Attack on democratic rights in Germany follows Blockupy protest

Christoph Dreier

The German media and politicians have responded to the Blockupy protests against the ECB on Wednesday by denouncing the protesters and demanding restrictions on the freedom of assembly. They seized on clashes prior to the demonstration, involving a few small autonomous and anarchist groups, as a pretext. The protest organisers explicitly distanced themselves from these fringe elements.

Police line in front of the ECB

On Thursday, a debate in the German parliament was immediately called on the protest in Frankfurt. Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière opened with an aggressive attack on the demonstration organisers, which included trade unions, the Attac anti-globalisation movement, and the Left Party.

“The organisers of the Blockupy alliance are jointly responsible for what happened yesterday,” said de Maizière. “Even the name Blockupy indicates nothing peaceful. It is a combination from blocking and occupying. I don’t think that has much to do with peaceful demonstration.”

In addition, the minister declared that those criticising the massive police intervention were downplaying the violence on the fringe of the protest. De Maizière exaggerated the events, calling them a “swath of destruction,” which were the expression of “blind destructive rage.”

Johannes Kahrs from the Social Democrats (SPD) declared the organisers and the Left Party fraction in parliament to be “supporters” of violence. “What happened there in the morning, the violence that took place, which is unacceptable and occurred with the support of Blockupy and the Left Party, cannot be tolerated,” he said.

In an interview on Thursday morning on RBB Inforadio, Green Party chair Simone Peter declared the organisers were responsible for checking who comes to the protest. The Blockupy alliance had thus damaged Frankfurt’s reputation, said Peter.

The arguments of the political parties’ representatives, repeated in numerous media outlets, are absurd. They are aimed at banning protests and doing away with the basic democratic right of freedom of assembly. If protest organisers are made responsible for every participant’s actions, the door is left wide open for political provocations against any protest or political organisation.

The so-called Black Block, which was responsible for the violence in Frankfurt, is heavily infiltrated by the police and intelligence services, and often functions as provocateurs.

At the same time, the Christian Democrats (CDU), SPD and Greens praised the mass police crackdown in Frankfurt to the skies. “The police are protecting the public good of the freedom of assembly. They deserve our thanks and respect,” said Irene Mihalic from the Green parliamentary fraction. Burckhard Lischka (SPD) said that the police had “defended all of us and our values.” De Maizière referred to a “democracy on guard” that has to defend itself.

In fact, the police did everything to escalate the situation. They transformed the city into a fortress that resembled a police state. 8,000 police and 28 water cannons were assembled from across the country. On the day of the protest, officers repeatedly took brutal measures against demonstrators on their way to the protest or who peacefully blocked roads. They used water cannon, tear gas and batons.

Police marching near the ECB

The hailing of this police violence and the criminalising of the protesters by the political parties is aimed at suppressing all opposition to their social attacks and building up the structures of the state.

In parliament, Mihalic demanded a “debate about the equipment and personnel in the police.” Stefan Mayer from the CDU also called for a “better equipping of our police officers.” In addition, he advocated the strengthening of the criminal offence of “resisting state power.”

The police trade union (DpolG) also demanded stronger laws. DpolG chair Rainer Wendt called in Handelsblatt for “those who refuse to remove themselves from a violent crowd after being ordered to do so to also be prosecuted.” In this way, even participating in a demonstration could be declared a criminal offence.

In its key points for the 2016 federal budget, which were leaked to the media, the government plans to increase police and intelligence services budgets by €328 million by 2019. A total of 750 new posts are to be created. The interior ministry budget will rise 6.7 percent next year.

The buildup of the state and the aggressive support of bourgeois politicians of all stripes for attacks on democratic rights are the direct response to growing social inequality in Europe.

The policy of social cuts, for which the ECB bears considerable responsibility, has led to mass poverty, unemployment and desperation, particularly in the countries of southern Europe. In their negotiations with Greece, it is clear that the European elites are preparing for a new round of social attacks that are to be expanded throughout the whole continent.

Such policies are incompatible with democratic rights for the population. They lead to ever more dictatorial forms of rule, in which all forms of protest are to be suppressed and the population intimidated.

German government increases defence budget by €8 billion

Johannes Stern

Germany will increase and massively upgrade defence spending through 2019 according to key points in the 2016 budget and fiscal plan adopted Tuesday by the German cabinet. The military will be allocated some €8 billion more than previously planned over the next four years.

At the beginning of the month, Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble announced that the military budget would not be increased until 2017. Now, just days later, the budget is to increase by €1.2 billion as early as next year. The budget was originally expected to be reduced by approximately €500 million. The adopted increase means it will be €1.7 billion higher than previously planned. Defence spending is then expected to increase incrementally to more than €35 billion by 2019.

The rapid boost to military spending, amounting to an increase of more than 6.2 percent, heralds a new stage in the return of German militarism. After a months-long media campaign calling for the upgrade and further foreign deployment of the military, the government has seized the opportunity to act.

According to the key issues document leaked to the media, the additional expenditures provide for, among other things, “an increased NATO engagement.” Germany is playing a leading role in the buildup of NATO in eastern Europe directed against Russia. It will participate in the newly established Very High Readiness Joint Task Force with up to 2,700 soldiers who can be made operational within a 48-hour period.

Since the beginning of this year, leadership of the Rapid Response Force (NRF) has rested with the 1 German-Netherlands Corp in Münster. According to the official web site of the German military, 4,000 German soldiers committed to the NRF were certified last year as “combat ready.” At the core of the German troops of the NRF is Armored Infantry Battalion 371 from Marienberg, which has been prepared for “treaty-obligated deployment” since the end of 2013.

The NATO buildup in eastern Europe is not the only project to be financed with the new funds. The German elite are constructing an army with which they can defend their geostrategic and economic interests worldwide. Another point in the key issues document is euphemistically called “additional expenditures globally for investments in our future” and estimated to cost a further €300 million per year.

In its latest edition, the weekly German newspaper Die Zeit called the long-planned and now successful increase of the defence budget “a new era in fiscal policy.” That means: “The resources should above all flow into those departments relevant to ‘future tasks’. According to the finance ministry, these are education, transportation—and in light of geopolitical challenges, defence and development cooperation. On the other hand, when necessary, social spending should be spared.”

In other words: the working class must bear the cost of militarism in two respects. They are to be cannon fodder for the “future tasks” of war, and they must endure further cuts to social spending to finance the military buildup. At the same time, the apparatus of state repression will be built up in order to militarise society in face of the opposition of the overwhelming majority of the population.

