By Sophie McAdam / trueactivist.com
A poll in 2012 showed that trust in the mainstream media is increasing, which should worry all of us who value truth, integrity and press freedom.
However, a recently released analysis by PunditFact revealed that out of every statement made by a Fox News host or guest, over half of them were completely false. What’s more, only 8% percent could even be considered “completely true.”
But for anyone who regularly tunes into the conservative news show, such revelation is nothing new. PunditFact only confirmed what many have been aware of for a while now: Fox News lies – like, a lot.
But keep in mind it’s not just Fox that tends to weave more tales than truth…
Why? Here are 10 disturbing things everyone needs to know about the global media giants who control our supply of information, wielding immense power over the people- and even over the government.
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Cheers and cries of pure joy erupted as the judge handed down the ruling in the world’s first ever climate liability suit.
886 Dutch citizens, including teachers, entrepreneurs, grandparents and students united to sue their government for its inaction on climate change. In a decision likely to reverberate across the world, the court ordered the state to reduce emissions by 25% within 5 years to protect its citizens from climate change.
A HUGE congratulations to all involved, including Urgenda, the group that brought the suit on behalf of the citizens.
Not everyone has equal rights to education. Guess which gender is the victim of unequal access to education? The same that is over two times more likely to be sexually abused or burnt as a senior citizen, one third of whose members will experience some form of abuse or violence in their lifetime, the same one that has to fight every day just for equal rights.
Sex is coming. I apologize for boring everyone with yet another serious news piece, this time about the empowerment of women and the right of girls to an equal education. By now I would have lost the attention of over 98 per cent of readers, who would have zapped onto an advertisement for a bikini-clad maiden, clicked on a pic of a fast car or scrolled down to the lower sections hoping to find a snap of a topless model.
I mean let’s have a quick look through the dailies, shall we? Sky News is talking about a dog’s poo glowing orange, in the printed press there are multiple stories about a new phenomenon, the “competitive eater”, namely someone who consumes vast amounts of food within a few minutes, racing against a clock gobbling down a five-food-long sandwich before puking publicly in a bucket, while 700 million people are starving to death. One or two serious publications highlight issues such as child abuse (commendably) and true, there are stories about climate change, the water crisis in California but then the most read are the ones about a new (revolting-looking) pizza, some girl called Esther Dolezal and the hit counters don’t lie.
That’s why I started the first paragraph with the words “sex is coming”. What a caddish, unorthodox way of getting the readers to stay on course and read about something serious: equal rights to education and responsible reporting and now that you’ve started you may as well finish.
So as we pat ourselves on the back and congratulate ourselves on having overcome many of the world’s main diseases (for the time being), on having very few children down coal mines, on getting the vote for the woman, even though many still say “I will ask my husband to see who we are voting for”, let us ask ourselves whether everything is really so rosy.
How can it be when girls, in the year 2015, continue to have unequal access to education, the fundamental building blocks of the future career, the foundations which define to a great extent who a person is to become and where a person is to go? So let us congratulate ourselves on the statistic that in one third of countries access for girls to elementary education is unequal when compared with access for boys, let us congratulate ourselves on the fact that the statistic is worse (nearly half the countries) when we speak about lower secondary education.
In recent years, there have been attacks against schools for advocating girls’ education. Where? Why in Afghanistan, of course. Probably Pakistan as well. Maybe Yemen? According to the UNO, these attacks have been perpetrated in at least seventy countries, seven zero. The violence was not the result of the girls being instructed, it was the result of fear of social change once the girls become educated women.
And what does that mean? The latest report drawn up by experts in the UNO and working with the organization, Statistics on Women, states clearly that the well-being and education of a country’s female population is the best indicator of its prospects for peace and development. I repeat, the well-being and education of a country’s female population is the best indicator of its prospects for peace and development.
In conclusion, we have nothing to congratulate ourselves on. Any progress we make is ephemeral because the lobbies have decided that the money has to be controlled by mega-corporations which are engaged in the area of banking, weaponry, pharmaceutical products catering for public health calamities, once they have taken hold of course (watch MERS-CoV), and claiming the world’s energy resources as their own before selling them to us at inflated prices. They may as well start selling air.
And who is to blame for this? The guy whose first act of the day on leaving home is to walk to the newspaper kiosk, grab a tabloid, open it at page three and say “Cor! Look at those!” on seeing a half-clad student who bore her breasts to help pay for her studies, or the “newspaper” that carries such nonsense? Forgive me, dear reader, for speaking about serious issues.
Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey
– See more at: http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/17-06-2015/130998-responsible_reporting-0/#sthash.AHeawx1k.dpuf
NEW YORK – (CT&P) – Fox has announced that it will air its newest reality show, So You Think You’re A Sprinter, in late September. The show will be shot live on location in a number of major metropolitan areas around the country.
The innovative program will feature unarmed black teens attempting to flee police custody while avoiding flying billy clubs, Tasers, and gunfire from a variety of military grade weapons.
The show will consist of eight one-hour episodes during which the number of contestants will be whittled down through a process of exhaustion, depression, life threatening back injuries, and death, all at the hands of rogue cops.
During the last episode, if any of the original contestants are still alive, they will be forced to run a gauntlet of angry white rednecks armed with deer rifles who will be chosen at random from rural areas in Florida, Texas and Arkansas.
Executives at Fox are quite optimistic that the show will be a hit, citing the success of an entire news channel devoted to the kind of people who would really enjoy just this kind of thing.
The show is expected to air on September 25th, and will be going up against the new offering from Bravo, Real Housewives of the Gaza Strip; ABC’s popular docudrama Last Terrorist Standing, a cautionary tale about five dumbass Arab goat herders duped into joining ISIS; and CBS’s controversial new red state sitcom about how zany gay marriage can be in ‘The Land That Time Forgot.” It will be called How I Met Your Scrotum.
On ANZAC Day, we remember the Yaburara children, women, and men murdered on the Burrup Peninsula in the February-May 1868 Flying Foam Massacre.
Nickol Bay on the Burrup was the first colony in NW Australia. In 1868, Western Australian police and colonists murdered 160 Yaburara people there. Lest We Forget.
http://rt.com/op-edge/261469-isis-suicide-bomb-yemen/
Friday’s ISIS suicide bombings in Yemen and Saudi Arabia – killing a total of at least 43 people – is yet more bitter fruit of the policy pursued by Britain, the US and France and their Gulf allies for the past eight years.
This strategy – of fostering violently sectarian anti-Shiite militias in order to destroy Syria and isolate Iran – is itself but part of the West’s wider war against the entire global South by weakening any independent regional powers allied to the BRICs countries, and especially to Russia.
The strategy was first revealed as far back as 2007 in Seymour Hersh’s article “The Redirection”, which revealed how Bush administration officials were working with the Saudis to channel billions of dollars to sectarian death squads whose role would be to “throw bombs… at Hezbollah, Moqtada al-Sadr, Iran and at the Syrians,” in the memorable words of one US official.
