Beyond Satire, It's Sick Charity

 Who will save the children of Falluja?

SATIRICAL song writer Tom Lehrer remarked that when US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel peace prize, satire became obsolete. Since then we've had further occasions to feel cynical about the choice of Nobel candidates. But what can we say about a man whom many regard as a war criminal being honoured by a well-known children's charity?

Here is a report from the Independent:

Tony Blair was last night recognised for his humanitarian work at a glamorous gala to raise funds for a global children's charity – in front of guests including Lassie the dog.

The controversial former Prime Minster received the Global Legacy Award at the Save the Children Illumination Gala 2014, which was held at The Plaza in New York City.
The star-studded event boasted a guest list featuring Save the Children President and CEO Carolyn Miles, acting couple Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner and Twilight actress Dakota Fanning – as well as the much-loved collie dog.

Upon receiving his award Blair praised aid workers fighting Ebola in West Africa, as well as the increase in the amount of foreign aid donated by the UK over the past 10 years, according to the Mail Online.

“From the beginning of humankind there has been brutality, conflict, intrigue, the destructive obsession with a narrow self-interest,” he said.“But throughout all human history, never has been extinguished that relentless, unquenchable desire to do good. To act not only in self-interest and sometimes to even to act in defiance of it.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/tony-blair-honoured-with-save-the-childrens-global-legacy-award-at-charity-gala-attended-by-ben-affleck-and-lassie-9873596.html

Well Lassie should have cocked his leg or thrown up his dinner at this point, but he is not available for comment.  Tony Blair must know all about brutality, conflict and intrigue, having lied his way into the war on Iraq, as well as presiding over the continuation of policies that increased the gap between rich and poor in this country, and Tory legislation tying trade unions hand and foot from doing much about it. As for self-interest, Tony Blair was not short of a few bob before he became prime minister, and since then he must have lost count of the millions he has amassed from various jobs and sinecures.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/tony-blair/10981122/Tony-Blair-Im-worth-less-than-20-million-and-Im-not-interested-in-making-money.html

Save the Children and other charities have portrayed some heartrending scenes of child poverty and suffering at home and abroad to stir the public's conscience. We don't expect aid charities to do anything as controversial as discussing the underlying causes - though some, such as War on Want, do remind us that policies have consequences. 

But even at the level of just showing us how bad things are, before Save the Children goes all gooey fawning on Tony Blair it could focus its attention on just one Iraqi town, Falluja, attacked and bombed twice by US  forces with British participation. At first they denied the use of white phosphorus, supposed to be banned under international law, and depleted uranium munitions. But these things came out. And whatever the precise causes, the effects of war on Falluja have continued.

In 2010 it was reported that an academic study^[38] had shown "a four-fold increase in all cancers and a 12-fold increase in childhood cancer." since 2004.^[39] In addition, the report said the types of cancer were "similar to that in the Hiroshima survivors who were exposed to ionising radiation from the bomb and uranium in the fallout", ^... (Wikipedia)


"Iraqi physicians have also long reported a spike in cases involving severe birth defects in Fallujah since 2004. They have reported children born with multiple heads, serious brain damage, missing limbs and with extra fingers and toes."
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/insidestoryamericas/2012/08/2012815458859755.html

 The BBC's John Simpson reports from the central Iraq city of Falluja, where ... in Falluja had warned women that they should not have children.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8548961.stm

There is plenty more.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-the-children-of-fallujah--the-hospital-of-horrors-7679168.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYnDw1ReVhw

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-10721562

No need to labour the point.

But what was the reason for Save the Children honouring Blair anyway? Was it supposed to attract more money?  Blair is hardly the most popular figure in Britain today.  But then maybe there's a clue in them holding this ceremony in New York, which is also home to JP Morgan Chase, the bank which gave our former Prime Minister a part-time job this year, a mere £2 million to supplement his pension.
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/tony-blair-appointed-senior-advisor-to-jpmorgan-chase-56871787.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/1575247/Tony-Blair-to-earn-2m-as-JP-Morgan-adviser.html


Though some charities have to be increasingly careful these days to avoid anything "political" which might affect their status, others seem to be drawing closer to government and big business, so that sometimes it becomes harder to see the difference. While still relying on public generosity and unpaid volunteers, they may also serve as conduits for government funds and corporate tax-exempt donations with or without strings attached. While expecting lower-ranking staff to work enthusiastically for low pay or even workfare, they insist that top bosses merit salaries at least comparable to those of major company directors or government ministers. My landlord, a registered charity, finds it necessary to increase our rents each year, while its CEO reportedly earns more than the Prime Minister.

During the recent dispute at St,Mungo's where Unite union members fought off attempts to lower grades and do away with consultation, the union was interested to see how this charity's board had been filled with newcomers after a merger with another, less well-known charity; and how these included someone linked to Serco, a commercial outsourcing business keen to acquire new profitable activities even as it has been losing or having to divest from others in which it has not been doing so well.

And so back to Save the Children, and from the Daily Mail (August 8, 2013) we learn that:

Executives at one of the UK’s most prominent international aid charities were handed bonuses worth more than £160,000 last year.

Save the Children increased performance-related pay to executives by a third compared to the previous year, a move that could prove controversial following criticism of the huge pay-packets enjoyed by charity bosses.

The charity’s chief executive Justin Forsyth, a former advisor to Tony Blair, was among nine Save the Children executives handed the bonus in 2012.

It was revealed earlier this week that Mr Forsyth earned a salary of £163,000, which is now known to include £22,560 in performance-related pay.

He is one of six staff at the 14 charities which make up the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) that earn more than the Prime Minister’s £142,500 salary.

The revelation prompted the International Development Secretary Justine Greening to say that the finances of major aid organisations - which receive hundreds of millions of pounds from taxpayers - must be open to scrutiny.

William Shawcross, the chairman of the Charity Commission, also said that ‘disproportionate’ salaries in the face of decreasing charitable donations from the public risked ‘bringing the charitable world into disrepute’.

Save the Children paid its executives £120,000 in performance-related pay in 2011 but said that Mr Forsyth declined the money due to being ‘relatively new’ in his role.

The payments increased significantly to £162,000 last year after the company ‘restructured’ the way it offered bonuses.

The charity said the payments encouraged the ‘very best’ from staff and helped to ‘save the lives of more of the world’s poorest children’.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2386616/Save-The-Children-bosses-160-000-bonuses-MP-calls-greater-scrutiny-charity-finances.html

For Kobani, Kurdish freedom, and International Solidarity

PKK FIGHTER. Women as well as men have will to fight, but not always the weapons. And as they face ISIS, Turkish NATO forces attack their back. 

The militant Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) has expressed its solidarity with the Kurdish resistance in Kobani struggling to defend themselves and their community from the reactionary Islamicist armed group, ISIS, which it says was ennabled to enter the Middle East region by the support it received from imperialist powers and their lackeys.

Khaled Barakat of the PFLP called on “All Palestinian and Arab revolutionary forces to unify their efforts to support the struggle of the Kurdish resistance in Kobane against ISIS and their imperialist supporters.”

