The Smart Weapons Fallacy: Civilian Casualties From “Precision” Air Strikes in Iraq and Syria

Patrick Cockburn

The final elimination of Isis in Iraq and Syria is close, but welcome though the defeat of these monstrous movements may be, it has only been achieved at the cost of great destruction and loss of life. This is the new face of war which governments try to conceal: a limited number of combat troops on the ground call in devastating air strikes from planes, missiles and drones, be they American or Russian, to clear the way for their advance.

Governments pretend that air wars today are very different from Vietnam half a century ago when towns were notoriously “destroyed in order to save them”. These days air forces – be it the Americans in Iraq, the Russians in Syria or the Saudis in Yemen – say that this mass destruction no longer happens thanks to the greater accuracy of their weapons: using a single sniper, a room in a house can supposedly be hit without harming a family crouching in terror in the room next door.

The sale of vastly expensive high precision weapons to countries such as Saudi Arabia is even justified as a humanitarian measure aimed at reducing civilian casualties.

The PR has changed but not the reality. Despite the claims of enhanced accuracy, drone pictures of west Mosul look very much like pictures of east Aleppo, Raqqa or large parts of Damascus where every building is gutted or reduced to heaps of broken bricks interspersed with craters. The problem for journalists or human rights organisations is that it is almost impossible to verify the claims of victims or the denials of alleged perpetrators at the time.

Witnesses, when they are not dead, have often fled or are too frightened to speak; governments, regular armies and air forces will probably get away with it if they stick to a straight denial that they have done anything wrong. Even if damaging information does eventually come out, the news agenda will have moved on and public interest will be slight.

I found it frustrating during the final weeks of the siege of Mosul, which went on for nine months, to know that there was very heavy civilian loss of life as Iraqi forces backed by air strikes closed in on the Old City, but it was impossible to prove it. I was in touch by mobile phone with two different individuals trapped behind Isis lines who faced the dilemma of either staying where they were and chance being killed by the bombardment, or trying to escape to government-held territory and risk being shot by Isis snipers.

The two men took different decisions, but neither of them survived. One was shot dead by Isis as he and his mother joined a group trying to escape across the Tigris using rubber tyres because they could not swim. A second man was wounded in one air strike and killed by a second in the last weeks of the siege. Most of the two men’s extended families were also dead by the time the siege ended.

Fortunately some reporters do go on looking at what really happened in battles like Mosul long after the rest of the media has shifted its attention elsewhere. Joel Wing, in the online journal Musings on Iraq, writes that fresh information on casualties raises “the total number of dead during the operation [to capture Mosul city and surrounding area] to 21,224 and 30,996 wounded. 17,404 of the former and 24,580 of the latter occurred in Mosul. The new numbers still highlighted the fact that there are many more undocumented casualties as the wounded should be four to six times higher than the fatalities figure. Even if you subtract the 5,325 people that were executed by the Islamic State, that would still mean there should be 60,000-90,000 injured from the fighting.”

The figure looks high but is credible, taking into account the use of conventional artillery and Russian multiple rocket-launchers in the attack on west Mosul. Casualties from air attack also went up because the rules on ground troops calling in air strikes were relaxed before the attack on west Mosul began. Isis was killing civilians who tried to escape from the shrinking Isis-held enclave and more people were confined in fewer houses so if one was hit the loss of life would be high.

Even before this happened many more civilians were being killed by air strikes than the US-led air coalition was admitting. The only way to get at the truth is to look at a large sample of air strikes on the ground and see if they were reported by the coalition and, if so, how accurate that reporting was.

This has now been done for the first time by Azmat Khan and Anand Gopal, who visited the sites of nearly 150 air strikes in northern Iraq between April 2016 and June 2017. In a lengthy study called “The Uncounted”, published in The New York Times on 16 November, they reached devastating conclusions. They write that “we found that one in five of the coalition strikes we identified resulted in civilian death, a rate more than 31 times that acknowledge by the coalition”. They add that when it comes to civilian deaths this “may be the least transparent war in recent American history”.

The coalition denied that many of the air strikes that had killed people had ever taken place, but the reporters found that there were videos of several of them on the coalition’s YouTube channel, though these claimed to show the destruction of Isis targets. When they pointed this out, the videos were quietly withdrawn.

The picture that the coalition presented of its air offensive turns out to be a fabrication. In one sample of a residential area called Qaiyara, near Mosul city, the coalition claimed it had killed only one civilian in or near the town and the Iraqi air force said it had killed nobody. It turned out that there had been 40 air strikes on this area which had killed 43 civilians, of whom 19 were men, eight women and 16 children aged 14 or younger. In about a third of fatal strikes Isis had been in close proximity to the civilians, but in half of the cases there had been no discernible Isis presence.

Where there was evidence of Isis it was often flimsy and out of date: in one case a family of six was wiped out aside from a two-year-old child because a local informant had once seen a mortar near their house though it had been moved long before the strike.

The significance of the study is great because for the first time it can be shown what is really happening in a series of wars in the Middle East starting with Afghanistan in 2001. There is no such thing as precision air strikes.

The coalition claimed that only one in 157 of its 14,000 air strikes in Iraq since 2014 have caused a civilian death, but the evidence on the ground shows the real rate to be one in five. The comforting claim by American and British air commanders that smart weapons enable them to avoid killing civilians is simply untrue.

Lebanon Facing Long ‘Independence’ Odds Given Iran’s Regional Triumphalism

Franklin P. Lamb

Tehran: In many respects the people of Lebanon are gifted if not blessed. Most of whom this observer has been honored to meet are strikingly intelligent, creative, often charming, sometimes cunning and devious, hardworking, ingenious, adaptive, and good natured—much like most people in this region including dear friends in Syria.

And all want a real country, and many are working to confront would-be hegemonizing localIranian militia to get one.

Many analysts argue that Lebanon simply cannot be independent without and effective colonizer unless its can develop its own civil society, which historically have been identified with reform but largely impotent. A free civil society facilitates alliances between divided communities, to build a real country of free and equal citizens with a government that transcends communitarian loyalties. Including civil society organizations becoming more widespread and popular, because it is a pillar in the struggle against corruption and exploitation and gives more opportunities to a larger part of the population.  One nearly universally held view of Lebanon’s population is that the state must have a monopoly over its armed forces and be able to impose the States authority over all parties, including foreign sponsored militia.

There are currently 8000 civil society groups registered with Lebanon’s Ministries,but unfortunately, most are severely stymied by corrupt and sectarian officials who bar many of their reform initiatives. Some of which recently have included women’s rights, garbage collection, water quality, protection for foreign domestic workers, the right to work for Palestinian refugees, and opening Parliament to a modicum of public scrutiny and financial as well as judicial accountably.

According to the Lebanese Center for Human Rights, that amounts to 1.3 associations per 1,000 inhabitants—about six times the number per capita in Egypt. Deeply regrettably, the war in Syria, has deepened even further Lebanese parliamentary gridlock and has dramatically escalated sectarian tensions, while it has weakened the advocacy role of Lebanese civil society organizations.

