Iraq

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Yesterday, the Conservative government put their ‘money’ where their words were, and officially joined the new coalition of the willing. As I write Canadian fighter jets have joined the mission in Syria and Iraq. The Conservative government is leading Canada into a war that they deem is a moral imperative, a war against the horrific evil of ISIS and their genocidal tendencies, and a war to uphold the values of humanity.

Given the razor thin lines drawn by this Conservative rhetoric, either you are for war, that is, in favor of a military intervention against ISIS, or you’re giving a free pass for human rights to be trampled, or perhaps even worse, you are a de facto ”ally” of the ideology which drives ISIS.

In Bushian terms either you’re part of the ”Free World” or you’re part of the axis of evil.

I couldn’t contain my profound amazement, uncomforting disbelief and utter bewilderment (and yes, I went through all of those states of emotion in merely five minutes; it was one heck of an emotional rollercoaster ride), as I heard our beloved Minister of Foreign Affairs John Baird, making the government’s pitch for a military intervention, address the House of Commons the other day.

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The centerpiece of his argument was, believe it or not, women’s rights. Yes; women’s rights. During his fiery intervention, John Baird said that ‘his’ Canada didn’t sit on the sidelines while people were being massacred, blatant disregard for human rights was being done, and innocent women and children were being purposefully targeted.

In his words, it was Canada’s ultimate moral duty to intervene, in order to prevent such things from happening. At the end of the speech, you got this feeling that this was a moment John Baird had long dreamed about. Surely, he had dreamt as a child that one day he would be the champion of the oppressed, of the marginalized, and the champion of those ”lost causes” and that he heartfeltly would rise to the occasion and save Canada’s honour, and in doing so also that of the world.

That would be great story, wouldn’t it? Unfortunately, this is not a dream, this is a nightmare. The Conservative government so far has been a nightmare instilling terror into the hearts of thousands of Canadian citizens. When it comes to upholding human rights, women’s rights, and minority rights, the Conservative government has done Canada, or at least the idea people once had of Canada, a huge dishonor.

No matter how imbued with beautiful lyricism the rhetoric is, mere rhetoric cannot change facts. The Conservative government may paint itself as the Fidei Defensor of women and women’s rights all it wants, but that won’t change the fact that more than 1200 Indigenous women are missing or have been murdered, and that the Conservative government has done nothing to prevent this systemic problem, because, in their words, it isn’t a systemic problem whatsoever. If we were to apply Conservative logic here, than the Conservative government would be siding with criminals, rapists and murderers.

As the Conservative government stood-up, shouted, cheered and celebrated their mission in Iraq by high-fiving each other, what were they really cheering for? Were they cheering for the innocent lives would be saved, or were they applauding this historic decision, and the fact that, now, in some deranged egomaniac way, their names would be forever in books of Canadian history? Maybe they were applauding the idea that, after an awful summer and few months, this war would be their saving grace?

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One thing is certain: this Conservative government will go down in infamy. If any of the joyous Conservatives thought that the vote on the war was ”their historical moment”, don’t fret about it guys, you already have that covered! For hundreds of impoverished and marginalized communities, and the cuts this Conservative government have made to essential social services, will continue to strike terror in the hearts of many, even after this Conservative regime is long gone. For Indigenous communities, the blatant discrimination of this Conservative government has exacted upon them, will be a wound that Canadian society will have much difficulty in healing. For women, the assault Harper’s administration has launched indirectly against their fundamental rights, is a terrorizing reminder that the misogynist ghosts of Canada’s past are still alive and well.

So this is my little advice to this Conservative government. If you’re really hell-bent on stopping ”terror”, in upholding human-rights, then you have two options. Either vote yourselves out of office or declare a war on yourselves. How can a government that has created such an environment of terror, claim to fight terror effectively on the other side of the world? The war on terror starts by looking at the person in the mirror. It starts right here on home soil.

A luta continua.

 

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As I’m writing these words this morning, the situation is becoming direr for the Kurdish resistance in Kobane. So far, the resistance has bravely faced the 22 days long assault lead by ISIS. Meanwhile, here in the West, there are a lot of conflicting views regarding the supposed defeat or victory of the People’s Protection Units (YPG). One thing is for sure, though. The struggle of the PKK and the YPG will go down in history and may have the opportunity to mobilize the whole of Kurdish people in a renewed struggle for “national’’ liberation.

Protests erupted yesterday in the Northern Iraqi Kurdish Autonomous Region, Turkey, in Rojava (the Syrian portion of Kurdistan), and Iran in support of the Kurdish resistance in Kobane, but also in support of what has come to be known as the Rojava Revolution: the struggle to establish a network of autonomous communes, which function within a framework of radical direct democracy.