21 dead after suicide bomber strikes Shiite mosque in S. Arabia, ISIS claims responsibilityMore evidence of precisely how this strategy unfolded has since been revealed. Most recently, last Monday saw the release of hundreds of pages of formerly classified US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) documents following a two year court battle in the US.
These documents showed that, far from being an unpredictable “bolt from the blue,” as the mainstream media tends to imply, the rise of ISIS was in fact both predicted and desired by the US and its allies as far back as 2012.
The DIA report, which was widely circulated amongst the various US military and security agencies at the time, noted: “There is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in Eastern Syria, and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime which is considered the strategic depth of the Shia expansion (Iraq and Iran).” Elsewhere, the “supporting powers to the opposition” are defined as “Western countries, the Gulf states and Turkey”.
In other words, a Salafist – that is militantly anti-Shia – “principality” was “exactly” what the West wanted as part of their war against not only Syria, but “Shia expansion” in Iraq as well. Indeed, it was specifically acknowledged that “ISI [the forerunner of ISIS] could also declare an Islamic state through its union with other terrorist organizations in Iraq and Syria.”
The precision of the declassified predictions is astounding. Not only was it predicted that the terrorist groups being supported by Washington and London in Syria would team up with those in Iraq to create an “Islamic State,” but the precise dimensions of this state were also spelt out: recognizing that “the Salafist[s], the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria.” The report noted that the consequences of this for Iraq would be to “create the ideal atmosphere for AQI [Al Qaeda Iraq] to return to its old pockets in Mosul and Ramadi.”
Mosul, don’t forget, was taken by ISIS in June 2014, and Ramadi fell earlier this week.
Recent months have seen the West and its regional allies massively stepping up their support for their anti-Shiite death squads. In late March, Saudi Arabia began its bombardment of Yemen following military gains made by the Houthi (Shiite) rebels in that country. The Houthis, the only effective force fighting Al Qaeda in the country, had taken key territories from them last November, and were subsequently threatening them in their remaining strongholds. This was when the Saudis began their bombardment, with US and British support, naturally, and, unsurprisingly, Al Qaeda have been the key beneficiary of this intervention, gaining a breathing space and regaining valuable lost territory, retaking the key port of Mukulla within a week of the commencement of the Saudi bombardment.
Al Qaeda have also been making gains in Syria, taking two major cities in Idlib province last month following a ramping up of military support from Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. And of course, Britain has been leading the way for a renewed military intervention in Libya in the guise of a “war against people smuggling” that, as I have argued elsewhere, will inevitably end up boosting the most vicious gangs involved in the trade, namely ISIS and Al Qaeda.
So why the sudden urgency on the part of the West and its allies to step up support for Al Qaeda et al now?
The answer lies in the increasing disgust at the activities of the death squads across the region. No longer perceived as the valiant freedom fighters they were depicted as in 2011, their role as shock troops for the West’s “divide and ruin” strategy, promising nothing but a future of ultra-violent trauma and ethnic cleansing, has become increasingly obvious. The period between mid-2013 and mid-2014 saw a significant turning of the tide against these groups.
It began in July 2013 with the ouster of Egypt’s President Mohamed Morsi following fears he was planning to send in the Egyptian army to aid the Syrian insurgency. New President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi put an end not only to that possibility, but to the flow of fighters from Egypt to Syria altogether. The West hoped to step in the following month with airstrikes against the Syrian government, but their attempts to ensure Iranian and Russian acquiescence in such a move came to nought and they were forced into a humiliating climbdown.
Then came the fall of Homs in May 2014, as Syrian government forces retook a key insurgent stronghold. The momentum was clearly with the government side; that is until ISIS sprang onto the scene – and with them, a convenient pretext for a US-led intervention that had been ruled out just a year before.
Meanwhile, in Libya, the pro-death squad parties decisively lost elections to the first elected House of Representatives in June 2014. Their refusal to accept defeat led to a new chapter in the post-NATO Libyan disaster, as they set up a new rival government in Tripoli and waged war on the elected parliament. Yet following a massacre of Egyptians by ISIS in Libya in February of this year, Egypt sent its airforce in on the side of the Tobruk (elected) parliament; it is now, apparently, considering sending in ground troops.
Losing ground in Yemen, in Libya, in Egypt and in Syria, the West’s whole strategy for using armed Salafists as tools of destabilization was starting to unravel. Thank goodness, people in certain quarters must be thinking, for ISIS.
DES MOINES – (CT&P) – At a rest area somewhere near Compost, Iowa this morning Hillary Clinton paused as she was exiting the men’s restroom to tell a group of near-rabid, obsessive-compulsive journalists that if elected she planned on banning executive oversight and investigative committees in both houses of Congress, along with the Office of the Special Prosecutor in D.C.
The Democrat candidate said that she would do this by executive order on her first day in office and the actions would be taken to reduce waste in government and save taxpayers’ money.
“I really don’t see the need for members of Congress to spend months going over the same old shit trying to dig up dirt on our president,” said Clinton. “The president has better things to do than worry about deleting emails, erasing tapes, and ‘disappearing’ key witnesses. Besides, the citizens of the United States elected these bozos to bring back subsidies for huge corporations, give tax breaks to the wealthiest members of our society, and get funding for bridges to nowhere so a few jobs can be created in their districts.”
“I think that if members of Congress were to just concentrate on what the hell they were elected to do, we could reduce the number of days they are in session by about half and drastically cut their salaries and expenses. That would really help the federal government’s bottom line,” said Clinton.
When a reporter from the New York Times asked Clinton who would then provide oversight of the executive branch, an agitated Alphonso Bedoya, Clinton Campaign Hispanic Vote Liaison Officer, told him what he thought of executive oversight committees.
“Oversight? To god-damned hell with oversight! We have no oversight. In fact, we don’t need no oversight. I don’t have to show you any stinking oversight, you god-damned cabron and ching tu madre!”
Clinton then thanked the journalists, jumped in her van, and sped off too her next campaign fundraiser at Jim Bob’s Pork and Corn Barbecue Palace in Steaming Excrement Springs just outside Cedar Rapids.
LONDON — Rupert Murdoch’s tabloid Sun has spoken, urging voters to back David Cameron’s Conservative Party in Britain’s election — unless they’re in Scotland. There, it says, they should vote for the Scottish National Party.
The differing endorsements raised a few eyebrows Thursday, since the London-based Sun dubbed the pro-Scottish independence nationalists “saboteurs” determined to wreck Britain.
But the Scottish edition — which has a separate editor — said the SNP would “fight harder for Scotland’s interests” and praised leader Nicola Sturgeon as “a phenomenon.” Its front page depicted her as Princess Leia from “Star Wars.”
The SNP is predicted to win most of Scotland’s seats on May 7.
Murdoch’s newspapers were long a powerful force in British politics, but their influence may be waning in the Internet age.
NEW YORK – (CT&P) – During an hour-long interview with Diane Sawyer televised back to back with her two-hour special last night with Bruce Jenner, former Vice President Dick Cheney admitted that he was a “demon from hell” trapped inside a human body.
