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We speak with British Pakistani political commentator, writer, activist and editor of the New Left Review, Tariq Ali. He is the author of numerous books; his latest is The Obama Syndrome: Surrender at Home, War Abroad. [includes rush transcript]
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Ahmadinejad's Speech
Islamic Republic of
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Permanent Mission to the United Nations
Please check against delivery
Address by
H.E. Dr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
President of the Islamic Republic of Iran
Before the
65th Session of the United Nations General Assembly
New York
23 September 2010
622 Third Ave, New York, NY 10017 Tel: (212) 687-2020 Fax: (212) 867-7086 email: iran@un.inl
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Mr. President,
Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am grateful to the Almighty God who granted me the opportunity to appear
before this world assembly once again. I wish to begin by commemorating those who
lost their lives in the horrible flood in Pakistan and express my heartfelt sympathy
with the families who lost their loved ones as well as with the people and the
government of Pakistan. I urge everyone to assist their fellow men and women as a
humane duty.
Let me thank H.E. Mr. Ali Abdussalam Treki, the President of the he sixtyfourth
session of the United Nations General Assembly, for all his efforts during his
tenure. I also would like to congratulate H.E. Mr. Joseph Deiss, the President of the
sixty-fifth session of the United Nations General Assembly and wish him all success.
In the past years, I spoke to you about some of the hopes and concerns,
including family crises, security, human dignity, world economy, climate change as
well as the aspiration for justice and lasting peace.
After about one hundred years of domination, the system of Capitalism and the
existing world order has proved to be unable to provide appropriate solution to the
problems of societies, thus coming to an end. I shall try to examine the two main
causes of this failure and picture some features of the ideal future order.
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A) Attitudes and Beliefs
As you are well aware, the divine prophets had the mission to call everyone to
monotheism, love and justice and show mankind the path to prosperity. They invite
men to contemplation and knowledge in order to better appreciate the truth and to
avoid atheism and egoism. The very nature of the message of all prophets is one and
the same. Every messenger endorsed the messenger before him and gave glad tidings
about the prophet to come, and presented a more complete version of the religion in
accordance with the capacity of the man at the time. This continued up to the last
messenger of God who presented the perfect and all inclusive religion.
In opposition to that, the egotist and the greedy stood up against this clear call,
revolting against the message.
Nimrod countered Hazrat Abraham, Pharaoh countered Hazrat Moses and the
greedy countered Hazrat Jesus Christ and Hazrat Mohammad (Peace be upon them
all). In the recent centuries, the human ethics and values have been rejected as a cause
for backwardness. They were even portrayed as opposing wisdom and science
because of the earlier infliction on man by the proclaimers of religion in the dark ages
of the West
Man's disconnection from Heaven detached him from his true self.
Man with his potentials for understanding the secrets of the universe, his instinct
for seeking truth, his aspirations for justice and perfection, his quest for beauty and
purity and his capacity to represent God on earth was reduced to a creature limited to
the materialistic world with a mission to maximize individualistic pleasures. Human
instinct, then, replaced true human nature.
Human beings and nations were considered rivals and the happiness of an
individual or a nation was defined in collision with, and elimination or suppression of
others. Constructive evolutionary cooperation was replaced with a destructive struggle
for survival.
The lust for capital and domination replaced monotheism which is the gate to love
and unity.
This widespread clash of the egoist with the divine values gave way to slavery and
colonialism. A large portion of the world came under the domination of a few western
States. Tens of millions of people were taken to slavery and tens of millions of
families were shattered as a result. All the resources, the rights and the cultures of the
colonized nations were plundered. Lands were occupied and the indigenous people
were humiliated and mass-murdered.
Yet, nations rose up, colonialism was alienated and the independence of the nations
was recognized. Thus, the hope for respect, prosperity and security was revived
amongst nations. In the beginning of the past century nice talks about freedom,
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human rights and democracy created hopes for healing the deep wounds of the past.
Today, however, not only those dreams are not realized, but memories, even at times
worse than before, have been recorded.
As a result of the two World Wars, the occupation of Palestine, the Korean and the
Vietnam's Wars, the Iraqi war against Iran, the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq as
well as many wars in Africa, hundreds of millions of people were killed, wounded or
displaced.
Terrorism, illicit drugs, poverty and the social gaps increased. The dictatorial and
coup d'etat governments in Latin America committed unprecedented crimes with the
support of the West.
Instead of disarmament, the proliferation and stockpiling of nuclear, biological and
chemical weapons expanded, putting the world under a bigger threat. As a result, the
very same old goals of colonialists and the slave masters were, this time round,
pursued with a new facade.
B) The Global Management and Ruling Structures
The League of Nations and, then, the United Nations were established with the
promise to bring about peace, security and the realization of human rights, which in
fact meant a global management.
One can analyze the current governance of the world by examining three events:
First, the event of the II September 2001 which has affected the whole world for
almost a decade.
All of a sudden, the news of the attack on the twin towers was broadcast using
numerous footages of the incident.
Almost all governments and known figures strongly condemned this incident.
But then a propaganda machine came into full force; it was implied that the whole
world was exposed to a huge danger, namely terrorism, and that the only way to save
the world would be to deploy forces into Afghanistan.
Eventually Afghanistan, and shortly thereafter Iraq were occupied.
Please take note:
It was said that some three thousands people were killed on the II September for
which we are all very saddened. Yet, up until now, in Afghanistan and Iraq hundreds
of thousands of people have been killed, millions wounded and displaced and the
conflict is still going on and expanding.
In identifying those responsible for the attack, there were three viewpoints.
1-That a very powerful and complex terrorist group, able to successfully cross
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all layers of the American intelligence and security, carried out the attack.
This is the main viewpoint advocated by American statesmen.
2-That some segments within the U.S. government orchestrated the attack to
reverse the declining American economy and its grips on the Middle East in order
also to save the Zionist regime.
The majority of the American people as well as other nations and politicians agree
with this view.
3-It was carried out by a terrorist group but the American government supported
and took advantage of the situation. Apparently, this viewpoint has fewer proponents.
The main evidence linking the incident was a few passports found in the huge
volume of rubble and a video of an individual whose place of domicile was unknown
but it was announced that he had been involved in oil deals with some American
officials. It was also covered up and said that due to the explosion and fire no trace of
the suicide attackers was found.
There remain, however, a few questions 10 be answered:
1-Would it not have been sensible that first a thorough investigation should have
been conducted by independent groups to conclusively identify the elements involved
in the attack and then map out a rational plan to take measures against them?
2-Assuming the viewpoint of the American government, is it rational to launch a
classic war through widespread deployment of troops that led to the death of hundreds
of thousands of people to counter a terrorist group?
3-Was it not possible to act the way Iran countered the Riggi terrorist group who
killed and wounded 400 innocent people in Iran. In the Iranian operation no innocent
person was hurt.
It is proposed that the United Nations set up an independent fact-finding group for
the event of the II September so that in the future expressing views about it is not
forbidden.
. I wish to announce here that next year the Islamic Republic of Iran will host a
conference to study terrorism and the means to confront it. I invite officials, scholars,
thinkers, researchers and research institutes of all countries to attend this conference.
Second, is the occupation of the Palestinian territories
The oppressed people of Palestine have lived under the rule of an occupying
regime for 60 years, been deprived of freedom, security and the right to selfdetermination,
while the occupiers are given recognition. On a daily basis, the houses
are being destroyed over the heads of innocent women and children. People are
deprived of water, food and medicine in their own homeland. The Zionists have
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imposed five all-out wars on the neighboring countries and on the Palestinian people.
