Turning Algeria Into a Necrocracy

Robert Fisk

Let us now praise famous men. Abdelaziz Bouteflika, for example. What goes on in his comatose brain? What moves in the 82-year old heart of the zombie president who – as the Algerians protesting his fifth attempt at presidential power have just discovered – will now stay on as a coffin-leader into next year. Or, who knows, the year afterwards?

But why on earth do men like Bouteflika do these things? In his case, he’s not just “clinging to power”. He is being prevented from entering the grave.

Old men forget, observed Shakespeare’s Henry V, and wartime diplomat Duff Cooper used this as the title of his memoirs. “Autumn has always been my favourite season,” he wrote. “… I love the sunlight but I cannot fear the coming of the dark.” He lived for another 11 years.

Winston Churchill was 80 when, on the morning of 23 March 1955, he was shocked to read the headline in The Guardian: “Cabinet urging premier to resign. His health said to be retarding his work.”

And yes, we are coming to Bouteflika of Algeria in just a moment. And Hosni Mubarak, who was 83 when the Arab revolution overwhelmed him in 2011, while still pleading for another seven months in power. Or the present King Salman of Saudi Arabia, 83 last year.

Or field-marshal-president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who is only 64 but for whom the parliament and courts are now providing him with the chance of ruling Egypt in 2030 when he will be 75, or far longer if he chooses.

Less than two years before he read that Guardian headline, Churchill had suffered a severe stroke at 10 Downing Street. His cabinet colleagues did not notice next morning, and the public were told he was merely “exhausted”. He was paralysed on one side. Thanks be to God that he did not have a hoarse voice in parliament, which might have given the game away.

Yet three months after this (second) stroke, Churchill made a triumphant speech to Margate Tories about his intention to hold a summit with the Russians – he was standing for 50 minutes and never once faltered – and the next month learned that he had been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Old men did not always forget. Nor wish to depart.

“If I dug in I don’t think they could make me go,” Churchill told Lord Moran, his doctor. “But I like Anthony [Eden] so much and I have worked with him so long. And he wants to be prime minister terribly.”

And so Churchill, who had been falling asleep at cabinet meetings, departed 13 days after that painful Guardian article, leaving Eden to destroy what was left of the British empire at Suez.

Churchill resigned at 80 (he died at 90), but Bouteflika at 82 is now doing a Mubarak, postponing elections in which he will not now stand and staying on as president until the poll takes place in perhaps seven months’ time. Or in 2020. Or longer. Decrepit Churchill may have been, but Bouteflika – and let us be horribly honest here – is a corpse whose heart, quite by chance, is still beating. He does not speak. He cannot walk. His courtiers cannot tell if he understands.

Even when he was elected for a fourth time in 2014 after a lot of constitutional jiggery-pokery, Algerian cartoonists drew him as a man already in his sarcophagus. Why should Algeria’s young people have to elect a cadaver, Algerians asked, then? What an insult to the nation.

They were saying the same again this month, just after the speechless wonder returned from hospital in Geneva, a journey so profoundly secret that the aircraft were so arranged on the Swiss tarmac as to prevent cameras catching sight of the funereal plane. Yet Bouteflika has announced – no, let us be fair, it is said that he has announced – that if the massive demonstrations are not called off there will be “chaos”.

Which is exactly what Mubarak threatened in February 2011 if he was not allowed to stay in power. This week, far too late, the young Algerian protesters spotted the ruse – that by cancelling the elections in which he was standing, Bouteflika would remain in the convalescent and medical clinic at Zeralda 14 miles from Algiers with all the powers of president but without, of course, the physical faculties to exercise them.

We must be fair, of course. Bouteflika hasn’t told us specifically that he wants to stay in power. Because, of course, he cannot speak. This is a problem. At least others of his age who have notched up a brace of strokes have been able to talk – Churchill, for example.

Or Tito, who refused to allow his gangrenous leg to be amputated until it was too late, and so died just three days short of his 88th birthday.

Neither predicted “chaos” on their departure, although Suez and the break-up of Yugoslavia suggest they should have done so. Chaos, of a kind, certainly followed Mubarak’s overthrow, but only for a year of pseudo-Islamic rule after which the aforesaid Sisi – he of the potentially eternal presidency – thankfully staged a coup d’etat and imposed an even more brutal “elected” dictatorship on Egyptians than Mubarak.

Bouteflika’s other problem – aside from his speechlessness – is the sinister “pouvoir”, silent and corrupt and ruthless, who cannot find, or fear to find, a pliable “homme d’etat” to take his place. That’s why he originally said he would stand for a fifth term in the April poll, which he will not now do because the election itself has been postponed.

And ergo, the president-who-would-be-dead – or, unkind hearts say, should be dead – stays in power. No wonder Algeria’s judges joined the youth of Algiers in their demonstrations. Algeria was never a democracy. Now it has become a necrocracy.

Everyone in Algiers knows that the “chaos” of which Bouteflika allegedly spoke would not emerge in the streets of Algiers but within the “pouvoir” itself. And here, as all Algerians are aware, lurks Bouteflika’s brother Said – 21 years the younger – through whom, so it is said, all communications to the president must pass.

Shortly after Bouteflika came to power in 1999, Said made short work of two rivals. But he has around him general Ahmed Gaid Salah, surely one of the Middle East’s most sinister generals, and Said’s own good businessman friend Ali Haddad.

These are wealthy men with a coterie of friends in both the army and the millionaire-heavy merchants who have villas in Switzerland and apartments in central Paris. And they all know of the crimes beyond description to which the “pouvoir” is heir. They have the files. Men associated with the dreadful years of the 1990-98 civil war – the “eradicateur” General Toufiq, for example – have already been pushed aside with the help of Said Bouteflika.

So for the moment, Bouteflika must be kept alive. Does he wish to be? It scarcely matters. He must be kept alive until the succession is decided – through a glass darkly – by those around him.

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If there are moments of full sanity, we must assume that perhaps power still has the effect of rejuvenating those who are politically dead. But why did Mubarak hold on when millions of Egyptians demanded his removal? Why do these wretched men not retire, gently, diplomatically, in a dignified way? They surely do not fear death. Presidents attract assassins. Retired presidents do not.

