Fracking linked to earthquakes and increased levels of radon in homes

Philip Guelpa

A newly released study indicates that a significant correlation exists between areas where fracking (high volume hydraulic fracturing combined with horizontal directional drilling used to extract oil and natural gas from shale deposits) is taking place and elevated levels of radon.

Radon is an odorless, colorless radioactive gas, a known carcinogen, which accumulates in homes and commercial buildings. It is a radioactive decomposition product of radium-226, and is the second leading cause of lung cancer after smoking.

The study, published in Environmental Health Perspectives, was conducted by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, UC San Francisco, and Johns Hopkins University.

In a separate study, government researchers identified a statistically significant correlation between increased seismic activity and the proximity of injection wells used to dispose of huge quantities of contaminated fracking wastewater.

Neither of these findings is entirely surprising. It has been known for years that the fracking process employs huge quantities of water and a witch’s brew of toxic and carcinogenic chemicals to break open the shale bedrock in order to release oil and natural gas trapped within. It is also known that, in addition to the hydrocarbons, the resulting wastewater “backflow” may also bring up harmful heavy metals and radioactive materials. However, the industry and its political supporters have consistently denied that this is of concern.

The findings regarding radon are based on analysis of over 860,000 measurements taken in Pennsylvania homes and other buildings from 1989 to 2013. Levels of radon began to increase noticeably in 2004 as fracking activity intensified. Between 2005 and 2013, 7,469 fracking wells were drilled in the state.

Radium is a naturally occurring inclusion in the shale deposits being fracked. As it decomposes into radon gas, it normally travels to the surface in varying quantities and can accumulate in building basements, posing a health danger to the occupants. However, the significant increase in radon levels in recent years correlated with the expansion of fracking strongly suggests a cause and effect relationship, posing a marked increase in health risk.

Joan Casey of University of California Berkeley, a coauthor of the study, said in a statement released by Johns Hopkins University that, “By drilling 7,000 holes in the ground, the fracking industry may have changed the geology and created new pathways for radon to rise to the surface.”

Among the study’s findings was that radon concentrations were 21 percent higher in buildings that used well water as compared to municipal sources. Buildings in rural areas where fracking is prevalent were found to have radon in concentrations 39 percent higher than those in urban areas, where fracking is not taking place.

Radon has a half-life of about four days. Within 20 days it has lost 95 percent of its radioactivity. Therefore, the source of radon contamination must be in close proximity to the locations where increased levels have been found.

The new study contradicts earlier findings by Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection, published in January, that there is “little potential for additional radon exposure to the public” due to fracking. Last fall, earlier DEP studies downplaying the dangers of fracking were brought into question when it was revealed that they omitted measurements on many important contaminants. Given that the state’s politicians are heavily supportive of fracking, the latest DEP study must be viewed as suspect. The reliability of the UC/Johns Hopkins results is bolstered by the very large sample size of the data used and the fact that the source of the data is the DEP itself.

Another study, published last October, using data from five states, found elevated levels of eight toxic chemicals near fracking sites. These included benzene and formaldehyde, both known carcinogens. And, a September study by the National Institutes of Health found that Pennsylvanians who live close to natural gas wells are twice as likely to report skin and respiratory problems as residents who live farther away.

Not only does fracking pose dangers stemming from the release of toxic and radioactive materials, but the disposal of the huge quantities of contaminated wastewater that result is also a major problem. Treating this effluent to make it safe to return to the environment is technically difficult and expensive. Most sewage treatment plants are not capable of accomplishing this task. Therefore, the industry employs various methods to make the waste “disappear.”

One favored method is the injection of the fracking fluid deep underground, where it is supposedly “sequestered,” preventing environmental contamination. In Oklahoma, more than 50 billion gallons of wastewater went into disposal wells in 2013 alone, according to the Oklahoma Geological Survey. Not only does this make the water unavailable for future use, an especially troublesome problem for arid areas, but it is becoming increasingly evident that introducing large quantities of water under pressure into geologic formations where it did not formerly exist is resulting in seismic disturbances—earthquakes.

A study by the US Geological Survey, released last Thursday, demonstrates a clear correlation between the increasing frequency of earthquakes and the injection well disposal of fracking wastewater. In Oklahoma, the hardest-hit state, earthquakes are hundreds of time more likely than they were a few years ago, before the underground disposal began. Elevated seismic activity associated with this practice was found in eight other states as well.

According to the report, Oklahoma is now experiencing quakes of magnitude 3 or greater at the rate of one or two a day. Previously, such events occurred there only once or twice per year. The state government has been forced to publicly acknowledge the link between the increased seismic activity and fracking wastewater injection wells.

This comes after years of denials by industry and government representatives across the country. There has been only limited regulation of fracking fluid disposal using this method. In 1988 the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) cited a loophole in the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) which regulates hazardous and solid waste, exempting the waste from oil and gas exploration, development, and production from oversight, leaving responsibility to even weaker or nonexistent state regulations.

Earthquakes of magnitude 5 or greater are capable of producing structural damage. In 2011, Oklahoma experience a magnitude 5.6 quake, which is the largest yet recorded that can be linked to fracking wastewater disposal. The cumulative effect of increasing numbers of disposal wells, especially when concentrated in close proximity appears to increase not only the frequency but also the intensity of such events.

Estimates suggest that quakes of magnitudes up to 7 or 8 could result from this practice. This is within the range of naturally occurring tremors that caused major damage. For example, the 1995 Los Angeles earthquake reached 6.7 and the San Francisco quake of 1989 measured 6.9.

Further confirmation of the link between well disposal and earthquakes comes from the observation that in the few areas where this practice has been halted, the frequency of quakes has dropped dramatically.

The Kansas Corporation Commission (KCC), a state regulatory agency, stated in an official report, “The commission finds increased seismic activity constitutes an immediate danger to the public health, safety and welfare. The commission finds damage may result if immediate action is not taken.” However, in deference to the power of the petroleum industry, the order is limited to areas where an increase in earthquake activity has already been observed.

The influence of the industry over state regulators is illustrated by a recently revealed incident in Oklahoma. As shown by emails obtained under the freedom of information law, the state seismologist, Austin Holland, was summoned to a meeting in 2013 with Oklahoma City-based oil and gas tycoon Harold Hamm. Hamm, who has been called the founding father of the US fracking boom, expressed his “concern” that earthquakes were being linked to the fracking process. Holland indicated that meeting was “intimidating.” This was reportedly at least the second such meeting with industry executives.

The pattern seen emerging from multiple efforts by a variety of researchers consistently points to one conclusion: the combination of high-volume hydraulic fracturing and horizontal directional drilling used to extract oil and natural gas from shale deposits, as currently practiced, poses a marked and immediate danger to human health and the environment. Despite persistent industry claims to the contrary, the process itself and the resulting waste create safety hazards.

Leakage and spillage expose humans, both industry workers and residents in nearby communities, as well as plants and animals in the environment, to carcinogens and other toxic materials at unsafe concentrations. Furthermore, tremendous quantities of water, contaminated by the fracking process, are difficult or impossible to safely return to the environment. Efforts to sequester the wastewater by injection deep underground not only remove it from any further practical use, a concern especially in more arid regions, but also causes increasingly dangerous earthquakes.