Cheney really opened up during the interview, and at times even dropped his human guise to reveal his true nature. In a symbolic moment at the start of his interview, Cheney admitted “Yes Diane, for all intents and purposes, I am a fiend spawned in the fires of Hell.”
For the Satan-worshiping community, the moment was almost as significant as when Hitler was elected president of Germany in 1934. Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR), widely believed to be the Antichrist, tweeted his support of Cheney, saying “I’m so proud of Dick. It’s high time one of us came clean with the American people and let them know who we truly represent. He’s setting an example for Republicans everywhere.”
“My whole life has been getting me ready for this,” said Cheney, from my leadership and support of vile and evil oil companies who pollute the earth and are leading us headlong into planetary disaster, to my time as vice president where I lied my ass off and started a catastrophic war in Iraq.”
Cheney said he self-identifies as “Legion,” not a specific name. But he told Sawyer he felt comfortable using the pronouns “demon” and “fiend,” a designation that is an important issue for many in the Satanic community, which believes that Satan worshipers and demons should be referred to by the terms with which they choose to identify.
“I’m just tired of living a lie,” said Cheney. “When our gracious Lord Lucifer generously ripped the heart out of another human so I could continue my mission on earth, I made the decision to ‘come out’ and let everyone know that I am a servant of the Prince of Darkness, humanity’s true Savior.”
Cheney told Sawyer that he plans on continuing his mission; supporting the torture and humiliation of human beings, the destruction of the environment, and encouraging useless and expensive wars all over the globe. He feels that even though he no longer holds office, he can be of service to other minions of Satan currently serving in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.
“The Republican Party still needs my help,” said Cheney. “There are countries all over the globe that we haven’t had a chance to bomb yet.”
Sawyer’s next special is scheduled for late summer, when she will do a five-hour marathon interview with Bill Cosby, in which he is expected to “come out” as a demonic incubus sent from Mephistopheles to have sex with sleeping women.
by RevContentImagine all the time and money you would have if you didn’t have to pay for your education and higher education… Well, you can do just that in the following countries. These countries are leading the way, showing the world another option. Just think, someone poor or homeless could actually be the next Einstein or Tesla, but without money they don’t stand a chance at getting an education. Well, that’s not true all over the world. So maybe it’s time we take notes and make changes or move country!
Free education refers to education that is funded through taxation, or charitable organizations rather than tuition fees. Although primary school and other comprehensive or compulsory education is free in many countries, for example, all education is mostly free (often not including books (from primary) and a number of administrative and sundry fees in university) including post-graduate studies in the Nordic countries.
From 2013 in Northern Europe Estonia started providing free higher education as well. In Argentina, Norway and Finland, no fees apply for foreign students enrolling at a university, although they may not be eligible for a monthly study allowance and loan. However, bachelor degree programs in Norway are solely taught in Norwegian. Master degree programs in Norway are offered in either Norwegian or English depending on the program and/or university.
Sweden, until recently, (bring it back!) provided free education to foreign students but changes have been introduced to charge fees to foreign students from outside of the European community.
Denmark also has universal free education, and provides a monthly stipend, the “Statens Uddannelsesstøtte” or “SU”, to students over 18 years of age or students who are under 18 and attending a higher education. Bachelor and master degree programs in Denmark are offered in either Danish or English depending on the program and/or university.
Greece and Argentina provide free education at all levels, including college and university.
Seriously, how many of you didn’t know this stuff? And how many of you would love to have free education for yourself or your children. Just think of all the money you would save. So, why pay thousands for learning when you can get it free. So lets go over that list again just to make this clear. If you want free education move to one of these countries:
Norway
Sweden
Denmark
Greece
Argentina
Estonia
Finland
Please share this article with others so they know about their options!
Tax is one of life’s inevitabilities, as Benjamin Franklin lamented, but the idea that it may also be one of the bedrocks of civilisation just isn’t on the agenda for these multinationals, nor us for that matter, writes Mungo MacCallum.
The late Kerry Packer was notoriously reluctant to be quizzed by parliamentary inquiries – indeed, by interrogations of any kind.
He had, he once explained, once died as a result of a heart attack on the polo field. Having been resurrected, he now had more important things to do with his valuable time than respond to questioning he regarded as irrelevant.
Dragged before a Senate Committee in 1991, he summed it up famously and succinctly: “If anybody in this country doesn’t minimise their tax they want their head read. As a government I can tell you that you’re not spending it so well that we should be paying extra.”
Well, perhaps, although it could be said that even the most incompetent government providing services such as defence, health, education and the rest are more likely to be worthwhile than the legendary gambling binges that were Packer’s idea of discretionary spending. It was once reported that when a Texas rancher boasted that he was worth $100 million, Packer responded insouciantly: “I’ll toss you for it.”
But the man in charge would not have seen the point of any rebuke, or any appeal to the idea of noblesse oblige that once was regarded as the birth right and duty of former generational tycoons. He could, and often did, indulge his private charities and causes lavishly and generously, but he regarded them as his personal right and choice; he was simply not interested in the idea of social responsibility or public benevolence.
Taxation was just an imposition. It if it was dragged out of him he would pay it, kicking and screaming, but not a cent more than he had to. And such, overwhelmingly, is the case of his corporate successors ever since.
The multinational moguls who came before their own Senate inquiry last week clearly took the view that they were there to say as little as possible and do precisely nothing. And they were considerably more mealy-mouthed than Packer had been almost a generation earlier. The hard-line was, if anything, harder, but they were not about to state the obvious: we’re grabbing whatever we can and sitting on it, and the rest of you can all get stuffed.
They did admit that they were shifting billions from Australia and other destinations that have lower tax regimes wherever they could find them; given that this was pretty much on the public record, they could hardly deny it. But they would never call it tax-avoidance, let alone tax evasion – the latter being illegal.
Oh no, it was about being competitive. It was about providing the best and cheapest service they could find for their customers. It was even, preposterously, in the name of working on research and development for more wonderful things that would benefit the world.
To which one can only reply: bulls**t. In this dystopia of international finance, there is no semblance of morality or ethics; the words just do not apply to the reality of modern commerce. Tax may be, as Benjamin Franklin lamented, one of life’s inevitabilities, but the idea that it may be actually one of the bedrocks of civilisation, let alone one of the benefits, is not in the agenda. Tax is at best a necessary evil: greed is good.
And this impregnable refusal to even countenance the need for any change or modification of their mantra is what makes it so hard to come to grips with what is essentially a political problem for this government – for any government. The Tax Office’s Rob Heferen confessed that he had really no idea of the extent of what was going on. It’s almost certainly hundreds of millions, probably billions, that should, in the scheme of things, be collected in Australia, but no one would tell him.
And as for actually doing something about it – well, that was just too bloody hard. Treasurer Joe Hockey reckons that he is going to try, but he is receiving little if any co-operation from the bureaucrats. He has floated the idea of a diverted profits tax along the lines of the unilateral British model, but the Parliamentary Budget Office has already warned that this could breach international trade rules.