Unfortunately the spontaneous uprising of thousands, if not tens of thousands of Kurds throughout Kurdistan and beyond was met with tear gas and violence by the Turkish authorities. The clashes between Turkish law enforcers and protesters claimed several lives as of the latest news.

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“ISIS murderer, AKP complicit.” From a protest in Istanbul, Turkey on September 21, 2014.

Meanwhile, the United Nations called for direct action in support of the Kurdish combatants to prevent a massacre. Several Western government officials have also voiced their concerns about what they think will definitely be a major military setback, if ISIS were to overrun the Kurdish forces in Kobane. So what’s preventing the Western powers from attacking ISIS? Wasn’t that exactly the main reason for our intervention?

Many of the proponents of an intervention against ISIS have championed the idea, that without the support of the Turkish government, the long-term defeat of ISIS seems implausible, and that in order to defeat ISIS any international coalition needs Turkish support. This being said, however, think, for instance, of the picturesque moment, when Turkish tanks turned their backs on Kobane. If the non-involvement of the Turkish forces is an indication of anything, it is that the Turkish government has no interest in stopping ISIS’s assault against Kobane.

Little is known of the Turkish “non-involvement” in the past three years during the war in Syria, but one thing is certain. The policy of “non-involvement” was merely a façade. There is strong evidence that the Erdogan administration, in a strategic gamble to topple both the Assad regime and prevent the establishment of a Kurdish autonomous enclave in Syria, allowed the smuggling of weapons and of jihadists through Turkey to ISIS. There are also allegations that Turkey was complicit in helping ISIS find commercial outlets to sell its oil. Isn’t that amazing? Somehow, all major contributors of this so-called coalition of the willing, United States, Britain, Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, have contributed in some shape or form directly in establishing ISIS’s hegemony in the region.

Given that the Turkish government has for decades fought the PKK (the Kurdish Workers’ Party, the Marxist wing of the Kurdish resistance) and oppressed the Kurdish people’s right to self-determination, in Turkey and throughout the region, it’s not surprising that as of today Turkey has no interest in saving Kobane.

It is my firm belief that that not only do global left-wing movements have a lot to learn from the Rojava Revolution, but the fate of these movements is undeniably linked to the struggle of the Kurdish forces in Kobane.

The revolutionary thesis of Rojava is the overcoming the paradigm of the nation-state. The theory of democratic confederalism, which was theorized by the previous and now jailed leader of the PKK, Abdullah Öcalan, in the first volume of his prison notebooks entitled the Roots of Civilization. Drawing extensively from the theories of libertarian municipalism, social ecology, and communalism, notably elaborated by Murray Bookchin, the PKK have succeeded in creating a radical new blueprint not only for left-wing movements in the region but also throughout the world.

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The PKK, through the KCK (Group of Communities in Kurdistan), has created a unique synthesis of eco-socialism with an important emphasis on the aspects of the notion of ungrowth; decentralized libertarian socialism, with the setting-up of a unique structure of decentralized and communal direct democracy; and of feminist and alter-globalization theories through the deconstruction of the theory of the nation-state, the participation and citizenship of all of the diverse array of ethnic groups enshrined in their constitution.

It is my heartfelt wish that it won’t, but Kobane may fall, like the workers’ councils of Barcelona fell to the hands of Franco’s fascist thugs during the Spanish Civil War, but its memory and the project will live on. For the sake of humanity, it is our duty to support and to remember the awesome struggle and ideal of the Rojava Revolution. It is my wish, that through the lessons learnt from Kobane and the Rojava Revolution, we will see the dawn of a reinvigorated Kurdish struggle, and also the dawn of a new chapter in left-wing movements.

Amidst the chaos unleashed by the opening of the Pandora’s Box that is neo-liberal capitalism, Kobane is the Thermopylae of the Kurdish people and of everyone who dares to dream a better future for all of humanity.

A luta continua.

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We’re in the thick of it, there’s nothing else to say. All the international credibility gained out of Canada’s decision not to intervene in the Second Gulf War under Jean Chrétien’s leadership was lost in the blink of an eye, when Harper announced Friday that Canada would be sending its troops into combat (airstrikes specifically, no ground troops at this time). The thing is, Canada’s “official” intervention is only two days old, but it is already gearing up to be a disaster of gigantic proportions, and ultimately an utter failure that will only delay, but not prevent, the coming of another ISIS.

Canada might have given its green light for a full scale intervention only two days ago, but the coalition of the willing — which ironically includes Saudi Arabia and Qatar, two of the patrons of the radical interpretation of Islam promoted by ISIS — has been on the ground for around a month now. What are the conclusions that can be drawn? After one month, what is the future for this war? What new day is dawning on the horizon?

