How the Media Helps ISIS Spread its Propaganda

Ben Norton

Like many of the fascist and extremist groups that came before it in history, ISIS is skilled with propaganda. Its videos are highly doctored and rife with special effects. It has its own 24-hour TV channel, , and even merchandise. ISIS has a brand that it is marketing, as a corporation or even government does.

The central idea in ISIS’ propaganda strategy is to make itself look like a huge, omnipresent global threat when it is in fact relatively small and isolated. The corporate media, whether wittingly or not, helps it to do this.

If one were to only watch and read Western media reports, one would likely think that ISIS is an enormous global presence. Listeners are constantly reminded that “ISIS territory remains larger than many countries,” that the land ISIS controls is larger than Britain, and that ISIS is expanding. What is rarely mentioned is that much of the land ISIS controls is uninhabited or sparsely populated, and that the reason it easily overtook many of these areas is because there was often a weak local government and a feeble or even absent military.

One has to also differentiate the area ISIS controls from ISIS itself. The actual number of ISIS fighters is contested. Western intelligence estimates previously put the figure at around 30,000. At the upper limit, Kurdish intelligence sources hold that there are 200,000. Even if the upper estimate is accurate, this is still not very large vis-à-vis other states’ militaries.

This is not to dispute the fact that ISIS is obscenely violent and indefensible. ISIS does clearly pose a threat—but a threat to those living under or near its control, not those living thousands of miles away. After all, the vast preponderance of those who have been killed by ISIS have been Muslims living in the Middle East. By overstating the threat ISIS poses, the media only serves to amplify ISIS’ voice—which is precisely what the group wants.

Such an approach also draws attention away from the fact that the US invasion and occupation of Iraq that killed over one million people, in conjunction with the US’ subsequent support for a sectarian Iraqi government and Shia death squads that oppressed, brutalized, and even killed the Sunni minority, are the reasons Al-Qaeda came to Iraq in the first place, and are the reasons ISIS, which emerged from Al-Qaeda in Iraq’s ashes, has some support.

In its obsessive and insatiable appetite for histrionic headlines and sensationalist stories, nonetheless, the US media constantly claims that ISIS is behind this, that ISIS is behind that, that ISIS is in Mexico conspiring to topple the US government, that ISIS is on the path to take over the world.

The irrational media paranoia works. A September 2014 CNN poll found that 90% of Americans believe ISIS poses a threat to the US.

Of course, the media accomplishes all of this with little to no evidence (tweets constitute its favorite pieces of “evidence”)—basing its allegations most often simply on what ISIS itself says. The media also fails to emphasize that many of the foiled supposed “ISIS-linked” terrorist plots in the West often involve undercover police informants and/or provocateurs. The FBI and other forces buy bombs and then lure mentally ill people into doing incriminating things. The US government’s intentional entrapment of innocent Muslims is well-documented.

If another fringe fascist group made the threats and statements ISIS does, would the US media instantly eat them up and report them as news? This is not usually the case, fortunately. In these instances, journalists exercise more caution—as they should always do. Yet, every time a crime is committed or a terrorist plot is uncovered and ISIS claims credit, the US media takes the bait. Every time.

ISIS claimed credit for the May shootings at an anti-Islam event in Garland, Texas, organized by far-right demagogue and leading anti-Muslim crusader Pamela Geller and featuring fascist Dutch politician Geert Wilders.

The Huffington Post put a headline right at the top of its home page reading, in all-caps, “ISIS claims responsibility for Texas attack.” Under the picture, in much smaller text, is the crucial fact that it has given “no evidence of direct link to shooters.”

The article itself is titled “ISIS Claims Responsibility For Texas Cartoon Attack, Gives No Evidence Of Direct Link.” This headline has much more nuance. But how many readers will click the sensationalist headline on the front page and read the more nuanced one (yet alone the article below it)? Research shows not many will.

Is the media technically reporting a lie? No, it is true that ISIS claimed credit for the attacks. But, in typical corporate media fashion, it is hyper-emphasizing some facts (for which there is no evidence) while simultaneously de-emphasizing other ones. By constantly reporting that ISIS took credit for the attacks, the media draws attention away from the fact that there is not any evidence that the militant group is actually responsible.

Many readers are not very critical in their analysis of news. They see the headline “ISIS takes credit” all over the place, and they just assume that it has been concluded that ISIS is somehow affiliated. A mere day after the attack, far-right Islamophobic websites had already cited these reports as proof that ISIS was behind the attacks and is “waging a war on America.”

The mayor of Garland himself publicly emphasized that there is “no evidence” of ISIS’ supposed involvement in the attack, but the media barely reported this.

To be fair, this is not a problem that is exclusively limited to reports on ISIS—although the Western corporate media loves to exaggerate the supposed threat of “radical Islam.” When a tragic event like a shooting happens, the media, desperate to break the story as soon as possible, often publishes stories without adequate evidence.

This is, after all, the product of the very modus operandi of the corporate media: The more clicks an article gets, the more times advertisements on that article are seen; and the more times advertisements on that article are seen, the more money that publication makes. This is precisely why clickbait is such a widespread (and growing) phenomenon—and why it is so dangerous to real, substantive, fact-based journalism.

In the case of the Garland shooting, the corporate media’s clickbait compulsion is misleading the public, further inflaming Islamophobic sentiment and racism in the US, and simply propagating unsubstantiated claims. The fact that the unsubstantiated claims it is prematurely reporting are convenient to US government interests, effectively working to give legitimacy to the totalitarian lengths to which it has gone in its “War on Terror,” should not go unnoticed.

The “extremely graphic” warning Fox News posted on the uncensored 22-minute ISIS propaganda video it circulated

Nor is this the first time the US corporate media has essentially served as a willing mouthpiece for ISIS. In February 2015, Fox News faced criticism for circulating a gruesome, uncensored 22-minute ISIS propaganda video of Jordanian hostage Muadh al-Kasasbeh being burned to death on camera.

In effect, Fox decided to literally disseminate ISIS’ propaganda for it. YouTube and Facebook refused to allow users to post the video. Fox News did not exercise such discretion.

Numerous counter-terrorism analysts told The Guardian that, by publishing its videos, Fox was empowering ISIS. Senior associate in homeland security and terrorism at the Center for Strategic and International Studies Rick Nelson remarked groups like ISIS “seek to strike terror in the hearts and minds of people globally, and by perpetuating these videos and putting them out there into the internet, it certainly expands the audience and potential effects.” “These groups need a platform, and this gives them a platform,” he added.