The Zionists committed the most horrible crimes against the defenseless people in
the wars against Lebanon and Gaza.
The Zionist regime attacked a humanitarian flotilla in a blatant defiance of all
international norms and kills the civilians.
This regime which enjoys the absolute support of some western countries regularly
threatens the countries in the region and continues publicly announced assassination
of Palestinian figures and others, while Palestinian defenders and those opposing this
regime are pressured, labeled as terrorists and anti Semites. All values, even the
freedom of expression, in Europe and in the United States are being sacrificed at the
altar of Zionism.
Solutions are doomed to fail because the right of the Palestinian people is not taken
into account.
Would we have witnessed such horrendous crimes if instead of recognizing the
occupation, the sovereign right of the Palestinian people had been recognized?
Our unambiguous proposition is the return of the Palestinian refugees to their home
land and the reference to the vote of the people of Palestine to exercise their
sovereignty and decide on the type of governance.
Third, is the nuclear energy
Nuclear energy is clean and cheap and a heavenly gift which is amongst the most
suitable alternatives to cut the pollutions emanating from fossil fuels.
The Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) allows all member States to use nuclear
energy without limits and the International Atomic Energy Agency is mandated to
provide member States with technical and legal support.
The nuclear bomb is the worst inhumane weapon and which must totally be
eliminated. The NPT prohibits its development and stockpiling and calls for nuclear
disarmament.
Nonetheless, note what some of the permanent members of the Security Council
and nuclear bomb holders have done:
They have equated nuclear energy with the nuclear bomb, and have distanced this
energy from the reach of most of nations by establishing monopolies and pressuring
the IAEA. While at the same time, they have continued to maintain, expand and
upgrade their own nuclear arsenals.
This has entailed the following:
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Not only the nuclear disarmament has not been realized but also nuclear bombs
have been proliferated in some regions, including by the occupying and intimidating
Zionist regime.
I would like here to propose that the year 20II be proclaimed the year of nuclear
disarmament and "Nuclear Energy for all, Nuclear Weapons for None".
In all these cases the United Nations has been unable to take any effective course
of action. Unfortunately, in the decade proclaimed as the "International Decade for the
Culture of Peace" hundreds of thousands were killed and injured as a result of war,
aggression and occupation, and hostilities and antagonism increased.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Very recently the world witnessed the ugly and inhumane act of burning the Holy
Quran.
The Holy Quran is the Divine Book and the eternal miracle of the Prophet oflslam.
It calls for worshipping the One God, justice, compassion toward people,
development and progress, reflection and thinking, defending the oppressed and
resisting against the oppressors; and it names with respect the previous Messengers of
God, like Noah, Abraham, Isaaq, Joseph, Moses and Jesus Christ (Peace be Upon
them all) and endorses them.. They burned Quran to bum all these truths and good
judgments. However, the truth could not be burned. Quran is eternal because God and
truth are everlasting. This act and any other act which widens the gap and distances
between nations is evil. We should wisely avoid playing into the hands of Satan. On
behalf of the Iranian nation I pay respect to all Divine Books and their followers. This
is the Quran and this is the Bible. I pay respect to both of them.
Esteemed Friends,
For years the inefficiency of the capitalism and the existing world management and
structures has been exposed and the majority of States and nations have been on a
quest for fundamental changes and for the prevalence ofjustice in global relations.
The cause of the United Nation's ineptitude is in its unjust structure. Major power
is monopolized in the Security Council due to the veto privilege, and the main pillar
of the Organization, namely the General Assembly, is marginalized.
In the past several decades, at least one of the permanent members of the Security
Council has always been a party to the disputes.
The veto advantage grants impunity to aggression and occupation; How could,
therefore, one expect competence while both the judge and the prosecutor are a party
to the dispute?
Had Iran enjoyed veto privilege, would the Security Council and the IAEA
Director General have taken the same position in the nuclear issue?
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Dear Friends,
The United Nations is the key center for coordinating the common global
management. Its structure needs to be reformed in a manner that all independent
States and nations be able to participate in the global governance actively and
constructively.
The veto privilege should be revoked and the General Assembly should be the
highest body and the Secretary-General should be the most independent official and
all his positions and activities should be taken with the approval of the General
Assembly and should be directed towards promoting justice and eliminating
discrimination.
The Secretary-General should not come under pressure from powers and/or the
country hosting the Organization for his stating the truth and administration ofjustice.
It is suggested that the General Assembly should, within one year and in the
framework of an extraordinary session, finalize the reformation of the Organization's
structure
The Islamic Republic of Iran has clear suggestions in this regard and stands ready
to participate actively and constructively in the process.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I announce clearly that the occupation of other countries under the pretext of
freedom and democracy is an unforgivable crime.
The world needs the logic of compassion and justice and inclusive participation
instead oflogic offorce, domination, unilateralism, war and intimidation.
The world needs to be governed by virtuous people like the Divine Prophets.
The two vast geographical spheres, namely Africa and Latin America, have gone
through historic developments during the past decades. The new approaches in these
two continents, which are based on increasing level of integration and unity as well as
on localizing the growth and development models, have born considerable fruits to the
'peoples of those regions. The awareness and wisdom of the leaders of these two
continents has overcome the regional problems and crises without the domineering
interference of non-regional powers.
The Islamic Republic of Iran has expanded its relations with the Latin America
and Africa in all aspects in recent years.
And about the glorious Iran,
The Tehran Declaration was a hugely constructive step in confidence building
efforts which was made possible through the admirable good will by the governments
of Brazil and Turkey along with the sincere cooperation of the Iranian government.
Although the Declaration received inappropriate reaction by some and was
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followed by an unlawful resolution, it is still valid.
We have observed the regulations of the IAEA more than our commitments, yet,
we have never submitted to illegally imposed pressures nor will we ever do so.
It has been said that they want to pressure Iran into a dialogue. Well, firstly, Iran
has always been ready for a dialogue based on respect and justice. Secondly, methods
based on disrespecting nations have long become ineffective. Those who have used
intimidation and sanctions in response to the clear logic of the Iranian nation are in
real terms destroying the remaining credibility of the Security Council and the trust of
nations for this body, proving once and again how unjust is the function of the
Council.
When they threaten a great nation such as Iran which is known throughout history
for its scientists, poets, artists and philosophers and whose culture and civilization is
synonymous to purity, submission to God and seeking justice, how can they ever
expect that other nations grow confidence on them?
It goes without saying that domineering methods in managing the world has failed.
Not only has the era of slavery and colonialism and dominating the world passed, the
path to the reviving old Empires are blocked, too.
We have announced that we stand ready for a serious and free debate with the
American Statesmen to express our transparent views on issues of importance to the
world in this very venue.
It is proposed here that in order to have a constructive dialogue, an annual free
debate be organized within the General Assembly.
In conclusion,
Friends and Colleagues,
The Iranian nation and the majority of the world's nations and governments are
against the current discriminatory management of the world.
The inhumane nature of this management has put it at a dead-end and requires a
major overhaul.
Reforming the world's affairs and bringing about tranquility and prosperity
requires the participation of all, pure thoughts and the divine and humane
management.
