Life and nothing else...
Comments will be published with some delay between thursday and sunday.
28.3.07
Cheerleading for War
It seems that not everybody is unhappy with the capture of the British navy by Iran's revolutionnary guard.
Some are cheering. (Famous For 15 Megapixels)
Since 2001, we have been used to warmongerers, war philosophers, war intellectuals, war instigators, war terrorists, war profiteers... Now it seems is the time for war cheerleaders. Someone has to do the uneasy job of lifting the spirits...for all those people !
If you go to the BBC comment section you will find the comments calling to nuke Iran in the bottom, as the page presents the most recent comments first. So the first comments were from the cheerleaders, they were too eager to show their support for the troops. It is the same thing with the comment section in the Guardian when it comes to issues touching the Middle East; the first ones to leave their comments are the cheerleaders of the global and long war on terror, Cyberzionism Oblige !
Some are cheering. (Famous For 15 Megapixels)
Since 2001, we have been used to warmongerers, war philosophers, war intellectuals, war instigators, war terrorists, war profiteers... Now it seems is the time for war cheerleaders. Someone has to do the uneasy job of lifting the spirits...for all those people !
If you go to the BBC comment section you will find the comments calling to nuke Iran in the bottom, as the page presents the most recent comments first. So the first comments were from the cheerleaders, they were too eager to show their support for the troops. It is the same thing with the comment section in the Guardian when it comes to issues touching the Middle East; the first ones to leave their comments are the cheerleaders of the global and long war on terror, Cyberzionism Oblige !
27.3.07
The next Iran War: Lessons from the 1956 Egypt's Invasion
I always thought that the Iraq war was a prerun for the Big One, the Iran War. Iran's war would be more difficult, more dangerous. Iraq would be a bread and roses victory walk. The latter, as tragic in its consequences as it is now, is sadly not the only neocon faulty assumption. Iraq's difficulties apart, the neocons and Bush are showing us now their determination to squeeze Iran when they could not attack it and letting us know that the attack is still an option. The result is the actual showdown and the anguish and tension that go with.
Reading a counterpunch article about the Suez war, I realised that Israel's influence on the west's policy in the ME has one basic and faulty assumption: Israel presents itself to western diplomacies as their frontline in the region and the main guardian of their interests. Back in 1956 when Israel arranged for the Suez invasion, and because of cold war logic, Eisenhower was not convinced of this equation.
One has to read the interesting article of Harry Clark in Counterpunch to realise how much this faulty assumption, endorsed unquestioned in the west and enforced by the Israel lobby largely supported by the Jewish diaspora, is hurting actually the west's interests in the ME.
We need a political leadership to break this equation between Israel's and the west's assumed shared interests in order for the region to achieve a just and lasting peace. Otherwise, the Middle East will always be for its citizens a dangerous and murderous field, thanks to USrael, UKrael, Frisrael, or whatever country with which Israel chooses to make its holy union of 'common interests' for the sake of zionism to survive unquestioned over the dead bodies of Arabs, Muslims, and Palestinians and the the resentment of the livings.
Read how Rice, Bush and the neocons are trying to reshape the middle east in a way to eliminate any challenge to Israel's only superpower. And how the UN is an accomplice in this project (Forever Under Construction)
Reading a counterpunch article about the Suez war, I realised that Israel's influence on the west's policy in the ME has one basic and faulty assumption: Israel presents itself to western diplomacies as their frontline in the region and the main guardian of their interests. Back in 1956 when Israel arranged for the Suez invasion, and because of cold war logic, Eisenhower was not convinced of this equation.
One has to read the interesting article of Harry Clark in Counterpunch to realise how much this faulty assumption, endorsed unquestioned in the west and enforced by the Israel lobby largely supported by the Jewish diaspora, is hurting actually the west's interests in the ME.
We need a political leadership to break this equation between Israel's and the west's assumed shared interests in order for the region to achieve a just and lasting peace. Otherwise, the Middle East will always be for its citizens a dangerous and murderous field, thanks to USrael, UKrael, Frisrael, or whatever country with which Israel chooses to make its holy union of 'common interests' for the sake of zionism to survive unquestioned over the dead bodies of Arabs, Muslims, and Palestinians and the the resentment of the livings.
Read how Rice, Bush and the neocons are trying to reshape the middle east in a way to eliminate any challenge to Israel's only superpower. And how the UN is an accomplice in this project (Forever Under Construction)
The ADQ: from 5 to 41 Seats in Parliament, thanks to the Veil and other identity threatening cultural items !
The ADQ, Action Démocratique du Québec, has nothing democratic about it, the more exact description is populist. It is a rural conservative nationalist party, far right on economic and social issues. Before today and yesterday's provincial elections in Québec, it wasn't even recognised as an official party in parliament. Mario Dumont, its leader, was able to get elected few elections ago in his Rivière Du Loup riding, some 500 Kms north east of Montréal on the south shore of the Saint Lawrence river, and get elected on a simple promise, by defining himself as a staunch nationalist but not a separatist, conforting those Quebecers who are nationalists but afraid to separate from Canada. I call them the wary nationalists, 'les nationalistes peureux'.
Québec's separatists are the second largest party in Quebec and were for sometimes the first in the polls, despite not succeeding in rallying a majority of Quebecers to the separatist project. They came close to winning a referendum on separation on two occasions. And on the second occasion, 1995, Jacques Parizeau, the party leader and then prime minister declared that the defeat in the referendum was made possible by 'L'argent et les Allophones' (The Money and the Allophones). Some have understood 'L'argent' as targeting the Jewish community who is, in a large majority, wealthy and against the separation of Quebec. Parizeau was shunned by his own party after his defeat and this declaration. The Parti Québécois, PQ, and its sister party at the federal level, Le Bloc Québécois, which enjoys a solid majority in Québec, have been making efforts to integrate Quebec's immigrants into the political landscape by offering them seats since they lost the 1995 referendum on sovereignty. Québec's immigrants, on the other side, those who stay in the province and don't migrate to other provinces, and who come in their majority from francophones countries, Haiti and north African and arab countries, were glad at the new opportunities. A synthesis was taking place between a very particular history, the history of Quebecers and their English rulers and tormentors, and the history of these new immigrants. Not only a synthesis, but a mutual empathy. This is when immigrants like me understood that Quebec's separatism has, in essence, nothing to do with Quebec's nationalism, although, at its origin separatism was founded by the most reactionnary and nationalist elements of the Quebec society. But that was when the English speaking community acted as colonisers toward the Québécois Francophones in their own country. Moreover, diffferent political tendencies existed inside the PQ; leftists, conservatives, moderates. Recently however, the PQ was mutating and experiencing internal divisions at the same time the synthesis between its separatist project and immigrants was being achieved. It was too much for a party who elected André Boisclair, an openly gay and ambitious young man who declared having consumed drugs when he was minister, as its leader, in a show of its determination to get rid of its own reactionary and conservative elements. It seems however that the choice of Boisclair didn't find an echo in the Quebec population. I know it didn't have the same negative impact among immigrants because in my riding* which votes against the PQ since the 1970s, no matter who is the opposite candidate, the PQ candidate, practically an unknown man from the immigrant population, fared well (but not enough to get elected) accordingly to the percentage of immigrants in the riding.
On the other hand, Jean Charest, who is an ex federal conservative, turned provincial liberal, was never able to convince true Quebec liberals of his conversion. Many of these true liberals divided their vote between, on one hand, the green party and the party of the left (Quebec solidaire) which together gathered 8% of the vote without succeeding in getting seats in parliament, and the PQ. The result of both processes, the lack of confidence in Charest from True liberals and the lack of confidence in Boisclair from 'wary nationalists' who used to vote PQ but NO for the separation referendum, and conservatives, is the weakening of the two major parties in favor of the ADQ.
Watching Quebec Politics, I realised that it is only in Quebec that nationalism and separatism are not synonymous and I would say, according to today's parliamentary election results, that nationalism is more pervasive outside the separatist party than inside. Yesterday's elections were called by the present prime minister, whose liberal party was elected three years earlier, on the premise that the PQ was having a hard time in the polls. The results have however brought a third party in the equation, the ADQ. The surge of the ADQ is due to two simple facts, the low popularity of the two main leaders inside their parties and the rise of the veil politics in Quebec.
Three months ago, Hérouxville's town council adopted a chart for its inhabitants forbidding the veil, the niqab, and the stoning of women, without the knowledge of its inhabitants, who were shocked at the discovery of the name of their towm in the newspapers as a racist town. Because of course, there were some false assumptions about Quebecers Muslims in this chart. The chart caused a controversy but it turned out that there was not one single Muslim living in this small town. Two years ago, some Orthodox Jews, who refuse to send their children to regular public schools were lobbying the liberal government for funding. The funding was allowed only to be retracted after an outcry from the Quebec population fiercely against such an approach despite the fact that Quebec's schools were still only four years ago funded by the government and recognised along religious lines (Catholic and Protestant). Last year, the ministry of education realised that some Jews actually homeschool their children without any official supervision (actually you can homeschool in Quebec but you have to report to the minstry of education, follow the guidelines, and so on...) The ministry stepped in seeing in this process a coercion on the child and was going to propose to these families some accomodations within the public school system. Last year, a Sikh boy went to the supreme court to force the Quebec school he goes to to accpet him with a dagger in his kippa and won. The accumulation of these cultural particularisms became a central debate in the Quebec society. Most Quebec citizens, who declare themselves at a rate of 60% as racists, were against accomodationg cultural and religious communities, not for the sake of secularism, mind you, but in the name of the Christian character of the Quebec society. The government created an official committee called 'Committee for reasonable accomodations'.
At a public meeting at my son's college early this year, one prominent member of this committee, Canadian political philosopher Charles Taylor, was speaking on the importance to bring people together and on the danger of adopting the theory of the 'Clash of civilisations' by stigmatisating a religion and a culture in a multicultural globalised world and society, I asked him if the solution to the 'Clash of civilisations' wasn't actually the reinforcement of muticulturalism and he agreed. I understood however, after the conference, why the philosopher of multiculturalism, Charles taylor, didn't bring the word once in his talk. I was assailed by two teachers of my son who told me that multiculturalism and its legal companion, the Canada charter of individual rights, were something the former liberal prime minister of Canada, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, invented and implemented against the Quebec society and when I asked why they think it was against them, they answered that they see themselves as a Christian only culture and that immigrants should abide by their culture and when I said that Quebec has abandoned religion in its definition as a nation in the sixties, they said that still, Christianism was part of their identity, of who they are and this is how they see themselves in the face of the immigrant population (more than 50%) in their province.