Given that the Abbott Government is happy to throw out international conventions when and where it suits them – refugee policy, for instance – this would seem not to be a serious impediment, but hey, now we’re talking about money. The shiny bums appear to favour waiting until the G20, or the OECD – anybody – gets round to framing a consensus model, but since that will involve hanging around for at least the end of 1917, if ever, and is likely to settle things anyway, this is not good enough.
The Government’s political imperative is to do something in the budget, or at least to foreshadow it, so that it can convince the fractious punters that it is serious about taking on the big end of town, not just the battlers. But there could be a window of hope: the battlers don’t really like tax either. They say they want the multinationals to pay their fair share, but they are curiously uninterested in sticking to the rules themselves. Particularly since the introduction of the GST, the black economy has flourished. And even before that, fiddling the tax has become something of a national sport.
The Tax Office has always been fair game, like parking inspectors and rugby league referees; if you can get away with it, then good luck to you. The theory seems to be that the government should be regarded as the natural enemy – wasteful, self-indulgent, and well able to afford whatever can be avoided or even evaded – there’s plenty more there were that came from. So rather than taking the high moral ground, Hockey and his colleagues might be better off going with the flow – saying yes, the big boys are getting away with murder, but so would you if you had half a chance.
Why not lie back and enjoy it – throw yourself into it for fun and profit. That, after all, is what free enterprise is all about. And you can bet that the right wing commentators from the Institute of Public Affairs, The Australian, the Financial Review and the rest of the neo-Liberal mob won’t give you too hard a time if you do. And nor, of course, will the ghost of Kerry Packer.
http://www.democracynow.org/2015/3/3/noam_chomsky_to_deal_with_isis
Chomsky discusses how he thinks the U.S. should respond to the self-proclaimed Islamic State.
Shortly after the participants in the Iranian nuclear talks announced that a double-overtime framework had been crafted, I was on television with Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, who is something of a celebrity rabbi, a failed congressional candidate, and an arch-neoconservative hawk who has been howling about a potential deal with Iran for months. Not surprisingly, he was not pleased by the news of the day. He declared that under these parameters, Iran would give up nothing and would “maintain their entire nuclear apparatus.” Elsewhere, a more serious critic, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who last month had organized the letter to Iran’s leaders signed by 47 GOP senators opposed to a deal, groused that the framework was “only a list of dangerous US concessions that will put Iran on the path to nuclear weapons.”
These criticisms were rhetorical bombs, not statements of fact. Under the framework, Iran would give up two-thirds of its centrifuges used to enrich uranium and would reduce its stockpile of low-enriched uranium (which is the raw material used to develop bomb-quality highly-enriched uranium) from 10,000 kilograms to 300 kilograms. These two developments alone—and the framework has many other provisions—would diminish Tehran’s ability to produce a nuclear weapon. Its nuclear apparatus would be smaller, and under these guidelines, Iran’s pathway to nuclear weapons, while certainly not impossible, would be much more difficult. Yet because politics dominates the debate over this deal—as it does so often with important policy matters—foes of the framework could hurl fact-free charges with impunity.
It is perhaps easier to do so when the subject is a highly technical matter. Nuclear nonproliferation is a subject that depends upon science. (Do you know how many centrifuges it takes to spin enough material for a bomb?) And it is difficult for nonexperts to assess any nonproliferation agreement. But it is rather easy to decry Tehran’s leaders as evil tyrants who support terrorism, despise Israel, and cannot be trusted. Little of that sort of attack has any bearing on evaluating this framework, which may or may not lead to a concrete accord. Trust is not at issue, for example. What counts is whether the technical means of inspection agreed upon are deemed sufficient to monitor the nuclear program, materials, supply chain, and facilities that remain. Yet who can tell?
Well, there are nonproliferation experts. A fair number, in fact. These are scientists and policy mavens who are trained to study and answer the questions posed by this framework. They are not infallible. They may disagree among themselves. But if there ever were a policy debate that should be shaped by scientific expertise, this is it. The politicians, pundits, and, yes, rabbis (or, at least, one rabbi) ought to give due deference to the guys and gals who know this stuff. So I’ve collected a few initial takes from arms control policy experts who are mostly keen on the possible deal, and here they are:
Anthony Cordesman, the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a former national security aide to Sen. John McCain, and a former director of intelligence assessment in the Office of the Secretary of Defense: “[T]he proposed parameters and framework in the Proposed Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action has the potential to meet every test in creating a valid agreement over time…It can block both an Iranian nuclear threat and a nuclear arms race in the region, and it is a powerful beginning to creating a full agreement, and creating the prospect for broader stability in other areas. Verification will take at least several years, but some form of trust may come with time. This proposal should not be a subject for partisan wrangling or outside political exploitation. It should be the subject of objective analysis of the agreement, our intelligence and future capabilities to detect Iran’s actions, the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) capabilities to verify, and enforcement provisions if Iran should cheat. No perfect agreement was ever possible and it is hard to believe a better option was negotiable. In fact, it may be a real victory for all sides: A better future for Iran, and greater security for the United States, its Arab partners, Israel, and all its other allies.”
William Burns, president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, former deputy secretary of state, and former career ambassador in the Foreign Service: “In a perfect world, there would be no nuclear enrichment in Iran, and its existing enrichment facilities would be dismantled. But we don’t live in a perfect world. We can’t wish or bomb away the basic know-how and enrichment capability that Iran has developed. What we can do is sharply constrain it over a long duration, monitor it with unprecedented intrusiveness, and prevent the Iranian leadership from enriching material to weapons grade and building a bomb…The history of the Iranian nuclear issue is littered with missed opportunities. It is a history in which fixation on the perfect crowded out the good, and in whose rearview mirror we can see deals that look a lot better now than they seemed then. With all its inevitable imperfections, we can’t afford to miss this one.”
Matthew Bunn, professor at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and coprincipal investigator at the Project on Managing the Atom: In a PowerPoint presentation he notes, “The proposed deal is the best chance to stop an Iranian Bomb. Deal would impose technical barriers that would take overt breakout off the table as a plausible option, and make sneakout more difficult. Political effects of the deal would undermine Iranian bomb advocates, reduce the chance of an Iranian decision to build the bomb. The credible alternatives—a return to sanctions or military strikes—pose significantly higher risks to US and world security. The deal is highly imperfect—but better [than] the other options realistically available.”
Dan Joyner, University of Alabama School of Law professor, author of International Law and the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, and contributor to ArmsControlLaw.com: “Overall I think the framework of agreement is a very good one. Iran definitely made some very significant concessions. In fact, one might be forgiven for thinking that, with all of the specificity placed on Iranian concessions, and really only fairly vague wording on the lifting of unilateral and multilateral sanctions (i.e., regarding timing) in the joint statement, Iran showed the most diplomatic courage in agreeing to this framework. I’m sure there is much that was agreed to that we don’t know about, and I have no doubt that [Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad] Zarif and his team reached a satisfactory understanding with their negotiating partners on the sanctions question from their perspective. But I suppose I just wanted to highlight that Iran is the party that made the most obvious significant concessions in this framework agreement.”
