Just Commentary October 2013

Vol 13, No.10 October 2013

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ARTICLES

ISRAEL’S HISTORY OF CHEMICALWEAPONS USE

.NAIROBI AND PESHAWAR: THE FUTILITY OF TERROR TACTICS BY CHANDRA MUZAFFAR........................P4STATEMENTS

. ‘FATWA ACTIVISM’ VERSUS ‘EDUCATIONAL ACTIVISM’BY MAULANA WAHIDUDDIN KHAN........................P 9

. ‘SHUTDOWN’: CHINA’S XI UPSTAGES OBAMA’S ASIA PIVOT

BY NILE BOWIE...................................................P 6

By Elias Akleh

. “THE OIL IS OURS”- BUT ITS SECRETS ARE THE NSA’SBY FABIANA FRAYSSINET......................................P 7

.THE CHARITABLE- INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

BY PETER BUFFETT.................................................P 10

The UN chemical weapons inspectors,who went to Syria to investigate the

use of chemical weapons, should havestopped on their way at OccupiedPalestine (Israel), where Israeligovernment has the largest stockpile ofchemical and other WMD in the entireMiddle East. They would have found alot of evidence and witness accounts ofIsraeli use of chemical, as well asbiological and nuclear, weapons againstthe Palestinians and their Arabneighbors. The attacks started in May1948 and are still going on in one form oranother.

The Zionist gangs under the directiveand leadership of David Ben-Gurion, whobecame the first Israeli Prime Minister, hadadopted a military policy of genocide,extermination and total destruction of theindigenous Palestinian inhabitants andtheir towns in order to evacuate the landfor outsider Zionist Jewish occupiers.The first WMD they used was biologicalweapons as documented by the

International Committee of the Red Cross(ICRC).

In May 1948 the Zionist gangs besiegedthe well-fortified Palestinian city of Acre,which could stand the siege for a longtime. The city water supply came from anearby village name Kabri through anaqueduct. To shorten the siege and toenter the city, the Zionist gangs injectedtyphoid in the aqueduct. ManyPalestinians and some 55 British soldiers,who were in the city, got infected. Thiscrime was called operation “ShlachLachmecha” as described by the Israelimilitary historian Urin Milstein [Wendy

Barnaby’s “ The Plague Makers: TheSecret World of Biological Warfare” ,London, Vision Paperbacks, 1997, pp 114-116]

The ICRC delegate Mr. De Meuron, senta series of reports under the reference ofG59/1/GC, G3/82, from 6 th to about 19 thof May 1948 describing the conditions ofthe city population as struck by a suddentyphoid epidemic and requested effortsto combat it. The minutes of an emergencymeeting between Mr. De Meuron and theBritish Medical Services officers statedthat the infection was “water borne”.Burdened by the epidemic the city felleasy prey to the Zionist gangs, who wentinto a killing spree and a systematic lootingcampaign as reported by LieutenantPetite, a French UN observer. He reportedthe cold-blooded murder of at least 100Arab civilians, who refused to evacuatethe city as ordered by the Zionists. Someof them were captured by the Zionistterrorists and were forced at gun point to

.THE SYRIA DEAL: DANGERS AND OPPORTUNITIES BY CHANDRA MUZAFFAR......................P5

I N T E R N A T I O N A L M O V E M E N T F O R A J U S T W O R L D

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L E A D A R T I C L E

drink cyanide; the case of Mohamed

Fayez Soufi is one example as

documented in “The Palestinian

Catastrophe” by Michael Palumbo.

This crime of poisoning Acre’s water

supply leading to the fall of the city, the

forceful evacuation of its inhabitants, and

the looting of its treasures, whetted the

appetite of the Zionists to repeat the

crime. They tried it again in Gaza against

the Egyptian forces, but failed. The two

Zionist infiltrators, who were sent on this

mission, were captured by the Egyptians.

The following cable was sent from the

commander of the Egyptian Forces in

Palestine to the General Headquarters in

Cairo:

“15.20 hrs, 24 May [1948]. Our

Intelligence forces captured two Jews,

David Horeen and David Mizrahi,

loitering around army positions. They

were interrogated and confessed they

had been sent by officer Moshe to poison

the army [and the peoples’] water supply.

They carried with them water bottles

divided in the middle. The top part has

potable water and the bottom part has a

liquid contaminated with typhoid and

dysentery, equipped with a rear opening

from which the liquid can be released.

They confessed they were members of

the 20-strong team sent from Rehovot for

the same purpose. Both have written their

confession in Hebrew and signed it. We

have taken the necessary medical

precautions.”

In his book “War Diary” Ben Gurion

confirmed the attack in an entry found

on 27 th of May 1948 where he stated:

“[Chief of Staff Yigal Yadin] picked up a

cable from Gaza saying they captured

Jews carrying malaria gems and gave

instructions not to drink water.” The

Israeli author Yeruham Cohen wrote more

about this cable in his book “ In Daylight

and Night Darkness” ; Tel Aviv, 1969,

pp66-68 (in Hebrew). The two Zionist

agents; Horeen and Mizrahi, broke out

of prison but were captured again and

executed.

The Zionist crimes did not stop then, but

targeted Egypt and Syria. On 22 nd of

July 1948 the [Palestinian] Higher Arab

Committee (AHC) submitted a 13-page

report to the UN accusing the Jews (the

term Israelis was not used then) of using

“inhumane” weapons and waging a

genocidal war against the Arabs through

the use of bacteria and germs. The report

accused the Jews of spreading Cholera

in Egypt and Syria in 1947/48. The award-

winning journalist, Thomas J. Hamilton

of the New York Times picked up the story

and published it on 24 th of July 1948.