Well, to say the least, it’s a very dark one. The black clouds that arose from the ruins of the Kurdish bastion of resilience, Kobane, gave us, spectators, a little glimpse into the future of this mission.

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The women of Kobane have armed themselves to fight against ISIS.

As thousands of Kurdish fighters held back the reoccurring, never-ending assaults of ISIS against the town, Turkish tanks stood still — not much of a surprise —and Western jets flew on by. The battle of Kobane is a central one for the survival of the Kurdish struggle within northern Syria. Unfortunately the lightly armed Kurds are fighting against the much stronger ISIS forces, ironically, using American artillery and weapons to besiege the town.

The hypocrisy of the Western forces and of their Turkish allies is obvious. They most certainly see this so-called humanitarian intervention, first and foremost, as a means towards an end: the eradication of the PKK and any viable Kurdish autonomous authority in the region.

In one of my articles concerning the conflict I wrote extensively about the “revival” of the Kurdish struggle for self-determination and their project of asymmetric federalism. There, I referred to their struggle and to this project as an alternative form of governance for the peoples of the region and a strong vaccination against the rise of organizations such as ISIS. Three weeks down the path of war, and it seems like Kobane will fall within a matter of days, or even hours, even though this humanitarian intervention was supposed to prevent such a tragedy from happening.

One month into this humanitarian intervention, and the American State Department has already announced that it was anything but humanitarian anymore. The White House announced today that civilian protection policy does not apply to the airstrikes in Syria. Apparently, protecting civilians in areas under rebel control from the wrath and vengeance of Syrian government forces is not part of the plan either. Within the past month much of the ground that was lost during the past three years by Assad has been regained. The bloodthirsty and mad dictator, whom the interventional community vigorously condemned for the usage of chemical weapons against his own people, is on cloud nine.

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Can you believe it? The Americans are actually winning Assad’s war for him. Instead of mobilizing and building strong alliances with the secular and progressive sections of the Free Syrian Army, we actually bombed them last week. So much for wining “hearts and minds!” We’re actually losing them, as the ISIS ranks are filled with thousands, if not tens of thousands of young disenchanted Westerners, who turned to radicalism after years of discrimination and racism, and after years of seeing on the TV their Muslim sisters and brothers suffer excruciating pain in Iraq, Palestine or at the hands of any other Western backed dictatorial regimes.

Radicalism’s fuel is war, and unfortunately, through this war, we have swelled the reserves of hatred, of anger, of despair and of pain, everything ISIS was born out of, to last for a generation or two. If you believed the magical fairytale that whatever is happening was a humanitarian intervention, that we, the West, the ardent defenders of human rights, were on a courageous crusade against evil, that just like communism and fascism, this totalitarian evil of radical Islamism had to be quelled, you were wrong. Don’t be fooled. We are reviving ISIS. We created the conditions for it. We are reenacting them as we speak and what will come out of this third intervention in the Middle East might be more horrendous than anything our imaginations can grasp.

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To quote Katie Nelson, “When Global uses ‘unreal’ as an adjective you know it’s worth watching!” Yes, the scene in the Canadian Parliament a few days ago can only be described as unreal or rather surreal.

Thomas Mulcair, the leader of the Official Opposition, New Democratic Party (NDP), was trying to get some specifics out of the government about Canadian deployment in Iraq. Instead of responding to Mulcair’s very clear question, Conservative MP Paul Calandra, the Prime Minister’s Parliamentary Secretary, brought up some statement an NDP staffer had made earlier about Israel.

Mulcair’s initial response, before calling on the speaker to intervene after a second non-answer from the Harper government, was priceless. Watch it for yourself:

While I’ve heard Muclair use sarcasm effectively before, this response impressed me for another reason: he didn’t take the bait.

That wasn’t the case a few months ago. Following a struggle with the NDP base over his initial statements on the assault on Gaza that saw office occupations, and culminated with a sort of mea culpa op-ed in the Toronto Star, a lone MP, Sana Hassainia, quit the party and blamed it on Mulcair’s recent support of Israel.

Instead of a simple statement acknowledging Hassainia’s resignation, Mulcair echoed some of the statements the NDP faithful had been criticizing him for, breaking the party peace he had just regained. He took the bait.

It’s not hard to imagine someone in the Harper war room taking note of that and concluding that if a random MP could get a rise out of the leader by bringing up Israel, they could surely do the same. It’s also not hard to imagine a memo going out saying something like: “If you don’t want to answer a question from Mulcair, bring up Israel, it’s a sore spot!”

