Julian Assange statement exposes bogus rape allegation

Steve James

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, incarcerated in the Ecuadorean embassy for four and a half years, has released a transcript of the statement he made to Swedish investigators last month.

Assange’s comments include more detail about the sexual encounter on which the bogus “rape” allegations against him were based. He presents a devastating review of the US-led campaign against him, which underscores the politically motivated and concocted character of the smears.

Assange issued the statement after he was finally interviewed by Swedish authorities, on behalf of prosecutor Marianne Ny, following years of prevarication and delay. In his 19-page statement, Assange exposes blatant breaches of Swedish law by Ny.

Swedish law demands the conduct of “preliminary investigation as expeditiously as possible and when there is no longer reason for pursuing the investigation, it shall be dropped.”

No person should be “exposed to suspicion, or put to unnecessary cost or inconvenience.” But Ny “deliberately suspended her work to progress and bring to a conclusion the preliminary investigation,” despite Assange’s repeated offers to be interviewed following his original voluntary questioning on August 30, 2010.

Assange outlined the egregious circumstances of the November interview. His Swedish defence lawyer was not permitted to be present, despite the interview being a Swedish criminal preliminary investigation. Assange’s Ecuadorian defence counsel has no access to the case file and did not understand Swedish. Assange has not been able to read key text messages in the possession of the Swedish authorities, which will confirm he is innocent of the allegations against him.

Nevertheless, the WikiLeaks founder felt “compelled to give my statement today so that there can be no more excuses for the Swedish prosecutor Marianne Ny to continue my indefinite unlawful detention, which is a threat to my health, and even to my life.” He continued, “I will not grant this prosecutor any excuse to avoid taking my statement as I fear she would use it as a means to indefinitely prolong my cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.”

On the circumstances of his trip to Stockholm in 2010, Assange explained that earlier in that year Hillary Clinton, as United States Secretary of State, launched an investigation “unprecedented in scale and nature” against WikiLeaks. Led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation [FBI], the investigation grew to involve “a dozen other agencies, including the CIA [Central Intelligence Agency], the NSA [National Security Agency] and the Defence Intelligence Agency.” Described as a “whole of government” investigation, the case also involves a closed door Grand Jury and the torture and jailing of whistleblower and political prisoner Chelsea Manning for 35 years in an attempt to implicate Assange and WikiLeaks.

WikiLeaks published the Afghan War Diaries in July 2010. These exposed a brutal war of colonial subjugation involving rampages by army personnel, targeted assassinations, indiscriminate bombing and drone attacks on entire villages and the destruction of an impoverished country.

The diaries provoked a state-orchestrated international media witch-hunt against WikiLeaks and threats to arrest or kill Assange. The statement cites Marc Thiessen in the Washington Post, whose article “WikiLeaks Must be Stopped” called for diplomatic pressure to be brought on governments to arrest Assange. Failing this, the US “can arrest Assange on their territory without their knowledge or approval.” Another article described an office near the Pentagon with 120 analysts, from the FBI and other agencies, working around the clock “on the frontlines of the secret war against WikiLeaks.”

Assange travelled to Stockholm under enormous pressure and in considerable danger to ensure the safety of WikiLeaks publishing servers, some of which were in Sweden. Swedish state television complained that WikiLeaks’ presence in Sweden risked its strategic relationship with the US. During Assange’s stay his personal bank cards were blocked, and WikiLeaks’ Moneybookers account could not be accessed. Later in the year, this became a “concerted judicial economic blockade against WikiLeaks by US financial service companies, including VISA, Mastercard, PayPal, Bank of American, Western Union and American Express.”

Cut off from funds, Assange was forced to rely on people he hardly knew for “food, safety and telephone credit.” He gave a speech on the Afghan war which a woman, “SW,” attended and sat in the front row. SW, he writes, “appeared to be sympathetic to my plight and also appeared to be romantically interested in me.” The pair went to the National Museum, where “SW” said she worked and where “she kissed me and placed my hands on her breasts.”

They met again two days later. “SW” invited Assange to her home where she “made it very clear that she wanted to have sexual intercourse with me.” Assange notes that “he felt concerned about the intensity of ‘SW’s’ interest”. SW knew an “unusual amount of detail” about Assange.” They had consensual sex on “four or five occasions.”

He goes on, “In the morning she went out to pick up breakfast for us. After enjoying breakfast together, I left her home on good terms. At no stage when I was with her did she express that I had disrespected her in any way or acted contrary to her wishes other than to be not interested enough to pay her attention above my security situation or attempts to sleep. She accompanied me to the train station on her bicycle and we kissed each other goodbye.”

Over the following days, he and SW spoke on the phone and SW told him of her concerns over sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). She went to the Swedish police for STD advice and asked him to be tested for STDs. He agreed and stated, “You can imagine my disbelief when I woke the next morning to the news that I had been arrested in my absence for ‘rape’ and that police were ‘hunting’ all over Stockholm for me.”

