Walmart, Carrefour, IKEA
"Oh, Allah, where's my soul? Where's my son?"
"I want the factory owner to be hanged. For him, many have died, many have gone."
Distraught mother, Sabina Yasmine, Dhaka, Bangladesh
The price is right. The salaries of workers whose workplace experience in the four thousand clothing manufacturing factories
located within Bangladesh to provide the West with cheap clothing is sufficiently low that the clothing they produce and provide to big box stores like Walmart, can be offered to a wealthy-by-comparison Western public at a price they demand.
After the turn of the 20th Century in Canada and in the United States apparel manufacturers were notorious for paying pittances to women sitting long hours at sewing machines, kept virtual prisoners on the factory floor, unable to leave for bathroom breaks, unable to leave the locked-door premises until the floor supervisor gave the signal that would release them at the end of the day.
Their wages were low, their working conditions abysmal, their healthy and safety completely overlooked until there were too many incidents of fires raging through the fire-trap factories and young women dying because doors were locked and they were unable to escape. It was only when public dismay turned to anger and revolt that workplace laws were passed to prevent such carnage.
Bangladesh is a poor country of impoverished people, struggling to live out their lives as best they can. Their large and capable workforce of young, energetic people
is deployed to produce inexpensive garments for the West, sold in those emporiums of cheap products at low prices like Walmart and other similar retailers.
But it isn't just the inexpensive garments that are produced in Bangladesh. Name-recognition and celebrity products are big business in the West, and so i
s profit. Which makes an alliance between name-brand entrepreneurs and the factories located in Bangladesh that will produce those expensive clothing lines at a price that guarantees the elite clothiers will make a tidy profit with every sale
so essential to the bottom line.
Because of the advent of a Western social conscience and new demands protesting child labour and unsafe and unhealthy labour conditions, the buyers in the West have been made fully aware that more is expected of them if they are to defend themselves against charges of child- and slave-labour to produce their garments.
Over one hundred and twenty people, mostly women, died in the latest fire that took place in a multi-storey garment factory outside of the capital Dhaka. The eight-storey factory operated by Tazreen Fashions, a sub-group of the Tuba Group, started in the first-floor warehouse facilities of the factory. The fire swiftly spread upward to the eight floors above the warehouse.
Locked doors, narrow corridors and three staircases that led from the first floor where the fire raged, up to the succeeding floors meant that panic reigned and people fled to the roof of the building from where they were rescued. Those who remained trapped inside the building were in no need of rescue, they were dead, burned so badly as to be unrecognizable.
Sabina Yasmine saw the body of her daughter-in-law, dead in the fire, laid out among the neat rows of the dead, victims of unsafe working facilities whom an assessment labelled "high risk" for safety. She was unable to find out where her son, still missing, ended up; both he and his wife worked in the same factory, while Sabina Yasmine worked in another factory.
Fire Department operations director Major Mohammad Mahbub said most of the victims had been trapped inside the factory, with no emergency exits leading outside the building. They died in the inferno that took away their livelihood.
Labels: Culture, Economy, Human Rights, Marketing, Misadventure, Political Realities, Political Realities Middle East, Security, Tragedy
The Washington Post
(The Washington Post. Published on July 14, 2012)
This week’s violence between Israel and Gaza is three things:
complicated, confusing and important. As a result, you might have found
yourself wondering what it’s all about but too caught up in the
minute-to-minute news cycle to grasp the basics. So, here is some
essential background on the questions you may have nagging at you. Read
it and consider yourself equipped for Thanksgiving dinner debates.
First, a disclaimer: History looms large in the Israel-Palestine
conflict. For every one incident, there are decades of Israeli and
Palestinian histories that inform both sides’ interpretation of that
incident and its deeper meaning. For practical purposes, this list is
limited to simple, surface-level explanations.
1. What is the Gaza Strip?
The Gaza Strip is a small Palestinian territory, about twice the size
of the District of Columbia, located along the Mediterranean coast
between Egypt and Israel. Palestinians are ethnic Arab and majority
Muslim. It is deeply impoverished, kept in isolation by the Israeli
military and ruled by Hamas, an anti-Israeli terrorist group.
2. Whoa! How did that happen?
In 1948, the United Nations declared that the British territory known
as Palestine would be divided into two independent countries: Israel
and Palestine. Arab leaders rejected the declaration and invaded to
maintain a unified, independent, Arab Palestine. They lost, and by the
time fighting ended, Israel controlled even more of the land than the
U.N. declaration had granted the new country. One of the areas still
under Palestinian control was the Gaza Strip. Israel occupied the
territory in 1967, after another war with Arab states but withdrew its
troops and settlers in 2005. Israel still maintains
extremely tight restrictions on
trade in and out of Gaza, which has a 40 percent unemployment rate.
Thirty-eight percent of Gazans live under the poverty line. Gaza is not
an independent country.
3. Who is Hamas, and why do they hate Israel?
Hamas is an Islamist militant group based in Gaza, where it won a
2006 U.S.-backed election. The United States and other countries
designate it as a terrorist group. It formed in 1987 as a “resistance”
group,
pledging to destroy Israel and
replace it with an all-Palestinian state. It has since significantly
softened its demands to an independent Palestinian state along the 1967
borders (more on this later), but it still does not formally recognize
Israel as a legitimate country and still commits violent acts against
Israeli troops and civilians. It also provides a number of important
social services in Gaza.