During the summer of 1947 the United

Nations Special Committee on Palestine

(UNSCOP) was sent to Palestine and its

neighboring Arab states proposing the

partition of Palestine giving about 54%

of the land to new Jewish immigrants who

controlled only 6% of Palestine. Their

proposition was met with fierce

opposition from the only two strong Arab

countries; Egypt and Syria, recently freed

from the French Mandate. Syria was the

center of Arab resistance to foreign

occupation of any Arab country. Syria

had established training centers in

Qatana to prepare Arab volunteers to join

the Arab Rescue Army in Palestine.

Egypt and Syria, thus, became the main

targets of Zionist gangs.

In his 220-page continually updated

report under the title “Bioterrorism and

Biocrimes: The Illicit Use of Biological

Agents since 1900” Dr. W. Seth Carus of

the Center for Counterproliferation

Research, National Defense University,

Washington, DC, lists the following

subtitle p. 87: “Case 1947-01: Zionist

Terrorists 1947-1948.” He mentioned that

the cholera outbreaks in Egypt and Syria

had received extensive attention in the

press. The first report about the cholera

in Egypt was published in the Times of

London on 26 th September 1947 p.4. By

the time the final cases appeared in

January 1948 about 10,262 people had

died.

The cholera outbreak in Syria was first

reported by the New York Times on 22 nd

of December 1947 p. 5, but was limited to

only two towns, Carus stated. The Syrian

army formed a cordon sanitaire and the

casualties were limited to 44 including 18

deaths. Soon after, the Orient, a Lebanese

French-language newspaper reported

that several Zionist agents, who

employed the cholera germs to disrupt

the mobilization of the volunteers army

were arrested.

Assi, the son of Israeli General Moshe

Dayan, wrote in his memoir published in

Yediot that during the war his father

brought home tubes containing typhus .

He explained that the intent was to drop

these tubes into the water supply of the

Jordanian Legion. Before the plan was

implemented one of the tubes broke and

Assi got infected.

Naeim Giladi is an Iraqi Jew, who was lured

to Israel by Mossad agents in early

1950s. He was a zealot Zionist, who later

on left Israel after discovering its

barbarism and immigrated to the US. He

told the editor of The Link in New York

that he discovered that within the Israeli

Ashkenazi establishment “there was not

much opportunity for those of us who

were second class citizens. I began to find

out about the barbaric methods to rid the

fledgling state of as many Palestinians

as possible. The world recoils today at

the thought of bacteriological warfare,

but Israel was probably the first to

actually use it in the Middle East. Jewish

forces would empty Arab villages of their

population often by threats, sometimes

by gunning down a half-dozen young men

so that the Arabs could not return. The

Israelis put typhus and dysentery

bacteria in the water wells to prevent the

refugees from returning.” [The Link, Vol.

31 Issue 2, April-May 1998]


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Avner Cohen, a senior member at the

Center for International and Security

Studies, and the Program on Security and

Disarmaments at the University of

Maryland, wrote a comprehensive paper

on Israel’s chemical and biological

weapons. His paper titled “Israel and

Chemical/Biological Weapons: History,

Deterrence, and Arms Control” was

published in the Non-Proliferation

Review in autumn of 2001.

Cohen stated that Israel’s chemical

weapon started with David Ben Gurion’s

doctrine: “the destruction of the

Palestinian society in Palestine is a

necessary condition for the

establishment of the state of Israel on its

ruins. If Palestinians cannot be removed

by massacres and expulsion, they shall

be removed by extermination.” To

accomplish this extermination Ben Gurion

wrote a letter to Ehud Avriel, a member in

the Jewish Agency in Europe, ordering

him to recruit East European Jewish

scientists, who could “either increase

capacity to kill masses or to cure masses;

both are important.” Experts in

microbiology such as Ernst David

Bergmann, Avraham Marcus Klingberg

and the brothers Aharon and Ephraim

Katachalsky, were recruited to form the

Sceince Corps in the Haganah which later

was named HEMED. Later a new branch

within HEMED, devoted to biological

weapons was formed and called HEMED

BEIT. This branch is publically known as

Israel Institute for Biological Research

(IIBR) and it expropriated the mansion of

Shukri Al Taji; a Palestinian, near the

settlement of Nes Ziona as its research

center.

For years the IIBR center was developing

chemical and biological weapons in secret

until 4 th October of 1992 when El Al Flight

1862 crashed into a high-rise apartment

complex in Bijlmer, Amsterdam while on

its way to Tel Aviv carrying three

crewmen, one passenger and 114 tons of

freight. The crash was considered the

worst air disaster in Dutch history killing

at least 47 and destroying the health of

3000 Dutch residents. Cases of

mysterious illnesses, rashes, difficulty

in breathing, nervous disorders and

cancer began to sprout in that

neighborhood. After several years of

deep investigation Karel Knip, the

science editor in the Dutch daily NRC

Handelsbland, published in November

1999 the most detailed and factual report

about the workings of the IIBR.

Knip revealed that the plane was carrying

a shipment from Sokatronic Chemicals

of Morrisville, Pennsylvania to IIBR,

under the US Department of Commerce

license, in violation of the Chemical

Weapons Convention (CWC). Among

the shipment there were 50 gallons of

DMMP; a substance used to make a

quarter ton of the deadly nerve gas Sarin,

20 times as lethal as cyanide. He

discovered that at least 140 biological

weapon scientists from the IIBR have

strong links with Walter Reed Army

Institute, the Uniformed Services

University, the American Chemical and

Biological Weapons Center in Edgewood

and the University of Utah. He also

discovered close cooperation between

IIBR and the British-American biological

weapons programme, as well as extensive

collaboration on biological weapon

research with Germany and Holland,

which explains the reason for the Dutch

officials keeping silence over the crash

over Amsterdam.