Texts from SW to a friend and seen by Assange’s lawyers expose the allegation of rape as bogus. Assange states that the texts “were sent to her friends during the course of the evening I was at her home and during that week, which the Swedish police collected from her phone. Although the prosecutor has fought for years to prevent me, the public and the courts from seeing them, my lawyers were permitted to see them at the police station and were able to note down a number of them, including (as directly cited by Assange):

• · On 14 August 2010 SW sent the following text to a friend: I want him. I want him. Followed by several more of similar content (all referring to me) in the lead-up to the events in question (13:05);

• · On 17 August SW wrote that we had long foreplay, but nothing happened (01:14); then it got better (05:15);

• · On 17 August, after all sex had occurred, SW wrote to a friend that it “turned out all right” other than STD/pregnancy risk (10:29);

• · On 20 August SW, while at the police station, wrote that she “did not want to put any charges on Julian Assange” but that “the police were keen on getting their hands on him” (14:26); and that she was “chocked (sic shocked) when they arrested him” because she “only wanted him to take a test” (17:06);

• · On 21 August SW wrote that she “did not want to accuse” Julian Assange “for anything”, (07:27); and that it was the “police who made up the charges (sic)” (22:25);

The remainder of the statement records the extraordinary and ever more aggressive, undemocratic, illegal and intimidatory methods employed by the US, Swedish and British governments to silence Assange and WikiLeaks.

In November 2010, immediately following WikiLeaks’ release of hundreds of thousands of US diplomatic cables exposing further crimes and political conspiracies carried out by Washington and the Pentagon, the US established a State Department “War Room” against WikiLeaks. On November 30, an Interpol Red Notice was sent to 180 countries to arrest Assange for a Swedish “preliminary investigation” for which no charges or indictment exist. Days later a European Arrest Warrant was issued and Assange was arrested in London. He was held in a high security jail, then under house arrest for nearly two years before applying for diplomatic asylum in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London in June 2012, where he remains.

Last month, the British government lost its appeal as “inadmissible” against a legally binding verdict earlier this year by the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD). According to the original verdict, “taking into account all the circumstances of the case, the adequate remedy would be to ensure the right of free movement of Mr. Assange and accord him an enforceable right to compensation, in accordance with article 9(5) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.”

Julian Assange’s full statement can be accessed here.

Paolo Gentiloni named as new Italian prime minister

Marianne Arens

Four days after the resignation of Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi, President Sergio Mattarella has appointed the former foreign minister Paolo Gentiloni to be his successor.

On Monday evening, Gentiloni presented his cabinet proposals to Presient Mattarella. The names will be announced today, and the new cabinet will then be presented for confirmation by both chambers of parliament over the next few days.

Gentiloni (62) is regarded as a close follower of Renzi, who suffered a serious defeat in the constitutional referendum on 4 December and subsequently resigned. He has therefore been derided by the opposition as Renzi’s “clone” and “avatar”.

The scion of an old Italian noble family, he was active in leftist circles as a teenager and had occupied a school. He then joined the environmental movement, and finally the Christian Democrat-dominated party, Margherita, where his political career began in local politics in Rome. In the Democratic Party (PD), into which Margherita dissolved itself in 2007, he is regarded as a theoretician of a “third way”, in the mould of Tony Blair.

In his first statement on Sunday afternoon, Gentiloni said that both in its composition as well as its programme, his government would follow in the footsteps of the Renzi government. “Not voluntarily,” he said, “but from a sense of responsibility, we will stick to the framework of the outgoing government and its majority.”

Like his predecessor, Gentiloni’s administration will be based on a coalition of the PD with the right-wing New Centre Right (NCD), a spin-off from Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia. His personnel will largely be drawn from the same sources, according to media reports.

Pier Carlo Padoan, who was originally talked of as a successor to Renzi, remains as finance minister, to continue taking care of the unresolved banking crisis. Gentiloni’s successor as foreign minister will be the former Interior Minister Angelino Alfano, leader of the right-wing conservative NCD.

The Gentiloni government will continue the policies of the Renzi government—massive attacks on pensions, public schools and workers’ rights. Its two central tasks are the adoption of a new electoral law and the mitigation of the acute banking crisis.

President Mattarella, who is supported by the European Union and the international financial community, is determined to forestall any elections until a new electoral law is passed. Under the existing law, the two chambers of parliament, which enjoy equal rights, are elected using completely different methods, almost automatically leading to differing majorities and a correspondingly weak government.

In the House of Representatives, the largest party automatically gains the majority of seats, even if it is only supported by a minority of voters, while in the Senate, a complicated system of proportional representation applies, which also gives a chance to smaller parties. Renzi’s failed constitutional reform would have largely disempowered the Senate, and thereby imparted authoritarian power to the government. After the referendum failed, a similarly undemocratic electoral law is now to be drafted for the Senate.

According to press reports, ex-prime minister Renzi is preparing to head the PD slate again in the next elections. He told the newspaper Quotidiano Nazionale that he expects the elections to be in June 2017, one year prior to the usual deadline. He only regards Gentiloni as a transitional figure. He wished him good luck with the words, “He has the stuff, he will succeed.”

The euro-sceptic Five Star Movement and the right-wing populist Lega Nord are pushing for immediate elections and have called the delay in the election date a betrayal of the voters in the referendum. Opinion polls have the Five Star Movement as the second strongest party, just behind the PD.

The second major problem facing the Gentiloni government is the crisis of the Italian banking system, which is burdened with bad loans totalling €360 billion. With the rejection of the new constitution on December 4, this crisis has become even more acute.

The third-largest Italian bank, Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS), must receive a capital injection of €5 billion by year’s end. But following the failure of the referendum, potential investors from Qatar and the United States have withdrawn their capital commitments, fearing losses under an unstable government. The bank has lodged a request with the European Central Bank for an extension until January 20, but the ECB Banking Supervision rejected this on December 9. As a result, MPS shares slipped by 14 percent. All Italian bank stocks gradually fell and at the close were 4 percent in the red.

If the rescue plan for MPS fails, the bank would have to be either wound up or restructured following ECB rules. Tens of thousands of small investors would lose their savings, since they must be used in accordance with EU rules as part of the restructuring. In the case of four smaller regional banks, a similar approach led to mass protests months ago.