If that was their plan, it failed spectacularly this week. It did not result in any NDP in-fighting, but Calandra has become the poster boy for CPC caginess when it comes to serious issues to the point that mainstream media called it unreal. I, for one, really would like to hear an actual answer to that question.

Mulcair learned his lesson. But that’s not the only reason he’s impressed me as of late.

A few weeks ago, after the conservatives refused yet another request for an inquiry into missing and murdered native women, Mulcair promised one within the first hundred days should he be elected Prime Minister. The NDP followed up by forcing a debate in parliament on the issue. Have a look at that, too:

To be fair, Trudeau also wants an inquiry. Honestly, anyone not wanting an inquiry into this is confounding. Trudeau is not prioritizing it, though. The NDP has the lead on this one.

Meanwhile the only thing I see in the news about Trudeau is that he kissed the bride at a wedding, that both of his parents got laid a lot, and that he has a problem with Ezra Levant and Sun News. I honestly don’t think he actually has a problem with them: hate from Sun brings votes on the left.

Sun, along with the rest of mainstream media, is fully on board the Trudeau versus Harper bandwagon, even though very little separates the two candidates policy-wise. Until recently, I didn’t really care, because Mulcair’s NDP wasn’t offering much of an alternative.

Now, that has changed. Now, the NDP is offering a solid alternative to the Harper approach on some issues. I’d love to see Mulcair reverse his position on Energy East, come out strongly for weed legalization, and against Harper’s re-criminalization of sex work, but I accept that he needs to start somewhere and this is a good start.

Many in the mainstream media say that Mulcair is a star in the House of Commons, but loses the soundbite war to Trudeau. Maybe, just maybe, that’s because in parliament, the NDP is given the respect and place in the discourse that should be accorded to the Official Opposition, whereas the media has already bought the Liberals vs. Conservatives angle as they have for years.

I could have been making observations like this months ago, but didn’t really see the point. Now I do.

If Mulcair and the NDP stay on this course and keep fighting the good fights, they will be giving people like me something truly different to vote for.

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In my latest article about Stephen Harper’s grand folly of wanting another military intervention in Iraq, I painted a very bleak picture, criticizing the third Western intervention in Iraq from a purely Canadian perspective.

In this article I would like take another approach, through the Orientalist lenses of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) military and political elite.

One of the biggest fallacies of this whole affair, the need for Western intervention, walks hand in hand with a relatively unnoticed undertone: the concept of Western domination. It appears to be, that, in this day and age, the word “Western” is the exclusive adjective for interventions, which suggests that the notion of a non-Western intervention is just a ludicrous idea. Obviously, international interventions can only be Western.

Libyans Revel In New Freedom As Hunt For Gaddafi Continues

Thus, because the West is only part of the world that apparently has the right to intervene, it considers itself as the center of world, and the rightful guardians of world peace. This is a fundamental factor of the humanitarian arguments calling for intervention, but these humanitarian arguments are merely made up to dissimulate the underlying neo-imperialist ideology. Intervention is not only possible if done by the West, but it is only acceptable if done by the West — the events in Ukraine are a good illustration of this.

The current wave of Western interventionism we have been seeing in Iraq and Syria is rooted in Orientalism. Orientalism is the product of a Eurocentric vision of the world, which dates back to the 18th and 19th centuries. The notion of Orientalism, developed notably in Edward Said’s work by the same name, is that the “West knows best.” All Middle Eastern societies — and all non-Western societies in general for that matter — are undeveloped, static and archaic, and this is why they produce radical groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and terrorists. These societies have to be brought into the light of modernity and globalized capitalism through Western intervention — directly, or indirectly, and whether they like it or not.

As I explained in my previous article, the third “coalition of the willing“ is unprepared and offers only short-term superficial solutions; oxymoronic solutions, such as: dropping bombs to rebuild a strong Iraq. A perpetual déjà vu!

Is it that the veil of Orientalism has blinded the Western elites to such an extent that they’re now incapable of taking any other approach?

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No! To see Orientalism as some sort of a naive, archaic ideology is wrong. It is an idea that has evolved and has been adapted to modern times. It is omnipresent in our language. The “international community,” NATO, and “humanitarian intervention” are just a few examples of its manifestations. Orientalism, which now fuels this third “humanitarian intervention” in Iraq, is an ideology of domination, which is used to justify neo-imperialist attitudes.

Unfortunately this Orientalist approach completely omits the only viable solution, which is self-determination and autonomy for the diverse array of communities that inhabit the region. The Kurds in an initiative spearheaded by the the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) have proven through their military victories against ISIS that self-determination is the best firewall against radicalism.

