This is just the latest instance in the serial rape of “international law”. The rap sheet is humongous, including; NATO bombing Serbia for 78 days in 1999 to allow Kosovo to secede; the 2003 U.S. invasion and subsequent trillion-dollar occupation and civil war creation in Iraq; NATO/AFRICOM bombing Libya in 2011 invoking R2P (“responsibility to protect”) as a cover to provoking regime change; U.S. investment in the secession of oil-wealthy South Sudan, so China has to deal with an extra geopolitical headache; and U.S. investment in perennial civil war in Syria.

Yet Moscow still (foolishly?) believes international law should be respected — presenting to the UN Security Council classified information on all Western intel/psy-ops moves leading to the coup in Kiev, including “training” provided by Poland and Lithuania, not to mention Turkish intelligence involvement in setting up a second coup in Crimea. Russian diplomats called for an unbiased international investigation. That will never happen; Washington’s narrative would be completely debunked. Thus a U.S. veto at the UN.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also called for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe to objectively investigate those snipers shooting everyone on sight in Kiev, as revealed by Estonia’s foreign minister to E.U. foreign policy supremo Catherine “I love Yats” Ashton. According to Russia’s ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin, “a completely different picture would be drawn compared to what is being depicted by American media and, unfortunately, by some American and European politicians.” Needless to say, there will be no investigation.

Hi, I’m your good neo-nazi

Everyone remembers the “good Taliban”, with which the U.S. could negotiate in Afghanistan. Then came the “good al-Qaeda”, jihadis the US could support in Syria. Now come the “good neo-nazis”, with which the West can do business in Kiev. Soon there will be “the good jihadis supporting neo-nazis”, who may be deployed to advance U.S./NATO and anti-Russian designs in Crimea and beyond. After all, Obama mentor Dr Zbigniew “The Grand Chessboard” Brzezinski is the godfather of good jihadis, fully weaponized to fight the former Soviet Union in Afghanistan.

As facts on the ground go, neo-nazis are definitely back as good guys.

For the first time since the end of World War II, fascists and neo-nazis are at the helm of a European nation (although Ukraine most of all should be characterized as the key swing nation in Eurasia). Few in the West seem to have noticed it.

The cast of characters include Ukrainian interim defense minister and former student at the Pentagon Ihor Tenyukh; deputy prime minister for economic affairs and Svoboda ideologue Oleksandr Sych; agro-oligarch minister of agriculture Ihor Svaika (Monsanto, after all, needs a chief enforcer); National Security Council chief and Maidan commander of Right Sector neo-nazis Andry Parubiy; and deputy National Security Council chief Dmytro Yarosh, the founder Right Sector. Not to mention Svoboda leader Oleh Tyanhybok, a close pal of John McCain and Victoria “F**k the E.U.” Nuland, and active proponent of an Ukraine free from the “Muscovite-Jewish mafia.”

As the Kremlin refuses to deal with this bunch and the upcomingMarch 16 referendum in Crimea is practically a done deal, Team “Yats” is fully legitimized, with honors, by Team Obama, leader included, in Washington. To quote Lenin, what is to be done? A close reading of President Putin’s moves would suggest an answer: nothing. As in just waiting, while outsourcing the immediate future of a spectacularly bankrupt Ukraine to the E.U. The E.U. is impotent to rescue even the Club Med countries. Inevitably, sooner or later, threat of sanctions or not, it will come crawling back to Moscow seeking “concessions”, so Russia may also foot the bill.

Meanwhile, in Pipelineistan…

Meanwhile, the New Great (Threat) Game in Eurasia advances unabated. Moscow would willingly compromise on a neutral Ukraine — even with neo-nazis in power in Kiev. But an Ukraine attached to NATO is an absolute red line. By the way, NATO is “monitoring” Ukraine with AWACS deployed in Polish and Romanian airspace.

So as the much lauded “reset” between the Kremlin and the Obama administration is for all practical purposes six feet under (with no Hollywood-style second coming in the cards), what’s left is the dangerous threat game. Deployed not only by the Empire, but also by the minions.

That monster collection of Magritte-style faceless bureaucrats at the European Commission (E.U.), following on the non-stop threat of E.U. sanctions, has decided to delay a decision on whether Gazprom may sell more gas through the OPAL pipeline in Germany, and also delay negotiations on the legal status of South Stream, the pipeline under the Black Sea which should become operational in 2015.

As if the E.U. had any feasible Plan B to escape its dependency on Russian gas (not to mention eschew the very profitable financial game played between key European capitals and Moscow). What are they do, import gas on Qatar Airways flights? Buy LNG from the U.S. — something that will not be feasible in years to come? The fact is the minute a gas war is on, if it ever comes down to it, the E.U. will be under immense pressure by a host of member-nations to keep (and even extend) its Russian gas fix — with or without “our (neo-nazi) bastards” in power in Kiev. Brussels knows it. And most of all, Vlad the Hammer knows it.

Source: http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/ukraine-now-headed-fascists-and-neo-nazis?page=0%2C1

Obama’s White House statement came shortly after the “interim government” installed in Ukraine by the Western powers appealed for United States and Britain to come to its aid, accusing Russia of mounting an “invasion.”

Arsen Avakov, the new interior minister and member of Fatherland, the party of oligarch Yulya Tymoshenko, alleged that the international airport in Sebastopol in the Crimea had been blocked by Russian forces. He wrote on Facebook, “I regard what is happening as an armed invasion and occupation in violation of all international treaties and norms. This is a direct provoking of armed bloodshed on the territory of a sovereign state.”

His choice of words aims to provide a casus belli justifying Western military intervention in Ukraine. He is invoking terms of a 1994 agreement, the Budapest Memorandum—signed by US President Bill Clinton, UK Prime Minister John Major, Russia’s Boris Yeltsin and Leonid Kuchma for Ukraine—promising to uphold the territorial integrity of Ukraine in return for Ukraine giving up its nuclear weapons.

Article one of the Budapest Memorandum reads: “The United States of America, the Russian Federation, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, reaffirm their commitment to Ukraine … to respect the Independence and Sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine.”

Sir Tony Brenton, the former British Ambassador to Moscow from 2004 to 2008, warned that if Russia was found to have invaded Ukraine, then war could be an option “if we do conclude the Memorandum is legally binding.”

The newly-appointed head of Ukraine’s National Security Council, Andriy Parubiy, accused Moscow of commanding armed groups at airports in Crimea. “These are separate groups … commanded by the Kremlin,” Parubiy said.

Parubiy was a co-founder of the Social-National Party of Ukraine, the forerunner of the far-right Svoboda. He led the right-wing militias that spearheaded the coup bringing down the regime President Viktor Yanukovych, which was more closely aligned with pro-Russian oligarchs. The militias were composed of members of Svoboda alongside members of the fascist Right Sector. Dmytro Yarosh, head of Right Sector, is Parubiy’s deputy.

Interim President Oleksandr Turchynov of Fatherland warned Thursday, referring to Crimea, that “any movements of troops, especially with troops outside that territory will be considered military aggression.” Turchynov yesterday dismissed the head of the armed forces, Admiral Yuriy Ilin, while Parubiy said a state of emergency could be declared—making possible the deployment of the army against Crimea.

In Simferopol, Crimea’s administrative centre, groups of armed men arrived overnight at the main airport wearing military fatigues. At Sevastopol airport, a military airport that handles few commercial flights, a reported 300 people of “unknown identity” had arrived.

There are reports that the men are wearing Russian-style uniforms without insignia, that flights from Kiev have been barred and that there has been movement of Russian armoured personnel carriers and helicopters. The Russian Black Sea fleet, centred at Sevastopol, is quoted as having taken “anti-terror” measures to protect the fleet and associated outposts, not connected to a broader mobilisation. Russia’s Foreign Ministry said that the manoeuvres are in line with bilateral agreements.