In 1999, a Lebanese chapter of Transparency International, known as La Fasad, became active in Beirut. These days, La Fasad works on promoting laws in Parliament to provide public access to information, reminding this observer of the U.S. Freedom of Information Act.  True, their efforts meet with resistance from some quarters, but, as one lawyer involved in the initiative recently emailed, “If they don’t want to steal, why don’t they let us watch?” Indeed.

To note just one of scores of examples. For the past many years certain Lebanese political “leaders” have blocked a solution to the massive garbage crisis leaving exposed mountains of rotting garbage to create many communicable diseases for the people of Lebanon. Until today these “Political Lords” continue to negotiate the amount of cash that is guaranteed to come to them if they deign to sign-off on a ‘garbage collection contract,” quite likely to be awarded to relatives or political friends.

According to a just released (12/1/2017) Report by Human Rights Watch, Lebanon’s lack of a garbage disposal system and open burning of mountains of waste poses serious health risks.

The main problem according to HRW is “decades-old, across the board government failure. The crisis escalated in 2015 when waste management collapsed across Lebanon, was a particular threat for children and old people, and constituted a human rights violation. Nadim Houry, HRW’s interim Beirut director reported that “authorities are doing virtually nothing to bring this crisis under control.

The report, entitled “As If You’re Inhaling Your Death” quoted research by the American University of Beirut (AUB) that found that nearly 80% of Lebanon’s garbage is improperly dumped or landfilled where less than 10 to 12 percent is considered impossible to compost or recycle thus causing the “vast majority” of Lebanese residents living near open dumps, whom HRW researchers interviewed, suffer from serious respiratory problems. HRW claims that Lebanon’s government continues doing nothing to prevent open burning, to monitor its impact and inform the population of the risks.

Consequently, despite widespread Lebanese civil society initiatives for reform, many have become cynical or even bitter, wanting to emigrate at the first opportunity believing that Lebanon offers no future for themselves or for raising a family. Much of Lenson’s civil population has lost confidence that they can change the continuing rampant corruption by some of the Warlords from their 15-year civil war that witnessed 15 million Lebanese flee to other countries. Over the past nearly four decades, self-anointed Political Lord,s politically employing primogeniture and widespread wasta (nepotism and influence peddling) have by design become deeply imbedded in the halls of power.

A common cliché in Lebanon these days has it that, “Lebanon has never been a real country, is not a real country today, and quite likely will not be in the future.”

Earlier this month, 11/22/2017 was Lebanon’s 43rd Independence Day from French Colonization. Like every year on Independence Day, the Lebanese wondered what kind of independence they were celebrating.  One dear friend of this observer who attended the annual Independence Day parade with her secondary school students wrote this observer from Beirut saying:

“No one was impressed. Same old boring corrupt politicians mouthing rubbish words about Lebanon’s “Independence” that no one has believed for decades.  Most Lebanese would much prefer the French in Lebanon like they were rather than the increasing takeover of Lebanon by Iran through its militia, Hezbollah. Ever since I was a small child I never felt that Lebanon was a real country. Every day I become surer that we are not.”

Walid Jumblatt, leader of Lebanon’s Progressive Socialist Party and prominent Druze figure, expressed what this this observer is inclined to think mostLebanese believe:

“More than ever I doubt the possibility of Lebanon’s becoming independent because it is a theater of conflict for rival regional and international interests. More than ever I doubt the chance of Lebanon’s being independent and behaving in the interest of its citizens, because of the entrenched connections between the regionally influenced political parties as well as the country’s confessional groups.”

Mr. Jumblatt concluded: “So, Independence Day is just a yearly repetition of an obsolete show that is being held with the same actors.”

During the Ottoman Mutassarrifiyya period of 1861–1920, considered by many historians as Lebanon’s only “Long Peace” was perhaps the last time there was “an independent Lebanon” because it was achieved via an international consensus. Powerful countries played a major role in Lebanon’s existence, not by stripping the country of its resources (perhaps because they were relatively limited) but by protecting Lebanon from aggressive hegemonic neighbors and from internal proxy militia forces employing politically designed sectarian antagonisms that risk Lebanon’s implosion.

OBSTACLES TO LEBANON ACHEIVING INDEPENDENCE

Most of Lebanese Sunni, Christians, Druze and the growing body of agnostic or non-religious in the country reportedly believe that Iranian influence, through its militia Hezbollah is the greatest impediment to achieving Lebanon’s independence.

That may well be true but surely Iran’s hegemonic goals in Lebanon are ultimately vulnerable to accumulating resentments, as pointed out recently by Leila Fawaz, Professor of Lebanese and eastern Mediterranean studies at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

One example she offered is Hezbollah’s minority status in Lebanon, and Iran’s risky overstretch across Iraq and Syria to Lebanon.

Iran’s primary aspiration in to control Lebanon and create a land bridge linking Tehran to Beirut and the Mediterranean which grants Iran full control of a military corridor to Hezbollah, and the region more broadly. As researcher and longtime Lebanese journalist HaninGhaddar has pointed out recently:

“While the bridge has existed in some form for some time now, this month was the first time Iran was able to exert complete control over this crucial passageway, thanks to its influence in a fractured Syria. For the Iranian regime and the Shia communities in the region, the bridge symbolizes an ideological victory and a unified Shia front. It strengthens the sectarian identity of the Shia at the expense of national identities in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and, Yemen, thereby boosting Iranian influence in the region.”

Iranalso hascompetitors, including its current Russian ally, who is carefully pursuing its own role in western Syria. Last year in Aleppo, this observer spent time with Russian and Syrian army intelligence types and during a delicious meal at the only restaurant open at the time near the front line, the Syrian officer impressed this observer with his candor. We had been talking about Daesh and their tactics which did not seem to particularly impress either gentleman. The Syrian officer explained, “Mr Lamb, we Syrians-including my grandchildren are going to be fighting this war for many years. Do not believe that this war is in any way over.  But we Syrians will not be fighting ISIS type jihadists, we will be fighting Iran to liberate our country from our real enemy who today controls it.”

The Russian officer agreed as he pushed me his half empty bottle of Vodka and opened another. One thing that I have learned from countless travels around Syria is that the Syrian army guys prefer the strong Turkish beer Extra (9 % alcohol) the Russian younger army fellows prefer Turkish Efes bear while their older officers love to nurse their Vodka throughout the day and reportedly at night. Many of the countless foreign militia prefer Bekaa Valley Lebanon supplied hashish and captagon and other ‘boosting’ drugs so that they can fight for three days and nights. After which many collapse on the spot from exhaustion and many are rudely awakened by their advancing adversaries and jailed or more likely executed on the spot.  Drugs to boast battle field courage are also used by Hezbollah and plenty of Al Quds Force Iranians. While some of the Afghani specially recruited drug addicts thanks to Iran-Afghan governments humanitarian measure to control Afghanistan’s   heroin epidemic need their daily heroin fixes, courtesy of Tehran. Human Rights Watch and other humanitarian organizations and governments accuse Iran of recruiting countless improvised Afghan 14-yearolds to fight and die in Syria so that their own IRGC and Hezbollah fighters sustain dramatically fewer loses.

