We Asked For Water, They Gave Us Gasoline
by ROBERT HUNZIKER
According to worldwide energy industry participants, all of the low hanging fruit is gone. Finding new energy sources will henceforth be difficult and expensive… and very dangerous to your health. The unquenchable thirst for energy is unique to modern man, a little over 100 years old, and energy is unquestionably the heartbeat of modern civilization. We cannot exist without it, but where and how to find it is fast becoming the biggest challenge to the health of planet earth. Case in point: Fracking is the fastest growing segment of the energy industry, massively so in North America, but it may be the death knell of society well before global warming has the opportunity to really strut its stuff.
According to Texas Governor Rick Perry, when confronted on the campaign trail about fracking problems: “We have been using hydraulic fracturing in my home state for years and this is a fear tactic that the left is using and the environmental community is using that absolutely, excuse the pun, does not hold water.”
Governor Perry’s bias and ill-founded statement is herein refuted by 12 personal testimonials in Texas included in the appendix to this article. Further, it is well understood by professionals who seriously follow the trails and tribulations of fracking that almost all cases where fracking has poisoned ground water are quickly settled, payoffs to the victims, by energy lawyers who arrange for the legal documents to be sealed. The implication herein is we do not know the whole story by a long shot, but knowing the whole story may be the only way to survive as a species. Why we don’t know all the facts should be one of the most important political questions of 2012.
The upcoming national debate about the election of 2012 should, front and center, address the fracking issue in earnest, and the government has a responsibility to its citizens to re-establish effective monitoring of the fracking industry under the U.S. Clean Water Act. Why not? Fracking poisons ground water (see testimonials in appendix), and because fracking is the fastest growth segment of the energy industry, it will be too late once its deadly effects are well understood by the public at large.
How do we reverse poisoned aquifers?
1) December 8th, 2011-Environmental Protection Agency says Gas-Fracking Chemicals Detected in Wyoming Aquifer, (a drinking-water aquifer in west-central Wyoming; residents of Pavilion, Wyoming warned to use ventilation when showering in order to air out potentially dangerous chemicals, and to drink and cook from bottled water.
2) April 27th, 2011- Jessica Ernst, an Alberta, Canada resident who is an oil patch consultant, sued Encana, Alberta Environment and Water, and the Alberta Energy Resources Conservation Board for $33M over allegations that Encana’s fracking/drilling caused water contamination, i.e., her faucets began to whistle, the toilet fizzed, black particles clogged her water filters, and she broke out in rashes.
3) December 23rd, 2011- US Dept. of Energy issues a request for proposals, offering $35 million, of projects that will address environmental impacts of… including contamination of drinking water with fracking chemicals….”
4) According to WaterDefense.org, “Across the country, state regulators have documented over 1,000 incidents of groundwater contamination related to fracking. In many cases, water is so polluted with gas that people can literally light their water on fire, right out of the tap!”
5) A New York Times article, d/d August 3, 2011, “A Tainted Water Well, and Concern There May be More,” by Ian Urbina, states: “The report concluded that hydraulic fracturing fluids or gel used by the Kaiser Exploration and Mining Company contaminated a well roughly 600 feet away on the property of James Parsons in Jackson County, W.Va., referring to it as “Mr. Parson’s water well… This fracture fluid, along with natural gas was present in Mr. Parson’s water, rendering it unusable.” The article goes on to conclude: “…E.P.A. report, said that she and her colleagues had found “dozens” of cases that she said appeared to specifically involve drinking water contamination related to fracking. But they were unable to investigate those cases further and get access to more documents because of legal settlements.”
APPENDIX
A list of actual groundwater contamination cases from the Natural Resources Defense Council:
Arkansas: In 2008, Charlene Parish of Bee Branch reported contamination of drinking water during hydraulic fracturing of a nearby natural gas well owned by Southwestern Energy Company. Her water smelled bad, turned yellow, and filled with silt.
Arkansas: In 2007, the Graetz family in Pangburn reported contamination of drinking water during hydraulic fracturing of a nearby natural gas well owned by Southwestern Energy Company. The water turned muddy and contained particles that were “very light and kind of slick” and resembled pieces of leather.
Arkansas: In 2009, a family in Bee Branch, who wishes to remain anonymous, reported changes in water pressure and drinking water that turned gray and cloudy and had noxious odors after hydraulic fracturing of a nearby natural gas well owned by Southwestern Energy Company.
Arkansas: In 2007, a family in Center Ridge reported changes in water pressure and water that turned red or orange and looked like it had clay in it after hydraulic fracturing of nearby wells owned by Southwestern Energy Company. They told their story on YouTube.
Arkansas: In 2008, a homeowner in Center Ridge reported changes in water pressure and water that turned brown, smelled bad, and had sediment in it after hydraulic fracturing of a nearby well owned by Southwestern Energy Company. He also told his story on YouTube.
Colorado: In 2001, two families in Silt reported a water well blow-out and contamination of their drinking water during hydraulic fracturing of four nearby natural gas wells owned by Ballard Petroleum, now Encana Corporation. Their drinking water turned gray, had strong smells, bubbled, and lost pressure. One family reported health symptoms they believe are linked to the groundwater contamination.
Colorado: In 2007, the Bounds family in Huerfano County reported a pump house exploded and contamination of drinking water during hydraulic fracturing of nearby wells owned by Petroglyph Energy.
Colorado: In June, 2010, the day hydraulic fracturing began on a nearby gas well in Las Animas County, landowner Tracy Dahl checked his cistern and found approximately 500 gallons of grayish brown murky water where water had previously run clear for years. The Dahls have extensive water testing documentation going back many years, verifying that their water has always been clean and clear. They were told by Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (“COGCC”) staff that the water could not be tested for chemicals in the hydraulic fracturing fluid because there is insufficient information about the chemicals used. Three monitor wells on the ranch are now producing methane at an escalating rate.
New Mexico: A 2004 investigation by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency found two residents who reported that the quality of their water was affected by hydraulic fracturing.
New York: In 2007, the Lytle family in Seneca County reported contamination of drinking water the morning after hydraulic fracturing of a nearby natural gas well owned by Chesapeake Energy Corporation. The water turned gray and was full of sediment.
New York: In 2009, the Eddy family in Allegany County reported contamination of drinking water during hydraulic fracturing of a nearby well owned by U.S. Energy Development Corporation. The water turned “foamy, chocolate-brown.”
North Dakota: The North Dakota non-profit organization Bakken Watch reports very serious health symptoms in humans, livestock, and pets after nearby hydraulic fracturing. Their website has photos of sick animals, pit leaks, and corroded tanks. North Dakota state legislators admit they are “understaffed and overwhelmed” and “struggling to provide adequate oversight amid an explosion of activity in North Dakota’s oil patch.”
Ohio: In 2007, there was an explosion of a water well and contamination of at least 22 other drinking water wells in Bainbridge Township after hydraulic fracturing of a nearby natural gas well owned by Ohio Valley Energy Systems. According to the State investigation, one of the contributing factors to this incident is that: “the frac communicated directly with the well bore and was not confined within the “Clinton” reservoir.”
Pennsylvania: A gas well near the home of the Simons family in Bradford County was drilled in 2009 and re-fracked in February 2011. Shortly after the 2011 operation, the Simons family reports that their tap water turned gray and hazy. After the water changed, family members began getting severe rashes with oozing blisters, and one child had to be taken to the hospital for torrential nosebleeds that would not stop, nausea and severe headaches. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) tested the water and found very high levels of methane and other contaminants in the water, but said it was safe to drink. Since the Simons family stopped using any of their water, these symptoms have gone away but the water still “stinks awfully; it is a scummy, rotten, nasty smell…”
Pennsylvania: In September 2010, a lawsuit was filed by 13 families who say they have been and continue to be exposed to contaminated drinking water linked to hydraulic fracturing. Eight different properties in Susquehanna County are said to have contaminated drinking water. One child has neurological symptoms consistent with exposure to toxic substances. Southwestern Energy, the company operating the well near these families, responded that it promptly investigated all complaints and that both the company and the Pennsylvania Department of the Environment independently tested the water and found no link between gas operations and the water quality and no problems with the integrity of the gas well.
Pennsylvania: In 2009, the Zimmerman family of Washington County reported contamination of drinking water after hydraulic fracturing of nearby natural gas wells owned by Atlas Energy. Water testing on their farm found arsenic at 2,600 times acceptable levels, benzene at 44 times above limits, naphthalene at five times the federal standard, and mercury and selenium levels above official limits.
Pennsylvania: In 2008, two families in Gibbs Hill reported contamination of drinking water after hydraulic fracturing of a nearby natural gas well owned by Seneca Resources Corporation. Their water had strong fumes, caused burning in lungs and sinuses after showering, and caused burning in the mouth immediately upon drinking. The state found that the company had not managed the pressure in the well properly and had spilled used hydraulic fracturing fluids that contaminated the drinking water supply.
Pennsylvania: In 2009, families in Bradford Township reported contamination of drinking water after hydraulic fracturing of nearby natural gas wells owned by Schreiner Oil & Gas. The drinking water of at least seven families has been contaminated.
Pennsylvania: In 2009, the Smitsky family in Hickory reported contamination of their drinking water after hydraulic fracturing of nearby natural gas wells owned by Range Resources. Their water became cloudy and foul smelling. Testing found acrylonitrile, a chemical that may be used in hydraulic fracturing.
Pennsylvania: A family in Bradford County reports that its water turned black and became flammable from methane contamination in 2009 after hydraulic fracturing of a nearby well operated by Chesapeake Energy. The water cleared for a while but turned black again in 2010. Relatives living down the road also report their water turning black in 2010.