The most dramatic claim came from the Ukrainian president’s special representative in the southern peninsula, Sergiy Kunitsyn, who alleged that Moscow had deployed 2,000 soldiers to a military air base near Simferopol.

On Thursday pro-Russian militias seized the regional parliament and other government buildings. The men outside Simferopol airport said they belonged to the pro-Russia Unity Party and had come there on the orders of the new Crimean administration. The majority of the Crimean population is either native Russian or Russian-speaking. The Financial Times reported yesterday, “For almost a week, Kiev’s Crimean opponents have organised grassroots actions to rival those in the capital’s central Maidan (square), recruiting hundreds of local men into self-organised militias.”

Military manoeuvres on Ukraine’s border continued yesterday. The exercises began Wednesday, involving more than 80 combat helicopters and do not immediately impact on the Crimea. Russia also reportedly put fighter jets near the border on alert, as it warned of “a tough and uncompromised response to violations of compatriots’ rights.”

Kiev-appointed regional Premier Anatolii Mohyliov was replaced Thursday by Russian businessman Alexei Chaliy. A referendum on the independence of Crimea has been scheduled May 25, coinciding with planned presidential and local elections throughout Ukraine. Russian lawmakers introduced two bills on Friday meant to simplify the annexing of new territories into the Russian Federation, as well as access to Russian citizenship for Ukrainians.

In his first public appearance since being forced from office, Yanukovych spoke from Russia, insisting that he was the country’s legitimate elected leader and would “continue the fight for the future of Ukraine … Nobody has overturned me. I was compelled to leave Ukraine due to a direct threat to my life and my nearest and dearest.”

Yanukovych said he did not support Crimean secession, stating that Ukraine must remain “united and undivided.” He added, however, “The citizens of Crimea do not want to be subordinate to nationalists and bandits.” He added that he would not ask for Russian military support to return him to power, but was “surprised” that President Vladimir Putin had remained silent to date.

US Secretary of State John Kerry said that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had reaffirmed to him a commitment that Russia would “respect the territorial integrity of Ukraine,” echoing a commitment that Putin made to President Barack Obama last week.

Such statements by no means rule out military conflict, however. The entire region has been destabilised, bringing with it the danger not only of civil war in Ukraine but of a broader conflict that could yet be fought between the major powers.

The putsch engineered by Washington in alliance with corrupt oligarchs and fascist gangs has set in motion events that bring Russia into direct opposition to the US and European powers on issues of an existential character. The prospect of Ukraine falling into the orbit of the US and the European Union, with the possible loss of Sevastopol as a naval base, is dangerous enough for Putin. The ambitions of the Obama administration and its allies do not stop there, however.

Poland’s Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski played a key role in organising the putsch in Kiev, reflecting both Poland’s own long-term designs on Ukrainian territory it ruled prior to World War II and, more importantly, his role as a political ally of the US.

After playing a part as a student in the 1981 strike organised by the Solidarity trade union movement, Sikorski was granted asylum in the UK. At Oxford, he was groomed as a Western political/security asset. He eventually became a resident fellow of the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., executive director of the New Atlantic Initiative and a member of the Board of Advisors of the American Committees on Foreign Relations.

Reuters reports, “The Polish government has been funding civil society projects in ex-Soviet countries such as Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia and Moldova, with much of the aid channelled through a fund controlled by Sikorski’s ministry. Recipients of Polish government money include opposition television stations operating in exile from Belarus, giving Poland influence in a country that, after Ukraine, could be the scene of the next confrontation between Russia and the West.”

Sikorski described the seizure of administrative buildings in Crimea as “a drastic step” that could escalate: “I’m warning those who did this and those who allowed them to do this, because this is how regional conflicts begin.”

Georgia is also set on association with the European Union, which Yanukovych acted to block in Ukraine, setting up the moves to depose him. Defence Minister Irakli Alasania said of Ukraine’s rejection of Russia, “There’s no way back for Ukraine. It’s a first strategic failure for Putin. This is a tectonic geopolitical shift in eastern Europe.” It would embolden other countries in the region, he said, and have a ripple effect.

Earlier this week, Kerry issued a statement pledging US assistance in bringing Georgia closer to the US and the EU.

Source: http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/03/01/ukra-m01.html

Orr’s plan is a culmination of a political conspiracy to appoint an unelected emergency manger, acting as the direct representative of the banks, to attack workers’ rights and restructure the city in the interests of the rich. The cuts in pensions are aimed at establishing a national precedent, using bankruptcy courts to override benefits that are explicitly protected by the state constitution. This process was sanctioned by Judge Stephen Rhodes in his December 3 ruling.

Most city workers will have their pensions cut by up to 34 percent, while police and firemen will face a 10 percent cut. In addition, cost of living increases for all pensioners will be eliminated for at least a decade, meaning that the real value of payouts will steadily decline.

Orr is also planning on paying out less than one third of what it owes in retiree health care liabilities in order to fund a union-controlled Voluntary Employee Benefits Association (VEBA). The unions, which have functioned as co-conspirators throughout the bankruptcy process, would be tasked with slashing benefits or eliminating coverage.

With most pensioners already at or near the poverty threshold (pensions range between $19,000 and $34,000 per year), the cuts will drive a substantial portion of the city’s 24,000 retirees into destitution. Tens of thousands of works who gave their lives to the city, and were legally promised money for a secure retirement, are being kicked to the curb.

Speaking on Friday, Orr said these cuts were “very fair.”

In addition to guaranteeing 100 percent of all secured bonds, unsecured bonds would be paid 20 cents on the dollar. Many of the institutional investors that possess these bonds have insurance to cover the amount that they are not being paid by the city.

The plan also includes hundreds of millions of dollars for “blight removal,” the process of tearing down large sections of the city, which is being overseen by billionaire Quicken Loans CEO Dan Gilbert.

The adjustment plan prepares the way for the lease of the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department to a regional authority, the Great Lakes Water and Sewer Authority, a major step towards privatization.

Also included in the proposal is a plan to transfer control of the Detroit Institute of Arts to corporate-backed private foundations in exchange for about $800 million through a combination of private funds and state aid. The DIA itself would be required to contribute an additional $100 million.

The adjustment plan includes provisions to reduce the size of cuts to pensions by a small amount given a “timely settlement” on the DIA and other matters. This is intended to push the unions and pension funds to accept the proposed terms of a “grand bargain” and end any legal challenges to the bankruptcy.

The city’s main union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Council 25, issued a statement criticizing the deal, however the unions have played a central role in the bankruptcy proceedings. After first agreeing to $180 million in concessions, AFSCME executives have been jockeying to defend their interests and their role in the exploitation of workers, including through their control of the new health care VEBA. AFSCME has aggressively advocated for the sale of city assets, including the art at the DIA.

The adjustment plan is one part in a process of backroom dealing between the various ruling class and upper middle class forces seeking to benefit from the bankruptcy. The plan released Friday serves as a benchmark for these negotiations taking place behind the scenes.

The destruction of pensions and health benefits and the theft of priceless city assets is justified by the lie that “there is no money.” Even as it makes this claim, the state has committed $265 million to a new stadium controlled by billionaire Mike Ilitch. The Big Three automakers, which have minted vast fortunes from the toil of Detroit’s working class, are reaping record profits.

The banks that have already swindled the city are set to receive another big check at Detroit’s expense. Orr said Friday that a new settlement for the interest rate swaps deal, through which UBS and Bank of America extracted hundreds of millions from city revenues, should be wrapped up in the next few days. The banks will be paid an as yet unknown sum lower than the $165 million previously proposed by the Jones Day law firm.

The Detroit bankruptcy is at the center of an international social counter-revolution aimed at redistributing wealth into the pockets of the corporate and financial elite. Trillions have been handed to the banks, while the rights and benefits won by workers through a century of struggle are being revoked. In the process, laws and constitutional protections are ignored and increasingly anti-democratic forms of rule imposed.