I was really stunned by the level of nationalism and the influence of religion in this society. The parti Québécois is ahead of its people and this is why even its sympathisers were not able to follow its transformation. There is one other premise in this, the failing of politics. If people are returning to the religious definitions of their identity, this means that politic has failed them. It means that Politic was not able to bring to them a satisfactory social project.
Mario Dumont, the leader of the PQ, is taking people as they are, he stepped in this hesitation. He jumped on the Hérouxville controversy affirming his support for the mayor(I still have to check how Hérouxville voted). He asked the director of Elections Quebec to make sure that Niqab was not allowed on voting day despite the fact that in the whole province there are only few niqabs, and not sure that these women have citizenship and vote rights, and despite the fact that there was never an incidence of the sort at election day before. The controversy took hold of the media for more than a week until the eve of election day. This is how Mario Dumont, a rural conservative whose party didn't take any seat within the city of Montreal, the largest city in Quebec, who is very close to Stephen Harpers ideals and to Bush's ideals on economic and social matters, won the second place in yesterday's elections, putting the PQ in third place. The three parties are however close, 32 % for the liberals, 30 % for the ADQ and 28 % for the PQ. We have a minority government with a minority opposition.
I am not proud of Quebec and I am not proud of our politicians. I voted for the PQ, even though I do not adhere to their separatist project. But I vowed to vote for them when they were, with Quebec Solidaire (a small leftist party), the only to march with Lebanese asking for a ceasefire in Lebanon during the Israeli agression on Lebanon last summer.
*My riding is composed of 15 % Anglophones, 55 % Francophones, and 30 % Allophones (based on the language spoken at home) of whom 4% are Arabs, probably 20% Jewish, and the other are Russians and Eastern Europeans. Jewsih and Anglo, as well as a sizeable part of the Francophones must have voted for the Liberals who had 46 % of the votes, compared to the PQ who had 23 % pof the votes, 10 % for the green party, 9 % for the left, and the rst for other two small parties.
Québec's separatists are the second largest party in Quebec and were for sometimes the first in the polls, despite not succeeding in rallying a majority of Quebecers to the separatist project. They came close to winning a referendum on separation on two occasions. And on the second occasion, 1995, Jacques Parizeau, the party leader and then prime minister declared that the defeat in the referendum was made possible by 'L'argent et les Allophones' (The Money and the Allophones). Some have understood 'L'argent' as targeting the Jewish community who is, in a large majority, wealthy and against the separation of Quebec. Parizeau was shunned by his own party after his defeat and this declaration. The Parti Québécois, PQ, and its sister party at the federal level, Le Bloc Québécois, which enjoys a solid majority in Québec, have been making efforts to integrate Quebec's immigrants into the political landscape by offering them seats since they lost the 1995 referendum on sovereignty. Québec's immigrants, on the other side, those who stay in the province and don't migrate to other provinces, and who come in their majority from francophones countries, Haiti and north African and arab countries, were glad at the new opportunities. A synthesis was taking place between a very particular history, the history of Quebecers and their English rulers and tormentors, and the history of these new immigrants. Not only a synthesis, but a mutual empathy. This is when immigrants like me understood that Quebec's separatism has, in essence, nothing to do with Quebec's nationalism, although, at its origin separatism was founded by the most reactionnary and nationalist elements of the Quebec society. But that was when the English speaking community acted as colonisers toward the Québécois Francophones in their own country. Moreover, diffferent political tendencies existed inside the PQ; leftists, conservatives, moderates. Recently however, the PQ was mutating and experiencing internal divisions at the same time the synthesis between its separatist project and immigrants was being achieved. It was too much for a party who elected André Boisclair, an openly gay and ambitious young man who declared having consumed drugs when he was minister, as its leader, in a show of its determination to get rid of its own reactionary and conservative elements. It seems however that the choice of Boisclair didn't find an echo in the Quebec population. I know it didn't have the same negative impact among immigrants because in my riding* which votes against the PQ since the 1970s, no matter who is the opposite candidate, the PQ candidate, practically an unknown man from the immigrant population, fared well (but not enough to get elected) accordingly to the percentage of immigrants in the riding.
On the other hand, Jean Charest, who is an ex federal conservative, turned provincial liberal, was never able to convince true Quebec liberals of his conversion. Many of these true liberals divided their vote between, on one hand, the green party and the party of the left (Quebec solidaire) which together gathered 8% of the vote without succeeding in getting seats in parliament, and the PQ. The result of both processes, the lack of confidence in Charest from True liberals and the lack of confidence in Boisclair from 'wary nationalists' who used to vote PQ but NO for the separation referendum, and conservatives, is the weakening of the two major parties in favor of the ADQ.
Watching Quebec Politics, I realised that it is only in Quebec that nationalism and separatism are not synonymous and I would say, according to today's parliamentary election results, that nationalism is more pervasive outside the separatist party than inside. Yesterday's elections were called by the present prime minister, whose liberal party was elected three years earlier, on the premise that the PQ was having a hard time in the polls. The results have however brought a third party in the equation, the ADQ. The surge of the ADQ is due to two simple facts, the low popularity of the two main leaders inside their parties and the rise of the veil politics in Quebec.
Three months ago, Hérouxville's town council adopted a chart for its inhabitants forbidding the veil, the niqab, and the stoning of women, without the knowledge of its inhabitants, who were shocked at the discovery of the name of their towm in the newspapers as a racist town. Because of course, there were some false assumptions about Quebecers Muslims in this chart. The chart caused a controversy but it turned out that there was not one single Muslim living in this small town. Two years ago, some Orthodox Jews, who refuse to send their children to regular public schools were lobbying the liberal government for funding. The funding was allowed only to be retracted after an outcry from the Quebec population fiercely against such an approach despite the fact that Quebec's schools were still only four years ago funded by the government and recognised along religious lines (Catholic and Protestant). Last year, the ministry of education realised that some Jews actually homeschool their children without any official supervision (actually you can homeschool in Quebec but you have to report to the minstry of education, follow the guidelines, and so on...) The ministry stepped in seeing in this process a coercion on the child and was going to propose to these families some accomodations within the public school system. Last year, a Sikh boy went to the supreme court to force the Quebec school he goes to to accpet him with a dagger in his kippa and won. The accumulation of these cultural particularisms became a central debate in the Quebec society. Most Quebec citizens, who declare themselves at a rate of 60% as racists, were against accomodationg cultural and religious communities, not for the sake of secularism, mind you, but in the name of the Christian character of the Quebec society. The government created an official committee called 'Committee for reasonable accomodations'.
At a public meeting at my son's college early this year, one prominent member of this committee, Canadian political philosopher Charles Taylor, was speaking on the importance to bring people together and on the danger of adopting the theory of the 'Clash of civilisations' by stigmatisating a religion and a culture in a multicultural globalised world and society, I asked him if the solution to the 'Clash of civilisations' wasn't actually the reinforcement of muticulturalism and he agreed. I understood however, after the conference, why the philosopher of multiculturalism, Charles taylor, didn't bring the word once in his talk. I was assailed by two teachers of my son who told me that multiculturalism and its legal companion, the Canada charter of individual rights, were something the former liberal prime minister of Canada, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, invented and implemented against the Quebec society and when I asked why they think it was against them, they answered that they see themselves as a Christian only culture and that immigrants should abide by their culture and when I said that Quebec has abandoned religion in its definition as a nation in the sixties, they said that still, Christianism was part of their identity, of who they are and this is how they see themselves in the face of the immigrant population (more than 50%) in their province.
I was really stunned by the level of nationalism and the influence of religion in this society. The parti Québécois is ahead of its people and this is why even its sympathisers were not able to follow its transformation. There is one other premise in this, the failing of politics. If people are returning to the religious definitions of their identity, this means that politic has failed them. It means that Politic was not able to bring to them a satisfactory social project.
Mario Dumont, the leader of the PQ, is taking people as they are, he stepped in this hesitation. He jumped on the Hérouxville controversy affirming his support for the mayor(I still have to check how Hérouxville voted). He asked the director of Elections Quebec to make sure that Niqab was not allowed on voting day despite the fact that in the whole province there are only few niqabs, and not sure that these women have citizenship and vote rights, and despite the fact that there was never an incidence of the sort at election day before. The controversy took hold of the media for more than a week until the eve of election day. This is how Mario Dumont, a rural conservative whose party didn't take any seat within the city of Montreal, the largest city in Quebec, who is very close to Stephen Harpers ideals and to Bush's ideals on economic and social matters, won the second place in yesterday's elections, putting the PQ in third place. The three parties are however close, 32 % for the liberals, 30 % for the ADQ and 28 % for the PQ. We have a minority government with a minority opposition.
I am not proud of Quebec and I am not proud of our politicians. I voted for the PQ, even though I do not adhere to their separatist project. But I vowed to vote for them when they were, with Quebec Solidaire (a small leftist party), the only to march with Lebanese asking for a ceasefire in Lebanon during the Israeli agression on Lebanon last summer.
*My riding is composed of 15 % Anglophones, 55 % Francophones, and 30 % Allophones (based on the language spoken at home) of whom 4% are Arabs, probably 20% Jewish, and the other are Russians and Eastern Europeans. Jewsih and Anglo, as well as a sizeable part of the Francophones must have voted for the Liberals who had 46 % of the votes, compared to the PQ who had 23 % pof the votes, 10 % for the green party, 9 % for the left, and the rst for other two small parties.
25.3.07
The Life and Death of Tom Hurndall and the Courage of his Mother
''In April 2003, 21-year old Tom Hurndall was shot in the head in Gaza by an Israeli soldier as he tried to save the lives of three small children. Nine months later, he died, having never recovered consciousness. Emine Saner talks to his mother Jocelyn about her grief, her fight to make the Israeli army accountable for his death and the book she has written in his memory.''
23.3.07
Damned Proud Killers !
