October
22, 2014, Issue 209
ACTIVIST
NEWSLETTER
To
subscribe or contact us — jacdon@earthlink.net
Note, for the November Actvtivist Calendar, go to or click on
Note, for the November Actvtivist Calendar, go to or click on
—————————
CONTENTS:
1. Quotes Of The Month (James Connolly)
2. Bury The Bomb Before It Buries Us
3. Global Wealth: Top To Bottom
4. Leftist Malala Wins Nobel Peace Prize
5. Wars Of Autumn Divert 21,000-Mile Hike
6. N.Y. Times Praises Cuba For Helping Africa
7. Secret
Talks Between U.S. And Cuba
8. The
Future Is Here: Floods, Fires, Deserts
9. Sky High
Methane Emissions
10. Other Climate
News
11. Homeless
Students In Rural New York State
12. U.S. And Japan
Upgrade Military Alliance
13. The U.S., China,
Russia & Eurasia
14. U.S. War
Policies Can’t Win In The Mideast
15. Is Your Pizza
Topped With Animal Cruelty?
16. Recommended: 2
Videos, 1 Film
———————
1. QUOTES OF THE MONTH — James Connolly, the
Irish Rebel, 1868-1916
During
the lifetime of James Connolly — union leader, socialist, and revolutionary —
Ireland was oppressed by English imperialism, dominated by a powerful and
rigidly conservative Roman Catholic Church, and exploited by wealthy landlords
and the owners of factories and mines. Connolly was murdered at the age of 47
by a British firing squad for being one of the leaders of the famous 1916
Easter Uprising. The executions of Connolly and 15 other leaders of the
struggle for independence resulted a few years later in another uprising that
liberated most of Ireland (all but six
coun ties) from Great Britain’s greedy embrace.
· Our demands are
most moderate — we only want the Earth.
· If you strike
at, imprison, or kill us, out of our prisons or graves we will still evoke a
spirit that will thwart you, and perhaps, raise a force that will destroy you!
We defy you! Do your worst!
· Without the
power of the Industrial Union behind it, Democracy can only enter the State as
the victim enters the gullet of the Serpent.
· The worker is
the slave of capitalist society, the female worker is the slave of that slave.
· Just as it is
true that a stream cannot rise above its source, so it is true that a national
literature cannot rise above the moral level of the social conditions of the
people from whom it derives its inspiration.
· The Cause is
not lost.... Despite all the treasons of all the traitors Ireland still remains
as pure in heart as ever, and though Empires fall and tyrannies perish, We Will
Rise Again!
— Song of James Connolly by the Wolfe Tones:
—————————
2. BURY THE BOMB
BEFORE IT BURIES US
 |
B-2 "Spirit" bomber dropping casing of a B61-11 nuclear
bomb.
|
By Jack A.
Smith, editor
A
quarter century after the Cold War ended, the people of the world are now
entering a dangerous era of improved and more accurate nuclear weapons and
faster, more precise delivery systems at a time of growing antagonism between
Washington and Moscow and potential antipathy between the U.S. and China.
All
nine nuclear countries are upgrading their atomic weaponry, led by the United
States and Russia — the two main nuclear states by far with 7,300 and 8,000
warheads of all kinds between them respectively, according to the Stockholm
International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). The actually deployed weapons,
long-range and strategic, are 1,600 for Moscow and 2,100 for Washington. Most
of the rest are in storage for future use, upgrading or are being dismantled.
Both
the the U.S. and Russia have substantially reduced their nuclear stockpiles
since the implosion of the Soviet Union, and in February 2011 both parties
signed a New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) with further reductions
that must be implemented within seven years.
 |
| Land based ICBM in U.S. silo, waiting. |
There
is no reason, however, to believe the world is safer or soon to achieve the
only dependable safeguard — total world nuclear disarmament.
The
U.S. and Russia are now each in the process of modernizing, improving and
extending the longevity by decades of the three prongs of their nuclear war
triad: strategic bombers, intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), and
submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs).
Virtually
every aspect of Washington’s triad components are being updated or replaced,
including improvements to the nuclear warheads and bombs, the accuracy, speed and
payload of the missiles, the agility and power of the aircraft (including the
addition of 80-100 new long-range penetrating bombers at a cost of $550 million
each), and complete modernization and expansion of the underwater fleet, adding
12 new ballistic missile submarines.
To
facilitate this program, Washington is spending several billions of dollars
just on upgrading or rebuilding major plants, laboratories and offices
producing nuclear warheads. At least 40,000 people work in these plants. This
includes the new “campus” of the National Nuclear Security Administration
(NNSA) in St. Louis that’s bigger than the Pentagon and cost nearly $700
million to build. (NNSA is a semi-autonomous agency within the U.S. Department
of Energy that is mainly responsible for nuclear weapons until they are
deployed by the Pentagon or returned for repair, updating and disassembly.)
There
is a big difference between the nuclear improvement and modernization programs
of the United States and Russia. The Obama Administration plans to greatly
outspend Moscow in the modernization sweepstakes, more than two to one, with
the hope of finally achieving nuclear supremacy over Russia.
The
Soviet Union, which had been devastated in World War II while American
territory and industry were untouched, managed to catch up with the U.S. in
nuclear power by the late 1950s and established nuclear equivalence, but at a
cost in national treasure that contributed to its eventual implosion. Moscow
will think thrice about trying to match Washington’s reckless spending.
President
Obama has committed the U.S. to spend a staggering trillion dollars over 30
years to develop and possess a state of the art nuclear killing machine, not
counting inevitably huge cost overruns that have yet to be calculated. As a
first installment, the White House plans to invest nearly $355 billion over the
next 10 years in reconstructing its nuclear arsenal.
The
program can only be intended to strengthen and prolong Washington’s global
military dominance — and thus its global hegemony and the rewards that accrue
to the highest and mightiest — long into the future.
These
long-term modernizations threaten the world’s peoples. Given the increasing
economic, political and military volatility of the global situation, the gradual
decline of U.S. influence coupled with its long-term stagnant economy, and the
rise of alternative states including China, a major nuclear confrontation most
certainly cannot be ruled out in future. Climate change, as it increases for a
couple of decades, will contribute to international destabilization,
compounding the existing contradictions that may lead to war.
 |
| Unplug the involuntary suicide bomber! |
Here
is an account of Moscow’s modernization, according to Hans M. Kristensen,
director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of
American Scientists:
“Russia
is in the middle of a significant nuclear modernization that marks its attempt
to transition from Soviet-era nuclear force structure to something more modern,
leaner, and cheaper to maintain....
“Information
on Russian nuclear spending is scarce and contradictory. In 2011, Russian news
media and analysts reported that Russia planned to spend $70 billion on new
strategic weapons through 2018. That sounds like a considerable amount, but
only adds up to $10 billion per year. That is close to what the U.S. NNSA
spends per year on weapons activities.
“Likewise,
Russian media in 2012 reported that Russia planned to spend 101 billion rubles
on nuclear weapons from 2013 through 2015. That also sounds like a very
significant sum, but corresponds to only $2.9 billion over three years. This
does not appear to be the entire nuclear budget; it apparently covers only the
“nuclear weapons complex.” If that corresponds to the U.S. nuclear complex —
that is, NNSA facilities —then it would imply that Russia spends less than half
of what the United States spends on nuclear weapons infrastructure....
“Russia’s
overall defense budget has increased. Over the next 10 years, the plan is to
spend 19 trillion rubles ($542 billion) on defense. That is less than the annual U.S. defense budget. Of that
amount, strategic nuclear forces are thought to account for about 10%, or $54
billion in total over 10 years. It is unclear what categories are included, but
it appears to be roughly 20% of the $30 billion the United States is estimated
to spend on its nuclear triad per year. The Russian economy seems ill equipped
to support such investments in nuclear forces that will only constrain
resources available for conventional forces.”
At
this rate U.S. nuclear superiority seems assured, especially now that President
Obama is seeking to destroy the Russian economy with heavy sanctions. This is
in part Obama’s riposte to Russia for re-incorporating Crimea back into Russia
after 97% of the population voted to secede from Ukraine in a plebiscite last
march following a Washington-backed coup that replaced the Russia-friendly
elected president with a leader beholden to the U.S. and European Union. The
Obama Administration does not seem to care that these moves are pushing Russia
toward China. (See article below: “The U.S., China, Russia & Eurasia.”)
Kristensen
reports, “Chinese nuclear forces are in the latter phase of a two-decade-long
upgrade that includes deployment of new land-, sea-, and air-based nuclear
delivery vehicles. This effort is occurring in parallel with a broader
modernization of China’s general military forces. Unlike the other nuclear
members of the NPT, China is increasing the size of its nuclear arsenal, which
is currently estimated to be around 250 warheads. Although China does not seem
to plan a significant increase in the size of its nuclear forces, it is
changing the composition of that force and putting more emphasis on mobile
systems.”
 |
| New B61-12 will replace all U.S. free fall nuclear bombs. |
Judging
by this report, and the fact that Beijing is at least two decades behind the
U.S. in military technology, it hardly seems possible for China to catch up
with Washington given the Pentagon’s
nuclear modernization scheme, though that does not seem to be its intention.
None
of the seven remaining nuclear states come anywhere close to the U.S. and
Russia in warheads and delivery systems, but even just one nuclear warhead is a
terror weapon. According to the SIPRI Yearbook 2014: “Three of the remaining
seven nuclear states are members of the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). They
include France, 300 warheads, 290 deployed; UK, 225 warheads, 160 deployed;
China, 250, none deployed. The remaining four countries are in violation of the
NPT. None of their warheads are deployed. They are: Pakistan, 100-120 warheads;
India, 90-110; Israel 80 (though some other estimates are higher); North Korea,
6-8 at most. (India, Pakistan and Israel, never joined the NPT; North Korea was
a member but quit.)
The
huge enhancement program not only reverses President Obama’s pledge as a
candidate and several times afterward to work toward nuclear disarmament but
also contradicts a major clause in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty that
directs the big nuclear weapons states in particular to eliminate existing
weapons stockpiles. Here are two clauses that went into effect 44 years ago:
· NPT Article VI:
"Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in
good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race
at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and
complete disarmament." The five treaty members with nuclear weapons do not
believe this is a literal commitment. However, many of the 181 non-nuclear NPT
treaty members, plus citizens of nuclear member countries view the clause after
over four decades as a commitment to take relatively swift action. Commenting
on the foot-dragging of the five nuclear NPT countries, SIPRI said they “appear
determined to retain their nuclear arsenals indefinitely.”
