Songs of Blood and Sword & My Grumpy old friend

5 hours ago, I mentioned about Fatima Bhutto’s latest book. Early morning as it was, I had one unexpected visitor. Was this Fatima herself, no it was not her. Just go away and fancy her you lunatics She is in India promoting her book.

It was my grumpy old friend who travelled all the way long (i.e. just two streets away from house) to honor me of hosting him a breakfast. He made few points and without any comment, I am sharing them but I will get back to you after I have read the book. I have spent Rs.1395 after all, expansive isn’t it?

Raja Anwar gave a detailed brief about his time with Murtaza Bhutto and mentioned how badly he was treated by the comrade. No body has ever denied his claims; is this attempt to clean Murtaza’s dirt?

Fatima is true heir of Bhutto destiny, and she had the opportunity to lead from the front after Benazir’s demise. Has she (or her mother) done anything to mobilize Jialas? Many of those who had hopes from them feel betrayed. They could have started national movement and many could have followed them.

The book is written in English, Is this for local audience? Where many are poor, most of them can’t read national language. May be she wants to get international fame, and it’s supported by the fact that she is on international tour promoting her book. Her schedule means that she will not be back soon, is this her way of minting money and obviously opportunity to square her accounts with Zardari’s as well?

Fatima Bhutto is an Afghan born Pakistani poetess and writer. She studied at Columbia University, and the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. She currently writes columns for The Daily Beast, New Statesman and other publications. What does this introduction tell us, international credentials to lure world market?

Will she be coming back to her own people and make any difference? Or has she chosen her own path? She should have travelled in Pakistan for her book launch, before going abroad. Will Fatima Bhutto come to Kabirwala for her book launch, or she is also about big towns and large ceremonies.

A cry from the grave...

The long-awaited genocide trial of Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic is set to open in The Hague on Monday amid much uncertainty as to the impact of his intended boycott.

Charges against him include the massacre of more than 7,000 Muslim men and boys at the UN-protected enclave of Srebrenica in July 1995 -- the worst atrocity in Europe since World War II.

Please recite Surah Fatiha....

BBC – dirty work

I was disappointed with BBC earlier this year, when it refused to air aid for Ghaza. They wanted to be impartial: good for BBC, impartiality in favour of a beast who had blood of children.

Same broadcaster, but this time totally different act; BBC gave time to Nick Griffin of BNP. Nick Griffin is mentally retarded, self centred chap who happens to hate Muslims and against all of great British values of tolerance. He wants to kick immigrants out of the country, only whites' n colourless regime. My favourite moment from the program came when some Asian bloke said to Nick

You would be surprised how many people would have a whip-round to buy you a ticket and your supporters … to go to the South Pole. That's a colourless landscape, it would suit you fine.

Today's newspapers had all types of comments but for Peter Hain's statement summarised it…

The BBC should be ashamed of single-handedly doing a racist, fascist party the biggest favour in its grubby history. Our black, Muslim and Jewish citizens will sleep much less easily now the BBC has legitimised the BNP by treating its racist poison as the views of just another mainstream political party when it is so uniquely evil and dangerous.

Having done this dirty task, I am surprised to read that BBC is not ruling out the possibility of his return: for me, I gather that there is bigger plot behind this drama. BBC must have blessing of some invisible hand who wants to convey strong message to foreigners. Should they pack or fight back, is now one million dollar question?

Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Khamenei on western wish list…

Everyone loves Iran and this affection is now extended to Sayyid Ali Khamenei as well. Do they love Iran? No, they don't; you already know it.

Conspiracy mills started the story last week that Sayyid Ali Khamenei had met his God. Blogs, newspapers and emails discussed succession and cited the possible reason for delay in official announcement. Daily Telegraph, even manufactured ground realities and informed its readers that flag was down, television presenters were wearing black…in January 2007, world embraced the same news.

Later, Iranian supreme leader's office released a picture of the leader from an official meeting he held Saturday with Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade to disapprove the rumour. The dust is settled now, and his "well-wishers" must be slapping on their faces and banging their heads to the walls…

But why demise of Khamenei?