"People in Syria, Iraq and everywhere in the region have been under attack by imperialism – an attack that comes not only through air strikes and occupation, but through the support of reactionary regional powers, through the promotion of sectarianism, and through reactionary armed groups carrying out a program of sectarian chaos. They have sought to replace the central conflict in the region: that of the people with Zionism and imperialism, with sectarianism and the imposition of massive, reactionary violence against minority groups who are an integral part of the region, while these same reactionary armed groups leave the Zionist state and imperialist forces untouched."
http://pflp.ps/english/2014/10/13/pflp-calls-for-unified-revolutionary-front-of-solidarity-with-the-struggle-of-the-people-of-kobane-against-isis/

For once I agree with the PFLP, and I'm inclined to accept their support for the Kurds as genuine. Some years ago at a conference in Vienna, attended by many high-powered Arab and pro-Palestinian delegations, I arose somewhat nervously during a session on nuclear and chemical weapons, to point out that the latter had already been used in the Middle East. "Yes, against the Kurds!"  exclaimed someone from the large PFLP delegation (which included famous 'plane hijacker Leila Khaled), to murmurs of assent. So I knew I was not alone, and need not feel hesitant about the point I was making.

Having armed Saddam Hussein's Iraqi regime with all they could, Western powers were reluctant to admit that he had gassed Kurds at Halabja, until years later when they wanted excuses to invade Iraq and it suited them to remember.  Then one of the places the US managed to bomb too was Halabja.

The situation in Syria and northern Iraq now is complex, but it's good to see the PFLP for one not turning away, nor letting their justified suspicion of imperialist aims and motives serve as an excuse for not taking sides, and ignoring the basic right of the Kurdish people and others to fight to survive, and expect solidarity. 

 Here is a letter which Labour MP Diane Abbott received from one of her north London constituents:

 Dear Diane,

I am a British Kurd living the UK. Kurds in West Kurdistan ‘Rojava’ are being attacked by the barbaric gang ISIS or ‘Islamic State’. Right now in Rojava town Kobani, ISIS has nearly entered the city. There have been heavy clashes and Kurds are not stepping down as they have no choice but to fight for their livelihood. It is a matter of hours that a mass murder by this gang is waiting to happen. It is very important that Kobani town is helped by the International military coalition.

Dear Diane, as an elected member parliament in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and my elected representative, I ask you to act now on the name of humanity. Kurds are the only secular, society who respect international laws and uphold the universal human right values. Humanity is under attacks not just Kobani. I beg you as a fellow human being and I know that you can change this. Please ask our PM, Mr Cameron to instruct our military forces to assist Kobani. Please tell Turks not to help ISIS. Yours truly, etc.

Many Kurds from Turkey live in Diane Abbott's Hackney North and Stoke Newington constituency, and many of them support the Kurdistan Workers Party, PKK, whose fighters have gone to the aid of Yezidi refugees and are supporting those fellow Kurds fighting in Rogava, and resisting ISIS siege of Kobani.


Yet the Turkish government, with which the PKK had been negotiating, after ceasing its armed struggle in Turkey, has launched its own raids against Kurds in Rogava, used its forces to prevent Kurdish fighters crossing into Syria, and bombed Kurdish targets in Turkey. Turkey is a NATO member. So is it not helping ISIS?
http://online.wsj.com/articles/turkish-warplanes-bomb-kurdish-pkk-in-turkey-1413296160?tesla=y

The British and other NATO governments still list the PKK as a "terrorist" organisation, if only to please Turkey. Diane Abbott herself has in the past asked whether the then Labour government intended to arrest hundreds of her otherwise law-abiding constituents for their political sympathies. The Home Secretary said that was ridiculous. But now I have seen quote attributed to Diane Abbott to the effect that arming the PKK would be no different to arming and supporting ISIS. I have not been able to verify whether the MP said anything as foolish. But I can easily answer the assertion.

One, if anyone wants to know the difference between ISIS and the PKK or any of the Kurdish parties, just check which direction the refugees have been moving. The second difference is that from what we have seen of the conflict so far, someone has already been arming and training ISIS - with mainly American equipment. Directing some weapons and aid to the poorly-equipped Kurdish fighters woul only be making up some of the difference.

While what is left of the once massively supported Stop the War Coalition has, true to form, staged demonstrations against Western intervention without saying a word in support of the Kurds, Yazidis, Christians or secular, progressive Iraqis, the national executive of the National Union of Students found itself called upon to debate a motion on the issue. According to Daniel Lemberger Cooper, who sits on the NUS NEC:

The “Iraqi solidarity” motion had been worked on with Roza Salih, a Strathclyde university student of Kurdish descent (she submitted an almost identical motion to the Scottish equivalent of the executive, the Scottish Executive Council, which I will post later, which, incidentally, did pass! One must ask Scottish executive members why vote for a motion in Scotland, but not in England?!).

"The motion was opposed by Malia Bouattia, the NUS Black Students’ Officer, for astonishing and bewildering reasons. Bouattia argued that the motion was “Islamophobic” and “pro USA intervention” ...Apparently another NEC member, Aaron Kiely, tweeted during the debate to say how marvellous Bouattia's speech was. " The motion then fell as large numbers of NEC members either abstained or voted against (including the bulk of the political Left on NEC). I think this says a lot about the current state of the student movement."
http://anticuts.com/2014/10/07/report-of-nus-nec-success-on-national-demonstration-disgrace-on-iraqkurdistan/

Not being well up on the internal politics of the NUS, but wary that Daniel might be giving a slanted account of the arguments, I looked at the actual resolution:

Iraqi/Kurdish solidarity

Proposed: Daniel Cooper.  Seconded: Shreya Paudel, Clifford Fleming

NUS NEC notes

1. The ongoing humanitarian crisis and sectarian polarisation in Iraq
- which has resulted in thousands of Yazidi Kurds being massacred.

NUS NEC believes

1. That the people of Iraq have suffered for years under the sectarian
and brutally repressive dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, the US/UK
invasion and occupation, the current sectarian regime linked to both
the US and Iran, and now the barbaric repression of the “Islamic
State” organisation.

2. That rape and other forms of sexual violence are being used as
weapons against women in IS-occupied areas, while minorities are being
ethnically cleansed.

NUS NEC resolves

1. To work with the International Students' Campaign to support Iraqi,
Syrian and other international students in the UK affected by this
situation.

2. To campaign in solidarity with the Iraqi people and in particular
support the hard-pressed student, workers' and women's organisations
against all the competing nationalist and religious-right forces.

3. To support Iraqis trying to bridge the Sunni-Shia divide to fight
for equality and democracy, including defence of the rights of the
Christian and Yazidi-Kurd minorities.

4. To condemn the IS and support the Kurdish forces fighting against
it, while expressing no confidence or trust in the US military
intervention.

5. Encourage students to boycott anyone found to be funding the IS or
supplying them with goods, training, travel or soldiers.

6. To make contact with Iraqi and Kurdish organisations, in Iraq and
in the UK, in order to build solidarity and to support refugees.

7. To issue a statement on the above basis.

I can see nothing "Islamophobic" or "pro-imperialist" in this, nor does it owe anything to a "Western narrative",  as the opponents claimed. If anyone felt it did not go far enough in denouncing US or British motives I am sure a simple amendment would have sufficed, rather than Britain's student union turning its back on the Kurds and effectively siding with ISIS. Perhaps some NUS NEC members fancy themselves more principled and doughty fighters against imperialism than the PFLP, but hopefully more students will have something to say about this.

Although some more important left-wing movements in other countries are supporting the Kurdish struggle, it seems reluctance to do so is not confined to the British Left. Among the dishonourable episodes of the Stop the War Coalition here was when a group of Iranian comrades set out from Birmingham to march to London and take part in an anti-war rally, only to be told they could not have five minutes to speak from the platform because, being ...er, refugees, they did not support the Islamicist regime in Iran.

So I was not entirely surprised to hear that in Australia, a group called Socialist Alternative, with roots not dissimilar to some of the Stop the War Coalition leadership, was opposed to opening anti-war platforms to speakers representing immigrants from Kurdistan.

If we want to build principled working class internationalism we have a lot of wok to do.