The vast proliferation of fracking in the US, where it is currently being conducted in 18 states, and increasingly around the world, is driven by a combination of the unfettered drive for profit by energy companies and increasing geopolitical rivalries without regard to the consequences.

Australian Federal Police defend decision to expose “Bali 9” to Indonesian death penalty

Mike Head

At an hour-long media conference yesterday, Australian Federal Police (AFP) Commissioner Andrew Colvin and two deputy commissioners defended, in the face of public anger, the AFP’s decision in 2005 to place young suspected Australian drug couriers in the hands of the Indonesian authorities in the “full knowledge” that they could face the death penalty.

Colvin refused to apologise for the AFP’s decision, which led directly to last week’s brutal execution by firing squad of two Australian citizens—Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran—and declared that the “harsh reality” was that the AFP would do the same again in the future.

The media conference was an attempt at damage control, breaking the AFP’s silence in response to the justified outrage of Australian workers and young people at the killing of Chan and Sukumaran, along with six others—four Nigerians, a Brazilian and an Indonesian—who were all refused clemency by Indonesian President Joko Widodo.

What emerged from the media event, however, were blunt declarations to justify the AFP’s actions, combined with efforts to whitewash the actual role of the AFP.

“No, I don’t believe we owe them [the families of the Bali 9] an apology,” Colvin stated in response to a journalist’s question. “We can’t apologise for the role that we have to try and stop illicit drugs from coming into this community.” Earlier, Colvin emphasised: “This is the harsh reality for Australians who go overseas and become involved in serious crimes.”

Colvin effectively took the same line as Widodo, who has set a quota of 20 executions this year, on the supposed basis of combatting drug addiction in Indonesia, in a bid to cultivate a base of support among a right-wing nationalist and Islamist constituency. In reality, the widespread drug problems in Indonesia, Australia and globally are rooted in deep social crises, and definite corporate interests.

The wealthy business operators, who dominate the multi-billion dollar drug trade internationally in cahoots with elements of the police, remain immune from arrest. They prey on the desperate situations of the poor, usually young people, who act as couriers. Despite claiming that the Bali 9 arrests allowed police to crack a “major syndicate,” Colvin refused to deny journalists’ assertions that the syndicate’s suspected “kingpins” remain at large.

Colvin stressed the alleged necessity for the AFP to collaborate closely with police forces around the world, regardless of whether they retain the death penalty. He refused to provide details of which countries were involved, but pointedly stated that they included “some of our most significant partners like the US.”

Deputy Commissioner Leanne Close revealed that in the past three years alone, the AFP had received requests for information “more than” 250 times “in relation to matters that may involve the death penalty” and only refused “about 15” requests.

The AFP chiefs sought to counter the continued objections of Lee Rush, the father of one of the Bali 9, Scott Rush, that he alerted the AFP to the drug smuggling plan before the group left Australia for Bali, and was reassured that his son would be prevented from departing. Instead, the AFP handed his information over to the Indonesian authorities, and advised them to “take what action they deem appropriate.”

Colvin and Deputy Commissioner Michael Phelan insisted that they already had intelligence on the Bali 9 group, and therefore did not rely solely on Lee Rush’s anguished bid to stop his son from taking part. Yet the commissioners also claimed that the AFP lacked the evidence needed to prevent any of the group departing from Australia.

This is clearly false. AFP affidavits tendered for a failed 2006 Federal Court challenge by Lee Rush confirmed that the police had the power to stop his son at the airport because he was on bail at the time and barred from leaving Australia. In fact, an AFP officer created a PACE “passport” alert to halt Scott Rush’s departure.

In order to divert from this evidence, Phelan yesterday claimed that Rush was “linked” to two further travel alerts as well, based on other police intelligence. Phelan inexplicably insisted none of these alerts authorised the AFP to actually stop anyone from departing.

The Federal Court backed the AFP in refusing to disclose any of the documents showing how and why those decisions were made, including a secret “Memorandum of Understanding Between the Government of the Republic of Indonesia and the Government of Australia on Combating Transnational Crime and Developing Police Cooperation.”

Clearly, a calculated decision was made to place the group in the hands of the Indonesian regime. Phelan declared: “We understood—and I’ll be clear, and I’ve been saying this now for the best part of ten years—that decision was made in the full knowledge that we may very well be exposing those individuals to the death penalty. I’ve said that before and it’s not a position that the AFP has stepped away from.”

The commissioners made clear that today’s AFP guidelines remain practically the same as those in place in 2005. They said the only differences were that a senior officer must now make a “case-by-case” assessment and that ministerial approval is required where a person is being detained, arrested, charged or convicted with an offence that carries the death penalty. In the past, ministerial approval was only required where a person was already charged and convicted. This adjustment increases the involvement of governments in such decisions.

Commissioner Colvin denied that the Bali 9 suspects were sacrificed in the interests of bolstering relations with the Indonesian security agencies. “The idea that we shopped these Australians into this situation because we wanted to try and curry favour in relation to other investigations is fanciful and offensive,” he declared.

In reality, the AFP’s actions were backed by both the Howard government and the Labor Party opposition, in the interests of strengthening strategic and military ties with the Indonesian administration of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, which had been strained by Australia’s 1999 military intervention into East Timor to secure control of the breakaway Indonesian province’s oil and gas resources.

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer lauded the Yudhoyono government in 2006 after four of the Bali 9’s sentences were increased to the death penalty. “We actually urged the Indonesians to be tough on drug trafficking,” he stated. “We are grateful to the Indonesians for being tough on drugs; it’s just that we don’t support capital punishment.” Following Downer’s comments, Labor Party leader Kim Beazley backed the government and the AFP. “We are in the business of supporting them,” he said.

Today, the crocodile tears of the Abbott government and the Labor opposition over the fate of Chan and Sukumaran, are just as cynical and hypocritical. Last Friday, three days after the men were executed, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop stated: “It’s time for us to seek to move on … I think we need to look at the long-term future of the relationship.” Prime Minister Tony Abbott endorsed her remarks a day later.

Today’s editorial in the Australian also sought to “move on.” After praising the AFP for supposedly “clearing the air” about the Bali 9 case, it declared that the AFP’s conduct in 2005 had “the legitimate effect of helping to bolster co-operation between law enforcement agencies in both nations.”

These responses point to the major strategic considerations involved. For Canberra’s political and security establishment, and its partners in Washington, Indonesia is a crucial linch pin in the US military and economic “pivot” to Asia to encircle and confront China.

Two years since the Rana Plaza collapse in Bangladesh

Sarath Kumara

None of the fundamental issues that led to the Rana Plaza disaster and the deaths of over 1,120 people and the wounding of 2,400 others have been addressed in the two years since Bangladesh’s worst industrial disaster.

Rana Plaza, an eight-storey sub-standard building that housed five garment factories at Savar, just outside Dhaka, collapsed on April 24, 2013. No worker would have been killed or injured if garment company managers had not forced reluctant employees back into the building, which had begun showing serious structural cracks a day earlier.

Rana Plaza, in fact, was a catastrophe waiting to happen, highlighting the deadly conditions facing approximately 4.5 million workers in nearly 5,000 factories in Bangladesh.