4. Got it. So I see that Israel and Hamas are fighting. Who started it?
There is no simple answer to this question; the back-and-forth
extends back decades (see above), so let’s start with this year. Hamas
regularly fires unguided rockets into nearby areas of southern Israel.
Though they rarely kill Israelis, they terrorize the largely civilian
neighborhoods and generally make life unpleasant. Last Wednesday, Israel
launched an airstrike to kill a senior Hamas military commander, which
set off the series of Israeli airstrikes on Gaza and significantly
accelerated Hamas rocket attacks into Israel. Some analysts fear a
repeat of the 2008 fighting, which escalated into a full ground war.
5. Wait, this happened before? Why is it repeating?
Yes. Operation Cast Lead (Israel’s name for it) culminated in a
January 2009 Israeli ground invasion of Gaza, which resulted in 13
Israeli deaths and either 1,417 or 1,166 Palestinian deaths, depending
on Palestinian or Israeli sources. Some analysts describe Israel’s
strategy toward Hamas as “mowing the grass”: instead of finding a
long-term solution, in this thinking, Israel would attack Gaza every few
years or so to cut down their ability to terrorize Israelis. Hamas, for
its part, does not seem to have changed strategies either.
6. Wow, that’s depressing. Why don’t Israel and Palestine just become independent countries?
Because they can’t agree where to draw the borders. Let’s go back to
that 1967 war. Before it started, Israel controlled everything except
Gaza and the West Bank, which today are the two Palestinian territories.
At the end of it, Israel occupied both Palestinian territories, plus a
small piece of Syrian land, the Golan Heights. The Obama administration
has called for a peace deal in which Israel and Palestine would adopt
the pre-war 1967 borders, with mutually agreed land swaps
based on changing circumstances since then. Palestinian groups also
accept this. A big hurdle comes from Israeli settlers: Almost half a
million Israelis have gradually moved into parts of the West Bank. That
U.S. peace plan also calls for “land swaps” between Israel and Palestine
to keep a number of those Israeli settler communities within Israel’s
borders. Palestinians in Gaza don’t have a state, Hamas is committed to
firing rockets at Israeli civilians, and Israel is committed to keeping
Hamas weak and deterred, in part through periodic military campaigns.
7. This is getting complicated. I hear a lot about Iran. What’s their role?
Though Iran does not border Israel or Gaza, and though its population
is majority ethnic Persian rather than Arab (most Iranians also follow a
different sect of Islam than do Palestinians), Iran helps to fund and
arm Hamas, as well as other anti-Israeli groups. Depending on whom you
ask, Iran either helps Hamas because it is committed to Israel’s
destruction, because it sees this as a way to project its influence in
the region, or because it fears an Israeli or American attack and uses
Hamas as a deterrent. One of the things that Iran gives Hamas is
special, longer-range rockets called Fajr-5. The Iranian rockets can
feasibly reach major Israeli cities,
although because they are unguided, and because Israel has advanced
missile defense technology funded by the Obama administration, that
threat is reduced.
8. I also hear people mention Egypt. Whose side is it on?
In a way, the Arab world’s most populous country is on both sides,
and has been since striking a historic, U.S.-brokered peace treaty with
Israel in 1979. Remember that Egypt shares a border with western Israel
and Gaza. Egypt administers a single border crossing into Gaza, at
Rafah, which has alternated between opened and closed. Since last year’s
Egyptian revolution ousted the reliably pro-U.S. dictator Hosni
Mubarak, much of the world has been watching to see how the populist,
democratically elected, Islamist-leaning President Mohamed Morsi would
handle Egypt’s traditional role mediating between Gaza and Israel, and
whether he would betray greater sympathy toward Hamas. So far, Morsi
seems to be emphasizing solidarity with Gazans but, broadly, is pushing
for peace.
9. That was too much text, so I scrolled to the bottom to find out the big take-away from all this. What’s going to happen?
No one is sure if the fighting will lead to a repeat of the 2008 ground war or will end with another uneasy cease-fire. But
many analysts say that,
in the end, the violence will likely not have brought either Israelis
or Gazans any closer to peace. And they worry that both Israel and Gaza
are following short-term policies detrimental to long-term progress.
It’s not exactly status quo for Israel-Palestine, but it doesn’t look
like a dramatic shift, either.
Correction: This post initially described a
two-state solution along the 1967 boundaries with land swaps as
“long-standing U.S. policy.” In fact, President Obama’s May 2011
statement that “the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on
the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps” was a significant shift in
U.S. policy. As the Post’s own Glenn Kessler demonstrated in
a post on the controversy that Obama’s speech generated,
previous administrations had not treated the 1967 lines as the
starting-point for negotiations. The post has been updated to reflect
this.
Labels: Gaza, Hamas, Israel, Middle East, Palestinian Authority, Political Realities Middle East, United States, Viewpoint
Boycotting Richard Falk
Richard Falk, long recognized as a biased United Nations special investigator has turned a new tack, this time lending his voice, his 'neutral' position, his experience and political leanings to the boycott of Israel-produced goods. It is his considered opinion that international businesses "engaged in profit-making" within 'Israeli settlements', should withdraw themselves forthwith.