One reason for the appointment of Gentiloni, in addition to his loyalty to Renzi, is his good relations with leading international and EU politicians, which he developed as foreign minister. He gets along well with US Secretary of State John Kerry, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and particularly German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

On Thursday, he will participate in the EU summit in Brussels as the new Italian prime minister. President Mattarella has said the country quickly needs an effective government to participate in the important meetings that are scheduled both at home, in Europe and internationally.

The December 4 referendum failed mainly because many Italians voted against, in protest against the right-wing course of the Renzi government. Most “No” votes came from young voters and socially disadvantaged regions or city districts.

Because the PD and its pseudo-left supporters have pursued a policy of welfare cuts for decades, and there is no socialist alternative, it is right-wing parties that particularly benefit from the discontent. They will continue to gain support when the same government continues the same policies but with another man at the top.

New accusations of Russian state-sponsored doping

Andrea Peters

On Friday, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) published the second installment of a report accusing Russian athletes of the systematic use of performance-enhancing drugs as part of a state-sponsored program. The allegations have been seized upon by international sports authorities, governments and the Western media to call for stripping Russian athletes of medals and excluding the country from world athletics.

The investigation, led by Canadian attorney and sports arbitrator Richard McLaren, relies on scientific and forensic evidence drawn from the urine samples of Russian athletes as well as emails and other documents to substantiate the claims of Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov, the former head of the WADA-accredited anti-doping laboratory in Moscow.

Rodchenkov’s testimony was the basis of the first installment of McLaren’s report, issued in July 2016, in which the doctor alleged the existence of a vast conspiracy to dope and cover up the doping of Russian athletes, with a central role being played by the country’s Federal Security Services (FSB). At that time, McLaren’s report did not provide independent evidence substantiating Rodchenkov’s statements, a failing that has supposedly been corrected in the current installment.

This latest stage in the investigation concluded that, as Rodchenkov stated, there was regular tampering with Russian athletes’ urine samples collected in supposedly “tamper-proof” receptacles for the 2012 and 2014 Olympic Games. In addition to the swapping out of “dirty” for “clean” samples, salt and other substances were allegedly added or removed in order to hide chemical signs of performance-enhancing drug use. In several instances, for example, salt levels found in the samples were so high or so low as to be physiologically impossible. All of the 120 samples examined, McLaren claims, had been meddled with in some way, including those of 15 medalists.

The head of the International Olympic Committee, of which WADA is a subsidiary organization, declared that McLaren’s findings showed “a fundamental attack on the integrity of sport.” In addition to stating that Russian athletes’ doping samples from the 2012 and 2014 would all be reexamined, he said that “any athlete who took part in such a sophisticated manipulation system” would be denied the right to participate in future Olympic events.

Sanctions against Russia that were put in place after the first portion of McLaren’s report was released are to be continued. There is currently a ban on Russian officials attending international sporting events and efforts have been underway to block international sports competitions from being held on Russian soil. On the basis of the presumption of guilt, the entire Russian Paralympic team was disqualified from this year’s summer games. This came shortly after the country’s track-and-field athletes were kept out of the Olympic competition in Brazil in August. There are calls for Russia to be excluded from the 2018 World Cup, which it is slated to host.

Moscow has denied that it is involved in state-sponsored doping and insists it is taking measures to clean up its sports activities.

Top sports officials in the US, Germany and elsewhere have seized upon the WADA investigation to denounce Russia. Travis Tygart, head of the US anti-doping authority, declared, “It’s another staggering example of how the Olympic movement has been corrupted and clean athletes robbed by Russia’s state-supported doping system.”

The New York Times, which first published Rodchenkov’s accusations, is at the forefront of press coverage attacking Russia. A December 10 front-page article by Rebecca Ruiz insists that there is “little doubt that Russia’s doping program was among the most sophisticated in sports history, perhaps ranking only behind that of the East German regime.”

Despite these declarations and McLaren’s insistence that the investigation’s findings are “irrefutable” and the facts “immutable,” many questions remain. There are numerous claims in the WADA report deserving of critical scrutiny.

It is entirely possible that Russia has been engaged in the systematic doping of athletes. The right-wing Putin regime has sought to use sports to promote its brand of virulent Russian nationalism and divert public attention from the deepening economic and social crisis of the country. There was, moreover, a history of doping and other illicit activities overseen by the Stalinist bureaucracy in connection with the national sports program during the Soviet period.

Nevertheless, doping is rampant within the highly politicized and commercialized world of international sports. The attempt to present Russia as some kind of aberrant actor infecting an otherwise pristine realm is both hypocritical and absurd.

McLaren’s report continues to rely heavily on the narrative put forth by Rodchenkov, who fled Russia in January 2016 and became an anti-doping whistleblower after having been, according to his own admission, at the center of Moscow’s corrupt system for years. He is wanted in Russia on charges of abuse of authority related to his tenure as the head of the country’s WADA laboratory, which in 2013 lost its accreditation and in 2015 was accused of destroying athletes’ urine samples. The Russian Investigative Committee says that Rodchenkov pressured athletes to use banned substances.

The report acknowledges that it has no witness testimony apart from that of Rodchenkov. The author insists that individuals were “reluctant or refused to provide information for fear of retaliation and abuse.” Despite this, Rodchenkov’s entire account is presented as if it is the unassailable truth. While some of the details he provides appear to be substantiated by physical evidence, others, for instance those regarding FSB involvement in doping, are uncorroborated.