Gary Samore and Olli Heinonen of Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and members of a group called United Against Nuclear Iran: The New York Times reports, “Mr. Samore…said in an email that the deal was a ‘very satisfactory resolution of Fordo [enrichment facility] and Arak [plutonium reactor] issues for the 15-year term’ of the accord. He had more questions about operations at Natanz [enrichment facility] and said there was ‘much detail to be negotiated, but I think it’s enough to be called a political framework.’ Mr. Heinonen, the former chief inspector of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said, ‘It appears to be a fairly comprehensive deal with most important parameters.’ But he cautioned that ‘Iran maintains enrichment capacity which will be beyond its near-term needs.'”
Joseph Cirincione, president of of Ploughshares Fund, a global security foundation, and former director for nonproliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: “The agreement does three things. It blocks all of Iran’s pathways to a nuclear bomb. It imposes tough inspections to catch Iran should it try to break out, sneak out, or creep out of the deal. And it keeps our coalition united to enforce the deal. Under this deal, Iran has agreed to rip out two-thirds of its centrifuges and cut its stockpile of uranium gas by 97 percent. It will not be able to make any uranium or plutonium for a bomb. Many of the restrictions in the agreement continue for 25 years and some—like the inspections and the ban on building nuclear weapons—last forever.”
Frank von Hippel, an expert with Princeton’s Science and International Security Program: According to the McClatchy Washington Bureau, “Frank von Hippel said he was surprised that Iran had accepted an enrichment level of 3.67 percent and hadn’t insisted on 5 percent. ‘There are still details to be filled in, but I like it a lot,’ von Hippel said on the framework…’On transparency, it looks like they really are doing a lot.'”
As many have noted in the past day, a framework is only a framework. There are plenty of tough and complicated details to sort out. The deal may fall apart, especially with conservatives in both Washington and Tehran—and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his crew—sniping away and looking to subvert any agreement. But as the heated debate continues, it will be important that nonproliferation experts play a critical role in the discourse. Science-based statements, not snarky sound bites, should be the weapons of choice.
ATLANTA, GEORGIA – (CT&P) – A pizza chain headquartered in the mountainous region of north Georgia has stepped up to fill the gaping void left by the closure of Memories Pizza in Walkerton, Indiana. Considered a “mainstay” in Walkerton, the pizzeria is now closed and may not reopen. Memories owners Kevin O’Connor and his daughter Crystal closed the restaurant after a withering assault on social media and numerous vicious phone calls.
Herbert “Cowboy” Coward, co-founder and CEO of Deliverance Pizza, a chain of family restaurants headquartered in the north Georgia town of Dillard, told Wolf Blitzer of CNN that his company was eager to take up the slack.
“We currently have 11 units scattered throughout the mountains of north Georgia, but we’ve been thinking of expanding out-of-state, and the O’Connor’s loss just might be our gain,” said Coward.
Deliverance, which specializes in pizzas featuring wild game toppings blended with pork, is by far the most popular pizza in rural areas of north Georgia. In fact, Deliverance outsells Pizza Hut and Domino’s combined. The chain’s most popular pizza, called “The Squeal,” features a combination of ham, venison, and pork sausage toppings.
“We’ll probably start by making the O’Connors an offer on their shop and go from there,” said Coward.
“But I want to make one thing clear from the outset Wolf; Deliverance Pizza has always been a gay friendly establishment. A good portion of our business comes from the red-hot gay wedding pizza catering industry, and we want to hold onto to those customers like a you would a fattened sow.”
“We’ve always supported gay marriage, whether it’s forced or by consent. There’s nothing quite as beautiful as seeing two members of the same-sex declare their love for one another, even if one partner is a little reluctant at first. I can remember when Ned and I first got together. It was rocky times for a while but once we settled down no one could pry us apart, and we still feel that way to this day!”
On an appearance on Fox News, where the O’Connors have become instant heroes, anchor Neal Cavuto asked Crystal if they would accept Coward’s offer or were her and her dad planning on reopening their restaurant.
Crystal replied, “Are you kiddin’? Hell no we ain’t reopenin’ the fuckin’ restaurant! This GoFundMe crap is the shit! It’s better than winning the goddam lottery! When this cash runs out we’re gonna bad-mouth another minority group. Right now it’s a toss-up between the blacks and the Messicans…we just ain’t done decided which one yet.”
It should come as a surprise to no one that Neanderthals from across the country have contributed close to $700,000 to the O’Connors through the GoFundMe website to date, and the flow of cash shows no signs of abating. It seems that bigotry and hatred are alive and well in America today.
DAMASCUS, SYRIA – (CT&P) – Sunni and Shia Muslim religious leaders signed a historic agreement yesterday that will allow them to keep killing each other “indefinitely.” The agreement, which was mediated by some British dude in white robes, is being heralded by the United Nations as the “first of its kind” in the hot and cold relations between the two groups.
“Although it’s not quite the outcome we had hoped for, it’s really nice to see the two sides coming together and discussing their differences,” said Kahamba Kutesa, President of the U.N. “We hope that this accord is the beginning of a glorious journey down the road to “peace in our time.”
Both groups seemed pleased with the results and look forward to continued bloodshed with the assurance that the other side will be just as brutal and inhumane as the other.
“I haven’t seen this kind of progress since the 7th century,” said Mohammed Abdulaziz Daud Skyhook, lead negotiator for the Sunnis. “This agreement will allow us to glorify God by butchering those with whom we have a theological disagreement without the nagging fear that they may suddenly want to cooperate and live together in peace. Praise Allah!”
Boutros Boutros Boutros Boutros Abd-El-Kader Birdadda, Shia representative at the talks, agreed. “This treaty will allow us to slaughter our brother Muslims till the ‘camels come home.’ We are truly excited and look forward to making many martyrs who will shortly be able to kick back in Paradise and participate in wild lizardlike sex with many virgins.”
Both sides expressed their desire to increase the rate of bloodletting to a “crescendo of doom” throughout the Middle East and surrounding areas.
“We hope to top the current record of 10 million people murdered in the name of God currently held by Protestants and Catholics during the Thirty Years War,” said Birdadda. “With the help of modern weaponry and the complete lack of empathy on both sides of this conflict, we think we can at least double the old record.”
Both sides stressed that the although the agreement was solely between Sunni and Shia, no restrictions were included that would prevent both sides from murdering Christians, Jews, atheists, or any other religious or non-religious groups in their spare time.
“After all, everyone has to have a hobby,” said Skyhook.
No further talks are scheduled until population levels drop below the level necessary to propagate the two murderous tribes of religious zealots.
The following is a Facebook post by Jeremy Buckingham.
There is a revolving door between mining and government.