The numbers and details of the Israeli

chemical and biological attacks against

Palestinians are many and require large

volumes to document. During the

Palestinian Intifada the Palestinian

youths were used as test subjects for

new chemical weapons; toxins and

incapacitants. James Brooks of “Just

Peace in Palestine/Israel” gave detailed

accounts of these attacks on civilians

day by day as they happened; describing

the severe convulsions, the burning

sensation, the difficulty to breathe, the

vomiting and pain the victims of these

attacks had suffered. The documentary

“Gaza Strip” , shot by the American

filmmaker James Longley, documents

Israel’s use of chemical weapons on Gaza

residents. Such attacks were repeated in

the West Bank cities of Al-Bireh and

Nablus. Dr. Khamis Al-Najjar, the director

of Cancer Research Center of the

Ministry of Health in Ramallah, Palestine,

highlighted in his February 3rd . 2003

report an alarming increase in cancer

cases, especially among women and

children. The report covers the period

between 1995-2000 and shows 3,646

cases, mostly women.

Israel’s continuous use of chemical/

biological weapons against Palestinians

was most prominent in March 2001,

October 2003, and June 2004 as

investigated by these reports. Israel also

used poison gas attacks against unarmed

Palestinian civilians in Gaza in February

2001 as documented here . Israeli Mossad

agents had also used chemical weapons

in their assassination attacks against

Palestinian leaders such as Hamas Leader

Khaled Mesh’al , and Mahmoud al-

Mabhouh, and are highly suspected of

using nuclear poison in assassinating

Yasser Arafat.

The whole world knows very well that

Israel has been manufacturing chemical,

biological and nuclear weapons, and has

the largest stockpile of these WMD in

the Middle Eastern region. In March 2003

the BBC television presented the

documentary “Israel’s Secret Weapon”

investigating Israel’s development of

chemical/biological/nuclear (CBN)

weapons.

The successive American

administrations are very well familiar with

Israel’s CBN weapons. The US Congress

Office of Technology Assessment titled

“Proliferation of Weapons of Mass

Destruction: Assessing the Risk” , pages

63-65, records Israel as a country


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NAIROBI AND PESHAWAR: THE FUTILITY OF TERROR TACTICS

STATEMENTS


possessing an offensive biological

warfare capability and a long-term,

undeclared biological warfare program. In

1983 the CIA produced a special report

on Israel’s weapons program, but deleted

this page dealing with the chemical

weapons.

With Syria giving up its chemical

weapons, now is the perfect opportunity

to enforce the chemical weapons

convention on all the countries in the

region, including Israel, to free it from

this WMD. Contrary to what Obama said,

the convention does not specifically

refer to just the use of chemical weapons,

but also to its production and storage.

Will Obama, the peace-prize winner,

prove that “the United States has been

the anchor of global security … for

nearly seven decades” as he claimed in

his speech and demonstrate that the

Americans are really “exceptional” as he

boosted, or will he turn a blind eye to the

Israeli criminal chemical attacks and the

largest stockpile of WMD, like his many

predecessors???

17 September, 2013

Dr. Elias Akleh is an Arab writer from a

Palestinian descent, born in the town of Beit-

Jala. His family. He is living now in exile in

the US and publish articles on the web.

Source: Countercurrents.org

The dastardly carnage in Nairobi and

Peshawar proves yet again the utter

futility of resorting to terror tactics in

order to secure one’s political goals.

In Nairobi, the brazen attack on a

shopping mall by Al-Shabaab, a group

based in Somalia, purportedly linked to

Al-Qaeda, on 21 September 2013, has

left at least 62 people dead and around

175 injured. This cruel slaughter of

innocent men and women has elicited

worldwide condemnation. It has

heightened the anger of the Kenyan

people against Al-Shabaab. Kenyan

authorities are now more determined than

ever to intensify their role in the African

Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM)

under whose auspices the Kenyan army

had invaded Somalia in October 2011 with

the aim of defeating Al-Shabaab.

If Al-Shabaab’s terrorism on 21 September

was to force Kenya to withdraw from

Somalia, it has failed badly. Neither has it

succeeded in making the people of Somalia

more antagonistic towards the government

in Mogadishu which Al-Shabaab alleges

serves the interests of the US, other

Western powers and Israel who are seeking

to tighten their grip over Somalia and the

Horn of Africa. If anything, through its

barbaric conduct, Al-Shabaab has,

ironically, brought Israel closer to the

Kenyan government since Israeli

commandos are helping Kenyan troops to

eliminate terrorists from the shopping-mall.

Al-Shabaab has often denounced Kenya’s

ties with Israel. In other words, Al-

Shabaab’s wanton terrorist assault has

undermined its own position.

The massacre outside the All Saints

Anglican Church in Peshawar on 22

September as Christian worshippers were

coming out of the Church perpetrated by

two suicide bombers from a group known

as Jandullah, linked to the Pakistani

Taliban, resulted in 80 deaths, including

37 women and 7 children. This heinous

crime against the innocent has incensed

the people of Pakistan. Thousands have

participated in protests in all major cities

in the country. They are demanding firm

action from the State against terrorist

groups of whatever hue.

If the terrorist attack in the precincts of

the Peshawar Church was intended as a

protest against US drone assaults along

the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, it is

unlikely that it will compel the US to

change its policy. On the contrary, this

brutal act has diverted attention from

drones and other pressing national issues

to the vulnerability of the miniscule

Christian minority in Peshawar and

Pakistan as a whole. It has brought to

the fore the depravity and the viciousness

of terrorist groups such as the Jandullah.

The Nairobi and Peshawar episodes

demonstrate vividly that terror tactics do

not help to advance the struggle against

hegemony or foreign intervention or

external aggression. On the contrary, they

weaken the quest to protect a people’s

sovereignty and independence.

Terrorism should be rejected by people

everywhere. The struggle against

injustice should be through peaceful,

non-violent means, however difficult it

may be.

Dr. Chandra Muzaffar,

President,

International Movement for a Just

World (JUST)

24 September, 2013


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THE SYRIA DEAL: DANGERS AND OPPORTUNITIES

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Commentators tell us that there is a

palpable sense of relief in Damascus and

in other parts of Syria in the wake of the

Russia-US deal over Syria’s chemical

weapons. The citizens of Damascus ¯

the world’s oldest, continuously inhabited

city ̄ know that they will not be bombed

for the time being.