The Detroit bankruptcy has had bipartisan support from the beginning. The Obama administration repeatedly sent representatives to meet with Detroit’s political elite, and the Justice Department submitted a court brief aimed at quashing legal challenges by retiree groups. State Treasurer Andy Dillon, Orr, and former Detroit Mayor David Bing, all Democrats, have all colluded in the carrying out of a social crime, working closely with Republican Governor Rick Snyder.

In opposition to the bankruptcy, and to expose the bankers’ conspiracy, the Socialist Equality Party organized the February 15 Workers Inquiry into the Bankruptcy of Detroit and the Attack on the DIA & Pensions. The SEP unconditionally rejects the claim that cuts to pensions and benefits are necessary to fund core services for the city.

The SEP seeks to mobilize the strength of the working class in opposition to the bankruptcy process, the trade unions, the Democratic Party, and the entire political establishment. To secure its rights, the working class must build a revolutionary mass movement to take power into its own hands and implement socialist policies, reorganizing society along democratic and egalitarian lines.

Those protesting do not represent Venezuela’s vast working class majority that struggled to overcome the oppressive exclusion they were subjected to during administrations before Chavez. The youth taking to the streets today in Caracas and other cities throughout the country, hiding their faces behind masks and balaclavas, destroying public buildings, vehicles, burning garbage, violently blocking transit and throwing rocks and molotov cocktails at security forces are being driven by extremist right-wing interests from Venezuela’s wealthiest sector. Led by hardline neoconservatives, Leopoldo Lopez, Henrique Capriles and Maria Corina Machado – who come from three of the wealthiest families in Venezuela, the 1% of the 1% – the protesters seek not to revindicate their basic fundamental rights, or gain access to free healthcare or education, all of which are guaranteed by the state, thanks to Chavez, but rather are attempting to spiral the country into a state of ungovernability that would justify an international intervention leading to regime change.

Before Chavez was elected in 1998, Venezuela was in a very dark, difficult period with a dangerously eroded democracy. During the early 1990s, poverty swelled at around 80%, the economy was in a sinkhole, the nation’s vast middle class was disappearing with millions falling into economic dispair, constitutional rights were suspended, a national curfew was imposed and corruption was rampant. Those who protested the actions of the government were brutally repressed and often killed. In fact, during the period of so-called “representative democracy” in Venezuela from 1958-1998, before the nation’s transformation into a participatory democracy under Chavez, thousands of Venezuelans were disappeared, tortured, persecuted and assassinated by state security forces. None of their rights were guaranteed and no one, except the majority excluded poor, seemed to care. International Human Rights organizations showed little interest in Venezuela during that time, despite clear and systematic violations taking place against the people.

Those in power during that period, also referred to in Venezuela as the “Fourth Republic”, represented an elite minority – families that held the nation’s wealth and profited heavily from the lucrative oil reserves. Millions of dollars from oil profits belonging to the state (oil was nationalized in Venezuela in 1976) were embezzled out of the country into the bloated bank accounts of wealthy Venezuelans and corrupt public officials who had homes in Miami, New York and the Dominican Republic and lived the high life off the backs of an impoverished majority.

Hugo Chavez’s electoral victory in 1998 shattered the opulent banquet the Venezuelan elite had enjoyed for decades, while they ran the country into the ground. He was elected precisely to break the hold on power those groups had harnessed for so many years, and Chavez’s promise was revolution – complete transformation of the economic, social and political system in the country. His electoral victories were solid, year after year, each time rising in popularity as more and more Venezuelans became motivated to participate in their governance and the construction of a new, inclusive, nation with social justice as its banner.

Chavez’s election was a huge blow to Washington and the powerful interests in the United States that wanted control over Venezuela’s oil reserves – the largest on the planet. In April 2002, the Bush administration backed a coup d’etat to overthrow Chavez, led by the very same elite that had been in power before. The coup involved mass marches in the streets of Caracas, composed of the wealthy and middle classes, calling for Chavez’s ouster. Snipers were used to shoot on those in the marches, creating violence and chaos that was immediately blamed on Chavez. Television, radio and newspapers in Venezuela all joined in the coup efforts, manipulating images and distorting facts to justify Chavez’s overthrow. He became the villian, the evil dictator, the brutal murderer in the eyes of international media, though in reality those overthrowing him and their backers in Washington were responsible for the death and destruction caused. After Chavez was kidnapped on April 11, 2002 and set to be assassinated, the wealthy businessmen behind the coup took power and imposed a dictatorship. All democratic institutions were dissolved, including the legistature and the supreme court.

The majority who had voted for Chavez and had finally become protagonists in their own governance were determined to defend their democracy and took to the streets demanding return of their president. Forty-eight hours later, Chavez was rescued by millions of supporters and loyal armed forces. The coup was defeated and the revolution survived, but the threats continued.

A subsequent economic sabotage attemped to bring down the oil industry. 18,000 high level technical and managerial workers at the state-owned company, PDVSA, walked off the job, sabotaging equipment and causing nearly $20 billion in damages to the Venezuelan economy. After 64 days of strikes, barren supermarket shelves due to intentional hoarding to create panic, and a brutal media war in which every private station broadcast opposition propaganda 24/7, Venezuelans were fed up with the opposition. Chavez’s popularity soared. A year and a half later, when the opposition tried to oust him through a recall referendum, he won a 60-40 landslide victory.

Leading efforts to overthrow Chavez were the very same three who today call for their supporters to take to the streets to force current President Nicolas Maduro from power. Leopoldo Lopez and Henrique Capriles were both mayors of two of Caracas’ wealthiest municipalities during the 2002 coup – Chacao and Baruta, while Maria Corina Machado was a close ally of Pedro Carmona, the wealthy businessman who proclaimed himself dictator during Chavez’s brief ouster. Lopez and Machado signed the infamous “Carmona Decree” dissolving Venezuela’s democratic institutions, trashing the constitution. Both Capriles and Lopez were also responsible for persecuting and violently detaining members of Chavez’s government during the coup, including allowing some of them to be publicly beaten, such as Ramon Rodriguez Chacin, former Minister of Interior in 2002.

All three have been major recipients of US funding and political support for their endeavors to overthrow Chavez, and now Maduro. The US National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and its offshoots, the International Republican Institute (IRI) and the National Democratic Institute (NDI) provided start-up funds for Machado’s NGO Sumate, and Capriles’ and Lopez’s right-wing party Primero Justicia. When Lopez split from Primero Justicia in 2010 to form his own party, Voluntad Popular, it was bankrolled by US dollars.

Over the ten year period, from 2000-2010, US agencies, including the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and its Office for Transition Initiatives (OTI), set up in Caracas in 2002, channeled more than $100 million dollars to opposition groups in Venezuela. The overall objective was regime change.

When Chavez was reelected in 2006 with an even larger margen of victory, nearly 64% of the vote, the US shifted its support from the traditional opposition political parties and NGOs in order to create new ones with youthful, fresh faces. Over one third of US funding, nearly $15 million annually by 2007, was directed towards youth and student groups, including training in the use of social networks to mobilize political activism. Student leaders were sent to the US for workshops and conferences on Internet activism and media networking. They were formed in tactics to promote regime change via street riots and strategic use of media to portray the government as repressive.

In 2007, these student groups, funded and trained by US agencies, took to the streets of Caracas to demand Chavez’s ouster after the government chose not to renew the public concession of RCTV, a popular private television station known for its seedy soap operas. The protests were composed of mainly middle and upper class youth and opposition politicians, defending corporate media and a station also known for its direct involvement in the April 2002 coup. Though their protests failed to achieve their objective, the “students” had earn their credentials as a solid fixture in the opposition. Later that year, their organizing helped to narrowly defeat a constitutional reform package Chavez had proposed in a national referendum.