We are all ofthe idea that:
Justice is the basic element for peace, durable security and the spread of love
among peoples and nations. It is in the justice that mankind seeks the realization of his
aspirations, rights and dignity, since he is wary of oppression, humiliation and ill
treatment.
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The true nature of mankind is manifested in the love for other fellow humans and
love for all the good in the world. Love is the best foundation for establishing relation
amongst people and amongst nations.
As Vahshi Bafqi, the great Iranian poet, says:
"From the fountain of youth, drink thousand sips
You'll still die if you don't have love's grip"
In making a world full of purity, safety and prosperity people are not rivals but
companions.
Those who see their happiness but in the sorrow of others and their welfare and
safety but in others' insecurity, those who see themselves superior to others, are out of
the path of humanity and are in evil's course.
Economy and materialistic means are only some tools to serve others, to create
friendship and strengthen human connections for spiritual perfection. They are not
tools for show-off or means of dominating others.
Men and women complements each other and family unit with pure, loving and
long-lasting relation of the spouses in its center is the guarantee for the continuity and
the bringing up generations, for true pleasures, for spreading love and for reforming of
the societies.
Woman is a reflection of God's beauty and is the source of love and caring. She is
the guardian ofpurity and exquisiteness ofthe society.
The tendency to toughen the souls and behaviors of women deprives them from
their very basic right of being a loving mother and a caring wife. It would result in a
more violent society with irreversible defects.
Freedom is a divine right that should serve peace and human perfection.
Pure thoughts and the will of the righteous are keys to the gates of a pure life full
of hope, liveliness and beauty.
This is the promise of God that the earth will be inherited by the pure and the
righteous. And the people free from selfishness will take up the management of the
world. Then, there will be no trace of sorrow, discrimination, poverty, insecurity and
aggression. The time for true happiness and for the blossoming of the true nature of
humankind, the way God has intended, will arrive.
All those seeking for justice and all the free spirits have been waiting for this
moment and have promised such glorious time.
The complete human, the true servant of God and the true friend of the mankind
whose father was from the generation of the beloved Prophet of Islam and whose
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mother was from the true believers of the Jesus Christ, shall wait along with Jesus the
son of Marry and the other righteous to appear on those brilliant times and assist the
humanity.
In welcoming them we should join ranks and seek justice.
Praise to Love and worship, praise to justice and freedom, praise to the true
humanity, the complete human, the true companion of the humankind and peace be
upon you and all the righteous and the pure.
Thank you.
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Wednesday, September 22, 2010
The Obama Syndrome
First, of course, we have some more interesting developments.
A few days ago I was in Harry Truman's hometown. People on the courthouse steps wear guns in their socks, pretty big guns, but they don't look threatening one bit. I didn't have any chewing tobacco, so didn't have anything in common with them and moved on.
I went to a store to buy a globe. I wanted to get a better idea where Blackwater was hiding from the IRS.
I asked the clerk, whose first language was Spanish if they had a globe.
"Gloubwe?" she asked, a bit puzzled.
"It is a three dimensional misrepresentation of the planet earth," I explained.
We were both amazingly and positively astonished as she said "Ah, GLOBE!!!" I had thought my explanation was a elusive and she was delighted that the strange Chicago accent was now clear to her.
"No," was the answer, "It is seasonal."
"What is seasonal about the planet?" I asked, then realized it was a strange question.
"Back to school and Christmas," she replied.
So, there it is.
They didn't carry chewing tobacco, so I drove back home after thumbing trough a 1,000 page biography of Alexander Hamilton.
*****
Ali captures the difference between Bush and Obama: "And essentially, it is a conservative administration which has changed the mood music. So the talk is better. The images of the administration are better, the reasonable looks."
Tarik Ali is one of the most perceptive writers still alive. His new book is out and here is an interview Amy Goodman conducted with him as they both arrived in New York on a plane from London:
Tariq Ali on "The Obama Syndrome: Surrender at Home, War Abroad"
Tariq Ali, British Pakistani political commentator, writer, activist and editor of the New Left Review. His latest book is The Obama Syndrome: Surrender at Home, War Abroad.
Rush Transcript
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TARIQ ALI: I know some of his supporters might feel it’s a little harsh, but I think that we’ve had two years of him now, Amy, and the contours of this administration are now visible. And essentially, it is a conservative administration which has changed the mood music. So the talk is better. The images of the administration are better, the reasonable looks. But in terms of what they do—in foreign policy, we’ve seen a continuation of the Bush-Cheney policies, and worse, in AfPak, as they call it, and at home, we’ve seen a total capitulation to the lobbyists, to the corporations. The fact that the healthcare bill was actually drafted by someone who used to be an insurance lobbyist says it all.
So, it’s essentially now a PR operation to get him reelected. But I don’t think people are that dumb. I’ve been speaking to some of his, you know, partisan supporters, and they’re disappointed. So the big problem for Obama is that if you do nothing and promise that you would bring about some changes, you will not have people coming out to vote for you again. And building up the tea party into this great bogey isn’t going to work. It’s your own supporters you have to convince to come out and vote for you, as they did before. I can’t see that happening.
AMY GOODMAN: The cover of your book, The Obama Syndrome: Surrender at Home, War Abroad, is a picture of the face, the head of President Obama, and half of it is peeled away to reveal President Bush.
TARIQ ALI: Well, this, you know, I think, is a sort of very brilliant West Coast montage artist, and they are the best. Whenever there’s a crisis, they come up with an image which says it all. And I like that image a lot, and I used it very deliberately to show the continuation, that it’s not a case that we have a new administration. We do, technically, but it’s continuing with many of the old policies in the—how it deals with the economy. When you have people like Krugman, Joseph Stiglitz, occasionally Frank Rich in the New York Times, Maureen Dowd, these people who were desperate for a Democrat administration being incredibly critical of some of its things, when you have venerable professors like Gary Wells saying, "I’m disappointed," the honeymoon didn’t last long with Obama. It lasted much, much longer with Clinton. And one reason for that is that he had raised hopes and was unable to deliver. He turned out to be an apparatchik and a political operator from one of the worst Democrat areas in the country, Chicago, and that’s what he behaves like.
AMY GOODMAN: Robert Gibbs, the White House press spokesperson, going after the so-called "professional left"? Your thoughts?
TARIQ ALI: Well, I mean, it’s interesting that they are incapable of dealing with the right. With the right, it’s conciliation. That’s what they feel they have to appeal to. With critics from the left, they tend to be very harsh, as if they are saying to us, "You don’t know how lucky you are." But why are we lucky? I mean, you know, we judge people not by how they look or what they say, but by what they do. And what Obama has been doing is, you know, to put it mildly, extremely disappointing at home, and abroad it’s murderous. On Palestine, on Iran, no changes at all. So, one has to spell this out, because if they don’t realize that they’re doing this, they’re going to get more shocks. And Rahm Emanuel refers to people on the liberal left who are critical of Obama, and he uses a bad swear word and then says, "effing retards"—well, we’ll see who the retards are after the midterms, Amy. That’s all I can say.
AMY GOODMAN: Surrender at Home, War Abroad You were born in Pakistan. You ultimately went to Britain, where we just came from last night. It’s been interesting to see the politics there, but also the devastation of the war, the effects of the wars, on the population at home in Britain. A report in the paper the other day, when we were in London, saying that 20,000 veterans are in prison, mainly Iraq, Afghanistan war veterans, for committing violent and sexual crimes. But what about the war abroad and what President Obama is doing—says he’s scaling back Iraq, still about 50,000—actually, well more than that—military, and you could say paramilitaries with a mercenary armies there, and in Afghanistan, the surge?