Serials, contrary to accidental killers, always like to boast about their superiority, their actions, and their crimes. In his recent revelations on what was going on behind the scenes during the July war of Israeli agression on Lebanon, John Bolton just says loud what everybody has been suspecting, that the US, UK, and the international community at large were blocking a ceasefire in Lebanon, hoping that Israel was going to destroy Hezbollah ! I have written elsewhere on this blog that Hezbollah and its allies are more than 50 % of the Lebanese population and that Hezbollah is unlike any islamist organisation; it is not a criminal network, it is a resistance movement and a national political organisation (not an exported network of terror like Al Qaida); it is part of the Lebanese political landscape, has elected representatives in the parliament and ministers in the government. It enjoys wide popular support in Lebanon and Lebanese consider Hezbollah as a legitimate resistance movement to Israel.
Mr Bolton, a controversial and blunt-speaking figure, said he was "damned proud of what we did" to prevent an early ceasefire.
Also in the BBC programme, several key players claim that, privately, there were Arab leaders who also wanted Israel to destroy Hezbollah.
More than 1,000 Lebanese civilians and an unknown number (less than 100) of Hezbollah fighters were killed in the conflict.
At the time, Ms Rice, US secretary of state, declared that the Israeli agression on Lebanon and its fallouts of displaced civilians (around a million) and dead civilians (more than a thousand mostly women and children) 'were the pangs of birth of a new Middle East'.
South Lebanon, mainly agriculture based, is now littered with US made cluster bombs which continue to kill to this day preventing peasants from harvesting their cultures.
Bolton, who is proud of his actions, was a prominent friend of the pro-Sanyura, pro-Hariri, 14th March movement in Lebanon who honored him in NYC, 2 months before the israeli agression, with the Shield of the Cedar commemorating the now deceased 2005 (thanks mainly to the Israeli agression on Lebanon) Cedar Revolution.
Listen to Bolton speaking to Radio Canada's host Carol Off yesterday (first segment of As It Happens, 8 minutes)
Mr Bolton, a controversial and blunt-speaking figure, said he was "damned proud of what we did" to prevent an early ceasefire.
Also in the BBC programme, several key players claim that, privately, there were Arab leaders who also wanted Israel to destroy Hezbollah.
More than 1,000 Lebanese civilians and an unknown number (less than 100) of Hezbollah fighters were killed in the conflict.
At the time, Ms Rice, US secretary of state, declared that the Israeli agression on Lebanon and its fallouts of displaced civilians (around a million) and dead civilians (more than a thousand mostly women and children) 'were the pangs of birth of a new Middle East'.
South Lebanon, mainly agriculture based, is now littered with US made cluster bombs which continue to kill to this day preventing peasants from harvesting their cultures.
Bolton, who is proud of his actions, was a prominent friend of the pro-Sanyura, pro-Hariri, 14th March movement in Lebanon who honored him in NYC, 2 months before the israeli agression, with the Shield of the Cedar commemorating the now deceased 2005 (thanks mainly to the Israeli agression on Lebanon) Cedar Revolution.
Listen to Bolton speaking to Radio Canada's host Carol Off yesterday (first segment of As It Happens, 8 minutes)
22.3.07
What's In a Name: Israel names its July war on Lebanon
Just In; Israel has finally given a name to its July war on Lebanon.
A great debate was waging in Israel these last weeks and days. Was the July war on Lebanon a war or an operation ? And if it was a war then it must be given a name. Israel has a permanent official commission for these matters presided by Yaacov Edri; commission for symbols and official ceremonies.
Initially the military leadership has planned the war on lebanon as an 'operation', a matter of two days to crush Hezbollah and occupy south Lebanon up to the Litani river, a river the zionists were coveting for a long time to satisfy Israel's scandalous needs for fresh water. Monday, the commission took an important decision and declared the operation as a WAR "en bonne et due forme". Then the commission moved on to name the war. You see, the Jewish state has so many wars behind and so many to come that they must name them, like Hurricanes. For instance, the 1982 war on Lebanon was named 'Peace In Galilee'.
Asked about a name on Ynet, Israelis gave different names to this war: 'The big shame', 'The stupid war', 'Operation defeat' or 'My last war, by Amir Peretz'. Lebanese, on the other hand have instantly given this war the name of 'The July war'. while Hezbollah named it 'The divine victory'.
Finally, it seems that Israel settled for 'The second Lebanese war' as a name. It seems that the name was already given by Israelis and the commission endorsed it. When you start numbering wars it means that you are no longer in a cyclical paradigm, it means that you are in a linear paradigm, total victory or total defeat.
Read 'Name Calling', UrShalim's bitter sweet post on the subject.
A great debate was waging in Israel these last weeks and days. Was the July war on Lebanon a war or an operation ? And if it was a war then it must be given a name. Israel has a permanent official commission for these matters presided by Yaacov Edri; commission for symbols and official ceremonies.
Initially the military leadership has planned the war on lebanon as an 'operation', a matter of two days to crush Hezbollah and occupy south Lebanon up to the Litani river, a river the zionists were coveting for a long time to satisfy Israel's scandalous needs for fresh water. Monday, the commission took an important decision and declared the operation as a WAR "en bonne et due forme". Then the commission moved on to name the war. You see, the Jewish state has so many wars behind and so many to come that they must name them, like Hurricanes. For instance, the 1982 war on Lebanon was named 'Peace In Galilee'.
Asked about a name on Ynet, Israelis gave different names to this war: 'The big shame', 'The stupid war', 'Operation defeat' or 'My last war, by Amir Peretz'. Lebanese, on the other hand have instantly given this war the name of 'The July war'. while Hezbollah named it 'The divine victory'.
Finally, it seems that Israel settled for 'The second Lebanese war' as a name. It seems that the name was already given by Israelis and the commission endorsed it. When you start numbering wars it means that you are no longer in a cyclical paradigm, it means that you are in a linear paradigm, total victory or total defeat.
Read 'Name Calling', UrShalim's bitter sweet post on the subject.
20.3.07
Random Thoughts on Lebanon, Palestine and Iraq
I was feeling some blog fatigue and wasn't going to blog for a while. Then I read that Bush wanted more time for his 'new strategy' in Iraq. It reminded me of Israel last summer when it was asking the US, UK and the international community for more time to crush Hezbollah. Instead, it crushed Lebanon's economy, seashore, half of its roads, bridges, houses, buildings, and orchards, killed thousand civilians, made refugees of about 30% of the population and went home leaving Lebanon with postdated cluster bombs, profound divisions, and Hezbollah with a 'divine victory'. Both Bush and Olmert remind me of failing students, you know those ones who, having prepared badly for the exam, sit in front of their white paper the last five minutes when everybody else is done, hoping to deliver !
While Bush, not recognising his defeat, is staying hopeful, Olmert is engaging his countrymen and women in byzantine discussions about the lost war in Lebanon, whose only virtue is to divert Israeli citizens attention from the real issues facing Israel after this war.
What are the issues facing Israel immediately ?
The failure of its leadership in war;
The failure of its leadership in peace (Israel declared it will not discuss with the new Palestinian unity government when most European countries and the US have shown their will to engage).
What are the questions debated in Israel right now ?
Was the attack on Lebanon an operation or a war ?
Giving a name to this war.
Protecting Darfur refugees and pointing out Human rights violations in Darfur.
And as Raptors always hunt in pair, Israel is supported in this Darfur effort by US and French zionists (Nicholas Kristof in the US and BHL in France are leading the efforts). In France, Bernard-Henri Lévy (BHL), who has just embarked, courageousely and bare chested, on his latest humanitarian cause, is leading a pack summoning French presidential candidates to sign an engagement for action in the Darfur crisis.
And because we are becoming numb to HUman rights violations, not only in Darfur, but everywhere, the main result of the Darfur media frenzy will be to divert the world's attention from noticing one more effort, in a long list of political compromises and progresses made by the Palestinians to stop the economic embargo from achieving a total isolation, erosion and disintegration of their lands, people and society. The new Palestinian unity government, in addition to being a unity (Fatah-Hamas) government, has given 25% of minsteries to independants from neither parties including four key ministeries, Interior, Information, Finance, and Foreign Affairs. But once again, BHL and other zionists will fail to notice, and once again, Israel won't talk to this government and will be hiding from reprieve behind a good cause; Darfur. Every time the Palestinians show their good will, Israel finds an excuse to look Elsewhere by instigating, through its zionist allies, a media frenzy about where the west should look and what its priorities should be . Israel and zionists are in an active state of denial.
There is a civil war in Darfur and the western media and Israel want us to believe that the Muslims are waging this war against the southern sudanese populations with the implicit blessing of the government for ethnic reasons. But there is another narrative to this story, Sudanese oil. Sudan, like the Middle East, is blessed with oil and cursed with oil.
And as long as I will be reading this kind of news everyday, my indignation at USrael's criminal wars against the people of Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, and the entire Middle East, will never fade. There is no room for blog fatigue on this blog.
Watch here a video on the children of Baghdad, Iraq (not of interest to Mr BHL's humanitarian preoccupations because their misery results from Mr. BHL's friends policies in the ME)
Good Night and Good Luck.
You have to excuse Le Monde, they don't know that Israel's war was on Lebanon and not on Hezbollah ! Another subject for my indignation, the western press's pro-zionist biases.
While Bush, not recognising his defeat, is staying hopeful, Olmert is engaging his countrymen and women in byzantine discussions about the lost war in Lebanon, whose only virtue is to divert Israeli citizens attention from the real issues facing Israel after this war.
What are the issues facing Israel immediately ?
The failure of its leadership in war;
The failure of its leadership in peace (Israel declared it will not discuss with the new Palestinian unity government when most European countries and the US have shown their will to engage).
What are the questions debated in Israel right now ?
Was the attack on Lebanon an operation or a war ?
Giving a name to this war.
Protecting Darfur refugees and pointing out Human rights violations in Darfur.
And as Raptors always hunt in pair, Israel is supported in this Darfur effort by US and French zionists (Nicholas Kristof in the US and BHL in France are leading the efforts). In France, Bernard-Henri Lévy (BHL), who has just embarked, courageousely and bare chested, on his latest humanitarian cause, is leading a pack summoning French presidential candidates to sign an engagement for action in the Darfur crisis.
And because we are becoming numb to HUman rights violations, not only in Darfur, but everywhere, the main result of the Darfur media frenzy will be to divert the world's attention from noticing one more effort, in a long list of political compromises and progresses made by the Palestinians to stop the economic embargo from achieving a total isolation, erosion and disintegration of their lands, people and society. The new Palestinian unity government, in addition to being a unity (Fatah-Hamas) government, has given 25% of minsteries to independants from neither parties including four key ministeries, Interior, Information, Finance, and Foreign Affairs. But once again, BHL and other zionists will fail to notice, and once again, Israel won't talk to this government and will be hiding from reprieve behind a good cause; Darfur. Every time the Palestinians show their good will, Israel finds an excuse to look Elsewhere by instigating, through its zionist allies, a media frenzy about where the west should look and what its priorities should be . Israel and zionists are in an active state of denial.