Lebanese citizens can resist the growing foreign occupation of their country if their “leaders” have the necessary courage to confront foreign occupation. A few times in the past– in 2013, 2015, and 2016, Lebanese civil society mobilized against a widely viewed corrupt political class that is divided according to its regional and international loyalties which collectively have plundered the country.For example, if necessary, they must take to the streets and resist Lebanon’s Parliamentarians unconstitutionally and regularly extending their terms without having to face voter’s assessment of their lack of performance at the ballot box. Meanwhile, in Pavlovian fashion many Lebanese politicians unite to fight against civil society in highly competitive local elections as was the case in Beirut during the last election in 2016.

According to Marc Geara, a candidate on the Beirut Madinati list in Lebanon’s municipal elections of May 2016, “The Lebanese are ripe for independence from leaders (and foreign installed proxy militia-ed) who have been unwilling to provide their constituencies with a minimum level of services. We feel that the ingredients for emancipation are available and that they only require a catalyst. Will that catalyst be civil society, which may eventually be transformed into a united political force for change? The challenge is difficult, but it is worth a try!”

Iran’s people, who are much like Lebanese and Americans in this observer’s opinion, may be allies with the people of Lebanon as they seek their Independence.Increasingly Iranians are rejecting their imposed Ali Khomeini Supreme Leader of Iran absolute dictatorship in favor of human rights and democracy and engaging with the outside World. Several of this observer’s Iranian friends wish Lebanon well and object to Iran’s involvement in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan, Bahrain and elsewhere in this region.

In a protest in Tehran last week against Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, some in the crowd accused Khamenei of sending Iranian money to Iraq while “Iran itself is full of poverty and corruption, of young men who steal and women who sell their bodies due to poverty and the high cost of living.”

The video which was tweeted on 11/20/2017 by BozorgmehrSharafedin, Reuters’ correspondent on Iranian affairs, on November 20 showed one protester shouting:

“To whose pockets has our money gone? Does Khamenei notice that he is sending our money, Iran’s wealth, to the ruins in Iraq and Syria? Why should our wealth, the money that belongs to us, reach Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria? Iran itself is full of poverty and corruption, full of young men who steal and women who sell their bodies due to poverty and the high cost of living. Why does our leader plunder our money, and send it to others when Iran itself is in ruins.”

One lovely bright student who this observer met and spent time with at Mohammad Beshesti University north of Tehran last year sent me a message from the American civils rights -anti-Vietnam era: “Remember Dr. Lamb: A people united cannot be defeated. Whether in Iran or Lebanon!” We wish our friends in Lebanon Allah’s blessing on their prayers for achievement of Independence.”

Holding Uber Accountable: Litigating Over Data Hacks

Binoy Kampmark

It sent patrons and users into fits of puzzled anger.  It numbed a good many more who had placed mistaken faith in its operations.  Rapacious, predatory Uber, a ride-hailing company famed for its international ruthlessness, had behaved accordingly.  Last week, the firm revealed that it had received a massive hack in 2016, failing to notify customers and regulators that a breach of security had taken place.

The scale of the hack was far from negligible.  Some 57 million customers were affected, their data obtained and held to ransom.  This was not all.  Officials at Uber, having decided against immediate revelation in favour of a deep freeze approach, went for an eyebrow raising option: paying off the culprits to the tune of $100,000.  A dark deal was done: pretend it had never happened.  The hackers walked away delighted.

Given the nature of such information hacks, the hide and seek option was never going to last.  In a blog post, the company subsequently conceded that, “In October 2016, Uber experienced a data security incident that resulted in a breach of information related to rider and driver accounts.”

The data compromised involved names, email addresses and mobile phone numbers.  Certain “forensic experts” were cited as claiming that no “trip location history, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, Social Security numbers or dates of birth were downloaded.”

Incoming chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi apologised with predictable insincerity – when accepting the job in August, he already had knowledge of the hack.  “None of this should have happened, and I will not make excuses for it.”

Having been exposed for being in the breach, Uber’s next step was to claim that the hacking was insipid.  There had been “no evidence of fraud or misuse tied up to the incident.”  Some internal window dressing was in order.

The company has overseen the resignation of three senior managers in the rattled security unit, one stacked with 500 employees.  On the chopping block was Pooja Ashok, chief of staff for the now sacked chief security officer Joe Sullivan; Prithvi Rai, senior security engineer, and Jeff Jones, responsible for physical security.

The security team has not covered itself in glory.  Tasked with the onerous brief of keeping the company accounts secure, it has also been accused of engaging in pilfering programming codes and trade secrets from rivals.  That particular case involves a $1.8bn litigation standoff between Uber and Alphabet’s autonomous vehicle unit Waymo.

This ongoing battle has been illuminating on several levels.  Uber’s approach to regulation – its evasion, that is – has come out for some testing.  Presiding Judge William Alsup was in a far from affable mood to Uber’s general counsel in failing to disclose a 37-page letter suggesting the presence of a “shadow system” designed to avoid paper trails on supposedly sensitive information.

The question to preoccupy the legal fraternity now is whether the hack should have tangible consequences for Uber.  In various states, customers and Uber drivers are looking at legal options over the data breach that may well be grounded in statutory form.  The UK law firm Leigh Day has revealed that it had fielded inquiries from 10 disgruntled customers.

Law partner Sean Humber has certainly had his interest piqued by the possibility of a class action.  “If private, confidential information has been mishandled, that could be a breach of the Data Protection Act, and people could have a claim under the act.”

The line taken by Humber is eminently sensible: that Uber could well have facilitated a misuse of private information or, at the very least, a breach of confidence.  “If people have suffered distress or loss as a result of that data breach, in principle they are entitled to compensation.”

In Los Angeles, the Wilshire Law Firm was also keeping busy on this new frontier of litigation, filing a class action in the federal court claiming that the firm’s drivers and passengers are at risk of fraud and identity theft.

This would be fitting.  Uber is a company hell bent on global reach, and is happy to undercut local regulations, not to mention the taxi market, where possible.  In various locales, the company is meeting forms of resistance.

In September, Transport for London refused the company’s request for a new license, citing its app was not “fit and proper”.  TfL’s reasons also included inadequate reporting procedures for serious criminal offences, the obtaining of medical certificates and the use of the Greyball software.

In other jurisdictions, the company has been banned on grounds spanning unfair competition to sidestepping local tax meters.  But this is a conflict of monumental proportions waged in the courts and jurisdictions of the globe.

Uber, so far, has shown an appetite for donning its armour and going into battle.  Domination does come with its fair share of bruising and flesh wounds.  Importantly, as far as class actions are concerned, the company may well be able to shore up its defences in shifting the onus back to riders and drivers.

According to the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in August this year, the rider must agree to waive their entitlement to litigate in signing for the ride-sharing app.  This also comes with an arbitration agreement clause activated on signing, though it does come with an option to opt-out.  That very attention to detail eludes most users of the system, the cost of near instance convenience.

Such deft trickery did not bother Judge Denny Chin, who wrote the judgment assented to by Judges Reena Raggi and Susan Carney.  “While it may be the case that many users will not bother reading the additional terms, that is the choice the user makes.  The user is still on inquiry notice.”  Whether such cases protect the company from cases of gross negligence regarding the handling of user data is a point that still requires a firm answer.  The firm’s vast wings may well be, over time, clipped.