As guardian of Iran's revolution, he stayed put. After Ayatollah Khomeini's loss, country needed a true revolutionary and Sayyid proved that he was right choice. A lot of fuss was created on his clerical credentials, but he rose above all of this and led his nation in hard times. His presence is threat to everyone who thinks that they can topple regime. Only recently, Michael Jackson's death diverted focus from Iran to America, otherwise, we were reading every minute updates on latest situation after election. Even Mousavi won the elections; he had guardian council watching him.

God Bless Sayyid Ali Khamenei and I am praying for his long life. It doesn't matter, if I have different school of thought at all, but for me he is symbol of Islamic resistance.

Madness of western media…

Newspapers have been reporting that Lockerbie bomber is dead; sky news started this story in the day that Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi who was in critical condition had died. He was only recently released after which Scottish government came under immense pressure and brutal criticism on his discharge on compassionate grounds.

After denial from his lawyers, the claim was retracted.

Western media is spitting rumours for the past few days, who is the other victim, I will share tomorrow…I have no doubt that many media outlets are loosing creditability.

Did Italy pay to Taliban for safety?….

The world heard last week that Italy paid to Taliban for safety, The Times has started new debate. According to newspaper…

War, said Clausewitz, is the continuation of politics by other means. The Times reported this week on a distinctive political strategy adopted by Italy in the war in Afghanistan. Italian intelligence officers have paid money, amounting to tens of thousands of dollars, to the Taleban in protection money. Under the arrangement, neither side would attack the other. When the Italians were replaced by French troops in the Sarobi district of Afghanistan last year, the newcomers believed the region to carry only a low risk, as there had been only one Italian fatality in the previous year. But the Italians neglected to mention the payments. Within a month of their arrival, ten French soldiers were killed and 21 were wounded in a Taleban attack.

The Italian Government has furiously denied our report, including our statement that the US Ambassador submitted a formal complaint about Italian payments to local insurgents in Herat province. Opposition politicians in France are demanding explanations, and ought to receive them. We unreservedly stand by our account. Since its publication, a Taleban commander and two senior Afghan officials have confirmed that this strategy has been practised by Italian forces in this and other regions of Afghanistan.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article6878520.ece

Britain on spotlight…

Great Britain is on spotlight for all the right reasons, gori sarkar has done all the wrong things she could do to earn bad name and to strengthen Muslim reservations against UK. Yesterday, they decided to opt out of vote that endorsed Goldstone Report and declared Israel a war criminal. I am reading that it was mainly due to state of indecision. Writing in The Times, Richard Beeston slammed the government …

Many well-crafted arguments will no doubt emerge to justify the British indecision. There was not enough time to study the text, consult capitals, win concessions. In short, the British have pioneered a new form of diplomacy — "the dog ate my homework".

In another blow to government, the court has ordered to release secret US intelligence material on the former Guantánamo Bay detainee Binyam Mohamed. Binyam Mohammad wants to expose all the culprits in his torture saga, he said to BBC…

The public needs to know how far the involvement of the UK Government in my case is," he said. "There is information in there which I'm 99 per cent sure states that the US subcontracted the UK Government to do its dirty work."

Also, The Guardian revealed that "Government anti-terrorism strategy 'spies' on innocent". The government and police have repeatedly denied that the £140m programme is a cover for spying on Muslims in Britain. But sources directly involved in running Prevent schemes say it involves gathering intelligence about the thoughts and beliefs of Muslims who are not involved in criminal activity. Instances around the country include:

• In the Midlands, funding for a mental health project to help Muslims was linked to information about individuals being passed to the authorities.

• In a college in northern England, a student who attended a meeting about Gaza was reported by one lecturer as a potential extremist. He was found not to be.

• A nine-year-old schoolboy in east London, who was referred to the authorities after allegedly showing signs of extremism – the youngest case known in Britain. He was "deprogrammed" according to a source with knowledge of the case.

• Within the last month, one new youth project in London alleged it was being pressured by the Metropolitan police to provide names and details of Muslim youngsters, as a condition of funding. None of the young Muslims have any known terrorist history.

Many in US media skeptical of Obama's Nobel Prize

"Excessive praise can be unwelcome and embarrassing," noted The Los Angeles Times. "We endorsed him for the job, and we greatly prefer him to his predecessor. But it's difficult to see why he deserves the peace prize so soon after taking office. The Nobel committee didn't just embarrass Obama, it diminished the credibility of the prize itself."