Texas: Larry Bisidas is an expert in drilling wells and in groundwater. He is the owner of Bisidas Water Well Drilling in Wise County, and has been drilling water wells for 40 years. Two water wells on his property became contaminated in 2010. When his state regulator stated that there has been no groundwater contamination in Texas related to hydraulic fracturing, Mr. Bisidas replied: “”All they’ve gotta do is come out to my place, and I’ll prove it to them.”
Texas: In Wise County, Catherine and Brett Bledsoe report that their drinking water became contaminated in 2010 soon after hydraulic fracturing began on two natural gas wells bordering their property. The water stung their eyes during showers, and their animals refused to drink the water. Without any assistance from regulators, the Bledsoes paid for their own water testing. The testing found benzene, a known carcinogen, at double the safe levels.
Texas: In 2007, three families who share an aquifer in Grandview reported contamination of drinking water after hydraulic fracturing of a nearby well owned by Williams. They experienced strong odors in their water, changes in water pressure, skin irritation, and dead livestock. Water testing found toluene and other contaminants.
Texas: The Scoma family in Johnson County is suing Chesapeake Energy, claiming the company contaminated their drinking water with benzene and petroleum by-products after hydraulic fracturing of natural gas wells near the Scoma home. The family reports that its drinking water sometimes runs an orange-yellow color, tastes bad and gives off a foul odor.
Texas: Tarrant County Commissioner J.D. Johnson, who lives in the Barnett shale area, reported groundwater contamination immediately after two gas wells on his property were hydraulically fractured. His water turned a dark gold color and had sand in it.
Texas: Carol Grosser, in south Texas, noticed changes in her water after a neighbor told her a nearby well was being hydraulically fractured. Carol noticed changes in her water pressure and rust-colored residue in her stock tanks. The fish in her tanks died, and some of her goats had abnormal milk production and produced kids with unusual birth defects.
Texas: Toby Frederick began noticing a foul odor and discoloration in his water after ”an oil company blew out some casing during a hydraulic fracturing job northeast of his property.” Mr. Frederick paid for his own water samples, which found traces of benzene, a known carcinogen, in his water. He sent samples to his local Ground Water Conservation District, but never received any results. The Texas Railroad Commission told him his water was drinkable, even though it is brown and smells like diesel fuel.
Texas: The Executive Director of the Upper Trinity River Groundwater Conservation District in north Texas stated that the District “gets ‘regular reports’ from property owners who said that ‘since a particular [gas] well had been fracked, they’ve had problems’ with their water wells, such as sand in them, saltier water or reduced water output….”
Texas: Susan Knoll in the Barnett shale reports that last year her drinking water became foamy right after hydraulic fracturing of a well adjacent to her property. Since that time, additional gas wells have been fractured near her home and her drinking water has continually gotten worse. It sometimes foams, becomes oily, and has strong odors that burn Susan’s nose when she smells her water. Susan has a lot of videos and more information on her blog.
Texas: Grace Mitchell, a resident of Johnson County, Texas, is suing Encana and Chesapeake. According to her lawsuit, soon after drilling and hydraulic fracturing took place near her home in 2010, her water became contaminated, feeling slick to the touch and giving off an oily, gasoline-like odor. Testing results performed on her well water confirmed it was contaminated with various chemicals, including C-12-C28 hydrocarbons, similar to diesel fuel.
Texas: The Harris family of Denton County, Texas, is suing Devon Energy. They say that their water became contaminated soon after Devon commenced drilling and hydraulic fracturing near their home in 2008, and that their water became polluted with a gray sediment. Testing results performed on the well water found contamination with high levels of metals: aluminum, arsenic, barium, beryllium, calcium, chromium, cobalt, copper, iron, lead, lithium, magnesium, manganese, nickel, potassium, sodium, strontium, titanium, vanadium, and zinc.
Virginia: Citizens reported drinking water contamination after hydraulic fracturing. Water was murky and had oily films, black sediments, methane, and diesel odors. Individuals experienced rashes from showering. The Buchanan Citizens Action Group reported over 100 documented complaints of adverse effects of hydraulic fracturing and the Dickenson County Citizens Committee reported ground water quality deteriorated throughout the county as a result of the large number of hydraulic fracturing events.
West Virginia: The Hagy family in Jackson County, West Virginia, is suing four oil and gas companies for contaminating their drinking water. They say their water had ”a peculiar smell and taste” and the parents as well as their two children are suffering from neurological symptoms. A news article reports that the lawsuit makes the connection between the drinking water contamination and the hydraulic fracturing process.
West Virginia: In Marshall County, Jeremiah Magers reported in October, 2010, that “As soon as they ‘fracked’ those gas wells, that’s when my water well started getting gas in it.” He also lost all the water in his well.
West Virginia: In Wetzel County, Marilyn Hunt reported to the EPA in 2010 that: ”frac drilling is contaminating the drinking water here.” Residents report health symptoms, such as rashes and mouth sores, as well as illness in their lambs and goats, which they suspect is linked to drinking water contamination.
Wyoming: Families in the small town of Pavillion have been reporting contamination of their drinking water for at least ten years. Hydraulic fracturing has been used in the many wells in the area owned by Encana Corporation. Drinking water has turned black, smelled bad, and tasted bad. Individuals report medical symptoms they believe are related to water contamination. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency found contamination in 11 water wells, and concluded in the draft report on its investigation that: “the data indicates likely impact to ground water that can be explained by hydraulic fracturing.”
Robert Hunziker earned an MA in economic history at DePaul University. He lives in Los Angeles.
Yet a howling defiance into the darkness of the corporate state night
by PHIL ROCKSTROH
It is laughable (in a weeping outright sort of way) that Obama and his fellow Democratic Party supporters and apologists can’t find a more resonant campaign theme than, “We carry out the agendas of the national security/bankster/militarist state (i.e., the one percent) while appearing to be less crazy than Republicans.”
The notion of even possessing a preference as to whom should be president of this crumbling, faux republic…is a bit like asking what color uniform one would prefer that the crew tasked with rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic should don as they go about their duties.
In times such as these, when escaping into one’s comfort zone is no longer a viable option, one is advised to evince the audacity of hopelessness, because the act leaves one desperate enough to embrace this daunting proposition:
“And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” John 8:32
Although, for the present and foreseeable future, the propitious aspects of the sentiment will not hold true for Bradley Manning…whose plight displays the punitive, hyper-authoritarian nature of late U.S. empire. As is the case with Manning, in a national security state, few acts will cause one to lose his freedom in a more rapid manner than to reveal the secrets of lawless, ruthless power.
Apparently, Bradley Manning guarded secrets of his own…not shameful ones–but traits that would cause him to become subject to derision if revealed.
Manning desired to practice transvestism. This U.S. Army private was privy to illusion. Innately, he grasped how being coerced into suppressing one’s secrets damages one’s soul. Manning merely harbored the desire to practice a bit of gender bending; in contrast, the operatives of empire demand that they be allowed to bend and twist the world itself towards their exploitative ends.
To live in empire–in the service of its imperial military or in the thrall of the pursuit of careerist vanity and consumerist compulsions–is to live a selfish lie, day in and day out.
Rupaul (Andre Charles) averred, “We all came into this world naked. The rest is all drag.”
We all make choices as to what form of drag we practice. Does my lie promote the truth? Is my act educational, entertaining or edifying? Does it allow me to inhabit my true self yet transcend my narcissism? Does my act and attendant actions bring balm or does it deliver more suffering than necessary to a world where it is impossible to escape suffering?
Ask yourself and those around you these questions in regard to Private Manning and the operatives and denizens of U.S. Empire.
On the subject of identity, authentic or dubious: Even after being an almost constant public presence for more than half a decade, Barack Obama’s true nature and authentic identity remains elusive. After all this time, he still seems less man than marketing rollout, less of a political leader than an object lesson in product placement. The situation is like having the role of chief executive of the nation filled with a disposable razor or a heavily hyped iPhone application.
The U.S. presidency, as is the case with almost all aspects of life in the corporate consumer state, has become increasingly dominated and defined by commercial/public relations-type legerdemain. The constant commercial come-ons of the media hologram mask its hollow core; the proliferation of weightless lies serves to overwhelm the gravity of perilous times.
Obama’s nebulous nature works to ensure the continued irrational ardor of his supporters, who, against all evidence, insist on clinging to fantasy and projection regarding the president’s much in evidence anti-democratic tendencies; hence, progressive types seem prone to project their own redeeming qualities on the blank slate that Obama creates and deploys as his public persona–a method similar to that used by con artists who exploit the decency of their marks to achieve their criminal ends.
Apropos, this indefensible, Bush-era type of deceit connecting 9/11 and the invasion and occupation of Iraq:
“The war in Iraq will soon belong to history. Your service belongs to the ages. Never forget that you are part of an unbroken line of heroes spanning two centuries — from the colonists who overthrew an empire, to your grandparents and parents who faced down fascism and communism, to you — men and women who fought for the same principles in Fallujah and Kandahar, and delivered justice to those who attacked us on 9/11.”— President Obama speaking to troops at Fort Bragg, N.C., December 14, 2011
In this instance, the shape-shifter Obama morphs from hollow man to Death’s slick, narrow-ass, public relations representative.
I’ve noticed that debates with Obama’s apologists have a very similar trajectory as those with Republican partisans. Because partisans are hard pressed to explain away the affronts to truthful discourse and good governance displayed by the politicians they support, any attempt to engage them in debate involving the merits (or lack thereof) of the policies of said politicians (e.g., their unwavering support of the 1% and U.S. militarist imperium)–quickly devolves into volleys of ad hominem attacks launched from the ranks of their supporters.