The deal in brief will lead to the

destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons

by mid-2014 to be supervised by the UN.

Syria will become a party to the

Convention on the Prohibition of

Chemical Weapons which outlaws their

production and use. If the deal is

breached, the violation would be

brought to the notice of the UN Security

Council for action.

The Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei

Lavrov, and the US Secretary of State, John

Kerry, hope that the deal will culminate in a

conference that will bring together all the

main actors in the Syrian conflict. An

amicable solution will be sought guided to

a large extent by the principles adopted at

an earlier Geneva meeting.

For now, let us find out why a deal was

struck, the dangers facing its

implementation and the larger

opportunities it presents.

Deal

For each of the actors involved in the

conflict, the deal offers something. For

the Bashar government, apart from

staving off a powerful US led

bombardment of Syria’s chemical

weapons and military assets, the deal has

in a sense temporarily preserved his

position. For Iran, even a limited military

strike against Bashar could unleash

forces that would weaken his grip upon

power and lead to the ouster of Iran’s

closest ally in the Arab world. Equally

important, eliminating chemical weapons

is very much in consonance with Iran’s

policy since it was a victim of chemical

gas attacks 25 years ago. For Russia, the

deal also helps to protect a longstanding

ally with whom it has forged enduring

military and security ties for decades.

How has the deal benefitted the Obama

Administration? It saved Obama from

ignominy since the majority of Americans

are opposed to military action against

Syria. His request for authorisation to

strike Syria, according to analysts,

would have been defeated in the House

of Representatives. The Senate also

appears to be divided on the issue.

If there is opposition to military action

among legislators and the people, it is

mainly because of the mess the US and

its allies have created in Iraq and the

grave uncertainty that prevails in

Afghanistan. Simply put, they do not

want another military adventure. Add to

this, the gloom generated by an economy

that is still in dire straits. After all, it is

partly because of the wars in

Afghanistan and Iraq that US debts have

shot through the roof, making it the

world’s biggest debtor nation.

It is not just the American people who are

reluctant to embark upon a military

adventure. Parliament in Britain ̄ the US’s

closest ally in Europe ̄ has voted against

military action reflecting popular sentiment.

The vast majority of French people are also

opposed to war. So are the people in almost

every other European state.

Prominent personalities have also

spoken out against war. The most

notable among them is Pope Francis, the

Head of the Catholic Church, who has

held a mass prayer meeting to urge world

leaders to refrain from military action. His

clarion call has had some impact upon

US legislators and the general public. The

UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, who

is almost always supportive of

Washington, has on this occasion

cautioned against the use of force.

It is also possible that given the

monumental weaknesses in the range of

opposition groups pitted against Bashar

Al-Assad, the Obama Administration may

have come to the conclusion that the

military option could precipitate

consequences that would eventually

undermine US ¯ and Israeli ̄ interests.

Not only are the armed rebels hopelessly

fractured; the most potent among them is

intimately linked to Al-Qaeda. The Jahbat

Al- Nusra through its brutal, often

barbaric acts of violence has instilled fear

among the Syrian population and

generated a great deal of uneasiness

among the opposition’s foreign backers

in Washington, London and Paris.

This is why all said and done the deal

between the US and Russia on Syria’s

chemical weapons may be a way out for

the US and certain Western governments.

Dangers

The implementation of the deal is however

fraught with dangers. It is quite conceivable

that the opposition which rejects the deal

will try to sabotage it. Some factions among

the armed rebels could employ chemical

gases against the populace and then put

the blame upon the Bashar government. It

is believed that having failed to draw the

US into a bombing spree against Bashar

through the 21 August episode these rebels

are now preparing another false flag

operation ¯ this time against Israel ¯ in

order to change the balance on the battle-

ground in their favour. In this regard, it

should be emphasised that there is

increasing empirical evidence to show that

21 August was contrived and manipulated

to suit the rebels’ diabolical agenda.

Elements within the Israeli establishment

may be willing to collude with the rebels on

this. For while Prime Minister Netanyahu

S T A T E M E N T S


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‘SHUTDOWN’: CHINA’S XI UPSTAGES OBAMA’S ASIA PIVOTBy Nile Bowie

has cautiously welcomed the move to

eliminate Syria’s chemical weapons, he and

others are still as determined as ever to break

the Bashar- Hezbollah-Iran bond which

they view as the greatest obstacle to Israel’s

regional dominance. There are well-placed

individuals in Turkey, Saudi Arabia and

Qatar, among other states in West Asia,

who for different reasons are also

disappointed that that there has been no

US-led military action to bring down Bashar.

Pressure from these and other

individuals and groups, especially if it is

expressed through some dastardly

incident, directed at Washington and

other Western capitals could torpedo the

Syria deal. There are after all influential

lobbies in the US, linked to Zionist and

Christian Zionist interests who may also

want to push for the military option.

Peace activists in the West and elsewhere

should be ever vigilant to their

machinations.

Opportunities

If attempts to subvert the deal fail, and

the deal holds, it may open up

opportunities for peace that go far

beyond the deal itself.

One, it may be possible to strengthen the

people’s movement against war. If a war

is averted over Syria, it would mean that

the people of the world had played a

major role in stopping a war. Seen in

context, if in 2003, millions of people

managed to de-legitimise the Iraq War ̄

it took place without UN authorisation ¯

then in 2013, “we the people” succeeded in

preventing a war.

Two, the Syria deal also provides us with

the opportunity to give meaning and

substance to international law and

international institutions. All nations

without exception should act within the

ambit of the law and through bodies like

the UN. “Exceptionalism” has no legitimacy

and should be rejected totally.