What may very well account for this is the rubric of Arab presidential patriarchy, for whom the people – submissive, repressed, tortured, infantilised – are always his “children”, protected by the great and wise father-figure in the palace whom none may disobey.

But all tyrannies of this kind are haunted by the fact that the presidential father of his people ultimately wants not his people but his biographical children or family to inherit his throne. When Mubarak emotionally addressed the youth of Tahrir Square in February 2011 as “my children, my children”, they all knew that the one “child” that now mattered was Mubarak’s heir apparent: his son Gamal.

Ben Ali of Tunisia intended that his family should rule indefinitely. So do the emirs and kings of the gulf, whether or not an ambitious prince should lop off the head of a meddlesome journalist after gaining power. In Syria, the caliphate was actually anointed when the constitution was changed to allow the young Bashar al-Assad to inherit his father’s presidency. It was 11 years before the Syrian war began.

Surely in Algeria, Said must wish his brother long life. But is that why he helps to keep him alive? Or are Algerians to wait until the Bouteflikas, too, have resolved the future of power with their military and commercial courtiers before another fake election can be held and the old boy allowed to die; already so far gone, alas, that he really cannot “fear the coming of the dark”.

Ukania’s Great Privatization Heist

Kenneth Surin

Margaret Thatcher was very good at telling tall tales. Ukania’s tragedy is that far too many Brits fell for these tales.

Probably the biggest of these tales concerned the notion of a share-owning democracy.

The idea here was simple, but utterly misguided – sell off the publicly-owned enterprises, and everyone will be able to buy shares in the newly privatized companies. By buying however many shares you want, you will become a part of Thatcher’s great British share-owning democracy.

Many of us knew at that time that it was never going to be like this at all. As Marx noted, the stock exchange, where the shares of the newly privatized companies would of course be traded, is “where the little fish are swallowed by the sharks and the lambs by the stock-exchange wolves”.

The wealthy have always used their resources to acquire a monopoly on company shares. So when the public enterprises were put on sale at rock-bottom prices by Thatcher and her cronies, the wealthy rushed to collar the majority of the share offerings, the ensuing demand drove-up the price of the shares, and in so doing put nearly all of them beyond the reach of Joe and Jill Normal.

So what actually happened to the “great British share-owning democracy”?

The state bureaucrats so excoriated by Thatcher have been replaced by private bureaucrats, albeit ones paid astronomical salaries when compared to those received by their counterparts in the annihilated state sector.

The newly privatized state enterprises were never going to be owned by the likes of Joe and Jill Normal, or even John and Jane Bull—instead large foreign corporations and foreign governments now own nearly all these companies.

Indeed the supreme Thatcherite irony is that many of the enterprises privatized by her have now returned to government ownership, but alas for Brits these are foreign governments.

Take the town of Romford, in the London borough of Havering, which had the distinction of being named as the most Eurosceptic place in the country in a 2016 YouGov survey.

The Brexit motto is “take back control”, but at Romford station there’s a choice of trains into London: you can travel on one run by the Dutch, or one run by the Chinese. Someone going to neighbouring Basildon has to change at Upminster and buy a ticket from the Italian firm that operates C2C. Here’s the fuller picture.

ScotRail is operated by Abellio, which is wholly owned by the Dutch national rail operator Nederlandse Spoorwegen.

Abellio also owns 60% of Greater Anglia trains (the remaining 40% is owned by the Japanese company Mitsui).

West Midlands trains is 70% owned by Abellio, the remaining 30% is shared between Mitsui and another Japanese company JR East.

Arriva Rail London is operated by Arriva, which is owned by the German national rail operator Deutsche Bahn.

Arriva also operates Chiltern Railways and CrossCountry, Grand Central, and Northern.

The already-mentioned C2C is owned by the Italian government’s Trenitalia.

Eurostar is operated by EIL, which is owned by the French government’s SNCF (55%), Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ) (30%), Hermes Infrastructure (10%) which is majority-owned by a US investment fund, and NMBS/SNCB (5%) which is the state railway company of Belgium.

The Chinese corporation MTR owns TfL rail and 30% of South Western Railway.

Transport for Wales is owned by Keolis, a Franco-Québécois private operator of public transport.

In fact, European state railways now own more than quarter of the UK’s passenger-train system.

The same situation exists with regard to the UK’s energy, water, and telephone companies.

London Electricity, SWEB, Seeboard and British Energy are owned by EDF Energy, a subsidiary of the French Government-owned energy company EDF (Électricité de France) Group.

Powergen is owned by the German group E.ON.

Calortex, Independent Energy and Midlands Electricity are owned by Npower, a subsidiary of German energy company RWE Group.

ScottishPower is a subsidiary of Spanish company Iberdrola, which also owns Manweb, the energy company supplying Merseyside and North Wales.

Anglian Water is owned by a consortium consisting of Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Colonial First State Global Asset Management (owned by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia), IFM Investors (an Australian investment management firm), and 3i. The same consortium also owns Hartlepool Water.

Northumbrian Water is owned by Cheung Kong Infrastructure Holdings (Hong Kong). Cheung Kong Infrastructure Holdings also owns Essex and Suffolk Water.

Wessex Water is owned by YTL Corporation (Malaysia)

Affinity Water is part owned by Morgan Stanley (USA).

South East Water is owned by Hastings Diversified Utilities Fund/Utilities Trust of Australia.

Sutton and East Surrey Water is owned by Sumitomo Corporation (Japan).

Level 3 Communications (USA) owns a national optical fibre network.

O2 runs a GSM-900 network and is owned by Telefónica (Spain).

EE runs a GSM-1800 network and is a joint venture of Orange (France) and Deutsche Telecom (Germany)

The UK’s bus and airport companies are also largely foreign owned.

Arriva buses is owned by the German national rail operator Deutsche Bahn.

Bus and coach companies are also owned by ComfortDelGro (Singapore), RATP (France), and Transdev (France).

