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Don't Go Back to Iraq! Five Steps the US Can Take in Iraq Without Going Back to War |
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Saturday, 21 June 2014 14:22 |
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Bennis writes: "This is how wars begin. Barack Obama says we're not going back to Iraq. 'American forces will not be returning to combat in Iraq,' he said on June 19th, 'but we will help Iraqis as they take the fight to terrorists who threaten the Iraqi people, the region, and American interests as well.'"
There is no military solution in Iraq - so end the threats of U.S. airstrikes, bring home the Special Forces and turn the aircraft carrier around. (photo: Jayel Aheram/Flickr)
Don't Go Back to Iraq! Five Steps the US Can Take in Iraq Without Going Back to War
By Phyllis Bennis, Foreign Policy In Focus
21 June 14
 his is how wars begin.
Barack Obama says we’re not going back to Iraq. “American forces will not be returning to combat in Iraq,” he said on June 19th, “but we will help Iraqis as they take the fight to terrorists who threaten the Iraqi people, the region, and American interests as well.”
The White House says it’s “only” sending 275 soldiers to protect the embassy, it’s only sending 300 Special Forces, they’re only “advisers.” There’s only one aircraft carrier in the region, they say, and a few other warships. They’re considering missile strikes but they’re not going to send ground troops.
Iraq isn’t a start-up war for the United States—we’ve been there before. And these actions increase the danger we could be heading there again. We thought we had a president who learned the lesson, at least about Iraq—he even repeats it every chance he gets: “There is no military solution.”
This is a very dangerous move. President Obama’s words are right: there is no military solution.But his actions are wrong. When there is no military solution, airstrikes, Special Forces, arms deals, and aircraft carriers will only make it worse.
We need to stop it now. Before the first Special Forces guy gets captured and suddenly there are boots on the ground to find him. Before the first surveillance plane gets shot down and suddenly there are helicopter crews and more boots on the ground to rescue the pilot. Before the first missile hits a wedding party that some faulty intel guy thought looked like a truckload of terrorists—we seem to be good at that. And before we’re fully back at war.
Iraq is on the verge of full-scale civil war along the fault lines set in place when U.S. troops invaded and occupied the country more than a decade ago. We need to demand that our government do five things right away:
First, do no harm. There is no military solution in Iraq—so end the threats of airstrikes, bring home the evac troops and Special Forces, and turn the aircraft carrier around.
Second, call for and support an immediate arms embargo on all sides. That means pressuring U.S. regional allies to stop providing weapons and money to various militias.
Third, engage immediately with Iran to bring pressure to bear on the Iraqi government to end its sectarian discrimination, its violence against civilians, and its violations of human rights.
Fourth, engage with Russia and other powers to get the United Nations to take the lead in organizing international negotiations for a political solution to the crisis now enveloping Iraq as well as Syria. Those talks must include all sides, including non-violent Syrian and Iraqi activists, civil society organizations, women, and representatives of refugees and displaced people forced from their homes. All relevant outside parties, including Iran, must be included. Building on the success of the ongoing nuclear negotiations with Iran, Washington should continue to broaden its engagement with Tehran with the goal of helping to bring the Syrian and Iraqi wars to an immediate end.
Fifth, get help to the people who need it. The Iraq war is creating an enormous new refugee and humanitarian crisis, escalating the crisis of the Syrian war, and spreading across the entire region. The United States has pledged one of the largest grants of humanitarian aid for refugees from Syria, but it is still too small, and much of it has not been paid out. Simultaneously with the announcement of an immediate arms embargo, Washington should announce a major increase in humanitarian assistance for all refugees in the region to be made immediately available to UN agencies, and call on other countries to do the same.
This is how wars can be stopped.
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Repressing World Cup Protests - a Booming Business for Brazil |
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Saturday, 21 June 2014 14:21 |
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Feigenbaum writes: "Armed with an arsenal of less lethal weapons and employing tactics imported from U.S. SWAT teams in the early 2000s, police clad in riot gear are deploying forceful tactics, wielding batons and releasing chemical agents at close range. In Brazil, this style of protest policing is not only a common form of political control, but also a booming business."
