.” And for those who like to obsess about meaningless charters, the core component of Likud, Menahem Begin’s Herut, has yet to abandon its founding doctrine that the territory on both sides of the Jordan is part of the Land of Israel.

The crime of the Palestinians in January 2006 was punished at once. The US and Israel, with Europe shamefully trailing behind, imposed harsh sanctions on the errant population and Israel stepped up its violence. By June, when the attacks sharply escalated, Israel had already fired more than 7700 [155 mm] shells at northern Gaza.

The US and Israel quickly initiated plans for a military coup to overthrow the elected government. When Hamas had the effrontery to foil the plans, the Israeli assaults and the siege became far more severe, justified by the claim that Hamas had taken over the Gaza Strip by force – which is not entirely false, though something rather crucial is omitted.

There should be no need to review again the horrendous record since. The relentless siege and savage attacks are punctuated by episodes of “mowing the lawn,” to borrow Israel’s cheery expression for its periodic exercises of shooting fish in a pond in what it calls a “war of defense.” Once the lawn is mowed and the desperate population seeks to reconstruct somehow from the devastation and the murders, there is a cease-fire agreement. These have been regularly observed by Hamas, as Israel concedes, until Israel violates them with renewed violence.

The most recent cease-fire was established after Israel’s October 2012 assault. Though Israel maintained its devastating siege, Hamas observed the cease-fire, as Israel again concedes. Matters changed in June, when Fatah and Hamas forged a unity agreement, which established a new government of technocrats that had no Hamas participation and accepted all of the demands of the Quartet. Israel was naturally furious, even more so when even Obama joined the West in signaling approval. The unity agreement not only undercuts Israel’s claim that it cannot negotiate with a divided Palestine, but also threatens the long term goal of dividing Gaza from the West Bank and pursuing its destructive policies in both of the regions.

Something had to be done, and an occasion arose shortly after, when the three Israeli boys were murdered in the West Bank. The Netanyahu government knew at once that they were dead, but pretended otherwise, which provided the opportunity to launch a rampage in the West Bank, targeting Hamas. Netanhayu claimed to have certain knowledge that Hamas was responsible. That too was a lie, as recognized early on. There has been no pretense of presenting evidence. One of Israel’s leading authorities on Hamas, Shlomi Eldar, reported almost at once that the killers very likely came from a dissident clan in Hebron that has long been a thorn in the side of Hamas. Eldar added that “I’m sure they didn’t get any green light from the leadership of Hamas, they just thought it was the right time to act.” The Israeli police have since been searching for two members of the clan, still claiming, without evidence, that they are “Hamas terrorists.”

The 18-day rampage however did succeed in undermining the feared unity government, and sharply increasing Israeli repression. According to Israeli military sources, Israeli soldiers arrested 419 Palestinians, including 335 affiliated with Hamas, and killed six Palestinians, also searching thousands of locations and confiscating $350,000. Israel also conducted dozens of attacks in Gaza, killing 5 Hamas members on July 7.

Hamas finally reacted with its first rockets in 19 months, providing Israel with the pretext for Operation Edge on July 8.

There has been ample reporting of the exploits of the self-declared Most Moral Army in the World, which should receive the Nobel Peace Prize according to Israel’s Ambassador to the US. By July 26, over 1000 Palestinians had been killed, 70% of them civilians including hundreds of women and children. And 3 Israeli civilians. By then, large areas of Gaza had been turned into rubble. During brief bombing pauses, relatives desperately seek shattered bodies or household items in the ruins of homes. Four hospitals had been attacked, each yet another war crime. The main power plant was attacked, sharply curtailing the already very limited electricity and worse still, reducing still further the minimal availability of fresh water. Another war crime. Meanwhile rescue teams and ambulances are repeatedly attacked. The atrocities mount throughout Gaza, while Israel claims that its goal is to destroy tunnels at the border.

Israeli officials laud the humanity of the army, which informs residents that their homes will be bombed. The practice is “sadism, sanctimoniously disguising itself as mercy,” in the words of Israeli journalist Amira Hass: “A recorded message demanding hundreds of thousands of people leave their already targeted homes, for another place, equally dangerous, 10 kilometers away.” In fact, there is no place in the prison safe from Israeli sadism, which may even exceed the terrible crimes of Operation Cast Lead in 2008-9.

The hideous revelations elicited the usual reaction from the Most Moral President in the World: great sympathy for Israelis, bitter condemnation of Hamas, and calls for moderation by sides.

When the current episode of sadism is called off, Israel hopes to be free to pursue its criminal policies in the occupied territories without interference, and with the US support it has enjoyed in the past: military, economic, and diplomatic; and also ideological, by framing the issues in conformity to Israeli doctrines. Gazans will be free to return to the norm in their Israeli-run prison, while in the West Bank they can watch in peace as Israel dismantles what remains of their possessions.

That is the likely outcome if the US maintains its decisive and virtually unilateral support for Israeli crimes and its rejection of the longstanding international consensus on diplomatic settlement. But the future will be quite different if the US withdraws that support. In that case it would be possible to move towards the “enduring solution” in Gaza that Secretary of State Kerry called for, eliciting hysterical condemnation in Israel because the phrase could be interpreted as calling for an end to Israel’s siege and regular attacks. And – horror of horrors – the phrase might even be interpreted as calling for implementation of international law in the rest of the occupied territories.

It is not that Israel’s security would be threatened by adherence to international law; it would very likely be enhanced. But as explained 40 years ago by Israeli general Ezer Weizman, later President, Israel could then not “exist according to the scale, spirit, and quality she now embodies.”

There are similar cases in recent history. Indonesian generals swore that they would never abandon what Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans called “the Indonesian Province of East Timor” as he was making a deal to steal Timorese oil. And as long as they retained US support through decades of virtually genocidal slaughter, their goals were realistic. In September 1999, under considerable domestic and international pressure, President Clinton finally informed them quietly that the game was over and they instantly withdrew – while Evans turned to his new career as the lauded apostle of “Responsibility to Protect,” to be sure, in a version designed to permit western resort to violence at will.

Another relevant case is South Africa. In 1958, South Africa’s foreign minister informed the US ambassador that although his country was becoming a pariah state, it would not matter as long as the US support continued. His assessment proved fairly accurate. Thirty years later, Reagan was the last significant holdout in supporting the apartheid regime. Within a few years, Washington joined the world, and the regime collapsed – not for that reason alone of course; one crucial factor was the remarkable Cuban role in the liberation of Africa, generally ignored in the West though not in Africa.

Forty years ago Israel made the fateful decision to choose expansion over security, rejecting a full peace treaty offered by Egypt in return for evacuation from the occupied Egyptian Sinai, where Israel was initiating extensive settlement and development projects. It has adhered to that policy ever since, making essentially the same judgment as South Africa did in 1958.

In the case of Israel, if the US decided to join the world, the impact would be far greater. Relations of power allow nothing else, as has been demonstrated over and over when Washington has demanded that Israel abandon cherished goals. Furthermore, Israel by now has little recourse, after having adopted policies that turned it from a country that was greatly admired to one that is feared and despised, policies it is pursuing with blind determination today in its resolute march towards moral deterioration and possible ultimate destruction.

Could US policy change? It’s not impossible. Public opinion has shifted considerably in recent years, particularly among the young, and it cannot be completely ignored. For some years there has been a good basis for public demands that Washington observe its own laws and cut off military aid to Israel. US law requires that “no security assistance may be provided to any country the government of which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.” Israel most certainly is guilty of this consistent pattern, and has been for many years. That is why Amnesty International, in the course of Israel’s murderous Cast Lead operation in Gaza, called for an arms embargo against Israel (and Hamas). Senator Patrick Leahy, author of this provision of the law, has brought up its potential applicability to Israel in specific cases, and with a well-conducted educational, organizational, and activist effort such initiatives could be pursued successively. That could have a very significant impact in itself, while also providing a springboard for further actions to compel Washington to become part of “the international community” and to observe international law and norms.

Nothing could be more significant for the tragic Palestinian victims of many years of violence and repression.

SOURCE: http://www.chomsky.info/articles/20140814.htm

21

Journalism & Mass Communication / Article of Noam Chomsky

« on: March 10, 2015, 04:48:17 PM »

The End of History?
The short, strange era of human civilization
would appear to be drawing to a close
Noam Chomsky
In These Times, September 4, 2014

It is not pleasant to contemplate the thoughts that must be passing through the mind of the Owl of Minerva as the dusk falls and she undertakes the task of interpreting the era of human civilization, which may now be approaching its inglorious end.
The era opened almost 10,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent, stretching from the lands of the Tigris and Euphrates, through Phoenicia on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean to the Nile Valley, and from there to Greece and beyond. What is happening in this region provides painful lessons on the depths to which the species can descend.

The land of the Tigris and Euphrates has been the scene of unspeakable horrors in recent years. The George W. Bush-Tony Blair aggression in 2003, which many Iraqis compared to the Mongol invasions of the 13th century, was yet another lethal blow. It destroyed much of what survived the Bill Clinton-driven U.N. sanctions on Iraq, condemned as "genocidal" by the distinguished diplomats Denis Halliday and Hans von Sponeck, who administered them before resigning in protest. Halliday and von Sponeck's devastating reports received the usual treatment accorded to unwanted facts.

One dreadful consequence of the U.S.-U.K. invasion is depicted in a New York Times "visual guide to the crisis in Iraq and Syria": the radical change of Baghdad from mixed neighborhoods in 2003 to today's sectarian enclaves trapped in bitter hatred. The conflicts ignited by the invasion have spread beyond and are now tearing the entire region to shreds.

Much of the Tigris-Euphrates area is in the hands of ISIS and its self-proclaimed Islamic State, a grim caricature of the extremist form of radical Islam that has its home in Saudi Arabia. Patrick Cockburn, a Middle East correspondent for The Independent and one of the best-informed analysts of ISIS, describes it as "a very horrible, in many ways fascist organization, very sectarian, kills anybody who doesn't believe in their particular rigorous brand of Islam."

Cockburn also points out the contradiction in the Western reaction to the emergence of ISIS: efforts to stem its advance in Iraq along with others to undermine the group's major opponent in Syria, the brutal Bashar Assad regime. Meanwhile a major barrier to the spread of the ISIS plague to Lebanon is Hezbollah, a hated enemy of the U.S. and its Israeli ally. And to complicate the situation further, the U.S. and Iran now share a justified concern about the rise of the Islamic State, as do others in this highly conflicted region.

Egypt has plunged into some of its darkest days under a military dictatorship that continues to receive U.S. support. Egypt's fate was not written in the stars. For centuries, alternative paths have been quite feasible, and not infrequently, a heavy imperial hand has barred the way.