After President Chavez passed away in March 2013 following a brutal battle with cancer, the opposition saw an opportunity to snatch power back from his supporters. Elections were held on April 14, 2013 in an extremely tense and volatile environment. Nicolas Maduro, Chavez’s chosen successor, ran against Henrique Capriles, who months earlier in October 2012 had lost the presidential election to Chavez by 11 points. This time, however, the results were much narrower with Maduro winning by a slim margen of just under 2 points. Capriles refused to accept the results and called his supporters to take to the streets in protest, to “get all their rage out”. During the two days after the elections, 11 government supporters were killed by Capriles’ followers. It was a bloodbath that received no attention in international media, the victims just weren’t glamorous enough, and were on the wrong side.

As 2013 wore on, the economic crisis in the country intensified and the old strategy of hoarding products to provoke shortages and panic amongst the population was back again. Basic consumer products disappeared from the shelves – toilet paper, cooking oil, powdered milk, corn flour – staples needed for everyday life in Venezuela. Inflation began to rise and speculation, price hikes, were rampant. While some of this was related to government controls on foreign currency exchange to prevent capital flight, a lot had to do with sabotage. A full economic war was underway against Maduro’s government.

Problems persisted throughout the year and discontent grew. But as the electoral period came around again in December, for mayors, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) had sweeping victories. 242 out of 317 mayoralties were won by the PSUV, showing a solid majority of the country still supported the government’s party.

Maduro called opposition governors and newly-elected mayors to a meeting at the presidential palace in late December in an attempt to dialogue and create a space to work together to improve the situation in country. The meeting was generously received by a majority of Venezuelans. Nevertheless, extremists, such as Machado and Lopez, saw the meeting as a threat to their goal of ousting Maduro well before his term ended in 2019. Once again they began to call for street protests and other actions against his government.

In January 2014, as Venezuelans arrived back from their Christmas vacations, economic difficulties continued. Maduro began cracking down on businesses violating newly-enacted laws on price controls and speculation. Towards the end of January, new measures were announced regarding access to foreign exchange that many perceived as a devaluing of the national currency, the bolivar. Sentiment built amongst opposition groups rejecting the new measures and calls for Maduro’s resignation increased. By February, small pockets of protests popped up around the country, mainly confined to middle and upper class neighborhoods.

During the celebration of National Youth Day on February 12, while thousands marched peacefully to commemorate the historic achievements of youth in the nation’s independence, another group sought a different agenda. Opposition youth, “students”, led an agressive march calling for Maduro’s resignation that ended in a violent confrontation with authorities after the protestors destroyed building façades, including the Attorney General’s office, threw objects at police and national guard and used molotov cocktails to burn property and block transit. The clashes caused three deaths and multiple injuries.

The leader of the violent protest, Leopoldo Lopez, went into hiding following the confrontation and a warrant was issued for his arrest due to his role in the deadly events and his public calls to oust the president. Days later, after a lengthy show including videos from a “clandestine” location, Lopez convened another march and used the event to publicly turn himself over to authorities. He was taken into custody and held for questioning, all his rights guaranteed by the state.

Lopez became the rallying point for the violent protests, which have continued to date, causing several additional deaths, dozens of injuries and the destruction of public property. Relatively small, violent groups of protestors have blocked transit in wealthier zones of Caracas, causing traffic delays and terrorizing residents. Several deaths have resulted because protestors refused to let ambulences through to take patients to the emergency room.

Ironically, international media has been portraying these protestors as peaceful victims of state repression. Even celebrities, such as Cher and Paris Hilton have been drawn into a false hysteria, calling for freedom for Venezuelans from a “brutal dictatorship”. The reality is quite different. While there is no doubt that a significant number of protestors in the larger marches that have taken place have demonstrated peacefully their legitimate concerns, the driving force behind those protests is a violent plan to overthrow a democratic government. Lopez, who has publicly stated his pride for his role in the April 2002 coup against Hugo Chavez, continues to call on his supporters to rally against the Venezuelan “dictatorship”.

While dozens of governments and international organizations, including UNASUR and Mercosur have expressed their clear support and solidarity for the Venezuelan government and President Maduro, Washington was quick to back the opposition protestors and demand the government release all those detained during the demonstrations. The Obama administration went so far as to threaten President Maduro with international consequences if Leopoldo Lopez were to be detained. In the aftermath of the first wave of violent protests, Maduro expelled three US diplomats from the US Embassy in Caracas, accusing them of conspiring to recruit students in Venezuela to engage in destabilization.

As the violence continues in some areas around the country, Maduro has made widespread calls for peace. A movement for peace was launched last week, led by artists, athletes and cultural figures, together with organized communities seeking to end not just the current chaotic situation, but also the high crime levels that have plagued the country over the past few years.

Most Venezuelans want peace in their country and a majority continue to support the current government. The opposition has failed to present an alternative platform or agenda beyond regime change, and their continued dependence on US funding and support – even this year Obama included $5 million in the 2014 Foreign Operations Budget for opposition groups in Venezuela – is a ongoing sign of their weakness. As a State Department cable from the US Embassy in Caracas, published by Wikileaks, explained in March 2009, “Without our continued assistance, it is possible that the organizations we helped create…could be forced to close…Our funding will provide those organizations a much-needed lifeline”.

During the past decade in Venezuela, poverty has been reduced by over 50%, healthcare has become free and accessible to all, as has quality education from primary through graduate school. State subsidies provide affordable food and housing for those who need it, as well as job training programs and worker placement. Media outlets, especially community media, have expanded nationwide, giving more space for the expression of diverse voices. Internet access has increased significantly and the state also built hundreds of public infocenters with free computer and Internet access throughout the country. Students are given free laptops and tablets to use for their studies. The government has raised minimum wage by 10-20% each year leading Venezuela to have one of the highest minimum wages in Latin America. Pensions are guaranteed after only 25 years of work and those who work in the informal economy are still guaranteed a pension from the state.

While problems persist in the country, as they do every where, most Venezuelans are wary of giving up the immense social and political gains they have made in the past fourteen years.  An opposition with nothing to offer except foreign intervention and uncertainty does not appeal to the majority. Unfortunately, media fail to see this reality, or chose not to portray it in order to advance a political agenda. In Venezuela, the revolution is here to stay and the interests of the 1% are not going to overcome those of the 99% already in power.

Eva Golinger is the author of The Chavez Code. She can be reached through her blog.

Source: http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/02/21/venezuela-beyond-the-protests/

People ask for solutions, but no solutions are possible in a disinformed world. Populations almost everywhere are dissatisfied, but few have any comprehension of the real situation. Before there can be solutions, people must know the truth about the problems.  For those few inclined to be messengers, it is largely a thankless task.

The assumption that man is a rational animal is incorrect. He and she are emotional creatures, not Dr. Spock of Star Trek. Humans are brainwashed by enculturation and indoctrination. Patriots respond with hostility toward criticisms of their governments, their countries, their hopes and their delusions. Their emotions throttle facts, should any reach them. Aspirations and delusions prevail over truth. Most people want to be told what they want to hear. Consequently, they are always gullible and their illusions and self-delusions make them easy victims of propaganda. This is true of all levels of societies and of the leaders themselves.

We are witnessing this today in western Ukraine where a mixture of witless university students, pawns in Washington’s drive for world hegemony, together with paid protesters and fascistic elements among ultra-nationalists are bringing great troubles upon Ukraine and perhaps a deadly war upon the world.

Many of the protesters are just the unemployed collecting easy money. It is the witless idealistic types that are destroying the independence of their country. Victoria Nuland, the American neoconservative Assistant Secretary of State, whose agenda is US world hegemony, told the Ukrainians what was in store for them last December 13, but the protesters were too delusional to hear.

In an eight minute, 46 second speech at the National Press Club sponsored by the US-Ukraine Foundation, Chevron, and Ukraine-in-Washington Lobby Group, Nuland boasted that Washington has spent $5 billion to foment agitation to bring Ukraine into the EU. Once captured by the EU, Ukraine will be “helped” by the West acting through the IMF. Nuland, of course, presented the IMF as Ukraine’s rescuer, not as the iron hand of the West that will squeeze all life out of Ukraine’s struggling economy.