In addition to the military, the intelligence and security agencies are also to be expanded. The police force, the Federal Criminal Office, and the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (German intelligence agency) are together expected to gain 750 new posts and €328 million from 2016 to 2019. The allocation for the Department of the Interior will also climb by 6.7 percent to €6.6 billion next year. More than €200 million will flow directly into the facilities of the police and the Office for the Protection of the Constitution.

There can be no doubt that the increases to the departments of interior and defence are only the beginning of a far more comprehensive buildup. The German elite are presently working on a new, aggressive foreign policy strategy under the auspices of the so-called White Paper 2016, in which interventions by the German military play a central role.

The first meeting of the task force “Perspectives of the Military” made clear the direction in which things are headed. The leader of the group, journalist Thomas Wiegold, said, in a video clip produced by the military, that they will make recommendations about “which long-term capabilities the military requires or…how this horsepower can be put to use on the road.” He said that he could not imagine, however, “that we already have boxes to check off today in which we say that we must have this many tanks, this many rockets and this many new capabilities.”

André Wüstner, the chair of the German Army Association (Bundeswehr Association) greeted the increase to the defence budget as “a very good day for Germany.” He had earlier demanded before the Munich Security Conference that German forces achieve “full operational readiness” and “be prepared for war.”

Wüstner said he was “very happy that the government recognised the signs of the times and will now make considerable adjustments. The defence policy framework of our time, the crisis in Ukraine, Northern Iraq and in Syria, require urgent investment. That goes for the necessary reorganisation of infrastructure as well as for the sorely needed purchasing of equipment.”

The focus should not only be on “the great defence projects,” Wüstner added. Just as important are the “little procurement measures that are only for training, exercise and the basic requirements that are important for achieving operational readiness,” according to a Bundeswehr Association press release.

The increase in the defence budget does not go far enough for them. The expansion of the army is also necessary. According to Wüstner, at least 5,000 new positions would have to be added to the present complement of temporary and enlisted soldiers.

Obama administration sets record for denying access to government documents

Niles Williamson

According to analysis of federal data by the Associated Press, the administration of US President Barack Obama set a record for censoring and withholding documents requested under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The government also took more time than ever to turn over files and was more likely to say that it was unable to locate documents.

The Freedom of Information Act was originally passed in 1966 and allows anyone to request and access documents from the US government for a nominal fee. The law contains several exemptions that give the government significant leeway in denying requests and censoring documents, particularly if it claims secrecy is necessary to protect “national security,” business secrets or an individual’s privacy.

Approximately 39 percent of the requests the government responded to last year were denied or censored. A further one third of these requests were rejected because the government said it couldn’t locate the documents, a person refused to pay for documents, or the requests was deemed improper or unreasonable.

The government spent $434 million on processing requests last year and a further $28 million on lawyers’ fees in its effort to block access to documents.

While 714,231 new FOIA requests were made by journalists, citizens, businesses and others last year the government reported that it responded to 647,142 requests, including backlogged requests, down four percent from 2013.

The number of backlogged requests between 2013 and 2014 grew by 55 percent to more than 200,000. Meanwhile the number of employees throughout the government employed full time to process FOIA requests and locate documents was cut by nine percent.

Responding to questions about the Obama administration’s withholding of government records, White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters “When it comes to our record on transparency, we have a lot to be proud of. And frankly, it sets a standard that future administrations will have to live up to.” In 2013, Obama infamously declared that his presidency was, “the most transparent administration in history.”

According to the White House’s internal assessment, the federal government had released all or part of documents in 91 percent of processed requests last year. This measurement—which excludes requests where records could not be located, a person refused to pay for records, or a request was determined to be improper—was still a record low for the Obama administration.

A report put out this week by the Center for Effective Government found that out of the 15 agencies that received 90 percent of FOIA requests in 2013 ten were ineffective in processing requests for information.

The State Department was found to be the worst performing White House department, processing only 17 percent of the requests in received in 2013. Despite being legally mandated to do so, the State Department does not have a rule to inform individuals that their FOIA request have been delayed often leaving journalists and others in the dark about accessing information.

In a related development, the Obama administration moved on Tuesday to exempt the White House’s Office of Administration from Freedom of Information Act requirements. The office is responsible for human resources, maintaining computers and servers as well as record keeping for the White House.

The Obama administration stated that they were simply bringing their regulations in line with a 2009 Washington DC federal appeals court ruling that found that the Office of Administration was not subject to FOIA requests. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a liberal watchdog organization, had unsuccessfully sued for the release of 22 million deleted emails from the Office of Administration during George W. Bush’s presidency.

The move by the Obama administration to exempt the Office of Administration effectively blocks FOIA requests for internal White House emails. Under the Presidential Records Act White House emails are not accessible to the public until five years after the end of an administration.

Other offices within the White House that are already exempt from the same FOIA transparency standards include the Offices of the President and Vice President, the Council of Economic Advisers, the National Security Council and the Presidents Foreign Intelligence Board.

The Justice Department under Obama has aggressively pursued individuals who have leaked information about the secret and illegal operations of the American government. Private Chelsea Manning is serving a 35-year sentence in a military brig for leaking information about war crimes committed by the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan to Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks in 2010.

Former CIA agent John Kiriakou was convicted of violating the Espionage Act after he revealed details of the CIA’s torture operation. Edward Snowden, who leaked information about the US government’s electronic surveillance operations in 2013, has been charged under the Espionage Act and is currently living in exile in Russia.

Journalist James Risen, who was subpoenaed by the Justice Department in a failed attempt to force him to reveal a confidential source, has repeatedly denounced the Obama White House as “the greatest enemy of press freedom in a generation.”

The move by the Obama administration to block public access to White House emails and other government documents is of a piece with its persecution of whistleblowers in its attempt to maintain secrecy in regards to its ongoing wars, torture, and the illegal surveillance of the entire world’s electronic communications.

Netanyahu begins post-election maneuvers, in Israel and abroad

Patrick Martin

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought to soft-pedal the anti-Arab racism of his last-ditch election appeals, in interviews Thursday with two US broadcast networks, MSNBC and Fox News. He gave the interviews as talks continued in Jerusalem on the formation of a new coalition government, expected to be led by Netanyahu’s Likud Party.