He considers himself as representing "civil society", on behalf of the Palestinian Gazans, and of Hamas. Hamas, yet another Arab/Muslim group, political and Islamist, dedicated openly to the destruction of the State of Israel should, in the opinion of Mr. Falk, be considered a 'civil society', recognized by other civil societies.
While the State of Israel, in its indomitable will to exist and to protect the lives and safety of its population through whatever means possible, including denying Hamas the importation of weapons through an entirely legitimate and internationally recognized protective measure of a land and sea blockade, is to be considered the aggressor, the threat to civil society.
Mr. Falk is the independent special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian Territories. He see nothing amiss in the behaviour, in the official position of Hamas, yet everything wrong in the reaction of the State of Israel. Mr. Falk does not condemn Hamas for its human rights abuses of the Gazan Palestinians, nor its holding them hostage to its aspirations to destroy Israel resulting in poor living conditions for the Palestinians.
He does not go out of his way as special rapporteur on human rights to decry the massive rocket shelling over the border from Gaza into Israel's border communities. His concern lies solely for the well being of the Gazans; evidently Israelis can look after themselves. And this is precisely what the State of Israel is responding to; the expectations by the world community that Israel will respond adequately to all the violence directed toward it and its people.
And then, of course, in responding, that same community that maintains a watchful eye on any possible Israeli indiscretions in fair play while being too busy doing that to maintain a vigil respecting violence emanating from Gaza toward Israel, predictably assails Israel for human rights violations, forcing the Palestinians to live in squalor, a result of Hamas' violent militant assaults on Israel.
Mr. Falk has identified no fewer than thirteen companies whom he accuses of doing business with the illegal entity of Israel. Hewlett Packard, Motorola, Volvo and Caterpillar have responded in kind, complimenting their accuser with the acknowledgement that it is their intention to continue their relationship with the State of Israel.
UN Watch, ever watchful, has reminded of an anti-Semitic cartoon posted on Mr. Falk's blog several years ago, along with his 2008 claim of Israel's planning of a "Palestinian Holocaust". Does any of this appear the work of a committed, neutral observer, whose main intent as a representative of the United Nations should be to further the cause of peace?
Canada lost no time in joining the United States and Israel in recommending the long-overdue resignation of Mr. Falk from his official position with the United Nations. After which he could then continue his splenetic love affair with blackening the name of the State of Israel. There is no angry spite and malice that can quite match that of one who turns in hatred against his own.
To their credit, Caterpillar state their opinion that Mr. Falk's report
"reflects his personal and negative opinions toward Israel", while Hewlett Packard characterized Mr. Falk as
"far from an independent and unbiased expert in this matter", in view of the company's own strong human rights policy.
Labels: Gaza, Hamas, Human Fallibility, Israel, Political Realities Middle East, Prejudices, United Nations
‘Iran’s Gestapo' Rounds Up Christians
Iranian
police, termed “Iran’s Gestapo” by a Christian news site, has arrested
between 100 and 400 Christians and thrown them into prisons.
By Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu- ArutzSheva 7
First Publish: 10/15/2012, 4:26 PM
A man passes near a picture of Iranian spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Baghdad
Reuters
Iranian police, termed “Iran’s Gestapo” by a Christian news site, has
arrested between 100 and 400 Christians and thrown them into prisons.
Firouz Khandjani, a council member of the 'Church of Iran' house
church movement, told the Christian BosNewsLife website, "We have
learned that at least 100, but perhaps as many as 400 people, have been
detained over the last 10 days.”
He said massive arrests of men and women included the break-up of church services held by evangelical Christians in three
cities,
including Tehran. "We know that many have been forced to say they will
no longer attend church services in exchange for freedom,” he said.
"They are of several movements. But it has become clear that
Protestant Christians are now viewed as enemy number one of the state,"
according to Khandjani. "We need urgent prayers.”
One of at least five members of the Church of Iran in the city of Shiraz who were arrested last Friday is Mohammed Roghangir, known locally as 'Brother Vahid', who led a house church service attended by some 15 people.
"We are also concerned about sister Roxana Forughi as this is the
second time she is being detained,” Khandjani added.
Iranian Christians said they were taken to Plak 100, the notorious detention center of Iran's Intelligence Ministry.
Khandjani confirmed reports that seven Christians received suspended
five-year sentences last week for "action against the national
security," after they were already jailed for up to three weeks in
Rasht, some six years ago.
The latest reported crackdown comes on the eve of Monday’s trial of
five Christian converts detained in Adel-Abad prison eight months ago
following a raid on a house church in Shiraz.
Since their arrests, the five been confined in cells housing
dangerous criminals on charges of "creating illegal groups",
"participating in a house church service", "propagation against the
Islamic regime" and "defaming Islamic holy figures through Christian
evangelizing," Iranian Christians said.
Iranian Pastor Behnam Irani potentially faces the death penalty for the "apostasy” of abandoning Islam.