After the renewed horrors of the past few weeks it should be unnecessary to comment on what emanates from Jerusalem, in remote history considered a moral center.

Eighty years ago, Martin Heidegger extolled Nazi Germany as providing the best hope for rescuing the glorious civilization of the Greeks from the barbarians of the East and West. Today, German bankers are crushing Greece under an economic regime designed to maintain their wealth and power.

The likely end of the era of civilization is foreshadowed in a new draft report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the generally conservative monitor of what is happening to the physical world.

The report concludes that increasing greenhouse gas emissions risk "severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts for people and ecosystems" over the coming decades. The world is nearing the temperature when loss of the vast ice sheet over Greenland will be unstoppable. Along with melting Antarctic ice, that could raise sea levels to inundate major cities as well as coastal plains.

The era of civilization coincides closely with the geological epoch of the Holocene, beginning over 11,000 years ago. The previous Pleistocene epoch lasted 2.5 million years. Scientists now suggest that a new epoch began about 250 years ago, the Anthropocene, the period when human activity has had a dramatic impact on the physical world. The rate of change of geological epochs is hard to ignore.

One index of human impact is the extinction of species, now estimated to be at about the same rate as it was 65 million years ago when an asteroid hit the Earth. That is the presumed cause for the ending of the age of the dinosaurs, which opened the way for small mammals to proliferate, and ultimately modern humans. Today, it is humans who are the asteroid, condemning much of life to extinction.

The IPCC report reaffirms that the "vast majority" of known fuel reserves must be left in the ground to avert intolerable risks to future generations. Meanwhile the major energy corporations make no secret of their goal of exploiting these reserves and discovering new ones.

A day before its summary of the IPCC conclusions, The New York Times reported that huge Midwestern grain stocks are rotting so that the products of the North Dakota oil boom can be shipped by rail to Asia and Europe.

One of the most feared consequences of anthropogenic global warming is the thawing of permafrost regions. A study in Science magazine warns that "even slightly warmer temperatures [less than anticipated in coming years] could start melting permafrost, which in turn threatens to trigger the release of huge amounts of greenhouse gases trapped in ice," with possible "fatal consequences" for the global climate.

Arundhati Roy suggests that the "most appropriate metaphor for the insanity of our times" is the Siachen Glacier, where Indian and Pakistani soldiers have killed each other on the highest battlefield in the world. The glacier is now melting and revealing "thousands of empty artillery shells, empty fuel drums, ice axes, old boots, tents and every other kind of waste that thousands of warring human beings generate" in meaningless conflict. And as the glaciers melt, India and Pakistan face indescribable disaster.

Sad species. Poor Owl.

SOURCE: http://www.chomsky.info/articles/20140904.htm

22

Journalism & Mass Communication / Only One Thing Will Make Israel Change Course: Noam Chomsky

« on: March 10, 2015, 04:46:19 PM »

Only One Thing Will Make Israel Change Course
Noam Chomsky
In These Times, October 10, 2014

On August 26, Israel and the Palestinian Authority both accepted a cease-fire agreement after a 50-day Israeli assault on Gaza that left 2,100 Palestinians dead and vast landscapes of destruction behind.
The agreement calls for an end to military action by Israel and Hamas as well as an easing of the Israeli siege that has strangled Gaza for many years.

This is, however, just the most recent of a series of cease-fire agreements reached after each of Israel's periodic escalations of its unremitting assault on Gaza.

Since November 2005 the terms of these agreements have remained essentially the same. The regular pattern is for Israel to disregard whatever agreement is in place, while Hamas observes it -- as Israel has conceded -- until a sharp increase in Israeli violence elicits a Hamas response, followed by even fiercer brutality.

These escalations 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, quoted in Al Jazeera America.

The first of this series was the Agreement on Movement and Access between Israel and the Palestinian Authority in November 2005.

It called for a crossing between Gaza and Egypt at Rafah for the export of goods and the transit of people; crossings between Israel and Gaza for goods and people; the reduction of obstacles to movement within the West Bank; bus and truck convoys between the West Bank and Gaza; the building of a seaport in Gaza; and the reopening of the airport in Gaza that Israeli bombing had demolished.

That agreement was reached shortly after Israel withdrew its settlers and military forces from Gaza. The motive for the disengagement was explained by Dov Weisglass, a confidant of then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who was in charge of negotiating and implementing it.

"The significance of the disengagement plan is the freezing of the peace process," Weisglass told Haaretz. "And when you freeze that process, you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, and you prevent a discussion on the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem. Effectively, this whole package called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed indefinitely from our agenda. And all this with authority and permission. All with a [U.S.] presidential blessing and the ratification of both houses of Congress."

"The disengagement is actually formaldehyde," Weisglass added. "It supplies the amount of formaldehyde that is necessary so there will not be a political process with the Palestinians."

This pattern has continued to the present: through Operation Cast Lead in 2008-2009 to Pillar of Defense in 2012 to this summer's Protective Edge, the most extreme exercise in mowing the lawn -- so far.

For more than 20 years, Israel has been committed to separating Gaza from the West Bank in violation of the Oslo Accords it signed in 1993, which declare Gaza and the West Bank to be an inseparable territorial unity.

A look at a map explains the rationale. Separated from Gaza, any West Bank enclaves left to Palestinians have no access to the outside world. They are contained by two hostile powers, Israel and Jordan, both close U.S. allies -- and contrary to illusions, the U.S. is very far from a neutral "honest broker."

Furthermore, Israel has been systematically taking over the Jordan Valley, driving out Palestinians, establishing settlements, sinking wells and otherwise ensuring that the region -- about one-third of the West Bank, with much of its arable land -- will ultimately be integrated into Israel along with the other regions being taken over.

The remaining Palestinian cantons will be completely imprisoned. Unification with Gaza would interfere with these plans, which trace back to the early days of the occupation and have had steady support from the major Israeli political blocs.

Israel might feel that its takeover of Palestinian territory in the West Bank has proceeded so far that there is little to fear from some limited form of autonomy for the enclaves that remain to Palestinians.

There is also some truth to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's observation: "Many elements in the region understand today that, in the struggle in which they are threatened, Israel is not an enemy but a partner." Presumably he was alluding to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Emirates.

Israel's leading diplomatic correspondent Akiva Eldar adds, however, that "all those 'many elements in the region' also understand that there is no brave and comprehensive diplomatic move on the horizon without an agreement on the establishment of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders and a just, agreed-upon solution to the refugee problem."

That is not on Israel's agenda, he points out, and is in fact in direct conflict with the 1999 electoral program of the governing Likud coalition, never rescinded, which "flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan River."

Some knowledgeable Israeli commentators, notably columnist Danny Rubinstein, believe that Israel is poised to reverse course and relax its stranglehold on Gaza.

We'll see.

The record of these past years suggests otherwise and the first signs are not auspicious. As Operation Protective Edge ended, Israel announced its largest appropriation of West Bank land in 30 years, almost 1,000 acres.

It is commonly claimed on all sides that, if the two-state settlement is dead as a result of Israel's takeover of Palestinian lands, then the outcome will be one state west of the Jordan.

Some Palestinians welcome this outcome, anticipating that they can then engage in a fight for equal rights modeled on the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa. Many Israeli commentators warn that the resulting "demographic problem" of more Arab than Jewish births and diminishing Jewish immigration will undermine their hope for a "democratic Jewish state."

But these widespread beliefs are dubious.

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 that it is absorbing. That should avoid the dreaded "demographic problem."

The areas being taken over include a vastly expanded Greater Jerusalem, the area within the illegal separation wall, corridors cutting through the regions to the east and probably the Jordan Valley.

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.

SOURCE: http://www.chomsky.info/articles/20141002.htm

23

Journalism & Mass Communication / Obama's Historic Move: Noam Chomsky

« on: March 10, 2015, 04:43:02 PM »

Obama's Historic Move
Noam Chomsky
chomsky.info, December 15, 2014

The establishment of diplomatic ties between the US and Cuba has been widely hailed as an event of historic importance. Correspondent John Lee Anderson, who has written perceptively about the region, sums up a general reaction among liberal intellectuals when he writes, in the New Yorker, that:
"Barack Obama has shown that he can act as a statesman of historic heft. And so, at this moment, has Raúl Castro. For Cubans, this moment will be emotionally cathartic as well as historically transformational. Their relationship with their wealthy, powerful northern American neighbor has remained frozen in the nineteen-sixties for fifty years. To a surreal degree, their destinies have been frozen as well. For Americans, this is important, too. Peace with Cuba takes us momentarily back to that golden time when the United States was a beloved nation throughout the world, when a young and handsome J.F.K. was in office -- before Vietnam, before Allende, before Iraq and all the other miseries -- and allows us to feel proud about ourselves for finally doing the right thing."

The past is not quite as idyllic as it is portrayed in the persisting Camelot image. JFK was not "before Vietnam" – or even before Allende and Iraq, but let us put that aside. In Vietnam, when JFK entered office the brutality of the Diem regime that the US had imposed had finally elicited domestic resistance that it could not control. Kennedy was therefore confronted by what he called an "assault from the inside," "internal aggression" in the interesting phrase favored by his UN Ambassador Adlai Stevenson.

Kennedy therefore at once escalated the US intervention to outright aggression, ordering the US Air Force to bomb South Vietnam (under South Vietnamese markings, which deceived no one), authorizing napalm and chemical warfare to destroy crops and livestock, and launching programs to drive peasants into virtual concentration camps to "protect them" from the guerrillas whom Washington knew they were mostly supporting.

By 1963, reports from the ground seemed to indicate that Kennedy's war was succeeding, but a serious problem arose. In August, the administration learned that the Diem government was seeking negotiations with the North to end the conflict.

If JFK had had the slightest intention to withdraw, that would have been a perfect opportunity to do so gracefully, with no political cost, even claiming, in the usual style, that it was American fortitude and principled defense of freedom that compelled the North Vietnamese to surrender. Instead, Washington backed a military coup to install hawkish generals more attuned to JFK's actual commitments; President Diem and his brother were murdered in the process. With victory apparently within sight, Kennedy reluctantly accepted a proposal by Defense Secretary Robert McNamara to begin withdrawing troops (NSAM 263), but only with a crucial proviso: After Victory. Kennedy maintained that demand insistently until his assassination a few weeks later. Many illusions have been concocted about these events, but they collapse quickly under the weight of the rich documentary record.

