Intervention in the Name of Stability

Intervention in the Name of Stability

Professor Noam Chomsky recently delivered an important address in Amsterdam entitled “Contours of the World Order.”(1)

A large part of the speech was devoted to the role of the US in defending its area of absolute hegemony. According to Chomsky’s excellent analysis, the United States relates to all countries with a simple rule of behavior. They must honor obligations stemming from US control and domination and governments which refuse to behave according to this universal principle will be the objects of US reprisals up to and including direct military threat to their very existence. Chomsky sums it up with his characteristic incisiveness. If you are on the US team, then you are part of the stability that must be treasured above all else. If you challenge US hegemony, you are an enemy of stability.

It is necessary to understand that this US policy has nothing to do with the internal nature of the given regime. Iraq was attacked, as we suspected, because it challenged US dictates regarding its use of its own oil. The nature of Sadaam Hussein’s regime or the scope of his repression against the people of Iraq was totally irrelevant when the US decided that he was getting out of line.

Regarding Iran, Chomsky explains that no military or security danger emanates from the Islamic Republic. The simple truth is that the carefully cultivated US-Israeli hysteria build-up stems from Iran’s success in the diplomatic and political field.

Apologetics for USNATO Intervention

It is almost a full time job following the intensive debate in large sections of the left regarding the USNATO intervention in Libya. The pro-interventionist current has an important spokesperson in the highly respected person of Prof. Gilbert Achcar, a theoretician close to the radical left. Achcar, who speaks for a minority of the left, supported UN intervention, and the “no fly” zone, but did criticize the interpretation of the UNSC 1973 which allowed for bombing the country. Achcar holds to the position that the USNATO intervention was justified by the danger to Benghazi which would have fallen to the merciless Gadaffi. In his most recent comments on events in Libya, Achcar warns against foreign “boots on the ground” but sticks to his support for the rebels National Transitional Council, and calls for massive arms shipments to the rebels.(2)

This position appears to your humble correspondent to be seriously flawed. Senator John McCain was in Benghazi this week also calling for arms for the rebels. At this point in the debate we have thoroughly examined all the theoretical approaches to the question and have entered the world of practical politics. A war is going on in Libya sponsored, administered and conducted by USNATO. The purpose of this war at this stage is to effect regime change without which USNATO will suffer a humiliating disgrace. One might argue that Gadaffi was guilty of attempts to snuff out the democratic elements in Libya which had raised the flag of the Arab democratic revolution and who should have received full support from the left.

However, by centering our whole analysis on the crimes of Gadaffi, we encounter a serious difficulty. This is the same difficulty that we encountered regarding the drive for intervention against a long list of unsavory characters, including the likes of Sadaam Hussein, the Taliban, or even El Qaida. Experience provides ample evidence that confrontation between the US, acting in its imperial interests, and the local tyrants, reactionaries and fundamentalists enables the most reactionary sections of society to present themselves as the legitimate voices of authentic identity and patriotism. This dynamic, which develops intensely, at the heart of almost all interventions, actually prevents the growth and development of the social forces that carry the seed of genuine emancipation and reform.

The pro-independence, pro-democracy forces in Libyan society, even if they were as originally influential at the beginning of the crisis, as some believe, could not have conceivably survived as a significant force when the fight against the Gaddafi forces was taken over, subverted and recast as a battle to impose the will of the USNATO coalition in order “to save civilization and the free world.” The world has seen just how this kind of subversion ends. By virtue of its results, the US is still in Iraq and Afghanistan and continues the frenzied establishment of additional new military bases all over the globe. The name of this game is the right of intervention versus the right of self determination.

Syria in Crisis

As reports of large scale military and police attacks on peaceful demonstrating Syrian civilians are verified from objective sources, it will be the obligation of all democrats to call on the Asad regime to cease and desist immediately from such practices. Even so, we do not live in a romantic pseudo-democratic wonderland and we cannot be indifferent to the nature of the opposition in Syria, especially since it known that Syria is composed of a complex patch work of ethnic and sectarian entities. The empirical evidence of US involvement in the past so-called “velvet-color” revolutions will, as has happened invariably in the past, also surface here at a later stage regarding the crisis Syria.