TARIQ ALI: Well, I mean, again, let’s look at it concretely. Bush had promised exactly the same withdrawal pattern from Iraq: by this time, we will be out. Obama has followed it. They’re not going out. What is essentially happening, they’re reducing the presence of combat troops and eliminating it in the big cities, and building six huge military bases all over Iraq, in which they’ll keep between fifty and sixty thousand soldiers, ready to act when the need be—just like the British did when they occupied Iraq in the '20s and ’30s of the last century. And the British were then driven out by a violent upheaval and revolution in the ’50s. So the US is keeping these bases in, (a) to control Iraq, and (b) as a warning to Iran. And I think there's going to be trouble.
The war isn’t over at all. We’ve seen, just a few days ago, huge explosions in Baghdad and Fallujah. It’s a total disaster and a mess. And to present that as somehow "mission accomplished part two" is a joke. That country has been wrecked, a million Iraqis dead, its social infrastructure destroyed. And in Afghanistan, they are now going from bad to worse. They know, and General Eikenberry knows and says, we cannot win this war militarily. They can’t lose it, but they can’t win it, either. So, political solution is the only way out, and that means that they have to have an exit strategy. Obama isn’t even talking about that, because that might be construed as a sign of weakness. But by who? The army knows what’s going on. They can’t stay there forever.
AMY GOODMAN: It was quite astounding, with the tremendous attention on Terry Jones threatening to burn a Quran, a horrific symbol all over the world, as it would be for any religious book, but at the same time, what was coming out of Afghanistan, a report of a kill team—this is a US kill team—who was taking souvenirs of fingers and other body parts, that getting very little attention in terms of what it means for not just the Muslim community, but for people all over the world.
TARIQ ALI: But, you know, Amy, some of us who are sort of elderly now remember exactly the same things happening in Vietnam during that war, where there were lots of report—in those days publicized much more, I have to say—of US soldiers in Vietnam taking trophies, which were parts of bodies of Vietnamese dead or who they had killed or tortured to death.
AMY GOODMAN: And just this report we read today, Michael Ware, well known face on CNN, constantly on talking about Iraq—
TARIQ ALI: Exactly.
AMY GOODMAN: —saying when he had this footage of a US soldier killing an Iraqi teen, they did not allow him to run that footage. And CNN owns it, so he can’t get it.
TARIQ ALI: It’s a disgrace that CNN did that, but that is a sign of how the global media corporations have been reporting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Self-censorship has been the order of the day. They haven’t wanted to offend the US military, in sharp contrast to how the Vietnam War was covered. I remember Morley Safer on CBS News reporting a family’s home being destroyed by US Marines and Safer commenting, "We’re fighting for freedom." That sort of stuff is not permitted now. The global corporations don’t do it, which is why programs like this are important. But now that if he can’t even use the footage that he took, what is that? I mean, how people in that part of the world know exactly what’s going, and it’s not the Quran burnings that upset them so much—but they do, too—but what is happening to their daily lives with the US and NATO presence. That is what upsets them, and that is the root of the problem.
AMY GOODMAN: You know, we were just in London and saw a production that’s based on Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, but it’s The People Speak. It’ll air on History Channel UK on October 31st, a remarkable production of British people’s history. And one of the people who is portrayed there was you, talking about "Blair-faced liars." But you have a long history of decades of organizing around global politics in Britain. What about solutions right now? I mean, you have this One World March that’s going to be taking place on October 2nd in Washington, DC, based on jobs, justice and education. What about the kind of organizing that you feel is the most effective? People say, well, what should Obama do? What should Obama do? He is one person, albeit occupies the most powerful position on earth. But isn’t it really about movements, pressuring these individuals? That’s what makes history.
TARIQ ALI: I agree with you entirely. And I remember saying to lots of activists in the United States during the Obama election campaign—you know, people mobilized by MoveOn.org, etc.—and I would say to them, "Fine. You’re campaigning for Obama. You want him elected. OK, good. Let’s hope he delivers what you hope he’s going to deliver. But he’s not going to deliver even that if you just elect him and go back home." And I remember arguing for a massive antiwar gathering for the inauguration, which would pressure right from day one on the new administration, saying, "Congrats, Barack. Now out of Baghdad and Iraq. Out of Kabul and Afghanistan," from the word go. Without that, politicians don’t do anything. We wouldn’t have won any democratic rights, unless people had fought for them. The right of women to vote would never have been got, unless there’d been suffragettes fighting for it. So, that is the lesson, I’m afraid. And, you know, when people tell me in this country, "Oh, but there’s pressure from these kooks on the right, the tea party and this and that," I said, "Obama boasts, and his office boasts, that they have 13 million supporters online. Well, what the hell are they doing with them? I mean, why couldn’t they mobilize even a tiny proportion of these to come out and give them support?" They don’t do that. So, someone has to do it.
AMY GOODMAN: Or they’re there and the media doesn’t cover them. When you had one of the tea party rallies in Washington—I believe it was right on the anniversary of the war—there were about 500 members of the tea party there. There were thousands of people protesting the war. It got almost no coverage, certainly not equal to what happened with the tea party.
TARIQ ALI: Exactly. So the exaggerated threat of the tea party is played up by the right-wing media, Fox and many others, because they see it as a useful way to hammer the administration. But the administration’s inability to take them on in terms of arguments, that is what’s worrying, Amy.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Tariq Ali, I want to thank you for being with us. We’re going to talk about the tea party with Glenn Greenwald. Tariq Ali, The Obama Syndrome: Surrender at Home, War Abroad is the name of his new book.
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Sunday, September 19, 2010
Jeremy and US v. Terrorism and Blackwater
The same day the interview with John Galtung appeared, so did the one with Jeremy Scahill. Now there is a guy with guts. He used to report live from Baghdad when Bush the Lesser was busy destroying the people and the civilization in order to show up his daddy.
Many of us were glad he made it out alive.
Blackwater has changed its name and moved overseas, but it is still the same scam and illegal operation it was before. In fact, under Obama, it seems to have gotten worse.
Anyway, here it is, unexpurgated:
The Nation: Docs Reveals Blackwater-Linked Companies Provided Intel & Security to Multinationals Like Monsanto, Chevron
"Blackwater’s Black Ops"—that’s the title of an explosive new article in The Nation magazine that reveals how entities closely linked with the private security firm Blackwater have provided security and intelligence services to a range of powerful corporations over the past several years. The companies include Monsanto, Chevron, Deutsche Bank and others. Blackwater has also provided intelligence and training services to foreign governments, including Jordan, the Canadian military and the Dutch police. We speak with investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill. [includes rush transcript]
Jeremy Scahill, Puffin Foundation writing fellow at the Nation Institute and the author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army.
Rush Transcript
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Blackwater has also provided intelligence and training services to foreign governments, including the Kingdom of Jordan, the Canadian military and the Dutch police. In 2007, former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto worked with Blackwater when she returned to Pakistan to campaign for the general elections. Bhutto was assassinated in December of 2007.
The new revelations come from documents obtained by The Nation. They show that Blackwater’s work for corporations and government agencies was contracted using two companies: Total Intelligence Solutions and the Terrorism Research Center. Both companies are owned by Blackwater’s owner and founder, Erik Prince.