The story elsewhere was also not quite as idyllic as in the Camelot legends. One of the most consequential of Kennedy's decisions was in 1962, when he effectively shifted the mission of the Latin American military from "hemispheric defense" -- a holdover from World War II -- to "internal security," a euphemism for war against the domestic enemy, the population. The results were described by Charles Maechling, who led US counterinsurgency and internal defense planning from 1961 to 1966. Kennedy's decision, he wrote, shifted US policy from toleration "of the rapacity and cruelty of the Latin American military" to "direct complicity" in their crimes, to US support for "the methods of Heinrich Himmler's extermination squads." Those who do not prefer what international relations specialist Michael Glennon called "intentional ignorance" can easily fill in the details.

In Cuba, Kennedy inherited Eisenhower's policy of embargo and formal plans to overthrow the regime, and quickly escalated them with the Bay of Pigs invasion. The failure of the invasion caused near hysteria in Washington. At the first cabinet meeting after the failed invasion, the atmosphere was "almost savage," Under Secretary of State Chester Bowles noted privately: "there was an almost frantic reaction for an action program." Kennedy articulated the hysteria in his public pronouncements: "The complacent, the self-indulgent, the soft societies are about to be swept away with the debris of history. Only the strong ... can possibly survive," he told the country, though was aware, as he said privately, that allies "think that we're slightly demented" on the subject of Cuba. Not without reason.

Kennedy's actions were true to his words. He launched a murderous terrorist campaign designed to bring "the terrors of the earth" to Cuba -- historian and Kennedy adviser Arthur Schlesinger's phrase, referring to the project assigned by the president to his brother Robert Kennedy as his highest priority. Apart from killing thousands of people along with large-scale destruction, the terrors of the earth were a major factor in bringing the world to the brink of a terminal nuclear war, as recent scholarship reveals. The administration resumed the terrorist attacks as soon as the missile crisis subsided.

A standard way to evade the unpleasant topic is to keep to the CIA assassination plots against Castro, ridiculing their absurdity. They did exist, but were a minor footnote to the terrorist war launched by the Kennedy brothers after the failure of their Bay of Pigs invasion, a war that is hard to match in the annals of international terrorism.

There is now much debate about whether Cuba should be removed from the list of states supporting terrorism. It can only bring to mind the words of Tacitus that "crime once exposed had no refuge but in audacity." Except that it is not exposed, thanks to the "treason of the intellectuals."

On taking office after the assassination, President Johnson relaxed the terrorism, which however continued through the 1990s. But he was not about to allow Cuba to survive in peace. He explained to Senator Fulbright that though "I'm not getting into any Bay of Pigs deal," he wanted advice about "what we ought to do to pinch their nuts more than we're doing." Commenting, Latin America historian Lars Schoultz observes that "Nut-pinching has been U.S. policy ever since."

Some, to be sure, have felt that such delicate means are not enough, for example, Nixon cabinet member Alexander Haig, who asked the president to "just give me the word and I'll turn that f--- island into a parking lot." His eloquence captured vividly the long-standing frustration of US leaders about "That infernal little Cuban republic," Theodore Roosevelt's phrase as he ranted in fury over Cuban unwillingness to accept graciously the US invasion of 1898 to block their liberation from Spain and turn them into a virtual colony. Surely his courageous ride up San Juan Hill had been in a noble cause (overlooked, commonly, is that African-American battalions were largely responsible for conquering the hill).

Cuba historian Louis Pérez writes that the US intervention, hailed at home as a humanitarian intervention to liberate Cuba, achieved its actual objectives: "A Cuban war of liberation was transformed into a U.S. war of conquest," the "Spanish-American war" in imperial nomenclature, designed to obscure the Cuban victory that was quickly aborted by the invasion. The outcome relieved American anxieties about "what was anathema to all North American policymakers since Thomas Jefferson -- Cuban independence."

How things have changed in two centuries.

There have been tentative efforts to improve relations in the past 50 years, reviewed in detail by William LeoGrande and Peter Kornbluh in their recent comprehensive study, Back Channel to Cuba. Whether we should feel "proud about ourselves" for the steps that Obama has taken may be debated, but they are "the right thing," even though the crushing embargo remains in place in defiance of the entire world (Israel excepted) and tourism is still barred. In his address to the nation announcing the new policy, the president made it clear that in other respects too, the punishment of Cuba for refusing to bend to US will and violence will continue, repeating pretexts that are too ludicrous for comment.

Worthy of attention, however, are the president's words, such as the following:

"Proudly, the United States has supported democracy and human rights in Cuba through these five decades. We've done so primarily through policies that aim to isolate the island, preventing the most basic travel and commerce that Americans can enjoy anyplace else. And though this policy has been rooted in the best of intentions, no other nation joins us in imposing these sanctions and it has had little effect beyond providing the Cuban government with a rationale for restrictions on its people ... Today, I'm being honest with you. We can never erase the history between us."

One has to admire the stunning audacity of this pronouncement, which again recalls the words of Tacitus. Obama is surely not unaware of the actual history, which includes not only the murderous terrorist war and scandalous economic embargo, but also military occupation of Southeastern Cuba for over a century, including its major port, despite requests by the government since independence to return what was stolen at gunpoint -- a policy justified only by the fanatic commitment to block Cuba's economic development. By comparison, Putin's illegal takeover of Crimea looks almost benign. Dedication to revenge against the impudent Cubans who resist US domination has been so extreme that it has even overruled the wishes of powerful segments of the business community for normalization -- pharmaceuticals, agribusiness, energy – an unusual development in US foreign policy. Washington's cruel and vindictive policies have virtually isolated the US in the hemisphere and elicited contempt and ridicule throughout the world. Washington and its acolytes like to pretend that they have been "isolating" Cuba, as Obama intoned, but the record shows clearly that it is the US that is being isolated, probably the primary reason for the partial change of course.

Domestic opinion no doubt is also a factor in Obama's "historic move" -- though the public has, irrelevantly, been in favor of normalization for a long time. A CNN poll in 2014 showed that only a quarter of Americans now regard Cuba as a serious threat to the United States, as compared with over two-thirds thirty years earlier, when President Reagan was warning about the grave threat to our lives posed by the nutmeg capital of the world (Grenada) and by the Nicaraguan army, only two days march from Texas. With fears now having somewhat abated, perhaps we can slightly relax our vigilance.

In the extensive commentary on Obama's decision, a leading theme has been that Washington's benign efforts to bring democracy and human rights to suffering Cubans, sullied only by childish CIA shenanigans, have been a failure. Our lofty goals were not achieved, so a reluctant change of course is in order.

Were the policies a failure? That depends on what the goal was. The answer is quite clear in the documentary record. The Cuban threat was the familiar one that runs through Cold War history, with many predecessors. It was spelled out clearly by the incoming Kennedy administration. The primary concern was that Cuba might be a "virus" that would "spread contagion," to borrow Kissinger's terms for the standard theme, referring to Allende's Chile. That was recognized at once.

Intending to focus attention on Latin America, before taking office Kennedy established a Latin American Mission, headed by Arthur Schlesinger, who reported its conclusions to the incoming president. The Mission warned of the susceptibility of Latin Americans to "the Castro idea of taking matters into one's own hands," a serious danger, as Schlesinger later elaborated, when "The distribution of land and other forms of national wealth greatly favors the propertied classes … [and] The poor and underprivileged, stimulated by the example of the Cuban revolution, are now demanding opportunities for a decent living."

Schlesinger was reiterating the laments of Secretary of State John Foster Duller, who complained to President Eisenhower about the dangers posed by domestic "Communists," who are able "to get control of mass movements," an unfair advantage that we "have no capacity to duplicate." The reason is that "the poor people are the ones they appeal to and they have always wanted to plunder the rich." It is hard to convince backward and ignorant people to follow our principle that the rich should plunder the poor.

Others elaborated on Schlesinger's warnings. In July 1961, the CIA reported that "The extensive influence of 'Castroism' is not a function of Cuban power ... Castro's shadow looms large because social and economic conditions throughout Latin America invite opposition to ruling authority and encourage agitation for radical change," for which Castro's Cuba provides a model. The State Department Policy Planning Council explained further that "the primary danger we face in Castro is…in the impact the very existence of his regime has upon the leftist movement in many Latin American countries… The simple fact is that Castro represents a successful defiance of the US, a negation of our whole hemispheric policy of almost a century and a half," ever since the Monroe Doctrine declared the US intention to dominate the hemisphere. To put it simply, historian Thomas Paterson observes, "Cuba, as symbol and reality, challenged U.S. hegemony in Latin America."

The way to deal with a virus that might spread contagion is to kill the virus and inoculate potential victims. That sensible policy is just what Washington pursued, and in terms of its primary goals, the policy has been quite successful. Cuba has survived, but without the ability to achieve the feared potential. And the region was "inoculated" with vicious military dictatorships to prevent contagion, beginning with the Kennedy-inspired military coup that established a National Security terror and torture regime in Brazil shortly after Kennedy's assassination, greeted with much enthusiasm in Washington. The Generals had carried out a "democratic rebellion," Ambassador Lincoln Gordon cabled home. The revolution was "a great victory for free world," which prevented a "total loss to West of all South American Republics" and should "create a greatly improved climate for private investments." This democratic revolution was "the single most decisive victory of freedom in the mid-twentieth century," Gordon held, "one of the major turning points in world history" in this period, which removed what Washington saw as a Castro clone.

The plague then spread throughout the continent, culminating in Reagan's terrorist wars in Central America and finally the assassination of six leading Latin American intellectuals, Jesuit priests, by an elite Salvadoran battalion, fresh from renewed training at the JFK Special Warfare School at Fort Bragg, following the orders of the High Command to murder them along with any witnesses, their housekeeper and her daughter. The 25th anniversary of the assassination has just passed, commemorated with the usual silence considered appropriate for our crimes.

Much the same was true of the Vietnam war, also considered a failure and a defeat. Vietnam itself was of no particular concern, but as the documentary record reveals, Washington was concerned that successful independent development there might spread contagion throughout the region, reaching Indonesia, with its rich resources, and perhaps even as far as Japan -- the "superdomino" as it was described by Asia historian John Dower -- which might accommodate to an independent East Asia, becoming its industrial and technological center, independent of US control, in effect constructing a New Order in Asia. The US was not prepared to lose the Pacific phase of World War II in the early 1950s, so it turned quickly to support for France's war to reconquer its former colony, and then on to the horrors that ensued, sharply escalated when Kennedy took office, later by his successors.

Vietnam was virtually destroyed: it would be a model for no one. And the region was protected by installing murderous dictatorships, much as in Latin America in the same years -- it is not unnatural that imperial policy should follow similar lines in different parts of the world. The most important case was Indonesia, protected from contagion by the 1965 Suharto coup, a "staggering mass slaughter" as the New York Times described it accurately, while joining in the general euphoria about "a gleam of light in Asia" (liberal columnist James Reston). In retrospect, Kennedy-Johnson National Security advisor McGeorge Bundy recognized that "our effort" in Vietnam was "excessive" after 1965, with Indonesia safely inoculated.