There are unkind souls who will insist that all those who warn of US subversion and CIA provocations are claiming that the demonstrations and the protests in Syria are the work of the CIA. This is, of course, a gross falsification. The principles of the anti interventionist position is clear. There is every reason to believe that the mass protests in Syria reflect serious, genuine defects and weaknesses in the Asad regime. But, the crisis in Syria activates the hope in Washington for a pro-US regime in Damascus. And if this is not possible, the US and its faithful supporters might well prefer the disintegration of Syria into an ethnic-sectarian hodgepodge.

Up till now, the Syrian government has defended, over the years, its sovereignty and its independence against US pressures. It has acted with a modicum of solidarity and sensitivity to the Palestinian cause, when dictators such as Mubarek were openly conspiring with the US and Israel against the rights of the Palestinian people.

The survival of the Syrian government depends, in the final analysis, on its deserving the confidence and the support of the Syrian masses. Syria does have enemies but this is good reason for it not to become its own worst enemy.

1)[http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175382/tomgram%3A_noam_chomsky%2C_who_owns_the_world/]

(2) http://www.zcommunications.org/the-libyan-insurrection-between-gaddafis-hammer-natos-anvil-and-the-lefts-confusion-results-and-prospects-by-gilbert-achcar

Unity Vs. Intervention

Dear friends,

Last week I sent out a note in Hebrew in which I condemned the Gadaffi regime in no uncertain terms. However, I found Castro’s fears that the anti-Gadaffi campaign being run by the US and the EU is, in essence, preparation for armed intervention. My sense is that anyone in the left should oppose, in principle, intervention by the US and its allies.* This applies, in addition to the negation armed invasion, to the full range of techniques and methods designed both to aid the rebels and to infiltrate and manipulate the anti-Gadaffi camp. I can understand and even support denunciations of Gaddafi and Gadaffi’s vicious response to mass struggle against his regime. But I cannot understand the vilification of the Castro-Chavez position. Indeed, the entire left shares with them and many others, the need to warn, above everything else, against US intervention in Libya. Indeed we may still have to meet, all of us, in mass action, under the unifying slogan: No to US intervention in Libya.

Friends, who are attacking Castro and Chavez on the Libyan issue, might ask themselves a rather simple but important question. What are the reasons behind the Castro-Chavez position? Is it possible that their experience affords a special vantage point? One might imagine that the direct responsibility for protecting the sovereignty and the rights on one’s own people and country, under constant threat, develops deeper insight into the dangers involved. For many who are examining the probability of an attack, this is a purely academic question. For Castro and Chavez, and indeed for all the forces arraigned against the US empire and battling it, the question is literally one of life or death.

My understanding is that It is precisely those who live in the sights of imperial threat and confrontation are the first to recognize the operation of mechanism by which remote, distant local conflicts morph into wider ones, especially when imperialism desires to expand its role on the ground.

The reality of US intervention covers an infinite amount of techniques and methods of varying intensity. Direct military intervention is usually the last stage of what often seems like rather innocuous interest and desire to help, of course, on a humanitarian basis. But most important for taking the temperature of US interventionist fever are the specific circumstances in which it appears.

A gigantic tidal wave of protest and reform is shaking the very foundations of United States interests in a region vital for it. And presently, the US feels itself being sidelined in its own bailiwick. The US, therefore, maneuvers to demonstrate that it is still relevant. For it, the game is not over and it must get into the thick of things as quickly as possible. For this very purpose, it has no difficulty in paying lip service to the Arab rebellion of 2011. And when Washington senses an opportunity to join the fray, it doesn’t hesitate to sacrifice Gadaffi, a mere pawn of a pro-Western tyrant, in order to insert itself, somehow, into the unfolding events.

Will US-Nato Intervene?

