My Fellow Americans: We Are Fools

Margot Kidder

There is something I am going to try and explain here after watching the Democratic National Convention this evening that will invite the scorn of many of my friends. But the words are gagging my throat and my stomach is twisted and sick and I have to vomit this out. The anti-americanism in me is about to explode and land god knows where as my rage is well beyond reason. And I, by heritage, half American in a way that makes me “more” American than almost anyone else in this country except for the true Americans, the American Indians, am in utter denial tonight that I am, as you are, American as well.

I am half Canadian, I was brought up there, with very different values than you Americans hold, and tonight — after the endless spit ups and boasts and rants about the greatness of American militarism, and praise for American military strength, and boasts about wiping out ISIS, and America being the strongest country on earth, and an utterly inane story from a woman whose son died in Obama’s war, about how she got to cry in gratitude on Obama’s shoulder — tonight I feel deeply Canadian. Every subtle lesson I was ever subliminally given about the bullies across the border and their rudeness and their lack of education and their self-given right to bomb whoever they wanted in the world for no reason other than that they wanted something the people in the other country had, and their greed, came oozing to the surface of my psyche.

I just got back from a rather fierce walk beside the Yellowstone River here in Montana, trying to let the mountains in the distance reconnect me to some place of goodness in my soul, but I couldn’t find it. The scenery was as exquisite as ever, but it just couldn’t touch the rage in my heart. The visions of all the dead children in Syria that Hillary Clinton helped to kill; the children bombed to bits in Afghanistan and Pakistan from Obama’s drones, the grisly chaos of Libya, the utter wasteland of Iraq, the death and destruction everywhere caused by American military intervention. The Ukraine, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Chile, you name it — your country has bombed it or destroyed its civilian life in some basic way.

When I heard all the Americans cheering for the military and the pronouncements of might coming from the speakers in the Wells Fargo Centre, I loathed you. I loathed every single one of you. I knew in my gut that what I was taught as a child was true, which is that YOU are the enemy. YOU are the country to be feared. YOU are the country to be disgusted by. YOU are ignorant. And your greed and self-satisfaction and unearned pride knows no bounds.

I am not an American tonight. I reject my Puritan ancestors who landed in this country in 1648. I reject the words I voiced at my citizenship ceremony. I reject every moment of thrilling discovery I ever had in this country.

You people have no idea what it is like for people from other countries to hear you boast and cheer for your guns and your bombs and your soldiers and your murderous military leaders and your war criminals and your murdering and conscienceless Commander in Chief. All those soaring words are received by the rest of us, by us non-Americans, by all the cells in our body, as absolutely repugnant and obscene.

And there you all are tonight, glued to your TVs and your computers, your hearts swelled with pride because you belong to the strongest country on Earth, cheering on your Murderer President. Ignorant of the entire world’s repulsion. You kill and you kill and you kill, and still you remain proud.

We are fools.

Long Live the Queen of Chaos

Rob Urie

For those to whom this hasn’t yet occurred, if Hillary Clinton is elected President she will be President. The Democratic Party platform, Bernie Sanders’ program proposals and Mrs. Clinton’s theorized move Left will be but distant memories. If Mrs. Clinton brings with her a Democratic Congress (or not) she will use it to pass the TPP and TTIP ‘trade’ agreements, to launch ‘liberal’ wars across the Middle East and rattle sabers against Russia, she will re-launch the ‘Grand Bargain’ to cut Social Security and Medicare under the pretext of a fiscal crisis and should Wall Street falter, she will ‘hold her nose’ and once again bail out her benefactors. This is the program her supporters are voting for.

By analogy, when Barack Obama entered office with a Democratic Congress in 2009 he had the best opportunity since the early 1930s to enact a new New Deal in favor of social justice and against the forces of neoliberal militarism. After bailing out Wall Street and institutionalizing the worst ‘unitary President’ excesses of the George W. Bush administration Mr. Obama ran and won again in 2012 on the well-instantiated delusion that once freed from having to run for office again he would be the ‘progressive’ his supporters always thought him to be. This despite his self-description as a ‘moderate Republican’ and his actual record at the center of the Democrats’ three decade turn to the political hard-right.

The Democratic Party line that a vote for Green Party candidate Jill Stein or a write-in vote for Bernie Sanders is a vote for Donald Trump overlooks that establishment Democrats rigged the primary process in favor of Mrs. Clinton and that it is their policies that are responsible for widespread political disaffection. The odds have it that if a vote were taken to exile both Party establishments to poorly provisioned outposts on Mars they would be on the way there now. What is so frighteningly irresponsible about Mrs. Clinton’s insertion / assertion as the Democratic Party candidate is the same problem posed by Barack Obama’s posture as a ‘progressive’ President— it leaves the radical right as the only alternative for disaffected voters.

Graph: prime-age employment— jobs for those who must work to live, have been declining since 2000. Each subsequent economic ‘recovery’ has proceeded from a lower, and more desperate, base. Democrats had available to them the New Deal economic template to work from. But they chose restoration of the unstable, destabilizing neoliberal project instead. Source: St. Louis Federal Reserve.

The illusion of political choice only works as long as the status quo functions in some basic sense. The recurring financial bubbles from Savings and Loan deregulation (1980s), privatization and equitization of government-funded research in the tech boom – bust (late 1990s) and the housing boom – bust demonstrated the fleeting nature of Wall Street fueled ‘prosperity.’ With the Middle Class on the ropes, the working class all but disappeared and the poor desperately clinging to the few crumbs that fall to them, the U.S. is but one recession away from being economically (and politically) untenable. The only programs that Democrats have— ‘free-trade,’ private debt fueled consumption, deregulation, privatization and Wall Street bailouts, are proven losers for all but a few in 2016.

One of the reasons the American political leadership needs foreign ‘enemies’ is to divert attention away from the damage that nominal Americans do— Wall Street, corporate executives, the NSA and carceral state, trade deals that act as firewalls against social and environmental resolution and local government actors for corporate power (ALEC-American Legislative Exchange Council). Another is the ‘business’ of nominal governance, the nexus of state and corporate interests that promotes geopolitical tensions, fear and paranoia as business ventures from which profits are earned through mass destruction (Vietnam, Iraq). As the most despised candidate for U.S. President in recent history, Hillary Clinton needs foreign enemies.

Flip the Democratic Party script for a moment to consider that Vladimir Putin might have a point. Hillary Clinton is the most dangerous person on the planet because she is a neoliberal militarist who is absolutely immune from the consequences of the crises she creates. Armed with nuclear weapons freshly ‘upgraded’ by Barack Obama, Mrs. Clinton and the neocon cabal she hopes to lead have destroyed Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria, have surrounded Russia with NATO troops and weapons, staged a neo-fascist coup in Ukraine, supported a right-wing coup in Honduras and have indicated their intentions to proceed apace turning entire regions of the planet into chaotic rubble with body-counts already in the millions.