Facing international outrage over the tragedy, Prime Minister Sheik Hasina and local garment manufacturers, as well as giant US and European retailers, promised to improve working and safety conditions, and increase wages. These promises were worthless. There has been no real change in industrial safety. The brutal exploitation of Bangladeshi workers continues unabated.

In February this year, a fire in five-storey plastics factory in Dhaka killed 13 workers. In March, at least six workers died when a building extension under construction in Mongla collapsed. While these disasters did not occur in garment factories, they show that the government’s “concerns” about apparel workers and industrial safety were public relations exercises.

No one has been convicted for the Rana Plaza disaster even though the building owner Sohel Rana—a regional leader of the ruling Awami League—declared the building safe after cracks had appeared. Two cases were filed against Rana under the criminal code and building construction legislation, but three charge sheets on these cases have not been acted upon.

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) and other groups estimated that $US30 million was needed to compensate survivors and relatives of those killed in the disaster. Several major retailers agreed to contribute to this meagre fund, but 14 companies, including Li Copper, JC Penney and Carrefour, refused to pay anything.

The US giant Wal-Mart contributed just $1 million. Benetton, an Italian company with a €1.6 billion turnover in 2013 and 6,000 stores internationally, recently paid $1.1 million but only after an online petition of more than a million people demanded that it contribute. Two years on, only $23 million has been paid into the fund.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) recently noted that the compensation paid to survivors was “not sufficient to pay their medical bills and cover their loss of livelihood.” Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) reported that although the Bangladesh government has collected around $16 million to compensate workers, only $2.48 million has been distributed to the victims.

The Bangladesh government has denied these figures but Syed Sultanuddin Ahmed, a senior official of the Bangladesh Institute of Labor Studies, told the media it was “absolutely frustrating and unacceptable” that many victims were “still waiting for compensation and rehabilitation.” Centre for Policy Dialogue research director Khondaker G. Moazzem said: “Many of the injured victims are still suffering from various kinds of physical and mental problems ... many of them are constrained by inadequate financial capacities.”

One victim, Jasmin, who was hospitalised for five months because her spinal cord was snapped, has only received 60,000 taka ($US771). Her monthly wage was 100,000 taka. Jasmin spends 3,000–4,000 taka per month for medical treatment. A survey by Action Aid, an international development organisation, reported that about 55 percent of Rana Plaza survivors are still unemployed, many due to physical inability, trauma or a lack of suitable jobs.

Contrary to Bangladesh government claims that it would increase the number of factory inspections, only 1,200 plants have been investigated. Factories owned by sub-contractors will not be examined.

Workers, however, are paying the price for the safety investigations with hundreds of job losses. About 200 small- and medium-level factories have been shut down because they lacked proper safety measures. According to TIB, one-fifth of the apparel workers now face the risk of losing their jobs.

In December 2013, the Awami League government agreed to a $68 minimum monthly wage, one of the lowest in the world and comparable to rates in Vietnam, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The increase was far short of workers’ demand for $104 per month.

Last month, TIB reported that while 95 percent of factories implemented the new wage levels, the increase was accompanied by a ruthless productivity drive. “Most compliant factories are putting 60 percent additional production targets on workers, terminating workers at helper level without any legal recourse, harassing workers engaged in collective bargaining and union activity, and dismissing workers,” it reported. Ninety percent of sub-contracting companies were not paying according to Bangladesh wage board regulations, it noted.

TIB also said the peak employer lobby group, the Bangladesh Garment Manufactures & Exporters Association (BGMEA), which has considerable political influence in Bangladesh, has been able to increase the legal overtime period by four hours and delay implementation of new fire-safety regulations.

A recent HRW report entitled, “Whoever Raises their Head Suffers the Most,” detailed on-going abuse in the garment industry. Based on interviews with more than 160 workers from 44 factories, it stated that workers are forced to do overtime and denied paid maternity leave, while employers “fail to pay wages and bonuses on time or in full.”

HRW cited several incidents where companies used brute force to prevent the establishment of trade unions. Only 10 percent of the garment factories allow unions. HRW called on the Bangladesh government and employers to allow union coverage.

An opinion piece by US Ambassador to Bangladesh Marcia Bernicat, published on BDNews24 in February, stated: “We encourage the government to ensure these unions’ members are able to exercise their legal right to collectively bargain, free from the fear that they will be fired or harassed, and that illegal retaliation will be dealt with quickly.”

While many Bangladeshi companies regard the trade unions as barriers to further labour exploitation, Western governments and international think tanks want unions established, not out of concern for workers’ rights but as an industrial police force to prevent the eruption of independent political struggles against the government, employers and the profit system itself.

Export earnings for the Bangladesh apparel industry totalled $24.5 billion in 2013–14 financial year, constituting 80 percent of the country’s total exports. About 60 percent of garment exports go to Europe and 23 percent to the US. As the profit-hungry retailers increasingly demand lower-cost products, garment manufacturers will step up their exploitation of Bangladeshi workers, guaranteeing that industrial disasters like the Rana Plaza collapse will continue.

Spain: Rebound in employment based on wage cuts and increased job insecurity

James Lerner

Figures released by Spain’s Ministry of Labour suggest that employment has begun to increase, after years of deep contraction triggered by the 2008 economic crash.

According to the Spanish Ministry of Labour, joblessness fell by 60,214 in March, reputedly the best month of March on record, making a total reduction of 343,927 over the previous 12 months.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy of the Popular Party (PP) government stated, “They are good figures, we should celebrate,” after data showed the Spain had created half a million jobs over the past year.

However, data from other sources paints a grim picture—leaving no doubt that workers will continue to face high unemployment, “precarious” jobs, low wages and diminished life prospects.

Unemployment still remains at 23 percent, one of the highest rates in the advanced capitalist countries. Almost half of the country’s unemployed have not worked in more than two years. More than half of all youth are also jobless, with tens of thousands continuing to leave the country in search of work, mainly in other European countries.

A closer look at the figures and the current economic climate reveals that the tenuous upswing in employment is premised on across-the-board wage slashing and nearly non-existent job security, conditions that are being used to divide-and-conquer by the European ruling class in their war to drive down workers’ wages and living conditions across the continent.

Spain was one of the European countries hardest hit by the 2008 capitalist crisis. By 2013, no less than 3.5 million jobs were destroyed. Joblessness soared to at least 27 percent and entire economic sectors, particularly construction, virtually ground to a halt.

Now, after years of austerity, labour market “reforms”, and unemployment, the government is trumpeting a turnaround. The “celebration”, conveniently timed for an election year, is aided and abetted by the Socialist Party (PSOE) and state-funded trade unions—Workers Commissions (CCOO) and General Workers Union (UGT).

Recent figures from Eurostat, the European Union’s statistics agency, indicate that hourly wages in Spain have in fact fallen even further below the EU average since the onset of the crisis. In 2008, Spanish workers earned 14.3 euros, or 24.3 percent less than the Eurozone average of 18.90 euros. Now, Spanish workers earn an average of 15.7 euros an hour, or 27.3 percent less than the current eurozone average of 21.6 euros.

Top executives are the only ones truly benefiting from the official end of the recession: those in stock exchange-listed companies earned 17.5 percent more in 2014 than the previous year, while those in the largest companies (listed on the IBEX 35) earned 24.1 percent more.