As we have noted, there is a full range of techniques and methods to intervene in budding civil war short of direct armed intervention. Usually, these can all be implemented while, simultaneously, many on the left explain why it is clear the US will not intervene. They mean direct invasion but meanwhile the intervention activity has already moved into high gear. Here we have a partial list: 1) supply of money and credit lines 2) information – current surveillance, tracking and espionage 3) bribery 4) dispelling propaganda and disinformation 5) jamming and blocking enemy communication 6) providing intelligence 7) making military material available 8) military advisors 9) making essential civilian material available, denying the same to enemy 10) threats and maneuvers that either require deployment of enemy forces or affect strategic lines 11) training troops

There must be more, but I do not have any personal experience in the field. One can rest assured that Washington and its various nefarious agencies are active in Libya from the first days of the crisis.

My First “Intervention”

I thought for a while I could continue to nurse my temporary writers block deepened by a perennial bout of sloth. But then I got this sinking feeling that the Yankees are up to something while everybody was busy talking almost exclusively about the extant of Gaddafi’s malevolence. I confess that Fidel’s first article convinced me that the main issue was and is the danger of US-Nato intervention.

Several Comments on the Libyan Issue

Reuven Kaminer

There is a basis for the accusation that the Gadaffi regime used brutal indiscriminate violence against demonstrators in his country when they were demanding a change in Libya, similar to that which occurred in Tunisia and Egypt. The Gadaffi people deny this. It is therefore vital that the accusation be clarified before an impartial body.

Gadaffi is only one of the more than a dozen tyrants in the region who enjoy the military, economic and political support of the US.

The US sensed that mobilizing support for the Libyan rebellion, perfectly justified in and by itself, offered a golden opportunity to intervene in Lybia. From that point, it did everything possible to transform the justified rebellion in Lybia into a confrontation between the USA, acting as the defender of democracy and the Gadaffi regime.

The US sought after and soon found among Gadaffi’s opponents, tribal chiefs, high level officers and ranking opportunists who held office in the Gadaffi government. These opponents of Gadaffi joined the battle in order to settle accounts with him and to advance their own agenda which is distinctively different from that of the mass uprising within the general Arab revolution.

It would be a mistake to underestimate the experience and the insight of the leaders of the countries of the Boliverian revolution, such as Castro and Chavez. They know, from their own experience, Washington’s strategy and the aims. They understood immediately that the US was ready to sacrifice the pawn, Gadaffi, (though friendly to the US) in order to gain some standing as an active participant in the Arab revolution.

The US and its allies faked an analysis to the effect that the Gadaffi regime was falling apart. On that background, they encouraged the Libyan opposition to organize a military campaign in order to achieve a quick military victory built on US political backing and military might.

Castro was right when he warned that the US was intervening

In Lybia in order to convince the popular movements in the Middle East that the US still has power and influence. But if we want to identify with battle of millions for freedom and democracy, it is vital to neutralize US influence in order to break up it’s regional hegemony. This hegemony operates through a chain of tyrants just like Gadaffi. Castro’s analysis is not simply one of a insightful observer. Castro expresses the sensitivities and the political instincts of an entire continent. The masses in Latin America have a wealth of experience of how the neighbor to the north uses power and money in order to lay down a smokescreen in preparation for aggressive action.

The demonization of Gadaffi deserves a special comment since even demonization has its limits. The media love to have a personality who can symbolize total evil in a single person. By intention or not, it happens that other actors in the drama such as Obama and Clinton, appear as nice, honorable people. Observers of the international crisis around Libya are led to concentrate their whole attention on Gadaffi’a weird behavior, to the point that they ignore all the elements of the entire picture. In this respect, one should not forget the role of the demonization of Sadaam Hussein in developments leading to the war in Iraq. Saadan was indeed a ruthless killer. But his demonization was an integral element in a successful propaganda campaign which led to a terrible catastrophe for the people of Iraq, which continues to this very day. And indeed, Gadaffi is a weird and disgusting character ready to use any means to defend his rule. But Gadaffi’s weird character is insufficient to justify intervention in Libya. Nor can we take comfort in the fact that the US operatives preparing for launch deadly military action are well groomed and well dressed. (End of my article)

I received a good many favorable comments on the article. Even so, it is necessary to reveal that there were those who wanted to know when I turned into a Gadaffi lover. Moreover, my detractors insisted that I was deceitfully hiding the fact that Castro and Chavez had expressed full approval of the Gaddafi regime.