Look Behind the Barbarity in northern Iraq

AS the US and British governments appear to dither about how to help the victims of ISIS barbarity in Iraq and Syria, and whether to step in to the conflict, many people are remarking on the bitter irony that this bloody mess is a result of the West's previous intervention, that is the invasion of Iraq.

They may be right, as far as this goes, but I would ask whether ISIS and the sectarian war it brings to a horrific head is the entirely unintended result of a war and occupation that went wrong, or part of an imperialist policy that succeeded all too well?

We know now that the Iraq war was not aimed at destroying Saddam Hussein's supposed Weapons of Mass Destruction, about which Tony Blair went to such lying lengths. It was not aimed either at stopping a sectarian war in Iraq, which scarcely existed before the invasion and occupation. It was not about "War on Terror", for which Iraq was not the base (aside from the terrorist Mojahideen e Khalq operations against neighbouring Iran, which the US supported). That would seem to leave the popularly believed assumption that it was a war about oil, though not in the sense that the Iraqis were sitting on scarce oil and refusing to sell it (quite the contrary) or even big oil companies had their eye on Iraqi oilfields for profits (though of course they do).

It was the overall US strategy of maintaining its supremacy by controlling as much as possible of the world's energy supplies, and for this destroying any kind of independent development by countries like Iraq.

From the outset there were warnings that the occupiers would follow a divide-and-rule policy, carving up Iraq. To the physical destruction wrought by "Shock and awe" was added the destruction of Iraq as a modern state and the imposition of a confessional constitution modeled on that bequeathed to Lebanon by France, so that religious divisions are given permanence, and scramble for privilege and supremacy. Secular Iraqis, those for whom religious belief or not took second place to progress or patriotism, lost out, as did minorities. As for women, mothers who had been used to their mode of dress being a matter of choice learned from their daughters that going out unveiled could be a fatal risk.

Sectarian gangs could be a cover for death squads targeting not just political opponents but educated Iraqis, thousands of whom - including doctors, teachers, geologists and engineers - were killed or driven into exile, or 'disappeared'. Many Palestinian families in Iraq found themselves refugees for a second time (and since the Syrian war, a third). But would the invaders of Iraq deliberately foment, rather than attempt to contain, sectarian strife?

Watchers had noticed the move to Iraq of British officers with special experience in Northern Ireland. On September 19, 2005, two British Special Forces soldiers dressed in Arab clothes and driving an unmarked car, were captured in Basra. They were reportedly members of the Special Reconnaissance Regiment (SRR, and according to British accounts were on a surveillence mission. But the equipment they had with them suggested a more offensive role, and the suspicion raised by Iraqis, and nasty-minded people like me, was that they were posing as terrorists and acting as agent provocateurs, on a mission to plant bombs in a mainly Shi'ite area, a 'false-flag' terrorist attack.

Whatever the truth, the army and the SAS launched an operation to forcibly free its men from the Iraqi police hands, so that they would not give anything away under interrogation or before any court.

On April 1, 2005, the top of the Malwiya minaret in Samarra had been damaged by a bomb. Built in about 850 AD as part of the caliph Al-Mutawakkil's Great Mosque, this minaret is unique, its name 'malwiya' means "snail shell", because it is a hollow conical spiral, looking like some of the pictures one sees of the Biblical Tower of Babel.

Some reports said innsurgents had attacked the tower because U.S. troops had been using it as a lookout position. But Tony Blair in his January 21, 2011 Iraq Inquiry testimony said insurgents had attacked the mosque to incite Sunni-Shiite violence and further destabilize the country.

Another Samarra mosque, al-Askari, was severely damaged by explosives on February 22, 2006 at about 6:44 a.m. The mosque, and shrine of the two imams, Ali al-Hadi and Hassan al-Askari, was one of the holiest sites for Iraqi Shia, and blame focussed immediately on Sunni militants, although as one man from Samarra told me, the city's historic mosques and shrines had long been a source of pride to local people no matter what their religious affiliation or lack of it.

There were also questions such as, how any mere amateurs with home made bombs could have caused such damage to the mosque's thick walls; and how they could have got their explosives into place for what seemed like a skilled demolition job, while evading the US occupiers curfew and patrols.

Nevertheless, the mosque's bombing sparked off violence against Sunnis , with 168 mosques attacked, ten imams killed, and well over 1,000 people killed all told. The normal daily patrols of US coalition forces and Iraqi security forces were temporarily suspended in Baghdad during the few days following the bombing.

Discussing whether outside forces could have been responsible for attacks like those on the Samarra mosques or the many car bombings that have taken civilian lives in Iraq, an Iraqi friend Munir shook his head. " The CIA does not have suicide bombers". I replied: "Maybe not. But the Saudis have". I was not referring to the Saudis' own personnel so much as to those recruited and trained by organisations set up with Saudi money, such as Taliban and al Qaeda.

Even while Tony Blair was warning the Iranian regime against interferance in Iraq (where its influence over the Shia-dominated Iraqi government was an unintended consequence of the US-led invasion), we were seeing reports that most of the armed infiltrators entering Iraq came over the Saudi border. The Saudi ruling family are the allies of our own and US imperialism, and certainly good customers for armaments, as well as generous with backhanders for politicians. But they are also waging their own war for hegemony in the Muslim world, mainly but not exclusively against Iran and Shi'ites. It was with this in mind that Saudi backing propelled the Taliban into power in Afghanistan, But we should not forget either that the 9/11 hijackers were mostly Saudis, like Osama Bin Laden, and according to CIA reports received Saudi money from not just private but government sources.

If there was any doubt whether al Qaeda was involved in the attack on al Askhari mosque, as the Iraqi government alleged, there was no need to question their connection with the outrage on Sunday, October 31,2010, when more than 100 people were taken hostage in an attack on the Our Lady of Salvation Syriac Catholic cathedral in Baghdad,during Sunday evening Mass, and at least 58 people, including children, were killed. The attackers referred to their victims as "infidels", and shouted out allegations about supposed offences committed against Muslims by Christians in Egypt. Witnesses reported that though the gunmen spoke Arabic, they spoke with non-Iraqi accents, even foreign dialect.

The then al-Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq claimed responsibility.

It may be that the ISIS eruption has got out of hand and has gone further than any of its backers intended

But there are a few questions I would ask, for which I claim no originality or ingenuity:

One, how come that after seeing events like that attack on the Baghdad christian Mass four years ago, the CIA and MI6 and other agencies, with all their experts, and sources of intelligence - human and electronic - were so taken by surprise by what has happened in Mosul and northern Iraq - or at least, their governments were?

Two, remembering all we heard after 9/11 about tracking down sources of aid and weapons to al Qaida etc, how come these governments and agencies, with all their surveillance and hacking into communications and transactions by companies,trade unions, and ordinary individuals like you and me, have seemed unable - or unwilling - to touch the flow of money and resources to the real terrorist groups?

Three, how is it that volunteers from as far afield as Britain, the United States and as I heard the other day,Indonesia, have been able to reach ISIS in landlocked northern Iraq, without its own airport, and not traveling by magic carpet so far as I am aware.

Four - assuming that the ISIS forces' heavy modern military equipment, unusual for a supposed rebel guerrilla force, was all captured (what with, catapults?) who trained them to use it?

It is traditional for the youngest child of the family to ask four questions as part of the Passover ceremony, but if my four seem too simple and obvious to bother answering, I'll add a fifth. Why have they been passed over without being asked, let alone answered, by those clever people we see on TV?

 http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/nov/01/baghdad-church-siege-survivors-speak

  http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/iraq-crisis-how-saudi-arabia-helped-isis-take-over-the-north-of-the-country-9602312.html

http://scholarworks.wmich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3286&context=honors_theses

Iraq: Against the Oppressive Stooge Regime and the imported forces of Barbarism!