Nine of every ten new-hires are temporary workers, who have suffered the bulk of the wage-cutting since 2008, and who, by definition, have no job security. This is partially the result of “wage devaluation”, i.e., the war to drive down workers’ wages pursued by the PP government and its Socialist Party (PSOE) predecessor, which together imposed three labour “reforms”. For years, both parties claimed a major objective of the economic policy more generally was to reverse the casualisation of employment. In practice, the reverse has taken place.

Social conditions remain dire.

Recent studies indicate that Spain’s children are the second-poorest in Europe after those of Romania, with 27.5 percent below the poverty line, according to UNICEF. Even a recent report by the European Commission criticised Spain for effectively delegating social policy to charities like the Red Cross or Cáritas.

The mass pauperization of workers has still not satisfied the financial elites. European Central Bank President Mario Draghi is demanding a new labour reform. After asserting that Spain “had made unquestionable progress,” he called for “additional measures” to “reduce the high level of duality” in the labour market, claiming such measures would “make the reactivation of employment sustainable.”

“Duality of the labour market” is a euphemism used to refer to the gap between temporary, usually younger workers, and permanent, usually older workers. What Draghi is calling for is a single contract that has been a main demand for years of the main big business association, the Spanish Confederation of Employers’ Organisations.

A single contract would be an attack on older workers, stripping them of their relatively higher wages and stability compared to temporary contracts. No country has yet applied it, but the financial elites hope to use Spain as a laboratory to create a benchmark to be followed by other European countries.

Again, the government has been assisted in its efforts by the acquiescence of the corrupt trade unions and pseudo-lefts, who have mounted no more than episodic and sector-focused protests against this state of affairs. Instead, great efforts are being wasted on promoting the pseudo-left electoral platform Podemos, which has rapidly shed its limited reformist policies since it was created a year ago.

Podemos is following in the footsteps of its Greek counterpart, Syriza, which has become the key instrument for finance capital to continue imposing social cuts on the working class.

The May 1 trade union-led demonstrations were held under the limp slogan, “This is not the way to exit the crisis.” A supposedly more radical mobilization demanded “bread, work and dignity.”

At the very time the worst of the social crisis raged, Spain carried out an EU-backed bailout of its banks to the tune of 40 billion euros, aimed at protecting the interests of its large shareholders. The European Central Bank has showered Spanish banks with some 411 billion euros in practically interest-free loans.

Yet, there are warnings that even the recent tepid economic growth, which is reliant on low oil prices, a weak euro that favours exports and lower interest rates, will soon evaporate. The International Monetary Fund is forecasting 2.5 percent growth in Spain in 2015, and only 2 percent in 2016.

German foreign intelligence service aided NSA spying in Europe

Sven Heymanns

Over the past week, it has been revealed that Germany’s foreign intelligence agency (BND) spied on European targets for the US National Security Agency (NSA) for years. Those targeted include leading French politicians, the European Commission and several top European companies.

According to reports from the daily Süddeutsche Zeitung and regional broadcasters NDR and WDR, the BND monitored telephone lines beginning in 2002 and later Internet connections for key phrases given by the NSA and then forwarded on the information. The key phrases were automatically downloaded by a BND server several times per day from an NSA server.

Among the key terms, the so-called selectors, were telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, and IP addresses and search terms. Between 2002 and 2013, around 690,000 telephone numbers and 7.8 million IP search terms had been examined, the Süddeutsche Zeitung reports.

The first details about operation “Eikonal” were made public in October last year. According to this, the BND obtained data from a cable that had been laid with the agreement of Deutsche Telekom to run directly from a hub in Frankfurt to the BND’s headquarters in Pullach, Bavaria. From there, the information was supplied to the barracks in Bad-Aibling, where the BND established a joint spying unit with the NSA. The information obtained was then passed on to the NSA.

However, the extent of the operation has only now become clear. According to evidence submitted by the Green Party and Left Party representatives on the NSA investigation committee in the German parliament, the selectors were reviewed by the BND once more. The response from the responsible BND working group was that 40,000 selectors had breached German or European interests.

To date, this list has been kept secret by the chancellor’s office. However, theSüddeutsche Zeitung reported that it includes the two arms companies EADS and Eurocopter, the French foreign ministry, and the seat of the French president, as well as the EU commission.

According to Spiegel Online, the BND had already reviewed the list of selectors in August 2013, two months after Edward Snowden exposed details about the NSA’s spying activities. At the time, the BND came to the conclusion that 2,000 selectors were in conflict with German and European interests. But this had not been reported to the chancellor’s office. Instead, a departmental head within the BND had ordered the relevant selectors to be deleted.

According to information in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, the BND knew already in 2005 that among the automatically downloaded selectors were some that concerned German and European interests.

The chancellor’s office has been aware of this since 2008. According to Bild am Sonntag, the BND informed the chancellor’s office in 2008 that the NSA was seeking information on EADS and Eurocopter. But despite repeated warnings by the BND, nothing was done by the chancellor’s office. Instead, this practice was silently tolerated.

The relevant head of the chancellor’s office was Thomas de Maizière, who is today Germany’s interior minister. In 2010, de Maizière’s successor, Ronald Pofalla, allegedly told US representatives in 2010 that he was aware of their illegal activities, reported television broadcaster N24.

De Maizière has come in for criticism. On April 14, he responded to a question from the Left Party in parliament by saying that no information was available about economic spying by the NSA or other US agencies.

Several opposition politicians have demanded the resignation of BND head Gerhard Schindler. Green Party parliamentary fraction head Anton Hofreiter stated that the German government had clearly lost control over the BND. The BND had become an appendage of the NSA. The Left Party’s representative on the NSA investigation committee, Martina Renner, called for Schindler to step down.

The current head of the chancellor’s office and close ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel, Peter Altmeier, has also been criticised. He is also responsible for the oversight of the intelligence agencies. Altmeier only advised the parliamentary control commission (PKGR) the day prior to the scandal being broken last Thursday. The NSA investigation committee was also kept in the dark.

Federal state prosecutor Harald Range has also become involved. His office, which is responsible for the investigation of severe state security crimes, is considering whether there is reason to suspect that a criminal offence has been committed.

Due to the suspicion that it has been spied upon, the airline and space concern Airbus plans to launch criminal proceedings.

It remains unclear who else is implicated in the scandal and whether political heads will roll. However, it is already clear that the BND, like the domestic intelligence agency and other intelligence agencies, conducts its business without any control and that leading politicians have covered this up.

It is becoming increasingly clear why the German government does not want Edward Snowden to testify in Germany or receive asylum. The BND is deeply implicated in the surveillance practices that Snowden exposed. These practices are not only directed against companies and representatives of other states, but also against millions of innocent citizens.

It is significant that not a single politician, whether from the government or the ranks of the opposition, calls for the abolition of the BND, which evades all democratic control, apart from the parliamentary committees that are committed to keep their deliberations secret.

The most despicable role in this regard is played by the Left Party. Left Party fraction head Gregor Gysi called for a restructuring of the BND in Germany’s national interest. In comments to Deutschlandfunk, he accused the intelligence agency of “treason.” “This is about intelligence agency activity against German interests, German companies, at least companies with German involvement, against allied politicians,” he said.