The Washington Post, another newspaper that had endorsed Obama for president, was equally skeptical. "It's an odd Nobel Peace Prize that almost makes you embarrassed for the honoree," said the Post editorial. "In blessing President Obama, the Nobel Committee intended to boost what it called his 'extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.'

The Wall Street Journal, a conservative newspaper, said in an editorial that its reaction was "bemusement" at the Nobel Committee, which the paper said was "anticipating the heroic concessions that it believes Mr. Obama will make to secure treaties that will produce a new era of global serenity." "We all have at least three more years to learn if Mr. Obama will fulfill the audacity of hope that the Nobel Committee has put on him to bow to the values of the world's 'majority,'" the paper opined. Link

Obama – Nobel Peace Prize

"The killer walks away with prize" was the message I received shortly after the announcement. Only on Thursday night, we joked that Bush would be the winner for this year. Another friend said that Bush & Blair should be given this as both of them were war criminals and they would never be tried. Committee should reward them for killing innocent and unarmed civilians. The world is divided on the rewarded and international press has mix response. Personally, I like President Obama for his pragmatic and balanced approach. He is US president and his policies reflect struggle for hegemony of state. His campaign was brilliant and I persuaded many friends in America to leave their homes and to vote for him.

In Pakistan, we were happy on his election but we forgot that he was elected Supreme Commander of United States not for Pakistan. He inherited debt, war and broken society, that's also true. We were also wrong in assuming him our saviour. Being a Muslim, I believe that God is my Saviour. Huge expectation world had on President Obama, and this Nobel Prize only seconds it. What international press thinks, I will share later but I am glad that he has got it.

In my view, its slap on those faces as well, who have yet accept the reality of non-white president. Still in many quarters, a strong hatred and racism remains bitter truth.

Congratulation – Mr. President, you deserved itJ

 

Tony Blair – the War criminal

I'm not shaking your hand; you've got blood on it. I understand soldiers go to war and die but they have to go to war for a good reason and be properly equipped to fight.

I believe Tony Blair is a war criminal. I can't bear to be in the same room as him. I can't believe he's been allowed to come to this reception. It comes back to me every day, every time I see a coffin come off a plane; it reminds me of what happened to Shaun (his son).

.....Peter Brierley, father of British Soldier who was killed on active duty ahead of the Iraq War

One in four people is Muslim, says study

Islam may be most closely associated with the Middle East, where it emerged in Arabia in the seventh century, but today the region is home to only one in five of the world's Muslims, according to a study of the religion's global distribution. The world's Muslim population stands at 1.57 billion, meaning that nearly one in four people practise Islam, according to the US Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, which published the survey. This compares to 2.25 billion Christians. The top five Muslim countries in the world include only one in the Middle East ‑ Egypt ‑ behind Indonesia, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, in that order. Russia, the survey shows, has more Muslims than the populations of Libya and Jordan combined. Germany has more Muslims than Lebanon. China has a bigger Muslim population than Syria. The work, the largest of its kind, was the result of three years of research examining data from 232 countries and territories.

The portrait it provides of Islam's distribution could have a profound influence on public policy in the west, and on attempts by the US, British and other governments to reach out to Muslims. Extrapolating the figures from the survey, the Islam that is largely practised around the world, particularly in large swaths of Asia, is more moderate and integrated than its stereotypical characterisation as an often militant and intolerant faith. The reality, as described by Mapping the Global Muslim Population, is that two out of three Muslims are Asians, while the 38 million Muslims in Europe, if treated as a separate group, would be the ninth largest in the world, behind Turkey, with a population of 71 million, and ahead of Algeria, with 34 million.