Speaking to MSNBC anchor Andrea Mitchell Thursday morning, Netanyahu denied that he had reversed a previous commitment to the eventual establishment of a Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza Strip, although he did so categorically in the final days of the election campaign.

With the last polls, conducted five days before the March 17 election, showing that he would likely trail the opposition Zionist Union by four seats or more, Netanyahu embarked on a campaign blitz to convince the supporters of other right-wing and religious parties to switch their votes to Likud.

He disavowed his 2009 agreement to support a “two-state solution,” declaring categorically that there would never be a Palestinian state as long as he was prime minister. He reiterated this statement at rallies Monday and again on election day, when he combined it with an appeal for right-wing voters to go to the polls to counter Israeli Arab voters who were turning out “in droves.”

The appeals had their effect. While the overall vote for the three far-right parties remained roughly the same—43 seats in the last election in 2013, 44 seats on Tuesday—the distribution of seats within the right-wing bloc changed dramatically. In 2013, Likud won 20 seats, while its right-wing allies won 23. In 2015, Likud’s share rose to 30, six seats more than the second-place Zionist Union, making Netanyahu the frontrunner to be named prime minister for a fourth time.

For his American television appearances, Netanyahu dropped the howls that “the Arabs are coming” and reavowed his support for a Palestinian state, albeit so hedged with conditions that the pledge was meaningless. He told Mitchell, “I don’t want a one-state solution. I want a sustainable, peaceful two-state solution. But for that, circumstances have to change.”

Asked directly about his warnings of a high Arab turnout, Netanyahu simply denied he was making a racist appeal. “I’m very proud to be the prime minister of all of Israel’s citizens, Arabs and Jews alike,” he told NBC, without provoking any further questioning.

In an interview broadcast later on Fox, he elaborated on this denial, saying, “I wasn’t trying to suppress a vote; I was trying to get out my vote.” That he was trying to “get out my vote” through a brazen appeal to anti-Arab racism is obvious, so his Fox interviewer, Megyn Kelly, dropped the subject.

Netanyahu told Kelly that he could resume talks with the Palestinian Authority only if the Fatah-led government on the West Bank broke its unity agreement with Hamas and agreed to negotiate separately with Israel. “You have to get the international community to press on the Palestinians to go back on their unity pact with the terrorist Hamas and come back to the table,” he said.

Netanyahu was seeking to preempt the possibility of any diplomatic blowback against the Israeli government for his openly saying during the final days of the election campaign what has been obvious throughout his term in office: Israel’s participation in peace talks with the Palestinian Authority is a charade, staged only to please its US paymasters as well as to retain the services of the corrupt PA apparatus in policing the population of the West Bank.

The Obama administration reacted angrily to Netanyahu’s dropping the pretense of peace talks for the sake of his reelection campaign. White House officials suggested that the US might drop its blanket opposition to pro-Palestinian resolutions at the UN Security Council, where the US has used its veto power incessantly to block condemnation of Israeli war crimes like last year’s onslaught on Gaza.

One “senior administration official” was widely quoted in the American press, to the effect that “The positions taken by the prime minister in the last days of the campaign have raised very significant substantive questions that go far beyond just optics.”

The official singled out Netanyahu’s admission during a campaign rally at Har Homa that the settlement had been built on Arab land to create a separation between East Jerusalem and the Arab town of Bethlehem. “To actually come out and say that this construction is actually driven by efforts to undermine a future Palestinian state is fairly dramatic,” said the official.

The divisions between Netanyahu and the Obama administration that emerged in the run-up to the election—which centered on US efforts to bring Iran into its overall imperialist strategy in the Middle East—continue in its aftermath. The AP reported on Thursday that the US and Iran have drafted elements of a deal over nuclear power and sanctions that they are seeking to finalize by the end of the month. Netanyahu has bitterly opposed such a deal, which would undermine Israel’s influence in the Middle East.

As for the issue of a future Palestinian state, the main concern of the Obama administration is that Netanyahu’s comments reveal, all too bluntly, the implacable commitment of the Israeli government to depriving the Arab population, both on the West Bank and Gaza and within Israel itself, of democratic rights and any possibility of economic improvement. This creates political dangers for ongoing US military operations in Syria and Iraq, which depend on Arab bases and participation by the military forces of Arab states.

Successive US governments, both Republican and Democratic, have backed Israeli-Palestinian talks based on a “two-state” approach, not out of any sympathy for the Palestinian population living under Israeli military occupation, but to provide political cover for the reactionary Arab rulers, in Gulf states, Egypt, Iraq, etc., who are the stooges and client states of American imperialism in the region.

The creation of a rump Palestinian state under the domination of Zionism and imperialism would represent not a step forward for the Palestinian masses, but a new and dangerous trap. Netanyahu opposes such a state only to pursue an even more reactionary policy, the expansion of Israeli sovereignty to cover the entire region from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River, which would lead inexorably to the expulsion—or extermination—of the Palestinian Arab population.

Netanyahu made his “clarification” on a Palestinian state in response to concerns raised by the European imperialist powers as well. France, Germany and Britain all reiterated their support for a “two-state” solution, in response to his statements at the end of the Israeli election campaign. British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, leader of the Liberal Party, went so far as to warn Netanyahu that the British parliament would undoubtedly vote to recognize the Palestinian Authority as a state with authority over the West Bank and Gaza if the Israeli leader did not reverse himself.

For the leadership of the Palestinian Authority, Netanyahu’s comments were something of a windfall, enabling it to bolster its campaign to win recognition of a Palestinian state through diplomatic machinations in the United Nations. “We will continue a diplomatic intifada. We have no other choice,” one Palestinian official told the New York Times. This is a particularly obscene formulation, equating as it does the squalid backroom maneuvers at the UN with the struggle of thousands of Palestinian youth and workers who engaged in mass rebellion against the Israeli occupation.

In Jerusalem, the six parties expected to form the next Israeli government were in talks on the distribution of cabinet positions, with the biggest fight over control of the defense ministry, where Naftali Bennett, head of the ultra-right settlers’ party Jewish Home was said to be the most likely candidate. Moshe Kahlon, head of the newly formed Kulanu Party, second largest in the coalition, was expected to be named either finance minister or head of an expanded ministry with control over all budgetary matters.

Tunisian army called out after terror attack kills 23

Bill Van Auken

The government of President Beij Caid Essebsi has deployed the army in the streets of Tunisia in the wake of Wednesday’s terrorist attack in downtown Tunis that claimed the lives of 23 people, including at least 20 foreign tourists.