The news site
estimates there are at least 100,000 evangelical Christians in Iran, based on numbers provided church groups.
Labels: Christianity, Iran, Political Realities Middle East, Prejudices, Security, Social-Cultural Deviations
EU Reaches Deal on New Iran Sanctions
EU
reaches a preliminary deal on a broad package of new sanctions on Iran,
targeting the energy, commerce, financial and transport sectors.
By Elad Benari, Canada -
ArutzSheva 7
First Publish: 10/12/2012, 10:55 PM
Iranian rial
AFP/Ali al-Saadi
The European Union reached a preliminary deal Friday on a broad package of new sanctions on Iran, EU diplomats said.
The Wall Street Journal
reported that the measures, which focus on the energy, commerce,
financial and transport sectors, were agreed after several weeks of
talks among member states. They are set to be signed off Monday when
foreign ministers meet in Luxembourg.
The new round of sanctions is among the toughest yet adopted against
Iran and comes as diplomatic efforts to negotiate a solution to Iran's
nuclear program have stalled, said the report.
EU diplomats were quoted by
The Wall Street Journal as
having said that, allied with an oil embargo that came into full effect
July 1, the new measures could significantly ratchet up the economic and
financial squeeze on the Iranian regime, which has already
seen the currency fall sharply and energy revenue fall.
"We see these sanctions as a potentially very important step. These
measures are the second most significant we've taken on Iran, after we
banned the import of Iranian oil," said one EU diplomat. "The issue is
urgent and we need to tackle Iran's
ability to pursue the nuclear program."
The new measures are broad-based and include a ban on gas imports
from Iran and exports to Iran of graphite, steel, aluminum and other
metals, diplomats said.
European firms will be banned from contracting any ships to transport
Iranian oil—even if they are from outside the bloc. There will be a ban
on marine equipment sales and European firms will be prohibited from
constructing oil tankers for Iran.
The most effective measures, reported
The Wall Street Journal,
may be in the financial sector. Even for trade that is still allowed,
there will be tight thresholds on transactions with Iranian banks that
can go ahead without authorization.
The level of the threshold will depend on the sector, with
humanitarian trade in food and medicines having a ceiling of €100,000.
But for many other items, any transaction over €10,000 with an Iranian
bank will need pre-approval, diplomats said.
The EU will also add new financial and
energy companies to its sanctions list.
Previous reports indicated that during the meeting on October 15 Britain, France and Germany
will press for toughening up sanctions on Iran's
energy sector and financial institutions.
Three rounds of talks between Iran and the international community
made little progress between April and June. EU foreign policy chief
Catherine Ashton
has since met and spoken to Iranian nuclear head Saeed Jalili, but there is still no date for fresh talks.
Western diplomats have said Iran has made no serious effort so far to
engage with an offer made by the international community to gradually
drop sanctions in return for Iran stopping the enrichment of uranium at
20% purity levels and removing its stockpile of already enriched uranium
from the country.
Meanwhile on Friday, Iran's minister of economic affairs and finance
warned that the West would “pay a price” for sanctions on his country.
The minister, Shamseddin Hosseini, added that Iran's
foreign exchange reserves are in a "good
position".
(Arutz Sheva’s North American Desk is keeping you updated until
the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all
Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)
More on this topic
Labels: European Union, Iran, Nuclear Technology, Political Realities Middle East
US sources: US, Israel plan October Surprise. Others: Israel can do it aloneDEBKAfile
Exclusive Analysis
October 9, 2012, 1:53 PM (GMT+02:00)
Israeli KC-135 refueling craft
Four facts deserve attention with regard to a potential attack on
Iran’s nuclear facilities. The first is that the Iranian-Israeli war is
already at hand. Iran launched it by sending an unmanned drone into
Israeli air space Saturday, Oct. 6, breaking new ground in belligerence
with a cyber attack.
Israel countered by stationing Patriot missile interceptor batteries in Haifa and other parts of its northern region.
That Tehran initiated hostilities with a cyber attack on Israel cannot
be wiped from the record any more than its score: two points, Iran;
zero, Israel, whose air defenses proved no match against a large,
slow-moving and cumbersome aerial vehicle loaded with electronic
equipment.
As many experts have pointed out, Patriots are not designed for
intercepting aircraft, only missiles. Their deployment therefore aims at
defending the country from potential Iranian or Hizballah missile
strikes from Lebanon or Syria - depending partly on the state of the
Syrian war.
And indeed, Hamas and Jihad Islami spokesmen, when they assumed shared
responsibility for the 55 Palestinian missiles and mortars fired against
Israel Monday morning, Oct. 8, said quite openly that the rules of Gaza
warfare had changed: IDF attacks on terrorist targets in the Gaza
Strip, however limited in scope, would draw forth reprisals not only
from that Palestinian-ruled territory but from Lebanon, they said.
debkafile: As of
mid-September, under newly-signed military pacts, the strings of the two
leading Palestinian terrorist militias in the Gaza Strip are being
manipulated from Beirut by Iran and Hizballah. It is they who now set
the rules and dictate the scope of Palestinian anti-Israel operations
from Gaza.
The drone’s incursion was a separate Iranian initiative.
