David Cameron: ‘Non-Violence’ responsible for ISIS

Dr. Roslyn Fuller 

Currently a Research Associate at the INSYTE Group, Dr. Roslyn Fuller has previously lectured at Trinity College and the National University of Ireland. She tweets at @roslynfuller

As military action against ISIS continues, British Prime Minister David Cameron tells the UN General Assembly that “non-violent extremism” is responsible for the group’s existence.

Tale of two speeches

Last week world leaders gathered for the UN General Assembly’s 69th annual session in New York. For many participants the session is a marathon event in which Prime Minister after President mounts the podium to deliver hour upon hour of monotonous pontification. Such is the unbearable ennui of dozens of formal speeches that not only does the general public just do the highlights, most of the delegates do, too. Thus, while Barack Obama delivered a vague sermon to a packed room, British Prime Minister David Cameron’s own missive to the world was considerably less well-attended. And that’s a pity, because it was a lot more interesting.

Both speeches had similarities: Russia is evil, Iran is evil, Assad is evil, Iraq will somehow defend itself against ISIS, but the most interesting was the focus on “extremist ideology,” and “the corruption of young minds.” While Obama concentrated on the need to prevent “violent extremism,” Cameron, delivering his message to the world under considerably less scrutiny, decided to attack what he termed “non-violent extremists.”

You may, like me, at this point begin to wonder what “non-violent extremists” are. Are they like Mahatma Gandhi, who, while rejecting any notion of violence, clothed himself in a strip of homespun, subsisted on raw fruit and vegetables and was capable of starving himself near to death to make political points? Many people would admit that this is fairly extreme, but definitely non-violent. Is Julian Assange, the transparency activist, who believes that government information should be public knowledge, a non-violent extremist? What about religious groups like Jains, who don facecloths to prevent themselves speaking violence, or Jehovah’s Witnesses who refuse to go to war, but also ban life-saving blood transfusions as a mandate of their faith? Were Abolitionists and Quakers at one point non-violent extremists for their belief in human equality? Or medieval scientists willing to be burned at the stake rather than retract their theories?

Cameron, unsurprisingly, did not mention Jains or Jehovah’s Witnesses in his speech. He focused instead on ISIS, a rather interesting turn of events, since whatever else one may think of ISIS, I’m fairly certain we can all agree that the organization has gone to some lengths to ensure that no one associates their name with the term “non-violence.”

Protesters hold placards which read "Don't Bomb Iraq" outside the Houses of Parliament where lawmakers are expected to vote in favour of joining air strikes against Islamic State (IS) militants in central London on 26 September, 2014. (AFP Photo)

The British Prime Minister was, however, intent on drawing the connection between general disgruntlement and beheading journalists. After all, no one who is perfectly happy with the status quo would separate anyone’s head from their shoulders in the service of a political cause, right? In Cameron’s logic, where people complain too much, it could encourage others to take vigilantism into their own hands: ergo, there should be less complaining. And Cameron was very specific about the kind of complaining that should henceforth be a no-go. According to the Prime Minister:

“As evidence emerges about the backgrounds of those convicted of terrorist offences it is clear that many of them were initially influenced by preachers who claimed not to encourage violence, but whose world-view can be used as a justification for it. We know this world-view. The peddling of lies: That 9/11 was somehow a Jewish plot, or that the 7/7 London attacks were staged; the idea that Muslims are persecuted all over the world as a deliberate act of Western policy; the concept of an inevitable ‘clash of civilizations.’ We must be clear: to defeat the ideology of extremism, we need to deal with all forms of extremism, not just violent extremism. For governments, there are some obvious ways we can do this. We must ban preachers of hate from coming to our countries, we must proscribe organizations that incite terrorism against people at home and abroad, we must work together to take down illegal online material like the recent videos of ISIL murdering hostages, and we must stop the so-called non-violent extremists from inciting hatred and intolerance in our schools, our universities and, yes, even our prisons.”

Cameron’s speech could easily give a few misimpressions that I feel beholden to correct: a) “The Clash of Civilizations” is a book that was written by Harvard and Columbia academic Samuel P. Huntington, and not, as one could get the erroneous impression from Cameron’s speech, something dreamed up by imams and b), terrorist organizations are already proscribed. With official lists and everything. Membership in such organizations is by itself a punishable offence. In fact, any sort of aiding, abetting, encouraging, inciting or conspiring to commit violence, is already punishable under law. Just ask Jamie Counsel who set up a Facebook page to plan riots in Swansea (total likes: 70, total riots: apparently 0) orKarolina M. who allegedly supplied her husband, an ISIS member, with money and video cameras. There is no loophole of the law that somehow allows people to associate themselves with violent movements in any meaningful way at all without being punished for it.

The alleged radicalization of British universities

However, Cameron’s complaint about incitement and hatred at universities gave me pause; especially since he went on to argue: “Would we sit back and allow right-wing extremists, Nazis or Klu Klux Klansmen to recruit on our university campuses?”