On recent events in Mosul and Other cities in Iraq  

Mosul and other cities in Iraq are experiencing dramatic, dangerous, and fateful changes.
The media, especially that which is allied with the Iraqi government and western states, has been focusing on the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant/Syria (ISIS) and its control over several Iraqi cities, provoking its audiences against the militant group. Indeed, ISIS terrorist groupings do exist among armed groups there and its influence in the recent events is clear.

However, it is also true that Iraqis generally reject ISIS, whether in the central or southern regions of Iraq or in parts of the country that are no longer under government control: the so-called "Sunni" areas or the "Sunni Triangle," a term that intelligence services, particularly the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), devised as part of a plan to engineer sectarianism in Iraq.

At the same time, Iraqis generally reject Maliki's regime and its policies, built as they are on an ethno-sectarian basis. This is especially the case in urban areas where sectarian discrimination is most concentrated, wherein the government treats ordinary people as political enemies.

The fall of several Iraqi cities in the hands of armed groups does not represent the dreams of the people who live there. Their demands to be rid of sectarianism are clear and direct. They expressed them through nonviolent sit-ins, but armed terrorist groups took advantage of this environment to take power. The people's demands against discrimination and sectarianism are just and fair, whereas Maliki's policies are reactionary and discriminatory, and are therefore rejected. In the meantime, ISIS' control of cities and people poses a serious threat to everyday life and to society.

Popular demands have morphed into a tool for reactionary forces to divide up the political pie, from the terrorists of al-Qa’ida, the Baath Party, and tribal leaders to the Shi'a religious leadership that has called for open warfare and the Kurdish nationalist forces that have achieved military and political gains. This all comes at a moment when Iraq has clearly become divided according to the wills of dominant political forces, whereas the will of the Iraqi people remains ignored.

Regional forces that benefit from Iraq's disintegration—especially Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey—operate in their own way to achieve political gains. All the while the US government—the prime cause of these problems to begin with—prepares to intervene however it chooses. President Obama has so far expressed his concern over Iraqi oil twice when talking about recent events. He has not shown any regard or concern for the fate of two million people now under the control of ISIS, or for the women who have started committing suicide in Mosul as a result of ISIS gangs.

The working class in Iraq is the common force that exists across the county, from the north of Kurdistan to the furthest points south. It is this force whose very existence and survival depends on the eradication of discrimination and the unification of the Iraqi people. This is the only force that can end fragmentation and division.

We reject US intervention and protest President Obama's inappropriate speech in which he expressed concern over oil and not over people. We also stand firmly against the brazen meddling of Iran.
We stand against the intervention of Gulf regimes and their funding of armed groups, especially Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

We reject Nouri al-Maliki's sectarian and reactionary policies.

We also reject armed terrorist gangs and militias' control of Mosul and other cities. We agree with and support the demands of people in these cities against discrimination and sectarianism.

Finally, we reject the interference of the religious institution and its call for indiscriminate warfare.
We aim to stand with those who represent the interests of the people and to empower them in the face of this dangerous and reactionary attack. We call for a clear international position to curb the deteriorating situation as well as regional interference, and to support the people of Iraq.

Falah Alwan
Federation of Workers’ Councils and Unions in Iraq
13 June 2014

Don't Forget Iraq (3)

I normally hesitate to take up stories about oppression of women, or child abuse, in Islamic countries, in case they are manufactured for propaganda purposes. But sometimes they are true. I know that Hussein al Alak, whose comment I am republishing here, is a decent and patriotic Iraqi as opposed to  the imperialists' war and occupation of his country as he is to the reactionary regime they have left behind.
At the first conference of the Stop the War Coalition, when I wanted to second a motion calling for support to secular and democratic forces in Iraq, I was told there would not be time. However time was found for several speakers to oppose the motion, among whom I remember Candice Unwin of the Socialist Workers Party, who beside the usual accusation that we were "telling Iraqis what to do", evoked the story of an Iraqi child attacked by British soldiers, to declare emotionally that she was not going to ask whether that child was secular or not.
The motion was lost, though about a third of delegates supported it, evidently unimpressed by the SWP demagogy or weighted debate. 
Had I been able to speak I was going to explain that far from detracting from solidarity with the people of Iraq, we wanted to warn that before they withdrew from Iraq, the imperialists would rely on reactionaries and corrupt leaders to foster a backward regime and promote sectarian conflict in Iraq, so as to divide and rule. We should be supporting secular forces, trade unions, women's movements and students, to counteract this.
Tragically, events since then have more than bore this out. As for Stop the War and the SWP, they may not have wanted to tell Iraqis what to do, but they don't seem to have listened to them either. Even when there were signs of the "Arab Spring" spreading to Iraq, with people starting to regain their confidence and challnge the government, they did not get the attention they should.
 
Anyway, here is Hussein al Alak:

Iraqi government's paedophile plan for children

I am writing in disgust at the total disregard to the rights of women and girls in Iraq, whose lives are to be further blighted by the proposal of the Ja'afari Personal Status Law.

The proposed law, which is still to be voted on by Iraq's parliament, will legalise paedophilia, by allowing the marriage of 9 year old'girls, will prevent women from leaving their homes without their husbands permission, and will also permit a husband the right of sexual gratification at his whim, in effect legalising rape.

The Ja'afari Status Law, if introduced, will also prevent a Muslim from marrying a non Muslim, which will only add further tension, to Iraq's already fractured social fabric, which has been pushed to its limits, since the USA and UK introduced democracy to Iraq.

What has horrified both myself and numerous others, is the silence which has come from Britain's Parliament, who after all were the first to decry the human rights abuses of Saddam Hussain, along with claiming that their invasion was to help champion the cause of women's rights in Iraq.

It is grotesque, that the UK is failing to utilise it's influence over the Iraqi Government, into reversing its plan to create the worlds first pervert state, which as most people are fully aware, was most generously funded by the US/UK tax payer.

At the same time, the UK also need to have some clarity and inform us the electorate, what Britain's political, military and diplomatic positions with the Iraqi Government and it's British based institutions will be, should the US/UK backed Iraqi Government, legalise both primary school aged brides and rape.

http://totallyhussein.blogspot.co.uk/

And here is another Iraqi who is always worth listening to, the indefatigable Haifa Zangana, on the same subject:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/14/jafari-law-iraqi-violation-women-rights-marital-rape

I would not bother asking Candice Unwin about this, as she seems to have had enough trouble holding the lid down on rape allegations in the SWP.
   

Don't Forget Iraq (2)

Politicians may be happy to "move on" from what they did to Iraq - seeking fresh field to conquer?  And the leaders of the much-reduced Stop the War Coalition may have happily decided it was all over.  For Iraqis, unhappily, it is not. And people like Iraq Occupation Focus (IOF) have not taken their eyes off an ordeal that is still going on. 

FALLUJAH scene of carnage again
 
Here is Mike Phipps, of IOF, speaking at a meeting in the House of Commons for
Justice for Iraq 2014


Iraq is back in the news and once more it’s Anbar Province and Fallujah at its heart. Nearly 400,000 people have fled Anbar since fighting started at the end of last year. According to the UN, 65,000 people fled the fighting in the towns of Fallujah and Ramadi in one week alone.

The narrative peddled by the Iraqi Government and picked up in the mainstream media is that Al-Qaeda had taken over Fallujah. It’s not particularly accurate but it helped to secure an immediate delivery of arms to the Iraqi regime from its US puppeteers to help quell the protests in Anbar. These protests began over a year ago, demanding the freeing of tens of thousands of detainees held without charge by the security forces. Brutal torture and rape - regardless of gender - are widespread in Iraq’s jails. Last year alone, the state executed 169 people, putting it third in the league behind China and Iran.