Today also marks the third anniversary of the Nisoor Square massacre, when Blackwater guards gunned down seventeen Iraqi civilians and wounded twenty in a fifteen-minute shooting spree in Baghdad.
For more, we’re joined now from New York by investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill. He’s a Puffin Foundation writing fellow at the Nation Institute. He’s a Democracy Now! correspondent and author of the book Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army. His new article in online at thenation.com.
Jeremy, welcome to Democracy Now! How did you get a hold of these documents?
JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, Amy, as you know, journalists who do this kind of sensitive work have an obligation to protect their sources, so I’m not going to go into any detail about where these documents came from because of ethical obligations that I have as an investigative journalist to protect my sources. And we’re living in a climate right now where there is really a war against whistleblowers and others, so I prefer to leave it at that.
AMY GOODMAN: Tell us what you found. Tell us how many documents you got and what’s in them.
JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, I was provided with an extensive array of documents that included internal company emails from various entities controlled by Erik Prince, including Total Intelligence Solutions, the Terrorism Research Center, Blackwater itself, documents that not only relate to these corporations that you mentioned—Monsanto, Disney, Chevron and the rest—but also documents that relate to some very powerful people that were veteran CIA operatives that worked on lethal CIA programs before coming to Blackwater.
Among them was Cofer Black, the former head of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center, the man who after 9/11 told Congress that the gloves had come off, in terms of the tactics that the United States was using in the so-called war on terror. Another figure was Rob Richer, who is the former deputy director of operations at the CIA, and Enrique "Ric" Prado, who is a twenty-four-year CIA veteran and was a veteran paramilitary operative in the CIA’s Special Operations Group, the most lethal of the CIA entities.
And in terms of Ric Prado, what is significant about him is that Prado and Erik Prince were the two figures that set up the CIA assassination program that Blackwater was at the center of. And what the documents that I obtained show is that Ric Prado, beginning in 2007, took the network of foreign operatives that Blackwater had developed for the CIA’s assassination program, operatives that Ric Prado describes in the documents I obtained as "deniable," and therefore a "big plus" to clients that would want to hire them, and attempted to offer this network of deniable assets around the world to the Drug Enforcement Administration. And in fact, he emailed an eighteen-year veteran of the DEA who had recently come to work for Erik Prince and asked that executive if the DEA would be interested in such a network. And this eighteen-year DEA agent, who now was working for the Blackwater network of companies, told Prado that there could be interest in that and actually gave him the name of the special agent in charge of the Special Operations Division, which is a very secretive entity within the Department of Justice that’s controlled by the DEA. And this executive also suggested that attachés for the DEA in Mexico, in Colombia, in Thailand and elsewhere may also be interested. Now, I haven’t been able to confirm whether or not this network was activated and, if it was, for what purpose, but this is very, very explosive.
The other thing, Amy, that I think is really important on this CIA angle is that at one point, in one of the documents I obtained, we find that Blackwater set up a pricing chart for its services to hire people like Enrique "Ric" Prado or Cofer Black or Rob Richer to work for your private corporation or if you’re a wealthy individual. And among the services, you could pay more than $33,000 to have Ric Prado set up a—lead a four-man countersurveillance team or counterintelligence team in the United States. You could pay $250,000 to have Prado set up a safehouse for you, plus expenses. And these services were also offered in places around the globe, in North Africa, in China, Japan, Russia, throughout Latin America. So essentially what you had is CIA-type services literally being offered at a price tag, a specific price tag, being put on them. And perhaps the most interesting among them is that for $5,000 a day you could hire Cofer Black, Rob Richer or Ric Prado to represent your interests in front of national decision makers.
AMY GOODMAN: You also write, Jeremy Scahill, about what happened on this—well, three years ago—this is the third anniversary of the Nisoor Square massacre—what Blackwater did in response, the Blackwater operatives who opened fire and killed seventeen Iraqis.
JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, the Nisoor Square massacre was the single greatest massacre of Iraqi civilians that we know about that was committed by a US force in Iraq. And what happened is that after the Nisoor Square massacre, Blackwater engaged in a rebranding campaign, where they attempted to shake the Blackwater name. They now call themselves Xe Services or the US Training Center.
And what I think was most fascinating, in terms of this rebranding, as far as the documents I obtained, was—is that in January of 2008, Cofer Black, who was the vice chair of Blackwater and the chairman of Total Intelligence Solutions, Blackwater’s CIA, flew to Zürich, Switzerland, and he met with Kevin Wilson, who was the head of global security for Monsanto. And I actually talked to Kevin Wilson. I called him on the phone and reached him, and he seemed pretty surprised that I knew about the meeting, but he did confirm, ultimately, that he met with Cofer Black. And he told me that Cofer Black had informed him that Blackwater and Total Intelligence were totally separate entities. But if you see the email that Cofer Black sent after meeting with Kevin Wilson, he sent it to Erik Prince at Prince’s Blackwater email address and to Ric Prado at his Blackwater email address, and he told them that he had discussed with Kevin Wilson Blackwater becoming the intel arm, the intelligence arm, of Monsanto and that they had discussed using Blackwater/Total Intelligence operatives to infiltrate animal rights groups. Of course, Monsanto is at the center of many protests globally by farmers’ organizations, by animal rights activists, by environmental rights activists. You discussed earlier in the headlines this issue of hiring companies to spy in the state of Pennsylvania. So when I asked Monsanto about that, they said that no such discussion took place, but they did acknowledge that they hired Total Intelligence Solutions beginning in '08 and all the way up—working for Monsanto all the way up until earlier this year, in 2010. And they said that one of the things that they were doing for them was to monitor activists' blogs and websites on behalf of Monsanto.
The Disney corporation hired Blackwater to scout movie locations in Morocco. And in that case, Rob Richer, former senior CIA officer, and Cofer Black, both of them reactivated their contacts in Morocco from their CIA days and used those sources as a way to build a sort of report for Disney.
Deutsche Bank had them prepare—had Blackwater/Total Intelligence and the Terrorism Research Center prepare a report on countersurveillance tactics in China. And the Blackwater network of companies advised Deutsche Bank that they should not be—that they should not bring any electronic equipment when they go into China and that their executives should beware of female Chinese agents trying to get too close to them. And at one point, the analyst for Blackwater says, "If women aren’t coming onto you in the United States and they start coming onto you in China, well, then, you know something is suspicious."
Perhaps what is going to be most eye-raising for some in Pakistan about what I’ve reported is the idea that Benazir Bhutto worked with Blackwater in the months leading up to her death. There’s an email that I obtained from Rob Richer, the former deputy director of operations at CIA working for Blackwater at the time, where it is revealed that American security has been hired by Bhutto. And richer writes back—and I think it’s important to quote this exactly as he said it—he writes to the other analysts for Blackwater and Total Intelligence Solutions, and he says, "We need to watch this carefully from a number of angles. If our name surfaces, the Pakistani press reaction will be very important. How that plays through the Muslim world will also need tracking." Richer wrote, quote, "We should be prepared to [sic] a communique from an affiliate of Al-Qaida if our name surfaces," meaning Blackwater. "That will impact the security [profile]." There’s a word missing there, or there’s a typo. "We should be prepared to"—what—"a communique." It’s unclear. And the missing word or the typo there will dictate, of course, the full meaning of that message, because Benazir Bhutto was assassinated two months later. So I’m sure that this bears much further scrutiny by the Bhutto family and the Pakistani government. This really needs to be investigated, what role Blackwater had in Benazir Bhutto’s security operations.
