British government refuses asylum for refugee children

Jean Shaoul

The Conservative government defeated a cross-party amendment to its Immigration Bill calling for the UK to accept just 600 unaccompanied refugee minors a year for a five-year period. The children are mostly from Syria, now stranded in mainland Europe.

Last week’s vote means that Britain is open to homeless dogs and cats being brought in from Europe, but not refugee children.

Home Office minister James Brokenshire opposed the amendment, arguing cynically that the government could not support a policy that would “inadvertently create a situation in which families see an advantage in sending children alone, ahead and in the hands of traffickers, putting their lives at risk by attempting treacherous sea crossings to Europe which would be the worst of all outcomes.”

The Home Office claimed that it was doing enough to help child refugees in Syria and neighbouring countries by providing humanitarian aid. In January Prime Minister David Cameron said 3,000 vulnerable and refugee “children at risk” currently in refugee camps in the Middle East would be allowed into Britain, but not those in Europe. This would be in addition to the paltry 20,000 over five years that the UK agreed to accept from camps on Syria’s borders in the aftermath of the international outrage over the death of Aylan Kurdi, the three-year-old Syrian boy whose body was washed up on a Turkish beach.

Given that barely a handful of the 20,000 have as yet actually been allowed to enter Britain, such promises are no more than a cynical public relations exercise.

The amendment was tabled in the House of Lords by Labour Party member Lord Alf Dubs, himself a beneficiary of the British government’s agreement to the Kindertransport (Children’s Transport) that admitted temporarily unaccompanied Jewish children following Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, in Germany and Austria on November 9-10, 1938. This grudging agreement was made only because relief agencies promised to fund the operation and find homes for the children at no cost to the state. They were even forced to pledge to finance the children’s eventual repatriation back to Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and the Free City of Danzig—although the outbreak of war made that impossible. While no limit on the number was ever announced, less than 10,000 children came to Britain under the program.

Under new rules established by the Immigration Bill, those deemed “illegal immigrants” will face up to six months in prison for working in the UK. Takeaways and off-licenses (food and alcohol vendors) are to be closed if employers are caught using undocumented foreign workers, while employers could have their businesses closed, have their licenses removed, or face prosecution if they fail to report foreign workers. UK border officials are to be given powers to temporarily close businesses that break the law.

After its defeat in the Commons, ministers buried the amendment via a parliamentary manoeuvre, attaching a label of “financial privilege” and making it impossible for it to be referred back to the House of Lords, which does not have the power to override legislation with cost implications.

The government’s refusal to accept even a few hundred children follows its attempts to use the courts to prevent unaccompanied minors trapped in Calais, France from being re-united with their families in Britain. Prime Minister David Cameron infamously branded the refugees in Calais a “bunch of migrants,” while earlier he said there was a “swarm of people coming across the Mediterranean” to seek a better life in Britain.

So far, the Home Office has let in just 20 unaccompanied children under the 2014 Dublin agreement allowing children with relatives in the UK to seek asylum. This is despite a court ruling last January that paved the way for family reunification, which the government sought to overturn. At the same time, it has deported 740 people since the Dublin III regulations came into force. According to lawyers, there are 157 children in Calais legally entitled to be reunited with their families in Britain.

Conditions for the thousands of refugees from war-torn countries in Europe are heartbreaking. Children of all ages have trekked for hundreds of miles through the Balkan route, with just the clothes they were wearing, exhausted, in need of food, water and medical care.

It is estimated at least 95,000 unaccompanied child refugees applied for asylum in Europe last year. According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, who contacted 29 governments for statistics, this was four times the number for 2014.

Sweden registered the most asylum applications by lone children in 2015—35,369. This was followed by Germany with 14,439, Austria 9,331 and Hungary 8,804. The UK registered just 3,043.

The real number of children seeking asylum will be even higher. As the Bureau noted, “It is the first time any concrete figure has been reported for the actual scale of migration among unaccompanied minors during last year’s refugee crisis.” It added, “Only 17 of the 29 countries we approached provided any data. Spain refused to cooperate with us, while France said we must wait for publication of official data later this year.”

Eurostat, the official European Union (EU) data agency, has still not compiled any figures on this human tragedy.

Many of these children live in terrible conditions and are subject to abuse. In January, Europol, the EU’s criminal intelligence agency, estimated that 10,000 children had gone missing after arriving in Europe, and warned that many had been taken by criminal gangs for sexual exploitation and slavery.

In March, the 28 EU heads of government reached a sordid agreement with Turkey aimed at hermetically sealing off Europe’s borders to the millions of refugees fleeing war zones in the Middle East and North Africa. Refugees arriving on the Greek islands by crossing the Aegean Sea have been returned to Turkey, following a farcical asylum review procedure in Greece.

The price of subcontracting to Turkey the task of keeping asylum seekers out of Europe was the acceptance of one Syrian refugee for every Syrian sent back to Turkey from Greece and €3 billion by 2018 in addition to the €3 billion already offered to Ankara thus far. Turkey was also offered the prospect of visa-free travel within the EU and the opening of a new chapter in negotiations over Turkish EU membership.

The deal effectively means the EU’s abrogation of the 1951 Geneva Convention on the protection of refugees, and the abandonment of any commitment to the right to asylum. The Convention sought to make concrete the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which guarantees a “right to seek and enjoy asylum.” This is generally interpreted to mean that someone has the right to apply for humanitarian protection. Governments are also banned from returning migrants to a country where their lives would be in danger, a process known as “refoulement.”

The callous indifference on the part of the European powers is inseparably linked to the growth of militarism, nationalism and great power conflict, fuelled by the deepening economic breakdown of world capitalism. Just as in the 1930s, governments everywhere are promoting anti-immigrant racism and national chauvinism to intimidate and disorient public opinion and overcome broad anti-war sentiment, as part of the preparation for a new world war.

German labour minister cuts social assistance to EU immigrants

Martin Kreickenbaum

New legislation seeks to deny social assistance and Hartz IV benefits to European immigrants who enter Germany to look for work. Minister of Labour and Social Affairs Andrea Nahles (Social Democratic Party/SPD) presented the draft legislation to the chancellor’s office on Thursday to be put to a vote.

The law is directed above all against immigrants from the poorer EU countries such as Bulgaria and Romania. It encourages chauvinism and racism and constitutes a massive attack on the social rights of all workers in Europe.