Since Castro’s two letters on Libya were available on the net, I took the liberty of sending them to my readers. It is clear that the text dispel any doubts as to Castro’s intellectual capacity. It is also clear that Castro did not give full support to the Gadaffi regime.

Castro may be right or he may be wrong but senile he is not!

I was to discover after sending out the Castro texts that there are indeed people a few people on the left who consider support for Cuba pure Stalinism and wish to inform me that Cuba is not that different than Libya.

To all who approved of my written comments on Libya and even to those who suggested that I was suffering from some Stalinist recidivism, I suggest that we might still agree on our joint opposition to US-NATO intervention in Libya. And that, my friends, is the real issue.

The Israeli School of Misinterpretation

It is clear enough that the WikiLeak affair will play out differently from country to country. The establishment here is quite pleased that there are no major revelations to embarrass the government – so far. The fact that Bibi Netanyahu, the leader of the “loyal opposition” bad mouthed his own government when visiting Washington was well known. No one thought otherwise. Still, many of the specific reactions by our widely recognized “experts” are worth a look. Their ranting and raving over the WikiLeak project are barren of any insight, but they do tell us much about their own political mentality.

Two very sour apples stand out: Professor Shlomo Avineri, who has abandoned the halls of academia for the pages of Ha’aretz, and one of Ha’aretz’s prime, well-connected court scribblers, Ari Shavit. (All quotes from Shavit and Avineri are from the English edition of Haaretz, December 3, 2010). Shavit has a field day maligning Assuage and WikiLeak. This ‘gentleman’ of the press fumes with hatred and violence. He slanders WikiLeak hysterically and incites to violence against Assange, the “dangerous criminal”, “the cyberterrorist”, the “delusory anarchist”, “the uninhibited megalomaniac”. But after presenting his anti-WikiLeak credentials, Shavit decides that Assange has unwittingly performed a service for him. It seems that for all his “misanthropy”, Julian Assange has “shattered the accepted dogma… that the main problem in the Middle East is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the occupation, the settlements.”

Now this accepted dogma did reign supreme precisely among the local “analysts” who presented this version of things so as convince the public that all the Arabs want to destroy Israel, the only democratic state in the area, and that the main obstacle to peace is arbitrary Arab intransigence. Now on the basis of WikiLeak info, the Israeli establishment is intensively promoting a brand new updated, post WikiLeak line. For its own nefarious strategic political aims, the Israeli establishment wants to impose its own “interpretation” of the WikiLink revelations concerning Arab presence in the anti-Iranian coalition. The new line goes like this:

All the blather about the centrality of the Israeli-Arab conflict and the urgent need to solve the Israeli-Palestinian issue is without any base. On the level of propaganda and empty rhetoric, the “moderates” still talk about the suffering in Palestine, but they want and need Israel to protect their feeble, rotting regimes.

Even Abu Mazen and his weak Palestinian Authority know full well that they cannot survive Iranian ascendency. This is the real reason that they have pinned their fate to full scale military and strategic cooperation and integration with the United States and its allies in the Middle East. Thus, say our Israeli friends, all the story about the urgency and the centrality of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is pure twaddle and nonsense.

Now this twaddle and nonsense was precisely the way that Shavit and his buddies commented on events over the years. In fact they are the ones who built up the scenario in which about Israel, alone and isolated in the region, faced a united front of single minded Arab regimes. Now they have jumped on the emergence of a new stark game changing revelation. This so-called ‘”discovery” merely serves to verify the previous narrow minded short sightedness of the conformist Israeli and pro-Israeli media. It is Shavit and other court scribes who wanted the world to see the area in terms of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, even though they could have and should have known better.

On the left, it has been clear almost from the beginning of the conflict that developments in the Israeli-Arab conflict are the results of deeper and wider causes. These can be summarized in the following axiomatic terms. The mainspring of events in the region is the ongoing drive of the United States, acting in its imperial interests, to maintain control of the regions oil reserves and refineries and to maintain for this purpose a local configuration of “friendly” countries and forces which will defend US interests. The history of the Middle East is replete with instances where Israeli arms and/or military potential were employed for the overthrow of progressive Arab regimes or for the survival of reactionary Arab regimes, faced with popular uprisings.