AMY GOODMAN: You also mention Blackwater working for Chevron Corporation, a company we’ve both investigated together, Jeremy.
JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, it looks like Chevron was a subscriber, in some form, to the intelligence services provided by Total Intelligence Solutions and the Terrorism Research Center. Blackwater—or, excuse me, Chevron is listed on one of the documents that I obtained that shows the list of top ten vendors for the Total Intelligence Solutions and Terrorism Research Center for their client base. But there were no specifics about what the company—the companies, Blackwater-affiliated companies, did for Chevron. That’s also the case with some of the other companies on there. And I think one of the reasons why I wanted to put this out is that I’m hoping that other journalists are going to follow up on this and really press the issue—just exactly what was Blackwater doing, particularly after the Nisoor Square massacre, for all of these powerful multinational corporations?
AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to go to break and come back. Investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill is our guest. He has an explosive piece at thenation.com. It’s called "Blackwater’s Black Ops." Stay with us.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: We’re finishing up with our guest Jeremy Scahill, independent journalist, and the piece in The Nation magazine, "Blackwater’s Black Ops." As we wrap up on this third anniversary of the Nisoor Square massacre, Jeremy, I wanted to go back to Ric Prado and the losing the secure phone line.
JEREMY SCAHILL: Right. There was a flurry of emails at one point in October of 2009. Clearly, someone from the CIA had contacted Blackwater and was asking them to account for their secure telephone unit. These are telephone units that are encrypted and allow conversations that cannot be penetrated or eavesdropped on, and they’re used regularly, the more current version of it—they’re called STEs—are used regularly by the NSA or the CIA, by the President himself. And, you know, clearly, the—Blackwater had been issued one of these telephones because of its covert work for the CIA, of course, the CIA assassination program, that lasted at least from '04 to ’06 involving Blackwater. And various Blackwater officials are emailing around, and they can't account for it. And people are saying, "I have no dog in this fight. I’ve left the company."
And then Ric Prado, who had left Blackwater and started his own covert operations shop called Constellation Security Group, Constellation Security Consulting—Ric Prado emails, finally, to kind of say, "Well, I’ll take care of this." And he says, "Have the OGA point of contact contact me." OGA, of course, is parlance for the CIA. It means "other government agency." Prado’s company, I think, Constellation, needs to be investigated, because he writes in these documents that he carried out operations in Mali, in North Africa, potentially involving Chad and Congo. We know, of course, that there’s increased CIA and Joint Special Operations Command activity happening on the African continent. And the role of this company, of this man who is a twenty-four-year veteran of the CIA, a paramilitary for the CIA, his company, his new company, needs to be investigated because it appears as though he’s taken some of Blackwater’s covert CIA business with him into his new company that he himself has started and now runs.
AMY GOODMAN: And, Jeremy, you’re talking about Constellation Consulting Group, or CCG. We want to thank you very much for being with us, Jeremy Scahill. The piece is explosive. It’s at thenation.com. Interesting you raise the issue of Blackwater spying for Monsanto, because tomorrow on Democracy Now! from here in Bonn, we’re going to speak with Canadian farmer Percy Schmeiser, who took on Blackwater in a big way.
- PERCY SCHMEISER: The Parliament in Cape Town of South Africa, and coming out of the Assembly, one of Monsanto’s representatives from Johannesburg ran face-to-face into us, and he lost his cool, and he said to my wife and myself—and he shook his fist in our face and said, "Nobody stands up to Monsanto. We are going to get both of you, somehow, some day, and destroy you both." Phone calls my wife would receive: "You better watch it. We’re going to get you." They would come into our driveway and watch what my wife would be doing all day. They would use their vehicles and sit on the roads alongside of our farmland, watch us all day long, to try and intimidate us and to put fear into us.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Canadian farmer Percy Schmeiser, took on Monsanto Corporation in a big way. You’ll hear his story tomorrow here on Democracy Now!, as we continue to broadcast from Bonn, Germany, where the thirtieth anniversary of the Right Livelihood Awards is being held.
democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Peace and Reason
Illustration: It has been awhile since we ran an illustration, so here is a great one by the brave Keith Tucker. Visit his site at Http://www.whatnowtoons.org
I guess we have to distinguish between what we see on the media and what is really going on.
So, let's start with the media.
The Republican candidate for the United States Senate is Kristine O'Donnell. Her platform is that
wing-nuts and nut-jobs are really "We the People." She actually said that. So, if you want to be a people, you should join her.
Her other point is that you can't masturbate without having lust in your heart. (No, I'm not making this up.) I just have a bit of a question, which is "How does she know?" Some sort of personal experience? Or did she channel Larry flint? All things are possible with these people.
I was told second hand that the economy was so bad that the Mafia had to lay off five judges in Chicago. Rahm Israel Emmanuel is running for mayor just in time.
I'm hearing Hillary Clinton (speaking of not having lust in your heart) talking about the peace talks in the Mideast and how well they are going. The next thing I saw was Shimon Peres pictured prominently.
That means the talks are going nowhere. Peres in trotted out every time Israel messes things up to show the world that they are not all crazy.
Meanwhile, to observe the day of Atonement, Yom Kipper, Israel assassinated several Palestinians and completely blocked off Gaza for the day. (See, that shows how sorry they are for their sins, I suppose).
It also marks the anniversary of the Sabra and Shatilla massacre, so there is room for a lot of merrymaking..
Well, with all of this, one can not be hopeful about the situation there, but there is a solution. It would actually work. This means, nobody will listen to it or even give it a chance, but here it is. I have to warn you that it makes sense and would work, so it doesn't have a chance:
Guest:Johan Galtung on the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Mideast Peace Talks, and Why Obama Is Losing His Base
We speak with Johan Galtung, known as a founder of the field of peace and conflict studies. He’s spent the past half-century pursuing nonviolent conflict resolution in international relations. Galtung discusses the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Mideast talks, why President Obama is losing his base, and much more. [includes rush transcript]
Johan Galtung, founder of the field of peace and conflict studies. He has spent the past half-century pursuing nonviolent conflict resolution in international relations. His latest book is called The Fall of the US Empire.AMY GOODMAN: As we continue here in Bonn, I sat down with another of the Right Livelihood laureates, Johan Galtung. He won the award in 1987. We talked about the Mideast talks, the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the rise of China as a superpower. Yes, Johan Galtung, we’ve had him on the broadcast a number of times, and he started by talking about the Middle East.Rush Transcript
This transcript is available free of charge. However, donations help us provide closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on our TV broadcast. Thank you for your generous contribution.