According to Nahles’ plan, people from other EU countries “will be excluded on principle from services such as social assistance and basic income for those searching for work,” says a press release from the ministry. Only after five years of continuous residence in Germany would they be eligible for all social assistance.

Since it is scarcely possible to survive during such a long period of time without any social safeguards, the law is really about forcing immigrants who are searching for work to leave the country.

Nahles wants to provide affected individuals with a kind of “emergency assistance,” for four weeks, which will cover the “immediate need for food, shelter, personal hygiene, and medical treatment.” Once the four weeks have ended, the only assistance provided would be a loan to pay for a return trip to the country of origin.

Nahles claimed on Thursday that the draft legislation only represented a “clarification” of existing rules, and that this had become necessary in order “to provide disincentives.” The new regulations contain “no undermining of existing law.”

This is a bald faced lie. The cancellation of social benefits for five years ignores a judgment of the German Federal Social Court in Kassel. In December, the court decided that benefits should be provided after a residence of only six months.

The decision was prompted by a legal dispute between the Job Centre in Berlin-Neukölln and Nazifa Alimanovic, who fled from the war in Bosnia Herzegovina in 1990 and came to Germany with her children. She later moved to Sweden, where she received Swedish citizenship. When she returned to Germany, the Job Centre in Neukölln denied her all social assistance.

The case then went all the way to the European court, which agreed in principle with the arguments of the Job Centre and ruled that job seekers who have not found work for six months will lose all claim on social assistance.

The European court referred the case back to the German social courts. The Federal Social Court in Kassel then decided that job seekers should not be left without any social assistance after six months. It explicitly referred to Article 1 of the Basic Law, according to which human dignity is inviolable, and argued that a basic social income is anchored in constitutional law.

However, Andrea Nahles brushed these constitutional law considerations aside with her argument that the affected persons could apply for social assistance in their countries of origin. According to Nahles, there is no right in the EU countries “to freely choose the location of social assistance payments.”

This view of the matter is no different from the demands that have been raised by the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) for some time. Its president, Bavarian Minister President Horst Seehofer, already said more than a year ago that Germany is “not the social welfare office of the world.” He said he would defend himself “with the last bullet” against “immigration into the social system.”

Nahles herself had to concede that there was “currently no mass storming” from citizens of EU states on social benefits in Germany. She could only refer to 43,000 people from EU countries, whose source of income is not known to the authorities. The law is therefore “a preventative measure to close a loophole that is potentially available if one takes the judgment of the Federal Social Court as a basis.”

A situation in which payments are imposed on municipalities instead of at the federal level must be prevented, the minister claimed. Cities and communities are responsible for social assistance. Supposedly they were threatened with additional burdens of €600 million.

The deputy managing director of the Association of German Cities and Towns, Helmut Dedy, welcomed the draft legislation, explaining that it was necessary “to provide disincentives to immigrants from other European member states.” Neither Dedy nor Nahles can provide concrete numbers of EU immigrants in need of assistance.

However, Nahles’ primary aim is not to solve a problem that does not exist. Her efforts enjoy the support of both Chancellor Angela Merkel and the employers association, and are aimed above all at restricting the freedom of movement of workers within the European Union.

Her draft legislation takes up and even goes beyond the demand of British Prime Minister David Cameron, who has made denying social benefits to immigrants from other EU member states for a period of four years a condition for Great Britain remaining in the EU.

The media has praised the minister for her legislation, further encouraging chauvinism with its propaganda. The Süddeutsche Zeitung, for example, said, “Europe’s poverty problems will not be solved by allowing the poor to chase after social assistance. It is therefore correct that Social Minister Andrea Nahles is now making it clear that social assistance cannot be provided to new immigrants without work.”

The right to choose freely where one lives and works within the European Union has proven to be a chimera. It serves as a symbol for the supposed integration of Europe, but, in reality, the project of the European Union has only led to the dominance of the strongest nations and corporations, which set the tone for the entire EU. The social and national contradictions within the EU are assuming ever more drastic forms.

The per capita gross domestic product of Bulgaria is just one-fifth of the EU average of €27,400. In Germany, GDP is €37,100, almost seven times higher than in Bulgaria. The average monthly wage of a worker in Bulgaria, as Andrea Nahles herself reported, is €187, while in Denmark it is more than €4,000. But the difference between rich and poor is continuously increasing within the individual countries as well.

In order to prevent major class struggles, the ruling elite is trying to divide the European working class and to channel conflicts in a right-wing direction. The effort to turn immigrants and refugees into scapegoats for the social crisis and brand them as “economic refugees” who are guilty of “social abuse” is grist to the mill of right-wing extremist parties such as the “Alternative for Germany.” The Labour Ministry is thereby making itself into the standard bearer of the right wing.

The 9/11 cover-up continues

Andre Damon

Speaking Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” talk show, Central Intelligence Agency Director John Brennan categorically denied the involvement of Saudi Arabia in the September 11 terror attacks, while demanding that documents pointing to its complicity remain hidden from the American people.

Brennan was referring to 28 pages of the joint congressional inquiry report on the attacks, completed in 2002. The section on Saudi involvement has been kept secret for 14 years, despite calls from some sections of the US political establishment for their release.

The statements of Brennan, who wields enormous power as the head of the Obama administration’s CIA and is personally implicated in countless crimes of the state, are intended to intimidate and threaten anyone who questions the official cover-up of the 9/11 attacks. The White House itself has also opposed legislation that would mandate the release of the documents.

Brennan sought to paint the section of the report on Saudi Arabia as “inaccurate,” declaring without substantiation that subsequent investigations found that there is “no evidence that indicated that the Saudi government as an institution, or Saudi officials individually, had provided financial support for the 9/11 attacks.”

While acknowledging that the documents “point to Saudi involvement,” he nevertheless claimed that the reports were “uncorroborated, un-vetted, and basically just a collation of this information that came out of FBI files.”

He added, “I think some people may seize upon” this information to conclude that Saudi Arabia was involved, “which I think would be very, very inaccurate.” At the same time, he argued that the documents were being kept hidden because of the “sensitive methods” and “investigative action” used in collecting them.

These self-contradictory statements reek of a cover-up, and are refuted by what is already publicly known about the extent of Saudi Arabia’s involvement.

The evidence of Saudi involvement includes the fact that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi nationals and several of them received financing from Saudi officials. Moreover, Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person convicted of participation in the plot to hijack airplanes and fly them into the World Trade Center and other US targets, has testified in court that he worked as a courier between Osama bin Laden and the Saudi royal family, including Prince Salman, who is today the King of Saudi Arabia.