Three, chemical weapons and all other

weapons of mass destruction (WMD)

should be eliminated completely from

West Asia and North Africa (WANA) and

the rest of the world. No nation in WANA

should be exempted from observing this

prohibition. Israel which has huge stocks

of WMD, including nuclear weapons,

should take the lead. Peace activists

should make this ¯ the elimination of

WMD from every nook and cranny of

the earth ¯ their topmost agenda.

If all this begins to happen, the Syria deal

may well emerge as a turning-point in

history.

Dr. Chandra Muzaffar,

16 September, 2013

ARTICLES

When the clock stroke midnight on

October 1st, one would find plenty more

optimism in Beijing than in Washington.

In China, people gathered in Tiananmen

Square to celebrate the anniversary of

the country’s founding. In the US, the

situation was fairly grimmer. A kabuki

theatre of incompetence brought about a

federal government shutdown which has

failed hundreds of thousands of

government employees while cutting

billions in spending on social programs,

and now Washington faces the very real

scenario of a default. The problems posed

by the US domestic situation are so dire

that Obama was forced to cancel high-

profile trips to Asia-Pacific countries in

fear of the debt ceiling crashing down on

his presidency. Obama was supposed to

visit the APEC Summit in Bali, the ASEAN

meeting in Brunei, as well as visits to

Malaysia and the Philippines – two

countries that feature prominently in the

“Pivot to Asia” policy unveiled in 2011.

Instead, he sent the court jester, John

Kerry, in his place.

With Obama’s wings clipped and Air

Force One grounded, China’s President

Xi Jinping swooped in and stole the show,

cutting billion-dollar deals on landmark

visits to Indonesia and Malaysia, and

securing the spotlight for the APEC and

ASEAN conferences. While Xi came arm-

in-arm with his classy wife for a massive

charm offensive that topped headlines in

Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur, Obama

twiddled his thumbs in the Oval Office

and played the blame game with

Republicans like warring adolescents.

Given the extreme value placed on the

concept of saving or losing face in

Chinese culture, this can only be a “paper

tiger” moment for Obama when viewed

through the lens of Beijing. Obama’s no-

show is yet another symbolic indication

of the winds of global power blowing

eastward, as the two largest economies

vie for influence in military affairs and

markets throughout the Asia-Pacific, this

century’s global locomotive for

economic development.

Sorry, we’re closed

Obama’s foreign policy has been one

‘epic fail’ after the next, and the shutdown

debt-drama unfolding in Washington

doesn’t exactly reflect the self-professed

‘exceptionalism’ of a power trying to pass

itself off as a model for leadership in the

Asia-Pacific. The structure of the much-

lauded Asia pivot rests on a dual-

pronged approach; the muscle angle calls

for increasing rotational US military

presence in the region; the market angle

S T A T E M E N T S

I N T E R N A T I O N A L M O V E M E N T F O R A J U S T W O R L D A R T I C L E S

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calls for roping emerging Southeast

Asian economies into Washington’s

sphere through the Trans-Pacific

Partnership (TPP), a secretive free trade

agreement written to give US

multinationals a major leg up. How can

“America’s Pacific Century” be taken

seriously when the commander-in-chief

himself is too occupied with preventing

his ceiling from collapsing to even visit

the region for a few days? To use the

Chinese proverb, Obama’s predicament

is a case of “lifting a rock only to drop it

on one’s own feet.”

No one can deny the push for a more

multipolar world emerging, and for

developing countries, a giant ‘CLOSED’

sign over the mantle of American

leadership may hasten a more equitable

multilateral global economic order. In a

recent speech during the UN General

Assembly, Foreign Minister Wang Yi laid

out the basis of Chinese diplomacy as

being focused on multilateral

participation between developing

countries based on equal footing, and

forging new international systems

around the principle of non-interference

and win-win partnerships. In other

words, countries like Malaysia and

Indonesia have more incentive doing

business with Beijing – which invests

billions in infrastructure deals to promote

transportation, health services and

education – rather than being locked into

to the over-financialized sovereignty-

eviscerating terms and conditions of the

Washington consensus and the TPP. As

the geopolitical landscape develops in

Southeast Asia, it will soon be clear whether

countries will play along with Obama’s

China-containment doctrine or reject it –

much of that equation depends on how

Beijing can maneuver its hairy territorial

disputes in the South China Sea.

Obama’s Asia Pivot vs. Xi’s Maritime

Silk Road

Chinese President Xi Jinping became the

first foreign leader to address the

Indonesian Parliament on his trip to

Jakarta, where he proposed a common

destiny for the China-ASEAN community

by constructing a new Maritime Silk Road

of the 21st century. In his address, Xi

made clear that territorial disputes in the

oil-and-gas rich South China Sea should

be handled through dialogue and trust-

building, invoking the Indonesian

proverb, “Money can be easily earned

but not friendship.” The thrust of Xi’s

message is that mutually beneficially

exchange trumps military disputes, and

that comprise is possible. Xi also pledged

to boost trade with ASEAN to a mammoth

US$1 trillion by 2020 and partake in mega-

projects such as the construction of the

ambitious 90,000-hectare dam in West

Java; he also cut US$30 billion deals in

mining and port construction with

Indonesian President Susilo Yudhoyono,

and secured contracts for Chinese

companies to build the long-overdue

Jakarta monorail project.

Malaysia has long been China’s biggest

trading partner in the ASEAN bloc, and

upon landing in Kuala Lumpur, Xi

announced that bilateral ties would be

elevated to a comprehensive strategic

partnership aimed at tripling trade to $160

billion by 2017, including new military-

to-military ties and cooperation.

Malaysia’s PM Najib Razak – the

country’s most pro-US leader to date – is

engaging in a delicate balancing act and

remains faithfully pro-China. Najib has

green-lighted greater cooperation with

the US military, and has taken part in the

negotiations for the TPP, but asserts that

Malaysia may pullout of the deal over

concerns of protecting national

sovereignty. The forecast for

implementing the TPP looks all the more

bleak after Obama has blown his chance

to create a domino effect that threatens

the neoliberal centerpiece of Obama’s

Asia-Pacific economic strategy.