For instance, ISIS is the direct consequence of Western Orientalism, and the belief that centralized powerful dictatorships are necessary to impose law and order, in a very Hobbesian manner, on the uncultured masses of the Levant. ISIS is the direct consequence of an ideology, which argues that it is possible to “build” a nation from scratch, in the 21st century. This is expected to be done in the same manner as it was done after the First World War, by drawing meaningless borders and hoping to bring about stability. Needless to say, that experiment was a dreadful failure.

In opposition to this foreign belief that the peoples of the Middle East are somehow incapable of sorting out their own affairs, is the idea of Democratic Confederalism: a communal form of self-governance that has been applied by some sections of the Kurdish authorities, notably by the PKK. Throughout the Kurdish Autonomous Region in Northern Iraq, several new forms of participatory and autonomous self-governance have taken root. It is the main explanation for the era of stability and prosperity the Kurdish people have come to know, since the downfall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003. For the time being, the Kurdish authorities have been able to apply a new radical form of federalism, but unfortunately they’re still prisoners of the oil industry.

And maybe that’s the main problem: the suffocating grip that the oil multinationals and their cronies have throughout the region.

Self-determination will always be a step away from completion until oil is the object and not the subject of control. Democratization of the extraction of natural resources is a necessity for the development of true autonomy. And this is why any movement striving to define new spaces of self-determination in the Middle East is automatically an enemy of the world’s economic elites. The PKK is currently considered a terrorist organization in the same vein as is ISIS by the “international community”.

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The main reason behind this never-ending “War on Terror” is the perpetual destabilization of the Middle East, through a divide and conquer strategy of instilling brutal dictatorships and a reign of terror. This has been ongoing ever since the mid-1920s, when Western powers decided to divide the region into imaginary states and zones of influence. The main weapon of the “War on Terror” is terror, and this is why it is a vicious, self-fulfilling cycle.

The Kurdish model is a glimmer of hope in a windwhirl of chaos. The decentralized model of Kurdish communities is a blueprint for something that has the capacity to shift the balance of power from the hands of an elite, from the hands of a few to the hands of the many. This is the only solution, if put into action, that might end the state of perpetual war, and the era of “Western intervention” in the region. Yet this isn’t in the interest of those, who profit from such chaos.

A luta continua.

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So, here we go again. Thirteen years after the tragedy at the World Trade Center on September 11, and eleven years after the beginning of the Second Gulf War, a coalition of the ‘’willing’’ is being put together to salvage the what remains of Iraqi democracy.

But let’s be clear here. There is nothing ‘’humanitarian’’ about this third intervention in Iraq, and neither will it resolve anything. Sorry Stevie.

When the lessons of the past aren’t learned properly, or when they’re thrown purposefully into the trash bin, the missteps of the past become the fatal mistakes of the future. As the saying goes: History repeats itself first as tragedy, second as farce. But I don’t know what would it be the third time around. A comical apocalypse? The question that must be asked and yet isn’t being asked by the mainstream media is quite simple: Why? Why again? Why us? Why should we think this will help?

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Soldier looks as Saddam Hussein’s statue is toppled.

Once again, at a frantic pace, the Conservatives and the Liberals are trying to turn the debate regarding the Canadian intervention in Iraq into a Manichean argument, a choice between good and evil: Either you’re for boots on the ground, or you’re with the terrorists! Anything less than military intervention is, apparently, unthinkable. For them, the roots of Islamic terrorism have to be “bombed out,” and obliterated.

But then one must wonder: Isn’t this the same strategy that was also used or attempted in Afghanistan, Libya and Syria? Didn’t the international community, through their sponsorship of radical Islamic organizations, ease the toppling of several governments in the region? Didn’t Western governments, de facto, pave the way for the chaos and massacres that are currently unfolding? Yes, absolutely!

Using the same strategy, with the same problematic actors, yet still expecting a different outcome is insanity.

Blatant, disingenuous hypocrisy fuels the Conservative government’s foreign policy, especially when it comes to the so-called “war on terror.” This is the same hypocrisy employed by the Bush administration, which thought that terror could root out terror, that torture could save the world from cruelty, that bigotry and racism could shun bigotry and racism. Unfortunately, this ideology of fighting fire with fire has left the whole of Middle East in blazes.

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The Guantanamo Bay strategy, using brutal and cruel tactics to fight against brutality and cruelty, has utterly failed in the past and will utterly fail again, but this time around Canada will have indelible blood on its hands.

So, this is the non-strategy that the Conservative government and their Liberal allies are offering us on the silver platter of media: Military intervention with no timeline; no real notion of how many Canadian troops will be sent or what role they might serve; no strong local allies except for the dysfunctional Iraqi government, whose lack of legitimacy is the reason behind the current crisis; and no exit strategy.