This isn’t speculation about some future state of affairs. Hillary Clinton sold U.S. sanctions against Iraq in which one-half million of Iraq’s most vulnerable citizens were starved and denied life-saving medicines to ‘teach Saddam Hussein a lesson.’ And the Clinton-Bush war against Iraq cost one million more innocent lives and created chaos across the Middle East. ISIS is a direct result of Clinton-Bush policies. The liberal pretense that the U.S. War of Aggression against Iraq was ‘Bush’s war’ requires overlooking the eight years of liberal bombing and sanctions that preceded it and that Bill Clinton gave Mr. Bush political cover for the war as his wife voted for it. The U.S. war against Iraq— catastrophe that it was / is, was as bi-partisan as they come.

The system that Mrs. Clinton and Donald Trump— past friends who attend each other’s public functions and private affairs and whose children thrive together in the closed lootocracy of officialdom, are vying against one another to ‘lead’ a spoils system where ‘leadership’ means the ability to arrange profitable outcomes for private interests through ‘public’ means. Neoliberal militarism is private profits created through public death, destruction and misery. The profits explain why Hillary Clinton is never held to account for deadly sanctions, gratuitous wars that turn into geopolitical catastrophes, social policies that turned the poorest 40% of the country into a beggar class and racist strategies like mass incarceration to divide the working class. Given her actual record, Black support for Mrs. Clinton is akin to choosing between AIDS and cancer.

Americans exhibit near-heroic aversion to history and the consequences of American policies that now constitute the core of the Democratic Party’s domestic agenda. The IMF has been pushing these policies on ‘client’ (victim) states for the last half-century. The capitalist lootocracy that the Democrats (and Republicans) serve has long installed puppet governments to reign with impunity as long as they deliver local wealth to back ‘up’ to it. The Clintons are corrupt puppets who serve this system of un-enlightened self-interest as domestic agents of international capital. The sooner the youth of America and the residual Left realize that there is no hope for a better, or even livable, future through establishment politics the sooner we can get to the task at hand: a (real) political revolution.

Sugar-Coated Lies: How The Food Lobby Destroys Health In The EU

Colin Todhunter

Over half the population of the European Union (EU) is overweight or obese. Without effective action, this number will grow substantially in the next decade warns an important new report.

‘A Spoonful of Sugar: How the Food Lobby Fights Sugar Regulation in the EU’, by the research and campaign group Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO), notes that obesity rates are rising fastest among lowest socio-economic groups. That’s because energy-dense foods of poor nutritional value are cheaper than more nutritious foods, such as vegetables and fruit, and relatively poor families with children purchase food primarily to satisfy their hunger.

The report argues that more people than ever before are eating processed foods as a large part of their diet. Bad for health, but good for the industry because sugar-rich processed foods have the highest profit margins (unlike fruit and vegetables), and the easiest way to make industrial, processed food cheap, long-lasting and enhance the taste is to add extra sugar as well as salt and fat to products.

There is an increasing body of scientific evidence showing the key role sugar plays in fuelling rocketing rates of obesity, heart disease and type 2 diabetes, as well as some types of cancer, and the new report argues that in cold economic terms the cost to European GDP is alarming. In the United Kingdom, the cost of obesity is estimated at £27 billion per year, and approximately seven per cent of national health spending in EU member states as a whole is due to obesity in adults. This is aside from indirect costs to societies such as sickness and early death or the impacts on carers.

So why isn’t action being taken to address this health crisis?

Simply because the food industry is able to resist regulation. The CEO report notes that the food industry has vigorously mobilised to stop vital public health legislation in this area by:

Pushing free trade agreements and deregulation drives that undermine existing laws;

Exercising undue influence over EU regulatory bodies;

Capturing scientific expertise;

Championing weak voluntary schemes;

Outmaneuvering consumer groups by spending billions on aggressive lobbying.

Health policies, like mandatory sugar reductions, sugar taxes and food labels, would help consumers make healthier choices. But the leverage which food industry giants have over EU decision-making has helped the sugar lobby to see off many of these threats to its profit margins.

The report argues that key trade associations, companies and lobby groups related to sugary food and drinks together spend an estimated €21.3 million annually to lobby the EU.

The bottom line is money and profit. This trumps any notion of public health and the public interest. CEO explains that Europe is the world’s biggest food and drinks exporter, and food giant Nestlé is its most valuable corporation, valued at €208 billion – even more than Royal Dutch Shell.

The report states:

“The European Commission and institutions such as the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) have been far too willing to listen to industry’s messages, reflecting their all too often overly close relationship with the food and drink industry.”

It stresses that many of the initiatives that would help Europeans eat less sugar are weak and voluntary or challenged by the EU itself when enacted at nation state level: the capture of EU regulatory bodies is a major cause for concern.

Trade deals like TTIP and CETA could help the sugar lobby even more. The report notes that similar deals have already been used to force Mexico to pay hundreds of millions in compensation for taxing sugar.

While industry-funded studies influence European Food Standards Authority (EFSA) decisions, Coca Cola, Nestlé and other food giants engage in corporate propaganda by sponsoring sporting events and major exercise programmes to divert attention from the impacts of their products and give the false impression that exercise and lifestyle choices are the major factors in preventing poor health.

The report goes on to say:

“Trade lobby groups and food industry giants sponsor research into subjects such as obesity and diabetes, sometimes in partnership with the European Commission (EC). This can set industry-friendly parameters and result in publication bias. Decades of research emphasis on fat, exercise, and calorie counting has helped distract nutrition advice from the specific dangers of sugar.”

The authors note that the EC Dutch Presidency of the first half of 2016 has been criticised for its Roadmap for Action on Food Product Improvement, which works hand in hand with the food industry; the Roadmap emphasises weak voluntary sugar reduction targets and public-private partnerships for industry.

The report also notes that trade association FoodDrinkEurope spent approximately €1 billion in a successful campaign against a mandatory EU-wide ‘traffic light’ food labelling system that is most recommended by health experts and consumer groups. Food lobbyists are also mobilising PR tactics against sugar taxes.

Katharine Ainger, freelance journalist and co-author of the report says:

“So many independent scientific studies show a clear link between excessive sugar consumption and serious health risks. But the fact that there is still no consensus on the dangers of sugar among EU regulators proves just how powerful the food and drink lobby is. Sound scientific advice is being sidelined by the billions of euros backing the sugar lobby. In its dishonesty and its disregard for people’s health, the food and drink industry rivals the tactics we’ve seen from the tobacco lobby for decades.”

The industry is able to flex its considerable financial muscle to slant science, exert political influence and mount slick PR campaigns to carry on endangering the health of hundreds of millions of Europeans.