Gysi accused the German government of being “lily-livered towards the US administration. For decades, they have not dared to engage with them as an equal partner.”

With such levels of patriotism from the Left Party, the ruling elite hardly has a need for any right-wing parties.

Two gunmen killed outside anti-Islam provocation in Texas

Bill Van Auken

Two gunmen were shot and killed outside a staged anti-Islamic provocation in the city of Garland, Texas, Sunday night, an outcome that was patently sought and welcomed by the event’s organizers.

The event, which was billed as a “Muhammad Art Exhibit and Cartoon Contest,” had been turned into an armed camp by local authorities and its organizers, who paid $10,000 for extra police.

Cops had sealed off the area surrounding the Curtis Culwell Center, which is run by the local school district, and installed metal detectors at the door. An entire SWAT reaction team, dressed in military camouflage and armed with assault rifles, was deployed behind the center.

As it happened, just one Garland traffic cop is reported to have shot both of the gunmen with a pistol after they had fired on a security guard, wounding him in the ankle.

One of the gunmen was identified as Elton Simpson of Phoenix, Arizona, who was well known to federal authorities, while the other was said to be his roommate, Nadir Hamid Soofi. Both were wearing body armor and carrying assault rifles, according to police reports.

The event was organized by the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), a right-wing, rabidly anti-Muslim and pro-Zionist organization, with the express purpose of grotesquely cashing in on the right-wing and anti-Muslim campaign whipped up over the terrorist attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdoin Paris last January.

Aping Charlie Hebdo and its vulgar anti-Muslim caricatures, the group staged a contest offering a $10,000 prize to the “best” cartoon of the Muslim prophet Muhammad, an action deliberately designed to insult and incite Muslim sensibilities while at the same time whipping up anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant chauvinism.

The leader of the group and the event’s organizer was Pamela Geller, who previously won notoriety as one of the instigators of a racist campaign against the so-called “Ground Zero mosque,” an attempt to whip up lynch mob hysteria over a proposed Islamic cultural center near the site of the former World Trade Center buildings.

She has also received media attention through a series of lawsuits aimed at forcing local transit authorities to place openly racist and inflammatory anti-Muslim advertisement posters on buses and in subway stations. Last month, a federal judge ruled in her favor, finding that New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) cannot prevent her from having a poster with the text “Killing Jews is Worship that draws us close to Allah” next to the image of a young man in a keffiyeh, a traditional Middle Eastern headdress.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks white supremacist and fascist organizations, has described Geller’s outfit as a “hate group,” noting that she “has mingled comfortably with European racists and fascists.”

Indeed, brought to the US to make the main speech at the cartoon contest in Texas was the Dutch member of parliament and leader of the extreme right-wing Party for Freedom, Geert Wilders. A self-proclaimed advocate of “free speech” when it comes to vilifying Muslims, Wilders has called for a ban on the publication of the Quran.

On its own web site, Geller’s AFDI describes itself as a group that “acts against the treason being committed by national, state, and local government officials, the mainstream media, and others in their capitulation to the global jihad and Islamic supremacism, the ever-encroaching and unconstitutional power of the federal government, and the rapidly moving attempts to impose socialism and Marxism upon the American people.”

In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, Geller made it clear that she had anticipated a violent outcome, effectively having organized the event as a means of provoking one. “This is war on free speech,” she tweeted, before any identification had been made of the slain gunmen. “What are we going to do? Are we going to surrender to these monsters?”

One of those killed, Elton Simpson, 30, had been closely monitored by federal authorities for years. Beginning in 2006 and continuing until late 2009, the FBI had paid an informant $132,000 for wearing a wire and attempting to entrap Simpson into making statements implicating himself in the support of terrorism and an alleged plan to travel to Somalia to join the Islamist group Al Shabaab. With tapes covering some 327 days of conversations, federal prosecutors were unable to prove their case, and Simpson was found guilty only of making false statements to the FBI and sentenced to probation.

He was subsequently placed on a no-fly list. According to the Washington Post, “The FBI had begun monitoring Simpson again recently.”

US-backed Saudi forces dropped cluster bombs on Yemeni villages

Thomas Gaist

War planes with the US-backed, Saudi-led Arab war coalition dropped illegal cluster munitions amongst several groups of villages in northern Yemen, a report released this week by Human Rights Watch found.

Human Rights Watch found remnants of BLU 108 canisters, fired from a CBU 105 Sensor Fuzed Weapon, in the al-Safraa area of Yemen's Sadaa province. Evidence of extensive cluster bomb use was found on a plateau less than 1 kilometer away from "four to six village clusters," inhabited by thousands of people each, HRW found. The alleged use of illegal weapons was corroborated by video footage, photographs, and analysis of satellite imagery.

“These weapons should never be used under any circumstances. Saudi Arabia and other coalition members – and the supplier, the US – are flouting the global standard that rejects cluster munitions because of their long-term threat to civilians,” according to Human Rights Watch arms director Steve Goose.

“Saudi-led cluster munition airstrikes have been hitting areas near villages, putting local people in danger."

The Sensor Fuzed cluster weapon systems works by spreading four submunitions across a target area, each of which then automatically identifies and locks onto a potential target such as a vehicle or structure. The bomblets themselves are geared to explode above ground for maximum effect, and are tailored to generate a downward explosive force that cover the target and surrounding area in hot shrapnel and flames. The US government has transferred the CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapons to Saudi Arabia and UAE in recent years, and the weapons were manufactured by an American firm, Textron Systems Corporation.

Cluster munitions have been banned by an international treaty signed in 2008 treaty called the Convention on Cluster Munitions, signed in Dublin by over 100 governments. Saudi Arabia, US, and the recently deposed US and Saudi-backed Yemen government were among the small number of ultra-militarist governments that refused to sign a 2008 agreement between 118 countries seeking to ban cluster bombs.

In comments to AFP Sunday, Pentagon official defended sale of cluster bombs on grounds that all states purchasing cluster weapons are required to sign agreements not to use the weapons in areas "where civilians are known to be present."

Sensor Fuzed model used against villagers in northern Yemen was first deployed by the US military during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Incendiary and chemical weapons such as white phosophorous, which was dropped on civilians areas indiscriminately during the 2004 US punitive assault against the population of the Baghdad suburb of Falljuah, and napalm, widely used in US imperialism's war against Vietnam, are typically deployed using cluster systems.

Thousands of tons worth of cluster munitions were dropped on Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos by the US Air Force and Navy during the 1960s and 1970s. The US dropped some 260 million bomblets on Laos between 1964 and 1973, some 80 million are estimated to have not exploded, remaining dispersed across the land. Civilians and especially children are regularly killed by explosives leftover from the US war, including cluster bombs and mines, themselves frequently deployed via cluster systems.

US forces also dropped thousands of cluster bombs, including a total of more than 200,000 submunitions, during 2001 invasion of Afghanistan. During an after the 2003 "Operation Iraqi Freedom," the US led assault deployed more than 2 million submunitions against targets inside Iraq. The NATO powers also used the illegal weapons during the bombing of Yugoslavia by the Clinton administration at the end of the 1990s.