Had I missed something? Were students recruiting for ISIS in between the Student Affairs Council and the Sports Association? I quickly googled “radical Islam British universities” to discover many a newspaper article deploring the rampant growth of pro-violence Islam on British campuses. At the forefront of this indignation the name of one organization surfaced again and again: The Centre for Social Cohesion.

The plot thickened.

I decided to take 10 seconds out of my day to look up the Centre for Social Cohesion on Powerbase and here is what I found: The Centre for Social Cohesion is a conservative think tank (its original director Douglas Murray wrote a book entitled “Neo-conservatism – Why We Need It” just in case there was any doubt about his preferences). The Centre apparently believes that “extreme” Islam is the source of all societal disaffection in Britain. It commissions studies to support this view and then broadcasts them via sympathetic media without adequate contextualization.

Perhaps the most significant “study and the one that I had seen relentlessly cited in media articles on the subject, was, “Islam on Campus: A Survey of UK Student Opinion.” It claimed to have found that a third of all Muslim students believed that killing in the name of religion was justified. However, the survey was only conducted at the few universities that had active Islamic societies, a move which was bound to skew statistics, and even there only 4 percent of Muslim respondents stated that it could be justifiable (not automatically justified) to kill in the service of preserving or promoting a religion, while a further 28 percent stated that killing could only be justifiable if the religion was under attack. The majority of Muslim respondents (53 percent) stated that killing in the name of religion could never be justified.

Protester take part in a Stop the War demonstration opposite Downing Street in central London on September 25, 2014. (AFP Photo)

Not deterred by this apparent indication that Muslims are not any more bloodthirsty than anyone else, the Centre followed up with “Radical Islam on UK Campuses: A Comprehensive List of Extremist Speakers at UK Universities” which deplored “the astonishing carelessness and indifference still shown by University bodies towards the threat of radical Islam.” The existence of this threat was based on the premise that if one or two of the hundreds of thousands of students who attend British universities every year ever become terrorists, labeling universities a hotbed of terrorism is justified. Perusing “Radical Islam on UK Campuses” reveals that the alleged extremism that is being preached by the occasional university speaker does indeed include vague allusions to be willing to die for religion, but also any support at all for the Palestinian cause as well as an unwillingness to speak forcefully on issues like marital rape, which was, until very recently – as in, within my lifetime – also perfectly legal in Western society.

The report, in other words, tries to equate religiously-motivated violence with religion (but only one religion – Islam) and politically-motivated violence with holding political views, exactly as Cameron did in his speech to the General Assembly.

Was the British Prime Minister drawing on the Centre for Social Cohesion’s “studies” in doing so? Possibly. For one thing the Centre seems to be the sole proponent of this odd theory that Person A’s annoyance can directly cause Person B’s violence, not to mention the sole source of information on the alleged “Islamic extremism” of British universities, twice referred to by Cameron in his speech. As the Centre’s own report made clear, the people who actually work at those universities remain unconvinced of the existence of this phenomenon.

Despite the Centre’s clear bias, far from being abandoned, it has since merged with the Henry Jackson Society, which continues the Centre’s fine tradition of assessing the social issues of the day with well-considered pieces like, “Who cares if bombing Syria is illegal?” The Society’s international patrons include the usual suspects: Richard Perle, Bill Kristol, and James Woolsey (former CIA Director). So not only do the Centre for Social Cohesion’s politically biased views live on in the Henry Jackson Society, according toPowerbase, David Cameron has used the Centre’s studies in previous speeches to make accusations which his party later had to withdraw.

It would seem, therefore, no great leap to speculate that Cameron’s UN speech exhorting action on “non-violent extremism” may have taken its cue from the likes of the Centre for Social Cohesion and the Henry Jackson Society.

It is cause for deep worry for everyone, because it means that governments have begun to float the idea that not only are they the sole legitimate source of violence, but that they are also the sole legitimate purveyors of truth. “Even a thought can kill,” seems to be the message, “so we need to watch what you think.”

It is probably no accident that this message was thrown out in Cameron’s ill-attended speech instead of in Obama’s headline-grabber. It is unlikely that the idea of thought-crime would go down too well were it subject to public debate, especially a debate informed about the spurious origin of the claims linking violence and non-violence. Instead, the idea is creeping through in the fine print, but the lack of fanfare does not make the danger to free speech and intellectual inquiry any less real.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

http://rt.com/op-edge/192280-cameron-isis-extremism-muslim-un/

‘US wars in Mideast – only excuse for $ trillion military budget’

The purpose of the US campaign against the Islamic State is to provide grounds for the trillion dollar annual military budget Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during the Reagan administration, told RT.

RT: The UK is also now on board the military operation against the Islamic State. Will a couple of strikes byTornado jets make any difference?