Nuland’s audience consisted of all the people who will be enriched by the looting and by connections to a Washington-appointed Ukrainian government. Just look at the large Chevron sign next to which Nuland speaks, and you will know what it is all about.

Nuland’s speech failed to alert the Ukraine protesters, who are determined to destroy the independence of Ukraine and to place their country in the hands of the IMF so that it can be looted like Latvia, Greece and every country that ever had an IMF structural adjustment program. All the monies that protesters are paid by the US and EU will soon be given back manyfold as Ukraine is “adjusted” by Western looting.

In her short speech the neoconservative agitator Nuland alleged that the protesters whom Washington has spent $5 billion cultivating were protesting “peacefully with enormous restraint” against a brutal government.

According to RT, which has much more credibility than the US State Department (remember Secretary of State Colin Powell’s address to the UN setting up the US invasion of Iraq with his “evidence” of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, a speech Powell later disavowed as Bush regime disinformation) Ukrainian rioters have seized 1,500 guns, 100,000 rounds of ammunition, 3 machine guns, and grenades from military armories.

The human-rights trained Ukrainian police have permitted the violence to get out of hand.  A number of police have been burned by Molotov cocktails. The latest report is that 108 police have been shot.  A number are dead and 63 are in critical condition. http://rt.com/news/ukraine-kiev-firearms-weapons-police-934/   These casualties are the products of Nuland’s “peacefully protesting protesters acting with enormous restraint.” On February 20, the elected, independent Ukraine government responded to the rioters use of firearms by allowing police to use firearms in self-defense.

Perhaps the Russophobic western Ukrainians deserve the IMF, and perhaps the EU deserves the extreme nationalists who are trying to topple the Ukraine government.  Once Ukrainians experience being looted by the West, they will be on their knees begging  Russia to rescue them.  The only certain thing is that it is unlikely that the Russian part of Ukraine will remain part of Ukraine.

During the Soviet era, parts of Russia herself, such as the Crimea, were placed into the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, perhaps in order to increase the Russian population in Ukraine. In other words, a large part of today’s Ukraine–eastern and southern provinces–are traditional Russian territory, not part of historical Ukraine.

Until Russia granted Ukraine independence in the early 1990s, Ukraine had experienced scant independence since the 14th century and had been a part of Russia for 200 years. The problem with the grant of independence is that much of Ukraine is not Ukrainian. It is Russian.

As I have reported previously, Russia regards the prospect of Ukraine as a member of the EU with NATO with US bases on Russia’s frontier as a “strategic threat.”  It is unlikely that the Russian government and the Russian territories in Ukraine will accept Washington’s plan for Ukraine. Whatever their intention, Secretary of State John Kerry’s provocative statements are raising tensions and fomenting war.  The vast bulk of the American and Western populations have no idea of what the real situation is, because all they hear from the “free press” is the neoconservative propaganda line.

Washington’s lies are destroying not only civil liberties at home and countries abroad, but are raising dangerous alarms in Russia about the country’s security. If Washington succeeds in overthrowing the Ukrainian government, the eastern and southern provinces are likely to secede. If secession becomes a civil war instead of a peaceful divorce, Russia would not be able to sit on the sidelines.  As the Washington warmongers would be backing western Ukraine, the two nuclear powers would be thrown into military conflict.

The Ukrainian and Russian governments allowed this dangerous situation to develop, because they naively permitted for many years billions of US dollars to flow into their countries where the money was used to create fifth columns under the guise of educational and human rights organizations, the real purpose of which is to destabilize both countries. The consequence of the trust Ukrainians and Russians placed in the West is the prospect of civil and wider war.

Paul Craig Roberts is a former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury and Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. His latest book The Failure of Laissez-Faire Capitalism. Roberts’ How the Economy Was Lost is now available from CounterPunch in electronic format.

Source: http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/02/21/is-ukraine-drifting-toward-civil-war/

I’ve been away for the past week so I wasn’t able to write anything on the unfolding turmoil in Venezuela, but I’ve been following the situation closely and in recent days have grown increasingly frustrated with (a) the total lack of balanced reporting on Venezuela in the international media, including left-liberal publications like The Guardian; (b) the seeming ease with which comrades on the libertarian left ignore the events in Venezuela as if it were somehow “irrelevant” to our cause, simply because we’re not supposed to have any close ideological affinity with chavismo; and (c) the ill-informed basis on which many activists and even several major movement pages have taken the side of the protesters against the government, unquestioningly sharing the propaganda of the right-wing opposition and echoing dangerously superficial and wrongheaded interpretations about the protests. I intend to write more on this later, but here are some initial reflections:

1. Just because there’s people in the streets doesn’t mean they’re on our side. We live in the era of the protester, and violent protest has become a media spectacle par excellence. In the wake of Tahrir and Occupy, we have somehow been conditioned to automatically feel sympathy for all men and women taking to the streets and facing down lines of riot police. Now there’s a YouTube clip floating around the web of a Venezuelan girl with an obnoxious upper-class American accent recounting the story of Venezuela’s heroic student uprising against an “illegitimate government”. At first sight, the video — which garnered over 2 million views so far — seems to neatly fit the narrative of the global uprisings. But anyone with even the slightest inkling to do some fact-checking or background research will quickly discover that the protests in Venezuela are nothing like Occupy or the Chilean student movement. You wouldn’t sympathize with a nationalist insurrection in Kiev or a royalist rebellion in Thailand. So why side with the US-funded right-wing opposition in Venezuela?

2. The protests in Venezuela are orchestrated by the right-wing oligarchy. Let’s get the facts straight: plenty of Venezuelans are taking to the streets with legitimate grievances about violent crime, high inflation and food shortages — and there is no doubt that the Venezuelan riot police are indeed behaving violently towards many of these protesters. All police brutality should be roundly condemned. The people of Venezuela should be allowed to freely express their indignation in public without fear of repression. But it bears emphasizing in this respect that at least two of the protesters’ main grievances have been deliberately escalated by the oligarchic elite itself: through extensive hoarding and smuggling of consumer products (giving rise to shortages and fueling price inflation) and massive speculation on the foreign currency market (pushing down the Bolívar and feeding into further inflation). This is precisely the type of economic warfare that the US-backed Chilean opposition drew upon prior to the overthrow of Salvador Allende in 1973.

Moreover, even though the protests initially began as a student mobilization on Venezuela’s national Youth Day (February 12), they have in the past week become effectively subsumed under the leadership of the most right-wing section of the opposition alliance, Mesa de la Unidad Democrática (MUD), led by Maria Corina Machado and Leopoldo López. As the firebrand leaders of the most anti-democratic faction of the oligarchic elite, López and Machado have been actively calling for the overthrow of Nicolas Maduro’s democratically-elected government and have urged the continuation of violent protest until he resigns. In the last 15 years, these people have shown themselves to be intent on restoring their class privilege at any costs, even if it requires casualties among the general population. They are deliberately fueling violence and social unrest in order to delegitimize and oust the government.

3. Venezuela’s opposition receives active support from the United States. While there is no evidence that the ongoing protests have been directly machinated by the White House or the CIA, it is publicly known that leading Venezuelan opposition groups receive millions of dollars in financial support from the US government and US-based NGOs and think tanks. In 2008, a leader of Venezuela’s student movement — which organized similar anti-Chávez protests back in 2007 — won the $500.000 Milton Friedman Award from the right-libertarian CATO Institute, which is funded by major corporate sponsors like the Koch Brothers and the Ford Foundation, headed by an “ardent devotee” of Ayn Rand, and driven by a zealous mission to defend “the principles of individual liberty, limited government, free markets, and peace.”

All in all, it is estimated that various “youth outreach” programs in Venezuela received at least $45 million from US sponsors. Furthermore, the Obama administration has earmarked at least $5 million to directly support Venezuela’s opposition parties through 2014 — not to mention the secret ties that undoubtedly exists between the opposition and the US intelligence community. This comes on top of the dozens of millions of dollars that have been donated to the opposition over the years. Not surprising, perhaps, given that Venezuela is sitting on top of the largest known oil reserves in the world, just around the corner from the US.