The Iraqi Government’s accusation of an external Al-Qaeda takeover was made to justify a ferocious siege and bombardment of the Fallujah and Ramadi.  Human Rights Watch has accused the regime of “indiscriminate mortar fire in civilian neighbourhoods” and “killing its own citizens unlawfully”.  Hundreds of people have been killed and more than 200,000 displaced.


The Pentagon is considering following up its arms shipments with the deployment of more troops in the region to train Iraqi forces - this almost ten years after the first round of collective punishment was inflicted on Fallujah - when US forces killed between 4,000 and wounded6,000  -mostly civilians, using white phosphorous in what can only be called one of the worst war crimes of this new century.

Now Us forces are back - training Iraqi soldiers in Jordan, according to a recent Reuters report.


Any fresh deployment by US forces will hardly generate the same headlines that the 2003 invasion elicited. “The face of American-style war-fighting is changing,” Nick Turse wrote recently. “Forget full-scale invasions and large-footprint occupations; instead, think: special operations forces working on their own but also training or fighting beside allied militaries… And along with those special ops advisors, trainers, and commandos expect ever more funds and efforts to flow into the militarization of spying and intelligence, the use of drone aircraft, the launching of cyber-attacks, and joint Pentagon operations with increasingly militarized “civilian” government agencies.” He argues that the new approach to conflict - involving the Pentagon, the CIA and other agencies - using commando tactics, backed up by selective assassination by Predator Drones constitutes nothing less than a new Obama doctrine.


The UK also understands the changing military framework. Global Research recently reported “In December 2007, Major General Graham Binns, Commander of British Forces in Basra, handed illegally occupied Basra Province back to the Iraqis.

However, Major General Binns, who commanded the 7th Armoured Brigade when it led the siege of Basra in 2003, is back in Basra with a new hat on. In the revolving door between the US and UK armies and mercenary companies, Binns, who left the army in 2010, joined Aegis Defence Services, who have been employed by the New Governor of Basra.

Amongst other things, states the Major General: “Aegis will be asked to provide help with setting up specialised CCTV detection and checkpoint systems across the city, establishing a “ring of steel” security system to thwart suicide bombers.” Sounds just like old times.” concludes the report.



There’s something shameless about this that only the Brits can pull off. It’s paralleled by the Govt appointment of a new Trade Representative to Iraq whom Haifa has recently written about. Baroness Emma Nicholson, who campaigned against the Saddam Hussein regime’s abuse of human rights and was a prominent vocal supporter of the 2003 invasion to “free the Iraqi people from terrible tyranny”.

Nicholson has now shifted her role from an outspoken champion of human rights to being Executive Chairman of the Iraq Britain Business Council. Addressing a conference last month, The Baroness pointed out that the country’s economy was one of the most vibrant in the world, despite the current challenging situation in some regions.



That would be Anbar again and specifically Fallujah. According to a Truth Out report by Dahr Jamail this month,

 ‘Doctors, residents and NGO workers in Fallujah are accusing the Iraqi government of "war crimes" and "crimes against humanity" that have occurred as a result of its ongoing attack on the city.

Dr. Ahmed Shami, the chief of resident doctors at Fallujah General Hospital, told Truthout that since Iraqi government forces began shelling Fallujah in early January 2014, at least 109 civilians have been killed and 632 wounded.

"Ten of those killed were children, and 40 of the wounded are children," Shami said. He also said five of the dead are women, as are 35 of the wounded.

"Many children have been killed in cold blood as the result of the indiscriminate shelling of the city," Shami said. "At the same time, there are many young people from the city who (Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-)Maliki's army has killed and burned their bodies." -

 The Iraqi army refuses to allow medical supplies into the city, bombing bridges and roads to prevent their delivery. Some reports say Falluja’s general hospital has been attacked by government bombardment on eight separate occasions.

 This is the  regionally “challenging situation”  to which Emma Nicholson refers. But things are pretty bleak nationally too. Its criminal justice system is corrupt and murderous: “Last year alone, 1,200 men and women were on death row, most of them sentenced after the usual pre-trial confessions under torture,” wrote Robert Fisk recently.

 Much of the media is sectarian and Iraq remains one of the most dangerous countries  - correction the most dangerous country  - in the world for journalists. A new personal status law - against which women demonstrated courageously on Saturday - threatens to bring back child marriage. Around one third of people  are below the poverty line. This breeds extraordinary desperation - Iraq is now a centre for human organ trafficking, female sex trafficking and child slavery.

Business opportunities indeed.

 Emma Nicholson understands that talk about human rights in Iraq is passe now. Britain’s Coalition is a government that doesn’t care much for the human rights of its own citizens, let alone anyone else’s. Its housing policy has been criticised by the UN for penalising the vulnerable. Its police routinely infiltrate and spy on those fighting miscarriages of justice. And last week we read: “About 168,000 older people have stopped receiving help with essential tasks such as eating, washing and getting dressed as a result of deep and continuing cuts to social care under the coalition government,” in a report from Age UK. Human rights are cheap these days.

 And it’s not just the government; the mainstream media is equally compliant. In the little noticed al-Sweady inquiry in London, British soldiers ten years on stand accused of the torture and murder of Iraqis in their custody. Corpses showed evidence of “eyes missing, tongues cut out, and noses cut off".  Human rights abuses - but no-one’s interested.


Then in January a bombshell: A devastating 250-page dossier, detailing allegations of beatings, electrocution, mock executions and sexual assault, has been presented to the International Criminal Court, and could result in some of Britain's leading defence figures facing prosecution for "systematic" war crimes.

General Sir Peter Wall, the head of the British Army; former defence secretary Geoff Hoon; and former defence minister Adam Ingram are among those named in the report, entitled "The Responsibility of UK Officials for War Crimes Involving Systematic Detainee Abuse in Iraq from 2003-2008". The damning dossier draws on cases of more than 400 Iraqis, representing "thousands of allegations of mistreatment amounting to war crimes of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment". They range from "hooding" prisoners to burning, electric shocks, threats to kill and "cultural and religious humiliation". Other forms of alleged abuse include sexual assault, mock executions, threats of rape, death, and torture.


In these tough economic times, business opportunities, it seems, trump the luxury of human rights, even when it would have politically expedient to champion them in the past. This is why the British govt - and indeed the whole EU - can’t really bring itself to impose any serious economic sanctions on Russia right now, given the impact that might have on investment and the London property market - “an elite with the morality of the hedge fund” as Kremlin watcher  Ben Juddah put it recently.


http://justiceforiraq.blogspot.co.uk/
http://solidarityiraq.blogspot.com

Don't Forget Iraq

The organisation US Labor Against the War has asked friends to copy and circulate this message. I am glad to do so, not only as a tribute to them but as a service to those here in Britain who have too short memories of the US and British invasion, and its aftermath.

USLAW Statement on the Eleventh Anniversary

of the Illegal U.S. Invasion of Iraq

With heavy heart and renewed determination, the officers, staff, and affiliates of U.S. Labor Against the War mark the eleventh anniversary of the outbreak of the illegal U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. For many Americans, the withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from Iraq at the end of 2011 marked the end of U.S. involvement with, and responsibility towards, the Iraqi people.  We disagree.

Even though our combat forces are out, the war continues to have catastrophic effects in Iraq, and for the families of tens of thousands of U.S. veterans. Millions of Iraqis grieve the loss of loved ones killed by the U.S. military, while Americans mourn the deaths of thousands of our soldiers.