The Vietnam war is described as a failure, an American defeat. In reality it was a partial victory. The US did not achieve its maximal goal of turning Vietnam into the Philippines, but the major concerns were overcome, much as in the case of Cuba. Such outcomes therefore count as defeat, failure, terrible decisions.

The imperial mentality is wondrous to behold.

Source: http://www.chomsky.info/articles/20141214.htm

24

Journalism & Mass Communication / Article of Noam Chomsky

« on: March 10, 2015, 04:40:51 PM »

We Are All ... Fill in the Blank
Noam Chomsky
chomsky.info, January 10, 2015

The world reacted with horror to the murderous attack on the French satirical journal Charlie Hebdo. In the New York Times, veteran Europe correspondent Steven Erlanger graphically described the immediate aftermath, what many call France’s 9/11, as “a day of sirens, helicopters in the air, frantic news bulletins; of police cordons and anxious crowds; of young children led away from schools to safety. It was a day, like the previous two, of blood and horror in and around Paris.” The enormous outcry worldwide was accompanied by reflection about the deeper roots of the atrocity. “Many Perceive a Clash of Civilizations,” a New York Times headline read.
The reaction of horror and revulsion about the crime is justified, as is the search for deeper roots, as long as we keep some principles firmly in mind. The reaction should be completely independent of what one thinks about this journal and what it produces. The passionate and ubiquitous chants “I am Charlie,” and the like, should not be meant to indicate, even hint at, any association with the journal, at least in the context of defense of freedom of speech. Rather, they should express defense of the right of free expression whatever one thinks of the contents, even if they are regarded as hateful and depraved.

And the chants should also express condemnation for violence and terror. The head of Israel’s Labor Party and the main challenger for the upcoming elections in Israel, Isaac Herzog, is quite right when he says that “Terrorism is terrorism. There’s no two ways about it.” He is also right to say that “All the nations that seek peace and freedom [face] an enormous challenge” from murderous terrorism – putting aside his predictably selective interpretation of the challenge.

Erlanger vividly describes the scene of horror. He quotes one surviving journalist as saying that “Everything crashed. There was no way out. There was smoke everywhere. It was terrible. People were screaming. It was like a nightmare.” Another surviving journalist reported a “huge detonation, and everything went completely dark.” The scene, Erlanger reported, “was an increasingly familiar one of smashed glass, broken walls, twisted timbers, scorched paint and emotional devastation.” At least 10 people were reported at once to have died in the explosion, with 20 missing, “presumably buried in the rubble.”

These quotes, as the indefatigable David Peterson reminds us, are not, however, from January 2015. Rather, they are from a story of Erlanger’s on April 24 1999, which made it only to page 6 of the New York Times, not reaching the significance of the Charlie Hebdo attack. Erlanger was reporting on the NATO (meaning US) “missile attack on Serbian state television headquarters” that “knocked Radio Television Serbia off the air.”

There was an official justification. “NATO and American officials defended the attack,” Erlanger reports, “as an effort to undermine the regime of President Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia.” Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon told a briefing in Washington that “Serb TV is as much a part of Milosevic's murder machine as his military is,” hence a legitimate target of attack.

The Yugoslavian government said that “The entire nation is with our President, Slobodan Milosevic,” Erlanger reports, adding that “How the Government knows that with such precision was not clear.”

No such sardonic comments are in order when we read that France mourns the dead and the world is outraged by the atrocity. There need also be no inquiry into the deeper roots, no profound questions about who stands for civilization, and who for barbarism.

Isaac Herzog, then, is mistaken when he says that “Terrorism is terrorism. There’s no two ways about it.” There are quite definitely two ways about it: terrorism is not terrorism when a much more severe terrorist attack is carried out by those who are Righteous by virtue of their power. Similarly, there is no assault against freedom of speech when the Righteous destroy a TV channel supportive of a government that they are attacking.

By the same token, we can readily comprehend the comment in the New York Times of civil rights lawyer Floyd Abrams, noted for his forceful defense of freedom of expression, that the Charlie Hebdo attack is “the most threatening assault on journalism in living memory.” He is quite correct about “living memory,” which carefully assigns assaults on journalism and acts of terror to their proper categories: Theirs, which are horrendous; and Ours, which are virtuous and easily dismissed from living memory.

We might recall as well that this is only one of many assaults by the Righteous on free expression. To mention only one example that is easily erased from “living memory,” the assault on Falluja by US forces in November 2004, one of the worst crimes of the invasion of Iraq, opened with occupation of Falluja General Hospital. Military occupation of a hospital is, of course, a serious war crime in itself, even apart from the manner in which it was carried out, blandly reported in a front-page story in the New York Times, accompanied with a photograph depicting the crime. The story reported that “Patients and hospital employees were rushed out of rooms by armed soldiers and ordered to sit or lie on the floor while troops tied their hands behind their backs.” The crimes were reported as highly meritorious, and justified: “The offensive also shut down what officers said was a propaganda weapon for the militants: Falluja General Hospital, with its stream of reports of civilian casualties.”

Evidently such a propaganda agency cannot be permitted to spew forth its vulgar obscenities.

Source: http://www.chomsky.info/articles/20150110.htm

25

Journalism & Mass Communication / About Afghanistan

« on: December 04, 2013, 04:15:09 PM »

US army halts shipments from Afghanistan via Pakistan:

The US military has halted its ground cargo shipments from Afghanistan via Pakistan because of the risk to drivers after protests over US drone strikes.

Pentagon spokesman Mark Wright said this would affect outgoing shipments of equipment and other goods from US units on Afghan soil.

He said deliveries could be resumed "in the near future".

Pakistanis have blocked the US main supply route to Afghanistan, blaming the drones for causing civilian deaths.

Protesters have been harassing truck drivers, turning back vehicles carrying Nato provisions.

The blockade is centred on a road in Pakistan's north-western Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province,

Islamabad says it is committed to allowing supplies through, but as yet has done nothing to stop the vigilante action, which has caused huge disruption, correspondents say.

There are two crossings in Pakistan used to take Nato troop supplies to and from Afghanistan - the other crossing in south-west Balochistan province has not been affected by a blockade.

Washington has already redirected many supplies coming into Afghanistan, bypassing Pakistan.

The US military is sending equipment home as it reduces the number of its troops in Afghanistan.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-25210710, December 4, 2013

26

Journalism & Mass Communication / About Thailand

« on: December 04, 2013, 04:12:15 PM »

Thailand sees lull in protests ahead of king's birthday:

There has been a lull in protests against Thailand's government ahead of the king's 86th birthday, after days of violent demonstrations in the capital.

However, some anti-government protesters still headed to the police headquarters in Bangkok to rally.

There were violent clashes earlier in the week, but the situation calmed down on Tuesday after security forces stepped back from protesters.

People have been cleaning the streets for the king's birthday on Thursday.

The protests in Bangkok, which started on 24 November, were relatively peaceful, but things took a violent turn over the weekend and on Monday.

Protesters tried to topple police barricades and storm the prime minister's office, Government House. Clashes broke as police used tear gas and water cannons to repel them.

But on Tuesday police defused tensions by taking down barriers and razor wire outside their headquarters and allowing protesters inside.

On Wednesday, some protesters, along with government forces, have been cleaning the area around the Democracy Monument, where celebrations for the king's birthday are expected to be held.

One group, however, marched towards the police headquarters for a rally. But officials said they were not worried.

"Their movement today is merely to display their power and show that the protests are still continuing," Paradorn Pattanatabut, head of the National Security Council, told Agence-France Presse news agency.

There have been no reports of violence or tear gas so far, says the BBC's Jonah Fisher in Bangkok. But our correspondent adds that increasingly this feels like a pause and not an ending to the protests.

The protesters want the current government under Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra to step down and be replaced by an unelected "People's Council".

They allege that her government is controlled by her brother, former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who is in self-imposed exile after he was overthrown in a military army coup in 2006 and convicted of corruption.

At least four people have died since Saturday, in what has been Thailand's worst political turmoil since the 2010 rallies that ended in violence.

But a senior Thai military official appeared optimistic.

"Everyone agreed that the military forces will not take a leading role in this situation and there will be no coup, as we believe the tension is easing and everything will be back to normal soon," navy chief, Admiral Narong Pipathanasai, told media on Wednesday.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-25202329, December 4, 2013

27

Journalism & Mass Communication / Globalisation

« on: December 04, 2013, 03:47:38 PM »

Globalisation: Not a level playing field

Muinul Islam

Globalisation has become an oft-repeated jargon of international trade and development throughout the world in the eighties and the nineties of the twentieth century, and has since emerged as a buzzword among the development thinkers and practitioners in the twenty-first century. The uncritical expon-ents of the concept of 'Globali-sation' use the term to conceptualise the increasing trend of economic, political and social integration of countries of the world, wherein this increased integration has been seen as the result of gradual liberalisation of international trade in goods and services, of strengthening and cheapening the modes of information dissemination, transport and communication with the help of the on-going revolution in information and communi-cation technologies (ICT), of liberalising the flow of capital across state-frontiers and of the increasing pressure of overseas migration.

In a recent publication of the World Bank, entitled Globalisation, Growth, and Poverty (World Bank 2002), this latest global trend starting in 1980 has been described as the third wave of modern globalisation. The first wave, according to that publication, could be identified during the period from 1870 up to 1914. The most recent third wave of globalisation has been largely spurred by technological advances in the fields of information, transport and communication, as already stated.



The World Bank claims that during this third wave of globalisation many developing countries have been able to break into global markets for manufacturing goods and for services. On the other hand, many developing and least developed countries have been increasingly marginalised and impoverished in the face of globalisation. Moreover, there has been a tremendous increase in momentum in international migration and capital move-ments.

The opponents of globalisation claim that globalisation is the name given to the process of 'recolonisation' of the Third World by the developed countries belonging to OECD in the neo-colonial world structure of the World Capitalist System, where the inter-state economic and political relationships are governed by 'dominance-dependence syndrome' of the transformed face of imperialism. As such, globalisation has become the blue-print for gradually transforming capitalism as the world's only economic and ideological system. In the process, the different dime-nsions of globalisation will seriously jeopardise state sovereignty of the developing and least developed countries. In this mission, the IMF, the World Bank, the WTO, the UNO, the regional banks like ADB, AFDB and the IADB have all been playing the roles of powerful tools of the world's lone superpower, the USA, and other major developed countries belonging to G-8.

Globalisation and Bangladesh: Challenges and Opportunities
It is significant that Bangla-desh's noteworthy success story in the export sector was thriving on the trade-restrictive Multi-Fiber Arrangement (MFA), which had been governing the system of import quotas in the textiles and clothing sector provided by the developed countries to the developing countries since 1974 and which was phased out on January 1, 1995.