For example, from the right, OWS activists are labeled dirty, America-hatin’ hippies who supports swarthy terrorists, yet from the liberal camp, OWSers who refuse cooperation with the Democratic Party are cast as purer-than-thou types–too above it all to sully themselves by an acceptance of the pragmatic nature of political reality.
What is the reason for this irrational response from liberals–from folks who scoff at teabaggers and religious fundamentalists for their less than sane and sanguine approach to political discourse? There is simply no reasonable way to defend the acts of our blood-sustained empire abroad and the machinations of a predatory economic elite at home; hence, the testiness evinced by the enablers of the duopolistic state.
Withal, when I post an article or FaceBook status critical of President Obama–the tone and tenure of the ensuing debate with his defenders takes on a Bush era aura. As a general rule, when the rationalizations of both Bush and Obama supporters are countered with facts regarding their dismal governance, the invectives fly. Granted, the grammar and syntax of Obama apologists is superior to that of Republican loyalists–but their fallacy arguments are every bit as dodgy.
Consequently, the policies of both parties (bulwarked by the concretized support of partisans) translate into unnecessary suffering and death–the calling card and ground level criteria of the oligarchic/imperialist state. And sorry, Obama loyalists–your man is not the lesser-of-two evils candidate: He is among his peers. In many ways, he has proven himself a more deceitful, ruthless crime boss than his predatory, Republican predecessors, in other words, the chief executive of a militarist empire.
The 1% and their advocates and operatives in the U.S. political class have thrown us to the wolves. How does one make an ally of uncertainty and keep close the verities of the heart while negotiating this howling political wilderness?
Even in this era of oversized fear and diminished imagination, there are some among us–nonconformists, creative thinkers, artists and occupiers–who welcome (rather than cower before) the metaphorical image of wolves (that are recognize as fellow outcasts). Instead of being shamed by outsider status, they have been suckled and raised by wolves–i.e., by embracing their fate of having been cast-out into the wilderness.
Nourished by the spirit of defiance, some thrive when freed from the constraints of a habitual adherence to groupthink. The dark terrain of societal abandonment becomes their natural habitat: They howl at the moon; they reject the daylight world of bland consensus; they learn to see in the dark, apprehending their own interior darkness and, as a result, gaining understanding into the hearts of darkness beating within those in power.
The wilderness of political activism, of poetry, of art becomes their home: They don’t clean-up nicely for the polite company demanded by political duopoly; they don’t let themselves be bred down (as a few domesticated wolves did) to yapping Toy Poodles, in exchange for a few food scraps.
When you’re looking at a Toy Poodle–you’re looking at a former wolf, as, for example, when your looking at corporate press members, you’re looking at folks whose ancestors long ago were journalists.
One moment, you’re loping through the woods, snout held high, smelling the scent of fresh game on the wind, but the next thing you know–you’re being led around on a leash and collar, encrusted with tacky rhinestones, and you’re salivating at the sound of an electric can-opener. One moment, you’re a child, entranced in play, hardwired to eternity–next moment, you’re sitting at work and your passions, hopes and yearnings have been shrunk down to Toy Poodle-sized agendas . . . You’re truckling for your boss’s approval; you’re counting the minutes until break time. Like domesticated livestock and unfortunate animals incarcerated in zoos, you are no longer a noble animal–you have become a Thing That Waits For Lunch.
To resist, we must cast off the fear of being an outcast. The signs bode well for us: Over the last few months, in the company of the OWS pack, I have witnessed the awakening of many…have been graced with the privilege of being in their lupine company as we howled defiant into the darkness of the corporate state night.
One must remember this: We human beings are of nature as well. Accordingly, within us lies an indomitable self, encoded with the grace and fury of the natural world, and, if acknowledged and respected, our authentic nature will awaken and arise. Then the real dogfight begins: The fur will fly, as we fight, fang and claw, to retake the lost landscape of our collective humanity, and, by extension, begin the struggle to restore health, imagination and empathy to a nation of cage-accepting, imperium-countenancing, sick puppies.
Phil Rockstroh is a poet, lyricist and philosopher bard living in New York City. He may be contacted at: phil@philrockstroh.com.
Albert Cossery’s "The Colors of Infamy"
by CHARLES R. LARSON
Of the many novels with settings in Cairo, Albert Cossery’s The Colors of Infamy captures the frenzy of the metropolis more vividly than all the others I have read. Cossery’s novella was published in French is 1999, more than a decade before the recent events that have altered Egypt so thoroughly, though all the seeds of the current revolution are present: the decrepit sections of the city; the traffic on the streets, making them impossible for pedestrians to cross; the minions of street-people with little hope or expectations in their lives. The narrator—a professional thief—is stopped short in his tracks one day when he discovers a new occupation: Street Crosser.
“This was a new trade, even more daring that that of thief because one risked a violent death; it was a trade he could never have dreamed up even in his wildest theories about the ingenuity of his people. The man who had invented this astounding profession in order to make ends meet deserved his admiration and undying friendship. He would have liked to congratulate him and even write to the government to request that he be decorated as a model for a new generation of workers. This inventor of a job as yet undiscovered by the hardened unemployed of the beleaguered capital was unquestionably entitled to a medal.”
Ossama himself—Cossery’s hero/thief—isn’t lacking in imagination. The thinks of himself, “Not as a legitimate thief, such as a minister, banker, wheeler-dealer, speculator, or real-estate developer; he was a modest thief with a variable income, but one whose activities—no doubt because their return was limited—have, always and everywhere, been considered an affront to the moral rules by which the affluent live.” Sound familiar? Ossama is simply trying to survive in a society ruled by crooks, “without waiting for the revolution, which was hypothetical and continually put off until tomorrow.” And the system he’s worked out? Dress like the well-to-do in expensively tailored suits and hang out in the haunts where the rich spend their time. He’s been, in fact, rather successful, since anyone looking at him would never conclude that he’s a simple pick-pocket.
One day the billfold that he picks from a man leaving the “Club of Notables” not only contains the anticipated money but also a letter addressed to a man who has been the center of an on-going scandal in the news for days. The “fabulously wealthy real estate developer was being sued for causing the deaths of some fifty tenants of a low-rent apartment building constructed by his firm,” i.e., constructed from shoddy materials. And the letter, “written by hand on the letterhead of Ministry of Public Works,” identifies the real estate developer’s accomplice in the government who, because of kickbacks, has hugely benefited. Ossama reads the letter several times, recognizing its enormous economic potential for blackmail, yet also realizing that “he was holding a bomb in his hands and he did not know how to explode it.”
What slowly evolves is a dialogue about honor for Cairo’s poor. Ossama’s education got him nowhere. He was “starving to death in honesty and ignorance,” while the people at the top were getting filthy rich. When he switched to pick-pocketing the rich, he felt that he was at least contributing something to society and to the economy. The money he stole he spent at shops that would be out of business were it not for him and his peers. As another character observes, “Honor is an abstract notion, invented like everything else by the dominant caste so that the poorest of the poor can boast about having a phantom good that costs no one anything.”
The ending of this deliciously wicked novel pits Ossama against the owner of the billfold, Atef Suleyman, the corrupt businessman, in a clever debate of values, class differences, and questions of one’s fate. The dialogue—especially because of Alyson Water’s delightful translation—becomes the highlight of the The Colors of Infamy. Sadly, this was Cossery’s final novel, reasserting once again his unofficial title: “Voltaire of the Nile.”
The Colors of Infamy
By Albert Cossery
Trans. by Alyson Waters
New Directions, 96 pp., $12.95
Charles R. Larson is Emeritus Professor of Literature at American University, in Washington, D.C. Email: clarson@american.edu
Howlin' Wolf at Camp Adair
by JEFFREY ST. CLAIR
From his locked room, he could hear the trains rattling up the tracks, one every half hour. They reminded of him of home, back on Dockery Plantation, when he played on the porches of old shacks with Charley Patton, blowing his harmonica to the rhythm of those big wheels rolling along the rails. Those northbound trains were the sound of freedom then.
Now he was in the mad house, where grown men, their minds broken by the carnage of war, wailed and screamed all night long. Most of them were white. Some were strapped to their beds. Others ambled with vacant eyes, lost in the big room. Chester just stood in the corner and watched. He didn’t say much. He didn’t know what to say. Sometimes he looked out the barred window across the misty fields toward the river and the big mountains far beyond, white pyramids rising above the green forests.
The doctors came every day, men in white jackets with clipboards. They showed him drawings. They asked about his family and his dreams. They asked if he’d ever killed anyone—he had but he didn’t want to talk about that. They asked him to read a big block of words to them. But Chester couldn’t read. He’d never been allowed to go to school.
The doctors asked all the white men the same questions. Poked and prodded them the same way. Let them sleep and eat together. Left them to comfort each other in the longnights in the Oregon fog.
Chester would play checkers with the orderlies and sing blues songs, keeping the beat by slapping his huge feet on the cold and gleaming white floor. Men would gather round him, even the boys who seemed really far gone would calm down for a few minutes, listening to Wolf growl out “How Long, How Long Blues” or “High Water Everywhere.” It was odd, but here in the mad house Chester felt like an equal for the first time.
The mental hospital at Camp Adair was located just off of the Pacific Highway on a small rise above the Willamette River in western Oregon, only a few miles south from the infamous Oregon State Hospital, whose brutal methods of mental therapy were exposed by Ken Kesey in One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest. Camp Adair had been built in 1942 as a training ground for the US Infantry and as a base for the 9th Signal Corps. The big hospital was built in 1943. Its rooms were soon overflowing with wounded soldiers from the Pacific theater.