It is not the first time that CEO has shown the EC to be a willing servant of a corporate agenda. Brussels swarms with corporate lobbyists whose spending power and political influence dwarfs that of civil organisations and consumer groups.

Industry lobbyists spend millions each year for good reason. They receive a return on what is essentially a key investment: the capture and corruption of public bodies, the co-writing of legislation, the avoidance of regulation and the bringing in of trade deals like TTIP that will effectively destroy any remnants of democracy and the existing limited ability of elected representatives and governments to check corporate power.

While many advocate the democratic public ownership and management of key infrastructure, such as transport, health services, banking and utility companies, not much is ever mentioned about food. But what can be more vital to society than the control of the food supply and what we eat?

From the various chemical cocktails applied to our food to low-nutrient, sugar-rich products, the food and agriculture sector is knowingly damaging our health and has being doing so for decades. The powerful corporations that belong to this sector will continue to do so because their logic and corporate business models are based on maximisation of profit at all costs and by all means possible.

Haiti 101 Years After US Invasion, Still Resisting Domination

Justin Podur

US invaded and occupied Haiti 101 years ago today, and remained there for nineteen years. Accomplishments of the occupation include raiding the Haitian National Bank, re-instituting forced labor, establishing the hated National Guard, and getting a 25-year contract for the US corporation, United Fruit.

There was a pretext for the invasion – the assassination of Haiti’s president in 1915. But to understand the event, which has lessons to draw from a century later, it is necessary to look more closely at the invader than the invaded.

In 2016, the United States is living through a presidential campaign with a candidate willing to exploit racism and pander to anti-immigrant sentiment. Police are killing black people in cities across the US. Having drawn down troop levels in its two big wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US still runs air strikes and drone strikes in the region, and covert actions all over the world. The US is still the determining voice in Haiti’s politics and economy. In other words, one hundred and one years after its invasion of Haiti, the US retains two features of what it was then: violent racial inequality, and empire.

The US presidential candidates can be looked at from the perspective of Haiti. One candidate has an extensive record there. The other has some historical parallels.

The Clintons have treated Haiti as a family business. In 2010, after an earthquake devastated the country, the Clinton Foundation was among the horde of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that stepped up their role in the still unfinished rebuilding phase. Haiti’s social sector had already been taken over by NGOs and its streets, since the 2004 coup and occupation, were patrolled by United Nations troops. The Clinton Foundation received pledges of hundreds of millions of dollars in development aid to rebuild Haiti. The crown jewel of the Foundation’s work: the disappointing Caracol Industrial Park, opened in 2012, which promised and failed to expand Haiti’s low-wage garment-processing industry, long a source of foreign profits and little internal development.

Hillary Clinton made her own interventions into Haiti politics as secretary of state. At a key moment in Haiti post-earthquake politics, Clinton’s State Department threw its weight to presidential candidate Michel Martelly. His electoral legitimacy was dubious and his presidency led the country to a constitutional crisis when people mobilized against another stolen election in 2015. That crisis is still ongoing, and will no doubt provide pretexts for the next US intervention.

To try to imagine the impact of Trump on Haiti, one need only look back a century. As Trump continues his seemingly unstoppable march to the presidency, he is compared to Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi and other populist buffoon-politicians have been made. Woodrow Wilson, the invader of Haiti in 1915, may be a better example of the damage a president can do.

When Woodrow Wilson became president, he set about doing what today would be called “Making America Great Again”. Decades had passed since the US Civil War. The post-war Reconstruction involved efforts to desegregate cities and government workplaces and make a place for newly freed Black people. Wilson reversed these efforts, strengthening racial apartheid in the US. His administration made sure there were separate bathrooms in federal government offices. Although Trump is unlikely to re-introduce segregation, something else happened under Woodrow Wilson’s rule that is relevant in this context: white vigilante violence and lynching spiked.

Wilson created a permissive environment for such atrocities. First elected in 1912, Wilson only got around to making a statement against the organized white violence – called “mob violence” or “race riots” – in mid-1917.

When more riots broke out in 1919, this time designed to suppress the democratic impulses of black soldiers returning from WWI, the NAACP implored Wilson to make a statement. But it was Wilson, himself, who had restricted black soldiers to non-combat roles during the war.

In foreign policy, Donald Trump’s pronouncements have been predictably incoherent and uninformed. But Woodrow Wilson’s presidency suggests that domestic policies of racism will not be confined to the domestic arena.

Wilson sent US troops all over Latin America – Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Panama, Nicaragua and and of course, Haiti – which may have got it the worst of all. Racist wrath has been a constant in Haiti’s history since it became independent in a slave revolt, and Wilson unleashed that wrath on the island in the 1915-1934 occupation. Chomsky’s Year 501 gives a flavor for what US occupiers were thinking and doing:

“Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan, found the Haitian elite rather amusing: “Dear me, think of it, Niggers speaking French,” he remarked. The effective ruler of Haiti, Marine Colonel L.W.T. Waller, who arrived fresh from appalling atrocities in the conquest of the Philippines, was not amused: “they are real nigger and no mistake…real nigs beneath the surface,” he said, rejecting any negotiations or other “bowing and scraping to these coons,” particularly the educated Haitians for whom this bloodthirsty lout had a special hatred. Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin Delano Roosevelt, while never approaching the racist fanaticism and thuggery of his distant relative Theodore Roosevelt, shared the feelings of his colleagues. On a visit to occupied Haiti in 1917, he recorded in his diary a comment by his travelling companion, who later became the Occupation’s leading civilian official. Fascinated by the Haitian Minister of Agriculture, he “couldn’t help saying to myself,” he told FDR, “that man would have brought $1,500 at auction in New Orleans in 1860 for stud purposes.” “Roosevelt appears to have relished the story,” Schmidt notes, “and retold it to American Minister Norman Armour when he visited Haiti as President in 1934.”

Chomsky concludes this section of horrifically racist quotes from the US elite about Haiti with a warning: “the element of racism in policy formation should not be discounted, to the present day.”

Nor should Haitian resistance.

The US occupiers of 1915-1934 faced a rebellion led by Charlemagne Peralte. Marines assassinated him and circulated a photograph of  him crucified. Rather than intimidating Haitians, the photo enraged them, and cemented Charlemagne Peralte’s place as a national hero.

If Haitians had a say in the US presidential election, a case could be made for the devil-you-know of Clinton rather than the risk of a new Woodrow Wilson in Trump. But subjects of the empire can’t vote, only citizens. Worse, Haitians have been punished if the US didn’t like who they chose in their own elections. The US tried to set the tone 101 of master years ago.

But people still resist.

Turkey’s Commitment To Democracy: Myth And Reality

Shanzae Asif

In March 2011, the Syrian ‘uprising’ against President Bashar Al-Assad gradually progressed into a full-scale rebellion. By July of the following year – Syria was officially considered in the throes of civil war.