The WTO has been trying to address the issue of trade liberalisation through four basic principles: 1) Tariffication of import regimes and phase-wise elimination of quantitative restrictions, 2) gradual redu-ction and elimination of tariffs with the help of tariff bindings, 3) reduction of discrimination from international trade through the provision of Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR), formerly known as the 'Most Favoured Nation' (MFN), status to all member states with the important exception of regional preferential arrangements, and 4) the national treatment rule. The WTO has four main functions: a) rule making; b) policy orientation and monitoring; c) negotiations; and d) dispute settlement between or among member countries. Therefore, The WTO Legal System has been impacting the Bangladesh economy regarding the following major issues:

1. Gradual Reduction of Tariffs: Bangladesh has proceeded a long way in reducing the maximum tariff imposed on different imported items, but the frequent and widespread use of the mechanism of supplementary duties and various surcharges makes the picture quite hazy. The expansion of the coverage of the value added tax has also been used as a tool to reduce the revenue loss resulting from such a rapid lowering process of tariff rates. Nevertheless, Bangladesh's pace of import liberalisation seems quite spectacular. In fact, there is a widespread perception that Bangladesh may have liberalised its import regime too rapidly, given the fact that its giant neighbour India was rather slow in liberalising its import regime. This particular mismatch massively expanded the scope and accelerated the flow of goods through illegal international trade between these two neighbours.

Because of the relatively backward economic position, and particularly, weaker agricultural and industrial base of Bangladesh, the flow of smuggled goods from India to Bangladesh is enormously robust compared to the flow of illegally exported goods from Bangladesh. What is more disturbing is the fact that a significant proportion of Bangladesh's legally imported goods is conveniently smuggled out to India to take advantage of the lucrative arbitraging opportunities created by policy changes relating to import liberalisation of Bangladesh, which are frequently implemented without proper consideration of this particular phenomenon of distorted relative price structures of the two countries. This massive incentive structure for smuggling created by the uneven pace of import liberalisation of the two neighbours in particular, and the countries of the region in general, is believed to be harming the economy of Bangladesh in the following major fields:

a. It has been diverting the savings of the people from the formal investment activities to smuggling and the 'black economy' through the intermediation of the banking system;

b. It has been siphoning off a significant proportion of remittances of Bangladeshi migrant workers working overseas through the informal channel called the 'hundi' system;

c. It has been instrumental in accelerating the process of institutionalisation of corruption in the economy, polity and society, which is strengthening the parallel 'black economy';

d. It has been acting as a constant source of erosion of Bangladesh's foreign currency reserve, which is marginally adequate to meet only about three months' import bill, and stands at around $3 billion;

e. It is widely believed to have been perpetuating the continued lack-lustre growth of investment activities, both in the industrial and agricultural sectors;

f. It has been seriously hurting the revenue collection efforts of the government of Bangladesh in its two major sources of tax-revenue, i.e. import duty and value added tax; and

g. Leakage of imported materials from the country's export-oriented ready-made garments and knitwear industry is on the increase, which is targeted for the domestic market as well as to smuggling.

In the light of the general tendencies noted above, Bangladesh should carefully analyse and evaluate the situation before proceeding further in the way of import liberalisation at the behest of the WTO's pressure tactics.

2. Phasing Out of MFA: As already noted, the Multi-Fiber Arrangement (MFA) has been phased out according to the provisions of the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing (ATC). It is feared that this will pose a major threat to Bangladesh's RMG and Knitwear industries because of the potential cut-throat competition from the cotton-producing giants like India, China, Egypt and Pakistan. Development of adequate numbers of backward linkage industries with sufficient competitive advantage is also not a realistically achievable option for Bangladesh at this stage. Therefore, it seems that Bangladesh should rather put most of its efforts in diversifying its RMG and Knitwear products to cater to the design-oriented items, where its cheaper labour force will bring additional advantages through increasing the value-added to the garment items like ladies' apparels, leather jackets, girls' dresses and fashionable items.

3. Withdrawal of GSP Facilities: Bangladesh has a case for pursuing the possibility of extending the GSP beyond 2005. A vigorous campaign in this regard has a fair chance of success, given the fact that the least developed countries of the world have been faring quite poorly in the present context of the world trade regime.

4. Core Labour Standards: The developed countries have shown a tendency to use core labour standards as an effective tool to protect their domestic markets from relatively unhindered flow of imports from developing countries. Bangladesh has already suffered a major jolt from this, when the issue of child labour in its garments and knitwear factories was raised through the Harkins Bill and threatened the future of these robustly performing industries. A temporary respite has been achieved in this regard, but it must be kept in mind that new issues will be raised whenever the different lobbies of the developed countries may feel convenient to do so. This tactic will have the primary purpose of protecting the vital vested interests of those lobbies, but the weak bargaining powers of the developing countries will not be adequate to successfully confront such periodical onslaughts in the garb of promoting labour standards in the Third World. The present lobbying and pressure tactics regarding the right to trade union activities for workers employed in the export processing zones of Bangladesh are symptomatic of such an effort. One should genuinely doubt the real intentions of the U.S.A. behind the bleeding heart persuasions of the World's capitalist over-lord for ensuring workers' rights in a least developed country like Bangladesh, where about 44 per cent of the people of the country are languishing below the poverty line at levels of sub-human existence. The jurisdiction and role of the ILO should not be allowed to be undermined by the WTO Legal System in respect of these sensitive issues.

5. Sanitary and Phytosanitary Standards (SPS): Bangladesh's shrimp and frozen fish exports suffered badly a few years back because of the import ban imposed on such exports by the EU countries on grounds of unhygienic processing and preservation of products in the Bangladeshi factories. These standards will create many more contentious issues and blackmailing efforts in the future too.

6. Environmental Standards: The issue of environmental protection is being used by the developed countries to put hurdles in the way of expanding production capacities in the developing countries in spite of the fact that the present day developed countries were the worst culprits in causing environmental degradation throughout the world. In the name of product standards and process standards, the GATT 1994 has incorporated provisions in different agreements to raise objections about production and trading of any item on grounds of creating environmental hazards.

7. Subsidies and Countervailing Measures: Three issues are of importance to Bangladesh regarding subsidies and countervailing measures: a) non-actionable subsidies, b) presumption of serious prejudice, and c) export competitiveness thresholds. It should be reiterated that Bangladesh's aggregate measure of support to agriculture is much lower than the permissible level of subsidies under the WTO rules. So, Bangladesh can increase input subsidies in the agriculture sector, if it wants to. The rules regarding subsidies and agricultural supports actually allow countries like Bangladesh to provide much more assistance to the poorer farmers, both in the fields of production and marketing. There remains ample scope for providing protective support to selected domestic industries on the basis of the provisions of the 'safeguard actions for economic development purposes'. The invocation of the 'balance of payments needs' can be used wisely to curb imports deserving a lower priority. Moreover, Bangladesh should try to continue export subsidies to its traditional export items like jute and tea, and to extend the threshold period allowed.

8. Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs): The agreement on TRIPs is designed primarily to protect intellectual property rights in the area of patents, copyrights, royalties, designs, etc., which are targeted to benefit the developed countries. Bangladesh should be very careful about the implications of various moves made by the WTO to expand the jurisdiction of the organisation in this domain. The least developed countries have been allowed 11 years as a transition period to accept the obligations of the Agreement, which encompasses both product patenting and process patenting. This is one of the 'Singapore Issues' that are presently creating major disputes in the current Doha Development Round' of WTO multilateral negotiations.

9. Customs Valuation and Pre-Shipment Inspection: Under-valuation and over-valuation of imports through collusion between the exporter and the importer are formidable problems for a least developed country like Bangladesh. It is also quite difficult for customs authorities in these countries to check the dumping of products by various multinational companies. Pre-shipment inspection as a means of correcting this malaise is yet to be proven effective. Bangladesh has introduced pre-shipment inspection system, but the outcome is very discouraging.

10. Trade Related Investment Measures (TRIMs): The TRIMs Agreement prohibits five measures considered inconsistent with GATT rules on <>national treatment<> and the rules against quantitative restrictions. These relate to local content requirements, trade-balancing requirements, restriction of foreign exchange access, domestic sales requirements, and use of quantitative restrictions. The Agreement provides a seven-year transitional period to the least developed countries for the elimination of the prohibited TRIMs. This is one of the 'Singapore issues', which are hotly pursued by the developed countries in the current Doha Development Round of the WTO negotiations. The Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) will be the outcome, if they succeed.

11. Trade in Services (GATS): The GATS framework requires countries to apply MFN treatment as well as national treatment to international service providers in the following 12 sectors of services: business (including professional and computer) services, communication services, construction and engineering services, distribution services, educational services, environmental services, financial (banking and insurance) services, health services, tourism and travel services, recreational, cultural and sporting services, transport services, and other services not included elsewhere. The GATS stipulates that a country can claim exemptions from the MFN treatment in services. An agreed list of exemptions is part of the Agreement, and subsequent exemptions may be gained through a waiver process.

12. Dispute Settlement Mechanisms and Agreement on Anti-dumping: Bangladesh had in the past been subjected to anti-dumping duties imposed on the terry towel exports and batteries. The present system of excluding anti-dumping from the general dispute settlement process has proved dangerous for developing countries. The provisions for retaliation and cross-retaliation as well as cross-compensation in case of non-compliance and failure of the dispute settlement mechanisms may be used as blackmailing tools by the developed countries against the weak developing countries, because it may require about twenty eight months before a country obtains final relief after a dispute process is formally started.

13. Rules of Origin: The agreement stipulates that the member countries should undertake harmonisation of the rules of origin applicable to non-preferential trade. Bangladesh should carefully monitor the harmonisation process, because its exports may be adversely affected by any marginal change in this regard.

14. Special and Differential (S&D) Treatment: The issue of providing special and differential treatment to the least developed countries on various trading items and terms and conditions of trading needs to be carefully monitored. The S&D status given to the least developed countries is supposed to be implemented through exemptions, delays in implementation, preferential arrangements, best effort provisions, flexible schedules of implementation, safeguards and technical assistance. But, the promises are not followed up by concrete actions taken by the developed countries.

15. Tariffication of Non-tariff Barriers: GATT 1994 stipulates that all non-tariff barriers, especially in agriculture, be converted into tariff equivalents, considering 1986-88 as the base period. These tariff equivalents were to be added to the existing tariffs and the total tariff bound.

16. Removal of Quantitative Restrictions: Import quotas, import bans, import licensing and permits are to be eradicated gradually. Bangladesh has proceeded a long way in this area.