Significantly, one in five of Muslims now lives in a country where they are represented as a religious minority, with three-quarters of that number concentrated in five countries: India (161 million), Ethiopia (28 million), China (22 million), Russia (16 million) and Tanzania (13 million). The survey also attempted to quantify the relative sizes of the two main branches of Islam - Sunni and Shia - but came up against the difficulty that many national demographers did not distinguish between the two. It ended up suggesting that Shias, concentrated largely in four countries including Iran and Pakistan, probably made up between 10 and 13% of Muslims.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/08/muslim-population-islam-survey

Not content with

Not content with bombing the shit out of Muslim countries, the yanks have just dropped a bomb on the moon. Rumour has it they had intelligence that Bin Laden was hiding up out there!!! (A text received from a friend after US experiment on moon today)

Berlusconi, Immunity & NRO

Ever wondered, why Europe is second name for peace, prosperity & tranquillity. I am watching news on CNN and something has come up which is unbelievable. Italian court rules Berlusconi's immunity law unconstitutional, which means Italian prime minister could be tried for bribe, corruption and fraud. According to The Guardian newspaper, "The decision represented a severe blow for the prime minister, already struggling to contain the damage from a lurid sex and drugs scandal in which he was accused of using the services of prostitutes." 

The newspaper further noted; "Today's ruling marked the second time in five years that Italy's most august tribunal had rejected an attempt by the right to put its leader above the law. Initial reports said that the judges had reached their decision because a constitutional reform was needed, and the government had used a routine law. As Berlusconi's lawyers acknowledged in their pleading to the court, the immunity act represented a breach in the constitutional principle that all Italians were equal before the law."

This decision comes in a time, when we have many mainstream politicians who are the beneficiary of NRO. Is President immune from trail? It's not my place to comment. I would also like to know the motives of these cases, as in Pakistan political victimisation has been shameful reality. Having said that there is lesson for us, that no matter, how much our illiterate clerics teach hatred against Europe, they have better justice than us.

Shame on us, no need to explain the shame and disgrace….

Pakistan Army & Taliban: who is more brutal?

For the past few days, a 9-10 minute YouTube clip is being viewed many times where jawans from Pakistan Army are torturing a Pashtun family. It's shame that men in uniform have shown no mercy to the poor. On the other hand, Taliban have proved to be ruthless murderers. However, two wrongs don't make one right. There is need for national reconciliation and serious investigation. I will later write in detail.

Soot clouds pose threat to Himalayan glaciers

Glaciers in the Himalayas and the Tibetan plateau that feed the river systems of almost half the world's people are melting faster because of the effects of clouds of soot from diesel fumes and wood fires, according to scientists in India and China. The results, to be announced this month in Kashmir, show for the first time that clouds of soot – made up of tiny particles of "black carbon" emitted from old diesel engines and from cooking with wood, crop waste or cow dung – are "unequivocally having an impact on glacial melting" in the Himalayas. Scientists say that, while the threat of carbon dioxide to global warming has been accepted, soot from developing countries is a largely unappreciated cause of rising temperatures. Once the black carbon lands on glaciers, it absorbs sunlight that would otherwise be reflected by the snow, leading to melting. "This is a huge problem which we are ignoring," said Professor Syed Hasnain of the Energy and Resources Institute (Teri) in Delhi. "We are finding concentrations of black carbon in the Himalayas in what are supposed to be pristine, untouched environments." The institute has set up two sensors in the Himalayas, one on the Kholai glacier that sits on the mountain range's western flank in Kashmir and the other flowing through the eastern reaches in Sikkim. Glaciers in this region feed most of the major rivers in Asia. The short-term result of substantial melting is severe flooding downstream. Hasnain says India and China produce about a third of the world's black carbon, and both countries have been slow to act. "India is the worst. At least in China the state has moved to measure the problem. In Delhi no government agency has put any sensors on the ground. [Teri] is doing it by ourselves." In August this year Yao Tandong, director of China's Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, projected "a 43% decrease in glacial area by 2070", adding that "more and more scientists have come to recognise the impact of black carbon in glacial melting". Black carbon's role has only recently been recognised – it was not mentioned as a factor in the UN's major 2007 report on climate change –but this month the UN environment programme called for cuts in black carbon output. In November it will publish a report stating that 50% of the emissions causing global warming are from non-CO2 pollutants.

The Lying Game: Drum-beating for War against Iran

by John Pilger

In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger compares the current drum-beating for war against Iran, based on a fake "nuclear threat", with the manufacture of a sense of false crisis that led to invasion of Iraq and the deaths of 1.3 million people.