As for the rhetorical fallacy of acting as “military advisors,” let’s remember, that back in the 1960s, US president Lyndon B. Johnson promised Americans, that the US’s role in Vietnam would only be an advisory one; we all know how that story turned out.

Maybe, deep down inside, Harper is waiting impatiently for his “Bushian moment.” Maybe he has developed some sort of a Bush complex —something that within the neo-conservative ranks is similar to the Napoleon complex — and this is the moment he has been waiting for all of his life?

How many lives will it take for his folie de grandeur to be exorcised?

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This past Sunday, with the backdrop of the escalating events in Iraq, Tony Blair, former British prime minister and prominent supporter of the 2003 Iraq invasion, set out on a crusade on his blog to justify a second western intervention in Iraq, just eleven years after the first bullets were fired in March 2003.

In his blog post, faithful to himself and his blatant intellectual dishonesty, Blair made the case that the current situation of Iraq had little, if not nothing at all, to do with the nine year occupation of the country by the “coalition of the willing”. This of course was spearheaded none other than himself and his American partner in crime, former President of the United States of America George W. Bush.

It appeared clearly through Blair’s lyrical rendition, that if fault for the current unrest in Iraq laid with anyone, it was certainly with Iraq’s political elite and the Islamic fundamentalists under the banner of Islamic state in Iraq and the Sham —aka ISIS. Later during the week, this statement was echoed by current American President Barrack Obama, who stated on CNN that the west — read here the United States and the United Kingdom — had given Iraq “the chance to have an inclusive democracy” and that the only form of American intervention on the table was a strategic one to “protect national interests.”

As the events unfold at a velocious pace in the current Middle East geopolitical context, it is very important to pause and replace these statements in a historical perspective that encompasses the dominant foreign policy lines that have guided western intervention in the region since the end of the Second World War.

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(l-r) Dwight D. Eisenhower, King Saud and Richard Nixon

The major historical element that is disregarded too often, and without which an understanding of western invention is always incomplete, is the Eisenhower Doctrine. The special message to the Congress on the situation in the Middle East is – until this day – the backbone of American interventionism in the Middle East and the foundation of American foreign policy with regards to Middle Eastern politics.

In many ways, the Doctrine is more of a strategic alliance with the Saudi strain of Wahhabism, which is an ultra-orthodox reading of the teachings of Islam, against the mounting influence of Nasserite socialism and Ba’athlism, pan-Arab socialism that was a major threat to American domination of the region in the mid twentieth century. In many ways it was the continuation of the divide and conquer  strategy which was espoused by both British and French colonial regimes after the First World War. The objective to split the Arab world into various fractions, and playing these fractions against one another, thus assuring the paramount position of western influence in the region, and the foiling of any pan-Arabist dream.

The reason behind the Eisenhower Doctrine and the emphasis that French and British colonial regimes instigated pseudo ethnic, tribal and religious division was to protect their national interests, the most important being of course the control of the primordial natural resource: petrol.

In the name of natural security and democracy, democratically elected governments were toppled such as the Iranian government of Mossaddegh  in 1953 when his administration made the bold move to nationalize the petroleum industry, or when Islamist extremist militant groups were funded to make the case for right-wing autocratic dictatorships which seated their power on being the final rampart against the Islamists.

But all in all, the gurus of American foreign policy fancied more the chances of advancing their agenda and “protecting their national interests” with the help of Islamist fundamentalists and autocratic regimes than with socialist ones, or left-wing movements be they religious or secular. This is why America has always openly supported the most backwards regime in the region, Saudi Arabia.

waronterror_Frank151It’s a known fact that Saudi Arabia has financed extremist Islamist groups. A current example is their unequivocal support for Islamist forces in the ongoing Syrian conflict. Not only do the Saudis offer financial support to such organizations, but also offer them with logistical support and cover.

The current situation in Iraq and Syria is but another chapter in a covert operation to maintain a managed form of chaos in the region that benefits none other than big western oil companies and corrupt oil drunk dynasties, all which promote extreme Islamist theories outside of their borders and repress them within. The War on Terror of which the Iraq War was a part, a war which was called by its main instigators a war against fear for freedom and democracy (and whatever other amalgamation of buzzwords that fit in sound bites) is anything but a war against terror.

Quite to the contrary, in fact, The War on Terror resulted in utter chaos and the destruction of a strong and viable pan-Arab movement which would have fostered an alternative to the Western colonial and neo-colonial domination of the region and the Saudi reactionary agenda. The War on Terror served an interest: the interest of those that first sowed the seeds of terror within the Middle East and whom without terror would cease to hold such a firm grasp on the petroleum reserves and the cash flow that coincides.