Paul Craig Roberts: That is right, it will make no difference. The prospect for Washington prevailing against the Islamic State is no better than the prospect of prevailing against the Taliban. The purpose of these wars is to provide a reason for the trillion dollar annual budget of the military security complex. It is very difficult to have such massive expenditure without a cause, without a reason. So restoring the war in the Middle East is the reason. I think Washington had hoped to replace the Middle East in wars with a new Cold War with Russia. But Vladimir Putin said he was not going to participate. So I think that is why Washington is back to the Middle East.

RT: The fear of the jihadists is getting bigger in the West. Is this a plan by America to keep its huge arms industry going? This is the reason, isn`t it?

PCR: That is one of the most important reasons. There is another reason and that is the neoconservative ideology of American hegemony and the earlier neoconservative plan to cause turmoil throughout the Middle East and overturn even Saudi Arabia. So, all that may be a part of it. But we have been hearing these threats and fears now for the entire 21st century. Remember, “Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. It was going to be nuclear mushroom cloud over an American city.” We heard all sorts of lies about Gaddafi.

AFP Photo

RT: What does the IS want there? Does it want to draw away the US and UK allies?

PCR: Yes, because what it does, it creates more support for the IS. We don’t really know, we can’t believe Washington, we can’t believe the Western media. In my opinion, these so-called jihadists are redrawing the artificial boundaries created by the French and British after World War I. And they are also trying to mobilize a fierce resistance to Western colonialism.

RT: So should the US and the West let them get on with it? But how come, there was so much vested interest in the oil, etc?

PCR: The question is: “What can the West and Washington do about it?” After 13 years they couldn’t defeat the Taliban, after the 8-year war in Iraq we now have the country dominated by the IS. After overthrowing Gaddafi we have total chaos. This Islamic State was created out of the forces at the CIA used to overthrow Gaddafi and sent to Syria to overthrow Assad. These are people who outfoxed their handlers. What can Washington do about it? Is it boots on the ground again? After 8 years it couldn’t occupy Baghdad? What is Washington going to do against the IS?

RT: So what is your prognosis? Where do you personally think this is going to go?

PCR: More expense, a way of justifying the military security budget, a way of keeping the American public afraid so they accept the police state at home. That is where it is going, the same place it has gone through the entirety of the 21st century. There is no change.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

http://rt.com/op-edge/192148-us-budget-military-iraq-war/

Newsha Tavakolian : Photographer wins

Newsha Tavakolian Photography

29 September at 19:01 · 

Two weeks ago I posted a statement to my Facebook page, saying I returned the 2014 Carmignac Award, a 50.000 euro prize, three exhibitions and a book. I did so after months of debate with the award's patron over the control of my work.

The many, many messages of friends, photographers and others from around the world have been amazing, I want to thank everybody for supporting artistic freedom, which should not just be a slogan but respected.

This weekend the Carmignac Foundation had a huge turn around, promising that from now on there will be no more interference in my project and that two key jury members will be in charge of curating my work, exhibitions and book.
I have decided to accept these new conditions, as for me this was about one thing only, to be able as a photographer to choose the title, edits and texts of my work.

This would never have happened without the deep commitment shown by the jury members who have stood up for the main principle that makes us all love photography, journalism and art: freedom of expression.

Press release

25 September 2014
"Carmignac Foundation"

ARTISTIC FREEDOM HAS A PRIZE

In 2009 the Carmignac Foundation established the Carmignac Gestion Photojournalism Award, with the aim of supporting and promoting an investigative photo essay in areas not in the spotlight, yet at the heart of complex geostrategic issues with global repercussions, where human rights and freedom of speech are often violated. Regions such as Gaza, Pashtunistan, Zimbabwe and Chechnya were the locations selected for the first awards.

Defending freedom of expression and thought is its raison d'être.
Debate has always been an intrinsic part of the Award. However, the fifth edition of the Award, devoted to Iran, has provoked a different kind of debate, and we deeply regret the antagonism that has developed between the winner, Newsha Tavakolian, and the Carmignac Foundation. While we do not accept the allegations of censorship, which is incompatible with the founding principles of the Award, we believe that the ensuing debate has nonetheless raised valid questions about the respective roles of the Jury and of the patron.

For this reason, the Foundation invited the current edition's Jury to a meeting with Edouard Carmignac on Monday 22 September in order to agree measures necessary for a positive resolution of the situation with the fifth Award winner, Newsha Tavakolian, and those relating to the rules governing the Award.
Among the changes decided with the agreement of the Jury, the Carmignac Foundation has undertaken to:

1. Change the rules of the Award so that photographers are guaranteed artistic freedom, and to ensure that the project that is awarded the grant is consistent with the final project. To this end we propose that as of today, the President of the Jury is the Chief Curator for the year.

2. Appoint Anahita Ghabaian, President of the fifth edition Jury, and Sam Stourdzé, member of the Jury, as Curators of Newsha Tavakolian's exhibition and book.