Moussaoui also asserted that high-level Saudi officials and members of the Saudi royal family, including Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the long-time Saudi ambassador to Washington, directly financed Al Qaeda.

Democratic Senator Robert Graham, co-chair of the Joint Congressional inquiry into the 9/11 terrorist attacks, said earlier this year that there is “a pervasive pattern of covering up the role of Saudi Arabia in 9/11, by all of the agencies of the federal government, which have access to information that might illuminate Saudi Arabia’s role in 9/11.”

At issue is not only the role of Saudi Arabia, but of sections of the US state. Brennan’s statements are clearly dictated by fears that exposure of Saudi Arabia’s relationship with the hijackers would shed light on the involvement of US intelligence agencies themselves in the events of 9/11. After all, the CIA has had long-standing and close ties with its counterparts in Saudi Arabia. The 9/11 hijackers, despite being under surveillance, were able to freely travel in and out of the country and attend flight schools, despite repeated warnings from other countries and from individuals within US intelligence.

“We have a very strong relationship with Saudi Arabia,” including “intelligence,” Brennan said in his interview, adding, “I have very close relations with my Saudi counterparts.” In addition to being the largest customer of the US military-industrial complex, having purchased over $100 billion in weapons from the US, Saudi Arabia has been the nexus for every clandestine and criminal alliance between the United States and Islamist forces for nearly four decades.

Under the CIA’s Operation Cyclone, conducted between 1979 and 1989, the United States and Saudi Arabia provided $40 billion worth of financial aid and weapons to the mujahedeen “freedom fighters” waging war against Soviet forces in Afghanistan, an operation in which then-US ally Osama bin Laden played a key role. The proxy war in Afghanistan was pivotal in the later creation of Al Qaeda.

More recently, Saudi Arabia has been a key player, along with Turkey and Qatar, in funneling US money and weapons to Islamic fundamentalist groups in Syria beginning in 2011 as part of the civil war targeting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The entire narrative of the “war on terror,” rests on the claim that the September 11 attacks were masterminded by a single man, Osama bin Laden, and the policy of the state—under first Bush and then Obama—has been guided by the overriding aim of preventing another attack.

The truth about what happened on September 11 cannot be told because it would expose as a lie the official account of an event that has been used as the catch-all pretext by the American ruling class at home and abroad. On the basis of the events of that day—and subsequent attacks that have followed a similar pattern—the US and other imperialist countries have waged a series of wars that have killed millions, while erecting the framework of a police state.

Fifteen years after the beginning of the war on terror, the American people still do not know the truth about what actually happened on 9/11. The tragic event, which directly cost the lives of nearly 3,000 people, remains shrouded in secrets and lies.

Into the Green Zone: Iraq’s Disintegrating Political System

Patrick Cockburn

The storming of the parliament building in Baghdad by protesters chanting the name of populist Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is a sign that the political system built up since the US invasion in 2003 is disintegrating. The Iraqi security forces stood back and did nothing as the protesters burst into the Green Zone, graphically illustrating the weakness of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and of state institutions generally.

The eruption by Sadrist supporters into the heavily fortified Green Zone, the heart of government power in Iraq, came minutes after Mr Sadr ended a press conference in the Shia holy city of Najaf during which he condemned politicians for refusing to end the political stalemate. He has been demanding that Mr Abadi appoint a non-sectarian government of technocrats that would end corruption and other abuses. Since early in the year, he and his followers have been holding mass rallies but he has previously restrained them from invading the Green Zone, though it was always likely that the security forces there would not stop them.

It is unlikely that Mr Sadr wanted the invasion of parliament because it will lead to further weakening of the government rather than its reform. In the past, he has alternated between making moderate demands, but at the same time threatening that the anger of the people could not be contained. He himself, symbolically, entered the Green Zone a month ago, but instructed his followers not to follow him.

Mr Sadr comes from a family of Shia clerics that owes its iconic and almost semi-divine status in Iraq to its long resistance to Saddam Hussein and the Baathist regime. He was 25 in 1999 when his father, Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr, and his two brothers were assassinated by Saddam Hussein’s gunmen. They had led a populist religious movement drawing support from the poor as well as many tribes that had become visibly hostile to the regime in Baghdad.

Muqtada al-Sadr remained under house arrest in Najaf until 2003 when he emerged as the leader of a movement that opposed the US occupation and fought against it in 2004.

The Mahdi Army, that battled the US army in Najaf, later played a leading role in the sectarian war in Baghdad in 2006-7 in which tens of thousands died. Mr Sadr later disavowed many of his followers who carried out sectarian killings and retired to Iran to carry out religious studies. But on his return to Iraq, he continued to lead a political, powerful and well organised movement that elected an important group to the Iraqi parliament and held several ministerial posts.

There were reports of protesters leaving the Green Zone, but they may not all go and what has happened once can happen again. Foreign embassies may pack up and go because they fear they will be targeted next time round for political reasons or simply as places to loot. The other danger is that there may be units in the Iraqi army such as the elite Golden Brigade – that might shoot down demonstrators. The other main Shia political factions are also capable of mobilising their own militias to defend their interests, which they see as being threatened by the Sadrists. This may lead to battles between the different armed groups.

Dubai Transit

Louis Yako

In May 2014 I had a four-hour transit at the Dubai International Airport on my way to the research field in Jordan. This was the first time for me to reconnect—not reconcile—with the Middle East after nine years of living in exile, since I left occupied Iraq in 2005. The flight from the U.S. to Dubai; the transit time I spent at the Dubai Airport; and the connection flight to my final destination were all experiences that captured so much of our world’s shallow and hypocritical reality of “diversity”, “marketing and consumerism”, and “multiculturalism”, which I would like to share with you today.

Let us begin with the U.S. flight coming from Washington, DC, to Dubai. The flight attendants were obviously selected according to the phony American-style of “diversity” and “cultural representation”. They were: a white woman, an Asian woman, an Indian woman, and an Arab man. This phony style of diversity is seen in almost every American work place, including universities. What is noticeably shocking about it is the fact that such employees that presumably represent “diversity” almost always work in hideously underpaid jobs, simply assisting those running the show behind the scenes. The former always act as marketing faces to support the latter in the job of exploiting the world while at the same time giving the unobservant and unvigilant viewer the false impression of “diversity”. What we see in every corporate transaction is always a “diverse” face doing the dirty work on behalf of the almost exclusively homogenous masters constantly preaching a shallow form of diversity and multiculturalism in trainings and workshops. Whenever you protest an unjust and inhumane rule or a racist policy, the “diverse” employee will always helplessly—and sometimes coldly—tell you, “Sorry, I am just doing my job.” In a sense, this selection of “diverse” people is so similar to Hollywood productions where everything is made to look so shiny and harmonious on the surface, to display the “merits” of the diverse American culture to the world, which are expected to be copied and even emulated by everyone else around the world.