Heathrow, Glasgow, and Southampton airports are owned by the Spanish Ferrovial (25%), Qatar Holding (20%), and Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (12.62%).

Gatwick airport is owned by Global Infrastructure Partners (USA).

The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan owns 48.25% of Birmingham airport.

IFM Investors (Australia), in addition to part-owning Anglian Water, also owns Manchester airport, the MM6 tollway, and the telecommunications company Arqiva.

All this has been the consequence of asset-stripping undertaken on a massive scale.

Assets belonging to the British public were thrown (literally) into the laps of foreign companies and governments.

London, for most excellent reasons, decided recently against erecting a statue of Margaret Thatcher.

Given that she was the architect of so much largesse extended to the corporations and governments of other countries, there might be a slightly better chance of having this statue put up in any number of western European cities, as well as those in Japan, Australia, Canada, Malaysia, the US, China, and in Qatar and Singapore.

The Iron Lady initiated an act of daylight robbery from which the owners of private wealth and the governments of other countries benefited immensely.

The British public, which owned these assets, got stiffed.

All this has taken place in a context where the wealth-gap between the Have-Lots and the JAMs (Just About Managing) has grown to levels not seen since the 1930s.

Countdown to “Full Spectrum Dominance”

T. J. Coles

The US is formally committed to dominating the world by the year 2020. With President Trump’s new Space Directive-4, the production of laser-armed fighter jets as possible precursors to space weapons, and the possibility of nuclear warheads being put into orbit, the clock is ticking…

Back in 1997, the now-re-established US Space Command announced its commitment to “full spectrum dominance.” The Vision for 2020 explains that “full spectrum dominance” means military control over land, sea, air, and space (the so-called fourth dimension of warfare) “to protect US interests and investment.” “Protect” means guarantee operational freedom. “US interest and investment” means corporate profits.

The glossy brochure explains that, in the past, the Army evolved to protect US settlers who stole land from Native Americans in the genocidal birth of the nation. Like the Vision for 2020, a report by the National Defense University acknowledges that by the 19^th century, the Navy had evolved to protect the US’s newly-formulated “grand strategy.” In addition to supposedly protecting citizens and the constitution, “The overriding principle was, and remains, the protection of American territory … and our economic well-being.” By the 20^th century, the Air Force had been established, in the words of the Air Force Study Strategy Guide, to protect “vital interests,” including: “commerce; secure energy supplies; [and] freedom of action.” In the 21^stcentury, these pillars of power are bolstered by the Cyber Command and the coming Space Force.

The use of the Army, Navy, and Air Force—the three dimensions of power—means that the US is already close to achieving “full spectrum dominance.” Brown University’s Cost of War project documents current US military involvement in 80 countries—or 40% of the world’s nations. This includes 65 so-called counterterrorism training operations and 40 military bases (though others think the number of bases is much higher). By this measure, “full spectrum dominance” is nearly half way complete. But the map leaves out US and NATO bases, training programs, and operations in Estonia, Latvia, Poland, and Ukraine.

As the US expands its space operations—the fourth dimension of warfare—the race towards “full spectrum dominance” quickens. Space has long been militarized in the sense that the US uses satellites to guide missiles and aircraft. But the new doctrine seeks to weaponize space by, for instance, blurring the boundaries between high-altitude military aircraft and space itself. Today’s space power will be harnessed by the US to ensure dominance over the satellite infrastructure that allows for the modern world of internet, e-commerce, GPS, telecommunications, surveillance, and war-fighting.

Since the 1950s, the United Nations has introduced various treaties to prohibit the militarization and weaponization of space—the most famous being the Outer Space Treaty (1967). These treaties aim to preserve space as a commons for all humanity. The creation of the US Space Force is a blatant violation of the spirit, if not the letter, of those treaties. In more recent decades, successive US governments have unilaterally rejected treaties to reinforce and expand the existing space-for-peace agreements. In 2002, the US withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (1972), allowing it to expand its long-range missile systems. In 2008, China and Russia submitted to the UN Conference on Disarmament the proposed Treaty on the Prevention of the Placement of Weapons in Outer Space, the Threat or Use of Force Against Outer Space Objects. This would have preserved the space-as-a-commons principle and answered US claims that “enemies” would use space as a battleground against US satellites.

But peace is not the goal. The goal is “full spectrum dominance,” so the US rejected the offer. China and Russia introduced the proposed the treaty again in 2014—and again the US rejected it. Earlier this year, the US withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty. Last month, President Trump sent an unclassified memo on the new Space Directive-4 to the Vice President, Joint Chiefs of Staff, NASA, and the Secretaries of Defense and State.

The document makes for chilling and vital reading. It recommends legislating for the training of US forces “to ensure unfettered access to, and freedom to operate in, space, and to provide vital capabilities to joint and coalition forces.” Crucially, this doctrine includes “peacetime and across the spectrum of conflict.” As well as integrating space forces with the intelligence community, the memo recommends establishing a Chief of Staff of the Space Force, who will to join the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The memo also says that US space operations will abide by “international law.” But given that the US has rejected anti-space weapons treaties, it is barely constrained by international law.

In late-2017, Space.com reported on a $26.3m Department of Defense contract with Lockheed Martin to build lasers for fighter jets under the Laser Advancements for Next-generation Compact Environments program. The report says that the lasers will be ready by 2021. The article links to Doug Graham, the Vice President of Missile Systems and Advanced Programs at Lockheed Martin Space Systems. In the original link Graham reveals that the Air Force laser “is an example of how Lockheed Martin is using a variety of innovative technologies to transform laser devices into integrated weapon systems.”

As if all this wasn’t bad enough, the British Ministry of Defence (MoD) states in a projection out to the year 2050: “Economies are becoming increasingly dependent upon space-based systems … By 2050, space-based weapon systems may also be deployed, which could include nuclear weapons.” But this is extremely reckless. Discussing technologies, including the artificial intelligence on which weapons systems are increasingly based, another MoD projection warns of “the potential for disastrous outcomes, planned and unplanned … Various doomsday scenarios arising in relation to these and other areas of development present the possibility of catastrophic impacts, ultimately including the end of the world, or at least of humanity.”