July, 2016 – Syria has been in a state of civil war since the last five years. Five long, bloody and barbaric years that altered the course of geopolitical history – in the country, regionally, and indeed, globally. The Syrian civil war evokes a myriad of emotions – anger, resentment, pity and primarily horror – at the atrocities committed in the name of ‘humanitarian intervention.’

The first time I learned about the principle of ‘humanitarian intervention’ was in an international law class at my alma mater at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS). Theoretically, the idea sounded very noble in principle. The notion that great nations must interveneto preserve sovereignty, human rights and the rule of law in countries rife with savagery and lawlessness seemed fairly logical. Enforcing ‘law’ in the name of human dignity and protection of the common people – who could argue with that? Interesting concept, I thought – it upheld man’s duty as moral agents – indeed, saviors – and ensured nations ought to certainly be allowed to rule freely and with sovereignty, but only if they maintained ‘civility.’

The R2P doctrine declaring a “responsibility to protect” in the moral jargon of the United Nations emphasized a greater duty to fulfill the obligation to save the peoples of the world.

Save. It’s an interesting word. How do you save people from the horrors of the chaos you unleash upon them yourself?

Did we ‘save’ Iraq in 2003, with a US invasion that was meant to discover and destroy fictitious weapons of mass destruction the country never had?

And did we ultimately save a very conservative estimate of112,667–123,284 killed in Iraq through our ‘responsibility to protect’ those supposedly wronged under the dictator Saddam Hussein in Iraq?

Iraq. Afghanistan. Libya. Syria. Pakistan. These great swathes of territory with ancient civilizations mostly reduced to dust. Those that were rebirthed from the ashes became havens to formidable terrorist groups like Al Qaeda, Taliban and the infamous Islamic State. Pakistan put up a good fight but to what avail? By losing an estimated 80,000 to the War on Terror –not to forget – 163 children among hundreds of others at the Army Public School in Peshawar.

Humanitarian intervention does become an interesting principle doesn’t it, when you position it within the political discourse linked to global realities. The enigmas engendered by great power politics tether human rights violations, sovereignty and the ‘savior complex’ in a curious light, especially when humans are ‘saved’ not to preserve the right to life but for resources, power and control in the race for global hegemony.

Three days ago – factions of the Turkish military suffered a historic defeat at the hands of a conscientious Turkish civilian population that were willing to sacrifice their bodies in the face of tanks and helicopter gunships to uphold democracy, freedom and human rights. Was this the same democracy, freedom and human rights that were actively armed, supported and facilitated in Syria?

Turkey has in effect sold out the Islamic world by promoting Western imperial ambitions through its membership of NATO and foreign policy betrayals in Syria. The year 2015 was afloat with news of Turkey and its oil trade with the Islamic State. Although the official Turkish position has consistently been one of denial, arguing that Ankara is neither arming nor trading with the rebels – independent investigations have proven otherwise.

This is plain and simple documentation of painful but tragically real facts demonstrating venal Turkish involvement in Syria. This horrid scenario turns the notion of humanitarian intervention on its head. This supposedly benevolent doctrine has repeatedly been used to lay great nations to waste. It is a terrible tragedy to see that Turkey, considered to be a prominent and progressive leader in the Muslim world, resorted to such degenerate, neo-imperial strategies to court the West.

This is why the overthrow of the Turkish coup neither pleases nor impresses me much. Instead, it only exposes a deep seated hypocrisy that preys upon those that are repressed and structurally disadvantaged both within Turkey and abroad. The cases of the Kurds and Syrians are, perhaps, the most glaring examples of state — and society – sanctioned oppression. The Turkish state’s systematic torture and repression of Kurds and now dissenting journalists and academics marks a watershed in the history of the so-called progressive Turkish republic.

Why was Turkish civil society not so able and willing to mass mobilize and rise up in arms to protect the rights of the Kurds or the Syrians for that matter? The bitter hypocrisies are nauseating as the population like a flock of dead ducks stood silent in the face of open arming of takfiri elements in Syria in the name of ‘moderate forces.’ Even more scandalously, they stood silent as consistently reports emerged of the state’s treacherous economic oil exchange and/or facilitation of cheap supplies of oil through deals with ISIS and ISIS-related forces.

We heard several names – The National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, the Free Syrian Army and a plethora of umbrella terms including extremist, terrorist elements all being supported to oust the abhorred leader, Bashar Al Assad.

When real politik truly played out, the Turks sold out democracy, freedom and human dignity. Why? That’s a question Turkish civil society must ask itself as it embraces its glory in the light of a supposed reinvigorated ‘commitment to democracy.’

Reconciliation Is The Only Way Forward For Syria

Judith Bello

Here is a brief update on the activities of the US Peace Council delegation in Syria. I could spend many words and hours debunking every lie you have been told about Syria and Syrians in the last 5 years, a Sisyphean task in today’s environment. Instead I will share some of my perceptions of recent events based on my experiences in Damascus this week.

Yesterday was quite an interesting day. We met with President Assad in the morning and talked at some length. We began by exchanging introductions and then we asked him some very serious questions. We were not allowed to record the session but many of us took at least some notes. He told us that his strongest focus is on representing the Syrian people and holding the state together on their behalf. He described numerous programs the Syrian state has enacted to protect the people during this very difficult time. The government has converted schools and other buildings into refugee centers. They continue to provide, to the best of their ability, free education and medical care to everyone in the government held areas; they supply power, clean water and food even to areas that are occupied by militants where it is possible.

And he proudly told us that the Syrian Arab Army, an army of the people which is defending the country against a brutal attack, have finally closed the road from Aleppo to Turkey. This is very important because the militants in East Aleppo, and especially Al Nusra Front, the Syrian branch of Al Qaeda, have been receiving money and weapons from Turkey. He then told us that he had just issued the order to implement the humanitarian corridors and amnesty for Syrian nationals. He said that there are two ways to deplete the violence. The first is to fight to the bitter end. The other is to provide an incentive for people to stop fighting and give them a safe passage back to the lives they have left.

These are the first steps in the reconciliation plan which the Reconciliation Minister had talked about extensively, and which was cited by many others we spoke to as the best thinking to restore peace to Syria. We had already had two extended meetings with the Minister of Reconciliation, one in his office and the other over dinner at our hotel where he explained the methodology for reconciliation which they have been developing for some time. Amnesty and humanitarian aid are just the beginning. Evacuating as many civilians as possible is a temporary step to secure their welfare while negotiations are ongoing.

They used this process quite successfully in Homs last winter when they evacuated thousands of fighters and their families from neighborhoods they have long held hostage. Many were bused to Idlib where they may well resume fighting, but a densely populated areas of Homs is now secure and the civilians are able to live their lives in peace. The tens of thousands of citizens who remained were provided humanitarian relief and basic needs with reconstruction assistance on the horizon. You can see the video I posted on my blog at the time when they joyously welcomed the Syrian Arab Army. Minister Haidar admitted that Reconciliation plans are a work in progress and problems do occur. He also explained a complex process involving contact with and empowerment of the local people in the occupied areas that I can explain at some other time.