The other three points pertinent to the Iranian-Israel confrontation are:-
1. US intelligence recently warned President Barack Obama that Iran’s
nuclear breakthrough point is much closer than formerly estimated, i.e.
approximately 7 weeks off. In late November, therefore, Iran will enough
20 percent plus enriched uranium to build a nuclear bomb. American and
Israeli intelligence see eye to eye on this estimate.
It flies, however, in the face of the assessments circulated in Israel
by anti-attack factions who are now claiming that Iran has slowed the
progress of its military nuclear program in order to divert much of its
enriched uranium to civilian projects.
This claim is not only incorrect, but it is a valuable contribution to
Tehran’s propaganda effort to prove that its program is entirely
innocent and peaceful.
2. A US Congressional Research paper published internally on Sept. 28
asserts that Israel is capable of going it alone without the United
States against Iran’s nuclear sites, including the Fordo underground
enrichment facility.
This fact has been suppressed by the anti-attack camp, whose spokesmen have insisted that Israel lacks this capacity.
The experts commissioned by congress to determine the truth of the
matter concluded: “… an attack on Esfahan, Natanz, and Arak might
require deploying only 20% of Israel’s top-line fighters purchased from
the United States. “…this yields an Israeli strike involving at least
100 aircraft. Most sources indicate that Israel has a total of “around
350 fighter jets.”
The US congressional research team adds that, although Israel received
enough 7 KC-130 refueling planes from the US to cover the round trip to
Iran and back, the Israeli Air Force has also secretly developed two
more refueling options about which the US knows very little.
“Over the past two years, Israel Aerospace Industries-IAI bought up all
the Boeing 707s coming on the international market and had them
converted in IAI factories into KC-135 refueling planes,” says the
report.
After the Congressional Research Center published these findings, David
Rothkopf, who is close to US Democratic Party leaders, tested the
ground with a report Monday, Oct. 8, in Foreign Policy, which said that
the United States and Israel are considering the possibility of a joint
"surgical strike" against Iran's nuclear facilities as an “October
surprise.”
He quoted a source said to be close to the discussions, which claimed
that “a small-scale attack is currently viewed as the most likely
military option by air, using bombers and supported by drones,” which
Israel would not be able to carry out on its own.
What Rothkopf was saying is that President Obama has no more than 20
days to decide if and when to conduct this US-Israel attack on Iran.
His clock, say our sources, is ticking at the same speed as that of
former Mossad chief Efraim Halevi who on August 1 predicted an attack on
Iran within twelve weeks; and Tzahi Hanegbi, the former Knesset defense
and foreign affairs committee chair and close confidant of Prime
Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who said in mid-September that the next 50
days would be critical for Israel’s destiny.
Labels: Conflict, Hezbollah, Iran, Israel, Nuclear Technology, Political Realities Middle East, Security, Technology, United States
Through A Darkly Blinkered Mirror
Tehran Times...Yuram Abdullah
| What happened, Canada? |
Yuram Abdullah Weiler
On Line: 09 September 2012 17:32
In Print: Monday 10 September 2012
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“You cannot claim your eagerness for democracy, human
rights and all these things and through unilateral sanctions
try to put all sorts of suffering and inflict suffering and hardship
on other people.
This is a contradiction,” Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar
Salehi said at the Non-Aligned Movement summit in Tehran.
In a surprise step, on Friday Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister
John Baird announced that Canada was severing diplomatic
relations with Iran by closing its embassy in Tehran, and
ordered the closure of the Iranian embassy in Ottawa along
with the expulsion of Iranian diplomats. This step, of course,
aligns Canada more closely with the U.S./Israeli position
on Iran. Commenting on the announcement, which came
from the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific conference in Vladivostok,
the Canadian foreign affairs minister offered the following
rationalizations for the abrupt action by
his government:
1. Iran’s support for the government of Syrian President
Bashar al-Assad;
2. Iran’s alleged “dishonesty” in its dealings with the IAEA
over its nuclear dossier;
3. Iran’s support of Hezbollah, Hamas, and other
resistance organizations deemed terrorist by the West;
and
4. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s allegedly
inflammatory rhetoric directed at Israel.
While the main reason touted by Baird for the hasty
diplomatic measure was concern over the safety of Canadian
diplomats in Tehran after the so-called assault on the British
Embassy there in November 2011, others feel this may be a
sign that a U.S.-sanctioned attack on the Islamic Republic is
imminent. Presumably attempting to quell such speculation
on foreknowledge of an impending Western-instigated
attack on the Islamic Republic, the Canadian foreign minister
remarked, “Unequivocally, we have no information about a
military strike on Iran.”
Baird absurdly characterized Iran as the “most significant
threat to global peace and security in the world today.”
Countering this allegation, Globe and Mail columnist Doug
Saunders wrote, “U.S. intelligence agencies and Israel’s military
chief, Benny Gantz, have said recently they believe Iran is not
pursuing nuclear weapons. There’s no suggestion of any
Iranian military attack against any other country at the moment.
The Iranian menace is all politics and potential.” The last 274
years of history testifies that Iran has maintained peaceful
relations and has only resorted to military force in self-defense,
such as during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war. In fact, Iran has
not acted aggressively toward any of its neighbors since 1738,
when Nader Shah Afshar invaded India and returned with the
Kuh-e Nur and Darya-ye Nur diamonds in his booty.