The subject of Washington versus

Beijing in the Asia-Pacific will be the

geopolitical question of the next two

decades – it can be encapsulated as

unipolarity versus multipolarity. Beijing

professes that it is not aiming for

hegemony, but for a political framework

centered on mutual respect, win-win

cooperation, and the absence of conflict.

China’s long-term relations with Asia-

Pacific countries will measure the success

of this multilateral strategy. As China

gears toward more dramatic financial

reform and economic structural

transformation, Beijing is readying itself

for the responsibilities of global

economic leadership as the world’s

largest economy through a philosophy

of “crossing the river by feeling the

stones” – an enduring pragmatism. As

confidence dwindles in the USD & Euro

as the two legs of a wobbly global

economy, China is positioning itself as a

third leg that can hopefully offer greater

stabilization and prudency. To borrow the

Chinese folk saying, “Either the east wind

prevails over the west wind or the west

wind prevails over the east wind.” Only

fools will deny the way the wind is

blowing.

5 October, 2013

Nile Bowie is a Kuala Lumpur- based political

analyst and columinst with Russia Today.

“THE OIL IS OURS”- BUT ITS SECRETS ARE THE NSA’SBy Fabiana Frayssinet

continued next page

Rio de Janeiro , Sept. 16, 2013 : Reported

US spying on Brazil’s Petrobras oil firm

revived the controversy over opening up

the company, a symbol of Brazilian

sovereignty since the 1950s, to foreign

investment.

“The oil is ours” was the cry that arose

with the discovery of oil and gas during

the government of Getulio Vargas (1930-

1945) and that became the slogan of the

A R T I C L E SI N T E R N A T I O N A L M O V E M E N T F O R A J U S T W O R L D

8

continued next page


founding of Petrobras in 1953.

It took on new force in 1997, when then

president Fernando Henrique Cardoso

(1995-2003) declared the end of the state

monopoly and opened the company up

to local and foreign private investment.

It began to be heard again in 2007, when

Petrobras discovered massive offshore

oil reserves 180 km from the coast and

7,000 km below sea level, under a thick

layer of salt.

And then again in 2010, when then

president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003-

2011) replaced the current concessions

system, under which companies bid for

the rights to explore new oil blocks, with

a production-sharing regime between the

state and private companies.

The Brazilian government is the largest

shareholder in Petrobras, a publicly

traded company whose closely guarded

secrets – such as the volume of reserves

or the deep water exploration technology

it has developed – may already be in the

hands of the US government and its allies.

Rio-based US journalist Glenn Greenwald

revealed earlier this month that leaked

National Security Agency (NSA)

documents indicated that it had spied on

Petrobras – Brazil ‘s largest company and

the world’s fourth largest oil company.

Secret documents from 2012 that were

given to Greenwald by former NSA

contractor Edward Snowden reportedly

show that Petrobras was at the top of a

list of targets for intelligence gathering.

The documents, part of a presentation

used to train new agents on how to breach

private computer networks, do not show

to what extent NSA deciphered secret

information from Petrobras’ computers.

But they do undermine the explanation

presented by the US agency with respect

to earlier reports that it had intercepted

the private communications of Brazilian

citizens and of President Dilma Rousseff

herself.

“Without a doubt, Petrobras does not

represent a threat to the security of any

country,” Rousseff said. “What it does

represent is one of the world’s largest oil

assets, a heritage of the Brazilian people.”

“It is clear that the motive was not security

or fighting terrorism, but economic and

strategic interests,” the president added.

The vulnerability of the company’s

secrets has once again fanned the

sentiment that “the oil is ours”, as well as

arguments in favor of and against a

greater opening to private investment in

Petrobras.

One of the focuses of the controversy is

the Libra oil field in the Santos Basin, one

of Brazil’s richest offshore sub-salt

deposits, set to be opened up to bidding

in October.

The Brazilian government denied that the

bidding would be suspended due to fears

that leaked information could favor US or

British companies, as newspaper reports

claimed.

The president of the association of

Petrobras engineers, Silvio Sinedino, told

IPS that “We are opposed to any bidding.

We have long demanded that our oil

should not be handed over the way it is

here, and especially not in a fabulous

oilfield where there is no risk because it

has already been explored and has a

confirmed capacity of 12 to 15 billion

barrels of oil.”

Brazil ‘s sub-salt reserves are estimated

at 80 to 100 billion barrels – enough to

supply the country for 40 to 50 years, he

noted.

Sinedino said the Cardoso

administration’s “privatization” of

Petrobras and telecommunications left

Brazil more exposed to espionage.

“Even our military communications go

through US satellites, which are

obviously controlled by agents from

that country,” he added.

Adriano Pires, a consultant with the

Brazilian Infrastructure Centre, said

Petrobras was targeted by spying

because “after 50 years of

monopoly…no one knows the

technological secrets of deep water oil

drilling like Petrobras does.”

Describing the company as “number

one” in that area, Pires told IPS that “no

one knows more about the probability

of finding oil.”

That knowledge, he said, is coveted at a

time when possible sub-salt reserves off

the coast of West Africa are being

disputed.

But using the revelations of espionage

to once again discuss the merits of

opening up Petrobras to private

investment is “foolishness”

characteristic of “extreme nationalist”

rhetoric, he argued.

“There is a great deal of noise and

speculation about the espionage, fuelled

even by people inside the government,

to once again allege that the United

States is trying to seize Brazil ‘s wealth,”

he said.

“The sub-salt reserves are huge, and

Petrobras cannot exploit them by itself,

with its liquidity issues. We need U.S. ,

Swedish, British, Norwegian or

Australian companies to tap the

reserves,” Pires said.