Malcolm Nance, the executive director of the Terror Asymmetrics Project on Strategy, Tactics and Radical Ideology thinktank explained the “whole value of terror is using the media to spread terror.” Fox News producers “are literally – literally – working for al-Qaida and Isis’s media arm,” he averred. “They might as well start sending them royalty checks.”

Fox’ goal in sharing the video was clearly to sensationalize and exaggerate the threat of ISIS—and to, when taken in conjunction with its long history of anti-Muslim bias, portray Islam negatively more generally. ISIS’ particular brand of extremism—which it should be pointed out is much more similar to European-style fascism than it is to most other Islamist groups (the vast majority of which are not violent terrorists)—helps reaffirm the insistence of Islamophobic fanatics that Islam is somehow uniquely and inherently violent.

Far-right demagogue and “godfather of the modern anti-Muslim movement” David Horowitz publicly thanking ISIS for helping him spread his Islamophobic message

This cozy relationship between right-wing Islamophobes and ISIS is exemplified in a piece by far-right pundit David Horowitz—whom the civil rights organization the Southern Poverty Law Center refers to as “the godfather of the modern anti-Muslim movement“—literally titled “Thank You ISIS.”

Extremism researcher Malcolm Nance insisted that, by publishing the video, Fox News was propagating “exactly what ISIS wants to propagate.”

The idea that ISIS is behind terrorist attacks in the US like the Garland shootings is also exactly what the fascist group wants to propagate, in order to increase fear of it, and thus augment the power (and recruits) it derives from this fear and the subsequent state oppression it engeders. In doing so, it also happens to bolster the deranged rants by xenophobic Islamophobes who claim Islam poses a grave domestic threat to Americans.

In short, thanks in no small part to the irresponsible US media, the Garland shooting is overall “a win for ISIS and Islamophobes—and a loss for everyone else.”

The Wretched of the Sea

Hamza Hamouchene

In the last few weeks, the EU neighbourhood and the Western foreign policies alongside the ongoing economic domination of the African continent have yet again shown their deadly consequences in the immigration tragedy in the Mediterranean Sea.

Thousands of people, mainly from Africa and Syria, risk their lives every year crossing the sea in fragile boats to flee war-torn areas, poverty, persecution and misery in order to reach the shores of Europe for a better and safer life. Sadly a significant number of them perish in the attempts to do so or end up in humiliating camps and prisons in southern European countries only to be deported and returned and see their dreams shattered.

What distinguishes this year’s tragedy from the previous ones is the sheer scale of it as the death toll of drowning this year now stands at over 1,500 – 50 times more than at the same point in 2014. This can be explained mainly by the ongoing conflicts in Syria, Libya and Mali as well as the inhumane decision by several European Union (EU) governments to refuse funding to the Italian-run rescue operation Mare Nostrum, preferring thus to let migrants die, something that was claimed would act as a deterrent for unwanted people who are trying to reach fortress Europe.

Trying to halt this flow of humanity has been the EU’s logic for years with the introductions of sanctions and heavy fines on marine carriers that fail to check the validity of travellers’ passports and visas. Already in September 2007, seven Tunisian fishermen were indicted and jailed by an Italian judge for “support of illegal immigration,” their boats confiscated because they dared to save a boat transporting passengers to Lampedusa (Sicily), preventing it from sinking as stipulated by maritime rules.

It is worth remembering here how European countries externalised the protection of their borders to authoritarian regimes in North Africa. An edifying example was the Berlusconi-Gaddafi agreement to send immigrants back to Libya without screening them for asylum claims in return for lucrative economic deals between both countries. Morocco also  zealously performed its role as the guardian of Fortress Europe. In 2005, 20 people from Sub-Saharan Africa met their deaths while trying to cross the fences in the Spanish-Moroccan border at Ceuta and Melilla, some by falling, others by asphyxiation and others more shockingly under the fire from the Moroccan army.

This delocalisation and militarisation of immigration control was epitomised by the European Union agency Frontex that was created in 2005 to intercept migrants coming between the African shores and the Canary Islands as well as in the Sicily canal, regardless of the legitimacy of certain asylum cases and far from any democratic control.

Algeria did not escape this logic of cooperation with its European neighbours in the “war on migrants”. That’s how, in 2009, it made “illegal immigration” an offence under its law. Algeria, which praises itself as a beacon of stability in the region and which harbours vast wealth from its oil and gas resources, is nevertheless one of the main countries that produces what we call “illegal migrants,” more exactlyHarraga in the Maghrebi language. Harga (the phenomenon) literally refers to the verb “حرق“ (burn in Arabic) in its strict sense (to burn their papers and documents) and metaphorically: to overcome a restriction like going through a red light or jumping the queue – or in this case crossing the borders and the seas.

Algeria and its harragas

In 2014, there were 7,842 detections of illegal border crossings in the Western Mediterranean region that consist of several areas of the southern Spanish coast and the land borders of Ceuta and Melilla. In terms of nationality, most of the migrants are from West Africa, in particular from Cameroon and Mali. Algerians and Moroccans have also been reported among the top ten nationalities, but mostly at the sea border.

According to the 2015 Frontex annual risk analysis, Algeria was ranked third after Syria and Afghanistan for detected clandestine entries at border crossing points (BCPs) in 2014. Algeria was also ranked eighth when it comes to illegal residents.

The Algerian harraga take different maritime routes from Algeria to reach Europe: one from the coasts of Oran (West Algeria) towards continental Spain, the other one (less developed) links the shores of Dellys (100km east of Algiers) to the island of Palma in Majorca; and the last one is from the oriental coasts (Annaba and Skikda) towards the Italian island of Sardinia.

However, they also use other routes through Tunisia, Libya as well as through Turkey. In fact, from November 2010 to March 2011, 11 percent of the 11,808 irregular migrants intercepted in Greece by Frontex were identified as Algerians, behind Pakistanis (16 percent) and Afghans (23 percent). These alarming statistics were surprising because the number of Algerians exceeded those of Moroccans by a factor of two and Tunisians by a factor of six, despite the unrest in these two countries with the start of the Arab uprisings.

Harga - the result of poverty and hogra

All social classes are touched by this phenomenon: working-class people, the unemployed, university graduates and even doctors and engineers. One asks: why is this social scourge so widespread, reaching far beyond the poor classes? This question deserves serious consideration and answering it adequately will be a challenging task – but I will attempt to give a few possible answers.