The second measure is of course subject to the agreement of the winner and to her undertaking to ensure her own safety. We sincerely hope that it will allow the public to grasp the realities of life in Iran in all its complexity.

We wish to thank everybody who took part in these discussions: Christian Caujolle, Anahita Ghabaian, Celina Lunsford, Davide Monteleone, Jean-Pierre Perrin, Reza, Marc Sealy, Jérôme Sessini and Sam Stourdzé.

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=705709512832534&id=440265656043589

Attack of the Five Monarchies

An Alliance of Dictators and Despots

by Rannie Amiri, 

It is the irony of ironies. A cadre of repressive monarchies is chosen to liberate the captive peoples of Iraq and Syria from the tyranny of ISIS.

Combating a group known for its violent sectarianism, the five Arab allies ordered by the United States to participate in the bombing campaign against ISIS are themselves the region’s worst sectarian agitators. Jordan, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates are now at the vanguard of efforts to dismantle an organization that is essentially of their own creation.

After the downfall of Saddam Hussein, it was King Abdullah II of Jordan who raised the sectarian specter, warning of the emergence of a "Shiite crescent" in the Middle East, sending panic throughout the monarchies of the Gulf and beyond. It was a rallying cry; a call to arms which heralded operations to destabilize Iraq, and in less than ten years time, Syria.

Bahrain has been a true standout in its brutal crackdown against pro-democracy activists and reformers who hope to see the unchecked powers of the al-Khalifa royal family restrained. For its part, the regime has hidden nothing. Their brazen oppression is very much out in the open for its Western allies to witness: torture, show trials, arbitrary detentions, revocation of citizenship, deportations and media blackouts. All are daily occurrences and come in the backdrop of longstanding socioeconomic and political disenfranchisement. Two of the country’s most prominent human rights defenders are Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja, the (imprisoned) co-founder of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights and Nabeel Rajab, its current president. Rajab succinctly contextualizes Bahrain’s political crisis:

"The ruling family is Sunni. The ruling family is repressive. It’s true that the majority of protesters are Shia, because the majority of the population is Shia, but we are not against the family’s religion – we are against their policies, attitude and behavior. The ruling family tries to present it as a Shia-Sunni issue, but we are not against the Sunni people.

I come from a mixed family and our revolt is against the ruling family that wants to keep all the power. We are struggling to share this power. Seventy percent of our government is from one family, we have had the same prime minister for more than 40 years. This system can’t continue. It is time for democracy, justice and human rights. We are a civilized, educated nation. But unfortunately we happen to be ruled by a tribe."

Saudi Arabia and Qatar must be mentioned in tandem. The two rival families – al-Saud and al-Thani respectively – have long vied for power and influence in the Middle East. Initially it was through the dueling television stations Al Arabiya and Al-Jazeera. It has since become far more sinister: by funding competing, armed extremist groups. Qatar has effectively abandoned the Muslim Brotherhood as its proxy of choice, opting instead for the de facto al-Qaeda stand-in, Jabhat al-Nusra or the Nusra Front, one of the main "opposition" factions operating in Syria. Its main competitor of course is ISIS, the brainchild of Saudi Arabia. Patrick Cockburn, writing in The Independent, nicely details how Saudi Arabia was complicit in helping ISIS take over northern Iraq. Other journalists have drawn similar conclusions.

ISIS is a takfiri group branding anyone not conforming to their regressive ideology as worthy of execution, particularly Shia Muslims, Alawites, Christians and Yazidis. Members of ISIS’ own (purported) sect – Sunni Muslims – are given a reprieve of sorts but have equally suffered under their rule. In Saudi Arabia, the official Wahabicreed is only one step removed from the takfiri worldview. It comes as no surprise to learn that its Shia citizens are the victims of pervasive, institutionalized discrimination. Some clerics in the Kingdom have even gone so far as to brand them non-Muslims (which opens up a whole set of permissive practices), a view likewise held by ISIS.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has worked in concert with Saudi Arabia in opposing certain political parties, namely the Muslim Brotherhood. Along with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, the UAE was the only other country to officially recognize Taliban rule in Afghanistan. Notorious for cracking down on all forms of dissent, the UAE also has a habit of deporting Lebanese Shia expatriates from the country, presuming a connection to Hezbollah based on sect alone.

"America is proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with these nations on behalf of our common security," Obama said. "The strength of this coalition makes it clear to the world that this isn’t America’s fight alone. Above all, the people and governments of the Middle East are rejecting ISIL …"

Obama naively equates the Arab people with their governments. The people of the Middle East reject not only ISIS, but these five monarchies and all their machinations and schemes as well. Including them in any coalition to fight the very sectarian, destructive monster they directly or indirectly helped create is yet another reason why the military campaign against ISIS is destined for failure.