Tullo Vigevani, a political science

professor at the São Paulo State

University , said he was not surprised

by the news of the alleged industrial


9

continued next page


‘FATWA ACTIVISM’ VERSUS ‘EDUCATIONAL ACTIVISM’By Maulana Wahiduddin Khan

There is much talk these days about

different kinds of activism. One hears of

political activism, social activism,

community activism, media activism,

judicial activism, and so on. A section of

Muslim religious leaders have launched

a new form of activism of their own—

what can be called ‘fatwa activism’. They

think that by issuing a flurry of Fatwas

they can reform Muslim society. So, one

hears of scores of Fatwas against un-

Islamic dress, Fatwas against women

being present at certain religious places,

Fatwas calling for the killing of people

accused of traducing the Prophet, Fatwas

demanding the banning of books by

controversial authors, Fatwas declaring

some persons as apostates and insisting

on their social boycott, Fatwas

announcing television or other things to

be Haram or forbidden, Fatwas declaring

banking to be un-Islamic and so on.

Fatwas of these sorts have been issued

in their thousands in recent years, but

almost all of them have proved to be

practically without any impact. They

have not been able to produce the

changes that they intended to.

In the modern period I know of just

one instance where a Mufti refused to

give a fatwa despite being asked to do

so. I am of the opinion that this approach

is the right one. This instance concerns a

noted Indian Islamic scholar, Maulana

Abdul Haq Haqqani, who died in 1831.

He was the author of a commentary on

the Quran. In his period, the British had

replaced gold and silver coins with paper

money. This new form of money appeared

to be unacceptable according to the rules

of traditional Fiqh or Muslim

jurisprudence. The Maulana was asked

to issue a fatwa on the matter to judge

whether this was Islamically-acceptable

or not. However, he declined to give the

fatwa, and simply said, ‘My fatwa [in this

regard] won’t work. Instead, the paper

money will.’ In such matters, this is the

correct Islamic approach to take.

The literal meaning of the word fatwa is

‘opinion’. A fatwa can take two forms. The

first is in the form of a question asked to

a Mufti by a person with a regard to a

matter directly concerning himself or

herself with the intention of gaining

guidance thereby. For instance, a

sportswoman asks a Mufti what he feels

is an islamically- legitimate sports-dress

for her. It is proper and appropriate for

the Mufti to give a fatwa in response to

this form of request.

The second way of eliciting a fatwa

relates to a particular social evil in the

wider society, regarding which an

individual approaches a Mufti for a fatwa

on his own. It is not proper for the Mufti

to give a fatwa in response to this sort of

question. If he does so, the fatwa is

unlikely to have any positive role or

influence in correcting the social ill that

it seeks to address. Instead, it can turn

out to be a cause for giving Islam a bad

name. This has happened in numerous

cases. To paraphrase the words of

Maulana Abdul Haq Haqqani whom I

referred to earlier, such Fatwas did not

work and the social ills they sought to

combat remained as before. Thus, scores

of Fatwas have been delivered on a

variety of social ills, against bida’t or

wrongful innovations in religion, against

polytheistic customs, against dowry,

against television and cinema, against

loudspeakers in mosques, against

interest on bank deposits, against men

shaving their beards, against wearing

Western clothes, against English

education and so on. But, needless to

say, all these Fatwas proved to be of little

or no effect.

According to what I have studied so far,

only a person who has a question relating

directly to himself or herself should

approach a mufti for a fatwa. A Mufti

espionage because “the energy question

is a central focus of U.S. policy.”

“It is one of the key issues of politics at a

global level,” he told IPS. “And information

is an essential element. The new discoveries

in Brazil , especially in the sub-salt area,

require tight surveillance.”

Vigevani said that above and beyond the

Brazilian government’s demand for

explanations, any solution to defend the

country’s strategic interests must be

long-term in nature.

In view of what appears to be inevitable,

he said, Brazil should invest more in

developing science and technology

“autonomously, in developing skills, and

in developing systems that are more

immune to intrusions.”

23 September, 2013

Fabiana Frayssinet has been a

correspondent for Inter Press Service since

1989 in Central America, and since 1996 in

Brazil, where she served as a contributor for

various international media outlets in radio,

print and television, including CNN en

Español, IPS, UNIVISION, Telefé de

Argentina, Radio Suecia and Radio Nederland.

Source: Inter Press Service


10


should issue Fatwas only in such cases. A

fatwa must not be asked or issued when

the matter does not directly concern the

person who requests it. For instance, if a

person approaches a mufti, asking him if it

is permissible to say prayers behind the

imam of a particular mosque whose beard

is short, it is not right for the mufti to issue

a fatwa in this regard. To do so might well

cause strife and chaos (Fitna).

The question then arises of what the

proper Islamic method of social reform

is. This proper method is one of

persuasion and guidance, through

writings and lectures, and not through

delivering condemnatory Fatwas. People

should be addressed in such a way that

the advice given to them impresses itself

in their hearts and they then recognize

and act on that advice on their own. In

today’s terms, this could be termed as

‘educational activism’. Islam’s approach

to solving social ills is through this sort

of educational activism, rather than

‘fatwa activism’.

A guiding principle in this matter is to be

found in a narration which is contained

in the Sahih al-Bukhari. According to this

report, Hazrat Ayesha (r.a.) said that the

Quranic verses that were revealed in the

initial stages of Islam dealt with heaven

and hell so that in this way people’s

hearts would be softened enough to

receive the Islamic message. Then,

gradually, after people had developed

adequate capacity to accept Divine laws,

the Quranic commandments prohibiting

adultery and the consumption of alcohol

were revealed. Had these commandments

been revealed in the initial stages of Islam,

people may not have accepted them, and,

instead, might have refused to give up

adultery and consuming alcohol.

From this instance one can understand

that general social reform cannot happen

through delivering Fatwas against social

ills. Rather, for this sort of work, people’s

capacity and willingness to accept and

act on divine guidance must first be

developed. Only after this can religious

laws be enforced. To issue orders, in the

form of Fatwas, in the absence of

developing people’s capacity to accept

religious guidance is no solution at all.