Harga in a way represents the pursuit of a future that came to a dead-end in the home-country. It is a means to overcome the restrictions on freedom of movement, precariousness of employment and the marginalisation by clientelist networks – in a nutshell everything that makes life unsustainable, in order to realise a life project that we think is impossible to achieve in Algeria given present conditions. One inhabitant of a marginalised village, Sidi Salem in Annaba, eastern Algeria, declared to his Harrag brother: “I lost the keys of my future in a cemetery in Algeria called Sidi Salem.”

Illegal immigration from Algeria is also the logical consequence of more than three decades of liberalisation of the economy that pronounced a death sentence on a productive and job-generating economy, leading to massive unemployment and the perpetuation of a rent-seeking mentality relying on oil and gas exports and importing everything else.

Harga cannot be really understood without looking at another scourge we call Hogra in Algeria. Hogra means contempt, disdain, exclusion and also describes an attitude that condones and propagates violence against the many, the laissés pour compte (the forgotten and marginalised masses).

‘We would rather die eaten by fish than by worms’

Due to the restrictions on freedom of expression and association and also because of the lack of space of entertainment, art and creativity, young people feel suffocated, humiliated, without dignity – foreigners in their own country and the only horizon they can see is the one beyond the sea. In that respect, it is an act of denunciation of authoritarianism and in a sense it is a culture of contestation coming from a social group that feels marginalised and neglected. In a powerful message to the ruling classes in Algeria, the youth says: “Roma Wella Antouma”, meaning “Rome rather than you.” They also say: “We would rather die eaten by fish than by worms.”

Algerian youths risk their lives to reach the northern shores of the Mediterranean in order to escape the despair of being marginalised and relegated to being Hittistes – literally, those who have their backs to the walls, a term used in reference to the unemployed who ceased to be stakeholders of post-colonial Algeria. But instead of reindustrialising the country and investing in its people, the Algerian authorities offer financial support to the IMF, a neo-colonial tool of plunder that crippled the economy in the first place. Endemic corruption, which has become the normal state of affairs in Algeria, has made things even worse.

Harga is only a reflection of what has become of Algeria and other African countries five decades after independence, with ruling elites only content in satisfying foreign capital and abiding by the diktats of their Western masters. It is also the epitome of white supremacy, capitalist exploitation and imperialist domination that go hand in hand with repressive and corrupt regimes in Africa and elsewhere.

The immigration tragedy that we see in the Mediterranean Sea will go on as long as the entrenched authoritarian structures of power and oppression are still in place, as long as the looting of Africa’s natural resources is underway, as long as the profoundly unjust system we live in continues its domination and exclusion of the wretched of the earth and the damned of the sea. It is necessary and urgent to engage in the struggle for global justice against a system that puts profits before humans.

Why Occupy?

Edward Martin & Mateo Pimentel

First in a four-part series.

There is a tendency for democratic self-governing institutions to become oligarchies, specifically because elite interests within these institutions are prioritized over the needs of their members. According to researchers, such as Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page, and conservative theorists, such as Robert Michels, democratic institutions primarily serve elite interests. In “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens”, (in Perspectives on Politics, September 2014 Vol. 12/No. 3, p.564-581), Gilens and Page argue that oligarchies within democratic institutions ultimately undermine their democratic goals, in which the institution is co-opted by elites. And on the other hand, conservatives like Michels (in his book Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Organizational Tendencies of Modern Democracy, 1911) argue, “It is organization which gives birth to the domination of the elected over the electors, of the mandatories over the mandators, of the delegates over the delegators. Who says organization, says oligarchy.” Thus, for Michels, democratic institutions undermine themselves precisely because they are held captive by oligarchs and elites.

So, in order to understand the Occupy Movement, and its rebellion against elite control of democratic institutions and economic organizations, it is important to examine how organizations and institutions become rigid oligarchies in the first place. In light of Michels’ “iron law of oligarchy” and Gilens’ and Page’s research on oligarchies, we urge that anarchist principles, ironically, be examined as a possible counter to oligarchic rule, that is, if democratic institutions are to be salvaged. As such, policy recommendations via anarchic social justice must be discussed in relation to meeting the needs of self-determining people and the challenges awaiting them in the twenty-first century. This is because democratic governance has been thoroughly undermined by elite domination and why the Occupy Movement erupted to demand democratic accountability, not just in governance but in economic matters as well.

Becoming Oligarchy

Michels’ “iron law of oligarchy” refers to organizations and institutions, specifically the left-wing parties of Western Europe in the pre-World War I era, which called for egalitarian reforms through mass democracy and popular governance. Yet, as Michels observed, these same democratically minded organizations and institutions could not resist the tendency to become de facto oligarchies. In spite of their revolutionary identities and democratic structures, the labor parties of Michels’ era were dominated by tightly bound cliques with the intent of perpetuating their own interests rather than the goals of equality and self-rule. The irony, Michels noted, was that in a democratic organization like the German Social-Democratic Party (SPD) to which Michels belonged at the time, only a few people in executive positions actually held power and decision-making privileges. This phenomenon also applied to traditional conservative parties according to Michels. Nevertheless, the “leaders” of the SPD valued their own elite status and social-mobility more than any commitment to the goal of emancipating Germany’s “industrial proletariat,” from exploitation. Inevitably, the SPD’s actual policies became increasingly conservative, often siding with the imperial authorities of Wilhelmian Germany. Eventually, while SPD leaders gained constitutional legislative power and public prestige, they failed to serve the collective will of its mass membership; they were in fact dominating and directing it for their own ends. Research today by Gilens and Page only confirm what took place with Michels’ research a century ago.

Michels concluded that the day-to-day administration of any large-scale, differentiated bureaucratic organization, such as the SPD, by the rank-and-file majority was impossible. Given the “incompetence of the masses,” there was a need for full-time elite professional leadership to manage and direct others in a hierarchical, top-down manner. And the rank and file members were not necessarily opposed to this. In theory, the SPD leaders were subject to control by the rank-and-file through delegate conferences and membership voting; in reality, the elite leadership was firmly in command. The simple organizational need for a division of labor, hierarchy, and specialized leadership roles meant that control over the top functionaries from below was “purely fictitious.” Elected leaders had the experience, skills, and superior knowledge necessary for running the party and controlling all formal means of communication with its membership, including the party press. While proclaiming their devotion to the party program of social democracy, the leaders soon became part of the German political establishment. The mass membership was unable to provide an effective counterweight to this entrenched minority of self-serving party officials who were more committed to internal organizational goals and their own personal interests than to radical social change on behalf of their members. Michels believed that these inevitable oligarchic tendencies were reinforced by a mass predisposition for depending upon, and even glorifying, the party oligarchs. As Michels states, “Though it grumbles occasionally, the majority is really delighted to find persons who will take the trouble to look after its affairs. In the mass, and even in the organized mass of the labor parties, there is an immense need for direction and guidance. This need is accompanied by a genuine cult for the leaders, who are regarded as heroes.” Thus elites maneuver their way into power and the members abdicate their participation in self-governance.