On the 30th of July, 762 (Christian calendar) while all of the “western” world was still engulfed in the dark ages, the city of Baghdad was built, a magnificent place of knowledge and architectural resplendence. Today Baghdad and the magnificent city of Damascus are piles of rubble, ruins, shadows of their former selves. The real terrorists aren’t the ones you might be afraid of.

A luta continua.

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As I clicked on yet another internet petition, this time designed to stop the reckless destruction of Oceanic Eco-systems ( AAVAZ.ORG “24 hours to end Ocean clear-cuts”), I realized that I was participating in what has become an increasingly alarming or encouraging trend, depending on how you look at it, in political activism: the internet social network driven protest. In a 2007 interview with CNN, Canadian celebrity lefty and best-selling author Naomi Klein made the following observation about this novel form of registering one’s anger over alleged injustices: “It’s safer to mouth off in a blog than put your body on the line. The Internet is an amazing organizing tool but it also acts as a release, with the ability to rant and get instant catharsis. It’s taken that sense of urgency away.”

Despite her quasi-celebrity status, Ms. Klein has no time for what she calls “Bono-ization” of the protest movement. A phenomenon whereby celebrities take on popular cause célèbre (i.e. developing world debt) and lobby governments (I.e. Paul Martin) to take action. This may alleviate some of our guilt in the developed world over the seemingly horrible social and economic inequities that have been caused, in part, by the globalization of the economy, but it is, in her view, a kind of vicarious protest, at best, and very unlikely to put serious pressure on politicians or cause any substantive changes at the policy level.

In the interview, Ms. No Logo goes on to urge us to take our protest to the next level by leaving the comfort of our homes and getting involved in confrontational, and indeed, potentially dangerous direct action type protests. “We have had mass social movements that are messy — and that leads to some kind of negotiation and some kind of representation. What I see from the Bono camp is that they dismiss street protest as a bunch of gripers, whereas they (Bono) are being constructive because they are engaging with power”

While I would concede that online petitions lack the drama of street protests and direct action, I’m also skeptical about the possibility of finding causes that will truly bring people out on to the streets in an effort to change the hearts & minds of our leadership and the general public. The cynicism with which most people view mass demonstrations is unfortunate but understandable, and is related to the inability of recent movements to reverse the course of governments in certain highly controversial cases. Take the anti Iraq war protests, for instance. Massive protests were held all over the world, including Canada, against this war (over a million turned up in London alone!). The result of this: In Britain, at least, absolutely nothing. The Blair government had already crossed the Rubicon, and decided to join the US on its inexorable path to war. In the face of such appalling disregard for the voices of protesters, can anyone really blame people for being less and less likely to take to the streets? Bono may look ridiculous sometimes, mugging for the international press in the company of war criminal and buffoons like former president George W. Bush, but there is little doubt that his heart is in the right place as he attempts to persuade world leaders to address the issues of poverty and the growing disparity between haves & have nots.

But the greatest rebuttal to this plea for less internet activism and more traditional forms of protests must surely be the recent examples of internet activism that led to actual revolutions in places such as Egypt and Tunisia. Let’s never forget that so many of these protesters were able to co-ordinate their actions through the social networks (i.e. Twitter). Not to mention, disseminate the latest news from the street to the whole world using internet activism, giving us all the vicarious thrill of participating in a bona-fide old school revolutionary movement! The likes of which hasn’t been seen since the end of the cold war.

PoliticsQuiet Mikes Mumblings

Last week in parliament, Liberal Gerard Kennedy’s private member’s bill to grant U.S. military deserters permanent residency in Canada, died at the second reading by a vote of 143 to 136.

All conservatives voted against the bill along with some of Kennedy’s Liberal associates. The bill would have allowed military deserters from any country to apply for permanent residence as conscientious objectors to armed conflicts not sanctioned by the United Nations.

Conservatives bickered that the existing bill made it possible for deserters who might be unacceptable, based on war crimes or other offenses, to stay in Canada. Apparently, conservatives don’t know how to read.

The bill would have allowed deserters to apply for permanent residency, I’m pretty sure the immigration department knows how to reject applications. I also don’t see any war criminals seeking refuge in Canada. In fact, the war criminals are the people many of the conscientious objectors are running from.

Estimates say there is currently between three to four hundred American military deserters in Canada. Of the hundreds, Rodney Watson is one of the best known among them. An Iraq war veteran, Watson was forced under the military’s stop-loss program to return to Iraq for a second tour, but came to Canada in defiance.