· NPT Article I:
“Each nuclear-weapon State Party to the treaty undertakes not to transfer to
any recipient whatsoever nuclear weapons or other explosive devices directly,
or indirectly.”
In
addition to the nine “official” nuclear
nations, five non-nuclear NATO members in Europe harbor U.S. warheads and
delivery systems. They are Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and
Turkey. Their military is trained in how to operate the systems. During
peacetime the U.S. is in charge. In the event of war the various countries
would control and operate these systems, launching nuclear missies and air
attacks. The U.S., which has long violated NPT Article I by its exchanges with
the UK, justifies wartime use by its five “non-nuclear” allies by arguing that
war obviates the NPT treaty. Berlin, which stores 20 U.S. strategic warheads,
has asked Washington to remove them for many years, to no avail — one more proof
NATO is America’s Foreign Legion.
 |
| Old Faithful B-52 Stratofortress, modernized and ready for war. |
These
five countries plus France and England function in effect as the Pentagon’s
front line nuclear base. Combined with U.S. insistence on maintaining
anti-ballistic missile (ABM) systems in the region —absurdly enough to protect
Europe from an attack by Iranian missiles! — Washington appears to be lining up
the chessboard for a win.
Russia
views the U.S./European ABM systems as offensive, not defensive. Here’s why: A
first strike from a U.S./NATO attack would still leave Russia with the ability
to launch a reduced number of retaliatory nuclear warheads, many of which would
then be destroyed by the ABM shield, leaving Russia vulnerable to an
annihilating second strike from the West.
The
New START Treaty is significant but it still leaves sufficient weapons in the
hands of the U.S., Russia, the five NPT members and four “non-nuclear” outliers
to destroy the world and all its inhabitants several times over. The agreement
became operative in February 2011 after it was approved by the U.S. Senate
71-26 and by both houses of the Russian parliament.
To
obtain enough Republican Senate votes to pass the treaty Obama cut a deal in
December 2010 to expand the Pentagon’s planned modernization of the “Nuclear
Triad”— land, sea and air delivery of strategic nuclear weapons. The New York Times noted last month
that before Obama’s deal with the Republicans “the original idea was [a] modest
rebuilding of the nation’s crumbling nuclear complex.”
On
Aug. 27, the Congressional Research Service document on the treaty included
this brief description:
“New
START provides the parties with seven years to reduce their forces, and will
remain in force for a total of 10 years. It limits each side to no more than
800 deployed and non-deployed land-based intercontinental ballistic missile
(ICBM) and submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) launchers and deployed
and non-deployed heavy bombers equipped to carry nuclear armaments. Within that
total, each side can retain no more than 700 deployed ICBMs, deployed SLBMs,
and deployed heavy bombers equipped to carry nuclear armaments. The treaty also
limits each side to no more than 1,550 deployed warheads; those are the actual
number of warheads on deployed [on intercontinental land based ballistic missiles]
ICBMs and [submarine launched] SLBMs, and one warhead for each deployed heavy
bomber.
Don’t
be misled by the one-warhead-one-bomber ratio. One strategic warhead can kill
millions and there are many bombers capable of making multiple round trips. In addition
the Pentagon can field thousands of planes with non-nuclear missiles and bombs.
It is also in the final stages of perfecting new supersonic missiles that can
deliver powerful warheads launched from the U.S. to accurately reach a specific
target in China within one hour.
The
president claims to be disarming by reducing some long range SLBM-ICBMs while
not only upgrading the kill power and accuracy of the many remaining missiles
but improving the delivery systems. In addition it’s all supposed to be operative
for another 20 to 40 years. Further, it must be understood that while the U.S
government’s official nuclear stance toward Russia and China is “maintaining
strategic stability,” Washington’s understanding of “stability” undoubtedly
implies superiority.
The
Arms Control Association says these upgraded “systems are in many cases being
completely rebuilt with essentially all new parts.” This effort includes:
“Modernized
strategic delivery systems: U.S. nuclear delivery systems are undergoing
continual modernization, including complete rebuilds of the Minuteman III ICBM
and Trident
II
SLBM. The service lives of Trident Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines are
being extended. Additionally, a new submarine, the SSBNX, which will replace
the existing Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines, is undergoing development
and is expected to cost about $100 billion, according to the Congressional
Budget Office. The B-2 strategic bomber, a relatively new system, is being
upgraded, as is the B-52H bomber. The Air Force is also planning a new Long
Range Bomber and a new cruise missile to replace the Air-Launched Cruise
Missile (ALCM).”
The
U.S. government has long spoken of its nuclear forces as a “deterrent” to
another nation contemplating a nuclear attack, but actually America’s use of
nuclear weapons is fairly open ended, including first strike under certain
conditions. Some have interpreted the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review as indicating
that the U.S. has finally adopted a no-first-use policy after years of claiming
it "reserves the right to use" nuclear weapons first. But this does
not appear to be the case.
The
Defense Department issued a report last year, “on behalf of the President... on
Nuclear Employment Strategy of the United States in accordance with Section 491
of 10 U.S.C.” This report included the following paragraph: “The 2010 Nuclear
Posture Review established the Administration’s goal to set conditions that
would allow the U.S. to safely adopt a policy of making deterrence of nuclear
attack the soul purpose of U.S. nuclear weapons. Although we cannot adopt such
a policy today, the new guidance reiterates the intention to work towards that
goal over time.” Actually both the U.S. and Russia maintain the right to first
strike if they believe (whether it’s true or not) they are under attack.
Most
Americans had no knowledge whatsoever of the dangerous deal that made New START
possible. Arms control and disarmament groups in the U.S. have been monitoring
and criticizing the aspects of what they knew about program almost from the
beginning — but few others outside Congress, arms specialists and dedicated
news readers seem to have been aware.
Public
information about Obama’s entire nuclear weapons commitment was revealed
piecemeal until Sept. 21 this year when the New York Times published an
extraordinary 2,600-word front-page article by William J.
Broad
and David E. Sanger that disclosed
the entire program.
“This
expansion,” they wrote, “comes under a president who campaigned for ‘a
nuclear-free world’ and made disarmament a main goal of American defense policy.
The original idea was that modest rebuilding of the nation’s crumbling nuclear
complex would speed arms refurbishment, raising confidence in the arsenal’s
reliability and paving the way for new treaties that would significantly cut
the number of warheads. Instead, because of political deals and geopolitical
crises, the Obama administration is engaging in extensive atomic rebuilding
while getting only modest arms reductions in return....
“Supporters
of arms control, as well as some of President Obama’s closest advisers, say
their hopes for the president’s vision have turned to baffled disappointment as
the modernization of nuclear capabilities has become an end unto itself. ‘A lot
of it is hard to explain,’ said Sam Nunn, the former senator whose writings on
nuclear disarmament deeply influenced Mr. Obama. ‘The president’s vision was a
significant change in direction. But the process has preserved the status
quo.’”
In
a statement Sept. 22, the day after the New York Times article when the entire
picture became news, leaders and experts from seven national nongovernmental
organizations charged that “that current plans for maintaining and upgrading
the U.S. nuclear arsenal over the next decade and beyond exceed reasonable
deterrence requirements as set out by the President in June 2013, are
unaffordable, and unless they are significantly adjusted, the nuclear force
modernization plan will also deplete resources from higher priority budget
needs.”
The groups included Union of Concerned Scientists, Federation of
American Scientists, Arms Control Association, Council for a Livable World, and
Women's Action for New Directions.
Last
March, when the administration put forward details of its budget for fiscal
year 2015, which started Oct. 1, containing initial funding for the improvement
and modernization program, the organization Nuclear Watch (New Mexico)
declared:
“Contrary
to President Obama’s rhetoric about a future world free of nuclear weapons,
most famously expressed in his April 2009 speech in Prague, the president asks
for a 7% increase for nuclear weapons research and production programs under
the Department of Energy’s semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security
Administration (NNSA). NNSA’s ‘Total Weapons Activities’ are slated to rise to
$8.3 billion in FY 2015, and to an astounding $9.7 billion by FY 2019, 24%
above fiscal year 2014. Obama’s budget request sets a new record for DOE nuclear
weapons spending, even exceeding the Cold War high point in 1985 under
President Reagan’s military buildup.... While rebuilding nuclear weapons at
exorbitant expense, the Obama Administration proposes to slash dismantlement of
existing weapons] by nearly half, from an already paltry $54.2 million to $30
million.”
Commenting
on the entire program, Angela Canterbury, executive director for Center for
Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, declared: "The current plan is geared
towards building more nuclear weapons that we don't need and can't afford. We
need to scrap it and the nuclear weapons we don't need. We need to put into
place a far more affordable plan to meet the President's goals to make us
safer."
The
Homeland Security Newswire wrote Aug. 6: “The Obama administration is
allocating more resources toward refurbishing and modernizing current nuclear
weapons than advancing nuclear nonproliferation programs. A new analysis of nuclear
security spending published by Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government notes that the
administration’s 2015 budget reduces
funding for the Energy Department’s nuclear
nonproliferation programs by $399 million, while increasing spending on its
nuclear weapons programs by $655 million. For fiscal 2014, Congress approved
$1.95 billion for NNSA to spend on nonproliferation programs. The White House
fiscal 2015 budget proposed a 20% reduction.”
The
sheer cost of the modernization is raising eyebrows in Washington, even among
those who agree with the program, and there are strong hints some of the cost
may be cut in FY2016. Adding to fiscal concerns, the Government Accountability
Office asserted recently that the planned nuclear arsenal will cost tens of
billions of dollars more than the Obama Administration initially indicated, not
counting overruns.
The
breakthrough Times article noted: “The looming crackup between trillion-dollar
plans and tight budgets is starting to get Washington’s attention.
Modernization delays are multiplying and cost estimates are rising. Panels of
experts are bluntly describing the current path as unacceptable. A new
generation of missiles, bombers and submarines ‘is unaffordable,’ a bipartisan,
independent panel commissioned by Congress and the Defense Department declared in
July.”
Some reductions in cost seem probable, but an extremely expensive nuclear
modernization program will continue.