The “iron law of oligarchy” was thus a product of Michels’ own personal experiences as a frustrated idealist and a disillusioned social-democrat. His Political Parties was based upon an empirical study of the SPD and a number of affiliated German trade unions. Michels observed firsthand that the ordinary members of these working-class organizations were practically excluded from any decision-making process within their organizations, either structurally of by their own indifference. Thus Michels argued that the inherent tendency of large and complex organizations – including radical or socialist political parties and labor unions – to develop a mass membership to provide any effective counterweight to a ruling clique of leaders, was doomed. Smaller, less complex organizations also manifested similar tendencies to be controlled by elites as well. Moreover, these inherent organizational tendencies were strengthened by a mass psychology of leadership dependency. This analysis made Michels increasingly skeptical regarding the possibility of democratic governance, precisely as a result of the general frustration he and others, such as Vilfredo Pareto and Gaetano Mosca, had with democratic organizations. Thus one reason why fascism and “elite theory” became increasingly popular by the twentieth century, and specifically for Michels, was because oligarchy in democratic institutions became increasingly embedded. Some have argued that Michels may have formulated an “iron law of bureaucracy,” mistakenly seeking “democracy in structures, not in interactions,” and thus ignoring the real difference between democracies and non-democracies. Nevertheless, the dissatisfaction of people today with democratic governance, co-opted by economic elites, has led to massive frustration by the public at large and thus the emergence of the Occupy Movement.

The decision of Citizens United by the Supreme Court has only fueled this burning discontent and that the Supreme Court is coopted by elite power as well.

Why Oligarchy?

Here are some reasons why oligarchy is deeply embedded in democratic institutions and organizations.

Reason #1: The classic liberal view of society is based on the perspective that a collection of individuals and groups is in essence a free association in which socially defined identities and roles spontaneously emerge. Throughout the course of a person’s life, one’s actions and choices are shaped by social roles and statuses. In every society, certain characteristics such as age, sex, ethnicity, appearance, division of labor, and social class, have a direct impact on the allocation of individual roles in society. These assigned roles are not a random occurrence; they are the outgrowth of deeply embedded interests and power relations which have been institutionalized. In this way status can be understood as either ascribed or achieved: ascribed, meaning it is assigned by tradition, irrespective of individual initiative; achieved, meaning it is the result of personal accomplishments and talent. This is the case since achievement is itself almost always dependent upon arbitrary and antecedent conditions of custom and class.

Reason #2: The term “organization” implies the mobilization of individuals into roles and statuses committed to the performance of some form of collective behavior. “Organization” also describes the precisely defined structures of group authority which can be found in churches, militaries, schools, corporations, political parties, agencies, and governments. While class structure as an organization is not usually defined as such, it is, nevertheless, the composite of people who differ in wealth and social prestige, who then in turn, are served in a relative fashion by the various institutions. What then connects these institutions is a “functionally integrated system” built around networks of communication, interest, power and social class, which comprise what is known as a “social system” or “social structure.” The process in which individuals become socialized into their milieu is determined for the most part by the organizational and institutional roles which they assume. These roles, generally, are not individually determined, but are shaped instead, by the very organizations and institutions in which they are co-opted. In turn, organizations are determined by their essential interests and minimal requisites of role performance. More specifically, the essential interests of organizations are manipulated by the interests of those who have the most power within the organization to control the outcome to their advantage.

Reason #3: Individuals are socialized to believe that their well-being is to avoid conflict and thus secure a place for themselves within the system based on the system’s own terms. The path to success, according to Ralf Miliband, is found in conforming to “the values, prejudices and modes of thought of the world to which entry is sought.” Those who are skeptical and even question the virtues of the given organization discover, either painfully or at great personal risk, that they must conform and adjust to minimal role demands or suffer adverse consequences. Organizational control, nevertheless, conveys attitudes of obedience disseminating among subordinates in any organizational structure within a society. The social norm then becomes the external and internal force for compliance upon the individual and the pressure to obey comes not only from the superior or elite but from the collectivity of subordinates. In this manner pressure for role fulfillment, then, can be felt vertically from the higher authority that controls the agenda of role performances, but also horizontally from similarly situated subordinates who, having internalized the organizational values of obedience, are as critical as any superior of departures in role performance. Such departures, being seen as an unwillingness to carry one’s share of the burden, is perceived as a violation of essential professional duties, a “letting down” not only of one’s superiors, but of one’s peers, be they ordinary co-workers, professional colleagues, or comrades in arms.

Reason #4: To control the essential structures of role behavior, as is the case with organizations, is to shape social consciousness in ways that rational exercises cannot do. Roles, within organizations, become habit and custom. For persons socialized into institutional roles, most alternative forms of behavior either violate their sense of propriety or escape their imagination altogether. They do not think of themselves as responding to a particular arrangement of social reality but to the only social reality there is. In this regard the absolute nature of this social arrangement is not questioned because, in the words of social theorist J. Peter Euben, “realism becomes an unargued and implicit conservatism,” and as Sanford Levinson also argues “the most subtle form of ‘political education’ is the treating of events and conditions which are in fact amenable to change as though they were natural events. This is not a question of treating what is as what ought to be but rather as what has to be.” Organizations and social institutions, nonetheless, are those massive monuments of society which capture and confine the vision of people, and an organization’s very existence becomes its own legitimating force. In economic terms it is a case of supply creating demand. The dominant organizations in the social system lend the legitimacy of substance and practice to the established norms which in turn teach and reinforce adherence to the ongoing social system. What should be recognized is that the social norms or values are not self-sustaining, self-adaptive consensual forces; they are mediated through organizations and institutions, and to the extent that organizations and institutions are instruments of power in the service of elitist interests. Thus, social norms themselves are a product of organizational interests and power relations. This is why oligarchies become embedded in institutions and organizations and preclude democratic governance and popular control of economic resources and accountability.