Rannie Amiri is an independent commentator on Middle East affairs.

http://original.antiwar.com/rannie-amiri/2014/09/30/attack-of-the-five-monarchies/

​‘Iraqi soldiers not willing to die for US’

Many Iraqi army soldiers consider that it is not worth dying for the US-controlled puppet Baghdad government as they understand that it will come down to the obliteration of Iraq as a state, geopolitical analyst Patrick Henningsen told RT.

RT:Many soldiers have deserted the Iraqi army, why did they do that?

Patrick Henningsen: As many people reported, there are a lot of reasons why the Iraqi army has been so unsuccessful despite the fact that the numbers are upwards of 250,000 compared to between 20,000 and 30,000-strong with ISIS. Morale has been very low, and also organization is very poor with the Iraqi army. In a nutshell the Iraqi armed forces are a complete mess. But as a reflection of the country itself, which is also a complete mess, and then it should come as no surprise. The other problem with morale within the Iraqi army is that many people serving in the Iraqi armed forces consider it maybe that it is not worth dying for the US-controlled puppet government in Baghdad. And unfortunately, despite the rhetoric we have in the US and in the glad-handing in NATO countries and in Britain, most Iraqis view the government in Baghdad as a US-controlled puppet government. What soldier in a right mind would think that that was worth dying for? We expect them to have a lot of national pride but at the end of the day it really comes down to the obliteration of the nation state of Iraq.

RT: Why is the Iraqi government now re-enlisting these deserters to fight Islamic State?

PH: Currently the Iraqi government is trying to claw back some of the soldiers that it has lost, people that have either left their post or have been classed as deserters, or quite simply were fed up on the field and just walked away. Only last week in Ramadi, this is an Anbar province, 150 soldiers walked off their post because they ran out of ammunition. And this should give you an indication of how poorly organized the Iraqi army is. This is a pyramid top down 250,000-strong armed forces but very inefficient. And of course this was put in place by the United States. I think that Iraq was by design left weak by the US. They have left the Iraqi armed forces weak as well by design because that means they will need their help later. Despite what people like General [Martin] Dempsey will say or what people say “the genius of General Petraeus,” the US has left the country of Iraq in a very weak position militarily, and politically, and everything else.

RT: Is there any guarantee that the re-enlisted deserters will not desert again?

PH: No, there is no guarantee that amnestied deserters will not walk off the post again. In fact, the odds are that they will, because the infrastructural changes that would need to be made are huge with the Iraqi armed forces. We are only talking really about maybe 5,000, to 15,000 of these types of deserters that they could re-recruit. But there are huge logistical problems: travel around Northern and Western Iraq is very very difficult. In some cases people that want to reenlist or people that want to rejoin because they need money or because they feel it is the right thing to do, they can’t even make it to the recruitment centers because of all these check points and some people are taking 4 or 5 days to make a journey that will not normally be made in a day. Also, I have to point out that one of the other reasons why the armed forces of Iraq are so weak is because you have a sectarian problem. The armed forces - like the country - are divided along sectarian lines. The US is going to great pains in 10 years or 15 years of invasion, occupation to dismantle any of the Shia militia in the country that they could have been working with to basically flesh out ISIS. ISIS wouldn`t last a week in some of these areas of Iraq had there been a significant Shia militia presence as that might have been a few years ago, but that is because the US is going out their way to want to dismantle any militias, disarm the Iraqi population so that they would need to rely on a giant pyramid top down Baghdad-controlled armed forces that is proven to be very ineffective.

RT: The US has supplied substantial military aid to the Iraqi army. So why is it so incapable of fighting Islamic State?

PH: One of the main problems in Iraq is corruption. These are habits that were formed during the US invasion, occupation. Cash is very short with some people in a lot of communities. A lot of money’s gone missing; equipment hasn’t made it to its destination. Under-equipped, under-armed, lack of ammunition - these all are normal things if you speak to any Iraqi army or security services personnel. Around the ring of steel around Baghdad is much more secure, much more dependable. Where the problems really exist is out in the extremities in the North and the West, is where they need it most, where the organization, the equipment needs to be top notch and it simply is not. No matter how much money you throw out at it unless you address the fundamental problems, which the US cannot do and which the current US controlled government in Baghdad is unable to do. Unless you address these fundamental problems then there is going to be no amount of money or resources you can throw to make this military a 21st century fighting force.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

http://rt.com/op-edge/191816-us-iraq-military-war-soldiers/

Signed Agreement Locks in Ten More Years of Afghan War

Bilateral Security Agreement, signed Tuesday, will allow thousands of US troops to remain in the country for at least another decade

by

Sarah Lazare, staff writer

Locking in at least another decade of U.S. military entanglement, the United States and Afghanistan signed a controversial Bilateral Security Agreement at a ceremony in Kabul on Tuesday.

The provisions of the pact will allow for U.S. training, funding, and arming of the Afghan military and keep thousands of U.S. troops beyond what President Obama has repeatedly called the "end of the war" later his year.  A key part of the agreement also extends immunity to U.S. service members under Afghan law.