There is a civil war in Darfur and the western media and Israel want us to believe that the Muslims are waging this war against the southern sudanese populations with the implicit blessing of the government for ethnic reasons. But there is another narrative to this story, Sudanese oil. Sudan, like the Middle East, is blessed with oil and cursed with oil.
And as long as I will be reading this kind of news everyday, my indignation at USrael's criminal wars against the people of Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, and the entire Middle East, will never fade. There is no room for blog fatigue on this blog.
Watch here a video on the children of Baghdad, Iraq (not of interest to Mr BHL's humanitarian preoccupations because their misery results from Mr. BHL's friends policies in the ME)
Good Night and Good Luck.
You have to excuse Le Monde, they don't know that Israel's war was on Lebanon and not on Hezbollah ! Another subject for my indignation, the western press's pro-zionist biases.
Le premier ministre palestinien a présenté son gouvernement au président Abbas
LEMONDE.FR | 15.03.07
LEMONDE.FR | 15.03.07
© 
15.3.07
Khaled Shaikh Muhammad: Providence Man
The Al-Qaida's mastermind 'testimony' is a grocery shopping list.
The Bush adminstration's failure everywhere in the 'war on terror' was waiting for its providence man. From prominent political figures in the US to buildings, strategical targets, Israel, and practically everything else, Khaled Shaikh Muhammed's might seems infinite and even more powerful than Dick Cheney's. Not only he is responsible practically for everything but he is the Deus Ex Machina, a proof that Al Qaida exists as a political and military organisation, and not a mere loose association of criminals, determined to wage a long war against USrael and the west, and worhty of the sacrifice of our young army men and women and of our civil rights and freedoms.
I am relieved, now we can sleep well. Except, I am not stupid. For to sleep well I need cross testimonies, facts, independant investigations, and an international tribunal. Aren't we all concerned by what has been portrayed to us over the years as an international network of terror ? So why is it the US only that has the right to interrogate and try Al Qaida's mastermind ? And I think all these passages masked in his testimony are a smokescreen. I mean, the man is in their hands, hidden from the entire world, they can make him say what they want, thanks to torture techniques approved by the Bush administration and micromanaged by Rumsfeld, so why blacken passages in his testimony ? Just to make the lie look truthful ?
Read here the complete testimony of KSM found on Angry Arab's site.
Slavoj Zizek on torture and Khaled Shaikh Muhammad
Tonight, we need a good dose of humour (read fellow blogger Stef's post 'Khaled Sheikh Mohammed 31 plots') as well as a good dose of healthy skepticism in watching the excellent Adam Curtis's BBC documentary 'The power of nightmares'. It is in three parts. Better start with part III, which is the most close to present events of the war on terror, and continue with parts II and I, all posted below.
The Power Of Nightmares: Part III
The Power Of Nightmares: Part II (The links for parts II and I have died on Google but are available at Youtube in a much shorter version, 7 to 9 minutes out of the original 50' each)
The Power Of Nightmares: Part I
The Bush adminstration's failure everywhere in the 'war on terror' was waiting for its providence man. From prominent political figures in the US to buildings, strategical targets, Israel, and practically everything else, Khaled Shaikh Muhammed's might seems infinite and even more powerful than Dick Cheney's. Not only he is responsible practically for everything but he is the Deus Ex Machina, a proof that Al Qaida exists as a political and military organisation, and not a mere loose association of criminals, determined to wage a long war against USrael and the west, and worhty of the sacrifice of our young army men and women and of our civil rights and freedoms.
I am relieved, now we can sleep well. Except, I am not stupid. For to sleep well I need cross testimonies, facts, independant investigations, and an international tribunal. Aren't we all concerned by what has been portrayed to us over the years as an international network of terror ? So why is it the US only that has the right to interrogate and try Al Qaida's mastermind ? And I think all these passages masked in his testimony are a smokescreen. I mean, the man is in their hands, hidden from the entire world, they can make him say what they want, thanks to torture techniques approved by the Bush administration and micromanaged by Rumsfeld, so why blacken passages in his testimony ? Just to make the lie look truthful ?
Read here the complete testimony of KSM found on Angry Arab's site.
Slavoj Zizek on torture and Khaled Shaikh Muhammad
Tonight, we need a good dose of humour (read fellow blogger Stef's post 'Khaled Sheikh Mohammed 31 plots') as well as a good dose of healthy skepticism in watching the excellent Adam Curtis's BBC documentary 'The power of nightmares'. It is in three parts. Better start with part III, which is the most close to present events of the war on terror, and continue with parts II and I, all posted below.
The Power Of Nightmares: Part III
The Power Of Nightmares: Part II (The links for parts II and I have died on Google but are available at Youtube in a much shorter version, 7 to 9 minutes out of the original 50' each)
The Power Of Nightmares: Part I
14.3.07
Hell Is Not The Other
As US pressure mounts on UN security council members for tougher sanctions against Iran, the western press, largely subservient to corporate and western governments interests, has been busy at the same time forging a dehumanised picture of the country Israel and the US want to punish, destabilise and eventually attack. The mainstream politico-intellectual elite has also joined the fray. 'Reading Lolita in Tehran' and 'The Caged Virgin' are such books, a genre in the service of empire, they pretend to speak about women's issues in Islam while presenting a biased and external (western borrowed) perspective on these issues.
We have to reverse this curse, the curse of biased information and arrogance about other cultures, the curse of feeling irresponsible as citizens in the stigmatisation and the dehumanisation of the Other.
I know how it feels to be misperceived, stigmatised. I am an immigrant women who crossed three cultural barriers and married a western man. I am not religious, neither from a Muslim upbringing, but I lived in Lebanon, a country made of a mosaic of religions, among Christians, maronites, catholiques, orthodoxes, and Muslims, sunnis, druzes and shias. I lived part of the civil war and realised that the radicalisation of public opinion is dangerous, that it is always made for belligerant political purposes, that sectarian wars are ugly, that there is individual responsibility in contributing to the stigmatisation of the Other, that there is always more effort to display in order to understand the Other than there is to exclude him, that summary condemnation of the other is a lazy intellectual approach, that applying our standards to the Other and asking for total compliance is pure arrogance, that in every political and military tragedy there is individual responsibility, that our responsibility now as western citizens toward what is going on in the ME is to be first and foremost critical, not of Muslims, not of Iran, not of Shias, not of Sunnis, not of Iraq, not of Afghanistan, but of our own actions and the actions of our governments, otherwise we are making ourselves complicit of our governments illegal wars and the human rights violations and the murderous radicalisations that go with them.
I think as citizens and intellectuals, all we must look for is to understand before we condemn, before we join the chorus that will be responsible tomorrow for what is going on today.
With this perspective in mind I invite you to read and watch the following:
My critique of a prominent Muslim basher
Dove's Eye View: Maria Golia Talks Back To Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
Read Golia's essay on Hirsi Ali here.
Muslim Americans are denied official representation in their country.
Why 'Reading Lolita In Tehran' is not good for your understanding of women issues in Iran.
Was I a good American in the time of George Bush ?
Inside Tehran (an excellent BBC documentary, 1h30')
We have to reverse this curse, the curse of biased information and arrogance about other cultures, the curse of feeling irresponsible as citizens in the stigmatisation and the dehumanisation of the Other.
I know how it feels to be misperceived, stigmatised. I am an immigrant women who crossed three cultural barriers and married a western man. I am not religious, neither from a Muslim upbringing, but I lived in Lebanon, a country made of a mosaic of religions, among Christians, maronites, catholiques, orthodoxes, and Muslims, sunnis, druzes and shias. I lived part of the civil war and realised that the radicalisation of public opinion is dangerous, that it is always made for belligerant political purposes, that sectarian wars are ugly, that there is individual responsibility in contributing to the stigmatisation of the Other, that there is always more effort to display in order to understand the Other than there is to exclude him, that summary condemnation of the other is a lazy intellectual approach, that applying our standards to the Other and asking for total compliance is pure arrogance, that in every political and military tragedy there is individual responsibility, that our responsibility now as western citizens toward what is going on in the ME is to be first and foremost critical, not of Muslims, not of Iran, not of Shias, not of Sunnis, not of Iraq, not of Afghanistan, but of our own actions and the actions of our governments, otherwise we are making ourselves complicit of our governments illegal wars and the human rights violations and the murderous radicalisations that go with them.
I think as citizens and intellectuals, all we must look for is to understand before we condemn, before we join the chorus that will be responsible tomorrow for what is going on today.
With this perspective in mind I invite you to read and watch the following:
My critique of a prominent Muslim basher
Dove's Eye View: Maria Golia Talks Back To Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
Read Golia's essay on Hirsi Ali here.
Muslim Americans are denied official representation in their country.
Why 'Reading Lolita In Tehran' is not good for your understanding of women issues in Iran.
Was I a good American in the time of George Bush ?
Inside Tehran (an excellent BBC documentary, 1h30')
13.3.07
'Gringo Go Home':US Foreign Policy Missed Opportunities in the Americas and the ME
I was trying to find some meaning in the recent moves the US was making in its foreign policy in the ME as they were seen by many as a Turn. I came down to the conclusion that it was only a cosmetic move meant to hide the fact that the US is intent to reject the blame of the Iraqi nightmare on Iraq's neighbours in order to continue its belligerant policies in the ME.
The US should look back at its foreign policy in central and Latin America and ponders what the Middle East would look like in fourty years from now should we be able to grow leaders like Castro, Chavez, Morales, Lula, Bachelet and Kirshner (L'impossible rêve !).
Reading about Bush's recent visits to central and Latin American countries, I had to come down to the same conclusion. Bush never showed a real interest in this America except when he actively sent logistic support to the Venezuelian opposition to undemocratically throw Chavez. After he failed, he didn't show the same persistance as in the ME, he gave up. So what he is up to now visiting what is becoming increasingly anti-Bush territory ? I mean this is like Bin Laden visiting New York. US foreign policy in the Americas during the last forty years has left many American countries with more dead bodies than Bin Laden's terrorist foreign policy toward the US. Chavez wanted to tell Bush this simple fact by meeting with the Argentinian mothers in a show of protest in Buenos Aires.