Basically, a type of dictatorship emerges in which democratic rule and economic security are scuttled by oligarchic rule. But the elites, and their oligarchy, define it as “democratic.” As a result, we get Occupy.

Parts 2, 3, and 4 to follow.

What Just Happened in England?

John Lanchester

Hands up if you saw that one coming. I confess that I didn’t. The first line of the BBC announcement, ‘Conservatives largest party’, was no shock. Then there was a pause a few seconds long, and the projection of 316 Tory seats came up. I nearly fell off my chair. From that point on, the surprises only got bigger.

Why was it so surprising, though? If you’d asked me six weeks ago what was going to happen, I’d have said, a little reluctantly, that the likeliest outcome was a Tory minority government. From that point to an outright majority is a step, but not a gigantic one. If I’d been granted a glimpse ahead to the result, I’d have said the Tories did better and Labour worse than expected, but not amazingly, bizarrely, unforeseeably so. The thing which turned this into such a blindsiding shock was the fact that the election campaign was so flat and eventless. For six weeks, nothing happened. The numbers refused to move. Then everything happened at once. The talk in politics these days is all about ‘narrative’ and ‘momentum’, but there was almost no sign of that in this election. There was little evidence that the electorate were paying any attention. The Tory campaign worked spectacularly, but did so in a new and peculiar way: it was like a pill that the patient refuses to swallow, and holds off swallowing, and then downs all at once.

First-past-the-post is not especially fair, but it is supposed to deliver clear outcomes. In 2010, it didn’t. This time, against all expectations, it did. Lots more detail will come in over the next weeks as the data are analysed and the political scientists do their thing, but for me, a coupleof things really stand out. If Labour had retained all of their 41 Scottish seats, the Tories would still be the majority government. So that must mean Labour got creamed in England, yes? Actually, no. Labour’s share of the vote in England went up by 3.6 per cent. That’s more than the Tories: their share of the English vote only went up by 1.4 per cent. Labour could even claim that they won the English campaign, in the same sense that the British army could claim it won the Charge of the Light Brigade.

So what did happen in England? The Tories smashed it in the marginals. In the battleground constituencies Labour were down on their 2010 performance by 0.7 per cent. Labour’s overall improvement in England was driven by success on their own turf: 3.5 per cent increase in the North East, 6 per cent in the North West. Where there was a genuine contest with the Tories, the Tories did better. People sometimes say that election campaigns don’t matter, but that is manifestly not the case this time. The Tories out-campaigned Labour in the places where they needed to.

What’s odd about that is that none of this showed up in the polls in advance. Lord Ashcroft has been regularly polling the marginal constituencies, and he found no evidence of this huge shift to the Tories. The Guardian’s last story about polls had the headline ‘Labour has one-point lead over Tories in final Guardian/ICM poll.’ The sample was twice the usual size, which means that it ‘gives more scope than usual for looking for different types of parliamentary seat. Doing so provides additional grounds for Labour optimism. In the English and Welsh battleground constituencies… the poll found the opposition running well ahead.’ That story was posted at half-past twelve yesterday lunchtime. This is the biggest and most embarrassing failure the polling organisations have ever had, and it comes after they’ve had more than two decades to learn from their roughly equivalent failure in 1992. It’s all the odder because the same methods that didn’t work in England worked fine north of the border, where the polling organisations accurately forecast the SNP triumph. The pollsters did something or things very wrong. We’ll find out what soon enough, but it was probably a mix of ‘shy Tories’ and people deciding at the last moment to buy the line about having to vote Tory to keep out the SNP.

As for Nick Clegg and his party… Byron once said that ‘I think it great affectation not to quote oneself’. In that spirit, I’m going to quote the last LRB blog entry I wrote after the last general election in 2010, as the lineaments of the Tory-Lib Dem deal became apparent:

As for the Lib Dems, I imagine about half their voters and activists are feeling physically sick this morning. Let’s hope that referendum on AV feels as if it is worth it. I don’t think Nick Clegg could have played his hand any better, in terms of extracting concessions from the Tories. But his concern must surely be that a. he has permanently alienated a vast segment of his own supporters and b. any moderating effect on Tory actions will benefit David Cameron more than if benefits the Lib Dems. The Lib Dems have wanted power for a long time. As all grown-ups know, more tears are shed over answered prayers.

The Big Winners in the “Muhammad Art Exhibit”

GARY LEUPP

One has the feeling that all parties emerged victorious from the “first annual Muhammad Art Exhibit and Contest” held May 3 in the Dallas suburb of Garland, Texas.

Gunmen Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi made their statement against insults to the Prophet, confident in their final moments as they died in a hail of bullets that the rewards of Paradise were on the horizon. They earned the martyrdom they sought, impressing those whose estimation they most valued in life.

ISIL scored a propaganda victory with an important first: an attack on the enemy on U.S. soil that could be attributed to the group. Even though the connections between Simpson, Soofi and ISIL appear to have been limited to social media inspiration, ISIL can boast that its rival an-Qaeda no longer enjoys a monopoly on jihadi violence in the U.S.

Publicity-seeking hatemonger Pamela Geller and her “American Freedom Defense Initiative” (AFDI) reaped rewards far beyond their expectations: their event became the leading news story, it was repeatedly reported in the mainstream media as a “free speech” (rather than hate speech) event, and Geller received precious air time to spew her imbecilic message to often deferential interviewers. Contributions from like-minded bigots must be pouring in.

The cluelessness of the interviewers served her cause. CNN’s Brooke Baldwin, for example, who while suggesting she might be Islamophobic, treated her respectfully (and repeatedly referred to her provocative hate fest as a “free speech event”), and failed to challenge her when she referred to (the late) Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran as “the leader of the Muslim world”—as though any leader of Shiite Muslims (maybe 13% of the entire Muslim world, and viewed by many Sunnis as heretics) could ever obtain that status.

Geller, who likens herself to Rosa Parks as freedom fighter, recoiled at any suggestion she hates Muslims in general. No, she says, she’s just against the 25% of Muslims who support violent jihad. (That would be about 375 million people.) She’s only against those who take the Qur’an seriously; she describes the book as inherently vicious. (As though the Book of Joshua, in the Old Testament she reveres, is not; see Joshua 11:12-20 in which God commands His Chosen People to wipe out the non-Hebrews.)