Chester Burnett, by then known throughout the Mississippi Delta as Howlin’ Wolf, had been inducted into the Army in April 1941. Wolf didn’t go willingly. He was tracked down by the agents of the Army and forced into service. Years later, Wolf said that the plantation owners in the Delta had turned him into the military authorities because he refused to work in the fields. Wolf was sent to Pine Bluff, Arkansas for training. He was thirty years old and the transition to the intensely regulated life of the army was jarring.
Soon Wolf was transferred to Camp Blanding in Jacksonville, Florida, where he was assigned to the kitchen patrol. He spent the day peeling potatoes, slopping food onto plates as the enlisted men walked down the lunch line. At night, Wolf would play the blues in the assembly room as the men waited for mail call. Later Wolf was sent to Fort Gordon, a sprawling military base in Georgia named after a Confederate general. Wolf would play his guitar on the steps of the mess hall, which is where the young James Brown, who came to the Fort nearly every day to earn money shining shoes and performing buck dances for the troops, first heard Wolf play. Still it was a boring and tedious existence.
For some reason, the Army detailed the illiterate Howlin’ Wolf to the Signal Corps, responsible for sending and decoding combat communications. When his superiors discovered that Wolf couldn’t read he was sent for tutoring at a facility Camp Murray near Tacoma, Washington. It was Wolf’s first experience inside a school and it proved a brutal one. A vicious drill instructor would beat Wolf with a riding crop when he misread or misspelled a word. The humiliating experience was repeated each day, week after week. The harsher the officer treated Wolf, the more stubborn Wolf became. Finally, the stress became too much for the great man and he collapsed one day on base before heading to class. Wolf suffered episodes of uncontrollable shaking. He was frequently dizzy and disoriented. He fainted a number of times while on duty, once while walking down the hallway.
“The Army is hell!” Wolf said in an interview in the 1970s. “I stayed in the Army for three years. I done all my training, you know? I liked the Army all right, but they put so much on a man, you know what I mean? My nerves couldn’t take it, you know? They drilled me so hard it just naturally give me a nervous breakdown.”
Finally in August 1943, Howlin’ Wolf was transferred to Camp Adair and committed to the Army mental hospital for evaluation. The first notes the shrink scribbled in Wolf’s file expressed awe at the size-16 feet. The other assessments were less impressive, revealing the rank racism that pervaded both the US Army and the psychiatric profession in the 1940s. One doctor speculated that Wolf suffered from schizophrenia induced by syphilis, even though there was no evidence Wolf had ever contracted a venereal disease. Another notation suggested that Wolf was an “hysteric,” a nebulous Freudian term that was usually reserved for women. The diagnosis was commonly applied to blacks by military doctors who viewed them as mentally incapable of handling the regimens of Army life. Another doctor simply wrote Wolf down with casual cruelty as a “mental defective.”
None of the shrinks seemed to take the slightest interest in Chester Burnett’s life, the incredible journey that had taken him from living beneath a rickety house in the Mississippi Delta to the wild juke joints of West Memphis and to an Army base in the Pacific Northwest. None of them seemed to be aware that by 1943, Howlin’ Wolf had already proved himself to be one of the authentic geniuses of American music, a gifted and sensitive songwriter and a performer of unparalleled power, who was the propulsive force behind the creation of the electric blues.
Howlin’ Wolf was locked up for two months in the Army psych ward. He was lashed to his bed, his body parts examined and measured: his head, his hands, his feet, his teeth, his penis. The shrinks wanted to know if he liked to have sex with men, if he tortured animals, if he hated his father. He was beaten, shocked and drugged when he resisted the barbarous treatment by the military doctors. Finally he was cut loose from the Army, discharged as being unfit for duty. He was probably lucky he wasn’t lobotomized or sterilized, as was the cruel fate of so many other encounters with the dehumanizing machinations of governmental psychiatry.
“The Army ain’t no place for a black man,” Wolf recalled years later. “Jus’ couldn’t take all that bossin’ around, I guess. The Wolf’s his own boss.”
This Week’s Playlist
Howlin’ Wolf – Smokestack Lightning: The Complete Chess Masters 1951-1960
The Sir Douglas Quintet – The Mono Singles ‘68-’72
Gretchen Parlato – The Lost and Found
Charles Lloyd/Maria Farantouri – Athens Concert
Various Artists- Come Together: Black America Sings Lennon & McCartney
Jeffrey St. Clair’s latest book is Born Under a Bad Sky. He is the co-editor of Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion, forthcoming from AK Press. He can be reached at: sitka@comcast.net.
But We Do Want to End the American Reich?
Wir Sind Nicht Alle Österreicher
by MARC SALOMON
Throughout the global north governments are falling to technocratic coups d’etat in service of finance capital. In the United States, there was no need for such unpleasantries as both state political parties are clients of Wall Street and their counterparties and offered up no significant resistance to popular austerity and debt hysteria to keep the banks flush and the wars going.
The Occupy movement gives the left of center a hope of breaking out of that trap, but offers up no indication that we will see near or mid term achievements. Then again, nobody thought in 1988 that the Soviet Union and Berlin Wall would crumble within a year Anything can happen but often doesn’t.
To hedge our bets, moderates, liberals and progressives should consider thinking outside the box and supporting Ron Paul for President. Ron Paul would advance more of our values further than most of our self-proclaimed allies. Paul would end the military and drug wars, end malevolent interventionism as foreign and military policy, end special treatment for Israeli crimes and reclaim control of the currency within the Congress. These are big-ticket items that Paul and a majority of Americans support but which the elites strongly oppose and invariably veto.
Ron Paul, for his part, must realize that his electoral prospects are currently slim to none, even with any latent appeal. While critically important planks in his platform broaden his appeal widely, other aspects of his program are very unpopular and drive folks away. With the majority of Americans who are not libertarian capitalists of the Austrian School cool to Pauls’ laissez-faire economic sharia, Paul should consider focusing his campaign on those big issues where the American people are with him.
American domestic electoral politics has been a metronome spectacle of cartoonish caricatures, scary shibboleths trotted out by each side like clockwork, to make us fear “The Other” so that the elites can continue to rule unimpeded. The spooks generally arise from the culture wars and from extreme misrepresentations of left and right economics. Together they effectively scare and tribally divide Americans to our mutual detriment but to the benefit of banksters and those who benefit from the military industrial complex that drains resources from the productive economy and distributes death on an industrial scale.
The only way that Paul has a hope of replacing the American Empire with a constitutional democratic republic is for both him and folks left of center to put aside, for the time being, our hot button, wedge issues, those hobby horses that we all trot out on cue every election cycle to demonize and unify ourselves which only deflect our attention from the political heist.
If both the left and right can declare a cease-fire on contested issues, social, women’s, immigrant and gay rights, economic, entitlements and government regulation and most importantly, the environment—all held at the status quo for four years, then the basis for unity to challenge Empire can be established.
We have all been trained throughout the past 30 years to instinctively and ritualistically hate the other tribe. MSNBC and FoxNEWS both prefer segments that are little more than Orwell’s “Two Minutes Hate,” in the form of “Four Legs Good, Two Legs Bad.”
But as Americans we’ve all seen how this kind of politics only further empowers our mutual opponents, those who are driving us all down. And as folks to the left of center, we know that we must take responsibility for the consequences of the criminal military and economic actions of our government, prosecuted with our tax dollars that hold billions of global southerners in brutal squalor for our mere relative comfort and convenience.
We must take some risks ourselves to absolve ourselves of complicity to ongoing war crimes and crimes against humanity. Civil rights at home are important, but the right to life for people with the temerity to be living between global northerners and cheap raw materials in the global south are frankly more important to me than being denied access to a job or a home for being a gay man in the US.
A grand populist coalition to restore the democratic republic is just what the US and by consequence of interventionist military empire, the world, needs right now. Ron Paul is the only candidate for the presidency who is with us on these crucial issues and has successfully deployed presidential campaign level organizing skills. That makes him a contender worth consideration.
What Paul lacks, though is enough support to put him over the top even though dismantling the US Empire in favor of a democratic republic unites left, center and much of the populist right.
What is needed to solve that is not for anyone to compromise their principles or values. No, instead of compromise, we must all take stock of our predicament and prioritize what problems we’re going to tackle first to chart a path out. Then we must identify the best, most practical way to accomplish this given immutable constraints. How about left and right agree to identify where the American people are on key issues and to work their way down the list starting from those with highest levels of support that the elites oppose?
That is a worthy enough cause with enough of a chance of success that we should all consider putting aside for the time being our important yet relatively minor priorities in favor of reclaiming America from the manipulative financial, Zionist and military oligarchs who spread death and destruction in their wake, antagonize populations into resentment and thus instigate violent retaliation against American civilians, suck the US dry of all surplus and run roughshod over the environment.
Only with some semblance of popular sovereignty restored can left and right contest the hot button issues with any degree of democratic legitimacy. Until then, we’re being played, shadow boxing against one another for the benefit of the elites who are able to ignore popular opinion when it clashes with their rent seeking. Didn’t you ever wonder why for all the hue and cry, the parties don’t really deliver anything of substance on those eternally smoldering hot button wedge issues? It is time to break that deceptive and manipulative cycle, and an opportunity is presenting itself. Aren’t you tired of this sick game?
Can the left of center put aside our own immediate best interests, social and economic justice, in favor of ending the wars? Are any of us willing to put our ill-gotten comfort and convenience on the line, to sacrifice ourselves so that innocent others in far-off resource rich-lands might not be killed in our name, with our money, ultimately for our pleasure?