“Hostage” incident highlights political tensions in Indonesian Papua

John Roberts 

A standoff between Indonesian security forces and a separatist group around two villages close to the giant US-run Freeport Grasberg gold and copper mine in the central highlands, points to deep tensions developing in Indonesian Papua.

The police and Indonesian military confronted the West Papua Liberation Army (TPN) from November 5 to 16 in the villages of Kimbely and Banti, threatening to trigger an armed clash. In the end, the TPN withdrew without a firefight. The security forces claimed the villagers were being held as hostages in order to hinder the mine’s operations.

With the incident over, 344 of the 1,300 villagers left with the military. The aim of the TPN, which is connected to the separatist Free Papua Movement (OPM), appears to have been to intimidate villagers who were not indigenous Melanesian Papuans.

Many of those who left were impoverished migrant workers from South Sulawesi. Yohanis Batto told the media they were not physically harmed by the TPN but were “traumatised.” He said they would move to the coastal town of Tamika, the logistical base of the Freeport operation.

Increased violence in the Papuan highlands has included the ambush and murder of four road construction workers in March and the killing of two police since August—all claimed by the TPN.

The tensions are linked to the drive by Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s administration to complete the long-delayed Trans Papua Highway before the 2019 national elections. The road is part of a massive infrastructure plan to open up the provinces of Papua and West Papua economically as Widodo seeks to make Indonesia a greater regional and global player.

Until recently, most internal migrants in the Papuan provinces, mainly from Java and South Sulawesi, settled in the Papuan capital Jayapura, or in towns along the coast and around Timika. The highlands remain largely Melanesian, but the new highway will change this.

The 4,325-kilometre road snakes through mountainous country from Soring in the Bird’s Head region and across the central highlands along the Papua New Guinea border to Merauke on the southeastern coast. A 450-kilometre section will link Wamena, the political centre of the highlands, to the new highway.

In August, a group of Papuan leaders and the Papuan Peace Network warned Widodo of a social explosion if the highlands population were left as “spectators” to economic growth.

Sidney Jones of the Jakarta-based think tank, the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC), warned that an influx of migrants would rally support behind the Wamena-based West Papua National Committee (KNPB).

Since its banning last year, support has grown for the KNPB and raised its profile in the separatist camp. It works in collaboration with the overseas-based United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP), which promotes Papuan self-determination in international bodies.

Widodo has visited the Papuan provinces five times since his 2014 election. He has made various promises, including that the economic development promoted by Jakarta would improve the lot of indigenous Papuans and poor immigrants alike.

In reality, according to the World Bank, 80 percent of all Indonesians are worse off than 20 years ago when the Suharto dictatorship collapsed in 1998. In that time, the country’s economy has grown fivefold but the richest 1 percent have come to control 50 percent of national wealth and the top 10 percent consume as much as the bottom 54 percent.

In Papua, the vast natural resources have benefitted only a tiny layer of the local elites, along with major international corporations and associated Indonesian businesses. Widodo’s drive for economic development will exacerbate the social divide.

Successive governments have responded to social tensions in Papua by stirring up animosities between locals and internal immigrants, and conducting brutal crackdowns on any social and political unrest. Papuan separatist leaders have exploited local anger to try to pressure Jakarta for concessions and a greater slice of the economic pie for the small indigenous elites.

Widodo has sought to defuse mounting local resentment and anger by promising to deal with human rights abuses by the police and military against Melanesian Papuans. Like his predecessors, however, Widodo will not hesitate to crack down on political opposition and social unrest. Moreover, the new highway will provide the military with far easier access to the region’s mountainous interior.

Indonesian control over the former Dutch colony was formally recognised by the UN after the United States assisted the Suharto dictatorship to organise a fraudulent plebiscite of Papuan tribal chiefs in 1969.

Today, about half of the estimated 3.6 million people in Indonesia’s two Papuan provinces are migrants and their descendants, creating sharp tensions over land, jobs and essential services.

The separatist politics of the Papuan elites play directly into the hands of Jakarta by allowing it to divide workers from subsistence farmers on the basis of ethnicity, language and culture. Papuan leaders are not concerned about the plight of working people but in feathering their own nests.

A case in point is the dispute over the benefits from Jakarta’s efforts to have Freeport divest 51 percent of the shares in the Grasberg mine to the Indonesian government. Papuan governor Lukas Enembe, a highlander, demanded 20 percent go to Papua. In October, a deal was struck with the central government for a 10 percent stake.

An IPAC report on October 31 described Enembe as “the unquestioned political boss of Papua” and noted that anyone who opposed his preferred candidates for district heads did so “at their peril.” The Jakarta Post reported on October 11 that Enembe had said the provincial administration would the “one door” through which the divestment would be discussed with Jakarta.

The political starting point for any struggle to address social and democratic rights in Papua and right across the Indonesian archipelago is a rejection of all internecine, ethnic-based rivalry and the unity of all workers, young people and villagers against the corrupt ruling elites on the basis of a socialist perspective.

Canada: Federal and provincial governments underfund indigenous childcare

Janet Browning

Canada’s federal government is coming under increased pressure from indigenous people’s groups to comply with a 2016 Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (CHRT) decision that found the federal government is discriminating against indigenous children on reservations by underfunding services and failing to provide the same level of services made available to other Canadian children.

On Thursday, the Liberal government withdrew its legal challenge to the ruling by the CHRT, which has issued three compliance orders since its decision, which have to date been ignored. While the Liberal government cited its decision to drop the suit as a major step forward, it involves no commitment to additional government spending, let alone the resolution of the terrible social conditions facing indigenous children and their families across the country.

The government’s own documents show that if sufficient money and adequate services were provided, many of the children in foster care could remain with their families, according to Cindy Blackstock, the executive director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society. Blackstock launched the human rights case almost a decade ago.

“They get less funding for education, less funding for health care, less funding for basics like water and sanitation and less funding for child welfare to recover from the multigenerational impacts of residential schools,” she said.

Prior to his election, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau vowed that a Liberal government would correct the underfunding of indigenous childcare services, but his government ignored the decision for close to 18 months. Similarly, the Liberals’ much-trumpeted pledge to bring about “reconciliation” with the Native peoples has turned out to be a sham.

The federal government’s flagship project in this area, an inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women (MMIW), has been plagued by resignations of high-profile officials and accusations from First Nations groups and residents of lack of progress and incompetence.

Even in the unlikely event that the Liberals granted Blackstock’s demands, indigenous children’s services would continue to be hopelessly inadequate. Children’s services for all Canadians, regardless of their background, have been slashed to the bone, along with other social services, by successive governments, which have been determined at all costs to balance federal and provincial budgets. The more than three decades of cutbacks have produced ruinous results for the working class, which includes Canada’s indigenous population as one of its most vulnerable and exploited sections.

In the 2016 census data, Canada had 1,673,785 indigenous people, representing 4.9 percent of the population, up from 3.8 percent in 2006 and 2.8 percent in 1996. Less than 8 percent of all Canadian children aged 4 and under are First Nation, Métis or Inuit, but indigenous children accounted for 51.2 percent of preschoolers in foster care in 2016. That was up by more than two percentage points from 2011.