The following is a list of some of the people who work or worked as lobbyists for the mining industry who used to be or became politicians, including ministers, advisers for Liberal, Labor and National Party politicians or senior government bureaucrats. It is by no means complete but gives a sense of the extent of the revolving door between miners and the government. If you know of more, please let me know.
Ministers who became involved in mining after politics
Mark Vaile
former deputy prime minister and leader of Nationals under the Howard Government
on the board of Aston Resources – now merged with Whitehaven Coal.
John Anderson
former deputy prime minister and leader of the Nationals under the Howard Government
served as Chair of coal seam gas company Eastern Star Gas (acquired by Santos)
Martin Ferguson
Minister for Energy & Resources under Rudd/Gilllard
now chair of APPEA advisory board
Craig Emerson
Minister for Trade and Competitiveness under Rudd/Gillard
Now an economic consultant.whose clients include AGL and Santos
Greg Combet
Minister for Energy and Climate Change under Rudd/Gillard
Now an economic consultant.whose clients include AGL and Santos
NSW Mineral Council staff
Stephen Galilee – CEO
Chief of staff of the then Treasurer, now NSW Premier, Mike Baird
Scott Kennan – Director Communications
Media Advisor to Transport Minister Michael Costa 2003 – 2004
Emma Browning – Director Government Relations
Media & Policy Advisor “NSW Shadow Minister” -1997-1999
Brad Emery – Director Media and Public Affairs
Press Secretary Federal Assistant Treasurer, Peter Dutton MP 2004-2007
Advisor “Australian Government” – 2000-2004
Media Advisor Kerry Bartlett MP – 1998 – 1999
Sue-Ern Tan – Deputy CEO NSW Minerals Council 2008-2012
Senior Policy Adviser- Ian McDonald, Energy and Mining Office of the NSW Minister for Primary Industries, Minister for Mineral Resources, Minister for Energy, 2006 – 2008
Ksenya Belooussova – Media Advisor at Department of Premier and Cabinet
Digital Communications Manager – NSW Minerals Council (2012 -2014)
Lindsay Hermes – Advisor – Ian Macfarlane, Minister for Industry at Department of Industry
Media and Communications Manager NSW Minerals Council 2010-2013
Media Advisor – 2013 Federal Election Liberal Party
Advisor to Deputy Leader of the Opposition ACT Government 2006 -2008
Minerals Council of Australia staff
Brendan Pearson – CEO
Assistant Secretary Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 2002-2004
John Kunkel – Deputy CEO
Senior Adviser, Cabinet Policy Unit Office of John Howard 2004-2007
Advisor to Mark Vaile, 1999-2001
Trade Advisor to Tim Fischer, 1998-1999
James Sorahan – Director – Taxation
Policy Advisor, Martin Fergusen 2010-2013
Policy Advisor, Chris Bowen 2007-2010
Policy Analyst, Australian Treasury 2005-2007
Chris Natt – Training and Education Coordinator
Worked for NT Minister for Primary Industries, Minister for Fisheries, Minister for Mines and Energy 2005-2009
Chris McCombe – Assistant Director-Environmental Policy
Manager, Major Projects (Abandoned Mines Land Program) Queensland Mines and Energy 2008-2010
Third-party mining lobbyists
Liam Bathgate – Director at Australian Public Affairs
Lobbied for Shenua Watermark, Aston Resources (Maules Creek Coal Project) and Tenix Group
Chief of Staff to Barry O’Farrell 2007-2008
General Secretary of NSW National Party 1992 – 1997
Principal Private Secretary to Ian Sinclair MP (Leader of National Party) 1984 – 1987
Press Secretary to Doug Anthony MP (Deputy PM and Leader of Nationals) 1979 – 1984
Brian Tyson – Managing Partner at Newgate Communications
Lobbied for Coalpac Pty Ltd
Press Secretary Former NSW Premier Nick Greiner and Planning and Energy Minister Robert Webster 1987 – 1995
Larry Anthony – Founding Director at SAS Group
Lobbied for Shenua
Senior Vice President Federal Nationals 2006 – 2012
Mathew Watson – Managing Director at Repute Communications
Lobbied for Bickham Coal and Port Waratah Coal Services
◾Senior Communications Manager (Cabinet / Ministerial) in NSW Government 2002 – 2004
Michael van Maanen – Partner Newgate Communications 2013 – Present
◾Lobbied for Coalpac Pty Ltd
◾Adviser to the Federal Minister for Workforce Participation 2006 –2007
◾Adviser to the Federal Minister for Immigration, Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs 2004 – 2006
◾Policy Adviser in Departments of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Foreign Affairs and Trade, Defence) 2000 – 2004
Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association (APPEA) staff
Martin Ferguson- Chair of APPEA advisory board
◾Minister for Energy & Resources under Rudd/Gilllard
Chris Ward – Media Manager, Eastern Australia
◾Principal Media Adviser to Queensland Minister for Transport 2010 – 2011
◾Press Secretary to Federal Minister for Consumer Affairs and Small Business 2008–10
◾Senior Media Adviser to the Queensland Treasurer 2007-08
◾Senior Media Adviser to NSW Attorney and Minister for the Environment 2003–07
Ryan Bondar – Policy and Government Relations
◾Senior Policy Advisor NSW Leader of Opposition Barry O’Farrell 2008-2010
◾Research officer Joe Hockey 2003-2004
Michael Bradley – Director External Affairs
◾Ministerial advisor to Martin Ferguson Federal Resources and Energy Minister 2008-2010
Alexandra Gibson – Policy Director, NSW/VIC
◾Advisor to Christopher Pyne 2006-2007
Damien Hills – National Associate Director, Environment & Safety
◾Senior Policy Adviser Office of the Minister for Environment and Heritage (WA) March 2001 – February 2002
Kieran Murphy – Manager Media & Communications – Western Region
◾Communications Director Office of the Premier 2005 – 2008 (WA)
Stedman Ellis – COO,Western
◾Deputy DG, WA Department of Mines and Petroleum 2007-2010
Adam Welch – Senior Policy Adviser, Western
◾Senior Policy Officer/Policy Officer at Office of Energy – Government of Western Australia
◾Executive Office at Office of Energy – Government of Western Australia
Paul Fennelly – Chief Operating Officer, Eastern Australia
◾Director-General (CEO) of Department of State Development, Trade & Innovation-General at Queensland Government
I would like to add the exploits of Alexander Downer to Jeremy’s list.
“The director-general of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service and his deputy instructed a team of ASIS technicians to travel to East Timor in an elaborate plan, using Australian aid programs relating to the renovation and construction of the cabinet offices in Dili, East Timor, to insert listening devices into the wall, of walls to be constructed under an Australian aid program.”
Mr Collaery says a star witness who ASIO questioned (in December 2013) was “not some disaffected spy” but the former director of all technical operations at ASIS.
He says the former ASIS operator decided to blow the whistle after learning Mr Downer had become an adviser to Woodside Petroleum in his years after politics.
In a statement to the ABC, Mr Downer says the allegations are old and he will not comment on matters regarding national security.”