Keynote speaker at the “Art Exhibit and Contest”—Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders, who has advocated the banning of the Qur’an in the Netherlands and the expulsion of its Muslim residents—was also a big winner in the Gardner incident. He got his name in the global news again, and some will see the incompetent gun attack as validation of his characterization of Muslims in general.

The losers in this episode are the Muslim community in the U.S., who are once again victimized by a mass media that, while paying lip-service to religious tolerance, treats hate mongers as respectable free speech advocates and fails to challenge the most egregious misrepresentations of Islamic history and doctrine. The entire U.S. public falls victim to the coverage, spanning a spectrum of the malevolent to incompetent.

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The winner of the $ 10,000 prize for best Muhammad cartoon shows the angry, saber-swinging prophet barking “You can’t draw me!” while a hand with a pencil in the picture bears the speech bubble “That’s why I draw you.” Not very clever, and not very accurate. The Qur’an alludes to the biblical 10 Commandments, which include the first one that forbids the worship of graven images. (The Qur’an does not replicate the commandments but assumes the Muslim’s knowledge of them.) And some hadith (sayings attributed to Muhammad) forbid the depiction of any living creature.

(The disinclination to replicate the human form, associated with idolatry, is a common feature of Middle Eastern monotheisms. The early Christians never depicted Jesus or the saints in art, and Church Fathers like Irenaeus inveighed against the practice. A depiction of Jesus reaching out to Peter on the sea, produced in around 235 and found in Dura-Europus, Syria, is considered the oldest image of Jesus.)

But there are many compilations of hadith, compiled over centuries and accepted by different schools of Islam. There is in any case no record of Muhammad ever ordering his followers not to draw him.

In Persia, visual depictions of the Prophet appear in manuscripts and miniatures from the thirteenth century. In Iran today, Muhammad may be depicted, if respectfully. (Geller, whose whole point is disrespectful, incendiary portrayal, seems unaware of this.) The reluctance to do so is rooted less in scripture than in tradition and sensibility.

Geller wants to trample of Muslim sensibilities in order to provoke. She’s made a career of such provocations. Now two more angry Muslims are dead, proof that such provocation works.

And she’s just getting started. She plans these events to be annual.

Martyr’s Day

Franklin Lamb

Yarmouk Camp, Damascus

This past week, on May 6th, Syria commemorated its national holiday known as Martyr’s Day. This year being the 99th anniversary of the execution of 21 Syrian nationalists, betrayed by retreating Beirut based French officials who were supposedly their allies.

The slaughter took place at Marjeh Square in downtown Damascus for alleged anti-Turkish activities. It was ordered by one Jamal Pasha, also known as “Al Jazzar” (‘The Butcher’) who at the time was the Ottoman, Turkey,“Vilayet” of ‘Greater Syria’. The latter term having been coined to designate the approximate area included in present-day Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and still Zionist-occupied Palestine, which was a key part of the 1301-1918 Ottoman Empire.

President Bashar Assad, despite rebel social media claims this week that he had been assassinated, appeared well and relaxed at a nearby school amidst throngs of chanting and obviously surprised supporters. In his first remarks since rebels seized Jisr al-Shughour, and the city of Idlib as well as and the Qarmid military base last week, Syria’s President argued to the crowd that “wars involved thousands of battles with ebb and flows, gains and losses, and ups and downs. Everything fluctuates except one thing, which is faith in the soldier and his belief in ultimate victory. So when setbacks occur, it is our duty as a society to boost the morale of the soldier and not wait for him to raise ours.” He added that “Psychological defeat is the final defeat and we are not worried.”

Martyrs’ Day in occupied Palestine, named after Ahmad Musa, who, according to PLO leader Yasser Arafat, was the first martyr to fall in the “Palestinian Revolution” in 1965, is also commemorated in Syria’s 13 Palestinian camps, some now partially destroyed. This year, given all the displacements of Yarmouk residents and continuing carnage and siege of the estimated 8-15,000 still trapped, an additional joint Syrian-Palestinian Martyr’s manifestation is scheduled for 5/8/2015 at 1 p.m. on the north side of Yarmouk camp. An American delegation, which on 5/7/15 was briefed at length on the current humanitarian and military situation by Syrian army and Palestinian commanders just inside the camp, will attend.

The “Return to Yarmouk” event is being organized by former Yarmouk residents from a beat-up shredded UNHCR tent across the street from the North-side entrance to Yarmouk. The Martyr’s Day event will have the theme “Return to Yarmouk” and will launched a campaign to pressure all the parties to finally achieve, after half a dozen failed attempts over the past nearly two years, enough Musalaha (‘reconciliation’) to acheive a credible ceasefire, allow in humanitarian aid, security and the return of those who since December of 2012 fled for their lives. Thousands of former Yarmouk residents currently exist wherever they can find shelter on the edge of Yarmouk while waiting for a chance to return to what is left of their neighborhood and homes.

There are many conflicting reports these days about current conditions deep inside Yarmouk. Based on briefings this week as well as crossed-checked data, the following tentative ‘snapshot’ comes into focus.

Parts of 4-5 thousand Yarmouk families are still inside for a total estimated current population of between 8 to 15,000 persons, mainly Palestinian but also some Syrian. Most are trapped or being used a human shields. But there are a few who have decided to remain with family members who are fighters in various militia. UNWRA uses the figure 18,000 including 3.500 children still trapped inside and in dire need of humanitarian aid. As of March 2011, according to UNWRA, Palestinians living in Syria numbered some 581,000 – one third of whom had been living in the Yarmouk camp.

As confirmed by other eye-witnesses, including Nour Samaha, the northern section of Yarmouk camp is now under the control of the PFLP-GC, while the Syrian army and the National Defense Force, a government-funded militia, surround the western and northern outskirts. Practically all the rest of the camp is under the control of al-Nusra Front, the Islamic State, and other opposition groups.

Da’ish (ISIS) and Jabhat al Nusra have now joined ranks for mutual benefits as we are seeing in some other parts of Syria. Contrary to some media reports ISIS has not abandoned or retreated from Yarmouk but on the contrary they are actively recruiting, offering approximately $ 400 monthly salaries, free cigarettes (despite their claimed Koranic based rejection of the disgusting habit) and a Kalashnikov or similar weapon.

Contrary to some media reports, the formerly pro-Hamas Palestinian militia Aknaf Bait al-Maqdis, which has been solely active in Yarmouk camp has not disbanded. Rather, Aknaf has split its ranks. Approximately 150 of its fighters have joined the Da’ish-Nusra collaboration inside the camp with roughly the same number joining pro-government forces such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), which continues, despite some rumors, to be headed by pro-Syrian, Ahmed Jibril.