Technically, Canada has not had full diplomatic relations with
Iran since 2007, when the former Canadian ambassador left
Tehran after failing to agree on terms of diplomatic exchange.
So when viewed from the context of its recent relations with Iran,
the latest maneuver by Canada perhaps may not be quite as
drastic as it is being portrayed by media outlets. However
the timing of the diplomatic rupture seems quite puzzling, for
even at the height of the NATO campaign against Libya,
Canada maintained diplomatic relations. It was not until
August 2011 that Prime Minister Stephen Harper ordered
the closure of the Libyan mission in Ottawa.
This latest act most likely will lead to increased tension.
By cutting off diplomatic relations with Iran, Canada has
chosen to follow the path the United States took 32 years
ago by closing its direct channel of communications with
Tehran. Without a direct link from either Washington or
Ottawa to Tehran, the Western powers have reduced their
ability to prevent a minor incident that might occur in the
Persian Gulf from escalating into a major crisis. Canada
and Britain were also the main conduits through which
intelligence on Iran flowed to the United States.
From a broader perspective, of course, the Canadian
action can be viewed as further kowtowing to the West,
falling closer in line with the position of the Washington/
Tel Aviv axis on Iran and Syria, thus helping to put increased
diplomatic pressure on Russia and China. Canadian Foreign
Affairs Minister John Baird has already informed Russian
Foreign Affairs Minister Sergei Lavrov of the Canadian
government’s chagrin over Russia’s support of the Assad
government and its use of its veto power at the UN Security
Council to block sanctions against Syria.
It is necessary to point out that these events are taking place
in the context of a U.S. presidential election. With Democratic
incumbent President Barack Obama neck-and-neck with
Republican contender Mitt Romney, the last thing Obama
would want is the “October surprise” of an Israeli attack on
Iranian nuclear facilities to disrupt his campaign, so it is safe to
assume that all efforts are being made to cool the Zionists’
aggressive ardor. Also suggesting that now may not be the time
is a perception that a President Romney would be in tighter
lockstep with Tel Aviv than would a second-term Obama,
judging by Romney’s strong stance in support of Israel’s
“right to strike Iran in self-defense.” And judging by outside
campaign contributions from top spenders, Romney may just
be elected as Tel Aviv’s next man in Washington since he is
pulling in 4 dollars for every dollar that is going to Obama.
Noteworthy is the fact that Canada’s move comes in the
wake of the recent Non-Aligned Movement summit hosted by
Tehran. The increasing empathy other countries are showing
for Iran’s position in its dispute with the West can be gauged
by the success of the NAM summit, the importance of which
was underscored by the “controversial” attendance of UN
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. Also attending the summit,
hosted by predominantly-Shia Iran, was Egypt’s newly elected
president from the Sunni-aligned Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed
Morsi. The extravaganza, which was covered by a huge international
press corps, which even included seven American reporters,
was a major diplomatic coup for Tehran.
U.S.-imposed economic sanctions and has gathered significant support to counter them by
strengthening ties with its Asian neighbors. Most likely, the main result of the Canadian diplomatic split with Tehran will be a net loss in Western intelligence and no appreciable economic fallout for Iran, which continues to strengthen its position in the Asia-Pacific energy market. In short, this latest move by Canada most likely will result in greater harm to the United States and its allies than to Iran.
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Labels: Canada-US Relations, Communication, Conflict, Iran, Islamism, Political Realities Middle East
US, Egypt Conducting Joint Military Exercises
U.S. planes landed in Egypt Tuesday for a joint exercise, the first since the fall of Hosni Mubarak.
By David Lev
First Publish: 9/5/2012, 12:15 AM
Naval exercise
Photo: IDF
Just days after a report that the U.S. was sharply cutting its participation in a military
exercise scheduled with Israel, U.S. planes landed in Egypt Tuesday for a joint exercise, the first since the fall of Hosni Mubarak. Code-named “Eagle Arena 2012,” the exercise will include air and naval forays by US and Egyptian planes and boats, over the country, Sinai, and the Red Sea.
According to Egyptian media reports, the purpose of the exercise
is to enable Egyptian forces to practice both defensive and offensive
tactics. The specific number of American troops and planes participating
in the exercise.
The exercise is one of a series of steps
the U.S. has undertaken in recent weeks to build ties with the regime of
the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohammed Morsi, the new President of Egypt.
According to U.S. reports, Washington is set to forgive a billion dollars of Egyptian debt as part of its international assistance program for Egypt. The debt will be dumped in the laps of U.S. taxpayers. Egypt currently owes the U.S. some $3 billion.
Over the weekend, reports in foreign media said that the U.S. was drastically scaling down its participation in a military exercise scheduled for October. Time Magazine said that the U.S. was cutting as many as two thirds of the 1,200-some soldiers that had been scheduled to participated in the exercise, called Austere Challenge 12, and was sharply limiting the amount of U.S. equipment that will be used in the exercise.