Each case is unique. East Aleppo has been very closely tied to a stream of foreign fighters who came in through Turkey. They are unlikely to walk away. Al Nusra/Al Qaeda is the primary organization there. And there may be a larger civilian population than in some of the other areas where the plan has succeeded. While the world is watching, it must be stated that the deep plan of working with local fighters and civilian councils will not unfold immediately. Ali Haidar, the Minister of Reconciliation and the long time leader of a dissident party prior to the current crisis in Syria (the war), is on his way to Aleppo to assess conditions and work on making the contacts necessary to begin the real process of reconciliation.

Of course, the first steps of this plan for reconciliation have been all over the news with varying judgements. The New York Times refers to reconciliation and restoration of the fighters’ citizenship as ‘surrender’, but that is not the way those vested in ‘reconciliation’ see it. People we spoke to told us that Syrians are tired of the war. Many initially joined the fight because they were being paid. They say that others joined out of confusion during the initial attacks on their villages and neighborhoods and that many men in occupied areas are given the choice to fight for the militants or be killed immediately. The president told us that he would prefer to heal the country rather than unleash a sea of rage and revenge. The only context in which this does not make sense is one where the sovereign Syrian State is not acknowledged.

Starvation might be less an issue in Aleppo than the fact that the fighters and their families will no longer have income. Last week it was reported, even by Western sources that the current situation was imminent and so an effort was made by the militants in East Aleppo to bring in several months worth of food and other necessities. In the last 24 hours, the Russians have air dropped more food and supplies into East Aleppo. And there are resources at the humanitarian corridors. The NY Times is reporting that people don’t want to leave East Aleppo. However, RT, however, is reporting that militants are firing on civilians who try to leave the area. Clearly there are problems that need to be addressed.

However, there are significant differences between the perspective presented by the Western press and that of the Syrians we met with this week. There is one I would like to point out, that was made very clear by everyone I met with during my stay here in Damascus. Syria is a sovereign country. It has a government which is doing its best to provide the services that governments provide including the provision of necessary resources and services to civilians including personal security which includes ethnic and religious tolerance and equality under the law. None of the forces at war with the government of Syria have demonstrated the capacity, or more importantly, the desire to provide these basic human and civil rights to the people of Syria.

President Bashar Assad, who was elected 2 years ago by the majority of Syrian citizens with a clear majority of votes, comes across as a well educated, progressive individual who is taking responsibility for providing for the people of his country who elected him by a significant majority, and leading a government which is attempting to respond to the issues that have caused civil unrest and discontent within that society while at the same time facing a vicious attack, funded, armed and manned by wealthy countries that have no civil rights and provide few social resources to their population. Not only is the government of Syria with their President doing their best to support the people of that country, but were he to leave, there would be no leadership in the fight against forces that oppose the values of the vast majority of Syrian people and are determined to tear the state apart.

Syrian is home to several ethnic groups and numerous sects of Christianity and Islam. They have lived together in peace for centuries if not longer. This week, the Grand Muftii and the Bishop of the Orthodox Church told us they are ‘cousins’. People tell me it is shameful to ask another person their religion or ethnic background as it is socially irrelevant. There is an awareness of the economic issues that are a source of suffering but the war has taken precedence. There is no doubt that the Syrian government has made mistakes and no one in Syria denies it. However, the US demand that Assad abandon his office and his responsibilities is unrealistic and out of sync with American values as well as with Syrian values. The US insistence on continuing to fuel this vicious war with money and weapons, through proxies and direct strikes, through propaganda and political manipulation, until he abdicates is criminal. It is a violation of international law, us law, and common morality.

Mainstream Media Are Betraying Humanity

John Avery

“Donald Trump is bad for America, but he is good for CBS” Leslie Roy Moonves, President of CBS

Physicians have a sacred duty to their patients, whose lives are in their hands. The practice of medicine is not a business like any other business. There are questions of  trust and duty involved. The physician’s goal must not be to make as much money as possible, but rather to save lives.

Are broadcasting and journalism just businesses like any other business? Is making as much money as possible the only goal? Isn’t the truth sacred? Isn’t finding the truth and spreading it a sacred trust? Questions of thermonuclear war are involved, or catastrophic long-term climate change. The survival of human civilization and the survival of the biosphere depend completely on whether the public receives true and important facts, or whether it receives a mixture of lies, propaganda and trivia.

If the erratic, self-centered, bigoted, racist, misogynist, neofascist Republican candidate, Donald Trump, is elected to the US Presidency in 2016, it will be because mass media like CBS find his deliberately outrageous outbursts entertaining and good for ratings. Besides being manifestly unqualified for the position of President, Trump is an avid climate change denier, and he has said that if elected, he would repudiate the Paris Agreement.

We need to wake up to the real dangers that are facing humanity. Terrorism is not a real danger. The number of people killed by terrorists each year is vanishingly small compared to the number killed in traffic accidents, not to mention the tens of millions who die each year from starvation and preventable diseases. But the mass media shamelessly magnify terrorist events (some of which may be false flag actions) out of all proportion in order to allow governments to abolosh civil liberties and crush dissent.

Meanwhile, the real dangers, the threat of thermonuclear war, the threat of catastrphic climate change, and the threat of a large-scale global famine, these very real threats remain unaddressed.

Our mainstream media have failed us. They are betraying humanity in a time of great crisis. Our educational systems are also failing us, too timid and tradition-bound to warn of the terrible new dangers that the world is facing.

What we need from all the voices that are able to bring a message to a wide public is a warning of the severe dangers that we are facing, combined with an outline of the practical steps that are needed to avert these dangers. We need realism, we need the important facts, but we also need idealism and optimism. The fact that our future is in danger must not be an excuse for dispair and inaction, but instead a reason for working with courage and dedication to save the future.

Some suggestions for further reading

https://www.transcend.org/tms/2016/07/duty-to-warn-quotes-from-assorted-law-and-order-mis-leaders-and-plagiarizers-throughout-history/

https://human-wrongs-watch.net/2016/03/15/peace/

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/07/25/ant-win-post-convention-bump-sends-trump-surging-polls

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article45164.htm

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article45168.htm

http://uspolitics24.com/1402-2/

https://consortiumnews.com/2016/06/02/the-bigger-nuclear-risk-trump-or-clinton/

http://www.ecowatch.com/2016-on-track-worlds-hottest-year-on-record-1937821748.html

UK workers’ pay plummets since 2008 global financial crash

Richard Tyler

A recent analysis by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) reveals that UK workers have suffered the largest fall in real wages among leading Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries since the 2007-08 economic crisis.