Many cluster munitions carry a cache of hundreds and even thousands of smaller submunitions, which in many cases do not explode immediately and become effective land minds.

Cluster weapons often combine both "anti-personnel” bomblets (designed to kill and maim individual human targets) with “anti-armor” ones (designed to destroy tanks and armored vehicles). The widespread pattern of small explosions that the submunitions produce has earned the weapons the military nickname of "popcorn" and "fire crackers." Chemical and incendiary weapons including white phosphorus and napalm are often deployed via cluster systems.

Cluster munitions were first deployed on a large scale during the Second World War, by both the Nazi regime and the "democratic" imperialist powers. Nazi forces used the so-called "butterfly bomb," named for the shape of the container after it had released its submunitions, against both civilian and military targets. Cluster-type systems were used by the US and allied imperialist governments to blanket urban areas in Germany and Japan with flammable explosions, a tactic geared to produce massive firestorms.

Israel and US are top producers of cluster bombs worldwide. As many as 30 countries may have received cluster munitions from the US totaling hundreds of thousands. According to some estimates, Israel used as many as 4 million submunitions against Lebanon during the 1978 invasion and the protracted occupation that followed.

There are signs that the Saudis and the Gulf monarchies are further escalating their savage military actions against Yemen.

Saudi had vowed a ceasefire and political deal to end the war on April 21, but strikes by the coalition began again the very next day, and has since greatly intensified its bombing runs against cities and towns across the country. New contingents of ground troops trained by Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states are reported to be in Yemen, where they are engaging in combat with the Houthis. The deployments may be the opening phase of a Saudi ground invasion.

Large areas of the country have already been laid waste by the fighting on the ground between militant groups and weeks of heavy bombing by the Saudi-led alliance. At least 1,200 killed and 5,000 wounded by bombing campaign, according to World Health Organization statistics. Aid groups state that the real death toll may be much higher, but conditions on the ground make it impossible to get an accurate count at present.

Saudi planes have carried out 70 percent of strikes against Yemen, according to a spokesman for the Saudi coalition. In this, the Saudis have received extensive and growing support from the US military, which has surveilled targets and providing logistical support in coordination with the Saudi-led coalition, in addition to providing billions of dollars worth of up to date US made military hardware.

The Obama administration is working closely with sections of the Saudi, Gulf and Iranian elites in an effort to forge a comprehensive political settlement that will re-stabilize US imperialism's hegemonic position in the Middle East. Yemen's population is being treated as a bargaining chip in the process, with all parties seeking to utilize the growing bloodbath to strengthen their positions against rivals in the regional and global arenas.

King Salman: The Boldest Ever Saudi Monarch?

Ranjit Gupta

At 87 years, Salman is the oldest of the Saudi monarchs to ascend throne; it was widely believed that his health was in poor shape. He had been the Saudi minister of defence for six months and Crown Prince for two-and-a-half years – the shortest period amongst his predecessors. King Abdullah and Prince Salman did not have a close relationship. He was overshadowed by his three high profile elder brothers – King Fahd, Crown Prince Sultan, the longtime stalwart and defence minister, and the longtime equally stalwart Crown Prince Nayef, who was interior minister for most of his working life. The latter two had sons who held high profile jobs and were regarded as influential in their own right. Salman was the governor of the strategically key Riyadh Province for 53 years. Though he has been a part of the core decision-making coterie for the past few decades, from the background perspective, he was less ‘prepared’ to be King than all his predecessors barring King Khalid. No King has ascended the throne in Saudi Arabia in circumstances more challenging for the country than Salman. (See ‘Saudi Arabia and Evolving Regional Strategic Dynamics’, IPCS Commentary #4843, 2 March 2015). For all these reasons, there was a consensus that he would do no more than maintain continuity and stability; rocking the boat would have been completely out of character and totally unexpected.

However, Salman’s actions and decisions as King have been swift and breathtakingly audacious. It can be safely asserted that nobody in Saudi Arabia, let alone abroad, could visualise when Salman took over that in just over three months, the composition of the Saudi government could be so utterly and dramatically different from the previous one; and that Saudi Arabia would be involved in the biggest war in its history. 

It is not only the decisions themselves but the manner and timing of their being taken and announced that is unprecedented. On the morning of 23 January, the Saudis woke up to discover that they had a new King – Salman; a new Crown Prince – Muqrin was promoted; a new Deputy Crown Prince –Nayef, settling a longtime speculation about when the transition to the next generation will be and who it will be; and, the most surprising, a new Defence Minister, Mohamed bin Salman, under 30 years old, whose major qualification for the job is that he is his father’s favourite son. He was also made Head of the Royal Court and the chairman of one of two new committees that would define and implement policies. 

This combination made him the second-most powerful person after the King. All this happened in the first few hours of Salman becoming the king – former king Abdullah hadn’t even been buried yet.  Never before in Saudi history had such sensitive and important appointments been made so extraordinarily swiftly. No King before Salman had so blatantly favoured his own progeny.

On 25 March, Saudi Arabia launched Operation Desert Storm, a series of airstrikes across Yemen – Saudi Arabia’s first major war at its own initiative since its invasion of Yemen in 1934.  Riyadh has been the world’s largest arms importer in the past decade; no comparable country has such huge amounts of state-of-the-art military hardware as Saudi Arabia but its decent-sized armed forces are not battle-tested in a real conflict. Riyadh has thus entered completely uncharted waters.  

The war has been personally monitored by the Saudi defence minister. Despite claims of success in daily briefings, the reality is that the war is far from achieving its objectives. Yet, on the morning of 29 April, Saudis awoke to discover that they had a new Crown Prince and a new Deputy Crown Prince. Crown Prince Muqrin had been removed; the first time such a thing has happened in Saudi history; the defence minister was promoted and made the new Deputy Crown Prince; Prince Saud Al Faisal, the iconic foreign minister for 50 years, the world’s longest serving foreign minister, was replaced and the Saudi Ambassador in Washington, Adel Al Jubeir, replaced him. This is the second time in the Kingdom’s history that a non-royal will hold this post. This will inevitably increase the say the young defence minister will have vis-à-vis foreign policy. The first non-royal Foreign Minister was Ibrahim bin Abdullah Al Suwaiyel (1960-62); but those were relatively calm and staid times for Saudi Arabia and the region.

As the governor of Riyadh, he was also responsible for maintaining discipline amongst the Princes – nobody knows the ins and outs of the extended royal family better than him. He was considered more genial and less assertive in family interactions than his elder and more powerful siblings, both Sudairies and non-Sudairies. Therefore, he may be able to override dissensions in the family. 

However, the implications of Salman’s decisions are a high risk gamble for him personally, for the stability of the country and even the future of the royal family. If he can pull it off, he would certainly be regarded as the most visionary Saudi monarch after the kingdom’s founder. But, if he fails, there will be little consolation for the country that he was the boldest amongst Saudi monarchs!

The Scottish National Party and the British Elections

Binoy Kampmark

“I’m just facing up to reality. A minority government can’t govern without support from other parties. Either Ed Miliband will accept that or he won’t.”

-Nicola Sturgeon, SNP Leader, The Guardian, May 3, 2015

Nicola Sturgeon of the Scottish National Party has proven to be unimpeachable and powerful. Despite losing the referendum on Scottish independence by 10 points, the SNP has been rumbling along in its efforts to unsettle the Labour status quo and, more broadly speaking, that of British politics.