Critics charge that the deal allows the Obama administration to pay lip-service to ending an unpopular war while, in fact, paving the way for long-term occupation and dependency. "A country's sovereignty is very important," Laila Rashidie, member of Afghans United for Justice, told Common Dreams. "Thirteen years of U.S.-led military occupation continues to compromise this. A truly free Afghanistan would not depend on U.S. troops."

Signing the BSA was the first major act of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, who was inaugurated on Monday following a hotly contested election clouded by allegations of fraud. The U.S.-backed president clinched the security deal at a signing ceremony at Kabul's presidential palace on Tuesday, currying praise from the Obama administration, which had voiced frustration at outgoing President Hamid Karzai's refusal to sign. The deal is set to go into effect in January 2015 and last until the year 2024.

The deal stipulates long-term U.S. military presence in Afghanistan and access to numerous bases and installations in the country, including facilities located in Bagram, home to the notorious U.S. military prison. The pact does not detail the exact number of U.S. troops to remain, but Obama has previously stated he plans to cut U.S. troops down to 9,800 by the beginning of 2015, then cut that number by half at the end of next year, with further cuts slated for the end of 2016. As of earlier this year, there were approximately 50,000 NATO troops in Afghanistan, 34,000 of which were American.

Peter Lems, Program Officer at the American Friends Service Committee, told Common Dreams that even if the U.S. sticks with Obama's timetable for troop reductions, of which there is no guarantee, the stated plan does not constitute a real end to the war.

"That's one of the biggest problems with the War on Terror since September 11: these wars don't end," said Lems. "We have this crazy situation where we have undeclared wars and, perhaps because of the nature of undeclared conflicts, it's easy to look at them as dissipating but never-ending."

The deal also allows the U.S. to pursue "counter-terrorism" missions as long as they "complement" those of the Afghan military and "authorizes United States government aircraft and civil aircraft that are operated by or exclusively for United States forces to enter, exit, overfly, land, take off, conduct aerial refueling, and move within the territory of Afghanistan." Critics warn that the stipulation is likely to allow the U.S. to continue its covert drone wars against the region, including neighboring Pakistan.

Under the agreement, the U.S. is to play a critical role in "advising, training, equipping, supporting, and sustaining" the Afghan military, as well as "developing intelligence sharing capabilities; strengthening Afghanistan’s Air Force capabilities; conducting combined military exercises." Many warn that "training" is in fact cover for holding onto bases and other geopolitical footholds.

According to Lems, this provision sets the conditions for long-term U.S. domination. "To have the U.S. fully fund that apparatus will lead to dependence, but also encourage Afghan officials to use force and violence the way the U.S. has," he said.

Meanwhile, U.S. service members are granted immunity under Afghan laws. The issue of immunity for U.S. troops has long been a point of contention for the Afghan people, who have faced a staggering civilian death toll, as well as a spate of high-profile massacres, including the 2012 Panjwai massacre, in which 16 Afghan civilians were gunned down and killed and 6 more wounded by U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales.

The approval of the deal, which will keep U.S. aid dollars flowing, was championed by Ghani as "helpful for Afghan stability and prosperity and for the stability of region and that of the world."

But critics counter that this is simply an example of how the U.S. uses militarized aid as a tool for dominating poor countries.

"There already is long-term dependency," said a human rights analyst who visits Afghanistan regularly and requested anonymity to protect the security of NGOs working on the ground. "The Afghan army would collapse overnight if the U.S. pulled its funding. The Afghan sees signing this agreement as a key piece to keeping aid going."

"A country's instability is caused by foreign interference and intervention," said Rashidie.

The Bilateral Security Agreement was a condition for NATO's status of forces agreement, signed later on Tuesday, which extends similar privileges to thousands of foreign troops now slated to remain in Afghanistan past the end of this year.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2014/09/30/signed-agreement-locks-ten-more-years-afghan-war

Is Israel Trying to Force Palestinians into the Sinai?

The Greater Gaza Plan

by JONATHAN COOK

Nazareth.

What is Israel’s endgame in Gaza? It is a question that has been puzzling analysts and observers for some time. But indications of the future Israel and Washington may have in mind for Gaza are emerging.

Desperately overcrowded, short on basic resources like fresh water, blockaded for eight years by Israel, with its infrastructure intermittently destroyed by Israeli bombing campaigns, Gaza looks like a giant pressure cooker waiting to explode.

It is difficult to imagine that sooner or later Israel will not face a massive upheaval on its doorstep. So how does Israel propose to avert a scenario in which it must either savagely repress a mass uprising by Palestinians in Gaza or sit by and watch them tear down their prison walls?

Reports in the Arab and Israeli media – in part corroborated by the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas – suggest that Egypt may be at the heart of plans to solve the problem on Israel’s behalf.