A tear gas canister made by Rio-based Condor Nonlethal Technologies found on the streets of Ankara, Turkey, in 2013. (photo: Suzette Grillot/Twitter)
Repressing World Cup Protests - A Booming Business for Brazil
By Anna Feigenbaum, Waging NonViolence
21 June 14
 n June 12, Brazilian police fired tear gas on a group of 50 unarmed marchers blocking a highway leading to the World Cup arena in São Paulo. On June 15 in Rio de Janeiro another 200 marchers faced floods of tear gas and stun grenades in their approach to Maracana stadium. Armed with an arsenal of less lethal weapons and employing tactics imported from U.S. SWAT teams in the early 2000s, police clad in riot gear are deploying forceful tactics, wielding batons and releasing chemical agents at close range. In Brazil, this style of protest policing is not only a common form of political control, but also a booming business.
World Cup and related economic protests occurring across the country are bringing in big profits for Rio-based company Condor Nonlethal Technologies. As part of the World Cup’s massive security budget Condor scored a $22-million contract, providing tear gas, rubber bullets, Tasers and light and sound grenades to police and private security forces. Selling riot control and public order weaponry to law enforcement, military and United Nation buyers, Condor’s business has grown by over 30 percent in the past five years.
Events like the World Cup and Olympic Games — also to be hosted by Brazil in 2016 — shine a spotlight on national security. Perform well, in the eyes of the industry, and receive invitations around the world for keynote speeches, consultancies and training operations. For Condor and the broader Brazilian security sector, the World Cup is like a fashion week; it is an opportunity to showcase the latest police gear, baiting future buyers.
While Condor will not officially divulge details of its profits, according to the curriculum vitae of its Marketing Director, the company has international sales of $50 million of non-lethal weapons and ammunition. In recent years Condor has seen an increase in its revenue of 33 percent as a result of a new marketing strategy engaging communication tools and trade show participation. With these initiatives the marketing director has overseen an average sales growth of 90 percent and has increased sales from 12 countries to over 40, with new markets in Asia and Africa.
Profiting off protests abroad
Under giant banners of the Brazilian flag, Condor is now a regular exhibition stall holder at the world’s leading internal security expos, including DSEi and Milipol, where they show off their wares to government and military buyers. Such new devices on display include the “ballerina grenade,” which jumps on the ground to avoid “throwback” by protesters.
Condor’s large range of riot control technologies are shipped abroad to hundreds of cities around the world, including to countries with documented human rights abuses. This behavior has led to scrutiny of Condor’s 2010 promise to be a “pioneer in the dissemination of the ‘Non-Lethal’ concept in Brazil… through the controlled use of the escalation of force, without any harm to human rights.”
All international sales of tear gas in Brazil go through Brazil’s Ministry of External Relations and the Ministry of Defense. However, they do not keep a record of how they are used and sales figures aren’t made public. According to a report by investigative journalist group Publica, “In this industry, the norm is a lack of transparency.”
Despite their increased use as a deadly force, “riot control” remains exempted from the Chemical Weapons Convention that permits toxic gases to be deployed against civilians. Like other weapons that can be classified as policing equipment, these agents often fall outside of arms sales restrictions. This leaves their for-profit trade even less regulated than the pharmaceuticals industry.
Building Brazil’s riot control business
Brazil’s rise to the top of the international protest policing industry is largely the result of the country’s relaxation of rules around arms sales in the early 2000s. In 2002 the Brazilian government put forward a new set of flexible policies to increase national revenue. The Ministry of Defense collaborated with “Foreign Affairs (Itamaraty), Science and Technology and those in the economic area,” according to the Sao Paulo Gazeta Mercantil. Frederico Aguiar, then-president over Condor’s contracting and sales, said “There is an increasing awareness that a country as politically and economically important as ours cannot remain dependent on defense systems designed and produced abroad.”
Alongside this move to increase the production of police technologies, came changes to policing practices. According to a report by Cirro Barros of Publica, in 2004 Brazil established the Força Nacional to deal with public security emergencies, forming part of a wider plan to expand military training for public order policing.