Many
constituencies welcomed Barack Obama when he entered the White House in January
2009. Among those with high hopes were tens of millions of people the world
over who believed his rhetoric about ending the nuclear danger. They were
disappointed, as were so many others. Hans Kristensen summed up the situation
well:
“The
Obama administration entered office with a strong arms control and disarmament
agenda, but despite efforts by some officials and agencies to reduce the number
and role of nuclear weapons, the administration may ironically end up being
remembered more for its commitment to prolonging and modernizing the
traditional nuclear arsenal.”
The
good news is that a Review Conference of the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) will
be held at the United Nations in New York in April and May 2015 and mass
demonstrations opposed to nuclear weapons are being planed by a large
international coalition of NGOs, peace groups and many others. (The Activist
Newsletter will supply all the details when available.)
According
to a co-convener of the project, Jackie Cabasso of the Western States Legal
Foundation: “The nuclear powers have refused to honor their legal and moral
obligation to begin negotiations to ban and completely eliminate their nuclear
arsenals. As we have seen at the United Nations High-Level Meeting for
Disarmament and at the Oslo and Nayarit Conferences on the Human Consequences
of Nuclear Weapons, the overwhelming majority of the world’s governments demand
the implementation of the NPT. We are working with partner organizations in the
U.S. and other nations to mobilize international actions to bring popular
pressure to bear on the 2015 Review Conference.”
Judith
LeBlanc of Peace Action, also a co-convener, reported that “Plans include a
major international peace conference and march to the United Nations on the eve
of the Review Conference, the presentation of millions of petition signatures
to the Review Conference urging the abolition of nuclear weapons, creative
nonviolent protests in New York and in national capitals around the world, and
student and youth organizing campaigns.”
Perhaps
today’s conditions are conducive to the building of a mass international
antinuclear movement. These same conditions brought forward a mass climate
change march of 400,000 activists in New York last month as well as many large
international demonstrations. If both these movements have staying power and
adopt strategy and tactics commensurate to the struggle without being coopted,
there is a chance for progress.
It
certainly won’t do to depend on Obama in his last two years. And whoever
replaces him in the 2016 elections, Republican or Democrat, is hardly going to
do anything about nuclear disarmament. But a strong anti-nuclear movement can
continue to grow under such circumstances (and so, hopefully, can the climate
movement).
The
leftist Professor István Mészáros, the Hungarian philosopher, identified what
must be done: “The uncomfortable truth of the matter is that if there is no
future for a radical mass movement in our time, there can be no future for
humanity itself.” Clearly, any progress on these fronts will derive from
popular, prolonged struggle.
—————————
3. GLOBAL WEALTH:
TOP TO BOTTOM
 |
| From the very top... |
[International
Monetary Fund managing director Christine Lagarde said earlier this this month
that the “staggering rise in inequality” over recent decades may well “haunt
us” deep into the 21st century. The following information about global income
and asset distribution derives from The Economist of Oct. 14, the Oxfam 2014
report on “Working for the Few,” and Bloomberg Business Week earlier this year.
They are based on slightly different percentages of wealth and low income, but
the figures and conclusions are quite similar. These figures shed light on the
most important social aspect of the world capitalist system — innate and
inevitable economic inequality afflicting the great majority of the human
population.
By the Activist
Newsletter
Before
discussing the global picture our first paragraph is devoted to wealth in the
United States for the sake of comparison: The U.S. is the richest country in
the world, but about half its population of 319 million people are low income
or poor. These people generally have very little, if any, wealth (i.e., assets
over liabilities). Indeed, the bottom
90% of the U.S. population, including the working class and middle class as
well as low income and poor, possess 25.6% of private national assets. Those in
the 90 to 99th percentile own
34.6% of the assets. The top 1% enjoys 39.8% of America’s assets. And within
that 1%, the top 0.01% has grabbed 11.1% of the assets. This most powerful one hundredth of one percent includes 16,000
families who own $6 trillion in assets — equal to the total wealth of the
bottom two-thirds of American families combined.
Oxfam
reports the top %1 of the global population of 727 billion people accounts for
48.2% of total wealth, and the bottom 50% own less than 1%.
The
Economist reports that global wealth has increased from $117 trillion in 2000
to $262 trillion this year. That comes to $56,000 for each adult on earth. But
the fortune is far from evenly distributed: 94.5% of the world’s household
wealth is held by 20% of the adult population, according to new data from Credit Suisse.
Wealth
is so unevenly distributed, that you need just $3,650 (less debts) to count
yourself among the richest half of the world’s population, the publication
continued. A mere $77,000 in assets brings you among the wealthiest 10%.
And $798,000 puts you into the ranks of
the 1% — within the reach of many white-collar urban professionals in the West.
Hence, more than 35 million people carry such a plump purse. Among the three
billion adults at the bottom with less than $10,000 in wealth, 90% reside in
developing countries.
Oxfam
reported: • The bottom half of the world’s population
owns the same as the richest 85 people in the world. • 70% of people live in
countries where economic inequality has increased in the last 30 years. • The
richest 1% increased their share of income in 24 out of 26 countries between
1980 and 2012.
Oxfam
surmised: “This massive concentration of economic resources in the hands of
fewer people presents a significant threat to inclusive political and economic
systems. Instead of moving forward together, people are increasingly separated
by economic and political power, inevitably heightening social tensions and
increasing the risk of societal breakdown.”
Back
home again, Forbes reports that “2014 was another record year for American
wealth: The aggregate net worth of the richest 400 Americans was $2.29
trillion, up $270 billion from a year ago. These richest of Americans were
helped by the fact that in the U.S. the wealthiest 1% captured 95% of
post-financial crisis growth since 2009, while the bottom 90% became poorer.
 |
| …to the very bottom. |
We
close with a comment by Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926), union leader and five time
socialist candidate for President of the U.S.
He obviously didn’t win but obtained nearly a million votes for
president in the 1920 election while he was in fedceral prison for criticizing
U.S. involvement in World War I.:
“I
am opposing a social order in which it is possible for one man who does
absolutely nothing that is useful to amass a fortune of hundreds of millions of
dollars, while millions of men and women who work all the days of their lives
secure barely enough for a wretched existence.”
—————————
4. LEFTIST MALALA
WINS NOBEL PEACE PRIZE
What
two things does Malala Yousafzai share with Albert Einstein?
First,
they both won the Nobel Prize. Pakistani Malala, just 17, was notified she won
the Peace Prize Oct. 10 for her struggle for the right of girls and all
children around the world to acquire an education. Einstein won the Nobel Prize
in Physics in1921. Most people know this.
Second,
Malala is a socialist, as was Einstein. Most people do not know this.
Malala,
then 15, was almost murdered Oct. 9, 2012, when a Taliban religious fanatic
followed the young woman into a school bus and fired a bullet into her forehead
in an effort to end her campaign for the education of girls. She barely
survived and eventually improved enough to be transferred to an English
hospital for rehabilitation. As soon as she was able she continued her
campaign— but this time she had a worldwide audience of supporters.
According
to a report from the International Marxist Tendency Malala sent a message from
England to the 32nd congress of Pakistani section of IMT that opened March 9,
2013, five months after she was shot. Here is their account:
“A
Pakistani comrade from Birmingham in the UK, intervened to read out a message
that had been sent from Malala Yousafzai, the young sympathizer of the Marxist
Tendency famous for her part in the struggle for the right to education for
girls in Pakistan. [A sympathizer is not a member.] She had taken part in the
national Marxist Summer School in July of last year [2012] in Swat [Valley
sector of northwest Pakistan where the Taliban had been very active]. She was
tragically shot in the head in a barbaric attack by fundamentalists, and made
headlines worldwide.
 |
| Protests in Pakistan the day after the shooting. |
“The
message she sent reads as follows:
“‘First
of all I’d like to thank The Struggle and the IMT for giving me a chance to
speak last year at their Summer Marxist School in Swat and also for introducing
me to Marxism and Socialism. I just want to say that in terms of education, as
well as other problems in Pakistan, it is high time that we did something to
tackle them ourselves. It’s important to take the initiative. We cannot wait
around for any one else to come and do it. Why are we waiting for someone else
to come and fix things? Why aren’t we doing it ourselves?
“‘I
would like to send my heartfelt greetings to the congress. I am convinced Socialism
is the only answer and I urge all comrades to take this struggle to a
victorious conclusion. Only this will free us from the chains of bigotry and
exploitation.’
“This
was also one of the several moving moments of the congress. A close friend of
Malala was also present at the congress, who was on the bus when the girls were
attacked. She spoke, making some comments and reading out a poem.”
Einstein’s
political views are rarely mentioned. Here’s a sample: “The economic anarchy of
capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the
evil.... Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands, partly
because of competition among the capitalists, and partly because technological
development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of
larger units of production at the expense of smaller ones. The result of these
developments is an oligarchy of private capital the enormous power of which
cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political
society.... I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave
evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by
an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.”
—
Malala’s extraordinary speech at the UN on her 16th birthday, July
12, 2013, is here. Don’t miss it.
———————
5. WARS OF AUTUMN DIVERT 21,000-MILE HIKE
 |
| Told to leave Kurdish village, Paul is trucked out. He will continue walk on new trail. |
[Pulitzer
Prize-winning journalist and National Geographic Fellow Paul Salopek is
retracing on foot our ancestors’ migration out of Africa and across the globe.
His 21,000-mile odyssey began in Ethiopia and will end seven years later at the
tip of South America. National Geographic is funding Paul’s storytelling from
the Out of Eden Walk trail and prints his dispatches at intervals. Here is his
message of Oct. 17. For readers interested in this extraordinary hike and its
purpose, a link to further articles is below.]
By Paul Salopek
SOUTHEASTERN
TURKEY: The Earth rolls in its silent groove about the sun. The planet spins.
It leans 23 degrees off plumb. The northern hemisphere tilts away from the warm
hearth of its star. Grass steppes begin to grow stiff, to yellow. Temperatures
drop. Winter deepens the long blue shadows of the barren hills. In one corner
of a continent, on an iron plain where civilization was born, a war bleeds into
its fourth year. Intelligent animals kill each other en masse. With metal
pellets propelled by exploding gases. With flying machines. With swords.
My
new walking guide, Murat Yazar, and I retreat from it. We step briskly, aiming
north, for the snowline of the Caucasus. We make more than 20 miles a day. But
it is not enough. It is too late. The war catches up. It stops us.