The people on the flight consisted mainly of Arabic-speaking, Hindi-speaking, and English-speaking passengers. Thus, every single announcement was made in all these three languages. Looking at the passengers’ faces and listening to them speak, it was apparent that the largest number of them were Arabic-speaking, followed by speakers from southern Asia. The smallest number was of the English-speaking passengers, perhaps “expats” on their way to do “business” in the UAE. Yet the announcements were made in the reverse order of these languages to reflect the place of each group on the global map of power relations rather than proportionately and fairly represent the demographic reality of the passengers.

As the plane landed in Dubai, I felt as though I had just landed in a hot, dusty U.S. city. Every logo, from construction companies working inside the airport to each and every brand displayed outside the shops, was of American or European corporations. The very first logos I noticed were of FedEx, DHL, HSBC, and many others. As we entered the airport, the shops included Subway, McDonald’s, KFC, and other “chain” stores that have managed to enchain as many consumers as possible worldwide. Looking at the specific items inside the shops at the “duty-free” area, most items were made in the U.S. or in European countries: deodorants, perfumes, gels, creams, body lotions, shampoos, conditioners, and countless other consumer goods. European chocolate and alcohol were also displayed on some shelves. The questions that immediately came to my mind upon seeing these products were: why is it that even simple things like creams, shampoos and lotions have to be imported to the Middle East from locations that are thousands of miles away? What and who imposed this reality on the region? To whose benefit this is? Is this reality even being interrogated, questioned, or resisted by people, or are most people falling for this culture of consumption that is turning them into sedated consumers who simply take it for granted? Would any Middle Eastern countries willing to produce at least their shampoos and body lotions—not to say build their own airports and fly their own planes—even be allowed to exist on the neocolonial  geopolitical map of the world, or will they immediately be added to the “axis of evil” list?

The Western-manufactured consumer goods had Arabic translations of the exact same English, French or German text of each product. Most translations on the products were poorly done. They were actually transliterations rather than translations. They sounded awkward and foreign even to those for whom Arabic is a second language. Indeed, these transliterations were alarming, because they clearly show how even the different languages around the world are being held hostages by those who insist on spreading the cancer of capitalism worldwide. These literal translations show that even our colorful and diverse languages around the globe are at stake. Instead of being diverse mediums of thinking, sensing, and writing differently, different languages are being turned into one corporate language that enables you to click on this agreement or that; to login, logout, or accept the “terms and conditions of use” of this service or that blindly. Sometimes you can use a corporate service in a language that you don’t speak simply because it is a carbon copy of one which you had previously encountered on a different product or service in your own language. In other words, languages are saying one and the same thing: be a good and obedient customer to the masters! Indeed, the Internet is being run by few moguls that monopolize the online world which is, like the physical world, becoming owned by few actors. In brief, the virtual world is owned by the same few actors who are trying to control and suffocate the physical one, which means that its usefulness as a tool should not be exaggerated or evaluated without taking this factor into serious consideration.

While waiting in the “duty-free” area, I decided to sit at a small table in a quiet corner at an open space, just across from KFC and McDonald’s. As I sat, I looked at some Arabs in traditional dresses eating greasy fried chicken, burgers, and fries with their hands; talking about prayer times and the location of the chapel at the airport. The looks, the dresses, the language, the friendly faces were all familiar. The only unfamiliar thing was what was going in their mouths—junk foods loaded with grease and unhealthy ingredients. I was struck by the disharmony and disconnect between the people and the foods they were eating.

As always, all these shocking observations took me back to the Iraqi reality and made me wonder whether all the turmoil, destruction, and death Iraqis have been put through will only be considered a “success story” when Iraqis, too, are turned into sedated, blinded consumers who cannot even manufacture their own body lotions and shampoos. Iraqis will only be considered a “success story” when they are disciplined by all means possible, including violence, until they learn the skill of ordering the right KFC meal, the right burger from Burger King, the right coffee from Starbucks, or buy the right Western-manufactured body lotion for their skins that have been burning for decades with the fires of Western bombs and missiles. One of my friends once asked me why is it that I go back to the Iraq war even when I write about other topics. My response to that is because Iraq is one of the best contemporary wounds that captures how the global struggle for genuine dignity and freedom are at stake. Iraq is the most important contemporary example that proves that the entire world is neither free nor democratic, because if it was, such a large scale of death and destruction would not have been allowed to happen. It is a big mistake to think that the Iraq war was ever over. The war in Iraq and elsewhere will never be over so long as the causes that lead to these wars still exist, and so long as the criminals who plot and wage these wars are still not held accountable for their actions. If we buy the illusion that it is over, we are simply sleeping on pillows stuffed with fake hopes of peace, only to wake up one day to the sounds of bullets, mortars, and missiles in most cities and villages in the Middle East and in many parts around the world.

The connection flight from Dubai to my final destination was with one of UAE’s airlines. After nearly thirteen hours of sleep deprivation (add to that the time difference between the U.S. and the Middle East), I was unable to shut my eyes on this flight, because the lights were kept on the entire time as one announcement followed another asking people to buy food, “duty-free” goods, and gifts for the “loved ones”. It was as though the only way to prove our love for the loved ones is by buying them duty-free gifts on a Dubai flight. I was reminded of a phrase my mom used to repeat when I was a child: “A love fed with gifts only will forever suffer from malnutrition!” Of course, at the end of the flight, they sincerely thanked passengers for flying with them. To say that I am terrified of this reality is an understatement. All I can hope for is that humanity is currently, as I was then at the Dubai Airport, simply in-transit, and that people will rise up soon to say “no!” to all this; that we will create and make our own dreams as we see fit for our struggles, future, and the well-being of our planet and humanity. I hope that humanity is soon going to scream in the faces of the merciless, corporate mafias trying to paint our world with one color, to revise and rewrite its history as well as turn its present into one agreed upon lie. Isn’t it time for us to say it loud and clear: Give us our dreams back and to hell with your junk foods, iPhones, iPads, shampoos, perfumes, and body lotions?