Often, it is not ignorance of religious

rulings that causes social ills. Rather, the

basic cause is the lack of the appropriate

spirit among people.

This is why social reform cannot begin

with the issuing of Fatwas. Rather, it has

to begin with seeking to inculcate and

promote the right spirit among people and

to ignite their consciousness and their

capacity and willingness to abide by the

teachings of the faith. Only after this

work has been sufficiently done should

issues be explained to people using the

language of the religious law. Without

developing this inner spirit among

people, seeking to cure social ills by

issuing Fatwas from without would be of

no use. This is putting the cart before

the horse.

The only criterion for judging ‘fatwa

activism’, or, for that matter, any other

form of activism, is its efficacy in

producing the hoped-for results. Only

those methods of activism are

worthwhile that actually succeed in

achieving their goals. Action must

always be result-oriented. The present-

form of ‘fatwa activism’ must be seen and

evaluated in the light of this basic

principle.

This is a translation of Maulana

Wahiduddin Khan’s essay titled Fatwa

Activism Ya Educational Activism? in his

book Islam Aur Intihapasandi (‘Islam and

Extremism’) (Positive Thinkers Forum,

Bangalore, n.d., pp. 14-17)

14 August, 2013

Maulana Wahiduddin Khan is a well

known Islamic scholar from New Delhi, India.

By Peter BuffettTHE CHARITABLE- INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

I HAD spent much of my life writing

music for commercials, film and television

and knew little about the world of

philanthropy as practiced by the very

wealthy until what I call the big bang

happened in 2006. That year, my father,

Warren Buffett, made good on his

commitment to give nearly all of his

accumulated wealth back to society. In

addition to making several large

donations, he added generously to the

three foundations that my parents had

created years earlier, one for each of their

children to run.

Early on in our philanthropic journey, my

wife and I became aware of something I

started to call Philanthropic Colonialism.

I noticed that a donor had the urge to

“save the day” in some fashion. People

(including me) who had very little

knowledge of a particular place would

think that they could solve a local

problem. Whether it involved farming

methods, education practices, job

training or business development, over

continued next page

I N T E R N A T I O N A L M O V E M E N T F O R A J U S T W O R L D A R T I C L E S

11

and over I would hear people discuss

transplanting what worked in one setting

directly into another with little regard for

culture, geography or societal norms.

Often the results of our decisions had

unintended consequences; distributing

condoms to stop the spread of AIDS in a

brothel area ended up creating a higher

price for unprotected sex.

But now I think something even more

damaging is going on.

Because of who my father is, I’ve been

able to occupy some seats I never

expected to sit in. Inside any important

philanthropy meeting, you witness heads

of state meeting with investment

managers and corporate leaders. All are

searching for answers with their right

hand to problems that others in the room

have created with their left. There are

plenty of statistics that tell us that

inequality is continually rising. At the

same time, according to the Urban

Institute, the nonprofit sector has been

steadily growing. Between 2001 and 2011,

the number of nonprofits increased 25

percent. Their growth rate now exceeds

that of both the business and

government sectors. It’s a massive

business, with approximately $316 billion

given away in 2012 in the United States

alone and more than 9.4 million

employed.

Philanthropy has become the “it” vehicle

to level the playing field and has

generated a growing number of

gatherings, workshops and affinity

groups.

As more lives and communities are

destroyed by the system that creates

vast amounts of wealth for the few, the

more heroic it sounds to “give back.” It’s

what I would call “conscience

laundering” — feeling better about

accumulating more than any one person

could possibly need to live on by

sprinkling a little around as an act of

charity.

But this just keeps the existing structure

of inequality in place. The rich sleep

better at night, while others get just

enough to keep the pot from boiling over.

Nearly every time someone feels better

by doing good, on the other side of the

world (or street), someone else is further

locked into a system that will not allow

the true flourishing of his or her nature

or the opportunity to live a joyful and

fulfilled life.

And with more business-minded folks

getting into the act, business principles

are trumpeted as an important element to

add to the philanthropic sector. I now hear

people ask, “what’s the R.O.I.?” when it

comes to alleviating human suffering, as

if return on investment were the only

measure of success. Microlending and

financial literacy (now I’m going to upset

people who are wonderful folks and a few

dear friends) — what is this really about?

People will certainly learn how to

integrate into our system of debt and

repayment with interest. People will rise

above making $2 a day to enter our world

of goods and services so they can buy

more. But doesn’t all this just feed the

beast?

I’m really not calling for an end to

capitalism; I’m calling for humanism.

Often I hear people say, “if only they had

what we have” (clean water, access to

health products and free markets, better

education, safer living conditions). Yes,

these are all important. But no

“charitable” (I hate that word)

intervention can solve any of these

issues. It can only kick the can down the

road.

My wife and I know we don’t have the

answers, but we do know how to listen.

As we learn, we will continue to support

conditions for systemic change.

It’s time for a new operating system. Not

a 2.0 or a 3.0, but something built from

the ground up. New code.

What we have is a crisis of imagination.

Albert Einstein said that you cannot

solve a problem with the same mind-set

that created it. Foundation dollars should

be the best “risk capital” out there.

There are people working hard at

showing examples of other ways to live

in a functioning society that truly creates

greater prosperity for all (and I don’t mean

more people getting to have more stuff).

Money should be spent trying out

concepts that shatter current structures

and systems that have turned much of

the world into one vast market. Is

progress really Wi-Fi on every street

corner? No. It’s when no 13-year-old girl

on the planet gets sold for sex. But as

long as most folks are patting themselves

on the back for charitable acts, we’ve got

a perpetual poverty machine.

It’s an old story; we really need a new

one.

26 July, 2013

Peter Buffett is a composer and a chairman

of the NoVo Foundation.

Source: The New York Times


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Just Commentary October 2013