In 2006, Condor and the Brazilian government jointly hosted what was at the time the largest less lethal weapons conference in the world, catapulting them onto the international stage. Speakers included U.S. military expert Colonel John B. Alexander — of “The Men Who Stare at Goats” and UFO fame — as well as Charles “Sid” Heal, a man central to the development of military tactics for policing. Said to have “written the bible on SWAT,” Commander Heal provided consultancy for Condor as the company expanded its for-profit pursuit of the protest policing and “peacekeeping” markets. Recent investigations by Publica reveal continued U.S. involvement in the militarization of Brazilian police, with FBI consultations and trainings conducted in centers funded by the U.S. State Department.
Evading accountability
While the Brazilian government points to its policies to evade blame, corporate manufacturers like Condor remain protected behind warning labels, despite the increasingly abusive deployment of their products. In recent years Condor’s technologies have been repeatedly used against protocol to intentionally increase harm and even systematically torture people in Turkey, Bahrain and Egypt. “We always advise the right escalation of force,” promises Beni Iachan, a senior business analyst for Condor. Such advice legally allows manufacturers like Condor to avoid accountability, while supplying governments and their police with ever more methods for violently escalating force.
While Condor’s revenue soars, around the world the company’s canisters, grenades and rubber bullets continue to be fired at close range at people’s heads and upper bodies. Devices are launched into enclosed spaces, reaching deadly levels of toxicity. And expired chemical agents bearing the Condor brand are being used against civilians, most recently documented on the streets of Venezuela.
As accounts of riot control deaths and injuries pile up, it is becoming increasingly difficult for companies like Condor to cling to the “nonlethal” in their corporate name. Along with local activists, Brazilian human rights campaign group Tortura Nunca Mais, or Torture Never Again, and investigative journalists at Publica are working hard to raise public awareness around the role of these weapons in police abuse and the need for increased accountability.
Exposing links between government and corporate protest profiteering, Publica is currently mapping out Condor’s influence on government agencies. “We recently discovered that Condor has an exclusivity deal made by the Brazilian Defense and Security Industries Association,” explained Bruno Fonseca, an investigative reporter at Publica. “That means all public defense and security public institutions, such as the Brazilian police, may purchase without a government procurement process.”
This allows hundreds of thousands of Condor weapons to be put in the hands of Brazilian security forces without government oversight. “Condor has exclusivity for 27 types of non-lethal equipment,” said Fonseca. The Brazilian government’s use of excessive force and failure to regulate their riot control practices are now under scrutiny by Amnesty International’s global campaign, Give Them A Yellow Card, which is monitoring the repression of peaceful protest during the World Cup.
With all eyes now on Brazil — and its protesters — it’s time to not only resist the repression of protest rights, but also to confront the business incentives that fuel the escalation of force. “Corporations around the world like Condor see this as an opportunity to make a profit — and they are absolutely profiting off of state repression,” said Kimber Heinz of the global Facing Tear Gas campaign.
Unmasking who profits off world protests reveals the intersections of governmental control and big business, pointing to new targets for campaigning and nonviolent direct action. “Militarism is a global project with local implications,” explained Heinz. “Our campaign work targets the engines of militarization: training sites, weapons expos and government programs, building a base of opposition to militarism and policing from the grassroots.”
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FOCUS | What Job Creation Numbers Don't Tell Us |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=15060"><span class="small">Jim Hightower, Jim Hightower's Blog</span></a>
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Saturday, 21 June 2014 12:39 |
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'Have you noticed that The Powers That Be employ an entirely different standard for measuring the health of America's job market than they use for the stock market?' Jim Hightower, Jim Hightower's Blog
Texas' progressive political curmudgeon, Jim Hightower. (photo: JimHightower.com)
What Job Creation Numbers Don't Tell Us
By Jim Hightower, Jim Hightower’s Blog
21 June 14
 ave you noticed that The Powers That Be employ an entirely different standard for measuring the health of America's job market than they use for the stock market?
They're currently telling us that, "The job market is improving." What do they mean? Simply that the economy is generating an increase in the number of jobs available for workers. But when they say, "The stock market is improving," they don't mean that the number of stocks available to investors is on the rise. Instead, they're measuring the price, the value of the stocks. And isn't value what really counts in both cases?