Drop the Just War Theory

Mairead Maguire

Rome.

Laity and religious meeting in Rome appeal to Pope Francis to share with the world an encyclical on nonviolence and just peace and for the church to no longer use or teach ‘Just War theory’

It was a joy for me to join eighty people from around the world meeting in Rome 11-12th April, 2016, to contribute to the important discussion ‘Nonviolence and Just Peace Contributing to the Catholic Understanding of and Commitment to Nonviolence’.

Members of the three day event co-hosted by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and the International Catholic Peace Movement Organization, Pax Christi, strongly called on Pope Francis ‘to share with the world an encyclical on nonviolence and Just Peace; and on the Church to ‘no longer use or teach ‘just war theory’; and continue advocating for the abolition of war and nuclear weapons’.

The statement of Appeal to the Pope also said:

‘We believe there is no ‘just war’. Too often the ‘just war theory’ has been used to endorse rather than prevent or limit war. Suggesting that a ‘just war’ is possible also undermines the moral imperative to develop tools and capacities for nonviolent transformation of conflict’.

The gathering in Rome consisted of lay people, theologians, members of religious congregations, priests and bishops from Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Oceania and the welcoming address was given by Cardinal Turkson of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, who read a Statement from Pope Francis.

The Final Statement entitled ‘An Appeal to the Catholic Church to re-commit to the Centrality of Gospel Nonviolence offers the visions and concrete proposals.

This was indeed a historic gathering and the participants made a brave and history-making call to Pope Francis and the Church. It calls upon Pope Francis to give strong spiritual Leadership to the world’s Christians and reject war for peace and nonviolence.

We are all conscious of the growing militarization of our societies and countries and the myth being perpetrated that militarism, nuclear weapons and war, are acceptable.

I hope that Pope Francis calls Catholics not to join the military and so reminds them that killing cannot be with Christ.

I believe the misguided age of ‘blessing wars, militarism and killing’ must become abolished and the responsibility lies with Pope Francis and religious/spiritual leaders to be true shepherds of Peace and Nonkilling/nonviolence following the command of Jesus to love our enemies and not kill each other.

I hope also that Pope Francis will unambiguously proclaim that ‘Violence is always wrong, it is not the way of Jesus’ and reject militarism thereby calling upon Catholics not to join armies and take up arms to kill people, thus becoming a true peace church.

The Appeal is now in the hands of Pope Francis, and we can now work, fast, pray, for an Nonkilling/Nonviolence Encyclical – and hope that Pope Francis will continue to show courage, be brave and bold, a true Prophet, a loving Shepherd and a bright light in these dark days for all the human family, which he has so rightly describes as ‘this unique and terrible world war in instalments’.

Kashmir and Postcolonialism

Nyla Ali Khan

The uncertainty about the status of the state of Jammu and Kashmir has loomed large since 1947. Is Jammu and Kashmir a postcolonial state? Postcolonialism refers to a historical phase undergone by many of the world’s countries after the decline of the European empires by the mid-twentieth century. Following the dismantling of the empires, the people of many Asian, African, and Caribbean states were left to assess the cultural, linguistic, legal, and economic effects of colonial rule, and create new governments and national identities.

As a phenomenon, nationalism often arises at times of conflict between nations, or between colonizers and colonized, and perhaps most commonly, in postcolonial periods. Over the years, tremendous political and social turmoil has been generated in the Jammu and Kashmir by the forces of religious fundamentalism and by an exclusionary nationalism that seeks to erode the cultural syncretism that is part of the ethos of Kashmir. These forces are responsible for the shutting down of dissenters who voice cultural critique, repression of women, political anarchy, economic deprivation, lack of infrastructure, and mass displacements that have been occasioned by these events.

A visitor to Kashmir is required to take in the unpleasant reality of India and Pakistan, which is full of redoubtable paramilitary troops, barbed wire, and invasive searches; marginalization of the Kashmiri populace; dispossessed youths trained in Pakistani training camps to unleash a reign of disorganized and misguided terror in the state; custodial killings in detention centers and mothers whose faces tell tales of woe waiting outside those gloomy detention centers to catch glimpses of their unfortunate sons (an exercise in futility); burqa-clad women afraid of the wrath of fundamentalist groups as well as of paramilitary forces bent on undercutting their self-respect. Such occurrences do not enable the visitor to glimpse an autonomous Kashmiri life, devoid of the pressures that Kashmiris have been subjected to since 1947.

Since the inception of the insurgency in 1989, Kashmiris have been systematically alienated in their own home by the dominant political and military culture and by state-sponsored agencies. It has become a pipe dream to lead a sovereign and dignified existence which is not invaded by the unruly presence of paramilitary troops and militant organizations. Not only have Kashmiris been deprived of their sovereignty in the purportedly democratic republic of India, but they are treated like nationless pariahs in other parts of the world as well. When I applied for the renewal of my passport at the Indian Consulate in New York City in the early 2000s, it was an ordeal for a Kashmiri to get her/his passport renewed at an Indian consulate in any part of the world. The regular procedure allows most Indian citizens to get their passports renewed at a consulate within a day; the rules were different for people of Kashmiri descent.  A person of Kashmiri descent was required to submit innumerable documents which were then sent to the government of Jammu and Kashmir for validation. This entire process takes a couple of months. During that nerve-wracking period, the individual was required to remain without her/his most important travel document in a foreign country where paranoia was a reality post 9/ 11. I was categorically told by an official at the consulate that the renewal of my passport would take a while because of my ethnicity.

This engenders a question that gnaws at me: which nation or nationality is the identity of the ordinary Kashmiri tied with? Is nationhood a myth which fails to represent the diversity of the actual national community and does it only represent and consolidate the interests of the dominant power groups within the Indian polity? Until these questions remain unanswered, Kashmir will remain a space in which the discursive forces of power operate on and through the people. Kashmir will be unable to legitimately claim the status of a postcolonial state.

Escalating U.S. Air Strikes Kill Hundreds of Civilians in Mosul, Iraq

Nicolas J.S Davies

USA Today revealed on April 19th that U.S. air forces have been operating under looser rules of engagement in Iraq and Syria since last fall.  The war commander, Lt Gen McFarland, now orders air strikes that are expected to kill up to 10 civilians without prior approval from U.S. Central Command, and U.S. officials acknowledge that air strikes are killing more civilians under the new rules.