“Full spectrum dominance” is not only a danger to the world, it is a danger to US citizens who would also suffer the consequences, if and when something goes wrong with their leaders’ complicated space weapons.

Can China And Russia Survive In This Unharmonious World?

Andre Vltchek

Does it pay ‘to be good’? Is it still possible to play by the rules in this mad world, governed by brigands?

What if the rules are defined and ratified by all countries of the world, but a small group of the strongest (militarily) nations totally ignores them, while using its professional propagandists to reinterpret them in the most bizarre ways?

Describing the world, I often feel that I am back in my primary school.

When I was a child, I had them is fortune of growing up in a racist Czechoslovakia. Being born in the Soviet Union, and having an half Russian and half Asian mother, I was brutally beaten up between classes, from the age of seven. I was systematically attacked by a gang of boys, and humiliated and hit for having ‘Asian ears’, for having an ‘Asian mother’, for being Russian. During winters, my shoes were taken out into the bitter cold and pissed into. The urine turned into ice. The only consolation was that ‘at least’ I was Russian and Chinese. If I was a Gypsy (Roma) boy, I would most likely not have made it, at least without losing an eye, or without having my hands broken.

I tried to be polite. I did my best to ‘play by the rules’. I fought back, first only half-heartedly.

Until one day, when a kid who lived next door, fired his air gun and barely missed my eye. Just like that, simply because I was Russian…and Asian,just because he had nothing better to do, at that particular moment. And because he felt so proud to be Czech and European. Also, because I refused to eat their shit, to accept their ‘superiority’, and humiliate myself in front of them. Both mother and I were miserable in Czechoslovakia, both of us dreamt about our Leningrad. But she made a personal mistake and we were stuck in a hostile, provincial and bombastic society which wanted to “go back to Europe”, and once again be part of the bloc of countries, which has been ruling and oppressing the world, for centuries.

The air gun and almost losing my eye turned out to be the last straw. I teamed up with my friend, Karel, whose only ‘guilt’ was that at 10, he weighed almost 100 kilograms. It was not his fault, it was a genetic issue, but the kids also ridiculed him, eventually turning him into a punching bag. He was a gentle, good-natured kid who loved music and science-fiction novels. We were friends. We used to plan our space travels towards the distant galaxies, together. But at that point, we said ‘enough’! We hit back, terribly. After two or three years of suffering, we began fighting the gang, with the same force and brutality that they had applied towards us and in fact towards all those around us who were ‘different’, or at least weak and defenseless.

And we won. Not by reason, but by courage and strength. I wish we did not have to fight, but we had no choice. We soon discovered, how strong we were. And once we began, the only way to survive was to win the battle. And we did win. The kids, who used to torment us, were actually cowards. Once we won and secured some respect, we also began sheltering and protecting the ‘others’, mainly weak boys and girls from our school, who were also suffering attacks from the gang of those ‘normal’, white, and mainstream Czechs.

*

There are self-proclaimed rulers of the world: Europe, North America, Australia, New Zealand and Israel. And there are two other groups: the nations which are fully cooperating with the West (such as Indonesia, Thailand, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, South Korea, Colombia or Uganda), and those that are decisively refusing to accept Western dictates, such as Russia, China, DPRK, Syria, Eritrea, Iran, South Africa, Venezuela, Cuba, and Bolivia.

The first group does almost nothing to change the world. It goes with the flow. It accepts the rule of the bullies. It collaborates, and while it is at it, tries to at least gain some privileges, most of the time unsuccessfully.

The second group is well aware of the dismal state of the world. It maneuvers, resists, and sometimes fights for its survival, or for the survival of others. It tries to stick to its principles, or to what used to be called ‘universal values’.

But can it really survive without confrontation?

The West does not tolerate any dissent. Its culture has been, for centuries, exceedingly aggressive, bellicose, and extremist: “You are with us, that is ‘under us’, or you are against us. If against us, you will be crushed and shackled, robbed, raped, beaten and in the end, forced to do what we order, anyway.”

Russia is perhaps the only nation which has survived, unconquered and for centuries, but at the unimaginable price of tens of millions of its people. It has been invaded, again and again, by the Scandinavians, French, Brits, Germans, and even Czechs. The attacks occurred regularly, justified by bizarre rhetoric: ‘Russia was strong’, or ‘it was weak’. It was attacked ‘because of its Great October Socialist Revolution’, or simply because it was Communist. Any grotesque‘justification’ was just fine, as far as the West was concerned.Russia had to be invaded, plundered and terribly injured just because it was resisting, because it stood on its feet, and free.

Even the great China could not withstand Western assaults. It was broken, divided, humiliated; its capital city ransacked by the French and Brits.

Nothing and no one could survive the Western assaults: in the end, not even the proud and determined Afghanistan.

*

A Chinese scholar Li Gang wrote in his “The Way We Think: Chinese View of Life Philosophy”:

“Harmony” is an important category of thought in traditional Chinese culture. Although the concept initially comes from philosophy, it stands for a stable and integrated social life. It directly influences Chinese people’s way of thinking and dealing with the world… In the ancient classic works of China, “harmony” can, in essence, be understood as being harmonious. Ancient people stressed the harmony of the universe and the natural environment, the harmony between humans and nature, and what is more, the harmony between people…  Traditional Chinese people take the principle as a way of life and they try their best to have friendly and harmonious relations. In order to reach “harmony”, people treat each other with sincerity, tolerance and love, and do not interfere in other people’s business. As the saying goes, “Well water does not intrude into river water”

Could anything be further from the philosophy of Western culture, which is based on the constant need to interfere, conquer and control?

Can countries like China, or Iran, or Russia, really survive in a world that is being controlled by aggressive European and North American dogmas?

Or more precisely: could they survive peacefully, without being dragged into bloodstained confrontations?

*

The onset of the 21st Century is clearly indicating that ‘peaceful resistance’ to brutal Western attacks is counter-productive.

Begging for peace, at forums such as the United Nations, has been leading absolutely nowhere. One country after another has collapsed, and had no chance to be treated justly and to be protected by international law: Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya.