Can Paul put aside his libertarian capitalist economics in favor of restoring honest and accountable constitutional government? What do you say, Congressman?
Marc Salomon can be reached at: marcsalomon@gmail.com.
by AISLING BYRNE
“War with Iran is already here,” wrote a leading Israeli commentator recently, describing “the combination of covert warfare and international pressure” being applied to Iran.
Although not mentioned, the “strategic prize” of the first stage of this war on Iran is Syria; the first campaign in a much wider sectarian power-bid. “Other than the collapse of the Islamic Republic itself,” Saudi King Abdullah was reported to have said last summer, “nothing would weaken Iran more than losing Syria.”
By December, senior United States officials were explicit about their regime change agenda for Syria: Tom Donilon, the US National Security Adviser, explained that the “end of the [President Bashar al-] Assad regime would constitute Iran’s greatest setback in the region yet – a strategic blow that will further shift the balance of power in the region against Iran.”
Shortly before, a key official in terms of operationalizing this policy, Under Secretary of State for the Near East Jeffrey Feltman, had stated at a congressional hearing that the US would “relentlessly pursue our two-track strategy of supporting the opposition and diplomatically and financially strangling the [Syrian] regime until that outcome is achieved”.
What we are seeing in Syria is a deliberate and calculated campaign to bring down the Assad government so as to replace it with a regime “more compatible” with US interests in the region.
The blueprint for this project is essentially a report produced by the neo-conservative Brookings Institute for regime change in Iran in 2009. The report – “Which Path to Persia?” - continues to be the generic strategic approach for US-led regime change in the region.
A rereading of it, together with the more recent “Towards a Post-Assad Syria” (which adopts the same language and perspective, but focuses on Syria, and was recently produced by two US neo-conservative think-tanks) illustrates how developments in Syria have been shaped according to the step-by-step approach detailed in the “Paths to Persia” report with the same key objective: regime change.
The authors of these reports include, among others, John Hannah and Martin Indyk, both former senior neo-conservative officials from the George W Bush/Dick Cheney administration, and both advocates for regime change in Syria. Not for the first time are we seeing a close alliance between US/British neo-cons with Islamists (including, reports show, some with links to al-Qaeda) working together to bring about regime change in an “enemy” state.
Arguably, the most important component in this struggle for the “strategic prize” has been the deliberate construction of a largely false narrative that pits unarmed democracy demonstrators being killed in their hundreds and thousands as they protest peacefully against an oppressive, violent regime, a “killing machine” led by the “monster” Assad.
Whereas in Libya, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) claimed it had “no confirmed reports of civilian casualties” because, as the New York Times wrote recently, “the alliance had created its own definition for ‘confirmed’: only a death that NATO itself investigated and corroborated could be called confirmed”.
“But because the alliance declined to investigate allegations,” the Times wrote, “its casualty tally by definition could not budge – from zero”.
In Syria, we see the exact opposite: the majority of Western mainstream media outlets, along with the media of the US’s allies in the region, particularly al-Jazeera and the Saudi-owned al-Arabiya TV channels, are effectively collaborating with the “regime change” narrative and agenda with a near-complete lack of questioning or investigation of statistics and information put out by organizations and media outlets that are either funded or owned by the US/European/Gulf alliance – the very same countries instigating the regime change project in the first place.
Claims of “massacres”, “campaigns of rape targeting women and girls in predominantly Sunni towns” ”torture” and even “child-rape” are reported by the international press based largely on two sources – the British-based Syrian Observatory of Human Rights and the Local Co-ordination Committees (LCCs) – with minimal additional checking or verification.
Hiding behind the rubric – “we are not able to verify these statistics” – the lack of integrity in reporting by the Western mainstream media has been starkly apparent since the onset of events in Syria. A decade after the Iraq war, it would seem that no lessons from 2003 – from the demonization of Saddam Hussein and his purported weapons of mass destruction – have been learnt.
Of the three main sources for all data on numbers of protesters killed and numbers of people attending demonstrations – the pillars of the narrative – all are part of the “regime change” alliance.
The Syrian Observatory of Human Rights, in particular, is reportedly funded through a Dubai-based fund with pooled (and therefore deniable) Western-Gulf money (Saudi Arabia alone has, according to Elliot Abrams allocated US$130 billion to “palliate the masses” of the Arab Spring).
What appears to be a nondescript British-based organization, the Observatory has been pivotal in sustaining the claims of the mass killing of thousands of peaceful protesters using inflated figures, “facts”, and often exaggerated claims of “massacres” and even recently “genocide”.
Although it claims to be based in its director’s house, the Observatory has been described as the “front office” of a large media propaganda set-up run by the Syrian opposition and its backers. The Russian Foreign Ministry stated starkly:
The agenda of the [Syrian] transitional council [is] composed in London by the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights … It is also there where pictures of ‘horror’ in Syria are made to stir up hatred towards Assad’s regime.
The Observatory is not legally registered either as a company or charity in the United Kingdom, but operates informally; it has no office, no staff and its director is reportedly awash with funding.
It receives its information, it says, from a network of “activists” inside Syria; its English-language website is a single page with al-Jazeera instead hosting a minute-by-minute live blog page for it since the outset of protests.
The second, the LCCs, are a more overt part of the opposition’s media infrastructure, and their figures and reporting is similarly encompassed only [16] within the context of this main narrative: in an analysis of their daily reports, I couldn’t find a single reference to any armed insurgents being killed: reported deaths are of “martyrs”, “defector soldiers”, people killed in “peaceful demonstrations” and similar descriptions.
The third is al-Jazeera, whose biased role in “reporting” the Awakenings has been well documented. Described by one seasoned media analyst as the “sophisticated mouthpiece of the state of Qatar and its ambitious emir”, al-Jazeera is integral to Qatar’s “foreign-policy aspirations”.
Al-Jazeera has, and continues, to provide technical support, equipment, hosting and “credibility” to Syrian opposition activists and organizations. Reports show that as early as March 2011, al-Jazeera was providing messaging and technical support to exiled Syrian opposition activists , who even by January 2010 were co-ordinating their messaging activities from Doha.
Nearly 10 months on, however, and despite the daily international media onslaught, the project isn’t exactly going to plan: a YouGov poll commissioned by the Qatar Foundation showed last week that 55 per cent of Syrians do not want Assad to resign and 68 per cent of Syrians disapprove of the Arab League sanctions imposed on their country.
According to the poll, Assad’s support has effectively increased since the onset of current events – 46 per cent of Syrians felt Assad was a “good” president for Syria prior to current events in the country – something that certainly doesn’t fit with the false narrative being peddled.
As if trumpeting the success of their own propaganda campaign, the poll summary concludes:
“The majority of Arabs believe Syria’s President Basher al-Assad should resign in the wake of the regime’s brutal treatment of protesters … 81% of Arabs [want] President Assad to step down. They believe Syria would be better off if free democratic elections were held under the supervision of a transitional government.”
One is left wondering who exactly is Assad accountable to – the Syrian people or the Arab public? A blurring of lines that might perhaps be useful as two main Syrian opposition groups have just announced that while they are against foreign military intervention, they do not consider “Arab intervention” to be foreign.
Unsurprisingly, not a single mainstream major newspaper or news outlet reported the YouGov poll results – it doesn’t fit their line.
In the UK, the volunteer-run Muslim News was the only newspaper to report the findings; yet only two weeks before in the immediate aftermath of the suicide explosions in Damascus, both the Guardian, like other outlets, within hours of the explosions were publishing sensational, unsubstantiated reports from bloggers, including one who was “sure that some of the bodies … were those of demonstrators”.
“They have planted bodies before,” he said; “they took dead people from Dera’a [in the south] and showed the media bodies in Jisr al-Shughour [near the Turkish border.]”
Recent reports have cast serious doubt on the accuracy of the false scenario peddled daily by the mainstream international press, in particular information put out by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the LCCs.
In December, the mainstream US intelligence group Stratfor cautioned:
Most of the [Syrian] opposition’s more serious claims have turned out to be grossly exaggerated or simply untrue … revealing more about the opposition’s weaknesses than the level of instability inside the Syrian regime.
Throughout the nine-month uprising, Stratfor has advised caution on accuracy of the mainstream story on Syria: in September it commented that “with two sides to every war … the war of perceptions in Syria is no exception”.
Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and LCC reports, “like those from the regime, should be viewed with skepticism”, argues Stratfor; “the opposition understands that it needs external support, specifically financial support, if it is to be a more robust movement than it is now. To that end, it has every reason to present the facts on the ground in a way that makes the case for foreign backing.”
As Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov observed: “It is clear that the purpose is to provoke a humanitarian catastrophe, to get a pretext to demand external interference into this conflict.” Similarly, in mid-December, American Conservative reported:
“CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] analysts are skeptical regarding the march to war. The frequently cited United Nations report that more than 3,500 civilians have been killed by Assad’s soldiers is based largely on rebel sources and is uncorroborated. The Agency has refused to sign off on the claims.
“Likewise, accounts of mass defections from the Syrian army and pitched battles between deserters and loyal soldiers appear to be a fabrication, with few defections being confirmed independently. Syrian government claims that it is being assaulted by rebels who are armed, trained and financed by foreign governments are more true than false.”
As recently as November, the Free Syria Army implied their numbers would be larger, but, as they explained to one analyst, they are “advising sympathizers to delay their defection” until regional conditions improve.