17. Market Access: The issue of providing enhanced market access to the goods of the least developed countries is not followed up sincerely by the developed countries. Zero-tariff access commitments remain mostly illusory.

There is a general perception that Bangladesh has been achieving reasonably satisfactory export growth since the decade of the nineties. The success stories were built around the rapidly expanding sectors like ready made garments, knitwear, shrimp, frozen fish, leather goods, ceramic products, etc. There is no denying the fact that Bangladesh's performance in these non-traditional items is quite laudable by the standards of the least developed countries. But, if we take into consideration the fact that in spite of the country's impressive export growth during the last two decades Bangladesh's share in the global export has come down, the picture comes close to the sobering realities. The other 'hard' fact emanates from the low value added in our major export item, ready made garments, which will put Bangladesh in a position of definite disadvantage compared to its cotton-producing rivals in the world market. Another disquieting feature of Bangladesh's external trade is reflected through the fact that the terms of trade have been deteriorating menacingly in case of most of our major export items, both traditional and non-traditional.

The growth rate of export earnings of Bangladesh was higher than the growth rate of import payments in most of the years of the last two decades, which is largely instrumental in slowly transforming Bangladesh from a status of aid-dependent nation to a status of a trade-oriented one. But, the RMG and knitwear sector remains a 'foot loose' endeavour, where enterprises are born or discontinued too easily to suit the convenience of some unscrupulous businessmen thriving on various government policy favours. A more distressing issue concerning the RMG and knitwear sector revolves around the so-called 'leakage' problem, where the real problem lies in the huge illegal import of garments materials through under-invoicing of back-to-back L/Cs for the domestic market as well as for smuggling out to India. The informal system of sending remittances from the overseas migrant workers as well as professionals, called the 'hundi' system, is being used overwhelmingly by the organised operators to finance such extra imports of garments materials targeted for the domestic market and for smuggling.

The extremely narrow range of export items from Bangladesh highlights the serious vulnerability of the economy to pressures and machinations of a few of its major trading partners like the European Union and the U.S.A. The issue of the recent past concerning child labour in the RMG sector or the sudden ban on shrimp import from Bangladesh by some EU countries on grounds of health and sanitary standards should be considered as the tip of the iceberg regarding the future pressure tactics coming from the trading partners of the developed world under the WTO legal system.

The current issues of contention regarding labour standards and trade union rights, environmental standards, agricultural subsidies, intellectual property rights, international product standards and process standards, protection of bio-diversity, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, anti-dumping and countervailing duties, government procurement, etc. have already raised the fears of effective re-colonization and blatant domination of the developing countries by a few giant capitalist metropolitan centres through the edifice of the WTO. Therefore, the fiascos in Seattle and Cancun should be used as wake-up calls for Bangladesh to prepare itself for the battles of the future through forging strategic alliances in multilateral negotiations of the WTO.

The extreme lack of diversification in Bangladesh's export basket brings to fore the need to open up new vistas and to specialize in new items of export based on the principles of comparative advantage. Computer software and data entry seem to be two prospective items for us, provided we substantially gear up our efforts in building the proper communication infrastructure and facilities, liberalising the telecommunication facilities, rules and regulations, and in training our huge manpower in the field of information technology. Efforts should also be focussed to gear up the development of backward linkage industries for our RMG and knitwear sector. Ceramics, leather products, agro-processing and food processing remain as potentially attractive export fields. The following fields also seem promising: 1) Jewellery, gems cutting and polishing; 2) toys and puppets; 3) imitation jewellery; 4) petro-chemical products; and 5) flowers and plants.

Conference of the G-8 leaders... dictating the International trade regime

In order to minimize the risks arising out of the globalisation process, Bangladesh should actively seek to strengthen the regional economic cooperation mechanisms. The issues of transit, strengthening of SAPTA, tariff-free access to the Indian market for a significant number of Bangladesh's export items become more and more crucial every day from this perspective.

Conclusion
A number of opportunities are waiting to be tapped. The following are the major issues, which deserve priority attention and early resolution:

1. Regional Economic Cooperation: The South Asian Preferential Trading Arrangement (SAPTA) faces a bleak future too not to speak about the emergence of the South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) sometime down the stream. In this context, Bangladesh should seriously pursue other arrangements regarding regional economic cooperation. BIMSTEC seems to be a good alternative arrangement

2. The Issue of Transit or Transhipment: Because of Bangladesh's geographical location, the issue of providing transit or transhipment facilities for goods through Bangladesh territory to the neighbouring land-locked states of India, and to Nepal and Bhutan is of crucial importance, especially to Bangladesh's neighbours. Through a proper approach of regionalisation, this issue can be resolved to the mutual advantage of all parties concerned.

3. Development of Chittagong Port as a Regional Entrepot: The geographical location of Chittagong port makes it a prime candidate for development as a regional entrepot in the style of Singapore. Therefore, this prospect should be pursued vigorously, shunning political feuds on the issue.

4.Transforming Bangladesh from an Aid-Dependent Economy to a Trade-Oriented Economy: The role of foreign loans and grants has been dwindling fast in importance for economic progress of Bangladesh. In 2003-2004, the contribution of foreign loans and grants to Bangladesh's GDP came down to less than 2 per cent. It can be surmised that Bangladesh has reached a stage where it can use its better judgement in choosing only the really beneficial project aid from the donor countries and organisations.

5. Tariff-Free Access to the Indian Market: The issue of tariff-free access for Bangladeshi goods into the Indian market should be pursued vigorously. Bangladesh's ill-advised policies regarding rapid import liberalisation since the mid-eighties have virtually opened the flood gate for Indian goods in particular, and foreign goods in general, to capture an increasing proportion of Bangladesh's domestic market in the last 20 years. On the other hand, India has successfully used various delay-tactics in opening up its economy for exports from Bangladesh

Bangladesh has already become a victim of the invasion of the World Capitalist System in all its familiar faces. Therefore, our real option is to make our people conscious, and to educate and train them as fast as possible in order to raise a well-trained army of skilled manpower as early as possible to fight this battle for market in a truly globalised trading system.

....................................................
The author is Professor of Economics, University of Chittagong.

Source: The Daily Star, 15th Anniversary Special Issue, February 19, 2006

28

Journalism & Mass Communication / Globalisation

« on: December 04, 2013, 03:43:11 PM »

Globalisation: For whose benefits?

Atiur Rahman

The era of traditional global security relations overshadowing economic concerns and regional conflict has nearly passed. Accelerating economic interdependence and international competition have emerged as major sources of tension and conflict among world powers. In this uncertain environment, developed countries eager to maintain their standards of living, and developing countries equally determined to improve their own, are under pressure to use whatever means they have to improve their productivity and ensure their economic security. That is, the traditional focus on the security of states has now been quite blurred and the emphasis is being rightly placed on the people and the environment in which they survive. The livelihoods security of vast majority of the people is now a matter of central concern. Apparently, the new “mantra” is to improve this shade of security (primarily economic) of the people to embrace faster pace of liberalisation and integration. Economic security is the maintenance of those conditions necessary to encourage sustained long-term relative improvements of labour and capital productivity and thus a high and rising standard of living for a nation's citizens, including the maintenance of a fair, secure and dynamic business environment conducive to innovation, domestic and foreign investment and sustainable economic growth. Today, this is a broad goal sought by the governments all over the world. This goal has been brought forward and shaped to a large extent by explosion of information technology leading to all embracing globalisation. Globalisation is a multifaceted issue with varied implications including the ones on human security. Globalisation has historically been linked to the concentration and centralisation of capital, wealth and power. The driving force of globalisation has been the co-operation and competition of the 'imperialist' powers. Global trade and investment policies, agreements and institutions that undermine democratic process while ignoring labour, consumer, environmental, human rights, small business and local community development concerns. Globalisation has a way of rearranging the economy of a country, which leads to a growth pattern that also perpetuates inequality and poverty. Liberalisation and globalisation appear to have been associated with rising levels of unemployment and underemployment, income inequality, and poverty in global level

Globalisation argues for a universal incorporation to the world marketplace and the distribution of benefits among the wealthy creditors as well as the bankrupt debtors; super-rich speculators and impoverished unemployed workers; imperial states that direct international financial institutions and subordinate states to their dictates. The prescription of globalisation is to open up economies through trade and investment liberalisation, deregulation and privatisation. In order for monopoly capital to survive its crisis and in order for globalisation to succeed, it must continue to push for liberalisation of markets to allow it to take over economies. The direct result is the devastation of economies, displacement of livelihood and employment, and the destruction of productive forces the world over. The recent trend in globalisation has been largely characterised by continued integration of the world's economies through expanding flows of goods, services, labour and ideas through collective action by countries. Present era of globalisation has distinctive features. Shrinking space, shrinking time and disappearing borders are linking peoples' live more deeply, more intensely, more immediately than ever before. The combined result of the technological revolutions and globalisation are quickly integrating markets and linking people across all kinds of traditional boundaries.

Globalisation has been triggered by new information and communications technologies. The process has been polarising the world into the connected and the isolated. Globalisation expands the opportunities for unprecedented human advance for some but shrinks those opportunities for others and erodes human security. It is integrating economy, culture and government but fragmenting the societies. Driven by commercial market forces, globalisation in this era seeks to promote economic efficiency, generate growth and yield profit. But it misses out on the goals of equity, poverty eradication and enhanced human security.

The shift in focus to human security also highlights the importance of scrutinising global processes that may impact on, even jeopardise, security and the global governance structures that drive these processes. A proper understanding of the process of global economic integration and of the distribution of associated costs and benefits is crucial. Armed with this knowledge, an informed debate can take place on global development policy.



This is already happening. We can work to reconstruct development policy in the cause of attending to the human security needs of all global citizens, particularly the poorest. Too many people are dying of hunger and disease. This is not the product of bad luck, but rather of existing structures that can be changed. The recent mobilisation of millions of people immediately before G-8 summit in concerts across the globe, to highlight the curse of poverty in Africa and elsewhere, was able to focus sharply on the dichotomy between so much of opulence and deprivations that has been challenging global peace and stability.

While the debate continues at the international level on whether or not globalisation can bring benefits to the world's poor, the fact remains that the deepening inequalities of income and opportunity between and within nations has led to an increase in the number of people without adequate and secure housing. The human rights of people and communities to housing, water and sanitation guaranteed under international law and commitments of development targets made at global summits including the Millennium Summit 2000 and the World Summit on Sustainable Development continue to erode as the process of privatisation deepens and accelerates. It is time to rethink the current global economic and social policies and to recommit us to the human rights principles and standards that offer the only real paradigm for improving the lives of millions of the poor.