The situation is aggravated by the legacy of a century-and-a-half of exploitation and discrimination by the Canadian capitalist state. The residential school system, which existed from the 1840s to 1996, tore 150,000 children from their familial homes and inflicted physical and emotional abuse on successive generations. Thousands of children died in these schools, but the exact number is unknown. Starting in the 1960s, systematically apprehending indigenous children and placing them with non-indigenous families was the norm, a practice known as the “60s Scoop.”

First Nation communities on reservations struggle with inadequate, overcrowded housing and water that is not safe to drink. There are 16 boil water advisories on Alberta reservations alone. Mental health services are sorely lacking, amid youth suicide rates are 10 times higher for First Nation males and 21 times higher for females compared to their non-indigenous counterparts.

In most cases, children are not taken from their parents because of outright abuse, but because of “neglect,” a condition more accurately described as poverty, which often includes a lack of permanent housing or day care. Working class parents who reach out to child services for social assistance often see their children simply taken from them.

The inaction of the federal Liberal government is compounded by the cost-cutting policies of provincial governments of all political stripes.

In October, the Manitoba Tory government of Premier Brian Pallister announced it was cutting funding to indigenous child welfare programs. Families Minister Scott Fielding told a news conference, “For sure, there’s too many children in care. There’s too much money being spent on intervention.”

Fielding said the province would in future emphasize “customary care,” a system in which indigenous communities play a significant role in deciding how to deal with children and families in their own community, as a cost-cutting measure. Manitoba will switch from paying agencies per child and per day for each child in care to a system of block funding. The Tories also announced a legislative review to look at all elements of child welfare legislation, including writing new legislation that will clarify how social workers take children into care. In Manitoba, with one of the highest rates of children in care in the world, 10,000 of the 11,000 children in care are indigenous.

Successive Conservative and New Democratic Party (NDP) governments in Alberta have pursued a similar agenda. Under Tory Premier Ralph Klein, social spending was cut and the child welfare system was contracted out to agencies, not-for-profit groups, regional offices and underfunded First Nations bands. The Tories also pushed “kinship-care,” i.e., keeping children together with extended families, a cheaper cost model that they could sell on the basis of identity politics as “politically correct.” The policy frequently caused children to be placed in homes that were not properly screened, with caregivers who were insufficiently trained and unequipped for the tasks of being foster parents.

Currently, substantial numbers of child care workers are private-sector contractors who are paid the minimum wage and have little to no training or experience working with children in difficult situations.

Between 1999 and 2013, 741 Alberta children died while in care or while receiving child welfare services. Reports of deaths or serious injuries to such children have more than tripled in the last five years. Between April 1 and Sept. 30 this year, the office received 49 reports of deaths or serious injuries.

One of the most horrific examples of the treatment of foster children was the death of four-year-old Serenity on September 26, 2014. At the time of her death, no one from Alberta Child Welfare had checked on Serenity or her two siblings for 11 months. The hospital’s examination of Serenity showed signs of significant physical and sexual abuse, severe brain trauma, a fractured skull, severe hypothermia and malnutrition.

At the end of 2016 there were more than 10,000 children receiving child intervention services in Alberta and more than 7,000 children in care of the province, including 3,500 in foster care and 2,000 in kinship care homes. Indigenous children made up 59 percent of all children receiving such services, despite Alberta’s indigenous population being just 6 percent of the total population.

A steady stream of reports going back years demonstrates that, contrary to its stated mission of shielding vulnerable children from neglect and abuse, the Alberta government has failed to protect them. Vulnerable children are often being sexually exploited, with uninspected foster homes becoming feeding grounds for sexual predators, violent crime, drug trafficking and prostitution.

In the more than two years since it came to power, Rachel Notley’s NDP government has established a dismal record of failing to provide adequate help to children in care, housing them in unsafe conditions with no supervision and ignoring their relatives’ complaints.

In July, child and youth advocate Del Graff criticized the NDP government’s failure to respond to his recommendations on child care. Graff made the comments as he released a report documenting the deaths of three indigenous children, whose families lost specialized care support after the children were returned to them from government care.

German military leadership calls for massive rearmament program

Johannes Stern 

While the political parties are haggling over the composition of the next federal government, leading military officials are working on a comprehensive armaments program reminiscent of the massive rearming of Hitler’s Wehrmacht in the 1930s. A panel discussion involving high-ranking military brass provided frightening testimony at the Berlin Security Conference on November 28 and 29.

With the chairman of the Parliamentary Defence Committee, Wolfgang Hellmich (Social Democratic Party–SPD) moderating the discussion, the leaders of the different branches of the armed forces spoke as if the crimes of German militarism had never taken place. One after another, they presented their demands to the future government and justified them by citing the foreign policy turn initiated at the beginning of 2014.

In his final plea, Inspector of the Luftwaffe (Air Force) Karl Müllner said: “We have stated that as the Federal Republic of Germany, we want to take on more responsibility in the world, and I think it is important that we all realize that this is not to be had for free.” In order to take on this “leadership function,” he said, it was necessary to “sharpen the required instruments.” He hoped that “politicians would recognize this and provide the appropriate means.”

What the Luftwaffe is expecting in the next few years had already been outlined by Müllner in earlier remarks. A major goal was “mobility,” i.e., the credible and rapid relocation of forces to operational areas and the development of “new capabilities” in “ground-based air defence.” But it was also time “to deal with how we want to shape air attack capabilities in the future in the Luftwaffe,” looking “especially at the capabilities of the new generation of fighter aircraft” that make it possible to “identify and engage the target over long distances.”

Most aggressive was Inspector of the Army Lieutenant General Jörg Vollmer. The “paradigm shift” back to national and alliance defence meant that now, as during the Cold War, he had to “relocate troops over long distances and conduct them into battle.” For the German Army, these commitments meant providing three operational divisions while also deploying troops to Eastern Europe as well as providing for the contingents in Afghanistan, Mali, Iraq and Kosovo.

That was “a challenge for the force” that he had to “articulate clearly.” The Army was pursuing the plan of “having the first division replenished by 2027 and kept ready for use.” Also, “the introduction into digitization” was “long overdue.” To that end, he said that “we will set up a testing and trial organization that will allow us to test just what industry can deliver.” In 2032, the “digitized Army 4.0” would have to be standing ready.

At the end of his speech, the general spoke directly to Hellmich: “If I have a wish, it is that what has been initiated will be sustained and the whole thing will go forward step by step.” No one expected that “everything will be in place tomorrow… but it must go a bit faster. It just has to go faster.”

Navy Inspector Andreas Krause presented a billion-euro shopping list of new purchases, including four new Class 125 frigates, five corvettes and six multi-purpose combat ships. The latter he described as real “war fighters.” Added to this would be new helicopters and submarines. Krause also made a direct appeal to the political and business representatives on the podium and in the audience. “We must not lose momentum, and therefore I need you, decision-makers in all areas, to work as a close team together.”