Iraq War Resister Rodney Watson

The Conservative government ordered Watson to leave Canada on September 11, 2009. Watson then appealed to the First United Church in Vancouver for sanctuary and has now been living there for more than a year while he awaits a decision to let him stay on humanitarian grounds. “I did not return to Iraq because it is a war of aggression based on lies about weapons of mass destruction. I witnessed U.S. soldiers beating Iraqi civilians and using racist terms,” Watson said

During the Vietnam War, tens of thousands of Americans came to Canada to avoid the draft. The conservatives that were against this bill claimed that is the difference between then and now. Americans have a choice these days with an all volunteer army. “This is not a conscripted army, this is a volunteer army,” said Conservative MP Laurie Hawn, “If the deserters have issues with that, they should stay in their own country and fight it out in their own courts.”

Of course it’s not that simple. With the Conservatives blind support of Mr. Bush’s war; they still have no sight to see that the war itself was illegal. Attacking an unarmed nation unprovoked and unsanctioned by the UN is a war crime and under the Nuremberg principles anyone who fights in an illegal war is a war criminal, Nuremberg Principle IV states: “The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.” The conservative government is not giving these “deserters” that choice.

We are effectively preventing these resisters from doing their duty as human beings by not allowing them to stay in Canada. If it wasn’t one of our allies that invaded a sovereign nation without just cause, I’m sure Harper would be welcoming them with open arms instead of pursuing them like criminals. The only criminals here are those in the former Bush Administration.

So while Rodney Watson sits patiently with his family in a Vancouver church and hundreds more await their fate, please do not sit idly by and leave these men in the hands of our narrow-minded government. Write a letter to your member of parliament, better yet, write a letter to Harper himself. http://www.pm.gc.ca/eng/contact.asp?featureId=10

See also: http://www.resisters.ca/

PoliticsQuiet Mikes Mumblings

More than seven years have passed since George Bush Jr. declared an end to major combat missions in Iraq in front of a big “mission accomplished” banner aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln. In that speech, Bush said “The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September 11, 2001.” It didn’t take long for most people to realize the validity of that entire statement (like the war itself) was false.

George W. Bush… Ahead of his time

Last week was Barack Obama’s turn. In a national televised address he formally brought an end to US combat operations in Iraq and proclaimed it was time for America “to turn the page.” Not once did he mention victory and rightfully so.

In the seven years and 165 days since the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom, Americans have seen a million and a half servicemen enter Iraq with more than forty-four hundred leaving in a flag draped coffin. More than thirty thousand men and women returned home wounded or missing limbs and tens of thousands more have enjoyed their homecoming with post traumatic stress disorder or other illnesses brought on by chemical weapons used such as white phosphorous.

In financial terms, the war was predicted by the Bush administration to cost about fifty to sixty billion dollars in 2003…they were a little off. Up until Obama’s speech, economists say that the cost for the American tax payer was an estimated three trillion dollars (accounting for both government expenses and the war’s broader impact on the U.S. economy). Let me repeat that a little louder so you can grasp the notion of THREE TRILLION DOLLARS! That’s a number three followed by twelve zeros! Imagine what could have been done with that money; give every American an electric car, send everyone to college for free, solve world hunger… cure cancer?

The True cost to Iraqis

Obviously the real cost of the conflict was the price that Iraqis paid themselves, mostly with their lives. At least a hundred thousand Iraqi lives have been lost, but experts and household polls put the number of excess Iraqi deaths from half a million
to 1.2 million. They have no estimate of how many Iraqis have been wounded or fallen ill from chemicals or their weakened infrastructure,
but you can be sure it’s rather high. There have also been at least two million Iraqis that have been
displaced, many going to Jordan and Syria for safety.

In the lead up to the invasion, Americans were given several reasons for going to war; the first case was that Saddam Hussein had connections to 9/11, but the most notorious of grounds was the fear of Saddam Hussein having weapons of mass destruction. That same fear was repeated daily, culminating with Colin Powell’s infamous presentation at the UN general assembly. When both of those rationales proved to be false, the new basis for the invasion was quickly changed to “overthrow of Saddam Hussein for the good of the Iraqi people”.

Colin Powell and his fake vial of anthrax

Little did anyone know at the time, but it turned out that Iraq was better off with the Stalinist Saddam Hussein at the helm. During Saddam’s 35 year rule, the Iraqi deaths caused by Saddam’s regime amounted to a maximum of six hundred thousand, excluding those lost in his American funded war with Iran. As many Iraqis have said “at least our power stayed on back then.”

Now that this war is officially over and there is relative peace, it remains to be seen how long it will last. There are still just under fifty thousand US troops remaining in the country to train and assist the Iraqi military. In the eyes of militants and insurgents, fifty thousand troops can be seen as fifty thousand targets and if there is another breakout of sectarian violence, Americans can easily find themselves back where they started, much like Afghanistan…

At least this time Barack Obama unlike his predecessor chose his words carefully.