The figures produced by the TUC show that between 2007 and 2015, real wages plummeted in the UK by 10.4 percent, a fall only equalled by Greece, where workers have been subjected to savage austerity at the behest of the European Union (EU) and International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The UK, Greece and Portugal were the only three countries in the OECD in which real wages fell. Elsewhere, they increased by an average of 6.7 percent—in Poland growing by 23 percent, in Germany by 14 percent and in France by 11 percent.

Responding to the TUC figures, a blog post by Tim Worstall of the right-wing Adam Smith Society, entitled “In praise of Britain’s flexible labour market”, argues that lower unemployment rates in Britain mean workers should be content with their lot. “Wages took the hit, not jobs,” Worstall writes approvingly.

The Financial Times noted, “The figures expose another side of Britain’s so-called ‘jobs miracle’: its record employment rate of 74.4 per cent has come at the cost of lower real pay.”

The TUC analysis also shows that although employment rates have increased in the UK since the economic crisis, countries such as Germany, Hungary and Poland have seen employment rates grow significantly higher, while real wages have also risen.

On its web site, the TUC states its mission is “to raise the quality of working life and promote equality for all.” Based on the statistics it now draws attention to, one can only conclude that it has failed miserably. The TUC’s figures should be seen as a mea culpa for nearly a decade of wage stagnation or cuts, over which the trade unions have collectively presided.

Since the onset of the economic crisis, the unions have refused to mobilise their members against a massive onslaught on wages, jobs and conditions. Hundreds of thousands of posts in the civil service and public sector have been destroyed, as services have been run down or terminated. A pay freeze was imposed across the public sector, and changes made to pension provisions adversely affecting those retiring for years to come.

Under the 2007-10 Labour government of Gordon Brown, the TUC and union leaders ensured the first wave of austerity measures went unopposed, while at the same time billions were handed over in so-called “bank bailouts”—in reality, an injection of public funds to shore up private profits.

Following the election of a Tory/Liberal Democrat coalition government in May 2010, which ramped up the austerity measures begun by Labour, the TUC voted at its annual conference to do nothing! Instead, the assembled union bigwigs gave a warm welcome to Mervyn King, the then governor of the Bank of England, which rewarded the banks responsible for the crisis in the first place with £1.2 trillion [$US1.6 trillion] of tax-payers’ money.

Over the next four years, the TUC and union bureaucracy worked might and main to prevent a coordinated response by the working class to the onslaught on livelihoods and pensions. Some protests and token strikes were organised by the unions, but as the WSWS wrote at the time of the 2011 TUC Congress, “the real intention of the TUC leaders is to stage the most minimal token stoppages possible as a means of dissipating the anger of their members.”

The role of the unions in suppressing strikes can be seen in the following statistics: in the seven years from 2007 to 2014, the average number of days lost per year due to industrial action was just 686,000. Over the period from 1980-89 this annual figure was 7,213,000 on average. Even during World War II (1939-45) there were nearly two million days lost to strikes each year.

For those at the top of society, the transformation of the trade unions into little more than an industrial police force has helped their already stellar incomes and wealth sky rocket. Despite the impact of the economic crisis, the fortunes of the top dozen individuals on the Sunday Times Rich List rose from a collective sum of £79 billion in 2007 to £110 billion in 2015, an increase of almost 40 percent.

Unlike their members, whose incomes slumped by over 10 percent, the pay packets of the trade union bosses enjoyed a rise of 18 percent collectively between 2007 and 2015.

In 2007, the leaders of 103 unions received an average income of just over £72,000 (three times median household income). By 2015, the number of unions had shrunk to 86, but average income had risen to nearly £85,000.

Whereas there were 28 union leaders whose remuneration exceeded £100,000 in 2007 (average annual pay £122,000), by 2015 the ranks of this upper echelon of union fat cats had grown to 34 (average annual pay £131,000).

One union post which saw a massive hike in salary over the same period was that of the leader of the TUC. In 2007, the then TUC leader Brendan Barber received just over £106,000 in pay and perks. His successor Frances O’Grady, appointed in January 2013, saw her pay cheque swell to almost £148,000 by 2015, a rise of nearly 40 percent. This matched the increase in wealth of the top 12 on the Sunday Times Rich List.

Commenting on the fall in workers’ pay between 2007 and 2015, O’Grady said, “Wages fell off the cliff after the financial crisis, and have barely begun to recover.”

The same cannot be said of her own remuneration or that of her union colleagues, who now rank amongst the top ten percent of wage earners in the UK.

The collapse in real wages for workers is set to escalate following June’s referendum vote for the UK to leave the EU.

In its analysis of the TUC’s report the Financial Times commented, “Real wages are adjusted for inflation, so they only grow when pay is rising faster than prices. They have started to rise again over the past year thanks to very low inflation, but economists believe the Britain’s vote to leave the EU will choke off that recovery. Sterling’s drop means prices in the shops will probably increase sharply next year, with pay rises unlikely to keep up.”

The FT cited the average predictions of 21 forecasters polled by the Treasury, which conclude that real-terms pay is expected to fall further in 2017.

The TUC is offering its services following the Brexit vote to ensure the continued international competitiveness of the British economy. Its “national action plan to protect the economy, jobs and workers’ rights”, released earlier this month, includes a section, “Recognising how trade unions can help Britain succeed”. It states, “The government must recognise that trade unions have a constructive role to play in the post-referendum environment. Throughout the recent steel crisis, unions worked constructively with government and business to safeguard jobs and investment.”

It adds, referring to a country in which the unions have played a central role in policing workers in order to increase the profits of capital, “The involvement of employers and unions in the German response to the global financial crisis from 2008 onwards was a key factor in Germany’s earlier recovery than the UK’s.”

The report continues, “In the wake of the vote to leave the EU, unions and employers can, by working together, help prevent investors from fleeing the UK…. The government should set an example by involving unions in its planning, and should require employers seeking assistance from the national action plan to do so in consultation with the unions representing their workforces.” Workers should take warning.

Texas recorded almost 7,000 deaths in custody since 2005

Shannon Jones

According to statistics made available by the University of Texas at Austin, nearly 7,000 people have died in police custody or in prison in Texas since 2005. The information is contained in an online database published by the school’s Institute for Urban Policy Research and Analysis (IUPRA).

The Texas Justice Initiative was created by Amanda Woog, a postdoctoral fellow in IUPRA. The data set spans 11 years and contains interactive features, including the names, ages, demographics, time and cause of death.

The release of the data comes amid a relentless campaign by the media to delegitimize protests against police violence in the wake of the shootings of police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge. However, it further substantiates the case that the systematic and endemic brutality on the part of the police against the US population is on the rise.

According to the latest figures available, police have killed 551 in the US so far this year. Virtually no one has been held accountable for this toll. This includes officers in Baltimore involved in the death of Freddie Grey, who have now been cleared by the prosecutor’s office.