The physical evidence cited is itself open to questioning and interpretation. The fact that male DNA was found in the samples of two female athletes is presented as proof by McLaren—seconded by the Times—of urine-sample tampering. However, there are biological reasons why this might occur. Swyer syndrome and androgen insensitivity syndrome are naturally occurring conditions in which people with external female sex characteristics have an XY, i.e., male, chromosome. The sportswomen involved could also be transgender individuals. The report and the related anti-Russia media campaign uniformly fail to mention, much less consider, these issues.

McLaren also attempts to use the response of the Russian government to the first installment of his report as evidence of the country’s guilt. “Indeed, corrective actions announced by the Russian Federation following the issuance of the 1st Report implicitly confirm the contents of the 1st Report. There was an immediate suspension of the Deputy Minister of Sport Yuri Nagornykh, Anti-doping Advisor to the Minister of Sport, Natalia Zhelanova, and the Deputy Director of the Center of Sports Preparation of National Teams of Russia (“CSP”) Irina Rodionova. By the time of writing this Report, those suspensions turned into formal discharges from office,” he writes.

This is an absurd line of argument. The fact that the Kremlin, in an effort to quiet the anti-Russian hysteria unleashed by McLaren’s first report, fired top sports officials is not evidence of anything. These individuals may have been implicated in illegal activity or they may have been the victims of shifting political winds.

In addition, while charging “over 1,000 athletes” in 30 different sports with being “involved in” or “benefiting from” doping, the physical evidence presented by McLaren examines only the urine samples of 120 athletes. With a handful of exceptions, the report does not name specific individuals in the investigation. It insists this is intended to protect the identity of the athletes.

However, this also means that those allegedly guilty have no ability to challenge the accusations and prove their innocence. Furthermore, it is unclear how exactly the forensic evidence presented translates into the guilt of 1,000 people. The terms “involved in” and “benefit from” are so unspecific as to be capable of ensnaring athletes and others with only a remote connection to whatever illegal acts may have been committed.

There is a tremendous amount of hypocrisy in the charges being leveled against Russia. The world of international sports is a thoroughly corrupt enterprise, in which billions of dollars worth of ticket sales, advertising revenues, construction contracts and the like are at stake. Doping is a widespread problem, with athletes, sports officials, industry regulators and government representatives in country after country regularly engulfed in scandals related to the issue. In the US alone, major league baseball, football and cycling are just some of the sports that have been implicated in recent years in the dirty business of securing victories, medals and lucrative contracts at the expense of fair competition and the physical health of athletes.

British cyclist turned anti-doping whistleblower Dan Stevens observed in remarks to Russia Today, “Obviously, Russia has got problems, but I think doping is clearly an endemic problem. It’s wrong for WADA to allow anyone to focus on one nation. As far as I’m aware, there hasn’t been any other analysis of any other nation to the level that Russia has experienced.”

WADA’s single-minded focus on Russia, with its charges sensationalized by state-connected media outlets such as the New York Times, points to the politically motivated character of the campaign. The WADA investigation is aimed at demonizing, isolating and humiliating Russia. In September, the Times branded Russia an “outlaw state.” The anti-doping campaign is part of this ongoing effort to characterize Russia as a “rogue” nation worthy of being targeted by American imperialism for war and conquest.

World Bank Group Blog4Dev for Kenyans, Rwandans and Ugandans. Blog to Win a Trip to Washington, DC

Application Deadline: 15th January, 2017.

About the Award: Now in its third year, the #Blog4Dev Contest is an ideas-sharing platform for youth in Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda. This year, the World Bank wants you to share your thoughts on youth and agriculture.

For a chance to win a trip to Washington, D.C. in April 2017, discuss the following question in an original blog of no more than 500 words:

To farm or not to farm: What opportunities exist for youth to prosper in agriculture and agro-business?

Offered Since: 2016

Type: Contest

Eligibility: Must be a Kenyan, Rwandan or Ugandan citizen residing in your home country, and be aged between 18 and 28, and the blog post must be written in English.

Selection Criteria: A panel of judges made up of World Bank staff in Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda will review the submissions to determine the winning entries.

The winning submissions will be selected on the basis of the following criteria:

• Originality and creativity
• Clarity
• Practicality
• Potential for scale-up

Number of Awardees: 3

Value of Contest:

1. Prize: A trip to the Washington, DC, April 21-23, 2017
2. The top five blog submissions in each country will be published on the World Bank blog Nasikiliza, and also promoted in the social media channels:

• Kenya: Facebook | Twitter
• Rwanda: Facebook | Twitter
• Uganda: Facebook | Twitter

How to Apply: Apply here

Visit Contest Webpage for details

Award Provider: World Bank Group

Protest and Suicide at French Postal Services

Sarah Waters

Last week, French postal workers went on strike to protest against deteriorating working conditions and rising levels of acute psychological distress amongst its 250,000 employees. French postal services (La Poste) is France’s second largest employer and is cherished by many as a symbol of public service that is bound up with national identity and with the history of the French Republic. The postman was recently voted the second favourite occupation by the French after the baker. According to the French literary theorist Roland Barthes, the postage stamp is as a mirror of everyday life and of civilisation itself that tells French citizens about who they are.

Although hampered by division amongst the unions, yesterday’s strike has brought to the fore an issue that has plagued La Poste and other deregulated public services in recent years, namely the effects on the individual employee, on his or her working conditions and well-being, of an overarching drive towards liberalization, financialization and privatization.

Last October, La Poste’s bosses were forced to suspend company restructuring plans when an open letter signed by dozens of medical experts was published in the French press, denouncing unacceptable levels of stress amongst the workforce. One of the extreme manifestations of this acute distress is the rise of suicides by employees at the company.