U.S. officials previously claimed that air strikes in Iraq and Syria had killed as few as 26 civilians.  A senior Pentagon official who is briefed daily on the air war told USA Today that was unrealistic, since air strikes that have destroyed 6,000 buildings with over 40,000 bombs and missiles have inevitably killed much higher numbers of civilians.

As the U.S. escalates its air strikes on Mosul, the largest city occupied by Islamic State, reports of hundreds of civilians killed by air strikes reveal some of the human costs of the U.S. air war and the new rules of engagement.

Award-winning Iraqi environmental scientist and Mosul native Souad Al-Azzawi (Ph.D. Colorado School of Mines) has compiled a partial list of air strikes that have killed civilians and destroyed civilian infrastructure from reports by Mosul Eye, Nineveh Reporters Network, Al Maalomah News Network, other Iraqi media and contacts in Mosul:

–        Many government buildings have been destroyed.  As U.S. officials told USA Today, attacks are often conducted at night to minimize civilian casualties, but they have killed security guards and civilians in neighboring buildings.

–        Telephone exchanges have been systematically bombed and destroyed.

–        Two large dairies were bombed, killing about 100 civilians and wounding 200 more.

–        Multiple daytime air strikes on Mosul University on March 19th and 20th killed 92 civilians and wounded 135, mostly faculty, staff, families and students.  Targets included the main administration building, classroom buildings, a women’s dormitory and a faculty apartment building.

–        50 civilians were killed and 100 wounded by air strikes on 2 apartment buildings, Al Hadbaa and Al Khadraa.

–        A mother and 4 children were killed in an air strike on a house in the Hay al Dhubat district of East Mosul on April 20th, next door to a house used by Islamic State that was undamaged.

–        22 civilians were killed in air strikes on houses in front of Mosul Medical College.

–        20 civilians were killed and 70 wounded by air strikes on the Sunni Waqif building and nearby houses and shops.

–        U.S. air strikes on April 24th damaged the Rashidiya water treatment plant in West Mosul and the Yarmouk power station in East Mosul.

–        The Central Bank of Mosul in Ghazi Street and several branches of Rafidain and Rasheed banks were bombed, with heavy civilian casualties, despite all cash reportedly being removed after the first bank was struck.

–        Three workers were killed and 12 wounded in an air strike on the former Pepsi bottling plant.

–        An air strike on a fuel depot in an industrial area ignited an inferno with 150 casualties on April 18th.

–        Bombs have damaged a food warehouse, power stations and sub-stations in West Mosul, and flour mills, a pharmaceutical factory, auto repair shops and other workshops across Mosul.

–        The Al Hurairah Bridge was destroyed by air strikes.

At the very least, U.S. air strikes have killed hundreds of civilians in Mosul and destroyed much of the civilian infrastructure that people depend on for their lives in already dire conditions.  And yet by all accounts, this is only the beginning of the U.S.-Iraqi campaign to retake Mosul. One and one-half million civilians are trapped in the city, 30 times the UN’s estimate of the number of civilians in Fallujah before the November 2004 assault that killed 4,000 to 6,000 people, mostly civilians.  Meanwhile ISIL prevents civilians from evacuating the city, believing that their presence protects its forces from even heavier bombardment.

International humanitarian law strictly prohibits military attacks on civilians, civilian areas and civilian infrastructure.  The presence of several thousand ISIL militants in a city of 1.5 million people does not justify indiscriminate bombing or attacks on civilian targets.  As the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq warned U.S. officials in a Human Rights Report in 2007, “The presence of individual combatants among a great number of civilians does not alter the civilian nature of an area.”  UNICEF protested the bombing of a water treatment plant in Syria last December as “a particularly alarming example” of how “the rules of war, including those meant to protect vital civilian infrastructure, continue to be broken on a daily basis.”

The fundamental contradiction of the militarized “war on terror” has always been that U.S. aggression and other war crimes only reinforce the narratives of jihadis who see themselves as a bulwark against foreign aggression and neocolonialism in the Muslim world.  Meanwhile U.S. wars and covert operations against secular enemies like Hussein, Gaddafi and Assad create new zones of chaos where jihadis can thrive.

President Obama has acknowledged publicly that there is therefore“no military solution” to jihadism.  But successive U.S. administrations have proven unable to resist the lure of military escalation at each new stage of this crisis, unleashing wars that have killed about two million people, plunged a dozen countries into chaos and exploded Wahhabi jihadism from its original safe havens in Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Pakistan to countries across the world.

If the U.S. and its Iraqi allies follow through with their threatened assault on Mosul, the resulting massacre will join Fallujah, Guantanamo and U.S. drone wars as a powerful catalyst for the next mutation of Wahhabi jihadism, which is likely to be more globalized and unified.

But although Al Qaeda and Islamic State have proven adept at manipulating U.S. leaders into ever-escalating cycles of violence, the jihadis cannot directly order American pilots to bomb civilians.  Only our leaders can do that, making them morally and legally responsible for these crimes, just as Islamic State’s leaders are responsible for theirs.

Celebrating Mother Jones

Rivera Sun

“In all my career I have never advocated violence. I want to give the nation a more highly developed citizenship.”

– Mother Jones

This week commemorates the anniversary of the Haymarket Affair, International Workers’ Day, and the claimed birthday of Mother Mary Harris Jones.  While the United States’ official Labor Day falls in September, the international community celebrates workers and workers rights on May 1st, in recognition of actions taken by Americans in 1886, and the events that led up to the Haymarket Massacre.

On May 1, 1886, more than 300,000 workers in 13,000 businesses across the United States walked off their jobs in the first May Day celebration in history. In Chicago, the epicenter for the 8-hour workday organizers, 40,000 went out on strike. The strike continued for three days, and, though violence broke out between strikers and police in one location, the bulk of the strikers remained nonviolent.

On May 4th, a large rally was held in Chicago’s Haymarket Square, calling for the establishment of an eight-hour workday. The police were trying to disperse a public assembly when an unidentified person threw a bomb at the police. The police responded by firing on the workers, killing four demonstrators. Eight officers were also killed, and scores of people were wounded. One of the survivors of the events was “Mother” Mary Harris Jones.

“Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living,” was Mother Jones’ notorious motto.

While Mother Jones sometimes used violent rhetoric in her inflammatory speeches, the actions she organized were nonviolent actions – boycotts, strikes, marches, walk-outs, work stoppages, rallies, speeches, and picketing. For all her appearance as a five-foot tall, one hundred pound, grandmother dressed in old-fashioned (even for the era) black dresses, Mother Jones was one of the most popular and effective labor organizers of her time. She was present at the Haymarket Massacre, and it is in recognition of these events that she began to claim her birthday as May 1st.