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JOHAN GALTUNG: I think the only viable solution is a Middle East community consisting of Israel and the five bordering Arab states, meaning Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Palestine—fully recognized according to international law—and Egypt. That was also the solution for Europe, with Germany in the center, this time with Israel in the center. I think that could work, and I think what they’re negotiating is a nonstarter from the beginning. With the formula I just indicated, I think Israel could get peace, with open borders, free flow, and perhaps the possibility of Jews settling in the neighboring countries, too, but not trying to mess them up with too much investment and too many tricks of various types. There has to be some rules. And what they’re doing now would, in Europe, have been a treaty between Germany and Luxembourg. That was not the way Europe solved its problem. AMY GOODMAN: What do you think—how would you describe what is happening now in Sharm el-Sheikh? Who are the negotiating parties? JOHAN GALTUNG: Well, formally speaking, it is Abbas from the Palestinian Authority and Bibi Netanyahu from the Israeli government. But the settlers have threatened to withdraw from Netanyahu’s coalition if he gives too much to the Palestinians. And by giving too much, I don’t think there’s much margin from the Russian settler point of view. And I think there are similar threats from Gaza and from Hamas. I don’t think this will work. It is not a solution on the horizon. I think it is, to some extent, a maneuver and that both of them will try to blame the other or some third party. AMY GOODMAN: What about the role of the United States? JOHAN GALTUNG: Role of the United States—the United States was never a mediator. A mediator cannot be an ally of one of the parties and having a joint concern, since United States and Israel came into being the same way, by some kind of divine mandate, that we are chosen peoples and this is our promised land. The people onboard the Mayflower took over the Jewish metaphors before they landed on the Plymouth Rock. So I think they are obsessed with the idea that if one falls, so does the other. Now, that’s an asymmetry which is unacceptable for a mediator. A much better mediator would have been the European Commission. The European Commission should enter here not only as a mediator, but as a model, just simply revealing what happened, laying the cards on the table. How did they manage to integrate Germany, that had committed so many atrocities? That is quite some story, and that story would be inspiring for them. And out of it came something that works. Right now they have a little currency crisis, but they’re overcoming that much better than somebody else. AMY GOODMAN: How did they manage to integrate Germany? What year was it? JOHAN GALTUNG: It was started with the coal and steel authority in 1950. And from 1st of January, 1958, came the Treaty of Rome. And the basis was mutual and equal benefit. Germany entered as a full member from the beginning. I think it was told that "You better shut the first twenty years. Don’t talk too much. And if there’s some bills to pay, you pay them." Now, I don’t think that would work with Israelis. First of all, they cannot shut up. And secondly, I don’t think they are willing to pay any bill. But I’m just mentioning it, not quite as a joke, because that was the way it worked. Germany was more obedient, to put it that way. That’s become a glittering success, in terms of accommodating Germany. That they have other problems is obvious. AMY GOODMAN: Professor Galtung, what about Iraq, where we stand today with Iraq, where Iraq stands? JOHAN GALTUNG: I think the basic point about Iraq is that it is an artificial construction by two civil servants of the British Foreign Service in 1916. And I think they had the assignment of constructing a country out of the remnants of the Ottoman Empire, consisting—but it could, within the borders of one country, accommodate the oil in Kirkuk, Mosul, in the north, and Basra, in the south. And so they did. Now, that’s not a rationale for a country. Mesopotamia, between the rivers, would have made sense. Iraq, I think, is doomed to disintegration. This is one reason why they still don’t have a government, in spite of elections in March. They cannot agree on the formula for it. So I would say that it will disintegrate as either a very loose federation or a confederation. There is some Iraq that has come into existence. I am quite willing to say that. But it is weak. And I don’t think the capital can be in Baghdad, which is in one of the four Sunni provinces out of the eighteen provinces. And, you see, the Sunnis have been ruling this system not having oil. And the others are not quite willing to bail out the Sunnis. So I think it’s a nonstarter. It was a nonstarter from the beginning, and Obama is now following in the footsteps of George Bush. I don’t think there’s anything new, actually, in Obama’s proposal, and it doesn’t look promising. AMY GOODMAN: I mean, you have about 50,000 troops. You have the largest US embassy in the world there, something like eighty football fields in size. JOHAN GALTUNG: Unbelievable, inside the Green Zone. Unbelievable. Are they going to dismantle that? Well, those bases, I guess, were inspired by the idea that there will be a war with China. That’s always been the Anglo-American idea, that the biggest power, be that on the continent or be that in Eurasia, is our born enemy. It’s always been the Anglo-American idea, some kind of paranoia. And totally unnecessary. So I guess the bases are essentially for that purpose, like the purpose of the Bagram base in Afghanistan, the same. AMY GOODMAN: Do you see a similar way of the US so-called withdrawing in Afghanistan—do you think they’re going to follow the model with the US in Iraq? JOHAN GALTUNG: They are going to withdraw from both of them, because it is a mission impossible, a mission unachievable. They’re going to withdraw, and I think the most likely future for the US in both countries is to become neither a winner nor a loser, but irrelevant, and that that whole area will be managed by some cooperation between Turkey and China and the countries in between, the countries in between being Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan. And that means the Shanghai Cooperation Organization—I’m just back from a meeting with them in China, and some other people from the Central Committee—and the defunct Regional Development Cooperation between Turkey, Iran and Pakistan and Afghanistan. Now, this is a massive belt of countries, so I would watch out for this—for Ankara-Beijing cooperation. AMY GOODMAN: For what? JOHAN GALTUNG: Cooperation. Watch out. It’s not there yet, but Beijing is now building a railway from Xinjiang, the western province—where the Uyghurs, that Beijing, by and large, have treated not only badly, but stupidly—into Kazakhstan. Now, if that railroad ends up in Istanbul, they are in business. And it could easily do. AMY GOODMAN: You have spoken to a number of US Congress members about what you think needs to be the solution in Afghanistan. What have you proposed, and what is their response? JOHAN GALTUNG: I proposed withdrawal of all foreign troops; coalition government with the Taliban; Afghanistan as a federation, relatively loose, because of all the centripetal tendencies, probably with a capital not in Kabul; a confederation with the surrounding Islamic countries, meaning a Central Asian community, with the five former Soviet central republics, plus Iran, plus Pakistan, plus maybe the Muslim part of Kashmir; and a policy of equality between genders and nations. I have spoken with Taliban about that, and they say, "We know we are behind on the gender issue, but we’re not going to be told that by foreigners. We’re going to learn from countries, Muslim countries, that are ahead—Tunisia, [inaudible] Tunisia, since 1956 already, Turkey, Indonesia, southern Philippines. We know we are behind, and we are going to develop on our own premises." OK? Number five is security. It’s a very violent culture, probably organized by the Organization of the Islamic Conference in cooperation with the UN security conference—not NATO, not USA, not ISAF, nothing of that type. Get it out, and get the work started. Personally, I think that the future Afghanistan will be handled by that belt from Turkey to China. It’s a very powerful one. AMY GOODMAN: What do US congressmen respond? JOHAN GALTUNG: They shrug their shoulders, and they say, "Dear Professor Galtung, it’s impossible to convey to American voters, because that means that we have to concede that the other side has a couple of good points and that we have a couple of wrong points. It’s very difficult to do that." And one of them, a very famous one, who shall remain unmentioned, put it this way: "Our instinctive reaction whenever there’s a problem is to send the Marines and not to try to solve the problem. We have done that too many times." And, you see, here comes a little point about China. China, within what classical China regards as their pocket in world geography, between the Himalayas, the Gobi Desert, the tundra, meaning Siberia, and the sea, is theirs. That doesn’t mean it’s all part of China, but China has the upper hand, and they have treated parts of it very badly—wars with