Krause made no secret of the global ambitions of German imperialism. “Germany’s spheres of interest in the maritime domain,” he said, “range equally from the northern flank down to the Mediterranean and extend into the Indo-Pacific region…”

He noted that in 2016, 25 percent of all imported goods arrived at German ports. In terms of exports, as much as 60 percent of all goods were carried by sea. Altogether, 90 percent of long-distance trade took place over the high seas. Germany thus had “vital interests in safe and secure sea lanes” and required operational capabilities “ranging from light tasks to high-intensity three-dimensional warfare.”

The observations of the inspector of the Joint Support Service, Martin Schelleis, made clear that the Bundeswehr is also preparing for war on the home front. He spoke of “coordinating the tasks of the Bundeswehr in Germany, possibly to lead missions and to ensure the functioning of the German hub.”

In most cases, “Germany, due to its geographically central location and landing ports” would be the “transit zone for reinforcing allied forces and rear operational areas.” The Joint Support Service “with its inspector as national and territorial commander… would be particularly challenged here,” he continued, “not only in performing the Bundeswehr’s own tasks, but in supporting the civilian authorities, police, district administrations and civil protection authorities.”

The disastrous effects German war plans will have for the general population as well as the soldiers were indicated by the statements of the inspector of medical services, Michael Tempel. Although Germany has one of the largest and best-equipped military medical services, current developments presented challenges, he said. “If we go on beyond day one or two or three or four or five in major combat, in a major battle, I have to look at what I must do with the wounded… How much can I rely on hospitals in the host nation, how much can I rely on the hospitals back home? How many burn beds do we have in Europe? Less than one, probably. So we have to look at these specific medical problems.”

The German armaments industry is already licking its lips. On the podium, the head of the armaments company MBDA, Thomas Gottschild, assured the gathering: “We can produce everything, but not always very quickly.” The current situation, he added, required “innovative and smart national cooperation approaches.”

One was “in a situation where a simple ramping-up is not possible, but where we have to make certain preparations in order to bring production capacity back up to speed.” Here, it was important to mention cooperation “between industry and the armed forces,” but “European armaments cooperation” was also vital. The “really big armaments programs” could not be undertaken by any single nation today.

The discussions at the Berlin Security Conference underscore the urgency of the demand of the Socialist Equality Party (Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei–SGP) for new elections. The installation of an extreme right-wing government behind the backs of the population must not be permitted. Such a government would arm Germany to the teeth and prepare a new grab for world power, as happened twice in the last century, with catastrophic consequences. The SGP is fighting for a socialist alternative to capitalism, militarism and war.

Changing Political Horizons in Sri Lanka?

Asanga Abeyagoonasekera

The circumstances were right in 1933 for James Hilton to craft the image of Shangri-La in his novel Lost Horizon. It appeared as food for thought to many thinkers in the west who were disillusioned with the direction of world events and keen to entertain notions of a fantastical Oriental utopia. The effects of the First World War prevailed at the time, and against the backdrop of economic insecurity, many sought a Shangri-La such as that in the picture painted by Hilton.

With China at its helm, the rise of the east – once better known as the Orient – is clear. According to the European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS) 2030 report, the largest economies in terms of global GDP in 2030 will be China (23.8 per cent), the US (17.3 per cent), and the EU (14.3 per cent), followed by India.

The Indian Ocean port city of Colombo is among the most recent to welcome the luxury hotel chain, Shangri-La. The palatial space at the very heart of the city was declared open by President Sirisena weeks ago. His predecessor, President Rajapaksa, initiated the development and provided 10 acres of prime land previously occupied by the Ministry of Defence. This new landmark will add value to the tourism industry of the island. But in an unfavourable economic environment with high debts of approximately US$ 64 billion, and 95 per cent of government revenue going towards debt repayment, the Sri Lankan economy has become weaker due to low revenue generation. Sri Lanka dropped 14 places in the 2017 World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) Report. In a few months, another vision of utopia will be contrived in the next election campaign for public consumption.

Polarising events challenge world leaders daily to find solutions to complex problems. The capacity, capability, and courage to find solutions is best demonstrated after assuming power, if the aim is achievable. In Sri Lanka, several leaders who have had the vision to work toward a prosperous nation were cut off by prevailing circumstances. Globally esteemed statesmen from Sri Lanka include the late Lalith Athulathmudali, SWRD Bandaranayake, and Lakshman Kadirgamar. All three were transformational leaders who played a significant role in Sri Lankan society and the nation’s political life. Yet, common to the three leaders was also their untimely end due to political assassination. The trifecta of tragedy is but another of many reflections of Sri Lanka’s brutal political culture.

Lalith Athulathmudali was even offered a high-level position by Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, which he declined. Sri Lanka, however, failed to reap the benefits of this visionary leader. Today the question stands whether new leaders will emerge and transform Sri Lankan society for the better; whether politicians and practitioners have the capacity and aptitude to deliver. One could point to challenges presented by the constitution or from elsewhere, but even if the constitution is redrafted, the right personnel must be in place to turn legislation into policy.

Venerable Sobitha Thero, the influential Buddhist monk who pursued a non-violent path towards a ‘silent revolution’ in the hope of creating a better political culture, was commemorated a few weeks ago on the anniversary of his death. The political elite - the executioners of the promises and pledges to the Sri Lankan people - should reflect on the great prelate’s words and ask themselves if the silent revolution has delivered during the past three years.

President Sirisena has provided an answer and at the same time justified his government’s attempts to investigate a bond scam at the Central Bank: “If Venerable Sobitha Thero was alive he would have approved of what I did. Why did we come here? Why did we change the previous government? What is our objective? Did we come here to fill our pockets? Did we come to rob? I did not appoint [the Commission on Central Bank Bond investigation] targeting anyone.” Yet those appointed to stamp out corruption have become embroiled in controversy due to revelations linked to this investigation, which has led to the prime minister providing testimony. A daily newspaper revealed that the leading suspect in the corruption probe made many phone calls to high-level investigating officers. Upon further inquiry it was revealed that the communications concerned plans to publish a book about the infamous bond fiasco. Whatever the content, it is certain to be a bestseller in the run-up to local elections.

This scenario recalls a parable in Orwell’s Animal Farm that was also relevant prior to Sirisena’s  electoral victory in January 2015: replacement of the farm owner and a name change from Manor Farm to Animal Farm was futile; the expected political transformation did not materialise since the animals soon behaved the same as, and transformed into, the human lot from the past.

The nation will be in election mode in a few months. Leaders will emerge from the provincial and local levels to fulfill election targets and promises of prosperity. Whatever the result, there is indeed one essence distilled from the ages and preserved against time, which is none other than democracy.

Thomas Friedman’s Whitewashing Of The Dark Saudi Kingdom

Taj Hashmi

Thomas Friedman is a big name in the realm of journalism and the study of Globalization. He’s known for his anti-Republican liberal views, and for his pro-Israeli sympathies, especially among Arabs and Muslims. I sometimes agree with his strong opinions, especially his critiquing America’s counterproductive foreign policies. I liked one of his comments on the stupidity of spending billions of dollars on the so-called “training” of Afghan soldiers to fight the Taliban. So much so that I quoted him verbatim in my book on “global jihad”: “Americans’ training Afghans to fight is like someone training Brazilians to play soccer…. Who are training the Taliban? They even don’t have maps, and don’t know how to use one.” So far, so good!