The
men appear as we trek the high, cool, stony pastures of southeastern Turkey, a
hinterland of sheep nomads, of hardy shepherds.
A
ring of dark figures on foot. Some wrapped in keffiyehs, the checkered scarves
of the Middle East. They carry old shotguns. They close in, surround us. We
stop in our tracks. They order us to their cinderblock village. There, crowds
of schoolboys skip beside us, hooting and swinging wooden clubs. All are
Kurdish. They are as frightened as we are. They think Yazar and I are
infiltrators sneaking up from the south, from Syria. They demand: “Are you
Daesh?”—the head-chopping zealots of the Islamic State? They rummage through
our pack mule’s load.
“This
man” — Yazar says bleakly, gesturing at an armed villager — “he says he wants
to kill me.” Then they serve us tea. It comes on a silver tray. The glass cups
are shaped like belled flowers.
Briefly,
here is what is going on:
The
cancer of Syria is spreading. The war’s death toll approaches
200,000.
More than three million
civilians
are uprooted — a humanitarian calamity of historic scale. This festering chaos
has dismembered Iraq. And now it is infecting Turkey, only a few weeks ago a
stable Western ally. Turkey’s case is complex. (Of course it is: This is old
Byzantium, the crossroads of shifting empires, of dueling interests, of the
entanglements of history, of geography.) The brutal fanatics of the Islamic
State, having gained the upper hand among the rebels battling the Assad regime
in Syria, are firing artillery within a mile of the Turkish border. They are
bombarding a rival Syrian rebel group that consists mainly of ethnic Kurds: the
suddenly famous battle of Kobani.
And
yet Turkey, with the hounds of war baying at its door, seems oddly apathetic.
True, it has admitted 180,000 terrified Kurdish refugees. But while it opposes the
rise of the Islamist terrorists, its troops massed at the border do not
intervene. They watch. They wait. Why? Because Turkey has waged its own bloody
civil war against separatist
Kurds
for more than 30 years. It fears that saving the besieged Syrian Kurds will
empower its homegrown insurgents. It demands instead that Syria’s regime be
toppled—preferably with U.S. involvement. This hands-off stance to the
deepening violence has enraged Turkey’s Kurdish minority. Nearly 40 people have
died in pro-Kurdish riots in Turkish cities. Turkey’s fragile peace process
with its Kurdish rebels is unraveling fast. The country’s southeast, the
Kurdish heartland, is quaking. And fear of the Islamic State ripples far,
stoking paranoia. We are more than a hundred miles from the border. The village
posse releases us. “Don’t call the police,” one of them says, angrily. “No
police.”
We
cannot sleep in this terrified village. We cannot walk on: The villagers will
not permit us. For the first time on land, in roughly 3,000 miles of journeying
out of Africa, I must load my pack animal onto a truck and drive away from my
footprints. Yazar and I have no idea where we are bound. Nobody does in this
part of the world. We are simply going. The rocky plains of Mesopotamia stretch
away grayly in the dusk. And winter is closing in.
The
next stories from the Out of Eden Walk trail will be about Kurdish culture,
about maternal rivers, about neurotic mules — about the now-familiar ritual of
leaving old walking guides and greeting new ones. But war will hum in the
background.
— Paul Salopek’s occasional dispatches are
available at http://outofedenwalk.nationalgeographic.com.
—————————
6. N.Y. TIMES
PRAISES CUBA FOR HELPING AFRICA
 |
|
Cuban health workers arrive
in Sierra Leone. Florian Plaucheur/Agence France-Presse Getty
Images
|
[Cuba
has received well-deserved editorial praise for dispatching 461 doctors and
nurses to West Africa in October to help combat the outbreak of the deadly
Ebola virus that has killed thousands already. They will serve in Sierra Leone,
Liberia and Guinea. The text of this thoughtful and unique Oct. 20 editorial is
below. It should be noted that Cuba, a country of only 11 million people, has
more than 50,000 doctors and nurses posted in 66 developing countries around
the world, including more than 4,000 in 32 African countries.]
By the New York
Times Editorial Board
Cuba
is an impoverished island that remains largely cut off from the world and lies
about 4,500 miles from the West African nations where Ebola is spreading at an
alarming rate. Yet, having pledged to deploy hundreds of medical professionals
to the front lines of the pandemic, Cuba stands to play the most robust role
among the nations seeking to contain the virus.
Cuba’s
contribution is doubtlessly meant at least in part to bolster its beleaguered
international standing. Nonetheless, it should be lauded and emulated.
The
global panic over Ebola has not brought forth an adequate response from the
nations with the most to offer. While the United States and several other
wealthy countries have been happy to pledge
funds,
only Cuba and a few nongovernmental organizations are offering what is most
needed: medical professionals in the field.
Doctors
in West Africa desperately need support to establish isolation facilities and
mechanisms to detect cases early. More than 400 medical personnel have been
infected and about 4,500 patients have
died. The virus has shown up in the United States and Europe, raising fears
that the epidemic could soon become a global menace.
It
is a shame that Washington, the chief donor in the fight against Ebola, is
diplomatically estranged from Havana, the boldest contributor. In this case the
schism has life-or-death consequences, because American and Cuban officials are
not equipped to coordinate global efforts at a high level. This should serve as
an urgent reminder to the Obama administration that the benefits of moving
swiftly to restore
diplomatic relations with Cuba far outweigh the drawbacks.
The
Cuban health care workers will be among the most exposed foreigners, and some
could very well contract the virus. The World Health Organization is directing
the team of Cuban doctors, but it remains unclear how it would treat and
evacuate Cubans who become sick. Transporting quarantined patients requires
sophisticated teams and specially configured aircraft. Most insurance companies
that provide medical evacuation services have said they will not be flying
Ebola patients.
Secretary
of State John Kerry on Friday praised “the courage of any health care worker
who is undertaking this challenge,” and made a brief acknowledgment of Cuba’s
response. As a matter of good sense and compassion, the American military,
which now has about 550 troops in West Africa, should commit to giving any sick
Cuban access to the treatment center the Pentagon built in Monrovia and to
assisting with evacuation.
The
work of these Cuban medics benefits the entire global effort and should be
recognized for that. But Obama administration officials have callously declined
to say what, if any, support they would give them.
The
Cuban health sector is aware of the risks of taking on dangerous missions.
Cuban doctors assumed the
lead role
in treating cholera patients in the aftermath of Haiti’s earthquake in 2010.
Some returned home sick, and then the island had its first outbreak of cholera
in a century. An outbreak of Ebola on the island could pose a far more
dangerous risk and increase the odds of a rapid spread in the Western Hemisphere.
Cuba
has a long tradition of dispatching doctors and nurses to disaster areas
abroad. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the Cuban government
created a quick-reaction medical corps and offered to send doctors to New
Orleans. The United States, unsurprisingly, didn’t take Havana up on that
offer. Yet officials in Washington seemed thrilled to learn in recent weeks
that Cuba had activated the medical teams for missions in Sierra Leone, Liberia
and Guinea.
With
technical support from the World Health Organization, the Cuban government
trained 460 doctors and nurses on the stringent precautions that must be taken
to treat people with the highly contagious virus. The first group of 165
professionals arrived in Sierra Leone in recent days. José Luis Di Fabio, the
World Health Organization’s representative in Havana, said Cuban medics were
uniquely suited for the mission because many had already worked in Africa.
“Cuba has very competent medical professionals,” said Mr. Di Fabio, who is
Uruguayan. Mr. Di Fabio said Cuba’s efforts to aid in health emergencies abroad
are stymied by the embargo the United States imposes on the island, which
struggles to acquire modern equipment and keep medical shelves adequately
stocked.
In
a column published over
the weekend in Cuba’s state-run newspaper, Granma, Fidel Castro argued that the
United States and Cuba must put aside their differences, if only temporarily,
to combat a deadly scourge. He’s absolutely right.
—————————
7. SECRET TALKS BETWEEN U.S. AND CUBA
Cuban troops defeated South Africa in Angola.
By Roger Hamilton-Martin
NEW
YORK, Oct 2, 2014 (IPS) - In a new book cataloguing the recent history of
clandestine exchanges between the U.S. and Cuba, the reliance on secret
intermediaries belies the common perception that the two governments rarely
communicated during the decades that followed the Cuban revolution in 1959.
Documents detail
how Jimmy Carter acted as a secret intermediary for the Clinton administration
during the 1994 Balseros immigration crisis and how Secretary of State Henry
Kissinger ordered contingency plans drawn up to “clobber” Havana in 1976 in
response to Cuba’s military intervention in defense of Angola’s government, the
Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA).
The
new book, “Back Channel to Cuba: The Hidden History of Negotiations between
Washington and Havana” was launched Oct. 1 at New York’s Pierre Hotel by
co-authors Peter Kornbluh, a Cuba expert at the non-governmental National
Security Archive, and William LeoGrande, a veteran Cuba foreign-policy
specialist at American University in Washington, DC.
“It’s
an odd place to hold a press conference, but for a historic reason,” said
Kornbluh. “It’s the place where the first secret talks to normalize relations
with Cuba were held, during a three-hour meeting here almost 40 years ago.”
The
book is filled with a cast of secret intermediaries who have shuttled back and
forth between the two countries even during times of intense hostility.
Despite
Nixon’s opening to China in 1972 followed by the end of the Cold War and the
dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, U.S. relations with Havana, which has
been subject to a U.S. trade embargo since 1960, have remained antagonistic.
Most
Cubans who fled to the U.S. in the decade after the 1959 Revolution – the
majority of whom settled in Florida – have long opposed all attempts by U.S.
administrations to engage Havana in any way that, in their view, would serve to
legitimize the Communist government there.
One
of the book’s novel revelations is the role of Jimmy Carter in acting as a
secret intermediary between Washington and Havana during the 1994 Balseros
crisis. The crisis saw a flood of so-called Cuban “rafters” traverse the
dangerous route to Florida in what the U.S. administration saw as a politically
fraught replay of the 1980 Mariel boatlift that helped defeat Carter’s
re-election bid.
The
former president, writing to Fidel Castro, talked of his “hope of finding
common ground on which to resolve the crisis, and to prepare for a future
resolution of long-term differences.”
With
his support, an agreement was forged between the Clinton and Castro
administrations of a “wet feet, dry feet” policy whereby Cubans who fled to the
United States would be allowed to pursue residency if they reached shore.