In 2001, the Observer in London published a series of reports that claimed an “Iraqi connection” to al-Qaeda, even describing the base in Iraq where the training of terrorists took place and a facility where anthrax was being manufactured as a weapon of mass destruction. It was all false. Supplied by US intelligence and Iraqi exiles, planted stories in the British and US media helped George Bush and Tony Blair to launch an illegal invasion which caused, according to the most recent study, 1.3 million deaths.

Across Europe, the left loses political clout

Pity Europe's Socialists. It's getting lonely on the left. Just when you might think capitalism's global crisis would breathe new life into the left, it's looking increasingly divided and tired. The reelection of Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany a week ago is highlighting a conservative surge in her country and Europe's other powerhouse economies - Britain, France, and Italy - where the center-right is either firmly in power or about to get there.

Much of the answer lies in the nature of modern European politics, where even the most ardent conservatives can still embrace social welfare policies that would seem leftist to Americans. And in recent years, European center-right parties have mastered a certain political alchemy in co-opting some of the left's best ideas. The result is that what would be hot-button issues in the United States - abortion, gun control, gay rights, or state-guaranteed health care - have long ceased to rile voters in Europe.

Conservatives "have taken a page right out of Bill Clinton's playbook, and that's triangulation,'' said Heather Conley, a Europe scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. Clinton brought the US Democrats toward more laissez-faire economic policies, as did Britain's Tony Blair when his Labor Party ousted the Tories in 1997. Now European conservatives have done it in reverse - "taken the socialist agenda and claimed it as their own,'' Conley said.

The left's slide began well before the global recession discredited the right's faith in free markets and light regulation. The surprise, to some, is that Europeans seem to have more faith in conservatives to solve the crisis. "In times of insecurity, the right has credibility,'' said Enrico de Bernart, a 43-year-old man window-shopping near the Pantheon in Rome. "People trust the right or center-right even if you don't like their objectives.''

The Financial Times of London had another explanation: The left was in power for a decade in Britain and Germany, and it was then, voters believe, that the seeds of the financial meltdown were planted. The right has also profited by pounding hard on immigration and crime - popular in times of economic uncertainty - while sending out reassuring messages about preserving Europe's generous welfare systems.

Analysts insist the social safety net isn't in jeopardy. "The lesson that Europe has taken a year after the collapse of Lehman Brothers is that the safety net cushioned the most extreme effects of the recession,'' Conley said. "Our social system is not under threat at all,'' added Ghislaine Robinson, a French national who is spokeswoman for the Party of European Socialists, the left-leaning bloc in the European Parliament.

The left can take some comfort from having been reelected in Portugal last month, and it's expected to win today's election in Greece. Socialists are also in power in Spain, a major European economy. But conservatives have deposed the left in Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, and Switzerland. And in smaller countries where the center-left clings to power - Austria, Hungary, the Netherlands, and Norway - its hold seems shaky at best.

Its most dramatic humiliation was its trouncing in Germany. The Social Democrats were swept from government after 11 years - falling victim to Merkel's studied pragmatism and a campaign that made vague promises of modest tax relief while taking care not to do anything that might scare voters.

Merkel "succeeded perfectly in shrouding in fog what she wants,'' said Stefan Reinecke, a commentator for the left-leaning Tageszeitung daily. The left, by contrast, had never really recovered from the labor reforms and welfare state cuts that former chancellor Gerhard Schroeder pushed through in 2003 in his own experiment with triangulation.

"http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2009/10/04/across_europe_the_left_loses_clout/">http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2009/10/04/across_europe_the_left_loses_clout/

Two million slum children die every year as India booms

India's growing status as an economic superpower is masking a failure to stem a shocking rate of infant deaths among its poorest people. Nearly two million children under five die every year in India – one every 15 seconds – the highest number anywhere in the world. More than half die in the month after birth and 400,000 in their first 24 hours.

Samuel P. Huntington dies

Samuel P. Huntington - a longtime Harvard University professor, an influential political scientist, and mentor to a generation of scholars in widely divergent fields - died Dec. 24 on Martha's Vineyard. He was 81.

He was famous for his book, “The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order”. The work proved to be controversial and scholars around the world had different opinions on it.