The exact date of her birth is uncertain, but we do know she was born in Cork, Ireland. When she was barely 10 years old, she witnessed the horrors of the potato famine, which drove her family from their homeland to Toronto, Canada. At 23, she moved to the United States, and in 1861, she married George Jones. Six years, later, a yellow fever epidemic struck Memphis, killing George and their four children.

Biographer Elliott Gorn writes, “Now a 30-year-old widow, Jones returned to Chicago and dressmaking, where her tiny shop was burned out in the great fire of 1871. For the next quarter century, she worked in obscurity. As the new 20th century approached, Mary Jones was an aging, poor, widowed Irish immigrant, nearly as dispossessed as an American could be. She had survived plague, famine, and fire, only to confront a lonely old age.”

Beginning with rebuilding work after the great fire of 1871, Jones became involved with the Knights of Labor. When they dissolved, she began organizing with the United Mine Workers. She cofounded the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World), which at its founding was the only labor organization that included women, immigrants, African Americans and Asians in the same organization. Mother Jones traveled the country by rail and foot. From the late 1870s through the early 1920s, Mother Jones participated in hundreds of strikes in all regions of the country.

“My address is like my shoes,” she said, “It travels with me. I abide where there is a fight against wrong.”

In 1903, Jones organized children who were working in mills and mines to participate in a “Children’s Crusade,” a march from Philadelphia to the summer home of President Theodore Roosevelt in New York with banners demanding “We want to go to school and not the mines!” The campaign succeeded in raising public awareness, and was widely covered by the newspapers during the two months of the march.

She died on November 30th, 1930 and claimed to be 100 years old. At one point in her life, when she was denounced on the floor of the United States Senate as the “grandmother of all agitators,” she replied: “I hope to live long enough to be the great-grandmother of all agitators.”

Research That's A Blessing And Research That's A Threat

Anwar Khursheed

Science through its application brought terrific benefits to society, yet upon closer analysis environmental pollution, ecological imbalances, radiation causing indescribably horrific sufferings. There is a thin line between research that's a blessing and research that's a threat.

Professor Lisa Bortolotti, University of Birmingham while discussing philosophy of cognitive science in her book titled “An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science” (John Wiley and Sons Ltd) provided a lively and accessible introduction to ethical implications of scientific research. She paid special attention to the complex relationship between the advancement of science, policymaking, and public interest and to the continuity between scientific research and other human activities. David Papineau says “In a way, bioethics is the science of science.

Bioethics is the moral discernment as it relates to medical policy, practice, and research concerned with the ethical questions that arise in the relationships among life sciences, biotechnology, medicine, politics, law, and philosophy. The scope of bioethics includes cloning, gene therapy, life extension, human genetic engineering, astroethics and life in space. There is no dearth of examples of conflicting science; to name a few;

The experimental mutation of rare viruses, development of nuclear weapon in the name of power generation and nuclear medicine through uranium enrichment, thought policing by using Brain scanning to accurately read a person's thoughts could be a valid apprehension of misuse; otherwise an extraordinary tool to enhance security or the treatment of brain damaged patients unable to move or communicate, the charge of artificial rains over the coffee plantation is initially a fiction but could be reality in future. The best possible elucidation to global warming is manipulating Earth's environment on a planetary scale through geoengineering, Prenatal diagnosis lies in the fragments of DNA to develop fetal genetic screening raising the thorny ethical issues.

The experimental mutation of rare viruses can do either help in developing new strains to curb potential hazards or create a new deadly virus which could be potential bio-weapon. The possibility of such a situation does exist in many scientific fields, whose enquiry may cause serious threat to the global security. The ethical issues as the outcome of many researches could create painful social dilemmas.

Separation of radioisotopes for nuclear power generation and nuclear medicine production could be very tempting, but the same could be used for development of nuclear weapons, the same research could either be bane or boon. Uranium found in nature consists largely of two isotopes, U-235 and U-238. The production of energy in nuclear reactors is from the 'fission' or splitting of the U-235 atoms, a process which releases energy in the form of heat. U-235 is the main fissile isotope of uranium. Natural uranium contains 0.7% of the U-235 isotope. The remaining 99.3% is mostly the U-238 isotope which does not contribute directly to the fission process. Isotope separation is a physical process to concentrate (‘enrich’) one isotope relative to others from 0.7% to 3% to 5% U-235 in their fuel. The extent of enrichment extended beyond 90% is sufficient to make a bomb. Because the chemistry of the various isotopes is almost identical, sorting one from another has always been one of the major barriers to the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Today's state-of-the-art technology involves cascades of thousands of centrifuges, and huge infrastructure, normally difficult to perform secretly; the stalemate of Iran and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is the most recent episode.

Alternatively, lasers can be used quickly, quietly and more efficiently to excite the levels associated with the desired isotope and, together with other technology; can sort the uranium-235 from the rest. Nearly a decade back South Korea applied laser technology to enrich uranium-235 to near weapon’s purity in a matter of weeks. However, it remained unnoticed and undetected for years together and was unearthed accidently.

This advent of laser which started with the separation of Calcium-48 for medical use in the diagnosis of bone disorders; and Nickel-64, a promising agent for cancer therapy developed by Texan researcher Mark Raizen. The desired isotopes push electrons into higher energy states by the cheap and tunable laser whose wavelength of operation can be altered in a controlled manner. Despite acute shortage of medical isotopes the high risk of nuclear proliferation does exist. Opinion is divided; Raizen argued that it is unlikely that his technique will work well for heavy elements such as uranium but others stress that laser-enrichment technology should be undertaken with caution as it make ends up into unsafe hands or even terrorists.

Thought policing by using Brain scanning to accurately read a person's thoughts could be a valid apprehension of misuse; otherwise an extraordinary tool to enhance security or the treatment of brain damaged patients unable to move or communicate. Accurately reading a person's thoughts could be an extraordinary breakthrough namely; application in criminal’s arrest, brain damaged patients cure, recovery of voice, taste, touch, movements and other feelings through functional MRI.