The current known allies of Aknaf Bait al-Maqdis include Jaysh al-Islam, Jaysh al-Ababil, Liwa Sham al-Rasul, and Da’ish (ISIS). Its enemies include the Syrian army, Hezbollah, National Defense Force, and the PFLP_GC and al-Nurse Front. But some alliances are shifting. This according to the political and military commander of the PFLP-GC and army sources who requested they not be named.

Rebels currently control between 50-75 percent of the camp according to army and PFLP-GC briefings conducted on 5/7/15. Officers explained to this observer and his colleagues that a laboriously crafted cease-fire was in place and set to be implemented by the end of March 2015, when suddenly Daesh and Nusra launched their attack on the camp, scuttling the efforts of many including most Palestinian factions.

Increasingly the battles inside Yarmouk are being wages from tunnels. Since 1 April, when Da’ish invaded Yamouk, and the government retaliated, at least 18 civilians are reported to have been killed from barrel bombs or from having been caught in cross-fire or shot by snipers. Camp resident report that their greatest fears these days are ISIS snipers and night-time dropped barrel bombs.

As fighting has yet again intensified, the trickle of desperately needed humanitarian aid instantly dried up and residents continue to starve. In mid-2013, approximately 170 Palestinian refugees starved to death when a siege began and has now lasted for nearly 700 days.
All the relief organizations in Yarmouk have now closed down their centers and left the camp. Essentially no medical services remain and six Palestine Hospital staff were recently injured and most of the rest have fled out of fear of Da’ish arriving via tunnels which some claim they can hear being dug. Others claim that since 1 April, at least 18 civilians are reported to have been killed as a result of barrel bombs or from having been caught in cross-fire or shot by snipers, and at least three Palestinian fighters captured by IS forces were beheaded. If they can, Yarmouk residents are fleeing mainly due to fear of increasing numbers of snipers and nighttime barrel bombing.

UNRWA cannot do much given the enormity of the crisis and has repeatedly expressed, so far in vain, strong concern for the security of civilians and has demanded access to those civilians who remain inside Yarmouk. But their courageous staffs and Syrian volunteers have been doing what they can these past several days.

The UN Country Team, representing all UN humanitarian agencies in Syria, was about to arrange this week a 22-truck convoy of critical humanitarian items to Yalda, Babila and Beit Saham in partnership with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) and with representatives from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the World Food Program (WFP), the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Health Organization (WHO), the UN Department for Safety and Security (UNDSS) as well as UNWRA. But failed to achieve their goals. Chris Gunness, a UNRWA spokesman, told the Associated Press that the agency has not been able to send any food or convoys into the camp since the recent fighting started. “That means that there is no food, there is no water and there is very little medicine,” he said. “The situation in the camp is beyond inhumane. People are holed up in their houses, there is fighting going on in the streets. There are reports of bombardments. This has to stop and civilians must be evacuated.”

UNRWA medical personnel did establish a mobile health point in Yalda, treating 325 patients over the course of the day. The team initiated a vaccine campaign, serving 28 children. The UNRWA team also provided food supplies to two community kitchens, sufficient to feed 900 individuals for one week. 1,200 packets of bread were delivered to civilians in Yalda, Babila and Beit Saham. UNRWA missions deliver a broad range of critical humanitarian materials to each of these families, including food, medical supplies, water purification treatments, mattresses, blankets, family kitchen sets and hygiene kits.

UNRWA continues to provide humanitarian assistance to the civilians outside of Yarmouk who remain displaced in Tadamoun, an area on the north-eastern periphery. The Agency is also providing some daily hot lunches for civilians, complemented by regular distribution of canned food.
A Syrian army commander, headquartered on the edge of Yarmouk advised this observer on 6/7/2015 that the Syrian government and UNWRA will relocate hundreds of recently escaped camp residents of secured housing in the coming week.

The Return to Yarmouk campaign announced this week shows potential to become a movement with wide support from the government, civil society and even some militia remnants. It is being led by Yarmouk refugees, some returning from Lebanon.

All people of good will can only hope that this Syrian and Palestinian Martyr’s Day effort succeeds and that despite the odds, Return to Yarmouk, will happen soon.

Franklin Lamb with the committee for Return to Yarmouk.

Between Hell and the Deep Blue Sea

PD Lawton

Scenes of the infamous Slave Trade haunt Africans. Boats with rotting sides and water-logged engines hauling human cargo packed and sometimes locked three deep in the hollows. All that is missing are the chains and shackles. For the human cargo the only possession is a dream, a dream of a better life in a country where they believe there exists value to a life.

The drowning of 1,750 people since the start of this year is a great human tragedy of the 21st century. These people are in addition to the 3,419 who drowned last year and the 27, 000 that we know of, who have drowned since the start of the century trying to escape the hell of grinding poverty and war in Africa and the Arabian states.

They symbolize a level of desperation so deep that people will risk ending their lives rather than live the ones they have. Filthy politics has created this tragedy. We are witnessing the tail end of the 20th century’s orgy of exploitation and the deliberate delaying of Africa`s industrialization.

For the young man from Ghana who drowned three weeks ago, his inheritance of Ghanaian independence from 1957 was to live on less than $2 a day. For the Somalian mother who drowned, filthy politics of imperial occupation have gutted, raped and starved her nation for the last 25 years for a piece of a strategic oil pie. And for the Eritrean husband who drowned, what else was there left to fight off except the sea? Filthy politics has created this tragedy and it looks like filthy politics is about to capitalize on it. The human trafficking in the Mediterranean is reaching another level of immorality. And with it are those either directly or indirectly engineering the Mediterranean disasters or simply prepared to capitalize on them for a political agenda.

Before NATO’s destruction, Libya was the economic mecca for East, West , North Africa and the Arabian States. Today it is only the gateway for illegal immigration to Europe. Tens of thousands still make the journey here on foot from as far away as Somalia, a journey of some 5000 km across the Sahara.

Libya’s Coast Guard operate a search and rescue mission as well as illegal immigration control. With resources from the government of the now `democratic` and Gadhaffi-less failed state limited, their job is difficult. Coupled with this is the increasing risk to their own lives. The Libyan Coast Guard operating south of Tripoli are in rebel-held territory. Within this increasingly lawless territory, human smuggling is now big business commanding at least $1000 for a one-way ticket across the Med. The Coast Guard are their only obstacle. The Coast Guard are now being shot at out at sea and hunted down back on shore.