A guide to regime change
In relation to Syria, section three of the “Paths to Persia” report is particularly relevant – it is essentially a step-by-step guide detailing options for instigating and supporting a popular uprising, inspiring an insurgency and/or instigating a coup. The report comes complete with a “Pros and Cons” section:
“An insurgency is often easier to instigate and support from abroad … Insurgencies are famously cheap to support … covert support to an insurgency would provide the United States with “plausibility deniability” … [with less] diplomatic and political backlash … than if the United States were to mount a direct military action … Once the regime suffers some major setback [this] provides an opportunity to act.”
Military action, the report argues, would only be taken once other options had been tried and shown to have failed as the “international community” would then conclude of any attack that the government “brought it on themselves” by refusing a very good deal.
Key aspects for instigating a popular uprising and building a “full-fledged insurgency” are evident in relation to developments in Syria.
These include:
“Funding and helping organize domestic rivals of the regime” including using “unhappy” ethnic groups;
“Building the capacity of ‘effective oppositions’ with whom to work” in order to “create an alternative leadership to seize power”;
Provision of equipment and covert backing to groups, including arms – either directly or indirectly, as well as “fax machines … Internet access, funds” (on Iran the report noted that the “CIA could take care of most of the supplies and training for these groups, as it has for decades all over the world”);
Training and facilitation of messaging by opposition activists;
Constructing a narrative “with the support of US-backed media outlets could highlight regime shortcomings and make otherwise obscure critics more prominent” – “having the regime discredited among key ‘opinion shapers’ is critical to its collapse”;
The creation of a large funding budget to fund a wide array of civil-society-led initiatives (a so-called “$75 million fund” created under former US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice-funded civil society groups, including “a handful of Beltway-based think-tanks and institutions [which] announced new Iran desks)” ;
The need for an adjacent land corridor in a neighboring country “to help develop an infrastructure to support operations”.
“Beyond this,” continues the report, “US economic pressure (and perhaps military pressure as well) can discredit the regime, making the population hungry for a rival leadership.”
The US and its allies, particularly Britain and France, have funded and helped “shape” the opposition from the outset – building both on attempts started by the US in 2006 to construct a unified front against the Assad government, and the perceived “success” of the Libyan Transitional National Council model.
Despite months of attempts – predominately by the West – at cajoling the various groups into a unified, proficient opposition movement, they remain “a diverse group, representing the country’s ideological, sectarian and generational divides”.
”There neither has been nor is [there] now any natural tendency towards unity between these groups, since they belong to totally different ideological backgrounds and have antagonistic political views,” one analyst concluded.
At a recent meeting with the British foreign secretary, the different groups would not even meet with William Hague together, instead meeting him separately.
Nevertheless, despite a lack of cohesion, internal credibility and legitimacy, the opposition, predominately under the umbrella of the Syrian National Council (SNC), is being groomed for office. This includes capacity-building, as confirmed by the former Syrian ambassador to the US, Rafiq Juajati, now part of the opposition.
At a closed briefing in Washington DC in mid-December 2011, he confirmed that the US State Department and the SWP-German Institute for International and Security Affairs (a think-tank that provides foreign policy analysis to the German government) were funding a project that is managed by the US Institute for Peace and SWP, working in partnership with the SNC, to prepare the SNC for the takeover and running of Syria.
In a recent interview, SNC leader Burhan Ghaliyoun disclosed (so as to “speed up the process” of Assad’s fall) the credentials expected of him: “There will be no special relationship with Iran,” he said. “Breaking the exceptional relationship means breaking the strategic, military alliance,” adding that “after the fall of the Syrian regime, [Hezbollah] won’t be the same.”
Described in Slate magazine as the “most liberal and Western-friendly of the Arab Spring uprisings”, Syrian opposition groups sound as compliant as their Libyan counterparts prior to the demise of Muammar Gaddafi, whom the New York Times described as “secular-minded professionals – lawyers, academics, businesspeople – who talk about democracy, transparency, human rights and the rule of law”; that was, until reality transitioned to former leader of the Libyan Islamist Fighting Group Abdulhakim Belhaj and his jihadi colleagues.
The import of weapons, equipment, manpower (predominantly from Libya) and training by governments and other groups linked to the US, NATO and their regional allies began in April-May 2011, according to various reports and is co-ordinated out of the US air force base at Incirlik in southern Turkey. From Incirlik, an information warfare division also directs communications to Syria via the Free Syria Army. This covert support continues, as American Conservative reported in mid-December:
“Unmarked NATO warplanes are arriving at Turkish military bases close to Iskenderum on the Syrian border, delivering weapons … as well as volunteers from the Libyan Transitional National Council … Iskenderum is also the seat of the Free Syrian Army, the armed wing of the Syrian National Council. French and British special forces trainers are on the ground, assisting the Syrian rebels while the CIA and US Spec Ops are providing communications equipment and intelligence to assist the rebel cause, enabling the fighters to avoid concentrations of Syrian soldiers.”
The Washington Post exposed in April 2011 that recent WikiLeaks showed that the US State Department had been giving millions of dollars to various Syrian exile groups (including the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Movement for Justice and Development in London) and individuals since 2006 via its “Middle East Partnership Initiative” administered by a US foundation, the Democracy Council.
WikiLeaks cables confirmed that well into 2010, this funding was continuing, a trend that not only continues today but which has expanded in light of the shift to the “soft power” option aimed at regime change in Syria.
As this neo-con-led call for regime change in Syria gains strength within the US administration, so too has this policy been institutionalized among leading US foreign policy think-tanks, many of whom have “Syria desks” or “Syria working groups” which collaborate closely with Syrian opposition groups and individuals (for example USIP and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy) and which have published a range of policy documents making the case for regime change.
In the UK, the similarly neo-con Henry Jackson Society (which “supports the maintenance of a strong military, by the United States, the countries of the European Union and other democratic powers, armed with expeditionary capabilities with a global reach” and which believes that “only modern liberal democratic states are truly legitimate”) is similarly pushing the agenda for regime change in Syria.
This is in partnership with Syrian opposition figures including Ausama Monajed, a former leader of the Syrian exile group, the Movement for Justice & Development, linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, which was funded by the US State Department from 2006, as we know from WikiLeaks.
Monajed, a member of the SNC, currently directs a public relations firm recently established in London and incidentally was the first to use the term “genocide” in relation to events in Syria in a recent SNC press release.
Since the outset, significant pressure has been brought to bear on Turkey to establish a “humanitarian corridor” along its southern border with Syria. The main aim of this, as the “Paths to Persia” report outlines, is to provide a base from which the externally-backed insurgency can be launched and based.
The objective of this “humanitarian corridor” is about as humanitarian as the four-week NATO bombing of Sirte when NATO exercised its “responsibility to protect” mandate, as approved by the UN Security Council.
All this is not to say that there isn’t a genuine popular demand for change in Syria against the repressive security-dominated infrastructure that dominates every aspect of people’s lives, nor that gross human-rights violations have not been committed, both by the Syrian security forces, armed opposition insurgents, as well as mysterious third force characters operating since the onset of the crisis in Syria, including insurgents, mostly jihadis from neighboring Iraq and Lebanon, as well as more recently Libya, among others.
Such abuses are inevitable in low-intensity conflict. Leading critics of this US-France-UK-Gulf-led regime change project have, from the outset, called for full accountability and punishment for any security or other official “however senior”, found to have committed any human-rights abuses.
Ibrahim al-Amine writes that some in the regime have conceded “that the security remedy was damaging in many cases and regions [and] that the response to the popular protests was mistaken … it would have been possible to contain the situation via clear and firm practical measures – such as arresting those responsible for torturing children in Deraa”. And it argues that the demand for political pluralism and an end to the all-encompassing repression is both vital and urgent.
But what may have began as popular protests, initially focused on local issues and incidents (including the case of the torture of young boys in Dera’a by security forces) were rapidly hijacked by this wider strategic plan for regime change. Five years ago, I worked in northern Syria with the United Nations managing a large community development project.
After evening community meetings, it wasn’t uncommon to find the mukhabarat (military intelligence) waiting for us to vacate the room so they could scan flipcharts posted on the walls. That almost every aspect of people’s daily lives was regulated by a sclerotic dysfunctional Ba’ath party/security bureaucracy, devoid of any ideology apart from the inevitable corruption and nepotism that comes with authoritarian power, was apparent in every feature of people’s lives.
Tuesday, December 20 was reportedly the “deadliest day of the nine-month [Syrian] uprising “with the “organized massacre” of a “mass defection” of army deserters widely reported by the international press in Idlib, northern Syria. Claiming that areas of Syria were now “exposed to large-scale genocide”, the SNC lamented the “250 fallen heroes during a 48-hour period”, citing figures provided by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Quoting the same source, the Guardian reported that the Syrian army was:
“… hunt[ing] down deserters after troops … killed close to 150 men who had fled their base”. A picture has emerged … of a mass defection … that went badly wrong … with loyalist forces positioned to mow down large numbers of defectors as they fled a military base. Those who managed to escape were later hunted down in hideouts in nearby mountains, multiple sources have reported. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimated that 100 deserters were besieged, then killed or wounded. Regular troops allegedly also hunted down residents who had given shelter to the deserters.”
The Guardian’s live blog-quoted AVAAZ, the citizen political advocacy/public relations group, which “claimed 269 people had been killed in the clashes”, and cited AVAAZ’s precise breakdown of casualties: “163 armed revolutionaries, 97 government troops and 9 civilians”. They noted that AVAAZ “provided nothing to corroborate the claim.”
The Washington Post reported only that they had spoken to “an activist with the rights group AVAAZ [who] said he had spoken to local activists and medical groups who put the death toll in that area Tuesday at 269.”