At the same time each person's brain is different; it's far from clear that scientists will ever come up with a general-purpose 'mind-reading' algorithm for all. For another, functional MRI machines could not easily be deployed in airports. Even if they were, a simple shake of the head would throw them off. “You can't build a detector that says 'this person is going to blow up a plane now”. The entrepreneurship in 'neuromarketing' has already introduced lie-detection and tools of measuring an individual's subconscious emotional responses to stimuli. All this please us till it is used for well being, but the moment it comes to mind that someone could use a machine to gain access to your most secret inner thoughts the prospect of such a device raises hackles.

The best possible elucidation to global warming is manipulating Earth's environment on a planetary scale through geoengineering; for instance ambient temperature control through solar -radiation management by virtue of tiny particle spraying in the stratosphere to reflect or attract the incoming sunlight or shifting of excess carbon dioxide from the air through algal blooming of large water bodies by nutrient seeding (iron) to shift the carbon dioxide from the air to the ocean floor.

The charge of artificial rains over the coffee plantation is initially a fiction but could be reality in future. The conservationists perhaps rightly expect that geoengineering might be reckless in the extreme and further ignite the volatile politics of climate change. The Stratospheric Particle Injection for Climate Engineering (SPICE) project of the British government consisted of pumping water up a one-kilometer tall hose and spray it into the air to test solar-radiation management to investigate the technique which could produce the same type of global cooling effect as a large volcanic eruption – such as Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in June 1991 (but without any disruption from hot lava, ash or smoke, which would not be present). In the two years following that eruption the Earth cooled on average by about half a degree Celsius. The objective of SPICE research project was to understand whether or not these natural processes can be mimicked and, if so, with what effect, but the project was halted out of the concerns about the lack of government regulation of such geoengineering projects were raised. The opinion was much split on – those who favour says the altitude is too low to alter the climate, and there is plenty of water vapour already up there, David Keith, a geoengineering specialist at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts says “It doesn't pose a risk other than the hose falling on someone's head,”, however on the other side of the fence environmentalists sounded the alarm on moral hazard in addition to unintended consequences such as accidentally shifting rainfall patterns and triggering droughts. The environmental organizations such as Ottawa, Canada based ETC Group; its director Pat Mooney argues that the very presence of such an experiment may make politicians think that there's a way to wriggle out of emissions caps underway on climate negotiations stalled around the world and “It will be an easy way for governments to sidestep their obligations,”.

Prenatal diagnosis lies in the fragments of DNA to develop fetal genetic screening to understand the baby's future behaviour and health. Cure of specific diseases based on this method are already a reality; for example Down’s syndrome detection in the embryo itself is more than 95% sensitive, making it comparable to more invasive tests such as amniocentesis. Because it carries no risk, says Dennis Lo, a pathologist at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Other genetic diseases such as cystic fibrosis may also be detected during early pregnancy, but it raises some thorny societal questions and many more pregnancies might be terminated, there are countries that are very concerned about mental retardation and might be willing to enforce genetic selection to avoid it, insurance companies or public-health services might resist paying for the care of disabled children if their birth could have been avoided opined Henry Greely, a bioethicist at Stanford University in California. Developments in genomics have made full foetal sequencing possible and affordable, might raise even more contentious issues like termination of pregnancy due to high disease risk even though that disease might occur much later in old age in the future, or might never occur at all, given that it is currently impossible to predict whether this condition or the vast majority of other diseases will occur on the basis of genetic information alone.

At present, there are no guidelines on how to counsel prospective parents about the avalanche of genetic information they may be about to receive. Dennis Lo’s predicament is how to convince parents before birth about a disease that could be cured within a child's lifetime. “Who knows where medical science will be in 60 years?”

The ethics or philosophy of science has in more recent times become an increasingly important subject, but the modern day scientific ethics has their roots under the ethics or morality underpinning Islamic Science. Incisive thought from one of the greatest Muslim scholars of all time, Al-Ghazali (1058-1111) and great historian Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406)), states that "total reflection also includes inner reflection, and the pursuit of knowledge should not be divorced from ethical and value criteria." Hence, one could indeed argue that experimental and empirical efforts cannot be completely divorced from one's heart, inner intuition, insight or conscience. Reason and revelation go hand in hand, it would then seem, while science and knowledge are at once personal and social. Consideration for higher ethics under Islam is expressed in many ways. As early as the 9th century, the physician Ishaq bin Ali Rahawi wrote the first treatise on`adab al-tabib, i.e. medical ethics. In this treatise, Rahawi labels physicians as "guardians of souls and bodies" and in this treatise he spells out all the deeds and acts a Muslim physician must observe. Muhammad ibn Zakariya ar-Razi (854-925), too, in his medical work did so much to `humanise' medicine by taking into consideration the patient's problems and attitudes and God imposed on physicians the oath not to compose mortiferous remedies."

The modern history of ethics in science started with Renaissance when science got popular with the masses, but most of the scientists remained cautious about the application and use of their work. Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) drew a distinction between offensive and defensive warfare, and emphasized the role of good defenses in protecting people’s liberty from tyrants. He refused to divulge the details of his plans for submarines out of his apprehension. John Napier (1550-1617), the inventor of logarithms, also experimented with a new form of artillery. Upon seeing its destructive power, he decided to keep its details a secret, and even spoke from his deathbed against the creation of new kinds of weapons. Robert Boyle (1627-1691) a pioneer of physics and chemistry concealed all his inventions related to a variety of potentially harmful subjects, including poisons, invisible ink, counterfeit money, explosives, and kinetic weaponry and said ‘my love of Mankind has obliged me to conceal, even from my nearest Friends’. Alfred H. Lloyd (1905) Ethics and Its History (American Journal of Sociology, 11, No. 2) is a detailed discourse on this topic published more than a century back describing the Dependence of Ethics on Natural Science, and the Important Difference between Ethics as Personal Experience and Ethics as a Social Profession.

The golden principle is the dissemination of knowledge; despite the fact that people did not always think that the benefits of freely disseminating knowledge outweighed the harms. F.S. Taylor’s in his book “The Alchemists,” (H. Schuman, 1949) says, “Alchemy was certainly intended to be useful .... But [the alchemist] never proposes the public use of such things, the disclosing of his knowledge for the benefit of man. …. Any disclosure of the alchemical secret was felt to be profoundly wrong, and likely to bring immediate punishment from on high. The reason generally given for such secrecy was the probable abuse by wicked men of the power that the alchemical would give …. The alchemists, indeed, felt a strong moral responsibility that is not always acknowledged by the scientists of today.

The intention is not to create panic but to just press the alarm button that “look we should not be swayed by the rosy claims rather go by the ethics”, if benefits greatly outweigh the risks.