The challenge of globalisation in the new century is not to stop the expansion of global markets. The challenge is to find the rules and institutions for stronger governance local, national, regional, and global to preserve the advantages of global markets and competition, and also to provide enough space for human, community and environmental resources to ensure that globalisation works for people (i.e., for ethics, equity, inclusion, human security, sustainable development) rather than for profit only.

The levels of social development indicators achieved so far are not negligible but still generally significantly lower compared to the average for South Asia or for developing countries excluding South Asia. Actually, the poor and the disadvantaged groups including women, given their marginalised socio-economic position, cannot secure worthwhile access to opportunities and resources in the market place nor can they secure even their legitimate benefits from programmes intended for them. The rich and powerful people, who constitute a tiny proportion of the total population, capture the lion's share of the benefits of the increased economic activity and social development programmes because their socio-economic strength enables them to prevail even when seeking undue advantage and, in any case, the market economy reforms favor them and penalise the weak and the marginalised.

In a country like Bangladesh where about half of the population is absolutely poor and hence poverty alleviation is the most basic national goal, an increase in poverty cannot be socially acceptable. Again, socioeconomic inequality between the rich and the poor, between urban and rural populations and between men and women has accentuated, putting further strain on social sustainability of the process of growth being pursued. The increased level of marketisation experienced by the poor countries like Bangladesh in recent years has been playing a decisive role in generating the process of poverty. It is also defining the space for the poor beyond which they cannot operate in the emerging market-driven context. Of course, different classes experience marketisation differently both positively and negatively.

Both moderate and extreme poor face negative impacts of marketisation while other classes (i.e., middle and well off) did not have to go through similar grilling of it. There are different categories of market and terms of trade are different for different sectors. For example, the unfavorable terms of trade facing agricultural sector representing higher price of producer (intermediate) and consumer goods and lower price of agricultural goods, which have had undesirable consequences on poverty.

In fact the present situation of globalisation and partial marketisation places the poor to remain locked into 'poor markets', essentially trading with each other at low levels of income and expenditure. Since their communities have low endowments, they are compelled to operate in markets that offer low rates of return. None of these pernicious trends growing marginalisation, growing human insecurity, and growing inequality is inevitable. With stronger governance - local, national, regional and global - the benefits of globalisation can be preserved with clear rules and boundaries and stronger actions can be taken to meet the needs of pro-poor development.

The real GDP growth rate has improved and the population growth rate has declined between early eighties and late nineties and, as a result, the rate of growth in per capita GDP has improved considerably during the same period. The rate of inflation has also improved (decreased), however, it is still higher (7 per cent in 1998 and perhaps almost approaching double digits now) which has serious implication on poverty. Lower and limited income groups find themselves in a very difficult situation to cope with this higher rate of inflation and consequently people living just over poverty line are always at risk of moving down to the poverty line (often termed as the future poor) in the near future.

The continued trend of improvement in the human poverty situation in Bangladesh in the nineties is better appreciated when compared with the matched progress of its South Asian neighbours. The incidence of income-poverty at national level is much lower in Pakistan than in Bangladesh (28.7 per cent in 1993/94 versus 46.6 per cent in 1995/96). The incidence of human-poverty is, however, higher in Pakistan than in Bangladesh: the HPI value for Pakistan was 47.2 in 1995 compared with the estimated 40.1 observed for Bangladesh in 1995-97. Note that the value of HPI for India was 40.5 in 1991-93. However, very recent stagnation in the US economy and on-going Iraq crisis has impacted the economic security of Bangladesh, whose at least 40 per cent of economy is now globalised. The July 2005 London bombings will certainly have significant impact on global economy including Bangladesh economy, which has been historically linked to British trade and commerce. The flow of younger Bangladeshis to UK for study may be bas well be temporarily, if not permanently, affected by the man-made London disaster.

Two recent threats of globalisation on economic security to Bangladesh stemmed from post-MFA challenges and money market liberalisation. Although the government has taken the earlier challenge somewhat easily as no sharp fall in RMG exports has been observed in the last few months, the real consequence could indeed be serious in the coming days unless Bangladesh takes adequate mitigation and adaptive measures. RMG exports may be reduced significantly in the coming years until we do not have substantive formal and informal measures in order to have preferential access into the EU and US markets. Therefore job security of our 1.5 million garment workers is in serious threat, and it would impact adversely on related economic activities, employment situation, economic growth, and poverty reduction in the forthcoming years. On the other hand, money market liberalisation through a floating exchange regime has translated into, inter alia, real depreciation of Taka against dollar, increased price of imported commodities along with higher energy price, higher inflation, and more importantly, severe dollar crisis. Investment and commercial activities have been affected due to globalisation-led money market liberalisation, which deserved to be better managed. You can not leave it to inefficient myopic bankers to handle foreign exchange market with serious macroeconomic implications. All these also have many negative implications for human dimensions of economic security.

From the above discussion it is clear that globalisation has brought about a set of opportunities and challenges to the people of the world and Bangladesh as well. In many cases it has been creating global inequality, deprivations, joblessness, food insecurity and other forms of human insecurity amidst economic growth, prosperity and trade creation. Of course, nobody can deny that if the opportunities of globalisation can be utilised appropriately, the huge benefits could be earned as well. But that entails serious preparedness, particularly amongst the governance-related stakeholders.

The surge of globalisation over the past decade or two is only a beginning. The globally integrated people will require stronger governance if it is to preserve the advantages of global market competition, and to turn the forces of globalisation to support human advance, especially of the poor. To walk in a pro poor stream of development, global governance requires a common core of values, standards and attitudes, a widely felt sense of responsibility and obligations comprising of respect for life, liberty, justice, equality, tolerance, mutual respect and integrity. This is not by individuals, but by governments, NGOs and civil society members. Human development and social protection have to be incorporated in the principles and practices of global governance. Recent advances in global governance have been built on concepts and principles of economic efficiency and competitive markets. These are important but not enough, for the human security of the many. This is also true for governance at the national and local levels.

Groups of landless villagers can sell irrigation water to farmers or retail seasonal farm credit on market terms, or sell modern telecommunication services as Grameen Cellular Phone has demonstrated. In short they can compete in markets previously dominated by the rich. This also provides a way of re-distributing new wealth, thus helping to lower the level of systemic inequality in social and economic opportunities. Intellectual property rights under the TRIPs should be reviewed comprehensively to redress their perverse effects undermining food security, indigenous knowledge, bio-safety and access to healthcare. Bangladesh could take collective, especially regional initiatives, to strengthen their positions in global negotiations in trade, intellectual property rights and other areas by establishing regional institutions.

Stronger global cooperation and actions are needed to address the growing problems that are beyond the scope of national governments to manage. Regional approach to cope with the pressure of globalisation in terms of policy coordination could always prove beneficial to the member countries. And state should acquire that efficiency to work with by balancing the demands of the market forces and aspirations civil society, both at the national, regional and global levels. At the end of the day the strategic needs and aspirations of the poor should never be compromised while pursing the process of globalisation even if the latter is inevitable.

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The author is an economist and chairman, Unnayan Shamannay, a development research organisation.

Source: The Daily Star, 15th Anniversary Special Issue, February 19, 2006

29

Journalism & Mass Communication / Climate Change

« on: December 04, 2013, 03:38:51 PM »

Climate change: Fight for survival
A. N. M. Nurul Haque

AS the clock steadily ticks towards the final round of negotiation at the United Nations Climate Change Conference, scheduled for December 7 to 18 in Copenhagen, the slow pace of progress in the negotiation process suggests that it might not deliver anything of substance for reducing the level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

The summit on climate change held in New York in September had taken a positive approach towards forging a commitment by the world leaders to replace the Kyoto Protocol of 1997 that expires in 2012. But some concrete steps are needed to work out a comprehensive climate change treaty in order to save the planet from peril.

The ice masses in the Arctic, North Sea and Himalayas have already started to melt, contributing to the rise in the sea level. Over two billion people living in small island states and low lying deltas, including Bangladesh, are likely to face a bleak future due to climate change. This is creating socio-political instabilities in many parts of the world.

Climate change has posed a mortal threat to Bangladesh because of its geographical location, low elevation from the sea, high level of population density and poverty and an overwhelming dependence on nature.

It really worries us all to know that a rise of one degree Celsius in temperature might cause as much as 15% of our land to go under water. This would trigger mass migration northwards, increasing pressure on lands and resources and loss of livelihood for about 40 million people.

Maldives and Tuvalu are the most vulnerable countries with the risk of being submerged totally due to a rise in sea level. The Maldives government recently held an undersea cabinet meeting to highlight the grave threat they face due to global warming.

The Nepal government is also planning to hold a cabinet meeting on the Himalayas to draw world attention to the climatic catastrophe awaiting them.

Melting Himalayan glaciers and other climate change impacts pose a direct threat to the food security of more than 1.6 billion people in South Asia. Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Afghanistan are particularly vulnerable to decline in crop yields caused by glacier retreat, floods, draoghts, erratic rainfall and other climate change impacts.

The experts emphasised the need for taking strong mitigation and adaptation programs by the highest emitting nations, primarily the US, EU, China, Brazil and India, saying that if they failed to introduce strong mitigation measures, the most vulnerable countries would suffer catastrophic impacts over the longer term.

The cost of doing nothing to reduce the greenhouse effect has already proved to be devastating because of the alarming frequency and magnitude at which natural disasters are occurring in recent days. The Tsunami alone took a toll of 230,000 lives in 2004. Cyclone Nargis killed more than 100,000 people in Myanmar. Cyclone Sdir devastated the coastal districts of Bangladesh in 2008. These are the dangerous impacts of climate change. A unified stance of the South Asian countries in international negotiations on global climate change will surely yield better results.

To recoup the current climate change related losses, Bangladesh has sought $500 million on an urgent basis as financial assistance from the UN and developed countries. The European Union leaders have agreed to enter world climate talks, arguing that poorer countries will need €100 billion a year by 2020 to tackle global warming, but failed to set levels for Europe's contribution.
Bangladesh is poised for aggressive negotiations to seek greater international assistance than the amount estimated in the Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan to face the climatic catastrophe awaiting it. The government needs to spend $7 to $8 billion for 44 programs that have been chalked out in the action plan.

Bangladesh is bearing the brunt of climate change and the poor people are paying the highest prices. Climate change has been having a devastating impact on socio-economic development as both the frequency and the intensity of natural disasters like floods, cyclone, draught and tidal waves are on the rise.

The issue of climate change, which has become a life and death question for many countries, is still a subject of fashionable debate in the developed world. In such a situation, a consensus among the countries, worst or least affected by climate change, is needed for fruitful culmination of the negotiation process taking place over the past two years.

With its own annual carbon dioxide emissions only 172 kg per capita, compared to 21 tons in US, Bangladesh has a strong reason to feel aggrieved for suffering the consequences of climate change. To address the inevitable consequences of climate change, Bangladesh along with other vulnerable countries needs to place a strong demand in the Copenhagen conference for adequate funds and transfer of technology.