Watch the video of Chavez's Latin American tour which coincided with Bush's tour:
And it appears that Bush and his administration are up again for some cosmetic surgery trying to help salvage, on the internal front, an embattled republican party, and an increasingly negative image of the US in the world. The failing of US foreign policy in the Americas, a place where this policy could have sized many opportunities to succeed, given the natural geopolitical and historical proximity, should remind the world that the US would in no way be better in dealing with radically different cultures and faraway countries and that the world would be better off without this kind of international leadership than with it.
Even Cubans who have been hoping for some change in their country, are prepared to oppose any US, or US sponsored interference, in their internal affairs. They don't see the US as their saviour, they don't even want their cousins in the US, who pretend to fight for their rights in Cuba, to save them from Castro. They want to be the actors of their own destiny and change, with or without the Castro regime. Cuban expatriates in Miami, who are the most vehement critics of the Castro regime, and probably the most influential group among US republicans and democrats, after Zionists and Christian Zionists, are starting to understand this and to adopt the very tactics they are denouncing in the Castro regime; silencing press freedom in their owned news outlets in order to toughen things up against Castro. They have twice fired a Cuban journalist and opponent to the Castro regime for doing his job with objectivity, unwilling to take a spin approach to journalism by distorting facts and misinforming.
Looking at the disastrous results of the US foreign policies in the Americas and the ME, citizens across the globe understand one thing: they are better off without this foreign policy than with it !
On the subject of US foreign policy from an anti-Bush perspective Candide's Notebooks writes 'What Bush squandered'. But I think it even started before Bush and Bush took the paradigm of bad foreign policy to a point of no return.
The US should look back at its foreign policy in central and Latin America and ponders what the Middle East would look like in fourty years from now should we be able to grow leaders like Castro, Chavez, Morales, Lula, Bachelet and Kirshner (L'impossible rêve !).
Reading about Bush's recent visits to central and Latin American countries, I had to come down to the same conclusion. Bush never showed a real interest in this America except when he actively sent logistic support to the Venezuelian opposition to undemocratically throw Chavez. After he failed, he didn't show the same persistance as in the ME, he gave up. So what he is up to now visiting what is becoming increasingly anti-Bush territory ? I mean this is like Bin Laden visiting New York. US foreign policy in the Americas during the last forty years has left many American countries with more dead bodies than Bin Laden's terrorist foreign policy toward the US. Chavez wanted to tell Bush this simple fact by meeting with the Argentinian mothers in a show of protest in Buenos Aires.
Watch the video of Chavez's Latin American tour which coincided with Bush's tour:
And it appears that Bush and his administration are up again for some cosmetic surgery trying to help salvage, on the internal front, an embattled republican party, and an increasingly negative image of the US in the world. The failing of US foreign policy in the Americas, a place where this policy could have sized many opportunities to succeed, given the natural geopolitical and historical proximity, should remind the world that the US would in no way be better in dealing with radically different cultures and faraway countries and that the world would be better off without this kind of international leadership than with it.
Even Cubans who have been hoping for some change in their country, are prepared to oppose any US, or US sponsored interference, in their internal affairs. They don't see the US as their saviour, they don't even want their cousins in the US, who pretend to fight for their rights in Cuba, to save them from Castro. They want to be the actors of their own destiny and change, with or without the Castro regime. Cuban expatriates in Miami, who are the most vehement critics of the Castro regime, and probably the most influential group among US republicans and democrats, after Zionists and Christian Zionists, are starting to understand this and to adopt the very tactics they are denouncing in the Castro regime; silencing press freedom in their owned news outlets in order to toughen things up against Castro. They have twice fired a Cuban journalist and opponent to the Castro regime for doing his job with objectivity, unwilling to take a spin approach to journalism by distorting facts and misinforming.
Looking at the disastrous results of the US foreign policies in the Americas and the ME, citizens across the globe understand one thing: they are better off without this foreign policy than with it !
©
On the subject of US foreign policy from an anti-Bush perspective Candide's Notebooks writes 'What Bush squandered'. But I think it even started before Bush and Bush took the paradigm of bad foreign policy to a point of no return.
10.3.07
US Policy New 'Turn' in the ME: 'Iraqi Bloodshed Is Not Our Responsibility'
What did I tell you before ? When I heard of an invitation made to Syria and Iran to join talks on security for Iraq's neighbours in Baghdad, I didn't think, like most professional western analysts, that this was a turn in the Bush's adminstration policy in the ME. I immediately thought that this was the Bush adminstration's way to pin the blame of the bloodshed in Iraq on Syria and Iran !
Zionists and Neocons alike have been promoting the idea of a bloodshed between Sunnis and Shias as the main obstacle to peace and stabilisation in Iraq. Forgotten are the first gulf war, the embargos on Iraqi populations, the 2003 illegal invasion of Iraq and the destruction of a whole country and society, the looting of Iraq's oil resources and cultural heritage, and the presence of 150000 active US soldiers making sure Iraqi puppet politicians are doing what the US asks them to do. Now we are invited to believe that the problem of Iraq is between the hands of Sunnis and shias in Iraq and the rest of the ME. From now on, the nightmare in the ME is not the US and Israel's faults, it is the fault of Muslims fighting each other and Palestinian factions fighting each other. Some Arab fools are buying into this narrative, king Abdullah of Jordan for example. Speaking of, why Jordan is not named as responsible for Iraq's security ? That's a question the Bush adminstration would have to answer and that no journalist will ask.
Today, at the opening of the talks, US puppet Iraqi prime minister Nouri El Maliki is reproted to have ''issued a stern warning that unless Iraq's neighbours - including Iran and Syria - united to help to shut down networks supplying both Sunni and Shia extremists, Iraq's escalating sectarian bloodshed would inevitably engulf the Middle East.''
And to realise that this conference on the stabilisation of iraq is a farce one must listen to puppet Maliki asking neighboring countries to stop their interference in Iraq while he seems to be confortable with 150000 USW soldiers in his country and a US adminstration dictating Iraqi policies.
Well, the US wages illegal wars in the world and asks others to take responsibility for the post-war stabilisation. As in Afghanistan where an alliance, once powerful, is battling a guerrilla made of few radicals and fundamentalists.
Nobody should follow the US on this path. Reason must prevail and countries around the world should boycott the Bush adminstration or any adminstration who conducts such a failing and irrational policy. This nonsense must stop ! We shoudl ask our governments not only to stop supporting this policy but to fight it tirelessely to curb the actual terrible state of the world !
Angry Arab's first comment on the conference of Iraqi neighbours.
Angry Arab's second comment on the conference of Iraqi neighbours.
Zionists and Neocons alike have been promoting the idea of a bloodshed between Sunnis and Shias as the main obstacle to peace and stabilisation in Iraq. Forgotten are the first gulf war, the embargos on Iraqi populations, the 2003 illegal invasion of Iraq and the destruction of a whole country and society, the looting of Iraq's oil resources and cultural heritage, and the presence of 150000 active US soldiers making sure Iraqi puppet politicians are doing what the US asks them to do. Now we are invited to believe that the problem of Iraq is between the hands of Sunnis and shias in Iraq and the rest of the ME. From now on, the nightmare in the ME is not the US and Israel's faults, it is the fault of Muslims fighting each other and Palestinian factions fighting each other. Some Arab fools are buying into this narrative, king Abdullah of Jordan for example. Speaking of, why Jordan is not named as responsible for Iraq's security ? That's a question the Bush adminstration would have to answer and that no journalist will ask.
Today, at the opening of the talks, US puppet Iraqi prime minister Nouri El Maliki is reproted to have ''issued a stern warning that unless Iraq's neighbours - including Iran and Syria - united to help to shut down networks supplying both Sunni and Shia extremists, Iraq's escalating sectarian bloodshed would inevitably engulf the Middle East.''
And to realise that this conference on the stabilisation of iraq is a farce one must listen to puppet Maliki asking neighboring countries to stop their interference in Iraq while he seems to be confortable with 150000 USW soldiers in his country and a US adminstration dictating Iraqi policies.
Well, the US wages illegal wars in the world and asks others to take responsibility for the post-war stabilisation. As in Afghanistan where an alliance, once powerful, is battling a guerrilla made of few radicals and fundamentalists.
Nobody should follow the US on this path. Reason must prevail and countries around the world should boycott the Bush adminstration or any adminstration who conducts such a failing and irrational policy. This nonsense must stop ! We shoudl ask our governments not only to stop supporting this policy but to fight it tirelessely to curb the actual terrible state of the world !
Angry Arab's first comment on the conference of Iraqi neighbours.
Angry Arab's second comment on the conference of Iraqi neighbours.
9.3.07
Nicolas Sarkozy: Danger Public
Ce n'est pas moi qui l'ai dit mais Michel Rocard. Cependant, j'avais jugé que Rocard exagérait un peu mais je lui pardonnais. J'ai toujours aimé le franc-parler de Rocard.
En lisant les dépêches dans Le Monde aujourd'hui, j'ai réalisé que Nicolas Sarkozy est prêt à tout. Sentant venir le danger, ou le passage de Bayrou au premier tour, et alors que tous les sondages donnent Bayrou gagnant par une grande marge contre Sarkozy au deuxième, Sarkozy commence à ratisser large sur le terrain du Front National. C'est sa seule porte de sortie. Il le faisait avant, de manière peu subtile, mais cette fois-ci il le fait sur le terrain idéologique. En voulant créer un ministère de l'immigration et de l'identité nationale, Sarkozy veut créer un obstacle à l'intégration, une division permanente au sein de la société française et y implémenter les racines d'une vraie colère.
Monsieur Hollande y voit un 'flirt' avec le Front National. Pas étonnant que je sois réticente à voter pour les socialistes. Monsieur Hollande n'a encore rien compris. Sarkozy ne flirte pas, il ne couche pas avec le Front National, il fait le mur pour coucher avec tous les clients du Front National et les lui voler. Avec sa proposition, Sarkozy est déjà loin devant le Front sur le plan idéologique. Même Le Pen n'a pas imaginé une pareille honte. Une honte aussi que Mme Simone Veil ait choisi de donner son soutien à ce raicste idéologue populiste.