The West and its allies like Saudi Arabia or Israel are always above the law. Or more precisely, they are the law. They twist and modify the law however it suits them; their political or business interests.

Harmony?  No, they are absolutely not interested in things like harmony. And evenifa huge country like China is, then it is seen as weak, and immediately taken advantage of.

Can the world survive if a group of countries plays totally against all the rules, while most of the planet tries to stick, meticulously, to international laws and regulations?

It can, but it would create a totally twisted, totally perverse world, as ours actually already is. It would be a world of impunity on one end, and of fear, slavery and servility at the other.

And it is not going to be a ‘peaceful world’, anyway, because the oppressor will always want more and more; it will not be satisfied until it is in total, absolute control of the planet.

Accepting tyranny is not an option.

So then, what is? Are we too scared to pronounce it?

If a country is attacked, it should defend itself, and fight.

As Russia did on so many occasions. As Syria is doing, at great sacrifice, but proudly. As Venezuela will and should do, if assaulted.

China and Russia are two great cultures, which were to some extent influenced by the West. When I say ‘influenced’, I mean forcefully ‘penetrated’, broken into, brutally violated. During that violent interaction, some positive elements of Western culture assimilated in the brains of its victims: music, food, even city planning. But the overall impact was extremely negative, and both China and Russia suffered, and have been suffering, greatly.

For decades, the West has been unleashing its propaganda and destructive forces, to ‘contain’ and devastate both countries at their core. The Soviet Union was tricked into Afghanistan and into a financially unsustainable arms race, and literally broken into pieces. For several dark years, Russia was facing confusion, intellectual, moral and social chaos, as well as humiliation. China got penetrated with extreme ‘market forces’, its academic institutions were infiltrated by armies of anti-Communist ‘intellectual’ warriors from Europe and North America.

The results were devastating. Both countries – China and Russia – were practically under attack, and forced to fight for their survival.

Both countries managed to identify the treat. They fought back, regrouped, and endured. Their cultures and their identities survived.

China is now a confident and powerful nation, under the leadership of President Xi Jinping. Present-day Russia under the presidency of Vladimir Putin is one of the mightiest nations on earth, not only militarily, but also morally, intellectually and scientifically.

This is precisely what the West cannot ‘forgive’. With each new brilliant electric vehicle China produces, with each village embracing the so-called “Ecological Civilization”, the West panics, smears China, portrays it as an evil state. The more internationalist Russia becomes, the more it protects nations ruined by the West – be it Syria or Venezuela – more relentless are West’s attacks against its President, and its people.

Both China and Russia are using diplomacy for as long as it is constructive, but this time, when confronted with force, they indicate their willingness to use strength to defend themselves.

They are well aware of the fact that this is the only way to survive.

For China, harmony is essential. Russia also has developed its own concept of global harmony based on internationalist principles. There is hardly any doubt that under the leadership of China and Russia, our world would be able to tackle the most profound problems that it has been facing.

But harmony can only be implemented when there is global concept of goodwill, or at least adecisive dedication to save the world.

If a group of powerful nations is only obsessed with profits, control and plunder, and if it behaves like a thug for several long centuries, one has to act, and to defend the world; if there is no alternative, by force!

Only after victory, can true harmony be aimed at.

At the beginning of this essay, I told a story from my childhood, which I find symbolic.

One can compromise, one can be diplomatic, but never if one’s dignity and freedom was at risk. One can never negotiate indefinitely with those who are starving and enslaving billions of human beings, all over the world.

Venezuela, Syria, Afghanistan and so many countries are now bleeding. Soon, Iran could be confronted. And Nicaragua. And DPRK. And perhaps China and Russia themselves could face yet another Western invasion.

A ‘harmonious world’ may have to be built later; definitely one day, but a little bit later.

First, we have to make sure that our humanity survives and that Western fascism cannot consume further millions of innocent human lives.

Like me and my big childhood friend Karel at an elementary school in former Czechoslovakia; Russia and China may have to once again stand up and confront ‘unharmonious barbarity’; they may have to fight, in order to prevent an even greater disaster.

They do not want to; they will do everything possible to prevent war. But the war is already raging. Western colonialism is back. The brutal gang of North American and European countries is blocking the road, clenching fists, shooting at everyone who dares to look up, and to meet their gaze: “Would you dare?” their eyes are saying.

“Yes, we would!” is the only correct answer.

Academic prostitution in the field of terrorism studies

Elias Davidsson

The expression “academic prostitution” appears abusive. It either conveys an apparently arbitrary disrespect to certain academics by comparing them to prostitutes, or conversely appears to equate sexual prostitution, – an honorable, if hazardous, occupation – with intellectual prostitution, a definitely dishonorable one.

There is no dispute that even those who honestly earn their academic titles can produce shoddy scholarship, rely on dubious sources or draw spurious conclusions. And even the best scholarship can be used or abused by the powerful for improper purposes. Deficient scholarship or the abuse of good scholarship by third parties do not automatically transform the author into an academic prostitute.

What distinguishes the academic prostitute from the bad scholar are two main characteristics: He/she must be somehow aware and reckless about the deficient quality of his/her products; and his/her motivation for producing the so-called expertise must be other than the quest for truth. The usual motivation for academic prostitutes is either the quest for fame or for financial gain, or both. It is not always easy to distinguish the academic prostitute from one who genuinely believes in what he/she writes and unwittingly provides ammunition to powerful interests. Academic prostitutes are often skillful in hiding their motives or garbing them in commendable clothes. Yet, clues do exist.

While academic prostitutes are found in all fields of sciences, we submit that some fields virtually teem with such species, particularly those fields that directly serve the interests of powerful social agents: Political science, law, economics and communications. Since the decision was made by the governments of the most powerful states to elevate the myth of Islamic terrorism to the level of a serious threat to international peace and security (a designation by the UN Security Council), producing spin about terrorism has become a flourishing and rewarding industry. As “Islamic terrorism” is essentially a racist myth, the maintenance of that myth in the minds of populations requires the constant production and dissemination of ideological junk. That’s where the terrorism experts come into the picture. Their precise role is to produce this junk.