According to the University of Texas study, 6,913 people died in state custody in the state between 2005 and 2015, an average of 628 per year. Of those deaths, 1,900 were individuals who had never been charged with a crime. Sixty-eight percent of deaths occurred in prisons.

Significantly, 1,118 people died in police custody before booking. Of those, 562 deaths were classified as justifiable homicides, a catch-all category that includes victims of police violence. Another 16 percent were classified as suicides and 7 percent as accidental injury. Ninety percent of these victims had not been charged with any crime. And deaths in police custody are rising. The year 2015 saw the most deaths in custody, with 683 fatalities.

Justifiable homicide was the leading cause of nonnatural death for African-American and Latino men, accounting for 30 and 34 percent of nonnatural deaths respectively. Suicide was the leading cause of nonnatural death for white males, accounting for 411 deaths since 2005. According to the database, 41 percent of those who died in jails had been in custody for seven or fewer days.

Altogether 772 people, 11 percent of the total, died from suicide; 275 (4 percent) died from alcohol or drug intoxication and 255 (4 percent) from other reasons.

While whites made up 31 percent of the Texas prison population they accounted for 42 percent of prison deaths. Ninety percent died of “natural causes,” but the median age of those who died was far lower than the 72-year life expectancy of the average Texan.

The huge fatality rate points to the extreme brutality of the criminal justice system in the United States, where those accused of crimes, mostly poor and working class, are treated with cruelty and indifference. Texas in particular is known for its harsh treatment of prisoners.

The state carries out more executions than any other US state. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, Texas has carried out 537 executions since 1976 with a current death row population of 263. Between 2005 and 2015, the time of the study, the state executed 195 people.

According to the Sentencing Project, Texas has a prison population of 158,000, with a prison incarceration rate of 584 per 100,000 people. Another 66,000 are held in jails.

Jennifer Laurin, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin spoke with the World Socialist Web Site Friday about the Texas Justice Initiative. “I am proud of the work that has gone into this project and that the University of Texas can lay claim to this important initiative,” she said.

“I think it is an extremely significant project that contributes to the understanding about police use of force and deaths in custody.

“The state of Texas required after the last legislative session that reports be submitted on deaths in custody to the attorney general’s office. It is unusual for police departments to make that data available. The contribution of the Texas Justice Initiative was to make that data usable. What this does is render it comprehensible to researchers and the public who want to know what police departments are doing.”

By way of contrast she pointed to the Obama administration’s open data initiative. “It is useless,” she said. “It is not in an intelligible format.”

She said that, from her experience, obstacles to the prosecution of law enforcement personnel relating to deaths in custody were difficult for plaintiffs or prosecutors to overcome. “The existence of more data can create leverage,” she added, “especially if you can see a consistent uptick over time.”

In a recent highly publicized case, Sandra Bland, a vocal opponent of police violence, died in an East Texas jail in July 2015 under mysterious circumstances. According to the official version of events, she used a trash bag to hang herself in her jail cell. A few days earlier police had arrested her in a brutal manner, without cause, following a traffic stop. Her death was included in the total of 1,111 who died in jail during the time covered by the study and is listed as “suicide.”

Bland’s family, however, rejected the possibility that she committed suicide. Whatever happened in that Texas jail cell, the police are ultimately responsible. The harsh treatment meted out to Bland is not atypical.

According to a report, in the 17 days following Bland’s death another four black women died in police custody in states across the US. Most had been in jail for two days maximum, held on minor charges like shoplifting.

Researchers compiled the data used in the IUPRA study from figures reported to the Texas attorney general’s office. The only other state where similar data has been compiled appears to be California. According to those figures 684 died annually in police custody between 2005 and 2014, about the same annual number as Texas, although the population of California is 50 percent larger (38 million) than the population of Texas (26 million). Of the 6,837 deaths in custody in California, 984, 14 percent, were at the hands of law enforcement officers.

US army threatens whistleblower Chelsea Manning with indefinite solitary confinement

Isaac Finn

Following whistleblower Chelsea Manning’s recent suicide attempt, the US Army is vindictively threatening her with indefinite solitary confinement. Manning is incarcerated at a military prison at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas. She is serving a 35-year sentence for releasing 700,000 classified government documents, revealing widespread criminality, to WikiLeaks.

Manning has been subject to nearly continuous harassment by military and prison authorities since her detention in 2010. On Thursday the former intelligence analyst, previously known as Bradley Manning, was informed that she could face charges related to her July 5 attempt to end her life, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The possible charges include “resisting the force cell move team,” possessing “prohibited property” and “conduct which threatens.”

If convicted of these charges, Manning could be punished with indefinite solitary confinement, reclassification into maximum security and an additional nine years in custody. A conviction could also block any chances for parole in the future. This is pure and unadulterated cruelty.

The army investigation is part of an ongoing campaign by the Obama administration to harass and torture Manning as punishment for her decision to expose crimes,

and part of an effort to intimidate others from exposing government and military wrongdoing.

The US military has used a range of methods to psychologically abuse Manning. Prior to her trial, she was put on suicide watch, forcing her to be confined to a small room for the majority of the day for roughly nine months. Manning later described the conditions in isolation as “cruel, degrading, and inhumane, and … effectively a ‘no touch’ torture.”

A February 2014 study by the American Journal of Public Health found that there was a pronounced tendency toward suicide and self-harm among people placed in solitary confinement. The researchers noted that prisoners in New York City jails were seven times more likely to commit an act of self-harm than someone in the general population. The report also revealed that 73 percent of suicides in California prisons took place inside isolation units.

Following the months of solitary confinement, Manning has continued to be hounded by the army and been forced to spend lengthy periods of time in solitary for minor infractions.

Last year, the army almost sentenced Manning to be placed in solitary confinement indefinitely for possessing unauthorized reading material and an expired tube of toothpaste. The panel at the Fort Leavenworth military prison only decided to issue a lesser sentence of 21 days of restrictions on recreational activities—such as access to the gym and library and going outside—after over 100,000 individuals signed a petition demanding that the charges against Manning be dropped.

ACLU attorney Chase Strangio told the Huffington Post that Manning’s “big fear is formal isolation. She relies on access to phones and written communication. If that were cut off, I’d be even more worried.”

Manning—who is a transgender woman, but is forced to serve her sentence in an all-male prison—has also explained that she is extremely depressed as a result of the prison’s refusal to provide treatment for her condition, known as gender dysphoria. She filed a lawsuit last year against the Department of Defense in order to receive treatment.

As part of the lawsuit, Manning’s lawyers stated in court documents that she suffered “continued pain, depression and anxiety and is at an extremely high risk of self-castration and suicidality” if she were not provided with some form of treatment. She was later provided with hormone therapy.