On ne joue pas avec les identités, elles se construisent d'elles-mêmes au sein des familles, dans un système de valeurs et dans l'enagement social et culurel. Ou alors si on le fait, c'est par le biais de la biologie. On ne régule pas la société d'en haut. Sarkozy serait-il interventionniste en matière sociale et culturelle et néolibéral, non interventionniste en matière d'économie ? Le modèle chinois quoi.
A quand un ministère de l'Eugénisme monsieur Sarkozy ?
En lisant les dépêches dans Le Monde aujourd'hui, j'ai réalisé que Nicolas Sarkozy est prêt à tout. Sentant venir le danger, ou le passage de Bayrou au premier tour, et alors que tous les sondages donnent Bayrou gagnant par une grande marge contre Sarkozy au deuxième, Sarkozy commence à ratisser large sur le terrain du Front National. C'est sa seule porte de sortie. Il le faisait avant, de manière peu subtile, mais cette fois-ci il le fait sur le terrain idéologique. En voulant créer un ministère de l'immigration et de l'identité nationale, Sarkozy veut créer un obstacle à l'intégration, une division permanente au sein de la société française et y implémenter les racines d'une vraie colère.
Monsieur Hollande y voit un 'flirt' avec le Front National. Pas étonnant que je sois réticente à voter pour les socialistes. Monsieur Hollande n'a encore rien compris. Sarkozy ne flirte pas, il ne couche pas avec le Front National, il fait le mur pour coucher avec tous les clients du Front National et les lui voler. Avec sa proposition, Sarkozy est déjà loin devant le Front sur le plan idéologique. Même Le Pen n'a pas imaginé une pareille honte. Une honte aussi que Mme Simone Veil ait choisi de donner son soutien à ce raicste idéologue populiste.
On ne joue pas avec les identités, elles se construisent d'elles-mêmes au sein des familles, dans un système de valeurs et dans l'enagement social et culurel. Ou alors si on le fait, c'est par le biais de la biologie. On ne régule pas la société d'en haut. Sarkozy serait-il interventionniste en matière sociale et culturelle et néolibéral, non interventionniste en matière d'économie ? Le modèle chinois quoi.
A quand un ministère de l'Eugénisme monsieur Sarkozy ?
8.3.07
Viva Gabriel 80 Más!
Gabriel Garcia Marquez turned 80. He enchanted my youth with his novels. I read the translations of his books in French and I am rereading them now in Spanish. He is the most prolific and generous of Latino-American authors I read, along with his foe and friend with whom he reconciled recently, Mario Vargas Llosa.
UPDATE: It seems that the reconciliation story published by The Guardian a while ago has no serious ground.
The fight is thirty years old and there is are new revelations about it from Marquez.
UPDATE: It seems that the reconciliation story published by The Guardian a while ago has no serious ground.
The fight is thirty years old and there is are new revelations about it from Marquez.
Baudrillard et la guerre contre le terrorisme
Baudrillard serait mort avant que cette guerre contre le terrorisme qu'il a pourfendue ne nous ait probablement encore livré toutes ses horreurs.
Moins de deux mois après les événements du 11 septembre il publiait ce texte sur le terrorisme et la guerre contre le terrorisme tels qu'ils nous parviennent à travers les média: 'L'esprit du Terrorisme'.
Quand j'ai lu le texte j'ai senti que je n'avais plus besoin de lire d'autres analyses sur le sujet. Tout est là. Lisez. And if you don't read French, here is a translation of 'L'esprit du terrorisme' which became instantly a classic widely discussed and taught in Academia.
Here you can find an article I wrote on this blog discussing terrorisme and the war against terrorism with some of the conceptual tools found in Baudrillard's text.
Here is an article discussing 'L'esprit du terrorisme'.
A brief presentation of Baudrillard on this blog.
Moins de deux mois après les événements du 11 septembre il publiait ce texte sur le terrorisme et la guerre contre le terrorisme tels qu'ils nous parviennent à travers les média: 'L'esprit du Terrorisme'.
Quand j'ai lu le texte j'ai senti que je n'avais plus besoin de lire d'autres analyses sur le sujet. Tout est là. Lisez. And if you don't read French, here is a translation of 'L'esprit du terrorisme' which became instantly a classic widely discussed and taught in Academia.
Here you can find an article I wrote on this blog discussing terrorisme and the war against terrorism with some of the conceptual tools found in Baudrillard's text.
Here is an article discussing 'L'esprit du terrorisme'.
A brief presentation of Baudrillard on this blog.
We Are the Willful Blinds
Trials of Guantanamo suspects begin without a lawyer or reporter in sight.
Justice could be blind as long as we can watch its process and know it is fair. From now on, Justice's blindness is hidden to us and we don't know if it is blind because it was decided by decree that we should become the willful blinds.
Thanks to Kel at The Osterley Times
Justice could be blind as long as we can watch its process and know it is fair. From now on, Justice's blindness is hidden to us and we don't know if it is blind because it was decided by decree that we should become the willful blinds.
Thanks to Kel at The Osterley Times
7.3.07
Sands of Sorrow (1950)
Thanks to Elizabeth and Akram Awad
A whole nation, more than fifty years on, in refugee camps. Shame on the world !
Morally Schocking: Choosing Israel, Not The Hamptons !
US Liberals: A Brief Look in the Mirror
A good point in a good text on what is behind the consensus the US government is always capable of manufacturing for its colonial wars, published by fellow Lebanese blogger UrShalim with the kind permission of the author.
6.3.07
Irving Lewis Libby: Guilty !
It is this simple fact, the uncovering of a lie in a chain of lies and deception that will affect the course of foreign policy of the Bush adminstration more than anything else. For to keep the ugly truth for itself this administration had to lie, small lies, big lies, any size.
The neocon ideology and agenda rest entirely on lies. Should we halt these conspirators we must continue chasing their lies down their memory holes, track their web of false beliefs and smoke them out. The stakes are great, they are not ideological, they are humanitarian. There are men, women and children dying from their lies, there are shattered lives, mourning parents and families, an entire region wrecked, an entire religion persecuted and marginalised, and a nastier world.
The Libby verdict must become an indiction for every man and woman involved in this criminal ideology that is the neocon ideology and it must become the wake up call for self criticism starting with the western 'free' press who stupidly swallowed the neocon lies and gave them the mantle of objective information. Otherwise, if we don't follow in uncovering the lies, prosecuting them and learning from them, the Libby verdict would be useless. It would come to symbolise the accidental fall of one unlucky man instead of symbolising the will of the people of the free 'world' to rise against soft opression dressed in anti-terror law.
We owe it to the children of Iraq, the children of Lebanon and the children of Palestine, all these children who died as 'pirthpangs' for the Neocons Middle East, to bring down the people who performed at great lenght the art of the big lie forgetting in the process that some things have changed since Goebbels including our unwillingness to live in a constant state of fear and war.
The neocon ideology and agenda rest entirely on lies. Should we halt these conspirators we must continue chasing their lies down their memory holes, track their web of false beliefs and smoke them out. The stakes are great, they are not ideological, they are humanitarian. There are men, women and children dying from their lies, there are shattered lives, mourning parents and families, an entire region wrecked, an entire religion persecuted and marginalised, and a nastier world.
The Libby verdict must become an indiction for every man and woman involved in this criminal ideology that is the neocon ideology and it must become the wake up call for self criticism starting with the western 'free' press who stupidly swallowed the neocon lies and gave them the mantle of objective information. Otherwise, if we don't follow in uncovering the lies, prosecuting them and learning from them, the Libby verdict would be useless. It would come to symbolise the accidental fall of one unlucky man instead of symbolising the will of the people of the free 'world' to rise against soft opression dressed in anti-terror law.
We owe it to the children of Iraq, the children of Lebanon and the children of Palestine, all these children who died as 'pirthpangs' for the Neocons Middle East, to bring down the people who performed at great lenght the art of the big lie forgetting in the process that some things have changed since Goebbels including our unwillingness to live in a constant state of fear and war.
Saudi Arabia's Recent Diplomacy Moves and What they Mean
This is the second time in the short recent hsitory of the third millenium that Saudi Arabia is in the spotlight. The first time was September eleventh 2001 when the world woke up to a reality partially created by the discontent of the educated elite of the kingdom toward what they perceived as their kingdom's rulers submissive attitude to the United States. Recently, Saudi Arabia has been displaying active diplomatic efforts in order to appease four major conflicts in the ME :
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict where it contributed to bolster an agreement on a potential national unity government for the Palestinians that can be approved by Israel and the west potentially creating the conditions to lift the sanctions on the present Hamas Palestinian government;
The Lebanese conflict, where it is said that the kingdom has succeeded in promoting a unity government reintegrating the opposition at a level of 11 ministers to 19 from the US backed March 14th movement;
Its own perceived conflict with the rise of Iran as a regional power and the ensuing row this rise has created with the US and Israel;
The Sunni-Shia divide fueled both by the recent rise of Iran's profile in the region amid anti US sentiments among Muslims and Arabs, and by the War on Iraq and the adoption for the Iraqi colonised state of an unjust constitution fueling current sectarian tensions in the presence of more than 150 000 US soldiers watching and participating in this sectarian conflict;
Behind the curtains, Saudi Arabia has been active also promoting friendly relations between the kingdom and Israel.
How are we to interpret all this ? We can interpret all this in light of Saudi Arabia's willingness to differentiate itself from USrael's policies in the ME. Because on all four accounts, the Palestinian problem, the Lebanese problem, the Iranian problem and the Iraqi problem, the present attitude of the US is not gearing toward conciliation. Usrael has signalled that it might not accept a unity government between Fatah and Hamas. Bush and Rice, after recently inviting Iran and Syria to talks on the security in Iraq rushed to signal to their puppet Lebanese government of Fouad Sanyura, supported for its open hostility to Syria, that nothing will change in the Bush administration support for the present government. This might suggest that Sanyura will not feel pressured to form a unity government as long as the Bush administration want to have its say, despite Saudi mediation.
On the Iranian issue, the US has clearly worked toward pressuring the members of the UN security council for more restrictive financial and economic sanctions at the same time it was inviting Iran for talks on the security in Iraq.
On the Iraqi front, the Iraqi parliament has just approved the new law to privatise Iraqi oil despite a public outcry from the main oil workers union accusing the Iraqi government of giving away the country's main revenue at a time the people of Iraq badly need this revenue. The law perpetuates the new sectarian unequalities while depriving the country from an essential resource and plunging it more into poverty making the continuation of the present sectarian wars more likely, with the addition of new ones threatening Iran, Syria and Turkey, coming from what the western press is hypocritically calling 'The Kurdish Rebellion'*, instead of attributing to this western friendly movement the etiquette of terrorism attributed routinely to resistance or rebellious movements non friendly to the West. Morever, the whole Iraq war is starting to appear more and more as a prerun to a war against Iran and I stated this on two occasions on this blog.