Among the primary clues that give away a terror expert as an academic prostitute are the following:

(a) Did the expert acknowledge or remain oblivious to state terrorism, as the most devastating form of terrorism, including that pursued under the by now innocuous name of war?

(b) Did the expert acknowledge or remain oblivious to the evidence that the attacks of September 11, 2001 were most probably planned and executed under the authority of the U.S. Government?

While ordinary citizens, who do not claim expertise in the field of terrorism, may be genuinely oblivious to the nature of state terrorism and to clues about probable U.S. Government responsibility for 9/11, such presumption of ignorance does not extend to terror “experts”. It requires a fair amount of cynicism for a person even modestly acquainted with the field of terrorism, to ignore the devastating nature of state terrorism and disregard the mountain of evidence pointing to U.S. Government responsibility for 9/11.

Designating particular works as « academic prostitution » would only be abusive if unfounded. When substantiated, such designation serves public utility by warning consumers to remain vigilant in respect to specific products and their producer.

Britain And The EU: The Problems With Brexit

Arshad M Khan

Does anyone remember Nigel Farage? He led the UK Independence Party and the ‘leave’ EU vote — along with his last minute ally Boris Johnson who hoped to push himself up to prime minister. Farage is still around as a Member of the European Parliament representing south-east England, a job soon to be redundant when Britain leaves the EU. Boris is still in parliament … and still unlikely to be prime minister.

In the meantime, there is no clear majority for any deal in the British parliament. A major sticking point is Northern Ireland, an integral part of the UK. Leaving the European customs union would mean a border in Ireland separating the north from the rest. This is anathema to the Irish who have become used to living with an open border. The Northern Ireland MPs in Westminster will vote as a block against any deal that does not maintain it.

But the majority of Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservatives want out of the EU customs union. Hence the deal she came up with, which was to make the Irish Sea a border. It meant leaving Northern Ireland in the customs union (i.e. an open border) and the rest of Britain outside. Unfortunately for her, a parliamentary majority including the opposition Labor party were against such a customs division within the UK that might also in the future bring Northern Ireland closer to Europe.

One of the principal motivators for Farage’s UKIP and its allies is seldom discussed. It has much in common with the reason for Donald Trump’s wall, and it was the reason the first British politician meeting the newly minted. President Trump was Nigel Farage. Trump had in mind his prospective wall, and after winning the ‘leave’ vote Farage had the English Channel; both barriers for the unwanted: Escapees from the chaos (often US caused as in Honduras) in Central America in one case; southern and eastern European migrants in the other after the EU embraced these new countries.

The desperation of many of these migrants forced to remain on the Mexico side of the US border was poignantly evident in a documentary broadcast on March 12 by the Public Television network on its evening PBS Newshour program. The processing slowdown engineered by this administration, blamed on lack of staff, has caused waiting times in months. Little children have to beg during the day and single mothers sell themselves at night for families to have food to eat.

After losing the vote on the deal she had negotiated, Ms. May brought forward a vote on a no-deal exit. Amended to a no-deal ever, the motion was defeated, as was a subsequent one on a simple no-deal; this time by an even larger majority. The day following, she actually won a vote: the government won a motion to ask the EU for a Brexit extension from March 29 to June 30, if the May deal passes next week. Otherwise they will have to request a longer delay.

How fractious the issue is, was evident. Half of Mrs. May’s Conservative Party voted against her including eight ministers; a Labor Party amendment for a second Brexit referendum was voted down 85 to 334 after many labor members including some shadow ministers voted against, tendering their resignations as a result. Parliament and the country are split on the issue.

Meanwhile, Donald Tusk, the Polish president of the EU Council, announced he is in favor of a long extension and will ask EU leaders to consider it. Also Germany is in favor of a soft Brexit. Perhaps the one million Poles now in Britain and Germany’s exports have something to do with it.

The Construction of an Angry Nation

Kabir Deb

An angry human being cannot think of anything sane and rational. He/She executes everything which ultimately leads to scattering off the foundation of humanity. Similarly, the India we’re living in is burning in anger. Anger over democracy and love for fascism. The citizens of this diverse nation today are cynic and ignores everything which can demolish diversity but concentrates on every topic which speaks on religion centricity, forcefully applying nationalism and phobia over any thought which makes India rich.

The things which are being ignored by the citizens because the center maintains its fascist policy of blanketing anything which is to be criticised are:

● GRIEVOUS MURDERS

Murder in the name of blasphemy and dogmatic mother calling of cow today is being ignored because the topic has become old and it’s neither a breaking news. More than 30 murders and about 50 cases of mob lynching in the name of cow eating and slaughtering has never been seen after Independence but suddenly after 2014, the incidents became the infamous caricature of religious zealotry in India. Though most of the innocent civilians have been framed in the name of cow slaughtering, yet no one got true justice because the word “pending case” is the trademark of Indian Justice system.

Increasing rapes followed by murder, today finds no place among the angry citizens. India is busy in declaring a war against the neighbouring country but falls way short when they need to speak up against the monstrous culture and tradition protecting patriarchy.the national statistics remain shocking. In 40% of the rape cases, the victims were under 18. Courts move so slowly that one children’s rights organization estimated that if no new child sexual abuse cases were brought after 2016, it still would take India’s justice system 20 years to conclude pending trials.

“So much rape and sexual abuse still doesn’t get reported because going to the police is still a nightmare,” said Deepa Narayan, a social scientist and author of a recent book on Indian women.

“In these recent cases, the courts have had to step in, and that’s frightening. If you don’t have political clout or your story doesn’t become a national or international story, forget justice”. The “kicking out to Pakistan” culture of the ultra nationalists, today is seen as the beacon of development but sadly, it burns development more than spreading light over the needy citizens.

● BREAKING THE SPINE OF DEMOCRACY!