In July, a 53 year old French postman and father of two, took his own life by hanging himself in his home. In a letter addressed to his employer, he explained his motivations: “La Poste (French postal services) is gradually destroying its workers, the true ones, those who are in contact with the people. In my case, they have totally destroyed me”. His suicide follows a similar pattern to others at La Poste in recent years where victims have left letters blaming work or conditions of work as the cause of their violent actions. At least nine postmen or women have killed themselves over the past three years. Some have sought to make the connections between work and their suicide very clear. In March 2012, a 42 year old manager who was on sick leave took the decision to return to his place of work to take his own life. He left a letter blaming workplace pressures as the cause of his actions. The courts ruled that the suicide was a workplace accident and that the victim’s family is entitled to financial compensation, but La Poste has appealed against this decision.

Since La Poste’s liberalization under European Union directives in the 1990s, successive bosses have sought to transform a cumbersome state monopoly into a competitive and profit-making enterprise. CEO Philippe Wahl’s new restructuring plan introduced in 2014, sets out to expand La Poste’s commercial activities and massively cut staff costs. There were 7,500 job losses at La Poste in 2015. Those who keep their jobs are under immense pressure, as they take on the work of those who have left. Régis Blanchot from the trade union SUD-PTT that called yesterday’s strike stated: “we can no longer accept a position where management continuously increases a person’s workload, as jobs are cut. It is ordinary workers who are bearing the brunt of the economic and financial pressures facing the company”

But liberalization and restructuring have not only transformed material conditions of work. They have also come into conflict with a distinctive workplace culture and identity rooted in a public service tradition. Although postmen aren’t particularly well paid, they tend to share a commitment to republican ideals of public service and a belief that they are providing an equitable service to all French citizens. Increasingly, postmen are being pressurized to abandon this public service ideal and focus on selling products to citizens. Philippe Charry from the union Force Ouvrière which did not take part in yesterday’s strike said: “liberalization and restructuring have created a conflict between a world of public service, where the postman saw himself as a representative of the state and was committed to values of fairness and equality and a world of money where the only thing that counts is getting a sale.”

Both unions have emphasized the importance of focusing on efforts to improve working conditions rather than on the suicides themselves. According to Charry, “It’s really important that we don’t treat suicides as a kind of barometer for workplace conditions.”

Britain is Wading into a Dangerous Sectarian Conflict

Patrick Cockburn

The British Government’s fawning on the absolute monarchs of the Gulf, whose authority is enforced by beheadings, lashings and the torture chamber, is at once contemptible and pathetic. It is a measure of Britain’s decline as a great power that it is only in tiny, toxic, sectarian Bahrain, where Sunni rulers suppress the Shia majority, that Theresa May can expect a regal reception.

May added her own few drops of venom to the raging sectarian warfare between Sunni and Shia in the region by targeting Iran. She said she was “clear-eyed” about the Iranian threat to an audience of largely fundamentalist Sunni Gulf leaders for whom the words “Iran” and “Shia” are demonic and interchangeable.

In Bahrain, the monarchy blamed the peaceful democratic uprising during the Arab Spring in 2011 on a deep-laid Iranian plot.

I spoke later the same year to doctors who had worked in a hospital in central Manama, the Bahraini capital, where they had treated injured protesters. After the demonstrations were crushed with the backing of Saudi troops, the doctors had been savagely tortured for using a complex piece of medical equipment that the Bahraini security forces had convinced themselves was the means by which Iran gave the protesters their instructions. It is this type of paranoia that May is feeding, though an independent inquiry found no evidence of Iranian involvement in the protest movement.

Downing Street’s rebuttal of Boris Johnson’s demonstrably correct view that Saudi Arabia wages “proxy wars” in the Middle East is equally mendacious. Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have taken a leading role in funding and supplying weapons to extreme jihadi insurgents in Syria, as US leaders – including President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, supplemented by leaked documents – have made clear.

The Saudi intervention in Yemen, where airstrikes have devastated a country of 25 million people, differs only from its other interventions in that the Saudi role is overt and the suffering even more massive.

The humiliating and discreditable British posture in the Gulf is presumably a desperate attempt to find new allies in the run-up to Brexit. This might seem to be a good moment to do so, since the winners and losers in the wars that have engulfed Syria and Iraq over the last five years are becoming apparent. The only surprising aspect of the British initiative is that we seem, as we did in Iraq and Afghanistan, to be joining the losing side.

It is a moment of decision in Syria as the Syrian Army and its allies are close to overrunning east Aleppo, the last big urban enclave of the armed opposition. Their victory means that President Bashar al-Assad will stay in power, something that his many enemies were prone to discount until recently. Touchingly out of date with these developments on the battlefield, British policy remains that Assad must go before political progress is possible.

A similarly decisive moment has arrived in Iraq, though the security forces are making slower progress than in Aleppo in driving Isis from Mosul east of the Tigris River. Isis is deploying mobile squads of experienced fighters hidden in a vast network of tunnels backed up by hundreds of suicide bombers, snipers and mortar teams. The Iraqi security forces have lost almost 2,000 soldiers in November, according to the UN, but the superior firepower and numbers of the Iraqi government backed by the US-led air coalition are likely to overwhelm Isis in the long-run.

The victories of Assad and the Baghdad government will determine the political landscape of the Middle East for decades to come. The wars have been so long and so savage because Syria and Iraq have provided the battlefield on which more than half a dozen powers have fought out their differences. Since the second half of 2011, the advance and retreat of all sides in Syria has been determined by how much support they could get from their outside backers – Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar for the insurgents and Russia, Iran, Iraq and Hezbollah for Assad – in terms of men, money, arms, ammunition and airstrikes.