As Alain Gresh, from le Monde Diplomatique writes, the results of recent Saudi Arabia efforts to calm things down in the ME depend on one simple fact: How much Saudi Arabia is independant from the US, and by implication, from Irsael ? The answer is: Not Much. Giving that Israel has been thriving on the sectarian divisions that are current now in the Middle East and has been hoping for a Sunni-Shia war spreading to the entire region, and even working on those divisions, I can sadly state, and I am not bound like regular journalists and official commentators of the ME by a deep respect for the rulers of the Saudi kingdom, that, unless the US is genuine in its move to engage in the stabilisation of Iraq and the ME, the recent moves of the kingdom can retrospectively be seen only as cosmetic with the goal to salvage the ever deteriorating image of Saudi Arabia in the Arab and Muslim public opinions. Everybody knows that the history of the kingdom is one of total interdependance on western powers. It started just after the UK sponsored Arab victory on the Ottomans with the help of Lawrence of Arabia granting the Hijazi king Fayçal family the rule over Syria, Iraq and Jordan in exchange for his approval of the Balfour declaration creating a zionist state in Palestine. It continued with the US-Saudi secret wars against the communists in the ME and culminating with the partnership in the war against the Russians in Afghanistan, and continue to this day creating an interdependance of the Saudi regime and western powers which is becoming more and more in favor of the interests of the US, especially after the events of 9/11, and less and less in favor of the Saudi regime. Because the destabilisation of the entire Middle East is becoming, not only detrimental, but suicidal to the Saudi regime.
AhmadiNejad knows all this. If he didn't, you wouldn't see him smiling, hand in hand with the Saudi king...
*'Avec les rebelles kurdes à Qandil', Le Monde 02.03.07, Cécile Hennion
Turcs, Iraniens ou Syriens, des milliers de combattants kurdes campent dans les montagnes du Kurdistan irakien, au grand dam de Téhéran et d'Ankara. Les Américains disent ne pas les aider.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict where it contributed to bolster an agreement on a potential national unity government for the Palestinians that can be approved by Israel and the west potentially creating the conditions to lift the sanctions on the present Hamas Palestinian government;
The Lebanese conflict, where it is said that the kingdom has succeeded in promoting a unity government reintegrating the opposition at a level of 11 ministers to 19 from the US backed March 14th movement;
Its own perceived conflict with the rise of Iran as a regional power and the ensuing row this rise has created with the US and Israel;
The Sunni-Shia divide fueled both by the recent rise of Iran's profile in the region amid anti US sentiments among Muslims and Arabs, and by the War on Iraq and the adoption for the Iraqi colonised state of an unjust constitution fueling current sectarian tensions in the presence of more than 150 000 US soldiers watching and participating in this sectarian conflict;
Behind the curtains, Saudi Arabia has been active also promoting friendly relations between the kingdom and Israel.
How are we to interpret all this ? We can interpret all this in light of Saudi Arabia's willingness to differentiate itself from USrael's policies in the ME. Because on all four accounts, the Palestinian problem, the Lebanese problem, the Iranian problem and the Iraqi problem, the present attitude of the US is not gearing toward conciliation. Usrael has signalled that it might not accept a unity government between Fatah and Hamas. Bush and Rice, after recently inviting Iran and Syria to talks on the security in Iraq rushed to signal to their puppet Lebanese government of Fouad Sanyura, supported for its open hostility to Syria, that nothing will change in the Bush administration support for the present government. This might suggest that Sanyura will not feel pressured to form a unity government as long as the Bush administration want to have its say, despite Saudi mediation.
On the Iranian issue, the US has clearly worked toward pressuring the members of the UN security council for more restrictive financial and economic sanctions at the same time it was inviting Iran for talks on the security in Iraq.
On the Iraqi front, the Iraqi parliament has just approved the new law to privatise Iraqi oil despite a public outcry from the main oil workers union accusing the Iraqi government of giving away the country's main revenue at a time the people of Iraq badly need this revenue. The law perpetuates the new sectarian unequalities while depriving the country from an essential resource and plunging it more into poverty making the continuation of the present sectarian wars more likely, with the addition of new ones threatening Iran, Syria and Turkey, coming from what the western press is hypocritically calling 'The Kurdish Rebellion'*, instead of attributing to this western friendly movement the etiquette of terrorism attributed routinely to resistance or rebellious movements non friendly to the West. Morever, the whole Iraq war is starting to appear more and more as a prerun to a war against Iran and I stated this on two occasions on this blog.
As Alain Gresh, from le Monde Diplomatique writes, the results of recent Saudi Arabia efforts to calm things down in the ME depend on one simple fact: How much Saudi Arabia is independant from the US, and by implication, from Irsael ? The answer is: Not Much. Giving that Israel has been thriving on the sectarian divisions that are current now in the Middle East and has been hoping for a Sunni-Shia war spreading to the entire region, and even working on those divisions, I can sadly state, and I am not bound like regular journalists and official commentators of the ME by a deep respect for the rulers of the Saudi kingdom, that, unless the US is genuine in its move to engage in the stabilisation of Iraq and the ME, the recent moves of the kingdom can retrospectively be seen only as cosmetic with the goal to salvage the ever deteriorating image of Saudi Arabia in the Arab and Muslim public opinions. Everybody knows that the history of the kingdom is one of total interdependance on western powers. It started just after the UK sponsored Arab victory on the Ottomans with the help of Lawrence of Arabia granting the Hijazi king Fayçal family the rule over Syria, Iraq and Jordan in exchange for his approval of the Balfour declaration creating a zionist state in Palestine. It continued with the US-Saudi secret wars against the communists in the ME and culminating with the partnership in the war against the Russians in Afghanistan, and continue to this day creating an interdependance of the Saudi regime and western powers which is becoming more and more in favor of the interests of the US, especially after the events of 9/11, and less and less in favor of the Saudi regime. Because the destabilisation of the entire Middle East is becoming, not only detrimental, but suicidal to the Saudi regime.
AhmadiNejad knows all this. If he didn't, you wouldn't see him smiling, hand in hand with the Saudi king...
*'Avec les rebelles kurdes à Qandil', Le Monde 02.03.07, Cécile Hennion
Turcs, Iraniens ou Syriens, des milliers de combattants kurdes campent dans les montagnes du Kurdistan irakien, au grand dam de Téhéran et d'Ankara. Les Américains disent ne pas les aider.
Ayatollahs against AhmadiNejad
Demagogy, Unfulfilled Promises, Incompetence. Without naming AhmadiNejad, these are the words with which this notable Ayatollah from Qom and close to the now deceased first guide of the revolution and ex-president Khomeini describes the political situation in Iran to Le Monde's special correspondant.
And I must add that these are the same words one can use to describe Bush, Blair, Rice and the neocons.
" The Qoran teaches us that we should never do to the other what we don't want to be done to us. The Holocaust is history. Are we going to change the history of Nations ? I don'T understand why the government has taken this initiative for a conference on the Holocaust. . This is bad for Iran and for Islam. ''
This Ayatollah thinks that Ali Akbar Hachemi Rafsandjani, former presidential hopeful, should be the man ruling Iran and pulling it from its troubles.
Is this an isolated appreciation asks Le Monde's correspondant ? The answer is No. The Grand Ayatollah Saanei reflects the mainstream opinion among Ayatollahs in Iran toward AhmadiNejad. "AhmadiNejad has one support in Qom, the fundamentalist Ayatollah Mesbah-Yazdi, two or three others and some radicals. Most Ayatollah are against the 'religious populism' of AhmadiNejad and the social tensions that go with it. They prefer the ex president Rafsandjani, a highly educated cleric, adn a pragmatic who knos how to manage crises." ... ''Most Ayatollahs want a more open government. They fear that the politic of intransigeance that is being conducted in the name of religion is going to weaken the religion and the country alltogether".Another Ayatollah mentioned the social problems pervasive among youths in modern Iran and considered that the government is ignoring these problems and diverting its energy from them...
Every war waged against a foreign country without a valid pretext in matters of national defense is a war waged against the people from the inside tio hide the problems the nation is facing at a specific moment of its history. This is firstly true of the US, and it is being generalised to the entire world with the new US foreign policy because wherever the US is facing countries with internal problems, it is promoting, by its belligerant attitude which radicalises the population, those leaders like AhamdiNejad, who have the same way of reacting to the internal problems of their country, by exporting its malaise...
La vacuité du nouvel orientalisme
Français, on s'entend, car celui des États-Unis et de l'Angleterre est non seulement vide et mercantile mais aussi meurtrier (voir guerre en Palestine et en Iraq).
Lire aussi la discussion autour de ce texte qui s'est amorcée dans la section des commentaires de ce post sur le blog de Ibn Kafka. Ainsi que l'article de Ibn Kafka sur le sort incertain réservé à L'Institut du Monde Arabe à Paris, fleuron de la diffusion de la culture arabe dans le monde Français et francophone.
Lire aussi la discussion autour de ce texte qui s'est amorcée dans la section des commentaires de ce post sur le blog de Ibn Kafka. Ainsi que l'article de Ibn Kafka sur le sort incertain réservé à L'Institut du Monde Arabe à Paris, fleuron de la diffusion de la culture arabe dans le monde Français et francophone.
4.3.07
Jews Against a Jewish Vote for Sarkozy
Nicolas Sarkozy, French presidential hopeful, has been courting the 'Jewish' vote. But we are told that there is no strictly speaking Jewish vote in France as there is no Jewish vote in the US. What do we really know about that ? What we know is that there is indeed a community voice, and most of the time, this voice, even if it does not represent a homogenous attitude, neither the opinion of the majority in the community, is the only voice heard, and it is heard through the official voice of the state of Israel. When a candidate courts the Jewish community, the real influence is established through Israel where the public stand for the candidate becomes official and reverberates on the diaspora. The support committee for Sarkozy in Israel, for example, has just emitted a post stamp honoring Nicolas Sarkozy for his open support for the Jewish state ! (An information found by Ibn Kafka) This measure can have a certain influence when we consider that most French Jews are binationals and serve in the Israeli army ! Sarkozy's own advisor at the interior ministry, Arno Klarsfeld, has fought in the Israeli army, not only against the Palestinians but also during Israel's wars on Lebanon !