The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS, also known as ISIL or Islamic State) took responsibility for the attack, which was carried out by two gunmen dressed in military uniforms. It took place at the National Bardo Museum, which is next to the country’s parliament in an upscale neighborhood surrounded by police stations and military barracks.

The principal targets of the attack were tourists who had been bused from cruise ships to the museum, which is located in a 19th century palace and houses one of the largest collections of Roman mosaics in the world. The gunmen fired on people getting off a bus and then chased a number of tourists into the museum, continuing to shoot and holding them hostage before both gunmen and tourists were killed by security forces.

There were spontaneous demonstrations in repudiation of the terrorist act both at the site of the museum and on the Tunisian capital’s main thoroughfare, Avenue Habib Bourguiba.

Until now, armed actions by Islamist groups in Tunisia had been directed against the army and the security forces, particularly in the western area of Kasserine, near the Algerian border, where the Katibat Uqba Ibn Nafaa group has been carrying out an insurgency since 2012.

The reaction of the government to the attack in Tunis has been to tighten its repressive grip. The office of President Essebsi issued a statement Thursday saying, “After a meeting with the armed forces, the president has decided large cities will be secured by the army.”

Tunisian Prime Minister Habib Essid, speaking on television Wednesday night, declared, “I want the Tunisian people to understand that we are in a war against terrorism and that these savage minorities do not frighten us.”

On Thursday, Essid identified the two gunmen as Yassine Abidi and Hatem Khachnaoui, both Tunisian nationals. He added that Abidi had been “known to the security services” and had been “monitored” before the attack.

The father of Khachnaoui told the news web site alchourouk.com that his son had disappeared some three months ago, but had made contact recently from a cell phone with an Iraqi number.

Tunisia has sent the largest number of so-called foreign fighters into the ranks of ISIS and other Islamist groups fighting in Syria and now Iraq. Their number is estimated at between 2,000 and 4,000, and at least 500 are thought to have since returned to Tunisia.

Tunisians have also crossed the border into neighboring Libya and joined Islamist militias there. There was widespread speculation that Wednesday’s attack was carried out in revenge for the death days earlier of Ahmed Al-Rouissi, a Tunisian who had led a group of ISIS fighters in Libya. He was killed in clashes near the town of Sirte, where ISIS has confronted a rival Libyan Islamist militia based in Misrata.

Al-Rouissi had also been a senior member of Ansar al Sharia, a Tunisian Islamist organization. Before joining ISIS, he was suspected of responsibility for a series of bombings in Tunisia as well as the 2013 assassinations of two secular nationalist politicians, Chokri Belaid and Mohammed Brahmi.

In the final analysis, the atrocity in Tunis was the result of the spillover from the catastrophes created by the US wars in Iraq and Libya and the proxy war Washington has waged in Syria, backing Islamist militias in an attempt to oust the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

Combined with these external pressures are the continuing political and economic crises of Tunisian society. More than four years after the mass revolutionary upheavals that toppled the Western-backed dictatorship of Zine El Abidine Ben-Ali, none of the aspirations for jobs, democratic rights and social equality that brought the Tunisian working class—the principal force in the revolution—into struggle have been realized.

At least 20 percent of the workforce—and more than 40 percent of young workers—are unemployed. Over the past few years, the inflation rate has stayed at between 5 and 6 percent, while wages have remained stagnant, leading to a precipitous decline in living standards.

A Pew poll conducted last year found that 88 percent of Tunisians felt the economic situation was bad, 70 percent were dissatisfied with their country’s political life, and that 77 percent believed that those at the top of the income ladder wielded too much power.

The terrorist attack is expected to deepen the economic crisis, dealing a blow to tourism, which accounts for 7 percent of the country’s GDP and employs 12 percent of its workforce. Tourism had already fallen off since 2010. In the immediate aftermath of Wednesday’s attack, major cruise ship lines and tour operators announced that they were halting trips to Tunisia.

Western governments and think tanks had hailed Tunisia as the “success story” of the so-called Arab Spring on the grounds that it has not been subjected to the kind of sociocide meted out to Libya and Syria in Washington’s wars for regime change or seen the kind of mass arrests and killings that have taken place under the US-backed dictatorship of former army commander Abdel-Fatah El Sisi in Egypt.

While last December Tunisia held its first direct presidential election, and also last year adopted a new constitution that supposedly guarantees basic democratic rights, the country still lives under the shadow of the former dictatorship of Ben Ali. It is his collaborators and allies, including President Essebsi, who now hold power in alliance with a collection of ex-Stalinists, union bureaucrats and bourgeois counterrevolutionaries.

In the weeks leading up to Wednesday’s terrorist attack, a military court sentenced a blogger and former activist in the 2011 uprising, Yassine Ayari, to six months in jail on charges of defaming the army for exposing financial corruption among top military officers and defense ministry officials.

More recently, the government ordered the arrest of the popular comedian Migalo, whose real name is Wassim Lahrissi, and television host Moez Ben Gharbia on charges of having “offended the president.” They are being held without bail until March 25 when they will be arraigned in court.

The terrorist attack gives the Essebsi government the pretext for assuming—in the name of fighting terrorism—police-state powers that will inevitably be used to suppress opposition within the working class to its reactionary pro-capitalist policies.

Capital punishment and the brutality of class rule in America

Kate Randall

The latest abomination in a US death chamber took place on Tuesday night in Missouri when Cecil Clayton, 74, was injected and killed with a single dose of pentobarbital. The condemned inmate was executed despite overwhelming evidence of his intellectual disability.

In 1972, Clayton was working in a lumberyard when a piece of wood broke off the sawmill and struck him in the head. Surgeons were forced to excise a fifth of his frontal lobe—the area of the brain that controls judgment, inhibition and impulsive behavior—to remove shards of bone that had pierced deep into his brain.

The accident had a shattering impact on Clayton’s life. The former devoted husband and father developed severe memory loss and began to suffer from hallucinations and paranoia.

A quarter century later, Clayton was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1996 murder of a Missouri sheriff’s deputy. He remained on death row for nearly two decades as his appeals worked through the legal system. Numerous psychiatric exams revealed that the condemned prisoner had diminished intellectual capacity, social functioning deficits and dementia.