However, after reading his latest column in the New York Times, “Saudi Arabia’s Arab Spring, at Last: The crown prince has big plans for his society” (Nov 23, 2017), I have mixed feelings about this op-ed piece. While on the one hand, it reads like a piece by a biased and ill-informed journalist; on the other, what he has mentioned is better than what he has deliberately hidden, as he has inadvertently revealed a lot about the ongoing chaos in the Kingdom.

Friedman tells us: “The most significant reform process underway anywhere in the Middle East today is in Saudi Arabia. Yes, you read that right. Though I came here at the start of Saudi winter, I found the country going through its own Arab Spring, Saudi style.” What’s even more interesting and ambiguous when he tells his readers: “Unlike the other Arab Springs – all of which emerged bottom up and failed miserably, except in Tunisia – this one is led from the top down by the country’s 32-year-old crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, and if it succeeds, it will not only change the character of Saudi Arabia but the tone and tenor of Islam across the globe. Only a fool would predict its success – but only a fool would not root for it.” His clever use of “if” and “but” at the right places gives some semblance of objectivity and hence legitimacy to this pedestrian piece by a gifted scholar of Thomas Friedman’s stature.

What I find most problematic in his article, is the grossly misleading title, “Saudi Arabia’s Arab Spring, at Last”, followed by his ambiguous optimism about the success of this Crown Prince-led move for an “Arab Spring” in the Kingdom, only because unlike elsewhere in the Arab World, this one “is led from the top down”. Historians across the world have so far only glorified the grassroots-based movements as true revolutions. Friedman’s frequent citing of Prince Mohammed – despite his sceptical comments on the Prince’s assumptions – are problematic.

Friedman, sort of, gives credence to the Prince’s assertion that his anticorruption campaign wasn’t a “power grab”, and asserts: “If the public feels that he is truly purging corruption that was sapping the system and doing so in a way that is transparent and makes clear to future Saudi and foreign investors that the rule of law will prevail, it will really instill a lot of new confidence in the system.” Then he registers his scepticiism about the whole process initiated by the Prince: “But if the process ends up feeling arbitrary, bullying and opaque, aimed more at aggregating power for power’s sake and unchecked by any rule of law, it will end up instilling fear that will unnerve Saudi and foreign investors in ways the country can’t afford.”

He has ridiculously taken the Prince’s vow to “destroy extremism”, which is a euphemism for fighting pro-Iranian elements in and around Saudi Arabia. His naiveté is well reflected in the following assertion: “He’s (the Prince) not sugar-coating. That is reassuring to me that the change is real”. This assertion alone is good enough to turn this piece into a vain effort to whitewash the dark kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Freedman seems to be awe-stricken by the Crown Prince’s balderdash about his intent of introducing liberal Islam as prevailed during the time of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) when “there were musical theatres … mixing between men and women … respect for Christians and Jews in Arabia” and even the “first commercial judge in Medina was a woman!”

However, Friedman seems to have disliked the Crown Prince’s praise for President Trump as “the right person at the right time”, and writes: “I am skeptical”, and points out Iran indirectly controls four Arab capitals today – Damascus, Sana, Baghdad, and Beirut. Friedman seems to be too optimistic about the future of Saudi Arabia as now women are able to drive. He quotes one of them who thinks: since women can drive, “anything is possible” in the Kingdom in the coming days.

Renowned Indian-American Middle East analyst and author Ehsan Ahrari, in a private communication to me wrote today (25th Nov): “I am not as pessimistic as others about the tone or the coverage of Thomas Friedman in this essay. He is examining Saudi Arabia from a pragmatic perspective.  We know that Saudi Arabia has to abandon the Wahhabi Islam before it can modernize or successfully implement any major aspects of MBS’ [Mohammed bin Salman] ‘Vision 2030’. What we are not sure about is exactly what strategies does he have to adopt to implement that vision, and how sincere he really is in dealing with his political opponents.”

Then again, despite my reservations about his lack of objectivity, I sort of “like” his article under review, because although he has deliberately hidden some embarrassing facts about Saudi Arabia, yet two things are clear from his article that: a) a wind of change is blowing in the autocratic and corrupt Saudi Arabia, where human rights, gender equality, and democracy are alien, and “un-Islamic concepts”; and b) the powerbrokers in the Kingdom are in a state of perpetual nervousness. The Crown Prince’s offensive postures (mainly against other contenders of the throne) simply reflect the state of prevalent uncertainties in Saudi Arabia, and the brewing discontent against the Saudi dynasty among its own people. His defensive gestures, his trying to sell himself as a benign, liberal, pro-moderate Islam, and a modern leader who even allows women to drive are simply signs of his weakness, not strength.

Can he go all the way to the different direction to liberal Islam by discarding Wahhabi extremism? I don’t think so. He can’t afford to antagonize the well-entrenched Wahhabi clerics, who have strong ideological and matrimonial ties with members of the Saudi dynasty for more than 200 years now. In view of the growing strategic ambitions and influence of Iran across the region, as Ehsan Ahrari believes, there is room for scepticism about the success of the Prince’s “Vision 2030”, and even about his becoming the next king of Saudi Arabia.

In sum, Saudi Arabia (and the geopolitics in the region) won’t remain the same in the coming years. Who wins at the end of the day, Iran or Saudi Arabia, US or Russia-China is still uncertain. As long as America, and Israel are with the Kingdom – which has virtually led to another “Axis of Evil” – it would possibly survive, but growing Iranian influence across the region is very ominous for Saudi Arabia. Unfortunately for the Saudi regime, not only Shias but most Sunnis across the world also dislike the Kingdom, a lot. However, the way Thomas Friedman – no friend of the Muslims and Arabs – has whitewashed one of the worst autocracies in the world, it appears to be another vain attempt to refurbish the tarnished image of a great friend and ally of America and Israel, whose heydays virtually seem to be over.

Investigating The Banks: A Royal Commission In Australia

Binoy Kampmark

On Collins Street, Melbourne lies a monument that acts as a gloriously loud remark about how banks are treated in Australia.  The ANZ Gothic Bank, studded with stain glass windows, and equipped with a chapel for bankers is a secular tribute to capitalism.  It sprung up as a result of discovering gold and remains a shrine to Australian materialism.

Despite historical disasters, appalling decisions punctuated by periods of prosperity, the Australian banking sector has become smug, self-serving and automatically exploitative.  It abounds in assumptions of self-superiority and global majesty.

It is also highly oligopolistic, a culture that encourages manipulation of lending standards, the bank bill swap rate and the forging of loan documentation. “The share of banking assets owned by the four largest banks in Australia,” observed the Financial System Inquiry in December 2014, “is higher than equivalent shares in most other jurisdictions.”

Smaller lending institutions and non-bank lenders have made the understandable point that such concentration frustrates competition.  Not so for Australia’s Big Four, who insist without irony their presence guarantees competition, keeping low net interest margins and supplying good equity returns.

When grand public announcements are made by industry representatives, customers are meant to bow in appreciation.  The recent move by the Commonwealth bank to abolish withdrawal fees from ATMs was trumpeted as a boon for customers.  It was badged as a noble, kind gesture when it was merely a statement about the greater user use of online banking and relentless march to the moneyless economy.