And rumbling with force and measure it is. Not since 1885 has a nationalist party – the then Irish Parliamentary Party – have such force. Membership is soaring, having reached levels around 110,000. In seven months, this has made the SNP the third largest political party in Britain. The Tories, as expressed by the likes of Thatcher’s old hand Norman Tebbit, fear that it will constitute a “puppet government” comprising Labour and the SNP. The she-demon Sturgeon is set to be the puppeteer, holding the strings of an ever malleable Ed Miliband.

The idea that elected government has to work hard for its decisions, seeking alliances, forging deals, is something that leaves a poor taste for British establishment politicians. It is the fearful refrain of comfortable majoritarian tyranny. “Such an arrangement could be unstable in the extreme, even without taking into account that securing votes in the House of Lords would make the proverbial task of herding cats look like child’s play” (The Telegraph, May 4).

Home Secretary Theresa May prefers the catastrophic scenario: any arrangement with the vibrant Scottish nationalists would trigger a constitutional crisis, the worst, in fact, since the abdication of King Edward VIII in 1936.

Showing how proportion expands as paranoia breathes down its neck,May suggested that the measure of such seriousness could be gauged by how the ruling classes were positively paralysed in wake of the monarch’s affair with American divorcee Wallis Simpson. “It would mean Scottish MPs who have no responsibility for issues like health, education and policing in their own constituencies [as they are devolved to the Scottish Parliament] making decisions on those issues for England and Wales.”

Rupert Murdoch’s swill churning centre The Sun, in its own merrily misogynist way, has taken to portraying Sturgeon in Tartan bikini straddling a wrecking ball. Channelling Miley Cyrus, the image of Sturgeon spells doom for the United Kingdom.

Foolishly, Labour’s Miliband has been rattled enough to suggest that any prospect of entering a coalition with the Sturgeon factor would be unthinkable. This, despite the prospects of an ignominious annihilation of Labour’s traditional grounds in the north which made a sitting Labour MP claim that he was “set to Defcon fucked”.

Undeterred by the prospects of this electoral liquidation, Miliband wanted to remind listeners about a certain clarity of thinking. “I want to be clear about this. No coalitions, no tie-ins… I’ve said no deals. I am not doing deals with the Scottish National Party.” Sturgeon has her Labour counterparts in the South worried about the succubi tendencies she has been accused of, feeding off Labour even as it seeks to win office. Vote for Labour, urged Miliband, because the alternative will allow a stampede of instability.

The policy platforms of the SNP show that it is no midget force in the scheme of British politics.

The foreign policy tendrils of the party are worth noting. It maintains a strong policy against the utility of Trident, the long in tooth nuclear submarine fleet that David Cameron has promised to overall should he win office. A sore, and a sucker, it bleeds resources from the sceptred isle, with an expected bill of £20bn issuing from the coffers to replace four Vanguard-class submarines. The total cost, however, is likely to come to £100bn.

Sturgeon has gone so far as to make the ditching of the nuclear submarine fleet essential to any coalition deal with Labour. “The SNP have made it clear that Trident is a fundamental issue for the SNP so we would never be in any formal deal with a Labour government that is going to renew Trident and we would never vote for the renewal of Trident or for anything that facilitated the renewal of Trident.”

Miliband’s own list of grievances against the SNP have been noted. “I disagree with them on independence. It would be a disaster for our country. There are other big disagreements: on national defence, on the deficit and a bigger philosophy question.” By means of contortion, Miliband suggests that the Tories and the SNP share a common thread of destructive ambition. “They want to set one part of the country against another.”

All of these are worth noting, because they make the Scottish upstarts seem light years ahead of their opponents. There is clarity about Europe and the role with the EU. (Britons may have a referendum on the issue of Europe and the EU, but Scots may think differently, triggering another visit on the independence issue.) There is a firm stance about the issue of recognising a Palestinian state.

Domestically, there is an insistence that austerity measures should be eased, if not scrapped altogether. Instead, an increase in the minimum wage is advocated. A 50 percent top tax rate is endorsed, with an extra tax on homes worth over £2 million while banking bonuses will endure new levies.

Five years ago, the SNP won a fifth of the Scottish vote, and only six of Scotland’s 59 parliamentary seats. The arithmetic odds have narrowed dramatically. Far from being a wrecking ball of history and the sacred union, Sturgeon may well prove to be a great reminder about forcing a complacent, tired establishment into the necessary discomforts of engaged democratic practice.

The Sea Party Rebellion

Ralph Nader & David Helvarg

Gas is cheap. America is pumping more domestic oil than at any time in the last 30 years. But two newly released science reports have reached disturbing conclusions. One in the journal Science states human activities threaten mass-extinction of marine life in the ocean, the other in the journal Nature tells us that to avoid the most catastrophic effects of fossil fuel fired climate disruption we need to leave a third of the world’s known petroleum reserves in the ground and under the seabed.

How then can it be, during the 5th anniversary of the catastrophic BP oil blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, that the Obama administration has filed a 5-year drilling plan that could open up much of the populous Atlantic seaboard, along with the remote U.S. Arctic Ocean, to offshore drilling beginning in 2017? Especially when so much energy is wasted daily.

Along with the climate and pollution threats, environmentalists and animal rights activists are also concerned about the high-volume sonic cannons used to survey for oil. Typically these “air guns” emit ocean bottom penetrating sonic waves louder than dynamite explosions every 10 seconds for days or sometimes weeks at a time depending on the scope of the area being investigated. With much of the Atlantic’s offshore waters being opened for potential oil exploration, including marine mammal migration routes, these surveys ― that would take place between now and the proposed lease sales in 2017 ― threaten the death or impairment of the nation’s 450 remaining endangered species of right whales, also orcas, dolphins and other wildlife. The government itself estimates the surveys could result in the “take” (meaning anything from disturbance to deafening to death) of 138,000 marine mammals. Fish including edible commercial species, can also be impacted by this type of oceanic noise pollution, which is why commercial and recreational fishermen are some of the most outspoken opponents of the proposed new drilling. But they’re not the only citizen voices being ignored as reflected by thousands of coastal citizens who have already turned out in opposition.

Has the United States government become so beholden and dependent on big oil and its green slick of campaign money that it’s now coming to resemble petroleum dependent states like Saudi Arabia, Iran and Russia? If so, a rebellion to restore the blue in our red, white and blue is in order.

A Sea Party of activists, businesses and coastal communities committed to promoting the health and economic well-being of our public seas ― while also championing clean energy, including offshore wind ― could prove a strong unifying force between now and the 2016 presidential elections.

A Sea Party Coalition made up of marine conservation groups, fishermen, surfers, homeowners and others has already been launched. Among its first actions was to raise the alarm (two if by sea) exposing a closed-door meeting on offshore drilling between North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory, federal regulators from the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and oil industry representatives late last year, a meeting from which citizens and the press were excluded. At the next public hearing drilling opponents chanted, ‘Just say No!’ Ocean advocates have rallied in Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida and elsewhere and on May 13, as part of a national Blue Vision Summit citizens from more than 22 states will hold a Healthy Ocean Capitol Hill Day to meet with their elected representatives in Washington and insist on guarantees that our coastal economies and communities remain free of the threat of another BP type oil disaster and climate disruption. New Jersey’s congressional delegation has already taken a strong bipartisan stand against any offshore drilling that could impact their shoreline.