The idea is that a child is brought up in a loving environment in a happy, functional family, in a triangular relationship in which role models show the way and pave the path for a happy future, complementing each other as they open windows for their offspring. The latest UN Report on the state of children is a revolting comment on Humankind 2015.
Maud de Boer, the UN Special rapporteur on the sale of children, child prosecution and child pornography has just made her first address to the UN Human Rights Council, in which she highlights the fact that millions of children every year are subjected to sexual abuse, sexual exploitation, are sold and trafficked for prostitution, are forced to work as slaves, are adopted illegally, and killed for their organs or are forced to become child soldiers.
She referred to “persisting and new forms of sale and sexual exploitation of children” which “continue to be a reality in all regions of the world”, adding that “There is an urgent need for all stakeholders, especially Member States, to take action to put an end to these endemic crimes”.
One of the main focuses of the delivery of the Report was new technologies, which are used by children to access information and further their studies, while “on the other hand, this new phenomenon is also easing the commission of crimes of sexual exploitation as well as new forms of exploitation behavior, such as online streaming of child abuse”.
The Internet is full of abusive images of children, even in unpaid sites which are easily accessible to the general public, who might stumble across an image or a video when researching something unconnected. How many people bother to complain about these, and what mechanisms are there to do something about it? In many cases, none. It should be a criminal offence to upload any image of any form of abuse of any person, under age or not, without this person’s consent when no longer a minor.
Ms. De Boer also underlined the need for accountability for those engaged in exploitation, requesting that Member States “establish clear and comprehensive legal frameworks to avoid protection gaps” and to ensure that there is a deterrent effect, and stressed the need to ratify the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, in national legislation.
“Member States need to develop detection, reporting and identification mechanisms to qualify the phenomena, identify the victims and track down the perpetrators,” she stated, suggesting that child helplines and hotlines could be a good first measure to register and communicate abuse.
As I have stated in this column before, all people should have regular psychological screening, starting at pre-school age and following through into adulthood, so that well-trained professionals can spot behaviors which point towards a situation of abuse, or else prevent anti-social behaviors from developing and avoiding huge social costs down the line.
If we cannot provide for our children, and if there are millions upon millions being abused in all geographical regions, this is a very sorry comment on Humankind, 2015. Yet another one.
That’s what I saw on Australian Story last night.
CAROLINE JONES, PRESENTER: Hello. I’m Caroline Jones. Dr Jamal Rifi is the sort of general practitioner many people thought no longer existed. He runs a single practice, still does house calls and cheerfully sees his patients out of hours. Dr Rifi is also an influential and outspoken voice in the Muslim community at a time of exceptional scrutiny and debate. But his views have brought him critics as well as admirers. And this is his Australian Story.
JIHAD DIB, FRIEND AND FORMER HIGH SCHOOL PRINCIPAL: Jamal is a doctor. And that’s his absolute passion. That’s his love and he’s such a natural.
NEMAT KHARBOUTLI, DAUGHTER, DAUGHTER: It’s not just a job, it’s not just a profession. Medicine for him is just another mode of expressing his sincerity to social justice.
MORRIS IEMMA, FRIEND AND FMR NSW PREMIER: It’s the antithesis of…
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Pretty sure that this page was created by Tony and Mike. Creative direction from Cory Bernardi and Fred Nile. #putliberalslast
“Masturbation is a sin. Self-sexing is not only bad for your physical and mental health, but also destroys your spiritual wellbeing. If you ring the devil’s doorbell, Satan will open up Hell’s gates and drag you in! The same principle also applies to men: if you touch your sin stick, you are buying a one way ticket to the fiery inferno. Take the pledge to be pure in body and mind TODAY!!”
God bless you all – Tony and Mike
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WASHINGTON, D.C. – (CT&P) – Representative Trey “Numbnuts” Gowdy (R-SC), Chairman of the House Select Committee to Investigate Investigations Related to Prior Investigations of the Benghazi Benghazi Benghazi terrorist attacks, told reporters today that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s missing emails will prove “beyond the shadow of a doubt” that she masterminded the operation start to finish.
“We will show that Mrs. Clinton not only planned and organized the attacks, but was on the ground in Libya that night and provided transportation for the terrorists to and from the compound,” said Gowdy.
The attack, which has been the subject of endless investigations by a variety of nitwits in both houses of Congress, occurred on the evening of September 11, 2012.
Islamic militants attacked the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Lybia, killing U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and U.S. Foreign Service Information Management Officer Sean Smith. Stevens was the first U.S. Ambassador killed in the line of duty since 1979.
Several hours later, a second assault targeted a different compound about one mile away, killing two CIA contractors, Tyrone S. Woods and Glen Doherty. Ten others were also injured in the attacks, but some of those folks were not white, so they don’t count.
“We have reason to believe that Mrs. Clinton used her email account to procure a 1972 Plymouth station wagon and a driver to transport the killers from downtown Benghazi to the compound and then on to the second target,” said a profusely sweating Gowdy. “We have a witness that has provided photographic evidence to this effect as well.”
Gowdy also told reporters that Mrs. Clinton hosted a gala alcohol-free reception for the killers just after the attacks to celebrate the deaths of the four Americans.
“It’s just horrific,” said Gowdy. “I don’t see how the woman can live with herself. This is bound to ruin any chance she has of becoming president, which is of course our only goal behind pursuing this ridiculous bullshit.”
When asked if Mrs. Clinton is concerned about either the emails or the continuing Benghazi Benghazi Benghazi probe, an aide to Mrs. Clinton replied, “Not really, haters gonna hate…what difference does it make?”
Our military strategy is to bomb IS from the air and send troops in to Iraq to help train mainly Shiite forces. But we also need a political strategy
Death cult. There’s a certain catharsis in saying it, isn’t there? Somehow, when you’re confronted with the jawdropping atrocities Islamic State churns out with gruesome frequency, “terrorist” seems puny, unsatisfactory. We’re looking for something that distils our rage and drips with disdain. So, death cult: it implies a kind of unhinged violence directed to no rational purpose; a group beyond comprehension that appeals only to those on the limits of sanity. So, for instance, when three young Englishwomen skip the country to join, we have no explanation other than that they were brainwashed, or that their decision, in Julie Bishop’s phrase, “defies logic”. That, after all, is the nature of cults.
If only it were true. If only IS were a small, tightly controlled group under the command of a single charismatic leader on whom everything depends. If only it were destined to go the way of so many cults, burning destructively but briefly before disappearing with little trace in some tragic implosion. But it isn’t. It’s an expanding group forged in the collapsing politics of the Middle East. IS’s plain barbarism shouldn’t obscure this fact. Its existence is not harebrained. It is deeply political, and those who support, or even merely tolerate it, have political reasons for their decisions.