But Missouri authorities were determined to see this intellectually disabled man put to death, despite his inability to comprehend “the nature and purpose of the punishment about to be imposed on him,” as required by Missouri law. Clayton’s attorneys’ pleas for mercy fell on deaf ears. The Missouri Supreme Court denied his right to a competency hearing, Governor Jay Nixon (the same man who ordered out the National Guard against protests in Ferguson, Missouri last year) denied him clemency, and the US Supreme Court denied a last-minute petition for a stay of execution.

Disturbingly, a complete record of the horrors of America’s death row is too long to list here, but include the following:

March 2, 2015: Kelly Renee Gissendaner came within hours of death for the second time in less than a week when her “execution team” in Georgia said the drugs to be used in her lethal injection “appeared cloudy.” Gissendaner, who had only an indirect role in the murder for which she was convicted, clearly turned her life around in prison. Her new execution date has yet to be scheduled.

July 23, 2014: Arizona inmate Joseph Wood was subjected to a nearly two-hour lethal injection procedure utilizing untested drugs. According to a witness description: “He gulped like a fish on land. The movement was like a piston: The mouth opened, the chest rose, the stomach convulsed.”

April 29, 2014: Clayton D. Lockett suffered an agonizing execution after being injected with an untested lethal concoction of three drugs. The Oklahoma death row inmate shook uncontrollably, gritted his teeth, and mumbled 15 minutes into the gruesome procedure. Authorities called off the execution, but Lockett died 45 minutes after it had begun.

Millions of people in the US and internationally have been rightfully shocked and outraged by these horrifying spectacles repeated time and again on America’s death row. But the overwhelming response of state authorities, the courts at every level, and the federal government is to do whatever is necessary to keep the state-sanctioned killing machine in operation.

The death penalty is defended at the highest levels of the government and the judiciary, from the Supreme Court to the Obama administration and both big-business parties. Since the US Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976 after a brief hiatus, it has consistently ruled to uphold the constitutionality of capital punishment. While ruling the execution of the intellectually disabled and those sentenced for crimes committed as juveniles unconstitutional, the court has repeatedly upheld the death penalty itself.

And despite the ruling barring execution of the intellectually disabled, the justices have rarely halted an execution on this basis. Indeed, in the killing of the clearly mentally disabled Clayton, one senses that the state decided a certain principle was at stake: the principle of unlimited and unchecked power. It killed because it could, and wanted to make clear that it would.

The barbaric practice of capital punishment is only one expression of the violent and criminal character of the American state. Police officers who kill unarmed people are immune from prosecution, while America’s prisons are packed with two million human beings, more than any other country in the world.

These are all symptoms of a deeply diseased society, corrupted through and through by social inequality and the aristocratic principle that the wealthy and powerful can do whatever they want, while the poor and powerless are to be humiliated and degraded.

Italian philosopher Cesare Beccaria, a leading figure of the Enlightenment, wrote on the death penalty in his widely influential treatise On Crimes and Punishments in 1764:

“What must men think, when they see wise magistrates and grave ministers of justice, with indifference and tranquility, dragging a criminal to death, and whilst a wretch trembles with agony, expecting the fatal stroke, the judge, who has condemned him, with the coldest insensibility, and perhaps with no small gratification from the exertion of his authority, quits his tribunal to enjoy the comforts and pleasures of life?”

Reading these words, one can envision the black-robed Supreme Court Justices as they deny stays of execution, the governors who refuse to grant clemency or pardons, and the execution teams in prisons injecting concocted lethal mixtures into the condemned veins. One can also picture President Obama in the White House situation room drafting his “kill list” of those targeted for drone assassinations.

The continued practice of capital punishment is at odds with the democratic conceptions held by the early American leaders, including James Madison and Thomas Jefferson. Madison, key in drafting the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights, a death penalty opponent, wrote: “I should not regret a fair and full trial of the entire abolition of capital punishment by any State willing to make it.” Jefferson opined that the notion of “an eye for an eye” was a “revolting principle.”

The opposition of Jefferson and Madison to capital punishment was based on the Enlightenment principle of hostility and opposition to arbitrary state violence, which was associated with the Ancien Régime and the feudal aristocracy of Europe.

Some two-and-a-half centuries later, the current political establishment’s support for state-sanctioned killing speaks volumes about the decayed state of class rule in 21st century America. The criminal character of the state is an expression of the class whose interests it represents: the corporate and financial oligarchy, whose wealth is derived from swindling and speculation, standing on top of a society riven by historically unprecedented levels of inequality.

Hold Tobacco Industry liable

Shobha Shukla

Despite loads of credible and scientifically robust evidence that tobacco kills and is a common risk factor for major non-communicable diseases (NCDs), public health programmes have achieved limited success in controlling tobacco epidemic. With over 6 million tobacco-related deaths every year, the world is far from eliminating tobacco deaths. Every tobacco-related death is a tragedy, because it is preventable, had rightly said US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy at the opening of the 16th World Conference on Tobacco or Health (WCTOH 2015).

"One of the major obstacles in implementation of the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) is tobacco industry interference and how it intimidates and harasses governments" said Matthew Allen, who is the lead author of Article 5.3 Toolkit: Guidance for Governments on Preventing Tobacco Industry Interference", of the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (The Union).

Conflict of interest

One major game-changer in tobacco control has been the adoption of WHO FCTC Article 5.3 guidelines in November 2008 by countries that have ratified the global tobacco treaty. FCTC Article 5.3 hugely succeeded in putting the spotlight on fundamental and irreconcilable conflict of interest between tobacco industry and public health policy, thereby denying them seat on the table in tobacco control.

But there is more in WHO FCTC that can further turn the tide of the global tobacco epidemic!

Holding tobacco companies liable

WHO FCTC Article 19 envisions a world where governments hold the power to protect people from harmful products like tobacco, can recover the costs of treating tobacco-related disease from the tobacco industry, and can use their legal systems to ensure their right to do so.

"FCTC Article 19 is one of the least well implemented articles of the treaty. As a result it provides immense untapped potential to be able to shift the cost-benefit ratio for the way the tobacco industry operates and thereby hold it to account and make it pay the high costs of harms it causes to people around the world" said Cloe Franko, Chair of Network for Accountability of Tobacco Transnationals (NATT) and Senior International Organizer of Challenge Big Tobacco campaign at Corporate Accountability International.

Franko added: "Right now the tobacco industry uses its political and economic might to overpower the legal systems in, especially, smaller countries of the global South in a way that shifts the balance in its favour."