Vietnam, Tibet, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia. Hong Kong-Macau has found a rather good formula. Taiwan is heading in that direction. Korea is doing not badly. With Vietnam, they have had warfares. But outside that pocket, China has not had a single invasion, occupation. What they did in October '62 about India, they withdrew immediately. And I, myself, am not on the Indian side on that issue. But leaving that aside, this means China has a free hand all over the world, because there is nobody who can say, "You were here 300 years ago, and we remember what you did." And that, I can say about all Western countries, and particularly about the US, with its tendency to send the Marines. China has much more freedom to act than the US has. AMY GOODMAN: What about China? You just recently met with the Central Committee. What was that like? JOHAN GALTUNG: Central Committee members. Well, I was sitting with the Deputy Foreign Minister, and we had a map, a world map, on the floor. And, you see, peace studies, as opposed to the somewhat paranoid security studies, is about solutions. It's about equity, mutual and equal benefit. And this is exactly what the Chinese say they believe in—no, not inside that pocket, as I mentioned, but outside it. It was very easy to talk with them. We just went through the whole map and were discussing Chinese options. I can mention one example. And I’m not—I’m just saying these were things that I mentioned, and—to build a four-lane highway from Dar es Salaam to Kinshasa’s harbor on the Atlantic, expanding the Silk Route that was the world trade from 500 to 1500, globalized, incidentally, much before current globalization, run by Buddhists from China and surrounding countries and Muslims, ending in Somalia, and to expand that through the highway I just mentioned, maybe a railroad, too, to the Atlantic and then on to South America. And then trade the other way, exchange for students, sub-South, developing country, developing country, not dominated by China, but China as an anchor. That would be something, quite something. And not excluding North-South trade, but that was the imperial trade, you know. That was the United States to Latin America, and that was Europe and all the eleven colonial countries in Europe to Africa and other places. We cannot exclude it. We don’t want to exclude it. But we want the East-West trade. AMY GOODMAN: What is China’s view of the United States? JOHAN GALTUNG: They used to have a strong distinction between the US people, who are all good, and the US government, that’s all bad. I think both of those have changed a little bit. There are good elements in the US government, and there are not-so-good elements in the US people. I think they start getting to know the US a little better, so yin-yang, black-white perspectives, nuances, are coming up. They want cooperation. They have three avoidance principles: avoid being encircled; avoid counter-revolution—and here, they are thinking, in particular, of North Korea and Myanmar’s—now, all of that leaves open quite a lot of discussion—and avoid confrontation with the US. They don’t want confrontation. They want friendship. And right now they’re, of course, very much concerned with the maneuvers in the Yellow Sea and also in the China Sea and— AMY GOODMAN: Who’s maneuvering there? JOHAN GALTUNG: US, an aircraft carrier, together with South Korea in the Yellow Sea. Now, that’s very, very close. So, you could imagine the Chinese navy having maneuvers outside San Francisco or Los Angeles. It would not be very well received by Washington. So they are protesting, but are—the need, the need to avoid confrontation. If the US could do it the same way as the China does, try to stay away from such things, it would be very, very useful. AMY GOODMAN: Why doesn’t the US avoid that? Why are they doing the maneuvers in the Yellow Sea? JOHAN GALTUNG: Old habits, considering the world their playground. We did it before; that’s the way we always did it. US has to reset, to quote somebody who talks about it, but hasn’t quite done it. AMY GOODMAN: How do you think the US should end the conflict in Afghanistan? JOHAN GALTUNG: I can start with what I hope. If the US could support a real peace plan. So I’ve indicated points that I believe in, and the many who believe along these lines. Something along these lines. That would be the best option for the US. The question is, as my Congress representative friends say, whether that can be sold to the voters and to other parts of Congress. Now, let us say that you have about sixty-five progressive members of the House of Representatives, "progressive" meaning going along with solving conflict and not with military responses. Well, many people, good people, but we are talking about 435, aren’t we? So, we know where we are. We also know that, of the hundred persons in the Senate, it would be very difficult to mobilize sixty-five people. Very difficult. So, given that, the US has, in a sense, been digging a grave for itself, meaning that becoming irrelevant is the option, like they did in Vietnam. They did in Vietnam, and Vietnam came together, after 30 April, '75, somebody climbing up a ladder to a helicopter hovering above the US embassy. And there might be similar things happening here. Now, if the US wants to become irrelevant, if they prefer that, do so. I would much rather see the US supporting a conference for peace and security—or let us call it security and cooperation—in Central Asia, maybe not even as a participant, but as an observer, because the US is not quite known as a Central Asian country. Incidentally, it's not an East Asian country, either. As far as I can see from the map, it belongs to the American hemisphere, and maybe it’s in cooperation with Mexico and Canada, a kind of MexUSCan, where the future US will be very well located, more modest, like an Israel contracting to June '67 but getting peace as a reward. Not a bad reward. AMY GOODMAN: What is your assessment of President Obama? JOHAN GALTUNG: I have never believed in him. Never. I have lots of editorials and things written in the election year. I think that I sense something slightly megalomaniac in him, which is disturbing. The idea of being able to unite all of the US, just as he unites skin colors and faiths and origins in his body, and for that reason, leaning over backwards to negotiate with the Republicans and taking on Republican points, whereupon the Republicans vote no. Now, maybe the Republicans will now change from being a "no" party to some couple of "maybe" or "yeses," maybe. But in the meantime, he has lost the support of the people who are voting for him. If I had been working like mad in 2008 to get him elected, because of some beauties in his rhetoric, and had experienced what I have experienced now, I would not work for the midterm elections. AMY GOODMAN: What do you think he has gone back on, in terms of his promises? JOHAN GALTUNG: Practically speaking, everything. Guantánamo is still there. Rendition is still there. There is the saying that no torture should take place; I haven't seen the mechanism to ensure that that’s the case. The withdrawal from Iraq, with 50,000 remaining. Stepping up, escalating the war in Afghanistan. And as we know, whatever withdraws from Iraq essentially goes to Afghanistan instead. I think it’s very contrary to the kind of thing that he was exuding, including the nuclear point. What kind of thing is this, to get rid of old-fashioned weapons with the Russians and then arguing for $180 billion to modernize the nukes—$100 billion for the weapons carriers, $80 billion for new warheads? What kind of nuclear-free world is this? He should have had the decency, when Norway made the mistake of giving him the Nobel Peace Prize, of saying, "I graciously, gratefully decline. I haven’t earned it yet. Let’s come back when possibly I have earned it." He didn’t say that, and dispensed with the prize money in a disgraceful way. AMY GOODMAN: How? JOHAN GALTUNG: To all kinds of irrelevant organizations. He didn’t even give it to US peace organizations. Let me just mention one: the American Friends Service Committee, which is a fantastic organization doing marvelous work all over the world. Could have given the whole thing to them. AMY GOODMAN: Is there anything else you’d like to add here in Bonn, in this year, 2010? JOHAN GALTUNG: This is a remarkable gathering of people who are working on very positive things. And there isn’t one single person here who doesn’t have a solution to something. I would say the world should pay attention to these people. These are very positive people. And these are not people who have just derived some expertise from one conflict. The Nobel Peace Prize winners usually know nothing except that one conflict, and too much is demanded of them, because they are not able to generalize from that. These are people who have done a lot of thinking and a lot of practice. I am just very grateful that this so-called Alternative Nobel Prize—Peace Prize exists, and the Right Livelihood Award—five prizes every year, thirty years, 150—eighty of them, a slim majority, are assembled here. AMY GOODMAN: Professor Galtung, thank you very much. JOHAN GALTUNG: My pleasure. Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: Founder of peace studies, Johan Galtung, speaking here in Bonn. Tomorrow, Canadian farmer Percy Schmeiser versus Monsanto.
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