A day after initial reports of the massacre of fleeing deserters, however, the story had changed. On December 23, the Telegraph reported:
“At first they were said to be army deserters attempting to break into Turkey to join the FSA [Free Syrian Army], but they are now said to be unarmed civilians and activists attempting to escape the army’s attempts to bring the province back under control. They were surrounded by troops and tanks and gunned down until there were no survivors, according to reports.”
The New York Times had, on December 21, reported that the “massacre”, citing the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights, was of “unarmed civilians and activists, with no armed military defectors among them, the rights groups said.”
It quoted the head of the Observatory who described it as “an organized massacre” and said his account corroborated a Kfar Owaid witness’ account: “The security forces had lists of names of those who organized massive anti-regime protests … the troops then opened fire with tanks, rockets and heavy machine guns [and], bombs filled with nails to increase the number of casualties.”
The LA Times quoted an activist it had spoken to via satellite connection who, from his position “sheltering in the woods” commented: “The word ‘massacre’ seems like too small a word to describe what happened.” Meanwhile, the Syrian government reported that on December 19 and 20, it had killed “tens” of members of “armed terrorist gangs” in both Homs and Idlib, and had arrested many wanted individuals.
The truth of these two “deadly” days will probably never be known – the figures cited above (between 10-163 armed insurgents, 9-111 unarmed civilians and 0-97 government forces) differ so significantly in both numbers reported killed and who they were, that the “truth” is impossible to establish.
In relation to an earlier purported “massacre” in Homs, a Stratfor investigation found “no signs of a massacre”, concluding that “opposition forces have an interest in portraying an impending massacre, hoping to mimic the conditions that propelled a foreign military intervention in Libya”.
Nevertheless, the “massacre” of December 19-20 in Idlib was reported as fact, and was etched into the narrative of Assad’s “killing machine.”
Both the recent UN Human Rights Commissioner’s report and a recent data blog report on reported deaths in “Syria’s bloody uprising” by the Guardian (published December 13) – two examples of attempts to establish the truth about numbers killed in the Syrian conflict – rely almost exclusively on opposition-provided data: interviews with 233 alleged “army defectors” in the case of the UN report, and on reports from the Syrian Human Rights Observatory, the LCCs and al-Jazeera in the case of the Guardian’s data blog.
The Guardian reports a total of 1,414.5 people (sic) killed – including 144 Syrian security personnel – between January and November 21, 2011. Based solely on press reports, the report contains a number of basic inaccuracies (eg sources not matching numbers killed with places cited in original sources): their total includes 23 Syrians killed by the Israeli army in June on the Golan Heights; 25 people reported “wounded” are included in total figures for those killed, as are many people reported shot.
The report makes no reference to any killings of armed insurgents during the entire 10-month period – all victims are “protesters”, “civilians” or “people” – apart from the 144 security personnel.
Seventy percent of the report’s data sources are from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the LCCs and “activists”; 38 per cent of press reports are from al-Jazeera, 3 per cent from Amnesty International and 1.5 per cent from official Syrian sources.
In response to the UN Commissioner’s report, Syria’s ambassador to the UN commented: “How could defectors give positive testimonies on the Syrian government? Of course they will give negative testimonies against the Syrian government. They are defectors.”
In the effort to inflate figures of casualties, the public relations-activist group AVAAZ has consistently outstripped even the UN. AVAAZ has publicly stated it is involved in “smuggling activists … out of the country”, running “secret safe houses to shelter … top activists from regime thugs” and that one “AVAAZ citizen journalist” “discover[ed] a mass grave”.
It states proudly that the BBC and CNN have said that AVAAZ data amounts to some 30 per cent of their news coverage of Syria. The Guardian reported AVAAZ’s latest claim to have “evidence” of killings of some 6,200 people (including security forces and including 400 children), claiming 617 of whom died under torture – their justification to have verified each single death with confirmation by three people, “including a relative and a cleric who handled the body” is improbable in the extreme.
The killing of one brigadier-general and his children in April last year in Homs illustrates how near impossible it is, particularly during sectarian conflict, to verify even one killing – in this case, a man and his children:
The general, believed to be Abdu Tallawi, was killed with his
children and nephew while passing through an agitated neighborhood. There are two accounts of what happened to him and his family, and they differ about the victim’s sect.
Regime loyalists say that he was killed by takfiris – hardline Islamists who accuse other Muslims of apostasy – because he belonged to the Alawite sect. The protesters insist that he is a member of the Tallawi family from Homs and that he was killed by security forces to accuse the opposition and destroy their reputation. Some even claim that he was shot because he refused to fire at protesters.
The third account is ignored due to the extreme polarization of opinions in the city [Homs]. The brigadier-general was killed because he was in a military vehicle, even though he had his kids with him. Whoever killed him was not concerned with his sect but with directing a blow to the regime, thus provoking an even harsher crackdown, which, in turn, would drag the protest movement into a cycle of violence with the state.
Aisling Byrne is Projects Co-ordinator with Conflicts Forum and is based in Beirut. This article was first published in Asia Times
by CHRISTOPHER BRAUCHLI
Arms sales are not as straightforward as one might think. For one thing, Russia and the United States are both eager to maintain their respective positions as the most successful merchants of death dealing devices. That causes them to sacrifice principle to expediency. And there’s a good reason why they are eager to sell lots of arms. It boosts their respective economies. And times were bad in 2010 and needed a boost in 2011.
In 2010 worldwide arms sales dropped by 38 percent from their 2009 levels to the lowest levels since 2003. In 2009 $65.2 billion in worldwide arms sales agreements were signed compared with $40.4 billion in 2010. Of those amounts the U.S. had $21.3 billion in arms sales whereas Russia had only $7.8 billion. Happily, 2011 turns out to have been a much better year. Projections for Russian arms sales for 2011 were more than $9 billion and by year’s end it had contracts to sell approximately $3.8 billion in arms to Syria.
The United States is not happy that Russia is supplying arms to Syria, a country of whose leader, Bashar al-Assad, the United States and other Western leaders strongly disapprove. Commenting on Russia’s selling arms to Syria, Secretary of State Clinton said in August 2011: “We want to see Russia cease selling arms to the Assad regime.” Russia is unaffected by her comments. It knows that to remain competitive with the United States in the arms sale competition it needs to sell arms wherever there’s a market. Since the United States is more principled than Russia, it does not sell arms to Syria. Instead it sells them to countries that it thinks are in tune with its goals on the international stage-like Iraq.
Iraq is the country the United States devastated in order to help it out. Nuri Kamal al-Maliki is its Prime Minister and we are happy to sell him arms. At the end of December 2011 it was disclosed that we were selling the Iraqi military about $11 billion worth of arms and training. We sell to Iraq because it is our friend. We refuse to sell to Mr. Assad because he is not our friend. Mr. Maliki, has let it be known that he supports President Assad even though Mr. Assad is busy slaughtering his citizens in order to keep them in line. Mr. Maliki supports Mr. Assad because Iran, a country to which the United States has not sold arms since Mr. Reagan was president, encouraged Mr. Maliki to befriend Syria. So now the United States is arming Iraq which is allying itself with Iran and supports Syria whom the U.S. thinks Russia should not arm.
A few weeks ago it was disclosed that that United States had put on hold a planned sale of $53 million of arms to the Kingdom of Bahrain. Bahrain has proved itself a good friend of the United States since it is home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet. Bahrain’s ruthless ruler is King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa. He brutally put down an Arab spring uprising that took place in Bahrain beginning on Valentine’s Day in 2011. More than 40 of those participating in the uprising were killed by the King’s forces. Thousands more were imprisoned and brutalized. When news of the proposed arms sale reached members of the United States Congress, they demanded that the sale be put on hold pending a detailed report of what went on during the uprising to determine whether an arms sale to Bahrain was appropriate. As a result, the arms sale has not yet taken place.
King Hamad was aided by Saudi Arabia in putting down the uprising. According to a March 15, 2011 report in the Los Angeles Times, one month after the revolt began, “hundreds of troops from Saudi Arabia and police officers from the nearby United Arab Emirates. . . entered Bahrain at the request of the ruling family. . . .” to help put down the uprising.
On Christmas Eve it was announced that the administration would sell $30 billion in fighter jets and other arms to Saudi Arabia. This was part of a $60 billion arms sale that was approved by Congress in October 2010. Although the sale to Bahrain was put on hold, there was no need to put the sale to Saudi Arabia on hold since it is a REALLY good friend to the U.S. even though it helped King Hamad put down the uprising in his country.
There are some countries to which the United States will not sell arms-like Syria or Bahrain. It does not hesitate, however, to sell arms to their supporters-like Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Go figure.
by PETER WEISS
“Today, it is not merely justice itself, but the idea of justice that is under attack.” The words are those of Arundhati Roy, the Indian author and activist, but they could also be those of anyone trying to draw up a balance sheet of the first decade of Gitmo, as the US’ concentration camp at Guantánamo Bay has come to be known.
CCR was the first legal organization to perceive the danger which the legal culture of Gitmo posed to the idea of justice and to take on cases on behalf of detainees. Gradually, other human rights organizations and, to their credit, many members of the legal establishment, joined a collective attempt to stem the tide of injustice, so that at one time CCR found itself coordinating the legal work of more than 500 pro bono “Gitmo lawyers”.
CCR’s two most important victories came in two Supreme Court cases, Rasul (2004)and Boumedienne (2008). The former did away with two pernicious fictions: that, since Gitmo was located on Cuban teritory US law did not apply and that “enemy combatants” were not entitled to habeas corpus. Congress attempted to undo Rasul by legislation, but the Supreme Court upheld it in Boumedienne, stating that “To hold that the political branches may switch the Constitution on or off at will would lead to a regime in which they, not this Court, say ‘what the law is’”.