It is a regional war and its outcome will affect the whole area from Pakistan to Nigeria, as well as being a sectarian conflict, primarily but not exclusively between Sunni and Shia, which impacts on all the 1.6 billion Muslims in the world.

But how can we be sure that we are seeing a turning point in such a complex battle involving so many players with such divergent interests?

Isis and the armed opposition in Syria, led by Jabhat al-Nusra, formerly the al-Qaeda affiliate, fight quasi-guerrilla campaigns in which the loss or gain of territory does not necessarily tell one who is winning. The crucial change in the battle for east Aleppo is essentially political. Nusra, Ahrar al-Sham and the core fighting units have received little help, verbal or physical, from their former sponsors in Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. If these three did not support the rebels while they still held east Aleppo, it is unlikely that they will do so after the rebels have lost it.

The romantic image of heroic guerrillas standing alone anywhere in the world has always understated the degree to which they depend on outside powers. Possibly, the Turks and Saudis could sustain low level guerrilla warfare against Assad for a long time, but they would risk retaliation from victorious governments on the Shia side.

Foremost among the losers in this war are the Sunni Arab communities in Iraq and Syria, who have been defeated in their long struggle for power with the Shia and Kurds. Syrian exiles and their media sympathisers play down the sectarian and ethnic nature of the conflict, just as the Shia and Kurdish exiled opposition from Iraq did before the US-led invasion of 2003 in order to lure the US into overthrowing Saddam Hussein. “We are going to be the new Palestinians,” a young Sunni journalist from the city of Ramadi in Iraq lamented to me, shortly before 70 per cent his city was destroyed by US airstrikes and Iraqi Army artillery.

Iran is a winner in this historic conflict so far. It was the essential ally of Assad from 2011 to 2015, when Russia intervened militarily with its air force. The fear of extermination by Isis and al-Qaeda clones forced Shia communities together, including those with very different theologies. Overall, Iranian and Russian determination to support Assad was always deeper than that of the opposing alliance of Sunni states led by Turkey and Saudi Arabia, which replaced Qatar as the principal foreign backer of the Syrian insurgents in 2013.

Russia has re-established itself as a great power, if not a superpower, through the Syrian war. This was an ideal conflict for Moscow because Assad was always stronger and his domestic opponents weaker than they looked. President Putin did not have to deploy enormous resources to make a decisive difference. Though Putin is much demonised in the West, the enthusiasm of Western governments to get rid of Assad has ebbed steadily, as it became clear that the only alternative to him was Isis or Nusra.

Governments and public in the Middle East tend to exaggerate or understate American power in the region. In reality, the US position remains strong, with every Iraqi unit approaching Mosul including a US soldier calling in airstrikes while, behind the scenes, the US is orchestrating the logistics for the entire operation. In Syria, the US military alliance with the Kurdish paramilitaries has been highly effective in driving back Isis and closing the border with Turkey.

British officials and diplomats seem to lose their sense of what is achievable. Just over a year ago David Cameron announced that Britain was joining the war against Isis in Syria with all the brio of Henry V landing in France before the battle of Agincourt. The following nine months produced just 65 airstrikes by the RAF, which lacks identifiable targets and allies on the ground. As in Iraq in 2002, Afghanistan in 2006 and Libya in 2011, British high ambitions to be more influential in the Gulf will be thwarted by limited knowledge and inadequate resources.

The CIA Never Ever Lies

David Swanson

At moments like these, when every good responsible and enlightened liberal is recognizing the need to destroy the world in order to save it, by getting World War III started with Russia before Trump can move in and damage anything, I believe it is important to remember a few facts that will strengthen our resolve:

The oligarch who owns the Washington Post has CIA contracts worth at least twice what he paid to buy the Washington Post, thus making the Washington Post the most reliable authority on the CIA we have ever, ever had.

When the CIA concludes things in secret that are reported to the Washington Post by anonymous sources the reliability of the conclusions is heightened exponentially.

Phrases like “individuals with connections to the Russian government” are simply shorthand for “Vladimir Putin” because the Washington Post has too much good taste to actually print that name.

Claims to know extremely difficult things to know, like the motivations of said individuals, are essentially fact, given what we know of the CIA’s near perfect record over the decades.

Getting this wrong, much less questioning something or asking to see any evidence, would endanger us all and threaten innocent children with having false statements made about them in a Russian accent.

The fact that the group of people producing our information is referred to as “the Intelligence Community” means it is intelligent and communal, while the fact that people within that community refused to go along with its claims or allow them to become a so-called national intelligence estimate means that there are traitors right in the heart of our holy warriors’ sanctuary.

If you doubt that the CIA is always, always right you need only focus your attention on the fact that there are Republicans questioning these claims, including Republicans who are terrible people, on top of which Donald Trump is a racist, sexist pig.

Good people are loyal Democrats, and when the Democrats did the thing that we now know was revealed by Putin in order to make Trump president (namely cheating its politically and morally superior candidate out of its nomination) that was done as a generous sacrifice for us and our children.

Claims made without public evidence have never turned out to be false or exaggerated in the slightest in the past, certainly not in Ukraine, Syria, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Vietnam, Nicaragua, or any other part of the earth.

When I looked into every past war and discovered that they were always preceded by lies, it was because I had secret psychic information that at some future date Vladimir would reward me. I should wait patiently for his payment and then report it to the CIA/Washington Post.

Mainstream Media: The Real Source Of Fake News

Nauman Sadiq

What bothers me is not that we are unable to find the solution to our problems, what bothers me more is the fact that neoliberals are so utterly unaware of the real structural issues that their attempts to sort out the tangential issues will further exacerbate the main issues. Religious extremism, militancy and terrorism are not the cause but the effect of poverty, backwardness and disenfranchisement.