Not surprisingly, progress in moving towards implementation of FCTC Article 19 has been slow. At the recently held inter-governmental meeting of the global tobacco treaty (WHO FCTC COP6), a decision was made to extend the mandate of the expert group on FCTC Article 19. When seventh round of inter-governmental negotiations of WHO FCTC will take place in 2016, this expert group will share a final report on approaches that may assist governments to strengthen civil liability mechanisms for holding tobacco industry accountable across a variety of legal systems.

Cloe Franko informed that in addition to the report, expert group of WHO FCTC Article 19 will also more importantly provide strong and concrete guiding principles that will enable governments to advance implementation of Article 19.

Yul Francisco Dorado, Latin-America Director, Corporate Accountability International, called for governments to ensure that WHO FCTC Article 19 remains central to 7th intergovernmental meeting of the global tobacco treaty in 2016: "We cannot delay full utilization of FCTC Article 19" said Yul in a session at WCTOH 2015.

It only takes one candle to light the darkness

Franko shared with Citizen News Service (CNS): "It can be intimidating for governments to consider litigating against the tobacco industry. That is why guiding principles and tools on Article 19 become all the more important for governments. Adjusting laws and legal systems, and sharing knowledge and expertise at the international level will help to ensure that the legal process against tobacco industry is not so overwhelming and costly. Recent progress litigating against the industry in Canada, though important, may be difficult to be followed by low and middle income countries. The Article 19 expert group has a key role to play ensuring support is available for countries to bring the tobacco industry to account for the harms it causes." As they often say in Abu Dhabi to reflect hope, "Insha Allah"!

Condemn The Gang-Rape In Nadia And Continuing Attacks On Christians

People's Union for Democratic Rights

PUDR expresses outrage at the gang-rape of a 71 year old nun by a gang of “dacoits” inside a convent in Gangnapur village, Nadia district, West Bengal on 14th March 2015. The men reportedly raided and desecrated the convent before taking away 12 lakhs.Clearly, the motive was not merely to rob and decamp but to punish the school and the community through this horrendous gang-rape. In this connection, PUDR wishes to draw attention to the disturbing trend of attacks on Christians, including their institutions and places of worship, in recent times.

1. On 15th March 2015, an under-construction church in Kaimri village, Hissar was vandalized and an idol of the Hindu god, Hanuman, was placed in its stead. The priest had been warned by the Bajrang Dal not to build the church. While promising strict action, the Haryana Chief Minister, ManoharLalKhattar, stated in the Assembly that the church was being built in an illegal colony and that the priest was involved in conversion.

2. On 15th February 2015, the Holy Child Auxilium Convent, VasantVihar in Delhi was vandalized. This was the sixth church which had been attacked since December 2014 (Dilshad Garden, Jasola, Rohini, Vikaspur, VasantKunj). Yet, the Delhi Police Commissioner reportedly told the Central Government that more thefts had occurred (but not publicized) in temples, gurdwaras and mosques than in churches.

3. On 1st March 2015, members of the Hindu JagranManch allegedly attacked the farm of a Christian missionary in Alirajpur, Madhya Pradesh, on grounds that he was ‘converting’ Hindu tribals. In October 2014, the district administration had denied permission to the All India United Christian Front and Moksha Foundation from holding a convention at the same venue on grounds of communal tensions after a Christian boy eloped and married a Hindu girl in an AryaSamaj temple in Bhopal.

Such selective attacks are definitely not new. However, as against isolated incidents like the rape of two nuns in Gajraula (1990) or the murder of two priests in Gumla (1996), the spate of attacks assumed a new force after the BJP victory in 1998. In Orissa targeted killings began with the murders of Graham Staines and his two sons in 1999 and in Dangs(Gujarat), orchestrated attacks on Christian places of worship and homes in 1999 were witnessed. With the BJP assuming power at the Centre in 2014, the hate tide has assumed a new pitch which is visible in GharWapsi campaignsand in the deliberate targeting of Mother Teresa by the RSS supremo, Mohan Bhagwat.

Officially, the Government professes otherwise. In his official website, on 18th February, 2015, the Prime Minister stated, “We consider the freedom to have, to retain, and to adopt, a religion or belief, is a personal choice of a citizen”. Similarly, the Home Minister had assured a delegation which had met him after the desecration of the VasantKunj church that the government would not discriminate on the basis of religion, caste and community.

PUDR questions the Centre’s double-speak on the issues of religious freedom and gender justice. On the one hand, it professes religious tolerance; on the other, it refuses to challenge its state agencies, ministers and cultural leaders for rescinding from the same. Similarly,while it claims to safeguard the rights of all women, its religious leaders advocate control over women in the name of “community”. This horrific rape shows the role that sexual violence has played in targeting and brutalizing the religious freedom of the Christian community.This incident has also hollowed out the Centre’s fallacious ban decision on the recent documentary, India’s Daughter. If bans could prevent the culture of sexual violence, then how does the Centre explain this incident in which an elderly nunwas deliberately violated by a gang of men inside a convent?

While the West Bengal Government has agreed to a CBI investigation into the incident and the Central Government and the NHRC have sought reports of the same, PUDR believes that this incident is far more than a mere law and order problem;it is part of a communal pattern which is fast emerging in different cities and towns under the aegis of the Hindu right. PUDR wishes to remind the Government that it has to uphold the fundamental right of freedom of religion for all citizens and right to equality and freedom for women. PUDR demands that the guilty be apprehended immediately and urges the Government to take all necessary steps to prevent any further incidents.

Ahwazis Call The Amnesty International To Urge Iran To Stop Persecution

Amir Saedi

Ahwazi Community in the UK demonstrated in front of the Amnesty International on Tuesday 17 March 2015 against the persecution of the Arabs by the Iranian regime. Following the protest a group of Ahwazi activists met with Mrs Hassiba Hadh Sahraoui, the Deputy Director of Middle East and North Africa Programme.

Abdulrahman Al-Ahwazi, from the Patriotic Arab Democratic Movement in Al-Ahwaz, highlighted the environmental crisis in the region which caused by building water dams in the area of Al-ahwaz (Khuzestan). Al-Ahwazi stated that climate in the province of Al-ahwaz is dependent on the main rivers such Karoun, Karkheh and Jarrahi. The Iranian authority built more than 40 water dams, and 36 are under construction while 176 are planned to be built in future. Consequently, these dams led to dry international marshlands such Fallahiya and Hur-alazim and disruption of biodiversity.