While the Australian banker is deemed a sacred cow by captains of industry, valuable for the shareholder despite spiting the customer, the same cannot be said for a good stretch of the country whose citizens see banks as unaccountable providers of dubious services.

Suspicions abound that the Australian public is being hoodwinked even as the money pours in and profits soar.  Australian banks alone have paid out over $1 billion in compensation and fines to clients in the last decade, and know that they are facing a corporate regulator with more bark than bite.

Spectacular individual instances also abound, including the Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s 55,000 breaches of terrorism financing and money laundering regulations.  These are just a few instances of transgression.  The list of banking improprieties compiled by former Deutsche Bank analyst Mike Mangan provides a grim buffet to pick from the last decade.

Such suspicions, and dismay, were simply too much for some members of the Turnbull government.  While the cabinet resisted the grumbles from all sides of politics, various bank benchers were insistent.  While the government did give some ground, hauling banking representatives before parliamentary committees and promising a future complaints process for the aggrieved, the calls refused to die down.  An inquiry with sufficient powers was needed.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull duly relented.  “Government policy,” he weakly stated, “remains the same until it is changed.”  For Turnbull, the decision had been grudgingly taken to launch a Royal Commission.  “While we regret the necessity of the decision, we have taken it in the national economic interest.”

The effort to immunise banks from inquiry is unrelenting.  Even after the announcement of a royal commission, pundits in the banking industry and political supporters feel that business will suffer.  Don’t touch the banks – that way lies doom.  Former Australian prime minister John Howard had claimed, in rather novel fashion, that such an inquiry would amount to “rank socialism”. “Our banks demonstrated in 2009 that they were among the best-run, the most prudentially supervised, and the most well-capitalised in the world.”

What, then, would Howard’s view be on the policies of various governments after 2008 to essentially socialise banks in order to save them?  Australian banks, by way of example, received $120 billion in tax payer funds to assist refinancing international loans with an ongoing guarantee from the then Rudd government that they could continue borrowing using the AAA credit rating of the Commonwealth.  A deposit guarantee remains in place, initially peaking at $1 million, and now coming in at a quarter of a million.

The thrust of such thinking is simple.  To merely think of questioning the sanctity of banking is to undermine it.  Let them, it seems, pay out outrageous bonuses and seek protection and subsidies from governments when things go belly up.

The pertinent question to ask here is how far a royal commission will actually go to affect change.  Turnbull has reiterated that he has no intention of putting capitalism in the dock.  The very act of announcing this inquiry guarantees that he can, at the very least, manage it, including the terms of reference.

The government, for one, has appointed former High Court Judge Kenneth Hayne, hardly a rabblerouser of note and likely to be unadventurous in his digging.  “He is renowned,” went a joint government media release, “for his brilliant mind, his forensic skill, and his deep sense of justice.” Whether this translates into feasible and constructive findings will preoccupy the sceptics and detractors till 2019.

Intelligence agency involved in latest Australian “terror” scare

Richard Phillips 

Accompanied by lurid media headlines about a “New Year’s Eve terror plot,” police arrested a 20-year-old young man from a Somali family last Monday, claiming he had planned to carry out a “massacre” in Melbourne’s Federation Square during this year’s New Year’s Eve celebrations.

Every aspect of this affair is dubious and points to efforts being made to launch another terrorist scare campaign to divert attention away from the political turmoil engulfing the federal government and parliament.

Long before Ali Khalif Shire Ali faced a court, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s government joined the police authorities in issuing prejudicial declarations that make it impossible for him to receive a fair trial.

Police alleged that Ali was an “Islamic State” sympathiser and had attempted to obtain an automatic weapon in order to “shoot and kill as many people as he could.” Victoria Police Deputy Commissioner Shane Patton said Ali had not accessed a gun at any stage, but had “face to face interactions” about obtaining one.

Patton told a press conference on November 28 that Ali had attempted to obtain instructions from an Al Qaeda web site on how to launch a terrorist attack. Without presenting any evidence, Patton declared that “the potential of the attack was catastrophic” and “horrendous.”

Federal Justice Minister Michael Keenan wasted no time in politically exploiting the arrest. He said the “fact” that the Christmas—New Year period was a target “reminds us of the depravity of terrorists.”

It then emerged that the police and intelligence agencies had kept Ali under surveillance for two years after the teenager rejected demands by the federal political spy agency, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), to become an informer in the Islamic community.

Police told the media that Ali had been charged over actions taken in March, April and June. No explanation was provided as to why the police decided to arrest him now.

A police-intelligence operation against Ali reportedly intensified last December. Operation San Jose—a joint ASIO, Australian Federal Police and Victoria Police procedure—was evidently launched after Ali was questioned at an apparently routine traffic stop late last December.

As well as the unexplained timing of the arrest, ASIO’s involvement raises questions about the long record of the police and intelligence agencies seeking to recruit and manipulate vulnerable young men. This includes using undercover operatives to entrap them into trying to purchase weapons or making comments that can then be depicted as a terrorist plot.

In late 2015, Ali told a conference that ASIO had attempted to recruit him as an informant when he was 18 years old. He said ASIO agents persistently phoned him, followed him to university and visited his family’s house multiple times, when his parents were not there.

Ali said the agents offered him money for information but he refused. “I know their tricks and whatever you say to them they will use as evidence against you,” he said. The teenager said he was targeted because ASIO thought he was “young and naïve.”

The young man has been charged with vague counts of “acts in preparation to commit a terrorist attack” and “collecting documents to facilitate a terrorist act.” Under the draconian terrorism laws introduced since 2002, the first charge requires no proof of any specific terrorist plan, just “a” possible terrorist act. The second charge was reportedly based on Ali accessing material online. Both charges carry a life sentence. Denied bail, the young man has been detained pending a hearing next March 2018.

Among the other incongruities in the case, Ali was allegedly in possession of an Al Qaeda guidebook, although police describe him as a sympathiser with rival group Islamic State.

Media outlets, which were on the scene during police raids related to the arrest, reported that a computer and other “evidence,” including a “large-framed picture” were seized. In a slur against working-class Melbourne residents, Fairfax Media described Meadow Heights, where Ali lived, as part of “a belt of suburbs in the north-west long linked to violent extremism.”

There is a record of governments, police and the media using so-called terror plots to justify the introduction, or use, of wide-ranging anti-democratic measures. That includes alleged plans to attack ASIO offices, military bases, Anzac Day ceremonies and major sporting events, organise implausible airplane bombings and conduct street murders and beheadings.

Many of these cases, including the Lindt café siege in Sydney in December 2015, have involved disoriented or mentally-ill individuals who have been in direct contact with ASIO.

For the past 16 years, governments—Liberal-National and Labor alike—have seized upon alleged terrorist plots to introduce barrages of terrorism laws that overturn basic legal and democratic rights.

At last month’s Council of Australian Governments meeting, federal and state governments unanimously agreed to another package. It will introduce wide-ranging powers of arrest and detention without charge, and adopt real-time face recognition technology to enable the police and intelligence agencies to identify individuals instantly.

The latest “massacre” plot is being promoted under conditions in which the Turnbull government is in deep crisis and increasingly unravelling, facing deepening hostility among wide layers of the population.