The fundamental thing, which makes a country democratic is acceptance of difference. When a country ceases to accept anything which can be called as “different”, at that point only the country becomes fascist. Fascism is not something which needs rocket science theory to be understood. It is way simpler than democracy. Whenever a country gets conquered by a thought or ideology, which forcefully declares everyone as slave but finds a sentence which hides its policy of making everyone slave, the country is a fascist country.

India, if deeply seen can be found walking with the top 10 fascist nations of present time. History gives us several indicators which can describe a country as fascist. The branch which raises questions against the government is the media and the fascist countries of history have always displayed its power by buying the media companies. India of today, ranks 148 in the media freedom list released by the Press Trust of India. Private channels today find no other lane to display news honestly forcing them to operate them on YouTube or any other media.

Similarly, murders of journalists who spoke up against the government and the ill effects of superstitions clearly shows the worst climate of freedom of words. Fear of speaking is the most frustrating thing for any individual. Today the rise of frustration is the consequence of developing fear of the oppressing government. Another worse phase for a nation is when the educated students suffer from the oppression of uneducated oppressors. Fabrication and mob lynching of students in the name of nationalism became the infamous move of government and for that, the nation is on the verge of being absorbed by a hateful mass which denies to listen and accept anything different.

● CLIMATE OF DESTRUCTIVE POLICIES!

Nation becomes vulnerable when the policies controlling its wings fail to provide any kind of support. Rather it keeps in slaughtering the wings in the name of nation building. After 2014, India has seen multiple policies which forced the nation to drown. From the sickening demonetisation to the scam of Jana Dhan Yojana, India is seeing every policy which eats the citizens from every angle. Demonetisation’s impact lowered the nation’s economy to 5% GDP and the center simultaneously helped every capitalist of its periphery by opening the zero balance account. The fundamental task of it is to show the non taxable money as taxable, and it successfully showed the thieves as messiahs.

Recently, launched scheme of giving loans of Rs. 5000 to every zero account balance holder is another sickening move. No human being can do anything with an amount of Rs. 5000, and the promise of giving every zero account holder ample money remains unfulfilled. Rather, the center cunningly inserts every holder into the realm of loan without giving enough money to do something which can help them pay the money back to the bank resulting in hampering the holder’s name showing him unsuccessful of paying money for which any bank won’t provide a single loan to him in the future. The consequence of all of this would be a huge fall of economy of our nation.

Increasing price of commodities in the developing (or underdeveloped) India is the consequence of the rapid implementation of demonetisation and GST giving its citizens no time to find any lane to walk upon is yet another insanity of an angry nation. Foundation shaking deal of Rafale and then followed by the stealing of the most secured files is the clear description of a “do – whatever – you – like” center. Similarly, the breaking of the cable channels into packs makes it difficult for maximum families to watch the necessary and yet oppression of the most fundamental needs of the people finds no question.

The eviction of 10 lakh Adivasis from their home fails to become a breaking news for the families deny to give any money and the capitalists find the forests way more nice to build a foundation of torture. No one speaks of the rising deterioration of economy and the once young India today is on the road to lose all its youth for the rising unemployment.

● THE TIDE OF UNEMPLOYMENT!

Dash and dots of unemployment is on the highest peak and the peak is where no country wants to reach. 8.1% unemployment released by NSSO – CMIE, is the highest scale of unemployment after 70 years. The closing companies with non uniform entrepreneur encouragement is the fundamental reason of the embarrassing data. The centre dissented against it by saying it as false but failed to provide the accurate data after its 3 month release.

The employees of political parties are way higher than any other branch but alas, the former does not fall in the list. Several new jobs opened after 2014, in the name of Pakora seller, Uber driving, Cow rearing etc., as developed jobs and deserves to be in the list of employees according to the government. When such dialogues are exchanged among the leaders, then it is no surprise that unemployment is on its peak. Rather the surprise is the unemployed too fail to notice the brink because the nation has attacked its neighbour.

● CULTIVATING HATRED!

For every nation which is on the road to fascism, the most displayed item is hate. The cultivation of the notion of “Us versus Them” makes the fame and identity of fascism. In case of Hitler controlled Germany it was “Germans versus Jews”; for America it was “White versus Black”; for today’s America it is “Americans versus Immigrants”; and for India it is classified into “Hindu versus Muslims”, “Liberal versus Rightists”, “Atheist versus Liberals”, “Urban Naxals versus Hate Mongering Right Wing”.

If we say that it is a matter of perspective, then my dear, it no more is. An angry nation never thinks of perspective because there’s only one perspective: Hatred. It pulls and pushes every second and third thought to evacuate the nation in the form of murders, rapes, riots and lynching. The age of anger for India is not something new but the present phase of anger in the name of religion and nationalism is the repetition of history of every fascist nation.

Think and act, if you still have the ability to think. Pages of social media isn’t the end of news broadcast. New India is not about displaying bravery in the nationalism or to get absorbed in religion. Rather it is about questioning every conqueror and to introspect before asking any question. Finding the own lane should be the drive of the new India, otherwise what will remain is the India which we won’t be proud of and which can’t be an inspiration for any other nation.

Netanyahu-Modi: Similarities in Ideologies and Election Strategies

Feroze Mithiborwala

● Netanyahu: Those who criticise us are Anti-Semites, Self-Hating Jews. These traitors weaken Israel ànd play into the hands of our enemies.

■ Modi: Those that criticise us are Anti-National, Anti-Hindu. These traitors weaken India and play into the hands of our enemies.

● Netanyahu: Israel is under threat from Terror. I will destroy the terrorists in Gaza, bomb them with Missiles and our Jet Fighters, and also attack Lebanon, Syria and Iran if required to defend Israel. We also need to guard against the growing Arab-Israeli population.

Israel is a Jewish nation, the others do not have equal rights.

Only I can ensure the safety of Israel. Vote for Me!

■ Modi: India is under threat from terrorism.

I have ordered Surgical Strikes, to show the World the strength of New India. I will teach Pakistan a lesson, show a red-eye to China.

I am a Hindu Nationalist. Only I can ensure the security of India. Vote for Me.

● Netanyahu bombs Gaza in the shadow of the Christchurch Mosque Terror Tragedy.