This month the Israeli media reported claims, apparently leaked by Israeli officials, that Egypt’s president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, had offered the Palestinian leadership the chance to annex to Gaza an area of 1,600 sq km in Sinai. The donated territory would expand Gaza fivefold.

The scheme is said to have received the blessing of the United States.

‘Greater Gaza’ plan

According to the reports, the territory in Sinai would become a demilitarised Palestinian state – dubbed “Greater Gaza” – to which returning Palestinian refugees would be assigned. The Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas would have autonomous rule over the cities in the West Bank, comprising about a fifth of that territory. In return, Abbas would have to give up the right to a state in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The plan, which would most likely result in significant numbers of Palestinians moving outside the borders of historic Palestine, was quickly dismissed as “fabricated and baseless” by Egyptian and Palestinian officials.

Tayeb Abdel Rahim, a spokesman for Abbas, accused Israel of using the proposal to “destroy the Palestinian cause”, referring to Abbas’ efforts at the United Nations to win recognition of Palestinian statehood on parts of historic Palestine.

But Abdel Rahim’s denial raised more questions than it answered. While rejecting suggestions that Sisi had made such an offer, he made a surprising claim: a similar plan, to resettle Palestinian refugees in Sinai, had been advanced briefly by Sisi’s predecessor, Mohamed Morsi.

Morsi, who served as president for a year from summer 2012 until his ousting by Sisi in a military coup, headed a Muslim Brotherhood administration that tried to strengthen ties to the Hamas leadership in Gaza.

He said the plan was based on a proposal made by Giora Eiland, Israel’s national security adviser from 2004 to 2006. Abdel Rahim appeared to be referring to a plan unveiled by Eiland in 2004 that Israel hoped would be implemented after the withdrawal of settlers and soldiers from Gaza – the so-called disengagement – a year later.

Under Eiland’s terms, Egypt would agree to expand Gaza into the Sinai in return for Israel giving Egypt land in the Negev.

Zionist strategies

The idea of creating a Palestinian state outside historic Palestine – in either Jordan or Sinai – has a long pedigree in Zionist thinking. “Jordan is Palestine” has been a rallying cry on the Israeli right for decades. There have been parallel suggestions for Sinai.

In recent times, the Sinai option has found favour with the Israeli right, especially following the outbreak of the second intifada 14 years ago. Support appears to have intensified after the disengagement in 2005 and Hamas’ victory in the Palestinian national elections a year later.

Notably, the scheme became the centrepiece of the 2004 Herzliya conference, an annual meeting of Israel’s political, academic and security elites to exchange and develop policy ideas. It was then enthusiastically adopted by Uzi Arad, the conference’s founder and a long-time adviser to Benjamin Netanyahu, the current prime minister.

He proposed a three-way exchange, in which the Palestinians would get part of Sinai for their state, while in return Israel would receive most of the West Bank, and Egypt would be given a land passage across the Negev to connect it to Jordan.

A variation of the “Sinai is Palestine” option was dusted off again by the right during Operation Protective Edge, Israel’s 50-day attack on Gaza this summer.

Moshe Feiglin, the Speaker of the Israeli Knesset and a member of Netanyahu’s Likud party, called for Gaza’s inhabitants to be expelled from their homes under cover of the operation and moved into Sinai, in what he termed a “solution for Gaza”.

Did Morsi offer Sinai?

Given that the rationale of the Sinai option is to remove Palestinians from what the Israeli right considers Greater Israel, and such a plan is vehemently opposed by all Palestinian factions, including Hamas, why would Morsi have backed it?

Further, why would he have proposed giving up a chunk of Egyptian territory to satisfy Israeli ambitions, thereby undermining his domestic credibility, at a time when he was fighting for political survival on many other fronts?

One possibility is that Abbas’ office simply made up the story to discredit Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood, and by extension Abbas’ political rivals in Hamas, and thereby win favour with Sisi.

But few Palestinians or Egyptians appear to have found the claim credible, and Sisi has shown no interest in pursuing this line of attack against Morsi. Why would Abbas fabricate a story that might rebound on him by linking him to underhanded moves by Egypt, Israel and the US?

There are two further pieces of the jigsaw suggesting that there may be more to the Sinai story than meets the eye.

The first are comments made by Abbas shortly before the Israeli media began reporting the alleged offer by Sisi, as rumours started circulating in the Arab media.

Abbas signalled at a meeting with Fatah loyalists on August 31 that a proposal to create a Palestinian state in Sinai was still of interest to Egyptian officials.

He reportedly said: “A senior leader in Egypt said: ‘a refuge must be found for the Palestinians and we have all this open land.’ This was said to me personally. But it’s illogical for the problem to be solved at Egypt’s expense. We won’t have it.”

The Times of Israel website said it had subsequently confirmed the comments with Abbas.

The Palestinian leader made similar remarks on Egyptian TV a week earlier, when he told an interviewer an Israeli plan for the Sinai had been “unfortunately accepted by some here [in Egypt]. Don’t ask me more about that. We abolished it, because it can’t be.”