4. The democratic credentials of Maduro’s government are not in question. The US-backed opposition, which is now openly calling for Maduro’s salida (exit) considers his government “illegitimate”. This is absurd, because even judging by the limited standards of liberal constitutionalism, the democratic legitimacy of Maduro’s administration is unsurpassed. In 15 years, the United Socialist Party has won 18 elections and lost only one. Venezuela’s electoral system has been described by former US President Jimmy Carter — who has observed elections in 92 different countries on all continents — as “the best system in the world.” Just two months ago, in December 2013, the government won 76% of all local municipalities in midterm elections and decisively defeated the opposition, led by the “moderate” Henrique Capriles, by more than 10 percentage points. Much more than this, the government has been actively working together with grassroots movements to create one of the world’s most vibrant experiments in direct and participatory democracy, giving rise to thousands of communal councils, hundreds of communes and tens of thousands of worker-run cooperatives. In no other country in the world is citizen participation in politics and the economy as actively stimulated by the state as it is in Venezuela.

5. The right-wing opposition is itself thoroughly anti-democratic. The really dangerous forces in Venezuela right now are not inside the “illegitimate government” but in the thoroughly anti-democratic right-wing segment of the opposition. A quick glance at the two opposition leaders — Maria Corina Machado and Leopoldo López — reveals enough. Both were original signatories of the infamous 2002 Carmona Decree, which temporarily dissolved the Chávez government following an attempted coup d’étât by the oligarchic elite and right-wing elements in the military. López, meanwhile, orchestrated the violent clashes in front of the Presidential Palace, which led to dozens of deaths and provided the pretext for the coup. During the coup, López even personally participated in the unconstitutional arrest (i.e., kidnapping) of Interior Minister Ramon Rodriguez Chacin.

When chavista loyalists in the army and the movements reinstated the President, Chávez decided not to pursue vengeance and allowed the conspirators to walk free. Machado went on to found Súmata, an “NGO” that received funding from the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington (where she received a personal welcome from President George W. Bush), which played a central role in the failed recall referendum that sought to oust Chávez two years after the failed coup. López was allowed to remain mayor of Chacao, the wealthiest district of Caracas, before being prosecuted by the government on corruption charges in 2006. In 2007, López was caught on tape planning to bring about a new political crisis by creating social instability. Is it really such a stretch to suspect him of being involved in a renewed attempt to destabilize the government through violent and anti-democratic means?

6. The 2014 protests are a replay of the run-up to the 2002 coup. All the above clearly illustrates the historical parallels between the failed 2002 coup and the ongoing turmoil in Venezuela: leading US-funded opposition figures deliberately stir social unrest in the hope that the government will be thoroughly de-legitimized by the resultant street violence so the right can take over — either through elections or through an outright coup. Once again, the oligarchic elite is trying to achieve through illiberal means what it could not achieve peacefully: the ouster of the Socialist government and the repression of the Bolivarian Revolution and its radical experiment in direct democracy, social solidarity and workers’ control.

All of this clearly illustrates the opposition’s despair: first they tried a military coup; when that failed they tried to bring down the government through an oil strike; when that failed they unsuccessfully pursued a recall referendum; then they ran out of ideas and simply boycotted National Assembly elections for no legitimate reason whatsoever; in 2007 they tried their hands at a student rebellion; and, following Maduro’s victory in last year’s elections, Capriles kept ordering recounts and refusing to recognize the election outcome even while it was clear to everyone — including independent election observers — that he had lost. Finally, after Capriles’ humiliating defeat in the December municipal elections, the right-wing of the opposition decided to abandon the electoral road and return to the old-fashioned coup preparation tactics of 2002. As before, these anti-democratic maneuvers may end up backfiring on the right by rallying the grassroots movements behind the government and further strengthening Maduro’s internal position within the United Socialist Party.

7. The media is the problem. A crucial point: the reason so few people seem to know about any of the above is simply because there is hardly any balanced reporting on Venezuela, and because many people are simple-minded enough to just buy anything they read on Twitter or Facebook without doing any fact-checking or further background research at all. When it comes to Venezuela, in particular, the international media — including beloved “progressive” outlets like The Guardian — are so full of shit that they have become an embarrassment to the journalistic profession as such, while social networks are so awash in falsehoods and propaganda that some media scholars would have to seriously revise their post-2011 theories about the “democratizing” effects of Facebook and Twitter.

The international media are fond to talk about Chávez and Maduro’s crackdown on the Venezuelan media and their censorship of the public debate, but it turns out that, as in the West, Venezuela’s media is overwhelmingly privately owned by the country’s richest business elites. In 2012, the BBC noted that only 4.58% of the country’s TV and radio channels actually belong to the state. The three national newspapers — El Universal, El Nacional and Ultimos Noticias, accounting for 90% of the country’s readership — are all anti-government. Of the four main national TV channels, three — Venevision, Globovision and Televen, similarly accounting for 90% of the audience — are aligned with the opposition. The international media (along with the admins of important social movement pages on Facebook and Twitter) simply echo the right-wing narrative emanating from Venezuela’s highly concentrated corporate media landscape without asking any critical questions whatsoever.

8. A Challenge to the Hegemony of Neoliberalism and the US.  So the inherent bias of the corporate media is one of the main reasons why you never read that income inequality in Venezuela — once one of highest in Latin America — has now been reduced to the lowest on the continent, while shared growth and redistributive social programs have cut poverty in half and reduced extreme poverty by a whopping 70% since 2002. Illiteracy was eradicated and vast improvements were made in health, housing and education. Just some indicators of social progress: infant mortality fell by more than one-third; the number of social security beneficiaries more than doubled; the amount of primary healthcare physicians in the public sector increased 12-fold from 1999 to 2007, providing healthcare to millions of Venezuelans who previously did not have access; and education enrollment rates more than doubled from 1999 to 2008.

This is the evil anti-democratic regime the US-supported right-wing opposition is trying to overthrow. In reality, of course, it is an experiment in democratic socialism that seeks to build popular power through direct democratic institutions like councils, communes and cooperatives. This is precisely what’s driving the US and the Venezuelan elite so mad: the left in Venezuela is building up its own institutions of communal organization that many hope will one day come to complement or even supplant the bourgeois state. This means that, even if the right ever wins back power, they will still be faced with a formidable popular counter-power in the neighborhoods and working places. Libertarian socialists and autonomous movements elsewhere should not deny these important advances but stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Venezuela’s grassroots movements in defending them from this anti-democratic onslaught by the US-backed oligarchic elite.

Needless to say, none of this means that we should be uncritical of Maduro’s government or of chavismo more generally (for more on that, check out the essay on the contradictions of Chávez’ legacy that I wrote after his death). But it does mean that we — as activists, journalists and organizers — should start doing some serious fact-checking before mindlessly regurgitating the shallow propaganda we are fed by the mainstream media every day. Here are some reliable alternative sources to take a look at: Popular Resistance, Democracy Now, Venezuela Analysis, ZNet, Upside Down World, CEPR. If you know of any other good sources (in English or Spanish) please share them in the comments below.

¡La lucha sigue!

Source: http://roarmag.org/2014/02/venezuela-protests-opposition-coup/

The world is experiencing extreme weather.  In the US, California’s drought is the worst in 100-years while the East Coast faced a massive snowstorm with freezing temperatures. On the other side of the world, Australia continues to deal with intense summer heat and droughts, causing major bush fires. There has been severe winter flooding in the UK and Europe; extreme cold and snow in the Eastern US and Japan and so on.