The sectarian violence wracking Iraq has its immediate origins in the ignorant and hubristic policies imposed by U.S. occupation forces. The sectarian factionalism encouraged by the U.S. occupation has paralyzed the Iraqi political process, presided over by a dysfunctional government. Depleted uranium from U.S. munitions is a continuing, widespread, and profound threat to the Iraqi environment and people, and to returning U.S. troops. Iraqi workers, 80% of whom work in the public sector – the oil industry, transportation, heavy manufacturing, hospitals, schools, ports, social services - are forbidden from organizing unions and engaging in collective bargaining because the U.S. kept in force the 1987 Saddam Hussein decree that prohibits public sector workers from organizing unions. All this and more is the legacy of a war that has not ended for Iraqis, for which the American people and our government must take responsibility.

The war, now officially over for more than two years, continues to have catastrophic effects in the U.S. as well. Our Iraq war veterans suffer loss of limbs and eyes, long-term traumatic brain injury, and post-traumatic stress disorder. They suffer from homelessness, unemployment, and suicide disproportionate to their numbers in society. The economic wellbeing of the country is threatened by the overhang of debt created by the reckless funding of the war and the distorted federal budget priorities that fund U.S. militarized foreign policy, instead of devoting those resources to urgent domestic human needs.

As we reflect on the terrible continuing effects of the Iraq war, we in U.S. Labor Against the War commit ourselves to continuing and deepening our partnerships within the labor movement and with peace, veterans, and community organizations. We will continue to work with our partners in the Iraqi labor movement and Iraqi civil society. We will not turn away from our longstanding commitments to peace and justice in Iraq, and for our veterans and the American people. We are determined to end our country’s militarized foreign policy, no matter where our government seeks to apply it, and to promote true security for our people through universal education, health care, and modern infrastructure.

These are our commitments as we mark the eleventh anniversary of the U.S. war in Iraq.


-30-

1718 M Street, NW, #153, Washington, DC 20036 ~ (202) 521-5265 ~ Info@USLaborAgainstWar.org

www.USLaborAgainstWar.org ;♦ facebook.com/labor.against.war ♦ facebook.com/IraqSolidarity ♦ @USLAWLeader

We encourage all USLAW affiliates to post this statement on their websites, reproduce it in newsletters, and circulate it electronically and in print to members, supporters, the media and allies.
Download in PDF format

منظمة عمال أمريكا المناهضين للحرب (USLAW)

تجريد السياسة الخارجية للولايات المتحدة- التنظيم من أجل اقتصاد جديد

بيان منظمة عمال أمريكا المناهضين للحرب بمناسبة الذكرى الحادية عشر لبدء الحرب على العراق

بقلوب قوية و إرادة متجددة، يسجّل المسئولون و الموظفون في  منظمة عمال أمريكا المناهضين للحرب (USLAW) الذكرى الحادية عشر على شن العدوان غير الشرعي من قبل الولايات المتحدة لغزو العراق و احتلاله. و بالنسبة للكثير من الأمريكيين، يعتبر انسحاب القوات العسكرية الأمريكية من العراق بنهاية عام 2011 بمثابة نهاية لالتزام الولايات المتحدة مع الشعب العراقي و مسؤوليتها تجاهه. و لكننا لا نتفق معهم على ذلك.

فبالرغم من خروج قواتنا الحربية، إلّا أن الحرب مستمرة بتأثيراتها و مخلفاتها الكارثية على العراق، و أيضا على عوائل عشرات الألوف من المحاربين الأمريكيين المسرّحين من الخدمة العسكرية. أن الملايين من العراقيين غارقون بالحزن لفقدانهم لأحبابهم الذين قتلتهم القوات الأمريكية، و بالوقت نفسه يعم الحزن على الأمريكيين لوفاة الآلاف من جنودنا في الحرب.

أن العنف الطائفي الذي يعصف بالعراق له صلة وثيقة و جذور مباشرة تمتد في عمق السياسات الجاهلة و المتعجرفة المفروضة من قبل قوات الاحتلال الأمريكية. و أن الأحزاب الطائفية التي شجعها الاحتلال الأمريكي قد شلّت العملية السياسية في العراق، و على رأسها الحكومة المختلة. و أن اليورانيوم المنضب من الذخيرة الأمريكية لا يزال يمثل تهديدا مستمرا وواسعا و معقدا إلى الشعب العراقي و البيئة في العراق، إضافة إلى أفراد القوات الأمريكية العائدين. أما عمال العراق و الذين يعمل 80% منهم في القطاع العام-الصناعة النفطية و المواصلات و الصناعات الثقيلة و المستشفيات و المدارس و الموانئ و الخدمات العامة، فهم محرومون من التنظيم بنقابات أو الانخراط في المفاوضات الجماعية و ذلك لأن القوات الأمريكية قد أبق و بالقوة القانون الذي أصدره صدام حسين في عام 1987 و الذي يمنع عمال القطاع العام من حق التنظيم النقابي. كل هذا و غيره من الأمور، هي مخلفات لحرب لم تنته بعد بالنسبة إلى العراقيين، و التي ينبغي على الشعب و الحكومة الأمريكية تحمّل المسؤولية أزائها.

وأن الحرب، رسميا و بعد مرور أكثر من عامي ، لا تزال تأثيراتها الكارثية مستمرة في الولايات المتحدة كذلك. أن الكثير من المحاربين الأمريكيين المسرحين من الخدمة قد فقدوا أطرافهم أو أعينهم أو أصيبوا بإصابات شديدة و طويلة الأمد في الدماغ، إضافة الى العديد من الأمراض النفسية التي تعقب حالات الكوارث. و هم يعانون من التشرد بدون منازل أو البطالة أو الميول الانتحارية لنسب عالية منهم في المجتمع. أن تحسن الوضع الاقتصادي في البلاد مهدد من جراء أعباء الديون التي نجمت عن التمويل غير المسؤول للحرب و و الأولويات الحكومية الخاطئة في تمويل السياسات الأمريكية الحربية الخارجية بدلا من توظيف الموارد المالية الى تلبية الاحتياجات الإنسانية و الأسرية الهامة.

Five Leaves Opens Shop

January 15, 2014, will be the twentieth anniversary of the attack by a gang of fascists on the Mushroom Bookshop in Nottingham. They knocked down shelves, scattered books and assaulted staff members. Among the shop's staff who stood up to the thugs was Scots-born Ross Bradshaw.  More than two dozen Nazis from several towns took part in the attack, and many were soon arrested. Among them was a police inspector's son.

About 1,000 people marched through Nottingham in solidarity with the Mushroom Books workers. Mushroom survived the attack by fascists, and stayed in business, a centre both for readers and left-wing activists, though cynics complained that more visitors accepted buckshee tea and coffee than spent money on books. Like many bookshops around the country, Mushroom did not survive changing times and a decline in the trade, which together with a director's illness and disputes over ownership led to it entering liquidation in 2000.

By then Ross Bradshaw had already taken a job with the council, and taken up publishing, which he'd first tried at Mushroom with a book on allotments which still sells. Five Leaves still boasts that it's the world's biggest publisher of books about allotments, but that's along with crime fiction, poetry, books by regional authors, social and Jewish interest.


Another venture while still publishing as Mushroom Books was "You Are, Aren't You?", a book of poems by Michael Rosen published jointly with the Jewish Socialists' Group(JSG). More recent books under the Five Leaves imprint included Battle for the East End, by JSG member David Rosenberg, which was launched with others on related themes as part of the event commemorating the Battle of Cable Street.

There were also well-attended launch events in London for Mike Gerber's labour of love Jazz Jews (2010),  and last year for From Revolution to Repression, an anthology of Soviet Yiddish writing in translation.