When Jews are binationals there is great chance that they are not going to vote against the interests, or what is officially considered as the interests, of the state of Israel !
I think the initiative of France's Jews is to be commended but it will bear little weight for the rest of the community when compared with the open enthusiasm of the Jewish state for the candidate Sarkozy. This is what is wrong with Israel as a Jewish state; it monoplises Jewishness, absorbs any diversity within the Jewish community and marginalises it, reducing it to a secondary phenomenon at best ar a self hating enterprise at worst, because every Jew who will be against Israel will be considered as being against all Jews. Thus the Jews of the diaspora cannot behave as free individuals, their political choices are always dictated by the community choice and the community choice is always in the direction pointed by the state of Israel. Individual Jews can always mark their difference of opinion but it will never be heard because what is heard in the community is the voice of Israel as a Jewish only state !
When Jews are binationals there is great chance that they are not going to vote against the interests, or what is officially considered as the interests, of the state of Israel !
I think the initiative of France's Jews is to be commended but it will bear little weight for the rest of the community when compared with the open enthusiasm of the Jewish state for the candidate Sarkozy. This is what is wrong with Israel as a Jewish state; it monoplises Jewishness, absorbs any diversity within the Jewish community and marginalises it, reducing it to a secondary phenomenon at best ar a self hating enterprise at worst, because every Jew who will be against Israel will be considered as being against all Jews. Thus the Jews of the diaspora cannot behave as free individuals, their political choices are always dictated by the community choice and the community choice is always in the direction pointed by the state of Israel. Individual Jews can always mark their difference of opinion but it will never be heard because what is heard in the community is the voice of Israel as a Jewish only state !
3.3.07
Kundera The Novelist
Milan Kundera writing on his art, on the wirter's displaced Self and on the transactional relationship between Fiction and Reality in the Novel.
A great piece.
A great piece.
2.3.07
US Foreign Policy 'New Turn' Leaving Many Wondering
The New US Foreign Policy 'Turn' convening Iran and Syria to a conference on the stabilisation of Iraq is taking its closest allies and puppet governments in the ME by surprise.
Lebanese Sanyura's US/Saudi puppet government and its champions on the Lebanese Political scene are afraid they might be 'Sedotta e Abbandonata' by the US once again - it happened in the past- in favor of talks and normalisation of relations with Syria. Rice had to reassure former militia leader and present leader of the pro-Sanyura government March 14th movement, Walid Jumblatt, that Lebanon is still dear and close to her heart (as when it was bombarded by Israel and its children dying by the hundreds).
Meanwhile, the six members of the UN security council have agreed on a framework for another resolution on Iran if it does not stop enriching Uranium. They seem to be heading for specific economic sanctions which can become more and more constraining for Iran.
It is no coincidence that this agreement of the UN security council comes at a moment the US is inviting Tehran to a conference on Iraq. In exchange for showing a will to stabilise Iraq and talk with Syria and Iran, the US was able to extract from the members of the security council an agreement of principle on future sanctions against Tehran. If Iraq is not stabilised, the US, who had a hard time making the case against Iran, will at least complain about Iran's uncooperativeness in the Iraqi dossier and push further the case of Iran helping the Iraqi insurgency. Tehran's decision about the conference on Iraq is not known yet, and the US made it clear that the question of Iran's nuclear program will not be discussed neither weighed in during the Iraq talks. Iran is cornered. Should it participate or not, its role in the stabilisation of Iraq and the US's willingness to implicate Iran in this process are now a public opinion matter and the US will make sure to pin the blame on Iran turning public opinion in the west against Iran when it comes to justify the situation in Iraq. It seems that the US has at least set the stage for Iran, which is to exert continuous and increasing constraints, including the increased military presence in the Gulf, manufacturing a consensus both inside the US and outside on the international scene against Iran. The goal will be to weaken and isolate Iran on the regional and international scenes while making the case against it more stronger.
In this context, the invitation sent to Iran and Syria for a conference on Iraq appears to me more about Iran then it is about Iraq. It is part of the US maneouvers to keep Iran pressured while appearing at the world stage as willing to talk. We should not therefore expect any miltary action against Iran soon but surely escalation in the threats and the sanctions. Unable to go to war against Iran, the US has chosen to weaken it before any military action, while appearing at the same time to be outside a logic of war by inviting Iran to talks on Iraq...The conference on Iraq is more than two years late and is likely to produce nothing for the Iraqi people.
Le Monde's Corine Lesne published an analysis of the US strategy toward Iran on february 17th in which she argues that the US is trying to 'strangle' Iran economically as it did against Hamas, North Korea, and recently Sudan.
Lesne concludes:
''Affaiblis sur le plan politique et militaire, les Etats-Unis entendent utiliser la puissance qui reste entière : Wall Street.'' which translates: weakened politically and miltarily, the US wants to use against Iran the power that is still theirs, Wall Street.
There is no turn in the recent moves we are witnessing in US foreign policy. What we are witnessing is an administration weakened abroad and at home, trying to pursue its belligerant policy by other means, even if it means doing so on the expanse of the stability of the entire ME. I did not discuss the frenetic diplomatic intiatives of Saudi Arabia because I think they are irrelevant. They are dictated by Bush and Co and intended to lull the defiance, suspicion and mistrust the Arab public opinion hold now against the US and its closest ally in the region, Saudi Arabia.
In light of all this I can say that I am not among the wonderers ! And I predict another turn when the time will come this administration will feel stronger enough to wage a military war Iran . And everybody, including the dovish left and anti-war movements worldwide, will be taken by surprise ! We should not look for TURNS in US policies in the ME right now, we should look for logical continuities and how an administration which is weak, both on the domestic and international fronts, is building the case for another illegal war in the ME. This is not a turn in foreign policy, this is political deception !
Lebanese Sanyura's US/Saudi puppet government and its champions on the Lebanese Political scene are afraid they might be 'Sedotta e Abbandonata' by the US once again - it happened in the past- in favor of talks and normalisation of relations with Syria. Rice had to reassure former militia leader and present leader of the pro-Sanyura government March 14th movement, Walid Jumblatt, that Lebanon is still dear and close to her heart (as when it was bombarded by Israel and its children dying by the hundreds).
Les Libanais redoutent les conséquences d'une reprise de contact entre Washington, Damas et Téhéran
LE MONDE 02.03.07
In its March 3rd electronic edition (link not available yet), Le Monde publishes an article Titled: 'Iraq: Paris is cautious (circumspect) towards US diplomatic turn'. The article author, Nathalie Nougayrède, reminds us that Chirac became very close to US policy on matters related to Lebanon. In addition, the personal and close ties Chirac entertains with some Lebanese anti-Syrian Politicians supported by the US, like Saad Hariri, have contributed to France's isolation from Syria and the Middle East scene the US seems to be opening now.LE MONDE 02.03.07
©
Meanwhile, the six members of the UN security council have agreed on a framework for another resolution on Iran if it does not stop enriching Uranium. They seem to be heading for specific economic sanctions which can become more and more constraining for Iran.
Les Six sont "d'accord sur le cadre" d'une nouvelle résolution sur le nucléaire iranien
LEMONDE.FR 02.03.07
LEMONDE.FR 02.03.07
©
It is no coincidence that this agreement of the UN security council comes at a moment the US is inviting Tehran to a conference on Iraq. In exchange for showing a will to stabilise Iraq and talk with Syria and Iran, the US was able to extract from the members of the security council an agreement of principle on future sanctions against Tehran. If Iraq is not stabilised, the US, who had a hard time making the case against Iran, will at least complain about Iran's uncooperativeness in the Iraqi dossier and push further the case of Iran helping the Iraqi insurgency. Tehran's decision about the conference on Iraq is not known yet, and the US made it clear that the question of Iran's nuclear program will not be discussed neither weighed in during the Iraq talks. Iran is cornered. Should it participate or not, its role in the stabilisation of Iraq and the US's willingness to implicate Iran in this process are now a public opinion matter and the US will make sure to pin the blame on Iran turning public opinion in the west against Iran when it comes to justify the situation in Iraq. It seems that the US has at least set the stage for Iran, which is to exert continuous and increasing constraints, including the increased military presence in the Gulf, manufacturing a consensus both inside the US and outside on the international scene against Iran. The goal will be to weaken and isolate Iran on the regional and international scenes while making the case against it more stronger.
In this context, the invitation sent to Iran and Syria for a conference on Iraq appears to me more about Iran then it is about Iraq. It is part of the US maneouvers to keep Iran pressured while appearing at the world stage as willing to talk. We should not therefore expect any miltary action against Iran soon but surely escalation in the threats and the sanctions. Unable to go to war against Iran, the US has chosen to weaken it before any military action, while appearing at the same time to be outside a logic of war by inviting Iran to talks on Iraq...The conference on Iraq is more than two years late and is likely to produce nothing for the Iraqi people.
Le Monde's Corine Lesne published an analysis of the US strategy toward Iran on february 17th in which she argues that the US is trying to 'strangle' Iran economically as it did against Hamas, North Korea, and recently Sudan.
Lesne concludes:
''Affaiblis sur le plan politique et militaire, les Etats-Unis entendent utiliser la puissance qui reste entière : Wall Street.'' which translates: weakened politically and miltarily, the US wants to use against Iran the power that is still theirs, Wall Street.
There is no turn in the recent moves we are witnessing in US foreign policy. What we are witnessing is an administration weakened abroad and at home, trying to pursue its belligerant policy by other means, even if it means doing so on the expanse of the stability of the entire ME. I did not discuss the frenetic diplomatic intiatives of Saudi Arabia because I think they are irrelevant. They are dictated by Bush and Co and intended to lull the defiance, suspicion and mistrust the Arab public opinion hold now against the US and its closest ally in the region, Saudi Arabia.
In light of all this I can say that I am not among the wonderers ! And I predict another turn when the time will come this administration will feel stronger enough to wage a military war Iran . And everybody, including the dovish left and anti-war movements worldwide, will be taken by surprise ! We should not look for TURNS in US policies in the ME right now, we should look for logical continuities and how an administration which is weak, both on the domestic and international fronts, is building the case for another illegal war in the ME. This is not a turn in foreign policy, this is political deception !
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Since March 29th 2006