The Real Contradictions

And relating to more current developments, I do not know of any serious left wing commentator, here and abroad, who has not noted the fact that the so called “moderate” Arab countries have become an integral link in the US-Israeli preparations for war against Iran. Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan are all manifestly corrupt and unpopular regimes. The existence of an alternative based on the political and economic support of Iran, Turkey, Syria and Lebanon (and a host of political groups and forces) is an extreme and immediate danger to these unpopular regimes.

Even before WikiLeak leaked the truth about the real line up in the Middle East, Israel and its powerful friends in DC have blocked whatever remained of Obama’s intentions to try the ‘Palestine before Iran gambit. Thus, Washington’s slim hope of gaining prestige and using it against Iranian interests through progress in ending the Israeli-Palestinian stand off appears to have been seriously damaged. The Israeli establishment is using the WikiLeak details and general atmosphere to explain to all the softer hearted pro-Palestinians the hard facts. Palestine and the Palestinians are of secondary interest to the “Arabs.” Israel and the “Arabs” want to take out Iran.

Bibi’s racist coalition and the fundamentalist Saudi regime are harnessed to the US war machine and hum the same chorus: on to Teheran. The goal is simple – regime change in Iran. Simply taking out a few nuclear installations, which can be rebuilt in a matter of months, is clearly insufficient. Iran must be either destroyed or occupied. This is the common and urgent message of Bibi and Abdullah, the Saudi king.

Obama Downgraded - Netanyahu Elevated

The second bit of buzz around this place is that Obama is weak and getting weaker all the time. Whether or not there is any logic in blaming Obama for WikiLeak is irrelevant. It happened on his watch. In truth there are massive indications that the United States hegemony is crumbling and that the brains that advise the US President do not have the foggiest idea about how to reverse the trend. WikiLeak is just another unpleasant affair. And according to the Israeli school of flakey interpretations, if Obama is getting weaker, then Bibi is growing stronger. If not so long ago, DC was acting as if it was trying to convince Israel to stop construction in the territories – it is clear now – post WikiLeak, that nobody really cares about the Palestinian issue. Hillary does not need to waste her energy on finishing the letter about what she and Bibi did or did not agree on in their famous seven hour meeting. Bibi could not care less. The Israelis are convinced that WikiLeak has defanged US Middle East diplomacy on Israel-Palestine, leaving DC with only one real option- the military one against Iran.

Israeli Euphoria and the Stubborn Facts

It was indeed the routine practice of Israeli politicos to present the Middle East as a battleground between Arabs and Jews for favors from Washington. The truth is that the Arab Israeli conflict was and remains a subsidiary issue in the region. We repeat that the main issues were and remain the control of Middle East oil, its production and distribution and the political and strategic configuration designed to ensure that control. Coordinated activity between Israel and the Arab “moderates” against regional indigenous forces challenging that control is an old, well known story. The punsters believe it is to their advantage at this point to use WikiLeak to expose the seamy side of the Israeli and Arab connivance so as to absolve the US of any need to exert pressure on Israel if, indeed, it had contemplated anything so radical.

But let us get things straight. If Bibi feels elevated by Obama’s inadequacy, he is like that passenger going up the elevator in a ship that has begun its final stages of listing to its side. He and his patron are thinking about starting a war that is an act of desperation. They are contemplating a throw of the dice which means gambling with the fate of perhaps millions of men, women and children. The fact that the Jewish state is blindly leading the region into a new holocaust, under US auspices, is new evidence of the horrific corruption of humanity that can result from a regime, Jewish in name, but bereft of any roots in a philosophy of justice, a regime built around chauvinism, racism and occupation.

Who is Behind WikiLeak?