As a worker, you don't merely want to know that 200,000 new jobs are on the market, but what they're worth – do they pay living wages, do they come with benefits, are they just part-time and temporary, do they include union rights, what are the working conditions, etc.? In other words, are these jobs… or scams?
So, it's interesting that the recent news of job market "improvement" doesn't mention that of the 10 occupation categories projecting the greatest growth in the next eight years, only one pays a middle-class wage. Four pay barely above poverty level, and five pay beneath it, including fast food workers, retail sales staff, health aids, and janitors. The job expected to have the highest number of openings is "Personal Care Aide" – taking care of aging baby boomers in their houses or in nursing homes. The median salary of an aid is under $20,000. They enjoy no benefits, and about 40 percent of them must rely on food stamps and Medicaid to make ends meet, plus many are in the "shadow economy," vulnerable to being cheated on the already miserly wages.
This is Jim Hightower saying… To measure the job market by quantity – with no regard for quality – is to devalue workers themselves. Creating 200,000 new jobs is not a sign of economic health if each worker needs two or three of those jobs to patch together a barebones living.
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FOCUS | The Food Safety Movement Grows Tall |
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Saturday, 21 June 2014 11:25 |
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Nader writes: "Across the country, consumers are demanding the right to know what is in their food, and labeling of genetically engineered food. It's a vibrant and diverse coalition: mothers and grandmothers, health libertarians, progressives, foodies, environmentalists, main street conservatives and supporters of free-market economics."
A demonstration in favor of labeling all GM produce and foods containing GM ingredients. Nature's Path Organic in Canada donated $250,000 to the fight for labeling. Multinational GM firms spent $23 million fighting the Washington State proposal. (photo: Naturespath.com)
The Food Safety Movement Grows Tall
By Ralph Nader, Reader Supported News
21 June 14
 et us celebrate today the latest initiatives of our nation's growing food safety movement.
Across the country, consumers are demanding the right to know what is in their food, and labeling of genetically engineered food.
It's a vibrant and diverse coalition: mothers and grandmothers, health libertarians, progressives, foodies, environmentalists, main street conservatives and supporters of free-market economics. Last year, a New York Times poll found that a near-unanimous 93 percent of Americans support such labeling.
This is no surprise. Genetically engineered food has yet to be proven safe. In 1998, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) admitted in court that it had reached "no dispositive scientific findings" about the risks of genetically engineered foods.
There is no scientific consensus about the risks of eating genetically engineered food, according to a statement last year signed by nearly 300 scientists. The scientists agree that "Concerns about risks are well-founded" and that a "substantial number" of "animal feeding studies and reviews of such studies...found toxic effects and signs of toxicity" in animals fed genetically engineered food, compared with controls. "Some of the studies give serious cause for concern," the scientists write.
For example, a review of nineteen studies on mammals, published in Environmental Sciences Europe, found that the "data appear to indicate liver and kidney problems" arising from diets of genetically engineered food.
According to Consumers Union senior scientist Michael Hansen PhD, the ability of genetically engineered crops to induce allergic reactions is "a major food safety concern."
When it comes to genetically engineered food, there are questions about risks, but no convincing answers. There is no mandatory pre-market safety testing for genetically engineered food.
These questions of risks and safety have festered for years because the big agrichemical companies use their intellectual property rights to deny independent scientists the ability to test genetically engineered crops, or to report their results. Scientific American called these restrictions on free inquiry "dangerous." "In a number of cases," the magazine reports, "experiments that had the implicit go-ahead from the seed company were later blocked from publication because the results were not flattering."
When scientists do publish studies adverse to the interests of the big agrichemical companies, they are met with vicious attacks on their credibility, their science and even in their personal lives.
Sixty-four nations have already required labeling of genetically engineered food, including the members of the European Union, Australia, Brazil, Turkey, South Africa, even Russia and China.
The food industry is feeling the pressure. Paul Bulcke, CEO of Nestle, the world's largest food and beverage company, said that: "It is not business as usual anymore. Pressure is mounting from all sides and angles."
Despite the overwhelming popularity of labeling, Congress refused to act, so citizens took up the cause in their own states.
Under heavy corporate lobbying and deceptive TV ads, ballot initiatives for labeling of genetically engineered food were narrowly defeated by 51 percent-49 percent in both California and Washington State. In May, legislation in the California Senate led 19-16, but failed without the 21 vote majority needed for passage.