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As published online at ArutzSheva7, 4 September 2012 Labels: Egypt, Israel, Political Realities Middle East, Traditions, United States
Irrationally Raised Expectations
Well, the constitutional lawyer and community worker, the Senator and black activist who appealed to so many of his country's liberals and civil rights activists, the youth and the women, the disadvantaged, the people of colour, the immigrants, hasn't quite worked out as anticipated. Still, what a milestone in a country where biracial relations have been fraught with suspicion, anger and fear, weighted down with traditions and history of shame for a proud country, to have elected Barack Obama with his country-wide smile and confidence.
He spoke of hope for the future and that's what people responded to. They wanted the shame of Guantanamo to disappear, the Patriot Act to go away, and in their place reconciliation abroad and at home at the very least the imperative of vital social amenities that other countries have managed for their citizens to visit their country. Universal health care finally to be achieved. Pardons and acceptance for all those migrants crowding the corners of the country illegally.
Give him a B+ for effort. He managed, on his authority and on his watch, to do what two of his predecessors could not; Osama bin Laden is now a bad dream. Guantanamo is still there, and President Obama has offered partial succour to young illegals, made a really passionate stab at universal medicare, but the "surveillance superstructure" isn't going anywhere anytime soon.
The american Civil Liberties Union is exercised over steps taken by this administration, advancing the National Defense Authorization Act. "Obama has been an unmitigated disaster for civil liberties" according to one U.S. legal scholar. In cases of suspected terrorism the military may hold suspects indefinitely under Section 1021 of the NDAA.
Anyone
"who was a part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners, including any person who has committed a belligerent act or has directly supported such hostilities in aid of such enemy forces." Well, sounds perfectly reasonable. Sounds like an attempt to deal with what used to be called treason.
The Center for Constitutional Rights and the ACLU are busying themselves representing the family of Abdulrahman Al0-Aulaqi, a 16-year-old American Yemeni. He died in a drone strike in Yemen, in October. Two weeks after his father, Anwar Al-Awlaqi, a radical Muslim cleric with American citizenship as well as Yemeni. Who was a viral propagandist for al-Qaeda.
It was celebration time when he was killed in a drone strike in Yemen, along with another American citizen turned against the United States.
"Undertaken without due process, in circumstances where lethal force was not a last resort to address a specific, concrete and imminent threat, and where the government failed to take required measures to protect bystanders, rises to a violation of the most elementary constitutional right afforded to all U.S. citizens - deprivation of life without due process of law."
True, true. They're losing sleep over the situation, but it's highly doubtful that most Americans are disturbed by their president authorizing drone strikes to remove from action malevolent religious maniacs whose ferocious words urging other American Muslims into radicalized jihadis has been successful enough. There have been a number of home-grown jihadis doing their bidding in the United States.
"Reconciling the dichotomy between its counter-terrorism rhetoric and policies requires that the Obama administration finally embrace the obvious: that the core of the Bush policies will remain necessary in America's fight against global terrorism for many years to come; and, more importantly, that the Obama administration's continuation (and refinement) of Bush's policies has in fact helped institutionalize an effective, bipartisan approach to fighting terrorism." Stuart Gottlieb, adjunct professor of International and public affairs, Columbia University.
Labels: Conflict, Democracy, Islamism, Political Realities Middle East, Terrorism, United States, Values
Freedom From Oppression
"Whatever
the resolution they make will be useless. They don't have the power to
enforce it. The international community has no credibility -
political, humanitarian or military. The Syrian people have lost all
faith." Hafez Abdul Rahman, Syrian National Council
"Among
my people there is no faith in the international community, which is
allowing extremists to be more violent. We have lost all hope for a
political solution."
How perfectly counterpunctual,
in the sense that these words could have come from the mouths of those
whom Syrians despise, and who discovered to their great grief that there
is no outside source that will save it from the savage indifference of
those outside their community when it is attacked. The sole difference
here is that this is Syrians attacking Syrians. Muslims attacking
Muslims. Their antipathy toward one another sourced through tribal and
sectarian affiliation.
But, in fact, there are those who make an attempt to give assistance to the disorganized but resolute opponents of the Alawite regime of President Bashar al-Assad.
Both from within the Arab and Muslim world and without. Which is, in a
sense, far more than can be said for European Jews when the game at hand
was assembling, isolating, slandering, ghettoizing, and slaughtering a
people. In his wildest dreams al-Assad could not accomplish anything remotely similar.
Although he has thus far accomplished what his father before him did, in slaughtering 20,000 Sunni Muslims in Homs, decades earlier. And it was from Homs that his latest insurrection developed to eventually envelope the entire Sunni majority population of Syria. And thus far Bashar al-Assad
has succeeded in killing a like number of rebels and civilians. Rebels
now in Aleppo take huge pleasure in chanting "Assad must die", as they
prepare for increasingly intense fighting.
"The spiral of violence is still increasing. We have reason to
believe the main battle is about to start", stated a senior UN
peacekeeper, warning the UN Security Council in New York that Aleppo is
facing a military showdown that will eclipse in numbers and casualties
anything so far seen. Aleppo is a city in ruins, its people cowering in
terror at what may confront them; injury or death. Those who feared
enough have fled the city.