But notwithstanding its expansion and bold forays into the capital, Five Leaves remains Nottingham based and focused on the region. Besides publishing, the company jointly organises Lowdham Book Festival in Nottinghamshire and sponsors an annual fiction prize for MA students at Nottingham Trent University. But tomorrow publisher Ross Bradshaw, who started his career and political perspectives like Sir Alex Ferguson, as an engineering apprentice, though with slightly different results, return to his love of selling books direct to the customer.

  Five Leaves is opening a new bookshop in Nottingham.  
   It is at 14a Long Row, in the city centre.

Ross says “When I came to Nottingham in the late 70s there were several independent bookshops and in subsequent years various chains were represented, but for many years there has only been Waterstones in the city centre. It's a great shop but there's plenty room for an independent as well.”

The new bookshop will specialise in history, politics and landscape; fiction and poetry; lesbian and gay books; and international writing, with an emphasis on independent publishers. Initial events will include a memorial evening for the Nobel Literature Prize winner Seamus Heaney and a speaker from the peace movement in Israel.

By sheer coincidence, tomorrow happens to be the 75th anniversary of the Nazi pogrom and state-organised orgy of destruction and violence which became known as Kristallnacht. Of that I will have more to say shortly. Meanwhile, what better way to mark it than by the creative act of opening a bookshop! And just in time for folk to buy their Chanukah and Christmas presents!

http://fiveleavespublications.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/five-leaves-is-opening-bookshop-in.html


http://fiveleavespublications.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/twelve-questions-about-bookshop.html

http://www.fiveleaves.co.uk/

Waging "Lawfare" Down Under

NOT content with misusing Australian passports for dirty operations in the Gulf and elsewhere, Israel's Mossad spying agency is behind a phoney "human rights" outfit that is trying to use Australia's courts to silence and intimidate people who oppose what Israel is doing to the Palestinians.

The Israeli law center Shurat HaDin has filed a law suit in the Australian federal court against an Australian academic, Jake Lynch, director of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at Sydney University, for supporting the the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.

Claiming that Lynch’s support of the BDS movement violates Australia’s Racial Discrimination Act, they hope to focus on his refusal to sponsor Hebrew University of Jerusalem academic Dan Avnon for a fellowship. But whatever the unfairness or otherwise of this application of the boycott (friends of Avnon say he has a good record and is not a racist), Lynch argues that it was just an individual decision, and did not prevent Avnon from obtaining other sponsors. He also points out that his Centre has more than once hosted Israeli and Jewish speakers.

Shurat HaDin is seeking a court order requiring Lynch to apologize and renounce his BDS campaign, stating that his participation in and support of the BDS movement has led to “adverse distinction, exclusion, restriction and adverse preference based on the Jewish race, descent, national and ethnic origin of goods, services, persons and organisations,” reported The Australian.
Lynch dismissed the accusations against him, saying he is certain that “we will prove, in court if necessary, that it does not amount to any form of discrimination or racism.”

http://www.jns.org/news-briefs/2013/10/30/shurat-hadin-files-suit-against-australian-academic-for-bds-campaign

http://antonyloewenstein.com/2012/12/13/anybody-else-like-to-speak-out-against-a-courageous-academic-challenging-israeli-apartheid/  

The Murdoch-owned Australian newspaper recently seized on two isolated incidents - a violent late-night attack by some drunken yobs on two Jewish couples at Bondi, and three stupid students singing Springtime for Hitler, to claim that Australia was becoming more antisemitic, and link this to Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions. Critics said it was the newspaper which was encouraging antisemitism by equating ordinary Jewish people with the Israeli state.   

It is worth noting that the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), regarded as the highest representative body of Australian Jewish communities, and affiliated to the World Jewish Congress, has issued a statement dissociating itself from the Israeli group's lawsuit.  The ECAJ, which has campaigned to oppose BDS, says it regards the academic boycott as "repugnant", and wants to encourage more academic contacts. (Most boycott supporters would point out that their tactic is directed against institutions, not individuals, but this gets ignored). However the Australian Jewish leaders say the way to oppose BDS is with argument, not litigation.

http://www.jwire.com.au/news/bds-litigation-inappropriate-saysecaj/37925  

They may well have born in mind the ignominious collapse of  an ill-advised case brought by Ronnie Fraser, a member of the University and Colleges Union in Britain, against his union.
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/tribunal-slams-academic-for-bringing-anti-semitism-case/2002841.article

http://www.bricup.org.uk/

At any rate, ECAJ argues that litigation can be counter-productive, especially if it is pursued for political ends.
http://www.jwire.com.au/news/shurat-hadin-ecaj-disagree-on-skinning-the-bds-cat/38048

But the Israeli organisation Shurat HaDin is no bunch of amateurs. Claimed as a "civil rights" organisation - a description accepted by The Australian and other newspapers, it more accurately describes its actions as "lawfare" - waging war by using law.  When it has not been looking after the "rights" of soldiers accused of using excessive force, and officers charged with war crimes, it has increasingly turned to legal harassment of political opponents and boycott supporters.

A leaked US embassy cable revealed that in 2007, Shurat HaDin's director Nitsana Darshon-Leitner confided to a US official that her group  “took direction … on which cases to pursue” and still “receives evidence” from the Mossad and from Israel’s National Security Council.

The leaked cable was one of those passed on by Bradley Manning and published by Wikileaks. The cable’s author quotes Darshan-Leitner as explaining the government’s rationale for using a proxy rather than going to local courts directly: “The National Security Council (NSC) legal office saw the use of civil courts as a way to do things that they are not authorized to do.”

“Among her contacts, Leitner listed Udi Levy at the NSC and Uzi Beshaya at the Mossad, both key [US] Embassy contacts on anti-terrorist finance cooperation,” wrote the unnamed official who apparently authored the cable after meeting with Leitner in 2007. At the time of the cable was written, the NSC’s head was Ilan Mizrahi, a former deputy chief of Mossad.

Nitsana Darshan-Leitner and Shurat HaDin did not reply to an email sent yesterday seeking comment on the issues raised in this article.

Besides its actions in the courts, Shurat HaDin runs an annual tour of Israeli military bases, courts, prisons, settlements and “the controversial Security Fence.”  It is called "the Ultimate Mission to Israel", and at a cost of about $3,000 per person, it offers the chance to meet Israeli soldiers and officers, undercover collaborators, cabinet ministers and to “observe a trial of Hamas terrorists in an IDF military court.”  Also promised are “briefings by Mossad officials and commanders of the Shin Bet.”

Claiming to take action against "terrorist" regimes and organisations, Shurat HaDin has been guided by the Israeli state and Mossad in pursuing legal actions against bodies deemed as handling funds for them.  

In contrast with its defence of Israeli soldiers accused of crimes, it tried to obstruct negotiations for the release of captive Gilad Schalit, according to Israeli journalist Yossi Gurvitz in the online .972 magazine.

As for deciding what constitutes "antisemitism", in 2011, Max Blumenthal discovered that a major funder for Shurat HaDin was Pastor John Hagee, the Texan evangelist who says Hitler was the "hunter" sent by God to drive out Jews and make them go to Israel. But Pastor Jack, apart from denouncing "half-breed Jews, descendants of Esau", is founder of Christians United for Israel, condemns Islam, and has given money to Im Tirzu, which witch-hunts Israeli academics considered left-wing and traitorous. So that's alright then.

http://972mag.com/the-israeli-governments-official-lawfare-contractor/80659/

http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-winstanley/israeli-lawyers-group-shurat-hadin-unmasked-mossad-proxy

Retreat at Grangemouth is Dangerous for All

And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
    But we’ve proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
    You never get rid of the Dane.