What about Mubarak?

The second clue was provided in a barely noticed report in English published last month on the website of the Arab newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat, headquartered in London but with strong ties to the Saudi royal family.

It claimed that in the later years of his presidency, Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak came under concerted and repeated pressure from the US to cede territory in Sinai to the Palestinians to help them establish a state.

The article, based on information reportedly provided by an unnamed former Mubarak official, stated that pressure started to be exerted on Egypt from 2007.

The source quoted Mubarak as saying at the time: “We are fighting both the US and Israel. There is pressure on us to open the Rafah crossing for the Palestinians and grant them freedom of residence, particularly in Sinai. In a year or two, the issue of Palestinian refugee camps in Sinai will be internationalized.”

In Mubarak’s view, according to the report, Israel hoped that, once Palestinians were on Egyptian soil, the combined area of Sinai and Gaza would be treated as the Palestinian state. This would be the only territory to which Palestinian refugees would be allowed to return.

Anticipating later statements by Abbas’ office, the Egyptian source said a similar proposal was put to Morsi when he came to power in 2012. A delegation of Muslim Brotherhood leaders travelled to Washington, where White House officials proposed that “Egypt cede a third of the Sinai to Gaza in a two-stage process spanning four to five years”.

US officials, the report stated, promised to “establish and fully support a Palestinian state” in the Sinai, including the establishment of seaports and an airport. The Brotherhood was urged to prepare Egyptian public opinion for the deal.

Pieces of the jigsaw

So what sense can we make of these various pieces of the jigsaw?

Each in itself can be discounted. The Asharq al-Awsat report is based on an anonymous source and there may be Saudi interests at work in promoting the story. Likewise, the Israelis could be waging a disinformation campaign.

But taken together, and given that Abbas appears reluctantly to have conceded key elements of the story, it becomes much harder to ignore the likelihood that the reports are grounded in some kind of reality.

There seems little doubt – from these reports and from the wider aspirations of the Israeli right – that a Sinai plan has been crafted by Israel’s security establishment and is being aggressively advanced, not least through the current leaks to the Israeli media. It also looks strongly like variations of this plan have been pushed more vigorously since 2007, when Hamas took exclusive control of Gaza.

Israel’s current rationale for the Sinai option is that it undermines Abbas’ intensifying campaign at the United Nations to seek recognition of Palestinian statehood, which Israel and the US adamantly oppose.

It also seems plausible, given the strength of its ties to Israel, that the US is backing the plan and adding its considerable weight to persuade the Egyptian and Palestinian leaderships.

Harder to read, however, is whether Egypt might have responded positively to such a campaign.

An Egyptian analyst explained the expected reaction from Sisi and his generals: “Egypt is relentlessly trying to keep Gaza at bay. Tunnels are being destroyed and a buffer zone is planned. Bringing more potentially hostile elements closer to Egypt would be a dangerous and reckless move.”

This is true enough. So what leverage do Israel and the US have over Egypt that might persuade it to override its national security concerns?

Turning the screw

Aside from the large sums of military aid Washington gives to Egypt each year, there is the increasingly pressing matter for Cairo of dire fuel shortages, which risk inflaming a new round of street protests.

Israel has recently discovered large offshore deposits of natural gas, which is it is ready to export to its neighbours. It is already quietly agreeing deals with the Palestinian Authority and Jordan, and is reported to be in advanced discussions with Egypt.

Is this part of the pressure being exerted on Egyptian leaders to concede territory in Sinai? And has it been enough to make them overlook their security concerns?

Finally, there is the Palestinian leadership’s role. Abbas has said firmly he will not countenance such a deal. How might Israel think it can change his mind?

One controversial possibility, which throws a very different light on the events of this summer, is that Israel may hope it can “soften up” Palestinian opinion, especially in Gaza, by making life even less bearable than it already is for the population there.

It is noticeable that Israel’s large-scale operations attacking Gaza – in the winter of 2008-09, 2012 and again this year – started shortly after Israel and the US, according to Asharq al-Awsat, began turning the screws on Mubarak to concede part of Sinai.

The massive and repeated destruction of Gaza has the added advantage for Israel that it would allow Cairo to cast its offer of a small slice of the Sinai to the Palestinians as a desperately needed humanitarian gesture.

The success of Israel’s approach requires isolating Gaza, through a blockade, and inflicting massive damage on it to encourage Palestinians to rethink their opposition to a state outside historic Palestine. That precisely fits Israeli policy since 2007.

The Sinai option may be difficult to confirm at this stage but we should keep it firmly in mind as we try to make sense of unfolding events in the region over the coming months and years.

Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books).  His website is www.jonathan-cook.net.

A version of this article first appeared in Middle East Eye

 http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/09/30/is-israel-trying-to-force-palestinians-into-the-sinai/