Through the Cuban mission at the United Nations, Carter negotiated the numbers
of immigrants who would legally be allowed to remain in the U.S.
As
president, Carter himself tried hard to normalize the U.S.-Cuban relationship.
It was during his tenure that the U.S. and Cuba established Interest Sections
in their respective capitals. But the intensification of Cold War tensions
during the latter half of his term – in addition to the growing political clout
of Cuban Americans opposed to any improvement in ties – significantly reduced
his room for maneuver.
Even
before Carter, Kissinger had himself tried to promote a détente with Havana,
sending representatives Frank Mankiewicz and Lawrence Eagleburger to a meeting
at LaGuardia airport in January 1975, to “explore the possibilities for a more
normal relationship between our two countries,” and “determine whether there
exists an equal determination on both sides to settle the differences that
exist between us.”
That,
in turn, set the stage for the meeting at the Pierre Hotel six months later.
Eagleburger was again present, alongside Assistant Secretary for Inter-American
Affairs William D. Rogers.
But
Cuba’s intervention in Angola as various foreign-backed factions jostled for
power in the run-up to that country’s independence from Portugal in November
1975 put paid to that effort. According to the new book, the former national
security adviser and secretary of state was infuriated by Castro’s move, which
proved decisive in the MPLA’s victory over rival factions backed variously by
South Africa, Zaire, the U.S., and China, as well as South African troops and
mercenaries.
During
a White House conversation with President Gerald Ford, Kissinger argued that
Havana’s intervention raised the prospect of a “race war.”
Cuba
had intervened in Angola on the eve of the new country’s independence from
Portugal in November 1975 in support of the MPLA against South African, the
U.S., and Chinese-backed factions, as well as South African and Zairean mercenary
forces.
[Note from the Activist Newsletter: China
was still a revolutionary communist country at the time but in this instance
was in league with the most dubious of political partners to prevent the avowed
Marxist-Leninist MPLA from taking power in the Angola war against both the
racist South African troops and a U.S.-supported rival organization, UNITA.
Beijing backed UNITA because the Soviet Union, with which it had an ideological
falling out, backed the MPLA.
[Cuba
fought for and protected the MPLA government for 16 years, leaving in 1991 when
South Africa troops were defeated. UNITA faught on but MPLA held firm and
hostilities ended in 2002. At its high point in 1988, 55,000 Cuban soldiers
were fighting. Nelson Mandela, when he left prison in 1990, elaborately praised
President Castro and the Cuban people for years of selfless internationalism
and sacrifice that contributed toward the subsequent victory over the racist
regime in South Africa.]
Nelson Mandela and Fidel Castro, comrades in arms.
In
the document, Kissinger says “I think we are going to have to smash Castro. We
probably can’t do it before the [November 1976 U.S. presidential] elections.”
Kissinger
and Ford were concerned that Cuba would repeat “Angola-style” military action
in other African nations amidst intensified rivalry between the U.S. and the
Soviet Union across the continent in an African version of the “domino theory”
that was used to justify Washington’s ultimately disastrous intervention in
Indochina beginning in the late 1950s.
“If
they move into Namibia or Rhodesia, I would be in favour of clobbering them,”
Kissinger said, according to the transcripts published in the new book. “That
would create a furor … but I think we might have to demand they get out of
Africa.”
Having
won in Angola, Kissinger believed that Cuban forces could play a similar role
in South-West Africa (now Namibia), Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and ultimately
South Africa itself within five years. [At the time the U.S. was a major
supporter of apartheid South Africa]. He thought it would be “easier to bring
pressure on Cuba, as the closer and weaker partner in a tightly interwoven
relationship, than on the Soviet Union” which supported both Cuba and the MPLA.
Wide
discrepancies between public and private relations between Cuba and the United
States have long characterised bilateral ties, LeoGrande told IPS.
“At
the tail end of the Kennedy administration, there were secret initiatives to
open up a dialogue with Cuba and a hope that in the aftermath of the [October
1962] missile crisis, the Cubans were so angry with the Soviets [for promising
to never deploy nuclear weapons to the island] that they would be enticed back
into the orbit of the United States. The initiative was taken through the Cuban
representative at the United Nations to reopen relations.
“At
the same time, if you read some of President Kennedy’s speeches on Cuba, it’s
as hard-line Cold War as ever. Just the president and a handful of people knew
about [the secret initiative], so you didn’t see any reflection of it in the
public dialogue.”
A
key theme of the book is the common use of these back channels. Cutting through
bureaucratic red tape has been attractive to both countries. “Presidents will
always use some kind of channel,” LeoGrande told IPS. “Using diplomatic
channels but keeping it secret is probably necessary for solving complex
diplomatic issues.”
Successive
presidents have preferred to use a personal envoy rather than go through the
layers of the diplomatic process that increased the risks of press leaks. In
fact, every single president has used these intermediaries since the revolution
in 1959.
The
authors are convinced that there are positive steps that could be taken to open
formal channels with the Caribbean island. “If we didn’t have the embargo, and
the democracy promotion programs, we could have a normal and productive
relationship with Cuba,” said LeoGrande.
—http://www.ipsnews.net/2014/10/documents-detail-secret-talks-between-washington-and-havana/
—————————
8. THE FUTURE IS HERE: FLOODS, FIRES, DESERTS
 |
| Firefighter in Upstate New York tries to stop forest fire. (AP photo) |
By Robin McKie, Science Editor, The Observer, 9-27-14
Climate change is no longer viewed by mainstream scientists as a future threat to our planet and our species. It is a palpable phenomenon that already affects the world, they insist. And a brief look round the globe certainly provides no lack of evidence to support this gloomy assertion.
In Bangladesh,
increasingly severe floods – triggered, in part, by increasing
temperatures and rising sea levels – are wiping out crops and destroying homes
on a regular basis. In Sudan, the heat is
causing the Sahara to expand and to eat into farmland, while in Siberia, the
planet's warming is causing the
permafrost to melt and houses to subside.
Or
consider the Marshall
Islands,
the Pacific archipelago that is now struggling to cope with rising seas that
are lapping over its streets and gardens. Even the home of the country's
president Christopher Loeak is feeling the effects. "He has had to build a
wall around his house to prevent the salt water from inundating," Tony de
Brum, the islands' foreign minister, revealed recently.
"Our
airport retaining wall that keeps the saltwater out of the landing strip has
also been breached. Even our graveyards are also being undermined – coffins and
bodies are being dug out from the seashore."
Across
the planet, it is getting harder and harder to find shelter from the storm. And
things are only likely to get worse, say researchers.
 |
| Denver couple lost home in flash flood. |
By
the middle of the century, forest fires and severe heatwaves will be
increasingly common while crops will be devastated and vineyards will be
scorched.
Other
parts of the world face different problems created by the billions of tons of
carbon dioxide that we now pump into the atmosphere from factories, power plants
and cars. In Asia the main issue concerns the presence and absence of water. In
the southeast of the region, continued sea-level rises threaten to further
erode farmlands and coastal towns and cities, while inland it will be water
scarcity that will affect most people's lives. In this latter case, higher
temperatures will combine with lack of water to trigger major reductions in
rice yields.
Latin
America’s biggest metropolis— São Paulo, Brazil — may soon run out of water. Taps are already
running dry for some of its 20 million residents.The four-lake complex that
supplies half of São Paulo has already been drained of 96% of its water
capacity amid Brazil’s worst drought in eight decades.
In
its latest report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that
up to 139 million people could face food shortages at least once a decade by
2070.
Perhaps
most alarming of all the forecasts that concern the future warming of our
planet is the work of Camilo Mora at the University of Hawaii. His research –
which involved using a range of climate models to predict temperatures on a
grid that covered the globe – suggests that by 2047 the planet's climate
systems will have changed to such an extent that the coldest years then
will be warmer than even the hottest years that were experienced at any time in
the 20th century.
"Go
back in your life to think about the hottest, most traumatic event you have
experienced," Mora said in an interview with the New York Times recently. "What we are saying is that very
soon, that event is going to become the norm."
In
other words, our species – which is already assailed by the impact of mild
global warming – is now plunging headlong into an overheated future for which
there are no recorded precedents.
—————————
9. SKY HIGH METHANE EMISSIONS
By the Houston Chronicle (10-7-14) and
the Activist Newsletter
Methane
emissions from oil and gas wells on federal lands and waters jumped 135% from
2008 to 2013, an analysis shows, driven by a drilling boom in New Mexico and
North Dakota that has outpaced the building of pipelines and processing
centers.
The study,
completed by Stratus Consulting for the Wilderness Society and the Center for
American Progress, documented the uptick in methane being vented or burned as
waste from wells on public lands and waters. Researchers used data from the
Interior Department's Office of Natural Resources Revenue.
 |
| Burning off methane to the atmosphere near site of gas drilling. |
[From the Activist Newsletter: The Obama
Administration is a major advocate of fracking for natural gas, the primary
component of which is methane. According to the environmental Protection
Agency:
[“Methane (CH4) is the second most prevalent
greenhouse gas emitted in the United States from human activities. In 2012, CH4
accounted for about 9% of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions from human
activities. Methane is emitted by natural sources such as wetlands, as well as
human activities such as leakage from natural gas systems and the raising of
livestock.... Methane's lifetime in the atmosphere is much shorter than carbon
dioxide (CO2), but CH4 is more efficient at trapping radiation than CO2. Pound
for pound, the comparative impact of CH4 on climate change is over 20 times
greater than CO2 over a 100-year period.”]
————————
10. OTHER CLIMATE NEWS
By the Activist Newsletter
Climate Central reports: “Like August before it, September 2014
was the warmest September on record, according to newly updated NASA data. The
warm month makes it even more likely that 2014 will become the warmest year on
record.”
From The New York Times: “The Pentagon on Oct. 13 released a
report asserting decisively that climate change poses an immediate threat to
national security, with increased risks from terrorism, infectious disease,
global poverty and food shortages. It also predicted rising demand for military
disaster responses as extreme weather creates more global humanitarian crises.
The report lays out a road map to show how the military will adapt to rising
sea levels, more violent storms and widespread droughts.