Empirically speaking, if we take all other aggravating factors out: like poverty, backwardness, illiteracy, social injustice, disenfranchisement, conflict, instability, deliberate training and arming of certain militant groups by the regional and global players, and more importantly grievances against the duplicitous Western foreign policy, I don’t think that Islamic State, al-Qaeda and the likes would get the abundant supply of foot soldiers that they are getting now in the troubled regions of the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia.

Moreover, I do concede that the rallying call of “Jihad in the way of God” might have been one reason for the abundant supply of foot soldiers to the jihadists’ cause, but on an emotional level it is the self-serving and hypocritical Western interventionist policy in the energy-rich Middle East that adds fuel to the fire. When Muslims all over the Islamic countries see that their brothers-in-faith are dying in Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen and Afghanistan, on an emotional level they feel outraged and seek revenge and justice.

This emotional outrage, in my opinion, is a far more potent factor than the sterile rational argument of God’s supposed command to fight holy wars against the infidels. If we take all other contributing factors out of the equation, that I have mentioned in the second paragraph, I don’t think that Muslims are an “exceptional” variety of human beings who are hell-bent on killing the heretics all over the world.

Notwithstanding, it’s very easy to distinguish between the victims of structural injustices and the beneficiaries of the existing neocolonial economic order all over the world. But instead of using words that can be interpreted subjectively I’ll let the figures do the talking. Pakistan’s total GDP is only $270 billion and with a population of 200 million it amounts to a per capita income of only $1400. While the US’ GDP is $18 trillion and per capita income is well in excess of $50,000. Similarly the per capita income of most countries in the Western Europe is also around $40,000. That’s a difference of 40 to 50 TIMES between the incomes of Third World countries and the beneficiaries of neocolonialism, i.e. the Western powers.

Only the defense budget of the Pentagon is $600 billion, which is three times the size of Pakistan’s total GDP. A single multi-national corporation based in the Wall Street and other financial districts of the Western world owns assets in excess of $200 billion which is more than the total GDP of many developing economies. Examples of such business conglomerates are: Investment banks – JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Barclays, HSBC, BNP Paribas; Oil majors – Exxon Mobil, Chevron, BP, RDS, Total, Vitol; Manufacturers – Apple, Microsoft and Google.

On top of that, semi-legit wealth from all over the world flows into the Western commercial and investment banks: in July 2014 the New York Post published a report that the Russian oligarchs have deposited $800 billion in the Western banks from 2002 to 2014, while the Chinese entrepreneurs have deposited $1.5 trillion in the Western financial institutions during the same period of time.

Moreover, in April this year the Saudi finance minister threatened that the Saudi kingdom would sell up to $750 billion in Treasury securities and other assets if the US Congress passed a bill that would allow the Americans to sue the Saudi government in the US’ courts for its role in the September 11, 2001 terror attack. Bear in mind, however, that $750 billion is only the Saudi investment in the US, if we add its investment in the Western Europe, and the investments of UAE, Kuwait and Qatar in the Western economies, the sum total would amount to trillions of dollars of Gulf’s investment in North America and Western Europe.

The first and foremost priority of the Western powers is to save their corporate empire, and especially their financial institutions, from collapsing; everything else like eliminating terrorism, promoting democracy and “the responsibility to protect” are merely arranged side shows to justify their interventionist foreign policy, especially in the energy-rich Middle East.

Additionally, the irony is that the neoliberal dupes of the mainstream media justify and validate the unfair practices of the neocolonial powers and hold the victims of structural injustices responsible for their misfortunes. If a Third World’s laborer has been forced to live on less than $5 a day and a corporate executive sits on top of trillions of dollars of business empire in the Wall Street, neoliberals don’t find anything wrong with this travesty.

Regardless, we need to understand that how does a neoliberal mindset is structured? As we know that mass education programs and mass media engender mass ideologies. We like to believe that we are free to think, but as a matter of fact human beings don’t exist in vacuums; the human mind is always socially constituted and socially situated.

Thus, our narratives aren’t really “our” narratives. These narratives of injustice and inequality have been constructed for the public consumption by the corporate media, which is nothing more than the mouthpiece of the Western political establishments and their business interests.

The media is our eyes and ears through which we get all the inputs and it is also our brain through which we interpret raw data. If the media keeps mum over the vital structural injustices and blows the isolated incidents of injustice and violence out of proportions then we are likely to forget all about the former and focus all of our energies on the tangential issues which the media portrays as the “real” ones.

Monopoly capitalism and the global neocolonial political and economic order are the real issues, while Islamic radicalism and terrorism are the secondary issues which are itself an adverse reaction to the former. This is how the mainstream media constructs artificial narratives and dupes its audience into believing the absurd: during the Cold War it created the “Red Scare” and told its audience that communism is an existential threat to the free world and the Western way of life. Its audience willingly bought this narrative.

Then the West and its regional collaborators financed, trained and armed the Afghan so-called “freedom fighters” and used them as proxies against the Soviet Union. After the collapse of the Soviet Union they declared the former “freedom fighters” to be terrorists and another existential threat to the “free world” and the Western way of life. Its gullible audience again bought this narrative.

And finally, during the Libyan and Syrian proxy wars the former terrorists once again became freedom fighters – albeit in a more nuanced manner, this time around the corporate media sells them as “moderate rebels.” And the naive audience of the mainstream media is once again willing to buy this narrative. It really stretches the limit of human credulity that how easy it has been for the mainstream media to sell fake news and false narratives to its uncritical audience.