The diplomats at the United Nations, in demanding that the
Government of Syria accede to their demands, take the initial step to
put an end to the violence, withdrawing heavy weapons, ordering troops
back to barracks, locking down the nation's supplies of chemical and
biological weapons, surely knew that President al-Assad, with the backing of Iran's ayatollahs, the Republican Guard and Hezbollah, would assent to do no such thing.
Now, fears of a spillover effect into Turkey, into Jordan, into
Lebanon, are becoming more acute. Palestinian refugees have been
fleeing Syria for Jordan, their numbers swelling those being housed
there, tipping the balance of being able to cope with the human tide of
misery. Turkey has initiated a military exercise, placing 25 of its
tanks close to the Syrian border, and the encampments of PKK Kurdish separatists.
This is Turkey's greatest fear, that the Kurds in Syria will
seize their advantage to connect with Turkish Kurds and those in Iran
and create a combined violent diversion to push for their long-awaited
homeland; land that neither Turkey, Syria nor Iran or Iraq truly
contemplate surrendering to the Kurds.
Meanwhile, the growing presence of government military vehicles,
preparing their offensive, has led the rebels to make their own
preparations. Barricading the narrow streets, planting bombs and making
good use of the growing numbers of captured government heavy weapons.
They will rely on themselves to make good what they contend they are
owed; freedom from oppression.
Freedom from oppression? Who knows what their future will bring them.
Labels: Political Realities Middle East, Revolution, Societal Failures, Syria
Packing Up, Leaving...
"I am extremely concerned by the impact of shelling and use of tanks and other heavy weapons on people in Aleppo. Many people have sought temporary shelter in schools and other public buildings in safer areas. They urgently need food, mattresses and blankets, hygiene supplies and drinking water. It is not known how many people remain trapped in places where fighting continues today" Valerie Amos, UN humanitarian affairs
The alarm has been sounded from within the UN countless times. It is like flogging a dead mule; many in the international diplomatic community and humanitarian rights groups wring their hands in despair, along with Kofi Annan and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, while others sit placidly by, unwilling to become part of the response that might stop the carnage.
How to do that, in any event, other than to incite the regime to further violence, dragging into the general scheme of chaos and destruction Hezbollah and Iran, and likely some casual units from Iraq. And that is precisely when the entire Middle East can erupt into a sectarian fireball of pent-up hatred that has been biding its time before flaming into the hellfire of revenge and mass murder.
The rebel forces deny that they have been infiltrated by terrorists. But in fact, they have been. They can find common cause with all militias whose purpose is akin to theirs, even those whose Islamist credentials are clearly meant to use the Syrian uprising as a springboard toward creating their own version of what Syria should represent. So, arming and or/aiding the rebel cause, also arms and aids another cause.
"I was at work when I received the call that a shell had hit my house. As soon as I returned, I found my wife and son dead on the floor. Part of my son's skull was blown off, and Aya was wounded", said one resident of Aleppo. The wound his daughter sustained will be with her for the rest of her life, blinding her right eye with shrapnel from the shell that killed her brother.
And they are assembling what they can, all those terrified residents of a city that no longer resembles its peacetime facade of sects living together in harmony under the strict rule of a tyrant. They are loading themselves and their belongings onto whatever conveyances they can, looking for temporary asylum in towns and villages removed from the city.
"We always knew the regime's grave would be Aleppo. Damascus is the capital, but here we have a fourth of the country's population and the entire force of its economy. Bashar's forces will be buried here", claimed a young fighter, with the confidence that only the young can muster in the face of impossible odds to their own survival.
"The situation in Aleppo is dreadful. Had it been merely bearable I wouldn't have left my home", said a woman on arrival at the Bukulmez illegal border crossing, where she was waved through by Turkish soldiers. Aleppo is surrounded by troops and tanks mobilized to take the city from the rebels, leaving other areas of the country vulnerable to rebel occupation.
President Bashar al-Assad has a huge need to restore his military presence in Aleppo, and maintain both that city and his capital Damascus and the highway between to his control. Without that at the very least, he cannot claim to be in control of Syria. Even if, at the same time, the rebels establish themselves securely elsewhere in the country.
Khaled al-Ayoubi, the charge d'affaires official in Britain has joined his colleagues in refusing to any longer represent their country. Three Aleppo medical university students who were attempting to aid the wounded were arrested by the military. They were arrested, questioned, and murdered. Their mutilated and charred bodies were later found in a burned-out vehicle.
Three
Syrian rebels stand guard at a makeshift field hospital, as casualties
mount from intense shelling on the first day of a Syrian government
military offensive against rebels of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), in the
rebel held district of Salaheddin in Aleppo, Syria, on July 28. Scott Peterson/The Christian Science Monitor/Getty Images
This was an obvious attempt at deterrence. To ensure that no other medical personnel would risk their own lives by treating the wounds of rebel fighters. It's true that people were shocked and horrified when they saw the bodies of Basel Aslan and Musab Barad, fourth-year medical students, and Hazem Batikh, an English literature student and medic.
But the result was that other health workers, still mourning their friends, are now motivated to offer their services to the rebel militias in field hospitals located in areas still firmly under Free Syrian Army control.
Labels: Political Realities Middle East, Revolution, Security, Societal Failures, Syria