Now this may just be random, outliers in the normal distribution of weather conditions, or it could be that the globe is reaching a peak in a cycle of weather, or it could be the ever-growing impact of climate change as the world heats up.  In fact, it could be all three, as the first two possible causes can be considered as immediate or cyclical and the last (climate change) as structural or ‘ultimate’.  The facts speak.  Since 1997, the world has experienced the 13 warmest years ever recorded out of 15, according to the UN.  June 2012 marked the 328th consecutive month with a global temperature above the 20th century average.  In 2013, extreme weather events included several all-time temperature records.  Snow cover in Europe and North America was above average, while the Arctic ice was 4,5% below the 1981–2010 average.

Northern Hemisphere weather extremes have been linked to the Arctic sea ice melting.  In January alone, 11233 weather-related deaths were reported in India.  Bangladesh faced the lowest temperature since country’s independence.  In Europe, last summer’s weather was bizarre.  Finland and most of Northern Countries got the highest temperatures in Europe during May and June, while Western- and Middle Europe faced much cooler weather and even their wettest May and June ever.  Overall, prolonged heat waves in the Northern Hemisphere set new record high temperatures.

There’s little doubt that climate change is contributing to the extreme weather disasters we’ve been experiencing.

Numerous studies, such as the US  NOAA’s 2011 State of the Climate report, shows the clear links between extreme weather and human-induced climate change.  In the UK, the media is bouncing about the extreme levels of rain and wind hitting the island and causing significant and prolonged flooding.  The UK Met Office, the body that forecasts the weather, announced that climate change was likely to be a factor in the extreme weather that has hit much of the UK in recent months: “all the evidence suggests there is a link to climate change” and “there is no evidence to counter the basic premise that a warmer world will lead to more intense daily and hourly rain events.”  The UK Met office said there had been the “most exceptional period of rainfall in 248 years”.

Climate models are forecasting increased episodes of flooding for the UK under climate change conditions.  According to the UK Met Office, four of the wettest five years have occurred since 2000, a statistic made all the more remarkable given the drought between 2010 and 2012. Peer-reviewed scientific research, performed by academics in collaboration with RMS scientists, found that climate change increased the likelihood of the floods that impacted England and Wales in the year 2000 in which 10,000 homes and businesses were flooded due to heavy autumn precipitation.  And Britain’s Rowntree Foundation study, found that this was a direct result of the physical principle that a warmer atmosphere holds higher amounts of water vapour and UK regional climate models predict increased winter rainfall (especially in the north and west) and more intense, highly localised summer rainfall (especially in the south and east). These predictions also accord with recent changes in rainfall over the period 1961–2006 which have seen many parts of the UK affected by severe and highly damaging floods.  The study concluded “Whilst no single flood can unequivocally be attributed to climate change, there is evidence that the probability of floods (in this instance, the regional floods affecting England and Wales in 2000) is increasing as a result of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.”

But while the  British press gushes about the sorry state of a few thousands people in the richer and leafier parts of England like Somerset or Surrey, the most damage from extreme rainfall, flooding and wind is likely to be in the poorer urban areas.  As the Met Office put it: “there is now little doubt that a warmer and wetter UK will experience more floods with greater impacts in urban areas.”  In particular, there is the increased risk of pluvial flooding.  River banks overflowing is called fluvial flooding; pluvial flooding is when  combined systems (storm water and foul water sewers) are overwhelmed, the foul water sewers surcharge onto the streets. The resulting flood is a mixture of surface water and untreated sewage which produces a more severe health hazard.

Pluvial flood risk accounts for approximately one-third of flood risk from all sources in the UK.  Approximately 2 million people in UK urban areas (settlements with a population over 10,000) are exposed to an annual pluvial flood risk of 0.5 per cent or greater (‘1 in 200-year’ event).  An additional 1.2 million people in urban areas could be put at risk by 2050 from a combination of climate change (300,000) and population growth (900,000).  Settlements across the UK with higher rainfall also tend to have greater levels of social deprivation.

As one blogger put it: “The Environment Agency has taken its fair share of blame for the flooding misery in Somerset , but there is an industry which has escaped criticism. And unlike the quango, it’s not short of a billion or two. Step forward the privatised water industry which has a key role in dealing with our storm and sewage water. In the last six years water companies have made £11 billion in profits from our water bills, surely enough to have stopped its customers from having raw sewage flooding into their homes and down their streets every time there is a heavy downpour.  Dispatches has been investigating the role of the water companies in the country’s recent flood problems and while Somerset have been dealing with record rainfalls and storm surges many homes across the country have been dealing with another consequence of the deluge: sewage flooding into their homes and down their streets.  When it rains heavily, our underground infrastructure can become overwhelmed and raw sewage can get discharged onto our streets , rivers and to a growing number of unfortunate people into their homes. According to the Consumer Council for Water, complaints from homeowners about sewer flooding are up by 50% compared to last year.”  

The private sector and the private water management monopolies that are supposed to provide decent water and sewage facilities are not not up to the task.  Profit for shareholders comes before service to the public.  As a result, basic infrastructure investment in sewage and water, roads, rail etc is inadequate – and yet the world, including the richer capitalist countries, is facing increased risk of ‘natural disasters’ as the global climate changes and, with it, the weather conditions.

Every year there is a major disaster in the emerging economies, with thousands dying and hundreds of thousands losing their homes and livelihoods.  But the media only remembers the events that hit the rich economies. The most infamous was the Katrina hurricane, the bursting of the levees and the flooding of the homes of the poor in New Orleans.  Not only did the federal and local governments fail to act quickly and efficiently, we now know that warnings of such a calamity had been voiced years before.  But instead of spending more to upgrade the levees, federal and state governments actually cut back on such infrastructure funding. After all, such spending was of no value to rich living up on their hilltop homes.

It’s the same story in the current flooding crisis in the UK.  In November 2012, the government announced plans to spend £120 million (US$183 million) on flood defences, split between new areas targeted for protection and speeding up protection already being built.  But this came after a period of budget cutting, with government climate advisers in the summer of 2012 noting a 12% decrease in flood defence spending from the previous year. Construction began on 93 new flood defences in February 2013 with a government pledge of an additional £2.3 billion (US$3.5 billion) until 2015.

Despite this activity, some of the largest projects, like the £80 million (US$122 million) coastal defence at Rossall, Lancashire, are to protect from storm surge rather than the pluvial flooding  that dominated 2012’s losses. According to the RMS UK Inland Flood Model, an annual flood loss of £1.2 billion (US$1.8 billion) can be expected approximately once every decade. The RMS model also estimates that only 50% of the average annual loss (AAL) comes from major river flooding, with the other half from small river and stream flooding, flash flooding, pluvial flooding, and localized heavy precipitation.

Even the classical economist of capitalism and the so-called guru of free markets, Adam Smith recognised the need for public spending in infrastructure because the private sector could not do it.  In his Wealth of Nations.  Smith explained: “The first and last duty of the sovereign is that of erecting and maintaining those public institutions and those public works, which though they may be in the highest degree advantageous to a great society are, however, of such a nature that the profit could never repay the expense to any individual.” And Smith meant by this “good roads, navigable canals, harbours and education”.

The American Society of Civil Engineers has continually complained that America’s infrastructure is rotting away.  It found that one in five American bridges were “structurally deficient”.  While the number of miles travelled by cars and trucks had doubled in the past 25 years, highway lane miles had risen only 45%.  Demand for electricity had increased by 25%, but the construction of new transmission facilities had fallen by 30%.  This deterioration had lost 870,000 jobs that could have been secured with new projects, while the costs of moving goods had risen significantly. The ASCE reckoned that there was $100bn of potential work available. Instead the US Congress plans to cut such spending by 35% over the next six years.

More extreme weather is on its way and the risk of calamity involving millions is rising sharply.  To avoid this, we can rely only on uninterested private monopolies and governments engaged in cutting back on so-called ‘discretionary’ public spending.  It’s another consequence of the dominance of the capitalist mode of production.  There is a UN summit in New York on climate change and the weather in September.  We may have to rebuild Noah’s Ark before then.