He unleashes more than a 100 Missiles under the false pretext of 2 Missiles fired from Gaza into Tel Aviv ‘by mistake’, with no reported Israeli casualties. He further threatens an all out invasion of Gaza, as the April Elections draw closer.

■ Modi: A rather fortutiously timed terror attack occurs in Pulwama, leading to the deaths of 44 paramilitary forces, after which Modi’s falling political graph gains a new lease of life. He then stàges a Surgical Strike in Balakote in Pakistan, all for mere political theatre. No damage done, as both Modi-Imran play to their domestic audiences.

For a few crucial weeks, Modi’s domestic audience forgets about all his failures and false promises, as the soldout corporate media builds an atmosphere which is all about Hyper-Nationalist fervour and chest thumping, revenge and calls for an all out war with Pakistan.

●Note both Netanyahu and Modi represent extreme rightwing fascist religious political forces. Both are facing Corruption charges, falling support and thus are resorting to the basest instincts, communal propaganda, fear and warmongering to make a desperate attempt to remain in power.

Worse can be expected in terms of false flag provocations, to communal riots in the coming crucial 5 weeks that lay ahead of us.

After Pulwama-Balakote, after Christchurch-Gaza – what is next?

Bewarned!

Ocean degradation accelerated by global warming

Henry Allan

Several recently released studies have documented the accelerating changes to Earth’s oceans as a result of climate change, including a reduction in the oxygen content, which is threatening vast swaths of marine life. One of the most prominent is an article in the February 25 issue of Scientific American,headlined, “The Ocean is Running Out of Breath, Scientists Warn.”

The research analyzes data collected by oceanographers at Germany’s Helmholtz Center for Research over the past 50 years, which show that ocean oxygen levels have fallen an average of 2 percent worldwide and up to 40 percent in certain regions, such as the tropics.

This, the scientists note, “is the most pressing issue facing sea animals today.” They specifically compare it to ocean acidification, the increase in ocean water acidity caused by global warming. It has been shown to wipe out coral reefs and have a profoundly negative impact on the lives and reproductive capacity of shell-based marine organisms such as crabs, oysters and mollusks. Oxygen loss in the oceans, the researchers argue, is more dangerous because it impacts every type of sea creature.

Oxygen is essential for the survival of all aquatic animals, just as it is for those on land. A human in an environment with 2 percent less oxygen than their body is used to might become light-headed or suffer altitude sickness. In an environment with 40 percent less oxygen, they will likely suffer hypoxia and possibly die.

While the changes in oceanic oxygen content have not been instant, and so the problems not as immediately drastic, they have been rapid enough to force species to migrate to more oxygen-rich areas, exposing them to new predators while disrupting the already existing ecosystem. Polar regions in recent years, for example, have suffered an invasion of species from lower latitudes seeking to escape increasingly inhospitable areas.

Earlier research also revealed that oxygen-poor waters make it more difficult for male fish to produce sperm and for those sperm to be as mobile as in normal waters. Alarmingly, this does not seem to reverse itself if oxygen levels increase, posing long-term threats to the sustainability of sea creature populations in areas with decreased oxygen content.

Another effect of oxygen deficiency includes impairing animals’ ability to see and hear, impeding their ability to find food and escape from predators.

One of the causes of oxygen depletion is the use of fertilizers that end up in the rivers like the Mississippi. The river carries these nutrients into the Gulf of Mexico where they fuel the growth of algae which, in turn, deplete the level of oxygen in the waters. This creates regions known as “dead zones” in which marine plants and animals cannot live, let alone reproduce.

The more important cause of oxygen depletion, however, is the ongoing warming of the world’s oceans. Warm water is unable to hold as much dissolved gas. Global warming also melts ice, which releases fresh water that rests on the surface of the more dense salt water generally found in oceans. This layer can keep water at the surface and in the ocean’s depths from mixing, which is the only way that the deeper parts of the ocean have their oxygen stores replenished.

The studies also indicate that oxygen deprivation is now moving into areas previously believed to be less vulnerable, the open oceans and at the poles, showing that current ocean models need to be more carefully crafted to account for the effects of climate change.

One of the major consequences of oxygen depletion is falling fish populations. The habitat of the tropical Atlantic tuna, for example, has declined by 15 percent between the years 1960 to 2010. As fish move into more oxygen-rich areas, they concentrate in these areas where fishermen find them. This has led to the illusion of abundance and to even more fish being harvested.

There has, as a result, been an overall decline in fish populations of 4.1 percent in the 38 different regions around the world studied by scientists at the University of California Santa Barbara. Their research, published in the March 1 issue of Science, titled, “Impacts of historical warming on marine fisheries production,” details this population loss in 124 species between 1930 and 2010. The areas most impacted by climate change and overfishing, they wrote, have lost up to 35 percent compared to their early 20th century levels. If this trend continues, the hundreds of millions of human beings who use fish as a primary source of food and make their livelihood from fishing will suffer.

The large amount of oxygen loss in the world’s oceans is also impacting plankton populations. These microorganisms are more sensitive than fish to any change in the oceans and play a key role in all life on Earth because of their unique position at the base of the aquatic food chain. As a result of global warming, not only have their populations declined, but they are also forced to swim into deeper waters to reproduce, in turn making it harder for creatures who live near the surface to use the plankton as food. As climate change continues unabated, the potential for a catastrophic loss of the ocean food chain, the basis for life on Earth, increases.

In an attempt to address the broader ocean deoxygenation problem, oceanographers organized an international conference in Kiel, Germany last September and drafted a resolution calling on world governments and the United Nations to “Limit global warming by decisive climate change mitigation actions.” They based themselves on the earlier Monaco Declaration of 2008, which raised the question of ocean acidification.

As has been demonstrated in the aftermath of the Monaco Declaration, however, appeals to the various nation-states of the world solve nothing. Global warming and the resultant ocean acidification have continued apace and to some degree accelerated in the past 11 years. Scientists must instead turn to the international working class, the planet’s only progressive and revolutionary social force, to undertake the necessary reorganization and scientific coordination of the world’s resources to preserve Earth’s oceans.