Iraqi soldiers in Mosul simply abandoned their posts when IS rolled into town last year
Which brings me to Tony Abbott’s announcement this week that we’d be sending another tranche of troops to Iraq in our ever-expanding military campaign. They’ll be the latest soldiers trying valiantly to train the Iraqi Army. In some ways, there’s less to this than meets the eye. We already have troops in Iraq doing this job, and it reflects precisely the strategy we’re pursuing against IS: bombard them from the air and get local groups – including the Iraqi Army – to fight them on the ground. Once you’ve committed to that, there’s nothing particularly controversial about increasing troop numbers doing the job.
The trouble, though, is that it seems to be the only card we have to play. Outraged by IS, we’ll send soldiers. Concerned they aren’t retreating in the way we’d like, we’ll send more. That, it seems, is the strategy.
But we’ve been failing at this strategy for nearly a dozen years. America spent something like $US40 billion on the task. Soon, it became a NATO project. Naturally, Australia helped out. So did Jordan, South Korea and Romania. Iran, too, struck similar deals with the Iraqi government. And more than a decade of multi-national training later, Iraqi soldiers in Mosul simply abandoned their posts when IS rolled into town last year. Precisely why we think a few hundred extra Australian soldiers will succeed where years of grander, more expensive efforts so miserably failed, remains unexplained.
But the bigger problem is that the approach remains a narrow military one. It has no obvious political dimension to it: no clearly explained account of why IS has grown so rapidly, how it took major Iraqi cities with so little resistance, and why it might prove so difficult to dislodge. But it is precisely these things that have the most to teach us.
It’s easy to forget that IS is scarcely the unstoppable force of our nightmares. It spread through the Sunni areas of Syria and northern Iraq mainly because no one in those regions particularly wanted to stand in their way. That included the Iraqi military, whose Sunni representatives clearly had little fidelity to the Iraqi cause. In brief, IS succeeded because it carried more good will in the regions it conquered than the Iraqi state. Not because Iraqi Sunnis are blood-loving nihilists – indeed, it was the Iraqi Sunnis who had expelled IS’s predecessor organisation, al-Qaeda in Iraq. It is rather a story of just how rent Iraq truly is; just how colossal a failure its reconstruction after we invaded it has been. And it is a story of monstrous Sunni resentment at the pro-Shiite excesses of the Iraqi state.
Perhaps our greatest mistake in this regard was to disband Saddam Hussein’s military machine entirely, letting it become instead the largely incompetent, Shiite-dominated muscle for an increasingly Shiite-supremacist nation under Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. With the Americans gone, Sunni protests were violently quashed, Sunni politicians hounded from office and Shiite death squads marauded far too freely. This, we watched from afar, apparently unmoved by the fact that Iraqi Sunnis were now looking for someone – anyone – prepared to stand up for them. While we were watching, IS made that offer.
What’s our counter offer? Because if we’re serious about defeating IS, we’ll have to do more than train an Iraqi military widely regarded by Iraqi Sunnis as a tool of Shiite oppression. We’ll have to find a way to win over the Sunni tribes of northern Iraq with a political future they can believe in; a future that just might inspire them to turn on IS the way they turned on al-Qaeda in Iraq.
That means a more inclusive Iraqi state, and on this score Iraq’s new Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi is making some positive noises. We’re also helped considerably by the astonishing scale of IS’s barbarism, which is causing many Sunnis living under its regime de la terreur a severe case of buyer’s remorse. But if our only plan is to bomb IS into history, we might just lose these advantages. We also might leave something worse in its place, just as IS took the place of al-Qaeda after we’d tried bombing them. The question we face now is not as simple as: more or less war? It is: what else? What’s our political strategy? And I’m not sure the death cult paradigm delivers us an answer.
Israel, despite the attempts of current Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to cast it as a monochrome “Jewish state,” has a divided and complicated population. Some 21 percent or 1.7 million of the 8 million Israelis are of Palestinian heritage, the majority of those being Muslim. About 300,000 Israelis are not Jewish or Palestinian-Israeli, many of them being immigrants from Russia or Eastern Europe who claim some Jewish antecedents but who are not recognized as Jews by the Israeli rabbinate. Of the 6 million Jews, about one million are recent immigrants from Russia and Eastern Europe. Another 1.7 million are European Jews (Ashkenazis) who mostly came to Israel before the 1990s. Nearly 3 million are Eastern Jews originally from the Middle East or the Iberian Peninsula, called Sephardim or in the case of the Middle Easterners, Mizrahim (“Easterners”). Many Israeli Jews are secular-minded. Some 13% don’t believe in God and 24% are agnostics. But 750,000 or 9% are fundamentalist Haredis (“Ultra-Orthodox”).
Since Israel has a list-based parliamentary system, voters tend to elect many small parties to the 120-member Knesset, who then must put together a coalition of 61 in order to have a majority. In the last election, the far right Likud Party of Binyamin Netanyahu got 27 seats and the center-right Kadima Party led by Tzipi Livni received 28 seats. But Netanyahu was able to the requisite further 35 allies (and more) among the smaller right wing parties, whereas Livni was not, so Netanyahu became prime minister–even though Livni’s party had more seats.
1. That is why it is significant that the traditionally Palestinian-Israeli parties have joined together with the Communists (which are mixed Jewish and Palestinian) to form a single coalition party. They did this in part because the ruling Likud coalition passed a law raising the threshold of the proportion of votes a party list needs to be seated in parliament to 3.25%, from 2%. The threshold is intended to exclude from parliament tiny fringe parties, some of them extremists. But it could have excluded fairly mainstream Palestinian-Israeli parties because each is relatively small on its own.
2. Palestinian-Israeli voter turnout used to be 80% decades ago but has fallen to only 57% more recently. In polling they said it was because of the disunity of the parties they favored and their marginalization. Palestinian-Israeli members of parliament will be able to work against an increasing tendency in Israeli society toward discrimination against and marginalization of them. They oppose, for instance, Netanyahu’s formula that Israel is a Jewish state. Palestinian-Israeli politicians are hoping the united list will produce a much bigger turnout.
3. Because of the threat the 3.25% threshold poses, of disenfranchising Palestinian-Israelis if their parties remain small and disunited, it is possible that the Islamic Movement of Sheikh Raed salah will not boycott this election. The “Southern” branch of the Islamic Movement is already committed to the coalition. In the past Salah has held that to participate in an Israeli election is a surrender on the part of the Palestinian-Israelis to Israeli hegemony. But in parliamentary systems, boycotting the vote typically just leaves a group voiceless in government.
4. If the United List of the Palestinian-Israelis can in fact get the vote out, they could get between 12 and 15 seats. (They only won 11 seats in 2009).
5. This showing might allow them to help give a majority to the centrist coalition of Labor and Tzipi Livni’s HaTenua (she and some others on the left of the old Kadima have defected to this small liberal party). This outcome is a little unlikely but not out of the bounds of possibility.
The last time I was in Israel, I mentioned to a colleague that I thought Israel was becoming a multicultural state, what with the decline of dominance by the old Ashkenazi elite and its major institutions. He objected. “Israel already *is* a multicultural state,” he said. We’ll see if that assertion is borne out in the March 17 elections.
ISIS fighters enter ruins of ancient Palmyra after taking full control of city – reports
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