Christopher Caldwell wrote in Financial Times on January 3 2009 in his article titled, “Huntington's disputed legacy”

Samuel Huntington, the Harvard political scientist who popularised the expression "clash of civilisations", died on Christmas eve at age 81. Obituaries have been evenly divided about whether he outlived the world he described. The phrase was coined by Bernard Lewis, the scholar of Islam, in 1990, but it was Huntington's essay of that name, published in 1993, that encapsulated the world after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

"The fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic," Huntington wrote. "The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural."

The early 1990s presented fresh data that did not conform to the cold war rubrics, including the break-up of Yugoslavia, wars in the Caucasus, China's rapid industrialisation, the first Iraq war and the destruction of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya. Huntington's thesis was an admirably simple explanation. But after terrorists attacked the World Trade Center in 2001 and western coalitions invaded Afghanistan and Iraq it was used in ways that were simplistic. Half the world hailed Huntington as having foreseen the conflict between Islam and the west and half mistook him for a promoter of it.

Huntington's opponents did not have an alternative idea of where conflicts would arise from. They had the hope - which they tended to mistake for an analysis - that there would be no conflicts at all, because humanity was converging on some uniform set of cultural values. Huntington was sceptical. "The very phrase 'the world community'," he wrote, "has become the euphemistic collective noun (replacing 'the free world') to give global legitimacy to actions reflecting the interests of the United States and other western powers." Human rights were western provincialism masquerading as universalism. What Huntington saw less clearly was that, while universalism might be an illusion, it was an illusion with a constituency?

Huntington focused on civilisations (Arab, Chinese, western, eastern Orthodox and so on) rather than cities or nations or tribes because they were "the broadest level of identification with which [a person] intensely identifies". That has been true for most of history, but in the era of globalisation an alternative level of identification emerged (or re-emerged): that of class. The new global "leadership class", which developed first in Europe and then spread to the business and governmental classes of even the poor nations, followed the pattern of the US social system and was accessible in similar ways - through education and self-promotion. Paradoxically, these global elites identify more readily with suffering humanity than humanity itself does, because elites feel they can speak on humanity's behalf and wield power in its name. For a peasant to proclaim himself a member of "humanity" is to efface and subordinate himself. For a member of an elite it is to exalt himself.

Huntington sometimes believed that elites were becoming more diverse. "A de-westernisation and indigenisation of elites is occurring in many non-western countries," he wrote, "at the same time that western, usually American, cultures, styles and habits become more popular among the mass of the people."

That was true in Iran and somewhat true in France. It may become more true in coming years if western economies weaken relative to Asian ones. But in recent years, elites have become more homogeneous. Sometimes Huntington acknowledged this. Almost everywhere, he noted, the International Monetary Fund was more popular among finance ministers than among peoples.

Huntington never arrived at a general explanation of how globalisation got transmitted through (and disrupted) individual nations' class systems. Perhaps no such explanation was possible. But without one, it was unclear to many of Huntington's readers whether the centrepiece of western diplomacy, spreading democracy, would avert inter-civilisational violence or incite it. Most assumed Huntington thought the former. In fact, he consistently thought the latter. The book that made his reputation, Political Order in Changing Societies (1968), argued that liberalisation was not an automatic route to either prosperity or peace and could indeed bring penury and violence.

In The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (1996), Huntington noted that no sentence in his 1993 essay had aroused more controversy than: "Islam has bloody borders." To him, this was an empirical statement, not a judgment on Islam's merits as a civilisation and still less an argument for western meddling.

Anyway, the west's increasing entanglement with Islam has not been the result of an increasing enmity. On the contrary. Viewed from Orthodox Christian civilisation, in Chechnya, Bosnia and Kosovo the west took the Muslims' side. It is curious that the west has shown so little inclination to ask whether it did not perhaps back the wrong horse. Western policy towards Islam did considerably more to produce Vladimir Putin than it did to produce Osama bin Laden.

It is bizarre that The Clash of Civilizations has been taken in some quarters as "orientalist" or "imperialist" or even as an endorsement, avant la lettre , of the Bush administration's efforts to reorder the Middle East through political liberalisation. The Iraq war was the supreme expression of the belief that Islamic civilisations are not different from western ones in any fundamental way. It was the expression not of a hard-headed doctrine but of a woolly-minded one and, as such, a repudiation of ideas Huntington held his whole life.