Ali Moramazy, represented the Ahwazi Democratic Popular Front mentioned the dramatic increase the toll of executions in Iran, specifically in Al-ahwaz. Moramazy said that the number of executions within 18 months of Hassan Rouhani presidency reached 1193 mainly from non-Persian nations like Ahwazi Arabs, Kurds, Azaris and Baluchi. Moramazy also mentioned the execution of Hadi Rashedi and Hashem Shaabani, Ahwazi poets who were executed by the Iranian regime in February 2014 due to their cultural activities.

Amir Saedi from the Ahwazi Human Rights Organisation showed the very high rates of unemployment among Ahwazi Arabs in the province, despite that the region reserves more than 80% of the Iranian oil export. Saedi also added that the rates of cancer raised by 500 times among Ahwazi Arabs as a result of air pollution caused by the industrial and oil activities. Saedi showed that an Ahwazi Arab young man set himself alight in front of the municipal office Mohammarah (Khorramshar) when the security officers confiscated his kiosk on Saturday 14 March 2015, he was admitted to local hospital and is in critical situation. Younes Asakereh, 34, married with two kids, used the kiosk as the only source of income, and he lives with his family in a rented place and the contract ended and was asked to live the place.

Abid Hanun Al-shamary, Ahwazi Center for Human Rights Defence said that Arabs are subjected to discrimination, and the Iranian regime banned the education with their mother language. The Iranian authority has never implemented the Article 15 of the state’s law which says non-Persian nations have the right to educate in their mother language. Al-shamary seeks the Amnesty International to arrange events and opportunities for Ahwazi Arabs to represent human rights violations subjected by the Iranian regime.

Solar Express: Can India’s Rail Network Hit Its Clean Energy Target?

Ashok Thanikonda

India’s rail network is a significant growth engine for the economy. But it’s not very green.

An estimated 60% of its 65,000 kilometres of railway tracks are still powered by diesel. This makes it India’s largest consumer of diesel at 2.6 billion litres last year.

It is also the largest consumer of electricity at 13.8 billion kWh and its energy consumption is rising by 5% every year.

Electric power in India is largely generated in thermal [coal, gas, nuclear] plants. When the cost of electricity rose by over 45% in the new decade, the government made a decision to source 5% of fuel for the railways from biodiesel.

However, the supply chain did not take off as the government had hoped. The electrification of tracks has also been slow because of the huge investment needed.

A solution that works is badly needed, and solar power could well be the answer.

Huge opportunity

Last month the Indian minister for railways, Suresh Prabhu, presented a well-balanced and realistic railway budget in the parliament.

His ministry aims to deploy one gigawatt of solar photo voltaic (PV) installations on railway properties across India through subsidies or what he termed “Viability Gap Funding”.

The first megawatt-scale solar PV installation on a railway platform shelter will be commissioned soon at Katra, in Jammu & Kashmir.

The solar industry certainly sees an opportunity here.

Sunil Reddy of Gansun Global solutions, who is setting up the Katra solar project, said that “even at a conservative estimate of 30% feasibility, the Indian Railways has a mammoth five Gigawatt solar PV potential on its platform shelters alone.”

Grid parity

Solar power, currently at INR 6-7 per kWh, is already cheaper than, or equivalent to, the cost of grid power in most parts of India.

Even for the projects allocated under the second phase of the government mission, known as the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission, the cost hovered at about INR 6 per kWh.

This trend heralds very good news. It translates into a huge potential for direct financial savings on sectors with electrified tracks.

So much so, that the viability gap funding with which government intends to support these projects might not be needed at all.

Logistics

Solar power is best utilised when it is generated at the point of consumption, so that transmission and distribution losses are minimal.

Solar power critics often discount rooftop solar power, which cannot be properly scaled up because rooftops are often small, and generate just 1-3% of energy requirements.

Rooftops are also often located on leased premises where infrastructure investments are risky.

Indian Railways, however, control an enormous network of potential solar power supply points – platform shelters, roofs and even open land.
Their consumption points such as trains, stations and other infrastructure are also close at hand.

Excess power can easily be fed into the traction power grid. The logistical hurdles that arise in regular commercial buildings, thus, cease to exist.

Economic benefits

Scaling up dependence on solar power fulfils two of India’s pressing objectives: economic development and climate change mitigation.

Deploying rooftop Solar PV on Indian railway stations will save money and create thousands of jobs. It will also help in climate change mitigation by avoiding millions of tons of carbon emissions.

Switching to solar power can save valuable millions of dollars of foreign exchange reserves, by avoiding diesel imports.

Scaling up its supply will result in economies of scale, and reduce transaction costs. Savings can be used for electrification of new tracks.

The benefits of these savings will trickle down to the millions of people who are dependent on railways.

Market forces

An interesting phenomenon in the Indian energy field is that a number of oil and oil marketing companies are looking at off-grid renewable energy projects through a consortium led by the ministries of renewable energy and petroleum and natural gas.

They are probably aware that as more and more tracks get electrified, they will lose their largest customer.

On the other hand, equity requirements for the proposed one Gigawatt of solar PV installations on railway properties will be INR 2,000 crores – 10% of what the oil companies intend to spend on expansion this year.

Hence there is a strong case for these oil companies to enter the market and do more solar projects for the railways.

If India can access cheap developmental financing for these projects – an idea that the government should explore – then the market can expand in leaps and bounds.

The total solar PV installations in India are only about 2.5 Gigawatts. The new government in India is targeting 100 gigawatts of solar power by 2020 and 60 Gigawatts of wind power by 2022, across sectors.

This is a big and bold step in the right direction that has already been hailed positively by environmentalists around the world.

Given this excellent policy environment, the time has come for the Indian Railways to seize the day, and scale up its investment in solar power.  

Countries Agree On UN Plan In Sendai To Save Lives From Disasters

Megan Darby

Twelve hours behind schedule, 187 countries agreed a deal in Sendai on Wednesday to reduce death and economic damage from natural disasters.The Sendai Framework set seven targets and four priorities for the next fifteen years. These include plans to “substantially reduce” loss of life from 2005-15 levels in 2020-30 and to reduce economic losses as a proportion of global GDP by 2030.

UN disaster chief Margareta Wahlström said the deal “opens a major new chapter in sustainable development”.

Putting the principles into action “will require strong commitment and political leadership,” she added, “and will be vital to the achievement of future agreements on sustainable development goals and climate later this year”.