The constant persecution has had a devastating effect on her mental state. The ACLU’s Strangio explained, “Now, while Chelsea is suffering the darkest depression she has experienced since her arrest, the government is taking actions to punish her for that pain. It is unconscionable and we hope that the investigation is immediately ended and that she is given the health care that she needs to recover.”

The ACLU has also stated that, “The Army continues to deny Chelsea access to basic health care, including inadequate medical treatment after her suicide attempt.”

While Manning has been the victim of ongoing persecution, it cannot be discounted that the recent charges are part of an effort to further intimidate whistleblowers following WikiLeaks’ recent release of roughly 20,000 Democratic National Committee internal emails.

Since the most recent release, the New York Times has denounced the leak as part of a convoluted plot between Russia, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Similar statements have been made by the Hillary Clinton campaign, which has sought to bolster Clinton’s credentials as the most reliable candidate on military and intelligence questions.

Germany’s Chancellor Merkel announces drastic increase in state powers

Ulrich Rippert

At an extraordinary press conference on Thursday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced a nine-point plan beefing up internal security. It will include more money and more personnel for the security authorities; closer collaboration with European and international secret services; joint exercises of the police and Bundeswehr (Armed Forces); the introduction of a national entry and exit register as well as the expedited deportation of asylum seekers.

Merkel interrupted her summer holiday in order to hold the press conference and used the media- fomented hysteria following recent attacks in Germany to announce a law-and-order programme. Although the police investigation is still underway, Merkel spoke of “Islamic terrorism”, and described the attacks in Würzburg and Ansbach as a “breach of civilised taboos”. Those pulling the strings, she threatened, would feel the “full force of the law”.

In one breath, Merkel spoke of the attacks in Würzburg and Ansbach, about the “terrible terrorist attacks” in Nice in France, of the attack in Orlando, USA and the murder of a French priest. The aim of the terrorists was to “destroy our way of life”, she said. They were sowing hatred and fear between cultures, and were sowing hatred and fear between religions, the Chancellor said.

Merkel has so far been cautious in using the term “war on terror”. But now, she said Germany was fighting on the side of France and its other allies against terrorism. This was a “fight or war on terror”. Germany was making an important contribution with the Bundeswehr’s Tornado jets.

Merkel repeated her statement, “We can do it!” from last year, which at that time was seen as part of the so-called welcoming culture towards refugees. But at Thursday’s press conference it sounded quite different. Merkel established a direct link between the attacks and the refugee issue, and thus contributed to the agitation against refugees.

She found it “shocking, distressing and depressing” that the attacks in Würzburg and Ansbach had been committed by refugees “who sought protection in Germany or pretended to seek shelter”. The perpetrators “derided the country that has accepted them”.

Merkel’s political intentions can be seen by the fact that she equates the latest attacks in Würzburg und Ansbach with the heinous attack in Nice on July 14—when a 31-year-old drove a lorry into a crowd celebrating Bastille day, killing 84 people from 21 countries and injuring more than 300, some seriously—and the attack on a gay club in Orlando on June 12 in which 49 people were killed and 53 injured. She is stoking up the fear of terrorism and whipping up xenophobic sentiments in order to implement the long-planned expansion of the powers of the security authorities, a stronger secret service and the deployment of the Bundeswehr domestically.

While no doubt brutal, the attacks in Würzburg and Ansbach had a different dimension than those in France and the US. In the German attacks, there were terrible injuries, but the only people to lose their lives were the perpetrators.

In Würzburg, a 17-year-old refugee from Afghanistan attacked a group of travellers with an axe and a knife in a regional train, injuring four people. Shortly afterwards he was shot by SWAT officers. In Ansbach, an apparently mentally ill 27-year-old man, who had fled Syria to Germany last year, carried out a suicide attack. At the entrance to a music festival, he detonated an explosive device, killing himself and injuring 15 people, four seriously.

Merkel referred to these attacks as “breaching a civilizational taboo” and linked them directly with the attacks in France and the US in order to justify stepping up domestic security and the deployment of the Bundeswehr within Germany.

It is noteworthy that she only mentioned in passing the recent most serious act of violence in Germany, the shooting spree by an 18-year-old in Munich last Friday. A young man killed nine people, mainly youngsters, and injured 27 others, 10 of them seriously, in a McDonald’s restaurant and a busy shopping centre in the Bavarian capital; then he shot himself.

With reference to this, Merkel remarked only that murderous violence can happen to anyone and that is precisely why it is so terrible. The Munich killing spree does not fit into the propaganda war against Islamist terror. Initially, the media had speculated about a terrorist and Islamic background to the attack in Munich, but it soon became clear that the attack was the action of a right-wing radical individual who took his example from Anders Breivik, the far-right assailant responsible for the attacks in Oslo and Utoya.

It is now known that the German-Iranian youth was an admirer of Adolf Hitler. Citing those close to the investigation, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitungreported that the youth regarded it as a happy coincidence that he shared his birthday with “the Führer”. His xenophobic utterances and expressions of sympathy for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AFD) had not gone unnoticed.

Merkel did not speak of a “breach of civilizational taboos” in this regard. She said not a word about the fact that the extreme right-wing and fascistic orientation of this young man cannot be understood separate from social developments, the constant fanning of anti-foreigner sentiments and the witch-hunting of Muslims. Instead, Merkel praised the behaviour of the Bavarian police and the security agencies. In reality, the Munich killing spree was utilised to carry out a massive police operation.

This trivialisation and concealing of right-wing terror has a tradition in Germany. For example, in 1980 at the Oktoberfest terror attack in Munich, 12 people died and more than 200 were injured, some seriously. Despite much evidence pointing to the fact that a right-wing network was behind the attack, the investigators quickly decided on the narrative of a lone assassin.

And between 2000-2007, the so-called National Socialist Underground (NSU), in the periphery of which the intelligence services and police had stationed two dozen undercover agents, murdered nine immigrants and a policewoman. Where state activities ended and right-wing terrorism began could not be clarified in several parliamentary committees or the NSU trial in Munich. Again and again, files were destroyed, witnesses died under mysterious circumstances and the domestic intelligence agents were not authorized to provide witness testimony.

Now, a security apparatus that is riddled with links to the far right will be further expanded and strengthened.

On the morning before Merkel’s government statement, the Bavarian state administration, which was holding a cabinet meeting at Tegernsee, announced its own “extensive security package”. It includes more posts and improved technical resources for the police, more staff at the prosecutor’s offices and courts and an expansion of video surveillance in public places and roads, at railway stations and on trains.

In addition, the retention of internet data would be expanded. As well as telephone companies, those providing email services and social media will also be required to store traffic data. Moreover, the 10-week time limit for storing data will be “significantly” increased. Penalties for resisting police officers will be raised from six months up to five years’ imprisonment.

When asked about the Bavarian security package, Merkel told the press conference: “In these matters, we have much common ground.”