A.N.M. Nurul Haque is a columnist of The Daily Star. E-mail: anmnhaque@hotmail.com

Source: The Daily Star, December 6, 2009

30

Journalism & Mass Communication / Climate Change

« on: December 04, 2013, 03:08:47 PM »

Bangladesh:
The First Major Victim of Climate Change
by Nader Rahman

The Fourth Assessment Report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was released on the 2nd of February 2007 and as Achim Steiner, the head of the UN environment programme said, “This day marks the removal from the debate over whether human action has anything to do with climate change.” Finally after passing the blame around mankind woke up to the truth that we changed the planet and it was now on an irreversible 'highway to extinction'.

While many critics claim that this may be an extreme reaction to climate change, even they warn that we should plan for the worst-case scenario, something that Bangladesh can ill afford. The reason being we stand to be one of the countries most devastatingly affected, and most importantly, fastest affected. But even before one gets to the worst case, there must be a clear understanding on what climate change is.

Climate change refers to the variation in the world's global/regional climates over time. It has been a common topic of discussion for many years now, but only relatively recently have people associated it with the expansion of mankind, the burning of fossil fuels and the infamous greenhouse effect. It is commonly known that the planet has been through its fair share of climate changes, from its superheated beginning to the ice age and most drastic changes have been followed by catastrophic losses of lives. That is what makes the current issue of climate change such a hot topic of discussion.

To state it very clearly, since the industrial revolution humans have been burning fossil fuels at an alarming and unsustainable rate. The emissions from them have led to what is commonly called the greenhouse effect, or global warming. There was a certain apathy towards climate change, global warming and in general proving that humans were to blame for the worsening climatic situations around the world. Many even flatly denied that climate change has or would ever occur. Yet now all that can be put to rest, it has been proved almost beyond a shadow of a doubt that climate change is occurring, and humans are to blame for it.

Now slowly as governments start to wake from their collective limbo, they have opened their eyes to a world of unpredictable weather, which could eventually lead to the loss of millions of lives. Bangladesh is a country that stands to be one of the first to suffer from global climate change, and the time to act is now.

For one to fully gauge the effects of climate change on Bangladesh, one first needs to understand the global predictions. Now there are a number of various scenarios that may take place if we continue on the current path. It is important to remember that all scientists can do is to try and accurately estimate what world weather will be in the future using current data and feeding that into advanced climate models. Nothing of what they say is set in stone, in fact far from it, their predictions always come within ranges because no one can actually stand up and say what the definitive world weather will be like in the future.

In the most recent IPCC report there are no fewer than six different predictions on sea level and temperature rise. Each of them come with their own little ranges and somewhere between those ranges is the truth. It has come to be accepted in some circles that by the year 2100 the global temperature rise would be 1.8 °C with a likely range of 1.1 to 2.9 °C (3.2 °F with a likely range of 2.0 to 5.2 °F). That would also have to be coupled with sea level rise of about 59cm (23 inches) in the next 100 years. The statistics for the sea level rise do not take into account the possibility of melting ice sheets because there was not enough documentation on the subject. But even conservative estimates have put that at a possible 30cm addition to 59cm mentioned earlier. Therefore it leaves us with close to a 2 °C rise in temperatures along with roughly 89cm increase in the world's sea levels. These estimates spell very real danger for Bangladesh in the not too distant future.

Bangladesh stands to be affected in a number of ways and seemingly from all directions. Firstly from the north there is a major probability of increased floods. The reasons behind that are fairly simple to understand. With temperatures rising, more and more of snow that caps the Himalayas will melt and flood downstream straight into the delta that is Bangladesh. While that has never really been a massive problem to the country, increased deforestation means that much of the water that was traditionally held up in the forests is now being let through as it drains straight into Bangladesh. Therefore leaving us in a position where not only more water will come down every monsoon, but more water will be let through. In an article on climate change renowned scientist Dr Saleemul Huq said “In the past, they (floods) could be attributed entirely to 'acts of God' (or nature). In future they will also be at least partially attributable to human acts as well.” With no pun intended this scenario is just the tip of the iceberg. Another aspect we have to take into account which has already been studied is how the “one-in-20-year” floods have now started occurring roughly once-in-five-years. This is some of the easiest pieces of information to interpret, because it shows how the frequency of major catastrophic events in Bangladesh has increased, at least due in part to human induced climate change.

Cyclones will also take on new dimensions as their frequency and intensity will increase to provide more misery for the nation. With global warming affecting temperatures, there is a strong likelihood that the intensity and frequency of tropical storms will increase. In an interview with The Independent (UK) Professor Ainun Nishat an expert in the field of climate change said, “The direction of the monsoon has changed in the last few years, the depression that brings the rain used to advance north across Bangladesh. Now it is heading west." That scenario could have shocking implications to Bangladesh in the event of a tropical cyclone. Dr Nishat says the change in direction of the monsoon could mean cyclones spend longer gathering pace over the Bay of Bengal. "When Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005, it was only a category three hurricane while it was over Florida, it was when it headed across the Gulf of Mexico that it turned into a category five. It gathered heat from the sea. And the Bay of Bengal is hot.”

Possibly the most important climatic change would take place along the coastline of Bangladesh as sea levels rise. If sea levels were to rise by the predicted amount of 88 to 89 cm then the effect on Bangladesh would be disastrous. Firstly Bangladesh is a land mass which is on average no more than 10 metres above sea level, with that number drastically smaller nearer to the coast. An 89cm increase in the sea level would eat up roughly 20% of Bangladesh's landmass, displacing more than 20 million people. Already we are the most densely populated country on earth, if even after that we were to lose 20% of our land and had to relocate 20 million people then as a country we would literally be on our last leg. Dr. Md. Sirajul Islam says, “The creation of 20 million environmental refugees would only be the start of our problems. While the government deals with them, the Bangladeshi farmers would face a stark future.” He adds that “Salinity intrusion could cripple the agricultural sector of Bangladesh for good.” Aside from losing arable land, the rising seawater would make most agricultural activities near the “new” coastline almost impossible. One does not even need to look too far ahead into the future to see the agricultural problem. As we speak farmers in the south of the country face salinity problems, so much so that they have even taken up shrimp cultivation instead of traditional crops. But the situation is not completely bleak, there have been studies into a new form of hybrid rice that could still be cultivated in saline water.

The rising seawater poses the biggest threat to Bangladesh as well as our delicate eco system. Most of the mangrove forests would go underwater, and there are signs that the effects have already started. In the Sunderbans, trees have already started dying, and forest officials are quite seriously worried. If the Sunderbans were to go under then it would be safe to say that a few endangered species would perish along the way, most noticeably the Royal Bengal Tiger.

Along with rising seawater, increased intensity of tropical storms and higher levels of flooding there will be more periods of drought and heavier rainfall, which also effect the flooding situation. Dr Islam says, “Global warming and the consequent climate change will drastically change the climate of Bangladesh. There will be greater climatic extremes leading to severe droughts, like those experienced in northern regions of the country, as well as heavier rainfall. The timings of the seasons will also vary, hampering agricultural productivity.”

But all is not lost; organisations around the country and world have taken the first step towards helping Bangladesh. A number of studies are being carried out on Bangladesh and there are plans to help the nation with the imminent dangers. According to Dr Mizan R. Khan, Chairman of the Department of Environmental Science and Management at North South University, a DFID and UNDP $15 million, five-year project titled Comprehensive Disaster Management Programme (CDMP) that has been underway, has an elaborate component on adaptation to climate change impacts. In order to address climate change and incorporate climate change considerations into the CDMP, a Climate Change Cell was established at the Department of Environment. The Climate Change Cell aims to establish a mechanism that facilitates management of long-term climate risks and uncertainties as an integral part of national development planning. Things are being done, but only a few foreign nations are willing to put out a helping hand. From the rest there is a certain sense of apathy, which is objectionable because they are the nations that created the problems which we will have to suffer for.

In an article on the floods in 2004 Dr Saleemul Huq wrote “it is also widely recognised that it is the rich countries of the world that are primarily responsible for the problem of global warming. And that puts a political slant on the allocation of responsibility both for extreme events themselves, and for efforts to mitigate their impact.

"In future, therefore, when affected countries demand assistance from the rich countries of the world in helping address climate-related disasters such as floods, it will not be for a request for charity but for compensation, appealing to their moral responsibility, if not their legal liability, to make good the damage and destruction for which their activities have, directly or indirectly, been partially responsible.” His point is well accepted around the world, now aside from hearing the problem and accepting it, the developed nations must act on it. Bangladesh stands to be one of the worst affected by human induced climate change; it needs help now, if it is to have a survivable future.

Dr Mizan echoes Dr Huq's words when he says, “funding should be obligatory not charity based. The developed countries must help out the other nations who suffer for their actions, by reducing their help to charity they leave themselves clear of blame. That is simply not the ethical way to go about things. Think about this: America produces 22% of global CO2 emissions and yet with the greenhouse effect and climate change we here in Bangladesh will be the ones suffering. They should rightly help out with our contingency plans, in fact it is their duty.” Truth be told even if miraculously all harmful emissions were stopped overnight, the heating process would still continue for at least another couple of hundred years. The course has been set, now the rest of the world needs to come together and reverse the trend. Obviously when powerful and countries with massive emissions like America don't ratify the Kyoto Treaty then the world has a problem. The Kyoto treaty itself is a drop in the bucket, it basically asks the countries producing the largest amounts of greenhouse gases to reduce their emissions by small percentages. The United Sates of America was asked to reduce their emissions by roughly 6% of their emission levels recorded in 1990, yet shockingly they still failed to agree to those terms. It will take an effort by everyone. But even that effort will not completely save Bangladesh, international assistance is a must and we need it right now.

Dr Islam says, “there are three things to take into account when talking about climate change mitigation, impact assessment and adaptation. Bangladesh has nothing to do with mitigations, we don't produce enough harmful gases to have any impact there. Yet that does not mean it is not an important topic to us. The rest of the world must take the responsibility of mitigating factors that have led to this situation. Adaptation is important to our country because we will need to adapt and that too quite fast if we are to live with climate change. And very simply we don't have enough money to act, there are some projects but those are small. We need nation-saving amounts of money.”

Global warming, climate change whatever anyone calls it, Bangladesh is set to change like it has never done before. The effects will devastating and if we don't act now, our children will have to suffer from it. To say we are a sinking ship would be a little dramatic, even worse and far more real would be to say that we are a sinking nation. The world did this to us, now it's time it helps us.

Source: STAR Weekend Magazine, Volume 6 Issue 13| April 6, 2007