According to the Guardian Oct. 13: “The rise in sea levels seen over the
past century is unmatched by any period in the past 6,000 years, according to a
lengthy analysis of historical sea level trends. The reconstruction of 35,000
years of sea level fluctuations finds that there is no evidence that levels
changed by more than 20cm (7.87 inches) in a relatively steady period that
lasted between 6,000 years ago and about 150 years ago. This makes the past
century extremely unusual in the historical record, with about a 20cm rise in
global sea levels since the start of the 20th century. Scientists have
identified rising temperatures, which have caused polar ice to melt and thermal
expansion of the sea, as a primary cause of the sea level increase.”
USA Today wrote: “California has completed the highest
number of goals to prepare for climate change, followed by Massachusetts and
New York, according to a first-of-its-kind 50-state tracking tool unveiled Oct.
9. In the last five years, there's been a burst of state efforts to deal with
already occurring climate impacts such as more frequent storms and rising sea
levels. They've ranged from elevating wastewater treatment plants to insulating
roads, building micro-grids for backup power or buying out homes in flood-prone
areas. New York, which has achieved 17 or 14% of its 121 goals, has a new law
(signed last month by Governor Andrew Cuomo) that requires state agencies to
consider climate impacts when approving the siting of hazardous waste
facilities, oil and gas drilling permits or other projects. It's using disaster
relief funds to buy out repeatedly flooded homes.”
The journal Seismological Research
Letters published a new
study Oct. 14 that connects some 400 micro-earthquakes in Harrison County,
Ohio, to hydraulic fracturing wells. The three wells operated from September
through October 2013 in the Utica Shale. Ten of the quakes registered between
magnitude 1.7 and magnitude 2.2, but the tremors were too deep to cause damage
or to be easily felt by people.
—————————
11. HOMELESS
STUDENTS IN RURAL NEW YORK STATE
By Liza
Frenette
You've
seen them: Students with drawn faces, grumbling bellies and repeat clothing. Or
maybe they're not as obvious; maybe they're withdrawn or sullen. But they are
here, in the classrooms, and beyond that, anywhere.
They
are homeless. And their numbers are growing. Nearly 110,000 New York State
students were homeless during the 2012-13 school year, according to State
Education Department (SED) figures. That's up 74% from 2007-08, the first year
of the Great Recession.
The
problem is becoming acute in the state's 26 designated rural counties, among
the poorest in the state, where shelters and services are severely limited and
schools are often the only lifeline.
In
St. Lawrence County, which borders Canada, the number of homeless students
spiked to a staggering 697 in 2012-13 from 193 just three years earlier.
At
the highest mark last year, the Parishville-Hopkinton school district had 46
temporarily housed students out of 460 pre-K-12 students.
"We
have so many homeless students," said school counselor and homeless
student liaison Melissa Scudder, a member of the Parishville-Hopkinton Teachers
Association. "There's so many different, sad reasons."
One
family's stark circumstances recently drew national attention. School staff
discovered the Wieczorek family — 11 members, including grandparents — living
in tents in the woods. The encampment was set up alongside the St. Regis River
on land the family owned....
Students
being temporarily housed throughout the state tallied 109,916 in 2012-13.
That's an increase of 46,794 from 2007-08, according to SED figures.
Families
may become homeless or temporarily housed if there is a divorce, a job loss, a
cut in hours at work or abuse. Many service jobs do not pay enough for parents
to afford rent and childcare. Some parents have mental health issues or
substance abuse problems.
And
some families have to leave their homes because of raunchy living conditions
created by landlords who won't take care of leaks or rodents.
For
a student identified as homeless, the roof overhead at night could be a
shelter, a motel, somewhere awaiting foster care placement, or "doubled up"
in shared housing — "couch surfing," said Ira Schwartz, SED assistant
commissioner in the Office of Accountability.
"Many
students who are homeless may have experienced trauma," he said.
"Having teachers aware of which students in their classrooms are living in
temporary housing better enables teachers to tailor their strategies, for
example, by incorporating trauma-sensitive approaches," Schwartz said....
[From
the Activist Newsletter: All told there are 220,000 homeless children in New
York State. Those not included in the school figure of 110,000 are either too
young for school, youthful dropouts, or simply overlooked.
[The
rural county description omits the state’s other 32 counties included in the
total of student homelessness. In upstate urban areas, Rochester City School
District has the highest number of homeless students — 1,820 in
2012-2013. That compares to 957 in Syracuse and 909 in Buffalo. More than
2,000 school-age children in the four-county Capital Region were classified as
homeless during the 2012-2013 year.
[The
number of homeless students in NYS is highest in New York City. In 2012-2013
the number rose to 76,816 — a jump of 16% over the previous year. Most of the
students share housing with another family, sleeping on couches or floors.
About 22,000 sleep in public shelters.]
—A
longer version of this article is the Sept.-Nov. issue of NYSUT United, the
magazine of New York State United Teachers.
—————————
12. U.S. AND JAPAN
UPGRADE MILITARY ALLIANCE
By the Activist
Newsletter
The
Obama Administration’s “pivot” to Asia has been slowed down by the continuing
eruptions in the Middle East, but it has moved forward in the effort to contain
China by revising its bilateral military cooperation guidelines with Japan.
 |
| Recent Tokyo protest against militarization. |
In
an interim agreement announced Oct. 8, “the new guidelines will not be confined
by geography, a major departure from the 1997 guidelines, and will emphasize
the ‘global nature’ of the Japan-U.S. military alliance,” according to the
Japan Times. Previously Tokyo was essentially confined to defending only Japan.
The
move is intended to transform Japan into a formidable military partner of the
United States throughout the region. Though greatly outnumbered by China in
terms of troop strength, Japan’s navy and air force are considered second only
to the U.S. in Asia.
According
to the Japan Times account: “The
overhauled guidelines will elaborate on cooperative efforts in cases where
Japan can resort to force based on the July 1 decision by the Cabinet to
reinterpret war-renouncing Article 9 of the Constitution. That decision paves
the way for Japan to exercise the right to collective self-defense, or aiding
an ally under military attack.
“Prime
Minister Shinzo Abe has stressed that Japan may use this right to support an
allied country — which would most likely be the United States — with ‘the
minimum necessary’ force when Japan’s vital interests are threatened.
“This
stance is a major departure from past government policy. The Constitution had
long been interpreted to prohibit Japan from using the right to collective
self-defense or sending troops overseas, except with United Nations
peacekeeping missions.”
Japan
“forever” renounced war after its defeat in World War II, but Tokyo began
rebuilding its shattered military machine decades ago, theoretically only for
self-defense. That’s changed now under the right wing Abe government, which has
accelerated the remilitarization of Japan and has removed the barrriers to
foreign wars.
—————————
13. THE U.S.,
CHINA, RUSSIA & EURASIA
 |
| Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Shanghai this year. |
A
specter haunts the fast-aging “New American Century”: the possibility of a
future Beijing-Moscow-Berlin strategic trade and commercial alliance. Let’s
call it the BMB.
Its
likelihood is being seriously discussed at the highest levels in Beijing and
Moscow, and viewed with interest in Berlin, New Delhi, and Tehran. But don’t
mention it inside Washington’s Beltway or at NATO headquarters in Brussels.
There, the star of the show today and tomorrow is the new Osama bin Laden:
Caliph Ibrahim, aka Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the elusive, self-appointed beheading
prophet of a new mini-state and movement that has provided an acronym
feast—ISIS/ISIL/IS—for hysterics in Washington and elsewhere.
No
matter how often Washington remixes its Global War on Terror, however, the
tectonic plates of Eurasian geopolitics continue to shift, and they’re not
going to stop just because American elites refuse to
accept
that their historically brief “unipolar moment” is on the wane. For them,
the closing of the era of “full spectrum dominance,” as the Pentagon likes to
call it, is inconceivable. After all, the necessity for the indispensable
nation to control all space—military, economic, cultural, cyber, and outer—is
little short of a religious doctrine. Exceptionalist missionaries
don’t do equality. At best, they do “coalitions of the willing” like the one
crammed with “over 40
countries”
assembled to fight ISIS/ISIL/IS and either applauding (and plotting) from the
sidelines or sending the odd plane or two toward Iraq or Syria.
NATO,
which unlike some of its members won’t officially fight
Jihadistan,
remains a top-down outfit controlled by Washington. It’s never fully bothered
to take in the European Union (EU) or considered allowing Russia to “feel”
European. As for the Caliph, he’s just a minor diversion. A postmodern cynic
might even contend that he was an emissary sent onto the global playing field
by China and Russia to take the eye of the planet’s hyperpower off the ball.
Divide
and Isolate
So
how does full spectrum dominance apply when two actual competitor powers,
Russia and China, begin to make their presences felt? Washington’s
approach to each—in Ukraine and in Asian waters—might be thought of as divide
and isolate.
In
order to keep the Pacific Ocean as a classic “American lake,” the Obama
administration has been “pivoting” back to Asia for several years now. This has
involved only modest military moves, but an immodest attempt to pit Chinese
nationalism against the Japanese variety, while strengthening alliances and
relations across Southeast Asia with a focus on South China Sea energy
disputes. At the same time, it has moved to lock a future trade agreement, the
Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), in place.
In
Russia’s western borderlands, the Obama administration has stoked the embers of
regime change in Kiev into flames (fanned by local cheerleaders Poland and the Baltic nations) and into what
clearly looked, to Vladimir Putin and Russia’s leadership, like an existential
threat to Moscow. Unlike the U.S., whose sphere of influence (and military
bases) are global, Russia was not to retain any significant influence in its
former near abroad, which, when it comes to Kiev, is not for most Russians,
“abroad” at all.
For
Moscow, it seemed as if Washington and its NATO allies were increasingly
interested in imposing a new Iron Curtain on their country from the Baltic to
the Black Sea, with Ukraine simply as the tip of the spear. In BMB terms, think
of it as an attempt to isolate Russia and impose a new barrier to relations
with Germany. The ultimate aim would be to split Eurasia, preventing future
moves toward trade and commercial integration via a process not controlled
through Washington.
From
Beijing’s point of view, the Ukraine crisis was a case of Washington crossing
every imaginable red line to harass and isolate Russia. To its leaders, this
looks like a concerted attempt to destabilize the region in ways favorable to
American interests, supported by a full range of Washington’s elite from
neocons and Cold War “liberals” to humanitarian interventionists in the Susan
Rice and Samantha Power mold. Of course, if you’ve been following the
Ukraine crisis from Washington, such perspectives seem as alien as any those of
any Martian. But the world looks different from the heart of Eurasia than
it does from Washington—especially from a rising China with its newly minted “Chinese dream” (Zhongguo
meng).