Subsequent developments have given these victories a Pyrrhic character. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, where all of the Gitmo habeascases have been brought, has refused to order the release of detainees, even those who have won their cases in the lower courts. And there are other ways in which the idea of justice has suffered in the first Gitmo decade.
Estimates of detainees who were never terrorists range from 70 to 90 percent. Not one of the more than 700 who enjoyed the hospitality of Gitmo has been able to collect compensation for being held, often in solitary confinement and some for as long as ten years, before being released without ever being charged.
About 600 detainees have been released and sent to their home countries or other countries willing to accept them, partly as a result of CCR attorneys scouring the world for such countries. But there remains a hard core of several dozen who have either been declared not to be security risk but have no place to go, or are being called security risks who cannot be tried for one or another reason and are therefore facing indefinite detention. The National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2012 includes a provision allowing indefinite detention without trial for non-US-citizens.
Another troubling development is Congress’ 2009 mandate that relegates Gitmo detainees to a new untested system of Military Commissions, despite the fact since 9/11 150 terrorism defendants have been successfully convicted in civilian courts.
Vice President Cheney’s dictum that, in times of emergency, governments may have to go to “the dark side” hangs over this recent history. Arudhati Roy would say that once you admit that justice can have a dark side, you might as well give up on the idea of justice.
Peter Weiss is Vice President for the Center for Constitutional Rights
WEEKEND EDITION JANUARY 6-8, 2012
Muslim Brotherhood Strongest Contender in Libya’s Coming Elections
by FRANKLIN LAMB
Tripoli
It appears, from interviews and discussions with a wide range of Libyans including students, lawyers, judges at the Ministry of Justice, shopkeepers and casual acquaintances that the Muslim Brotherhood currently has very little popular support among this pious conservative, Sunni Muslim society. Widely expressed opinion is along these lines: “The Brotherhood are different from how Libyans view Islam,” and “They represent outsiders and interference in our country” , “Our revolution was not about replacing one autocratic regime with another.”
That said, the Muslim Brotherhood is odds-on favorite to win the June elections, in the view of many observers here in Libya.
The reason the MB is in such a relatively strong position is that is has the support of Qatar, assistance from the well-established MB organizations in Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, and Turkey. The flights arriving in Tripoli from Egypt are always full and some of the passengers are MB operatives according to Professor “Dr. Ali”, a pro-Gadafi political scientist who has so far managed to keep his teaching post.
The MB is far more organized, well-funded and is working today in the neighborhoods of Libya’s main cities recruiting members and campaign organizers, while trying to keep a low profile. They have asked members to shave their beards, talk about clean government, avoid arguments, and remind anxious Libyans that “Libya is not Afghanistan” and all we want is security, domestic peace and no foreign interference.
Nonetheless, a new edict issued by General Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood organization in Egypt, Dr. Mohammad Badih, in which he writes about the possibility of his movement imposing an Islamic Caliphate in accordance with the principles laid out by the Muslim Brotherhood founder, Imam Hassan al-Banna, created wide controversy in political circles in Libya just as it did in Egypt.
The US, UK and France are currently just watching and guessing at developments, according to the Ambassador from one southern African country. The US State Department is believed even by some National Transition Council officials, lawyers and Judges, (who I met with during two days of meetings this week at the Libyan Ministry of Justice inquiring about certain individuals in NTC and Militia custody,) to be unsure what the US policy should be because they have mixed feelings about the MB. Some US officials are reported to believe that an unstoppable Muslim Brotherhood arc or crescent is quickly jelling across the Magreb, as it grows also in Turkey and that the MB will dominate in Syria when and if the Assad government is toppled.
The potential utility for Washington of the MB does not end there. Some in Congress and the Obama administration, as well as the Zionist lobby in and outside of Congress, hope that after all the failures of the US administration to spark a Sunni-Shia war, that the MB might just be the best and unexpected weapon in achieving this goal which has been US policy since the late 1980s.
These forces are said also to hope that after achieving a substantial share of the next government of Syria, the MB will quickly build itself up in Lebanon, and give the Sunni community strong effective leadership that has been lacking the past nearly seven years following the assassination of PM Rafiq Hariri, and take on Shia Hezbollah.
In short, NATO countries may sit on their hands regarding the coming elections, drop the current attachment to NTC officials that has only have six months left in office anyhow, and let the MB control Libya’s next government.
The MB in Libya is actually quite good on the issues that are increasingly concerning potential voters as the latter learn how to vote and participate in political parties, which have been outlawed since 1972 when Revolutionary Committees were established to make legislative and administrative decisions.
Those issues are many and include the following:
– Lack of security due to the militias being viewed as increasingly aggressive with the public and fighting among themselves, as they did this week;
–growing rumors and even evidence of corruption. One example being that there is still not money in the Central Bank of Libya to supply local banks around the country. It’s an issue that is expected to explode here once the facts become known. During the uprising this summer, the Gadhafi government limited bank deposit withdrawals to 500 dinars per month (about $475). The new “government” has raised it to 750 dinars per month and it is not enough, given approximately 18 per cent rise in prices since this summer when the Gadhafi government enforced anti-gouging rules. Those rules are no longer being enforced and prices continue to rise.
Where suspected corruption enters the bank withdrawals problem is that according to one Central Bank official who has spent more than 15 years in the CB office that monitors the receipt of payments for Libya oil shipments, even though oil is being shipped today as well as the pay few months, zero payments have been received at the CB. The reason is said to be that NATO countries are being shipped oil, (also to gas and oil rich Qatar) free of charge under a payback arrangement with NATO for its regime change services.
This issue is quickly becoming a scandal. I asked the official is he was sure of his information and he brought over the lady who keeps the records and she verified it and said Central Bank officials are outraged because the money is needed at the local banks where long lines of desperate account holders often wait hours only to be told to return another day for their monthly allocation of 750 dinars of their own money. This week, I saw ugly, sad scenes at banks in the neighborhood south of Green Square and Omar Muktar street, as I tried in vain to find a working ATM machine. One cannot but feel bad for elderly citizens standing in the rain waiting half the day to get a meager monthly withdrawal of their funds, only to be told to return another day when, enshallah, there will be money for them. Citizens have reported that they should have taken all their money out of their bank account as soon as there were signs of trouble last February. Now it’s too late and anger is growing.
Qatar’s favorite candidate, Abdel Hakim Belhaj, head of the Tripoli Military Council and a former leader of the militant Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, ( who is suing UK ministers and M-16 for the part he claims they played in secretly sending him and his wife to Libya in March 2004 where he claims he endured seven years of torture,) has promised to fix the banking problem. Qatar is expected to play a major role as the June elections draw near.
Another issue that the MB is championing is the need to pay the salaries of the military, finding or creating jobs for militia fighters, many of whom are deeply suspicious of Belhaj just as the eastern militia continue to skirmish with those from the west.
Even women’s rights are being supported by the MB….sort of. Repairing war damage, garbage pickup, organizing traffic which has brought some crowed streets in downtown Tripoli to a near halt, (given the more than one million Libyans and others have flooded into the capital city from around the battered country with few showing signs of wanting to leave) are issues the MB is talking about while calling for sectarian dialogue.
Disarming the militias and pressuring young men to go back home, give up their arms, join the police force or a new Libyan army or get a real job are very sensitive issues that the MB does not address with much conviction. Privately the MB, as well as the NTC, admits that there will be no disarmaming of militias anytime soon. A few young men I chatted with during a demonstration at Green Square yesterday actually said they miss the fighting and want to fight some more. “It was really exciting and fun most of the time and I made some great friends!” one kid from Benghazi told me. He plans to stay in Tripoli with his militia buddies.
Another development that will favor the Muslim Brotherhood in the coming Libyan elections is the draft Election law that was adopted last Monday. It eliminates many of the strongest opponents of the MB. The legislation regulates the election of a national assembly tasked to write a new constitution and form a second caretaker government. It is expected to be finalized within a month.
It bars, with loosely all-embracing language, “former members of Gadhafi’s regime” from being candidates in the election. Among the judges I spoke with at the Ministry of Justice some expressed dismay because they said that 80 per cent of the current staff at their Ministry, and most other Ministries, worked there, lawyers and judges included, under the Gadhafi regime and were patriotic Libyans. There is going to be lots of confusion concerning the scope of the new law and its application. The new election law also bans anyone who got a degree based on academic research on the Green Book — Gadhafi’s political manifesto that laid out his theory of government and society declaring Libya a “republic of the masses.” Thousands are covered by this exclusion because in order to get a good position it helped if one’s CV showed studies relating to theories of government espoused in the Green Book. The same idea as in China when it was a good idea to study Mao’s little Red Book and add that fact to one’s CV. Academics who even wrote about Gaddafi’s Green Book, which discusses politics, economics and everyday life, will also be barred from running under the law.
The draft election law has outraged women because it restricts them to only 10 per cent of the 200 election seats and the law does not indicate who many seats will go to which tribal areas. One woman angrily told me, “Ten percent is about what the Brotherhood thinks we are worth.”
The NTC officials will not offer much of an electoral impediment to the MB as it is increasingly under attack as it begins its last six months of existence. Last month, an umbrella group claiming to represent 70 per cent of militia fighters demanded that the NTC granted them 40 per cent of its seats which it failed to do and instead appointed fairly random technocrats with some exceptions. Mustapha Abdul Jalis plans on retiring in June and is still being criticized for reneging on his earlier pledge to resign following the fall of Sirte.
FRANKLIN LAMB is doing research in Libya and is reachable c/o fplamb@gmail.com