As climate change heightens the risk of certain weather extremes, effective disaster planning is seen as a crucial part of adapting to the impacts.
The UN estimates 87% of disasters in 2014 were climate-linked.

Developing countries sought to include language that would have highlighted the developed world’s historic responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions and paved the way to demand more cash.

But developed countries resisted, arguing that the disaster risk deal should not prejudge the outcome of climate talks in Paris this December.

Aid agencies expressed disappointment with the deal. The targets are vaguely worded, they pointed out, with no specific numbers.

Poor countries did not get the “additional and predictable” finance they asked for, settling for the less ambitious “adequate and sustainable support”.

And the US refused to endorse a section on sharing technology with poorer countries, which comes with intellectual property issues.

Harjeet Singh of Action Aid told RTCC it was a “missed opportunity” to raise aspirations ahead of December’s critical climate change summit in Paris, where countries are expected to agree a new pact to address global warming.

“This being a non-binding deal, it could have actually set the bar higher,” he said.

Oxfam’s Scott Paul said governments had “let down” the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world.

“Negotiators in Sendai were supposed to agree on a much needed bold new plan to build countries’ resilience to events like Cyclone Pam that has just devastated Vanuatu, one of our least developed nations,” said Paul.

“Instead what was adopted is a set of half-measures that will not keep pace with rapidly rising disaster risk around the world.”

It “puts added pressure on governments to take bold action” at the sustainable development and climate talks later this year,” he added.

Ukraine Declares Resumption of War Against Donbass

Eric Zuesse

On Wednesday, March 18th, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, the Prime Minister of Ukraine — who was selected for that post by Victoria Nuland of the U.S. State Department on 4 February 2014, 18 days before the U.S. coup that installed him into this office — told his cabinet meeting, “Our goal is to regain control of Donetsk and Lugansk.” Those are the two districts comprising Donbass, the self-proclaimed independent region of Ukraine, which now calls itself “The People's Republic“ and sometimes “Novorossiya,” and which rejects the coup and its coup-imposed Government. 

That Government of Ukraine is run by Yatsenyuk and the people whom he selected. Ukraine also has a President, who is elected by voters in the northwest of Ukraine, where the coup-government is accepted; but, since the coup, the Government has actually been run by Prime Minister Yatsenyuk, who is entirely dependent upon the United States Government and its subordinates (such as the IMF and NATO, in both of which the U.S. has veto-power) in order to obtain the financial and military support necessary to keep him in office

Yatsenyuk announced there: “Adequate financial resources are available,” to retake Donbass. Those “resources” came largely from the IMF, and from the United States, all with loans to the bankrupt Ukrainian Government. So that the investors will be paid the principal plus the extremely high interest on these junk-loans that are backed by their governments, Western taxpayers will ultimately be, basically, donating to Franklin Templeton, and to George Soros, and to the other financiers who are buying the Ukrainian Government bonds that purchase those weapons and military trainers to conquer the residents of Donbass. The Ukrainian Government officially calls these residents ‘Terrorists,' and the military operation to conquer them they call the ‘Anti Terrorist Operation' or "ATO” for short. They call their troops who are doing the killing there, "punishers,” which the residents of northwestern Ukraine take to mean punishers of terrorists. The residents in northwestern Ukraine see only television that is broadcast on stations that are owned by Ukrainian, European, and American, oligarchs. For example, one of these stations is Hromadske TV, which was founded with money from the Dutch Government, the U.S. Government, and George Soros's International Renaissance Foundation. It has, on occasion, presented ‘experts' who call for exterminating at least 1.5 million of the residents in Donbass. So, this is how the support of the residents in Ukraine's northwest for the “ATO” is being maintained. The residents in Donbass have also been called “subhumans” by Yatsenyuk himself.

At this cabinet meeting, Yatsenyuk additionally announced that resumption of the war would be rushed: "We need to move the funding for the purchase of new equipment and weapons from the third and fourth quarter to the first and second quarter,” he told his cabinet.

At this same cabinet meeting, the Minister of Defense, Stepan Poltorak, announced that, to date, 100 contracts for military equipment have been signed, and soon there will be 160. He also said: "Just in the last week alone, factories brought in about a thousand pieces of equipment for repair.”

Yatsenyuk told his cabinet that, "We will fight using all methods and techniques for the resumption of peace and regaining control of Donetsk and Luhansk region.” By ‘resumption of peace,' he meant resumption of control over Donbass. “Peace” is the term he uses to mean control. In other words: until the Yatsenyuk Government wins, there will continue to be war in Donbass, “using all methods and techniques” to achieve his (that is, America's) victory in subduing the residents there. This subduing means exterminating some, and driving the others out; so that, in either case, they won't become voters in future Ukrainian elections. The last time that these people voted in a Ukrainian election was 2010, when they voted 90% for Viktor Yanukovych, the man whom Obama overthrew. Without that 90% vote, Yanukovych wouldn't have been elected. Obama consequently doesn't want them voting in any future Ukrainian election. That's the reason why they're being bombed — to get rid of them.

On March 17th, Ukraine's parliament, the Rada, voted to declare Donbass to be “temporarily occupied territory,” until the residents there are conquered. The day before that, the figurehead President of Ukraine had presented to the Rada a draft resolution proposing to solve the problem of the resistant Donbass with a resolution he published on his website on March 14th saying that the region has “special status,” and temporary self-government, but this proposal wasn't the one the Rada passed. The President nonetheless declared that his terminology was somehow law from the moment it had been published on his website.

U.S. President Obama wants the war resumed as quickly as possible, but Angela Merkel and other European leaders have urged that it not be resumed at all. Consequently, there is a split in the Western alliance about this matter. Apparently, Prime Minister Yatsenyuk has determined that he now has enough weapons and loans to be able to resume the war very soon, until final victory.

Obama, evidently, is determined to finish the job that he started with his coup. It was bloody, but the follow-through will need to be far more so. And he has the full support of the U.S. Congress, and of the major think tanks, to continue this until victory. EU nations that don't like it — well, obama's agent controlling Ukraine said famously, on 4 February 2014, “F—k the EU.”

Many European leaders don't want to be involved in a war against Russia. However, on March 12th, Yatsenyuk said “Ukraine is in a state of war with … the Russian Federation.” That is the service he is providing to Barack Obama, and to the 98%+ of the members of the U.S. Congress who likewise want this war: Ukraine has become the proxy state for America's war against Russia.