Defending Climate Science: 10 Things That Every Scientist Should Consider

Lauren Kurtz

The Climate Science Legal Defense Fund (CSLDF) was founded in September 2011 to defend climate scientists from harassing and invasive attacks via the legal system. Five years in, we’re expanding our efforts to reflect the new challenges scientists face, including increasing education and outreach work. Now more than ever, it’s important that scientists prepare themselves for how best to deal with political harassment or legal intimidation. Below are 10 things that every scientist should consider.

In addition, for those in San Francisco next week for the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting, please consider attending one of our events. We’re hosting a symposium on how open records laws have been used to attack scientists on the morning of Wednesday, December 14, which includes a talk from Michael Mann. Our booth in the Exhibit Hall (booth 1523) will also have free legal education materials, including our new Pocket Guide to Handling Political Harassment & Legal Intimidation. And as in years past, email lawyer@climatesciencedefensefund.org to schedule a free in-person consultation with a lawyer at AGU.

1 – Take a deep breath & remember other scientists have gone through this before

First remember that other scientists have been through this before and come out the other side. And while being the target of an attack is frustrating and intimidating, you are not alone. Groups like CSLDF exist to help defend, connect scientists under attack to other researchers who have been through this before, and ensure that scientists can keep their focus on their work.

2 – Call a lawyer if in doubt

If you’re worried that you’re becoming the target of harassment or intimidation, including receiving a request that seems politically motivated, seek counsel before you respond. Your institution likely retains legal counsel that you can contact, but it is important to remember that your institution’s counsel represents the institution’s legal interests, which may differ from your own.

You can always contact CSLDF, where our mission is to provide free legal counsel to climate scientists facing attacks as a result of their work. Call (646) 801-0853 or email lawyer@climatesciencedefensefund.org

3 – Understand whether state and/and federal open records laws may apply to you

One common legal attack on scientists has been through open records laws—the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) or state equivalents. Intended (and mostly used) to promote transparency by allowing citizens to request copies of government records, these laws have also become a tool used to harass scientists. Publicly funded scientists have received open records requests for reams of documents, including emails, peer review correspondence, and preliminary drafts. Scientists employed by the government or by public universities, or who have received government grants—including National Science Foundation (NSF) grants—should recognize that open records laws may apply to them.

Understand whether state and/or federal open records laws are applicable to you. Reach out to your institutional counsel, the staff in your institutional records office, or a legal group like CSLDF who can help you understand the laws that may affect you.

4 – Separate personal and professional emails

Do not use professional email accounts for personal emails and vice versa. Separating personal and professional emails reduces the likelihood that personal correspondence will be affected by an open records request (which only applies to public records) or other legal action related to your work. Similarly, avoid any temptation to use your personal email account for professional correspondence. If it can be shown that your personal email contains professional records, this may result in you needing to turn over your personal email account to legal review. (Editor’s note: This is really important to minimizing time and effort that need to be devoted to dealing with requests or legal actions. Do it now.) 

5 – Remember that emails are not always private

Emails may be disclosed due to open records requests or legal actions, or can be hacked. Be sure to conduct professional correspondence in a professional manner. If you are discussing a sensitive issue, consider having an in-person or telephone conversation instead of emailing.

6 – Understand record-keeping requirements

Employees and consultants at public institutions, including government scientists and public university researchers, should retain all public records. The precise definition will vary by state, but generally, these are documents relating to public business.

Be aware that grants may require that you follow specific record-keeping rules: for example, NSF grants stipulate that research data, including databases, must be shared.

Even if no strict document retention requirements apply to your situation, we recommend that you keep files for a few years, as anyone can be made to look bad when things are missing.

7 – Exercise discretion when talking to a journalist

Before agreeing to speak to a reporter or interviewer, research their work. Think carefully about how or whether to speak with a hostile journalist, as you are unlikely to change their opinions, and you may instead provide more fodder for an attack. (Also understand your institution’s rules for speaking to the press and otherwise communicating your research to the public, and when clearance requirements may apply.) If you do choose to speak to a reporter, come to the interview well prepared. Consider the questions you are likely to be asked and outline draft answers. For higher-profile situations, your institution’s public relations office or scientific society may be able to assist you with preparing your message. (Editor’s note: See also the UCS guide to talking to the media for scientists.)

8 – If you receive harassing messages, do not respond and do not delete

Do not respond to messages you feel were sent in bad faith – instead archive or save, in case you ever need evidence to prove that it happened, which is especially important if the situation escalates. Look for signs that the sender is wasting your time or seeking to provoke you, as a correspondent may be seeking to rattle you, use your response to malign you publicly, and/or use your response as a launchpad for further harassment. If you do respond to a seemingly valid inquiry, remember that any response you write may be forwarded or published online, and be cognizant of the time lost by caught up in endless back-and-forth arguments. (Editor’s note: See also the UCS guide to responding to criticism or personal attacks.)

9 – If you receive threatening messages, contact your employer / law enforcement

Report the threats to your institution (your supervisor and the human resources staff are probably the best starting points) as well as law enforcement. Contact a legal group such as CSLDF, especially if law enforcement becomes involved. A lawyer can help you navigate the situation.

10 – For more information on particular legal situations, check out our new Pocket Guide to Handling Political Harassment & Legal Intimidation

Our 16 page guide has more specific advice on how to protect yourself against and/or respond to political or legal attacks. As mentioned above, free copies will be available at our climate science & law symposium on the morning of Wednesday, December 14, and at our booth in the AGU Exhibit Hall (booth 1523). You can also join our email mailing list to be notified as soon as electronic copies are available on our website, as well as stay updated on other CSLDF developments.