As
laid out by President Xi Jinping, that dream would include a future network of
Chinese-organized new Silk Roads that would create the equivalent of a
Trans-Asian Express for Eurasian commerce. So if Beijing, for instance, feels
pressure from Washington and Tokyo on the naval front, part of its response is
a two-pronged, trade-based advance across the Eurasian landmass, one prong via
Siberia and the other through the Central Asian “stans.”
In
this sense, though you wouldn’t know it if you only followed the American media
or “debates” in Washington, we’re potentially entering a new world. Once
upon a time not so long ago, Beijing’s leadership was flirting with the idea of
rewriting the geopolitical/economic game side by side with the U.S., while Putin’s
Moscow hinted at the possibility of someday joining NATO. No longer. Today, the
part of the West that both countries are interested in is a possible future
Germany no longer dominated by American power and Washington’s wishes.
Moscow
has, in fact, been involved in no less than half a century of strategic
dialogue with Berlin that has included industrial cooperation and increasing
energy interdependence. In many quarters of the Global South this has been
noted and Germany is starting to be viewed as “the sixth BRICS” power (after
Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa).
In
the midst of global crises ranging from Syria to Ukraine, Berlin’s geostrategic
interests seem to be slowly diverging from Washington’s. German industrialists,
in particular, appear eager to pursue unlimited commercial deals with Russia
and China. These might set their country on a path to global power
unlimited by the EU’s borders and, in the long term, signal the end of the era
in which Germany, however politely dealt with, was essentially an American
satellite.
It
will be a long and winding road. The Bundestag, Germany’s parliament, is still
addicted to a strong Atlanticist agenda and a preemptive obedience to
Washington. There are still tens of thousands of American soldiers on German
soil. Yet, for the first time, German chancellor Angela Merkel has been
hesitating when it comes to imposing ever-heavier sanctions on Russia over the
situation in Ukraine, because no fewer than 300,000 German jobs depend on
relations with that country. Industrial leaders and the financial establishment
have already sounded the
alarm,
fearing such sanctions would be totally counterproductive.
 |
| Beijing seeks to build a high speed rail connection to Europe. (Map: Yunus Emre Hatunoğlu) |
China’s
Silk Road Banquet
China’s
new geopolitical power play in Eurasia has few parallels in modern history. The
days when the “Little Helmsman” Deng Xiaoping insisted that the country “keep a
low profile” on the global stage are long gone. Of course, there are
disagreements and conflicting strategies when it comes to managing the
country’s hot spots: Taiwan, Hong Kong, Tibet, Xinjiang, the South China Sea,
competitors India and Japan, and problematic allies like North Korea and
Pakistan. And popular unrest in some Beijing-dominated “peripheries” is growing
to incendiary levels.
The
country’s number one priority remains domestic and focused on carrying out
President Xi’s economic reforms, while increasing “transparency” and fighting
corruption within the ruling Communist Party. A distant second is the question
of how to progressively hedge against the Pentagon’s “pivot” plans in the
region—via the build-up of a blue-water navy, nuclear submarines, and a
technologically advanced air force—without getting so assertive as to freak out
Washington’s “China threat”-minded establishment.
Meanwhile,
with the U.S. Navy controlling global sea lanes for the foreseeable future,
planning for those new Silk Roads across Eurasia is proceeding apace. The end
result should prove a triumph of
integrated infrastructure—roads, high-speed rail, pipelines, ports—that will
connect China to Western Europe and the Mediterranean Sea, the old Roman
imperial Mare Nostrum, in every imaginable way.
In
a reverse Marco Polo-style journey, remixed for the Google world, one key Silk
Road branch will go from the former imperial capital Xian to Urumqi in Xinjiang
Province, then through Central Asia, Iran, Iraq, and Turkey’s Anatolia, ending
in Venice. Another will be a maritime Silk Road starting from Fujian province
and going through the Malacca strait, the Indian Ocean, Nairobi in Kenya, and
finally all the way to the Mediterranean via the Suez canal. Taken together,
it’s what Beijing refers to as the Silk Road Economic Belt.
China’s
strategy is to create a network of interconnections among no less than five key
regions: Russia (the key bridge between Asia and Europe), the Central Asian
“stans,” Southwest Asia (with major roles for Iran, Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia,
and Turkey), the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe (including Belarus, Moldova, and
depending upon its stability, Ukraine). And don’t forget Afghanistan, Pakistan,
and India, which could be thought of as Silk Road plus.
Silk
Road plus would involve connecting the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar economic
corridor to the China-Pakistan economic corridor, and could offer Beijing
privileged access to the Indian Ocean. Once again, a total package—roads,
high-speed rail, pipelines, and fiber optic networks—would link the region to
China.
Xi
himself put the India-China connection in a neat package of images in an op-ed
he published in the Hindu prior to his
recent visit to New Delhi. “The combination of the ‘world’s factory’ and the
‘world’s back office,’” he wrote, “will produce the most competitive production
base and the most attractive consumer market.”
The
central node of China’s elaborate planning for the Eurasian future is Urumqi,
the capital of Xinjiang Province and the site of the largest commercial fair in
Central Asia, the China-Eurasia Fair. Since 2000, one of Beijing’s top
priorities has been to urbanize that largely desert but oil-rich province and
industrialize it, whatever it takes. And what it takes, as Beijing sees it, is
the hardcore Sinicization of the region—with its corollary, the suppression of
any possibility of ethnic Uighur dissent. People’s Liberation Army
General Li Yazhou has, in these terms, described Central Asia as “the most
subtle slice of cake donated by the sky to modern China.”
Most
of China’s vision of a new Eurasia tied to Beijing by every form of transport
and communication was vividly detailed in “Marching Westwards: The Rebalancing
of China’s Geostrategy,” a landmark 2012 essay published by scholar Wang Jisi
of the Center of International and Strategic Studies at Beijing University. As
a response to such a future set of Eurasian connections, the best the Obama
administration has come up with is a version of naval containment from the
Indian Ocean to the South China Sea, while sharpening conflicts with and
strategic alliances around China from Japan to India. (NATO is, of course, left
with the task of containing Russia in Eastern Europe.)
An
Iron Curtain vs. Silk Roads
The
$400 billion “gas deal of
the century,” signed by Putin and the Chinese president last May, laid the
groundwork for the building of the Power of Siberia pipeline, already under
construction in Yakutsk. It will bring a flood of Russian natural gas
onto the Chinese market. It clearly represents just the beginning of a
turbocharged, energy-based strategic
alliance
between the two countries. Meanwhile, German businessmen and industrialists
have been noting another emerging reality: as much as the final market for made-in-China
products traveling on future new Silk Roads will be Europe, the reverse also
applies. In one possible commercial future, China is slated to become Germany’s
top trading
partner
by 2018, surging ahead of both the U.S. and France.
A
potential barrier to such developments, welcomed in Washington, is Cold War
2.0, which is already tearing not NATO, but the EU apart. In the EU of this
moment, the anti-Russian camp includes Great Britain, Sweden, Poland, Romania,
and the Baltic nations. Italy and Hungary, on the other hand, can be counted in
the pro-Russian camp, while a still unpredictable Germany is the key to whether
the future will hold a new Iron Curtain or “Go East” mindset. For this,
Ukraine remains the key. If it is successfully Finlandized (with
significant autonomy for its regions), as Moscow has been proposing—a
suggestion that is anathema to Washington—the Go-East path will remain open. If
not, a BMB future will be a dicier proposition.
It
should be noted that another vision of the Eurasian economic future is also on
the horizon. Washington is attempting to impose a Transatlantic Trade and
Investment Partnership (TTIP) on Europe and a similar Trans-Pacific Partnership
(TPP) on Asia. Both favor globalizing American corporations and their aim
is visibly to impede the ascent of the BRICS economies and the rise of other
emerging markets, while solidifying American global economic hegemony.
Two
stark facts, carefully noted in Moscow, Beijing, and Berlin, suggest the
hardcore geopolitics behind these two “commercial” pacts. The TPP excludes
China and the TTIP excludes Russia. They represent, that is, the barely
disguised sinews of a future trade/monetary war. On my own recent
travels, I have had quality agricultural producers in Spain, Italy, and France
repeatedly tell me that TTIP is nothing but an economic version of NATO, the
military alliance that China’s Xi Jinping calls, perhaps wishfully, an
“obsolete structure.”
There
is significant resistance to the TTIP among many EU nations (especially in the
Club Med countries of southern Europe), as there is against the TPP among Asian
nations (especially Japan and Malaysia). It is this that gives the
Chinese and the Russians hope for their new Silk Roads and a new style of trade
across the Eurasian heartland backed by a Russian-supported Eurasian Union. To this, key
figures in German business and industrial circles, for whom relations with
Russia
remain essential, are paying close attention.
After
all, Berlin has not shown overwhelming concern for the rest of the
crisis-ridden EU (three recessions in five years). Via a much-despised
troika—the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the
European Commission—Berlin is, for all practical purposes, already at the helm
of Europe, thriving, and looking east for more.
Three
months ago, German chancellor Angela Merkel visited
Beijing.
Hardly featured in the news was the political acceleration of a potentially
groundbreaking project: an uninterrupted high-speed rail connection between
Beijing and Berlin. When finally built, it will prove a transportation and
trade magnet for dozens of nations along its route from Asia to Europe. Passing
through Moscow, it could become the ultimate Silk Road integrator for Europe
and perhaps the ultimate nightmare for Washington.
“Losing”
Russia
In
a blaze of media attention, the recent NATO summit in Wales yielded only a
modest “rapid reaction force” for deployment in any future Ukraine-like
situations. Meanwhile, the expanding Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a
possible Asian counterpart to NATO, met in Dushanbe, Tajikistan. In Washington
and Western Europe essentially no one noticed. They should have. There,
China, Russia, and four Central Asian “stans” agreed to add an
impressive set of new members: India, Pakistan, and Iran. The
implications could be far-reaching. After all, India under Prime Minister
Narendra Modi is now on the brink of its own version of Silk Road
mania. Behind it lies the possibility of a “Chindia” economic
rapprochement, which could change the Eurasian geopolitical map. At the
same time, Iran is also being woven into the “Chindia” fold.
So
the SCO is slowly but surely shaping up as the most important international
organization in Asia. It’s already clear that one of its key long-term
objectives will be to stop trading in U.S. dollars, while advancing the use of
the petroyuan and petroruble in the energy
trade. The U.S., of course, will never be welcomed into the organization.