A Bone in America's Throat

A Bone in America's Throat
By JEFF HALPER

Even before the voting began, Israeli politicians and pundits were asking: Will an Obama Administration be good for Israel? “Be good for Israel” is our code for “Will the US allow us to keep our settlements and continue to support our efforts to prevent negotiations with the Palestinians from ever bearing fruit?” For Americans the question should be: Will the Obama Administration understand that without addressing Palestinian needs it will not be able to disentangle itself from its broader Middle Eastern imbroglios, rejoin the community of nations and rescue its economy?

The Israel-Palestine conflict should be of central concern to Americans, near the top of the new Administration’s agenda. It may not be the bloodiest conflict in the world – its minor when compared to Iraq – but it is emblematic to Muslims and to peoples the world over of American hostility and belligerence. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not merely a localized one between two squabbling tribes. It lies at the epicenter of global instability. Go where you may in the world and you will encounter the same phenomenon: a sense that the suffering of the Palestinians represents all that is wrong in an American-dominated world.

As Obama comes into office, he will encounter a global reality very different from that of eight years before: a multilateral one in which a weakened and isolated US must find its place. He will discover that much of America’s isolation comes from the view that the Occupation of the Palestinian territories is, in fact, an American-Israeli Occupation. If restoring a weakened American economy depends on repairing relations with the rest of the world, he will learn that without resolving the Israeli-Palestine conflict he will not create those conditions in which the US will be accepted once more into the wider global community.

To be more specific, the Israel-Palestine conflict directly affects Americans in at least five ways:

• It isolates the US from major global markets, forcing it to embark on aggressive measures to secure markets rather than peaceful accommodation;

• It thereby diverts the American economy into non-productive production (tanks not roads), making it dependent upon deficit spending which only increases dependency upon foreign financing while diverting resources into the military rather than into education, health and investment;

• Support for the Israeli military costs US taxpayers more than $3 billion annually at a time of deepening recession and crumbling national infrastructure;

• It leads to an American involvement in the world that is mainly military, thus begetting hostility and resistance which produce the threats to security Americans so greatly fear; and

• It ends up threatening American civil liberties by encouraging such legislation as the Patriot Act and by introducing Israeli “counterinsurgency” tactics and weaponry developed in the West Bank and Gaza into American police forces.

For many peoples of the world, the Palestinians represent the plight of the majority. They are the tiny grains of sand resisting what most Americans and privileged people of the West do not see. They are a people who are denied the most fundamental right: to a state of their own, even on the 22% of historic Palestine that Israel has occupied since 1967. For the majority of humanity that lives in economic and political conditions unimaginable in the West, the suffering caused by Israel’s occupation – impoverishment and a total denial of freedom that can only be sustained by total American support – is emblematic of their own continued suffering. Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians with the active backing of the US shows demonstrably the existence of a global system of Western domination that prevents others from achieving their own dreams of political and economic well-being.

Like a bone in the throat, the issue of Israel’s occupation can be neither ignored nor by-passed. If it is not addressed, the US – even under Obama – will remain mired in conflicts with Muslim peoples, will continue to be reviled by peoples seeking genuine freedom and will not find the security and even the prosperity it so craves. We live in a global reality, not a Pax Americana. The logic of the Bush Administration has run its course. No longer can the US throw its weight around in a War Against Terror. No longer can its involvement be purely military. The new logic that will accompany Obama into office can be summarized in one word: accommodation. And the US will not get to first base until it achieves accommodation with the Muslim world, which means ending the Israeli Occupation. What happens to the Palestinians takes on a global significance. Clearing the bone in the throat – that is, ending the Israeli Occupation and allowing the Palestinians a state and a future of their own – should be a top priority of the next American administration. Indeed, America’s attempt to restore its standing in the world depends on it. In the global reality in which we live, the fate of Americans and Palestinians, it turns out, are closely intertwined.

Jeff Halper is the Director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions. He can be reached at jeff@icahd.org.


http://www.counterpunch.org/halper11102008.html