Our Israeli ideologues, whether a distinguished professor or a noted journalist, express the insecurity of a class, which has a deep distaste and suspicion of anything that challenges the need for control and order. The ideologues explain that we simply cannot have unauthorized people running around and speaking the truth. In particular, Prof. Avineri is angry about US inability to keep its secrets, the inadequate level of intelligence gathering, sloppy reporting and the clogging of future contacts. But this is nothing compared with Avineri’s disgust with Obama’s inability to understand the region where “we are looking at a political culture a bit different from the kind taken for granted by us and the Western democracies. We desire peace with our neighbors, but this isn’t a world into which we need or want to integrate into in terms of morality and values. It isn’t pleasant to say this, but it should be acknowledged.” Avineri dislikes two-facedness, but shows his racist mindset precisely in a week when the entire world is learning, via WikiLeak that among the all the powers that be two-facedness is the rule and not the exception.

Avineri is worried because he doesn’t know Assange’s political agenda, though he is certain that something smells bad. He warns us that, ”This is a person with clear aims – although no one has figured out exactly what they are.” (!!) Professor Avineri asks, ”Are we certain there isn’t a security service behind him and his efforts? This should be on the public agenda in the next few weeks.” Avineri must know that there are not too many possibilities. Al Quaeda, with a laptop in the cave? The North Koreans battling over the leadership succession. The “inscrutable Chinese”? Really!!

If Prof. Avineri had made a minimal effort to read about Julian Assange’s work and his philosophy, he might be surprised by the fact that Assange’s main political inspiration and references are standard liberal fare. Assange quotes as his mentors people like Lech Walenska and Solzhenitsin. He is quite open regarding his motives. All the following quotes are from an address by Julian Assange at the Stockholm Freedom Forum in May 2010.

“[We must] understand that the alliance which once existed between liberals and libertarians and the military-industrial complex in opposing Soviet abuses in the Cold War - is gone. Where once upon a time, people who stood up for enlightenment values domestically, in Western countries, who stood up for human rights and freedom of the press domestically in Western countries, liberals, libertarians and the press itself were in a tacit alliance with warmongers. They were in a tacit alliance with those people who opposed the Soviet Union merely for geopolitical reasons. And that alliance was to pick up a moral stick and to beat the Soviet Union for its abuses, its terrible abuses, censorship. The government and military joined this alliance in recognition of the geopolitical value of the alliance as a moral stick with which to beat the Soviet Union for its terrible abuses in its censorship. As of 1990-91 that artificial alliance, that temporary alliance had dissipated, with reversion to a different standard, where the natural interests of authority, the natural interests of the intelligence agencies and the natural interests of the military is in stifling press reportage of abuse, and it has been reasserted in Western countries.

In this broader framework of what we do, it's to try and build a
historical, intellectual record of how our civilization actually works
in practice, now, from the inside, everywhere, in every country around the world, from the inside.

Because all of our decisions, individual decisions, our political
decisions are based on what we know, humanity is nothing but what we know and what we have. And what we have can be replaced and degrades quickly. And what we know is everything and it is our limit of what we can be. So before we can embark on any particular political stratagem we first have to know where we are. If we don't know where we are, it's impossible to know where we're going. Likewise, it's impossible to correct abuses unless we know that they're going on.

So I ask you to think about the words of Macchiavelli, think about them in their negative, when he said, "Thus it happened in matters of state when knowing afar off which is only given a prudent man to do the evils that are brewing, they are easily cured; but when for want of such knowledge they're allowed to grow until everyone can recognize them, there is no longer any remedy to be found."

For secret planning is secret usually for a reason. This is because if it's abusive it is opposed. So it's our task to find secret abuses planned and expose them where they can be exposed before they are implemented: for if they are exposed by their implementation by people suffering from that abuse, then the abuse has already occurred and it is too late. He who controls today`s Internet servers, controls the intellectual record of mankind.”

Our good professor once understood something about contradictions and the limits of power, but he has reduced himself to the role of apologist for the Israeli state. Instead of calm discussion and reasoned disagreement, he joins the pack of jackals baying for the blood of an honest liberal.

Thus, the significance of the information culled from WikiLeak is interpreted by Israel’s ideological cadre so as to further the current strategic goals of the regime: The “Arabs”, (even if only the US hirelings among them) are on our side! We can now manage Palestine without outside interference and get down to business with Iran.