Finally, on May 8, in a major victory, Vermont approved the first unconditional statewide labeling law for genetically engineered food. "Vermonters take our food and how it is produced seriously, and we believe we have a right to know what's in the food we buy," said Gov. Peter Shumlin.
Since then, the food and agrichemical industries have escalated to a full panic.
On June 13, the Grocery Manufacturers Association and three other trade associations -- the heart of the junk food industry -- filed a lawsuit in federal court to block the new Vermont labeling law. The good news is that people are rushing to Vermont's defense, including Ben & Jerry's ice cream, which will re-name one of its flavors "Food Fight! Fudge Brownie" to help fund a vigorous legal defense of Vermont's new labeling law.
Elsewhere, industry is spending lavishly against the food movement. In New York State, the Daily News reported that: "Trade organizations, farm groups and corporate giants such as Coca-Cola and Kraft have spent millions of dollars on lobbyists and campaign contributions to defeat" labeling of genetically engineered food.
The food industry is quick to scare consumers with the canard that labeling of genetically engineered food will raise food prices. But manufacturers change their labels often, so their claim doesn't make sense. It has been debunked in an study by Joanna Shepherd Bailey, a professor at Emory University School of Law, who found that "consumers will likely see no increases in prices" as a result of labeling genetically engineered food.
In Congress, U.S. Rep Mike Pompeo (R-KS) introduced a bill at the behest of the Grocery Manufacturers Association -- dubbed by its consumer opponents "the Deny Americans the Right-to-Know (DARK) Act" -- to block any federal or state action for labeling of genetically engineered food. Sometimes, politics is drearily predictable: Can you guess Rep. Pompeo's largest campaign contributor? You got it: Koch Industries.
But the shame is fully bipartisan: sleazy Democratic lobbyists like former US Senator Blanche Lincoln and Steve Elmendorf are plying their trade for Monsanto and the Grocery Manufacturers Association to keep you from knowing what's in your food.
Meanwhile, the food disclosure movement is going full speed ahead with ballot initiatives for GMO labeling in Oregon and Colorado, as well as legislative efforts in many other states.
There's a great lesson in all this: when left and right join together, they can defeat big corporations and their subservient politicians. That's the theme of my new book, Unstoppable: The Emerging Left-Right Alliance to Dismantle the Corporate State.
Food labeling is hardly a radical idea. Conservative economists are quick to point out that the free exchange of information about products is crucial to the proper functioning of a free market.
Even Monsanto supported labeling of genetically engineered food in Britain. But it spends millions to oppose labeling here in America. Such is corporate patriotism in the 21st Century: St. Louis-based Monsanto believes the British deserve more consumer rights than Americans do.
There are other reasons to be concerned about genetically engineered crops.
Genetically engineered crops have led to increased use of pesticides. For example, a study by Professor Chuck Benbrook of Washington State University found that between 1996 and 2011, genetically engineered crops have brought an increased use of more than 400 million pounds of pesticides. Mutating weed resistance is requiring the Monsantos to sell even more powerful herbicides. More details on these backfiring GMO crop technologies are contained in the new book titled The GMO Deception edited by Professor Sheldon Krimsky and Jeremy Gruber.
Perhaps most alarming is the corporate control of agriculture in the hands of the world's largest agrichemical companies -- Monsanto, DuPont, Syngenta, Dow, Bayer and BASF. "The Big 6 chemical and seed companies are working diligently to monopolize the food system at the expense of consumers, farmers and smaller seed companies," said Philip H. Howard, an associate professor at Michigan State University.
These companies may be meeting their match in the mothers and grandmothers who have powered the movement for labeling of genetically engineered food. Like Pamm Larry, the pioneering grandmother who came up with the spreading idea reflected by the California ballot initiative for labeling.
Mothers know that food is love. Certainly, my mother did. She taught me early and often about how important it is to eat healthy food. She even wrote about these values in the book, It Happened in the Kitchen.
I'd like to think that she'd feel right at home with the mothers and grandmothers of today's food movement. I sure do. In some ways, that's the point: a movement that makes you feel at home, no wonder it is so popular.
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