“We carry on working because otherwise these people will die. You have to sacrifice yourself to save these people. Today we`ve recovered 2 dead bodies from the capsized boat. There are kids, there are women. There are old people. Sometimes you are brought to tears as you are working. One time we had someone give birth on the boat. We rescued them and a newborn baby was with us. Once when rescuing people at night, one person died in front of me and I couldn`t save him. There were 108 people who needed rescuing and there were only 4 of us in the team. It was impossible to rescue all 108 people! He drowned in front of me and I could not reach him! People just drowning, it `s horrific!”

It has since been announced that the Libyan Coast Guard will only be responding to May-Day requests; search and rescue will no longer be a standard procedure. (Source: VICE NEWS.)

The Coast Guard’s duty is over once immigrants are handed over to the authorities on shore. The authorities are now in the hands of rebel groups in war torn and NATO destroyed Libya. Those rescued out at sea are then taken to immigration detention centres. Here they are held with thousands of other people arrested for being illegal immigrants in Libya. These detention centres are notorious. Zawiyah Detention Centre is nothing more than a prison; a medieval prison where men are packed 45 to a small room; 200 people share a toilet and medical facilities do not exist. Reports of abuse and torture for entertainment of bored prison officials abound; stories of young children and women humiliated and abused. Here access to UNHCR or any legal representation is a daydream in a cesspit where people are left to rot for indefinite periods of months or years.

A Syrian who made it to Italy said of his time in a detention centre: “ The people in Misrata are not the same as us. It was unbelievable, they`d come in and hit people, embarrass them. There is no mercy in their hearts.”

A spokesman for a group of detained Senegalese said: “They beat us in here. There is no food to eat. We just ask to go home, back to Senegal. Our families don`t even know if we are dead or alive.”

A Ghanaian: “I just want to go back home, home to my country.”

An Ethiopian: “I speak on behalf of all the African countries here. We are tortured everyday, treated like animals. Each day I hear that slavery is over, but slavery is here in Libya.”

Repatriation programs are on hold supposedly due to the instability of the country. Life on the streets of Libya at this time is fragile. Or are the detainees becoming valuable?

What if there was more to this? What if detainees were being given the sole option of buying their way out of prison and directly onto a boat bound for Europe? What if detainees were being conscripted onto boats?

What political agenda would benefit from this? This is how British Prime Minister David Cameron responded after the drowning of 800 people on the 19 April in the worst maritime disaster since WWII:

“We should put the blame squarely with the criminal human traffickers who are the ones managing, promoting and selling this trade, this trade in human life…We are doing everything we can to try and stop them.”

Shortly after, Cameron announced that Britain would be looking into the legality of military strikes against the human traffickers who happen to be based in African hotspots. The first combat vessel is already on its way to the Med, HMS Bulwark, along with three Royal Navy Merlin helicopters.

What a strange response! So we are left wondering, are those with a political agenda involved with human traffickers or are they just capitalizing on human sorrow? Is this human tragedy being carefully crafted into a humanitarian crisis worthy of a humanitarian invasion? Angelina Jolie has recently issued an appeal on behalf of UNHCR for the UN to assist the Syrian refugees being as `they` have failed to topple Assad by military force. She included in her speech a mention of the humanitarian disaster in the Med. Refugees in need of UNHCR`s dubious protection.

The move to bring in combat vessels, like HMS Bulwark, is being heralded as a successor program to the Atalanta Operation that is operated by the European Union Naval Force. Yes, that is correct, the EU has its own navy. This operation is to deter Somali pirates in the world`s most lucrative shipping route covering the Gulf of Aden, Yemeni coastline, Red Sea and Suez Canal. In reality it is the militarization of the seas. And just as Somalis have lost the sovereignty of their coastal waters, Libyans will too. Somalis took to defending their territorial waters in the early 1990s in an attempt to protect what remained of their fish stocks from foreign super-trawlers and to stop the illegal toxic waste disposal off the Somali coast.

The European Union has recently issued its 10-point response to the migrant `problem`:

* Reinforce the Joint Operations in the Mediterranean, namely Triton and Poseidon, by increasing the financial resources and the number of assets. We will also extend their operational area, allowing us to intervene further, within the mandate of Frontex;

* A systematic effort to capture and destroy vessels used by the smugglers. The positive results obtained with the Atalanta Operation should inspire us to similar operations against smugglers in the Mediterranean;

* EUROPOL, FRONTEX, EASO and EUROJUST will meet regularly and work closely to gather information on smugglers modus operandi, to trace their funds and to assist in their investigation;

* EASO to deploy teams in Italy and Greece for joint processing of asylum applications;

* Member States to ensure fingerprinting of all migrants;

* Consider options for an emergency relocation mechanism;

* A EU wide voluntary pilot project on resettlement, offering a number of places to persons in need of protection;

* Establish a new return programme for rapid return of irregular migrants coordinated by Frontex from frontline Member States;

* Engagement with countries surrounding Libya through a joined effort between the Commission and the EEAS; initiatives in Niger have to be stepped up.

* Deploy Immigration Liaison Officers (ILO) in key third countries, to gather intelligence on migratory flows and strengthen the role of the EU Delegations

Now we can make sense of the EU`s refusal to assist the Italian government with its remarkably effective, life saving search and rescue operation called Mare Nostrum. Now we can understand why this Italian response based on compassion after the Lampedusa tragedy, was replaced by a private operation run by a private corporation, Frontex . From human compassion to commercial venture, what kind of mentality is behind the European Union? Is this part of Empire`s masked corporate war against China and France?

Ending slavery is a catch phrase, as of late, within the international community. So well timed, we must think. Genuine compassion or a priming process? Problem, Reaction, Solution. The public outcry against the mass drownings of desperate people at the hands of slave traders demands a solution. The solution being applied does not include the eradication of poverty or resolution of war.

Reporters for the various media seem to be quite capable of speaking to some of the big boys in the smuggling game and reading their profit and loss sheets. But these big boys appear to remain elusive to those who would arrest them.

Which leads to the question, what is behind a billion dollar trade that involves money laundering, arms and drugs smuggling and the increasingly profitable human cargo? Has the Empire become so resourceful that it can use the same element to destabilize Libya, murder Gadhaffi, re -evolve into a rebel movement against the Libyan government, create civil war and now be the excuse for humanitarian military presence in Mali, Niger, Libya, Somalia and the entire Mediterranean Sea?