All
of this lies in the future, however. In the present, the Kremlin keeps signaling
that it once again wants to start talking with Washington, while Beijing has
never wanted to stop. Yet the Obama administration remains myopically embedded
in its own version of a zero-sum game, relying on its technological and
military might to maintain an advantageous position in Eurasia. Beijing,
however, has access to markets and loads of cash, while Moscow has loads of
energy. Triangular cooperation between Washington, Beijing, and Moscow would
undoubtedly be—as the Chinese would say—a win-win-win game, but don’t hold your
breath.
Instead,
expect China and Russia to deepen their strategic partnership, while pulling in
other Eurasian regional powers. Beijing has bet the farm that the U.S./NATO
confrontation with Russia over Ukraine will leave Vladimir Putin turning east.
At the same time, Moscow is carefully calibrating what its ongoing
reorientation toward such an economic powerhouse will mean. Someday, it’s
possible that voices of sanity in Washington will be wondering aloud how the
U.S. “lost” Russia to China.
In
the meantime, think of China as a magnet for a new world order in a future
Eurasian century. The same integration process Russia is facing, for
instance, seems increasingly to apply to India and
other Eurasian nations, and possibly sooner or later to a neutral Germany as
well. In the endgame of such a process, the U.S. might find itself
progressively squeezed out of Eurasia, with the BMB emerging as a game-changer.
Place your bets soon. They’ll be called in by 2025.
—
Pepe Escobar is the roving correspondent for Asia Times (Hong Kong), an analyst for RT (Russia
Today) and contributor to TomDispatch, where this article was posted Oct. 5.
Nimble Books will publish his new book, “Empire of Chaos,” in November.
—————————
14. U.S. WAR
POLICIES CAN’T WIN IN THE MIDEAST
Islamic State militants atop a hill in the Syrian town of Kobani. (Aris Messinis/AFP/Getty Images)
By Andrew J. Bacevich
As
America’s efforts to “degrade and
ultimately destroy” Islamic State militants extend into
Syria,
Iraq War III has seamlessly morphed into Greater Middle East Battlefield XIV.
That is, Syria has become at least the 14th country in the Islamic world that
U.S. forces have invaded or occupied or bombed, and in which American soldiers
have killed or been killed. And that’s just since 1980.
Let’s
tick them off: Iran (1980, 1987-1988), Libya (1981, 1986, 1989, 2011), Lebanon
(1983), Kuwait (1991), Iraq (1991-2011, 2014-), Somalia (1992-1993, 2007-),
Bosnia (1995), Saudi Arabia (1991, 1996), Afghanistan (1998, 2001-), Sudan
(1998), Kosovo (1999), Yemen (2000, 2002-), Pakistan (2004-) and now Syria.
Whew.
With
our 14th front barely opened, the Pentagon foresees a campaign likely to last
for years. Yet even at this early date, this much already seems clear: Even if
we win, we lose. Defeating the Islamic
State
would only commit the United States more deeply to a decades-old enterprise
that has proved costly and counterproductive.
Back
in 1980, President Jimmy Carter touched things off when he announced that the
United States would use force to prevent the Persian Gulf from falling into the
wrong hands. In effect, with the post-Ottoman order created by European
imperialists — chiefly the British — after World War I apparently at risk, the
United States made a fateful decision: It shouldered responsibility for
preventing that order from disintegrating further. Britain’s withdrawal from
“east of Suez,” along with the revolution in Iran and the Soviet intervention
in Afghanistan, prompted Washington to insert itself into a region in which it
previously avoided serious military involvement.
At
the time, oil — not freedom, democracy or human rights — defined the principal
American interest, and stability was the goal. Military power offered the means
by which the United States hoped to attain that goal. Armed might would keep a
lid on things. The pot might simmer, but it wouldn’t boil over.
In
practice, however, whether putting boots on the
ground
or relying on missiles from above, subsequent U.S. efforts to promote stability
have tended to produce just the opposite. Part of the problem is that American
policymakers have repeatedly given in to the temptation to unleash a bit of
near-term chaos, betting that longer-term order will emerge on the other end.
Back
in Vietnam, this was known as burning down the village to save it. In the
Greater Middle East, it has meant dismantling a country with the aim of
erecting something more preferable — “regime change” as a prelude to “nation building.”
Unfortunately, the United States has proved considerably more adept at the
former than the latter.
 |
| Syrian man runs to escape military truck. |
Mostly,
coercive regime change has produced power vacuums. Iraq offers a glaring
example. Although studiously ignored by Washington, post-Gaddafi
Libya
offers a second. And unless the gods are in an exceptionally generous mood,
Afghanistan will probably become a third whenever U.S. and NATO combat troops
finally depart.
In
place of governing arrangements that Washington judged objectionable, the
United States has found itself coping with the absence of any effective
governments whatsoever. Instead of curbing bad behavior, spanking induced all
sorts of pathologies.
By
inadvertently sowing instability, the United States has played directly into
the hands of anti-Western radical Islamists intent on supplanting the
European-imposed post-Ottoman order with something more to their liking. This
is the so-called caliphate that Osama bin Laden yearned to create and that now
exists in embryonic form in the portions of Iraq and Syria that Islamic State
radicals control.
Want
to measure what America’s war for the Middle East has accomplished through its
first 13 iterations? The Islamic State has to rank prominently on any list of
achievements. If Iraq possessed minimally effective security forces, Islamic
State militants wouldn’t have a chance. But the Iraqi army we created won’t
fight, in considerable measure because the Iraqi government we created doesn’t
govern.
President
Obama did not initiate the long and varied sequence of military actions that
has produced this situation. Yet he finds himself caught in a dilemma. To give
the Islamic State a free hand is to allow proponents of the caliphate to
exploit the instability that U.S. efforts, some involving Obama himself, have
fostered. But to make Syria the latest free-fire zone in America’s never-ending
Middle East misadventure will almost surely prolong and exacerbate the agonies
that country is experiencing, with little ability to predict what consequences
will ensue.
Even
if U.S. and allied forces succeed in routing this militant group, there is
little reason to expect that the results for Syrians will be pretty — or that
the prospects of regional harmony will improve. Suppress the symptoms, and the
disease simply manifests itself in other ways. There is always another Islamic
State waiting in the wings.
Obama’s
bet — the same bet made by each of his predecessors, going back to Carter — is
that the skillful application of U.S. military might can somehow provide a way
out of this dilemma. They were wrong, and so is he.
We
may be grateful that Obama has learned from his predecessor that invading and
occupying countries in this region of the world just doesn’t work. The lesson
he will bequeath to his successor is that drone strikes and commando raids
don’t solve the problem, either.
We
must hope for victory over the Islamic State. But even if achieved, that
victory will not redeem but merely prolong a decades-long military undertaking
that was flawed from the outset. When the 14th campaign runs its course, the
15th will no doubt be waiting, perhaps in Jordan or in a return visit to some
unfinished battleground such as Libya or Somalia or Yemen.
Yet
even as the United States persists in its determination to pacify the Greater
Middle East, the final verdict is already in. U.S. military power has never
offered an appropriate response to whatever ails the Islamic world. We’ve
committed our troops to a fool’s errand.
And
worse, the errand is also proving unnecessary. With abundant North American
energy reserves now accessible — all that shale oil and fracked gas — we don’t
need the Persian Gulf oil that ostensibly made our post-1980 military exertions
imperative. For whatever reasons, Washington’s national security elites seem
oblivious to the implications these resources have for policy in the Middle
East.
No
matter how long it lasts, America’s war for the Greater Middle East will end in
failure. And when it does, Americans will discover that it was also
superfluous.
—Andrew
J. Bacevich, the George McGovern fellow at Columbia University’s School of
International and Public Affairs, is writing a history of U. S. military
involvement in the Greater Middle East.
— From Outlook, WP
—————————
15. IS YOUR PIZZA
TOPPED WITH ANIMAL CRUELTY?
By Mercy for
Animals
A new Mercy For Animals undercover investigation reveals appalling animal abuse
at a Leprino Foods dairy supplier. Leprino Foods is the world’s largest
mozzarella cheese producer and a supplier to virtually all of the major pizza
chains in the country, including Pizza Hut, Papa John’s, and Domino’s.
The shocking hidden-camera video footage shows:
· Workers viciously kicking and punching cows,
and stabbing them with screwdrivers, causing bloody wounds and injuries
· Cows being violently whipped in their faces and
bodies with chains and metal wires
· Workers maliciously shocking sick and injured
cows and dragging them with tractors
· Sick or injured cows suffering from open
wounds, infections, and injuries left to suffer without proper veterinary care
Treated as mere milk-producing machines, cows exploited and killed for
cheese used on pizzas endure lives of near constant misery and deprivation.
This has to stop!
The three minute video is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGc3samj8N8#t=47
To sign a petition calling on Leprino Foods to immediately implement
meaningful animal welfare policies, go to
—————————
16. RECOMMENDED: 2
VIDEOS, 1 FILM
1. It’s amazing the number of young people
involved in the environmental movement, especially climate change. If you
didn’t see the Sept. 30 half hour Bill Moyers and Company program on public TV
here is an opportunity to see and listen to his guest, an 18-year-old women
from Oregon named Kelsey Juliana, who is walking from west to east across
America to draw attention to climate change. It is inspiring.
2.
Marshall Islands poet Kathy
Jetnil-Kijiner read a poem, written for her seven month old daughter, to heads
of state and government today at the UN climate summit Sept.
23. First she makes a very brief speech,
then recites her moving poem. Her
country is one of the most vulnerable to climate change, as rising sea levels
threaten to submerge the low-lying coral atolls that make up the nationhttp://www.rtcc.org/2014/09/23/marshall-islands-poet-we-deserve-to-do-more-than-just-survive/#sthash.XOGxm6Nb.dpuf
3. The extraordinary Palestinian film “Omar,”
released earlier this year and nominated for an academy award, is now on DVD
available at Mid-Hudson and other libraries (waiting list) or Netflix. We
recommend it highly. It is very informative about how both sides interact
between the West Bank and Israel, where the action takes place and the
characters live. There are quite surprising elements and plot twists and a
dramatic ending. Here are some reviews:
NY Review of
Books: http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/mar/10/omar-decency-without-hope/
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