Michael Roberts

Source: http://leftunity.org/time-for-noahs-ark-again/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=time-for-noahs-ark-again&utm_reader=feedly

The USSR was officially out of Afghanistan. It was a unilateral withdrawal — even as Daddy Bush, then US President, wanted to keep weaponizing those Afghan “freedom fighters” (copyright Ronald Reagan).

Rewind to the Soviet invasion, in December 1979. Few will remember how then US President Jimmy Carter — a hick Hamlet — almost burst into tears because the USSR had invaded that “profoundly religious” country.

Well, a few months earlier, the US ambassador in Afghanistan had been assassinated by those “profoundly religious” characters. And guess who tried to save him? The KGB. Dr. Zbig Brzezinski himself — the man who years later we would learn “invented” the USSR’s Vietnam, six months before the Soviet invasion — gleefully told the story to White House correspondents.

By the way, this all happened before the fall of the Shah of Iran, which sparked in the mind of Hamlet Carter the demented idea that the USSR was about to invade Iran and take over “our” Persian Gulf oil. The extremely cautious Soviet leadership would never even contemplate that notion.

It was the USSR, for instance, that had prevented the US from using nuclear weapons in Vietnam. And it was the USSR that prevented the US from intervening in Iran to save the Shah. The leadership in Moscow was very much aware that were the USSR to  “invade”  Iran to take over all that oil and gas, the US would launch no less than a nuclear war.

But to brandish the threat of a nuclear war after the Soviets entered Afghanistan was exactly what Carter did — something that frightened even the US establishment, as in George Kennan, the author of the “containment of communism” strategy. Wily Dr. Zbig, though, knew better; unlike pumpkin Carter, he wanted nothing else than the USSR to meet its Vietnam.

Let me hammer you towards progress

The USSR was helping Afghanistan since the aftermath of the October Revolution. The left had been very strong in the country since the 1950s. Then, in 1973, Mohammed Daoud led a coup against his cousin, King Zahir Shah. After the coup, communists and their allies kept playing an important role — even as they routinely cut each other’s throats.

In the middle of one of these very murky scraps the USSR decides to step in, privileging its favorite faction (led by Babrak Karmal) and, at least in theory, advancing the cause of socialism. Big mistake, with dizzyingly complex consequences — from the rise of jihadism to the fall of the Soviet Union itself, and up to Russian historians to evaluate.

The key problem was that both Daoud and Moscow tried to implement progress in Afghanistan with a hammer — with no effect. King Amanullah had tried as early as 1919, also supported by the Russians. It’s impossible to impose a progressive form of government onto peasants and warriors without changing a feudal structure perpetuated through millennia. Still after the Soviet exit, and now the tentative American exit, the problem remains.

We all know what happened after the Soviet withdrawal. The Afghan government remained in place as long as there was Soviet support. But then the USSR dissolved itself in December 1991. And collapse was followed by chaos, from 1992 to 1996. Every mujahid made a play for Kabul — from the “Lion of the Panjshir” Ahmad Shah Masoud to former Saudi favorite Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and former American favorite Abdul Haq.

Masoud is dead, killed by al-Qaeda two days before 9/11. Haq is dead, killed by the Taliban in November 2001 as the Americans were grooming him for a bright political future. Hekmatyar remains one of America’s top public enemies, but no more than a side player.

What finally emerged in 1996, when they captured Kabul, was the Taliban — a Pakistani invention. Gen. Zia ul-Haq, the ultra-fundamentalist general who ruled everything from 1977 to 1988, had “Islamicized” Pakistani society and especially the military-intelligence complex to a point of no return.

Then, during the 1980s anti-Soviet jihad, Pakistan controlled virtually every single mujahid via the Pakistani intelligence agency, the ISI. Those most lavishly weaponized were (what else?) hardcore Islamists; the CIA, partners in crime, were easily fooled. But Brzezinski, among others, knew what that would imply. He was fully aware of the American tradition of supporting every nasty bunch of medieval religious fanatics against nationalist and/or progressive movements in the then called Third World — and the myriad chances of blowback.

As Pakistan goes, for decades we have had an ISI continuum; support to the hardcore mujahideen in the 1980s; the Taliban in the 1990s; and since 9/11, more discreetly, the Afghan Taliban but not the Pakistani Taliban.

Today we also know that the US bombing and mini-invasion of late 2001, followed by NATO’s long occupation, was in fact devised even before 9/11, as the first Dubya administration got fed up with discussing Pipelineistan and Osama bin Laden with the Taliban and wanted to impose its own rules. 9/11 was the perfect pretext.

I vividly remember that even before Tora Bora, in late November 2001, Afghans of all stripes were convinced King Zahir Shah would return to the throne. Instead, they were presented with American puppet Hamid Karzai. Over the years, the American-led occupation fed on the rationale of “fighting al-Qaeda,” when in fact the whole operation turned into a white man’s war against Pashtuns, the overwhelming majority of them Taliban.

The ghost of Saigon 1975

Now the puppet has grown a set of balls; he won’t sign a Status of Force Agreement (SOFA) with the Americans. Washington’s quite predictable furious reaction is to finally ignore him and pray to clinch a deal with his successor.

Everyone knows the storm in the making. There’s absolutely no evidence a strong central government will emerge in Kabul after April’s elections. Not even minimally as strong as the Afghan government that survived for almost three years after the Soviet withdrawal 25 years ago.

There are the so-called “Afghan security forces” which totally depend on Western money and weapons. The Afghan government simply cannot afford them. Who will pay them? A consortium of Europeans, Russians and Chinese?

And then there’s the game Pakistan will play. Pakistan’s Afghan policy has always been “strategic depth,” as in controlling a weak Afghan state. This implies, in a nutshell, a “friendly” government; too weak in military terms to question the Durand line — the 2,500-kilometer artificial border “invented” by the British empire; and absolutely incapable of raising the intractable Pashtunistan issue, which is at the heart of the border controversy. Every each way we look at it, Islamabad sees Pashtun nationalism as an existential threat.

The Obama administration couldn’t care less — not to mention the Pentagon and the whole Beltway for that matter. The only thing that matters is to keep those prime real estate morsels in the Empire of Bases — especially Bagram, which Karzai defined as a “Taliban factory.” These military bases are essential to survey, harass or simply intimidate both Russia and China — thus key assets in the ever-evolving New Great Game in Eurasia.

The pretext used to be al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda relocated to Libya and the Levant. The fight against the Taliban can’t qualify as a pretext anymore as Karzai himself is trying to clinch a deal with them, and NATO will be out of Afghanistan before the end of the year. As nasty as they can be the Taliban played, and keep playing, a very long game; they want to dictate the terms of post-American Afghanistan.

So what’s left to Washington after an interminable, multi-trillion-dollar war that ends with a monumental whimper — for all practical purposes a hardcore Pashtun victory? Not to abandon the battlefield entirely, as in Saigon 1975 (Gromov crossing the Friendship Bridge 25 years ago would pale in comparison). The solution is to leave a “residual” force of at least 10,000 that will keep enabling the CIA drone war in the Pakistani tribal areas, which will go on as long as Islamabad cannot clinch a deal with the Pakistani Taliban.

No powerful regional actors want this state of affairs, from Iran to Russia and China, not to mention the AfPak consortium. Throughout 2014, expect Iran, Russia, China and India to weigh heavily toward an Afghan solution without the Americans. Yet the “residual force” will remain the Pentagon’s wet dream. If they can’t have Full Spectrum Dominance, even partial spectrum will do. That certainly beats crossing the Amu Darya back to Uzbekistan with a Saigon taste in their mouths.

Pepe Escobar is the roving correspondent for Asia Times. His regular column, “The Roving Eye,” is widely read. He is an analyst for the online news channel Real News, the roving correspondent for Asia Times/Hong Kong, an analyst for RT and (more…)

Source: http://www.opednews.com/articles/1/Afghanistan-The-USSR-left-by-Pepe-Escobar-Afghanistan_Dominance_Iran_Pakistan-140215-202.html