It’s unfortunate that President Obama has adopted the ‘all of the above’ energy policy of his Republican opponents. That doesn’t mean new rigs off the Outer Banks, Charleston and Miami are inevitable. The last time an offshore oil boom on this scale was attempted (under the Reagan administration back in the 1980s) broad based public opposition not only stopped it, but led to the creation of some of the nation’s largest and most popular National Marine Sanctuaries (within whose borders drilling and dumping is forbidden).

You can now visit these national treasures and economic engines of tourism, recreation and real estate off California, Massachusetts and Florida.

New marine sanctuaries are now being proposed off the Aleutian Islands of Alaska, the north coast of Florida and other regions presently slated for surveying, drilling and likely spilling.

The upcoming presidential election season will provide another great opportunity for Sea Party organizing. Activists are already sharpening their tridents. Expect to see costumed fish, oysters, polar bears with picket signs, militant mermaids, and oiled surfers (don’t worry, it’s really chocolate syrup) on the news and in your town. They will be raising questions at town hall meetings and campaign rallies for the candidates not only in coastal primary states such as New Hampshire, California, North Carolina and Florida, but also in inland states like Iowa and Colorado – where the Colorado Ocean Coalition is already actively engaged in educating its elected officials.

As they said after the Santa Barbara oil spill of 1969 that helped launch the modern environmental movement, it’s time to ‘Get Oil Out!’ from sea to shining sea.

Is ISIS Really on the Run?

Patrick Cockburn

A graphic illustration of Western wishful thinking about the decline of Islamic State (IS) is a well-publicised map issued by the Pentagon to prove that the self-declared caliphate has lost 25 per cent of its territory since its big advances last year.

Unfortunately for the Pentagon, sharp-eyed American journalists soon noticed something strange about its map identifying areas of IS strength. While it shows towns and villages where IS fighters have lost control around Baghdad, it simply omits western Syria where they have been advancing in and around Damascus.

The Pentagon displayed some embarrassment about its dodgy map, but it largely succeeded in its purpose of convincing people that IS is in retreat. Many news outlets across the world republished the map as evidence of the success of air strikes by the United States and its allies in support of the Iraqi army and Kurdish forces in Iraq and Syria. The capture of Tikrit after a month-long siege is cited as a further sign that a re-energised Iraqi state is winning and one day in the not too distant future will be able to recapture Mosul in the north and Anbar province in the west.

How much of this comforting news is true? Recall that the loss or retention of territory is not a good measure of a force such as IS using quasi-guerrilla tactics. Good news from the point of view of Baghdad is that its forces finally retook the small city of Tikrit, though its recapture was primarily the work of 20,000 Shia militia and not the Iraqi army, which only had some 3,000 soldiers involved in the battle. It was not a fight to the finish and General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said IS only committed a few hundred fighters to holding the city.

Success at Tikrit was trumpeted at home and abroad and was to be followed by an Iraqi army offensive in Anbar province and possibly an assault on Mosul later in the year. But, just as this was supposed to begin, IS fighters attacked Baiji oil refinery, the largest in Iraq, and Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, showing that they retain their offensive capability. As of last Thursday, IS fighters had seized most of the 36-square-kilometre refinery compound with only a few pockets of Iraqi federal police and soldiers still holding out. “We have very little food and ammunition, and we can’t withstand the suicide bombers, snipers and rockets,” said a federal police officer reached by phone by the Iraq Oil Report. “All of us are thinking of committing suicide.”

What emerges from the latest round of fighting is not only that IS retains the ability to launch offensives over a wide area, but that the Iraqi army very much depends on rushing a small number of elite combat units like so many fire brigades to cope with successive crises. One source in Baghdad told me that the number of troops useable for these purposes was about five brigades or some 15,000 soldiers. Other published reports suggest the number may be even smaller at 5,000 men drawn from the so-called Golden Brigade, an Interior Ministry Swat team and a unit known as the Scorpions. When these small but effective forces succeed in repelling an IS attack there is nobody in the regular army to hold the positions they have defended.

A key question since IS captured much of northern and western Iraq last year concerns the ability of the Iraqi army to reconstitute itself after such a defeat. Going by recent fighting this is simply not happening, and failure here has important political consequences for Iraq and the region as a whole. It means that IS is not being beaten back by the regular army in its most important strongholds in Iraq. As a result the Baghdad government is this weekend poised to send Shia militias into overwhelmingly Sunni Anbar province to reinforce the army. “We are under tremendous pressure,” an army officer fighting in Anbar was quoted as saying. “We are in the midst of a war of attrition, which I am afraid will play into the hands of Islamic State.” He described their fighters as being “everywhere”.

The move of Shia militiamen, organised and in part directed by Iranian officers, into western Sunni Iraq creates a dilemma for the US. The Americans have been insisting that the militias be under the military control of Baghdad, though how you prove this is another matter. Washington had been hoping to repeat, if only in miniature, its success in using anti-al-Qaeda tribes and communities against the jihadis in 2006-08. Today this is almost impossible because there are no longer 150,000 US troops in Iraq, IS has shown it will kill anybody opposing it, and Sunni-Shia sectarian fear and hatred is deeper than ever. The 90,000 Sunni refugees who fled Ramadi for Baghdad when the fighting started found it difficult or impossible to enter the capital because they were suspected of being IS infiltrators. Their fate is a grim illustration of the degree to which Iraq no longer exists as a unified country.

At the heart of the failure of the US and its allies to defeat IS over the last 10 months is the problem that what makes military sense is politically toxic and vice versa. The strongest military force opposing IS in Iraq is the Iranian-backed Shia militias, but the US imperative to limit Iranian influence in Iraq means that it does not want to support the militias with air strikes. In Syria, there is a somewhat similar situation since the Syrian army is the most powerful military force in the country, but it does not receive US tactical air support when fighting IS or Jabhat al-Nusra, the al-Qaeda affiliate, because a US priority remains to displace President Bashar al-Assad. As a result IS is not under serious military pressure in Syria and its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has recently issued orders for fighters to transfer from Aleppo to Iraq.

Wishful thinking about the strength of IS and other al-Qaeda-type movements is not confined to foreign powers. Baghdad governments are always inclined to believe their own propaganda or see themselves as victims of conspiracies. Last summer the Shia leaders in Baghdad had convinced themselves that they were the victims of a conspiracy in which the Kurds were in league with IS. It came as a shock to them when the Kurds were the next victims of an IS offensive last August. In Baghdad last week the Interior Minister, Mohammed Salem al-Ghabban, summoned dozens of journalists to meet him so he could blame them for creating the conditions for IS successes.

The Pentagon’s misleading map shows the degree to which false optimism dominates the thoughts and actions of the outside powers in Iraq, Syria and rest of the Middle East. It reminds me of the situation early last year when President Obama, in receipt of the best information US intelligence could give him, dismissed IS as being the equivalent of a small-time basketball team whose actions were of no importance.