Rudyard Kipling 

THE 11th-hour surrender deal agreed by my union at Grangemouth undoubtedly represents a blow not just to the workers there but to those throughout Scotland and Britain.

Responsible for a vital part in Scotland's industry and economy, the Grangemouth workers were among the best-paid, and well-organised. Unite is the biggest union in Britain, and under Len McCluskey's leadership it has advanced to the fore not only of workers' struggle to defend their rights and living standards but of the fight for working-class politics in the labour movement.

Threatened with closure of the Grangemouth refinery and petrochemical plant by a billionaire capitalist, Jim Ratcliffe, sitting on his yacht off the South of France, McCluskey and Unite have agreed to a three year wage freeze, which amounts to a pay cut as inflation continues. They have surrendered the final salary pension scheme. And they have given up facilities for union convenors and the right to strike for three years, so the Ineos company management can resume attacking workers' rights and jobs without worrying about resistance.

Trivialising this episode as just another union "sell out" or blaming Len McCluskey just to score points in Facebook discussions hardly bears up to the seriousness of the issues. But it would be foolish to claim this as a victory.

As one of Len McCluskey's critics from the Left (he still has opponents on the Right) notes: "On Friday 25 October the workforce cheered the announcement of a deal that will keep the plant open. That was a natural feeling of relief but it was hardly an endorsement of the terms or the actions of their union’s leaders. Their sense of relief will be short-lived".

 "This defeat without a fight – the very worst sort of defeat – gives a green light to every boss, CEO and manager in Britain to go on the offensive. If even an exceptionally skilled workforce, like the one at Grangemouth, and a mighty union like Unite with its left talking general secretary, can be forced to eat humble pie, then aggressive managers everywhere will be tempted to follow suit."

http://www.jerryhicks4gs.org/2013/10/grangemouth-too-big-to-fail-unite-too.html?spref=fb 
 Comment by Jeremy Dewar, on Jerry Hicks' blog. 

Writing from a very different angle, Iain McWhirter in the Herald agrees:

' THE spontaneous cheers of the Grangemouth workers on Friday at the news of their capitulation said it all.

This has been one of the worst industrial relations disasters of modern times and has disturbing implications for trade unionism, the Labour Party and Scotland. The workforce only narrowly escaped with their jobs, but had to accept all of Ineos's terms - a promise not to strike, a three-year wage freeze, zero bonuses, the end of final salary pensions. It was game, set and match to private equity.

The result will have been noted by every industrial employer in Britain, as the highest-paid and best-organised (in a trade union sense) industrial workers in Scotland have been humbled. Indeed, at times Grangemouth felt like a speed-dating version of the miners' strike.' 

http://www.heraldscotland.com/comment/columnists/trade-unionism-the-labour-party-and-scotland-will-pay-price-for-the-grangemouth-i.22524694

Grangemouth bailout: Did Ineos screw the taxpayer of £134million?

25 Oct 2013 07:38

ANALYST Richard Murphy is baffled by the company's books and he revealed to the Record that the company actually made £7million in profit last year.

Newspapers and politicians who like to accuse unions and their members of "holding the country to ransome" were a bit more restrained in commenting on Ineos and Jim Ratcliffe doing just that. Nobody demanded that Ineos, a private equity company which became Britain's biggest chemical firm and biggest private company, and moved its HQ to Switzerland to avoid tax, should open its books. But both City commentators and government officials wondered about its deals and accountancy techniques. Not least accountants hired by Unite.    

"Rather than losing money, as the company claim, the chemical plant at Grangemouth delivered £7million in profits last year, analyst Richard Murphy told the Daily Record.
His claims fuelled speculation that Ineos used smart accounting techniques to paint a bleaker
future for the plant and secure taxpayers’ cash.
Murphy said the plant made £6million profit the year before, even after a pension fund shortfall was factored in.
Ineos claim it loses £10million a month.

Murphy, of Fulcrum Chartered Accountants, studied the Ineos accounts on behalf of the union Unite. He says the plant was making a fortune until Ineos apparently set out to make it appear loss-making.
He said Ineos, unlike any other company, decided to factor in their investment in the plant as a loss.
Yesterday, Treasury officials involved in negotiating a £125million infrastructure loan to Ineos said they had to ask for more information from the company over the complex financial structure.
The Scottish government have also chipped in with £9million of grants, making a total of £134million.
Ineos appeared to have presented their accounts in a way which emphasised their need for an urgent injection of finance to underwrite future infrastructure costs."
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/grangemouth-bailout-ineos-screw-taxpayer-2528931

With Grangemouth there was more than the 800 jobs of  refinery workers at stake. As Jeremy Dewar notes:

"Grangemouth supplies 70 per cent of Scotland’s petrol pump supplies as well as a considerable amount in the North of England and the North East of Ireland. It processes 200,000 barrels a day and powers the Forties pipeline which transports a third of the North Sea’s output. At least 10,000 Scottish jobs depend on Grangemouth, which accounts for £1 billion of trade and makes up 8 per cent of Scotland’s manufacturing output..

http://www.jerryhicks4gs.org/

As McWhirter tells us, "Grangemouth is key to the North Sea's biggest oil field - the BP-operated Forties field 110 miles east of Aberdeen. Up to one-third of the North Sea's entire crude oil production is fed directly into the Grangemouth site. During the strike in Grangemouth in 2008, 70 North Sea platforms were forced to shut down or reduce production. It is hardly surprising therefore that BP - former owner of Grangemouth - was heavily involved in this week's rescue and helped underwrite the new business plan."

There was also a complex political dimension to this battle. While the workers were still locked out and Ineos was pleading poverty, Labour MP Michael Connarty offered to take them at their word. "I would buy the plant for £1!", he told a rally outside the gates, adding that if Ratcliffe got a pay freeze and government subsidy he would be printing money. 

http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-a922-Grangemouth-workers-stay-strong#.Um1nLRDYqzl

But Ineos had already been making its own use of the Labour Party connection. In the run up to the attack on pay and pensions they used the row over Falkirk Constituency Labour Party to victimise Grangemouth convenor Stevie Deans, who is also chair of the CLP, and was accused of encouraging Unite members and friends to join the Labour Party. (A serious offence!) Why should a Swiss-based company be concerned with Labour's selection processes?  One might as well ask who told Ed Miliband that he should ask the police to investigate whether there had been a Labour Party rule infringement?  As it was there were no charges to answer, and after Unite balloted members for strike action Stevie Deans was reinstated.

But Ineos had got its diversion, and opportunity to probe the union's defences and undermine its solidarity. And now, as workers return to a no strike deal, the Murdoch press heralds a renewed witch hunt against Deans in the Labour Party. 

http://newsnetscotland.com/index.php/scottish-opinion/8211-why-the-ssp-will-support-the-grangemouth-workers

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/oct/27/labour-falkirk-vote-rigging-inquiry

A lot of people were quite rightly raising the call to nationalise Grangemouth. With so much public money going in, and a private company ready to close down Scotland, why not? But who would do it? If the Con Dem coalition were unlikely to nationalise, how about the Scottish government? I'm not sure what powers it has, but has it the will-power?

With the independence referendum coming, and the Scottish National Party(SNP) concerned to fight off any challenge from Labour (to whom it has just lost the Dunfermline by-election), would its leader act boldly to save jobs and the Scottish economy, not to mention the SNP's radical and progressive image?

 Salmond spoke not about nationalising but about finding buyers for Grangemouth.  (Apparently the Chinese already have a share).

"At the same time, Salmond was on the line to Unite general secretary Len McClusky trying to persuade him that industrial madness had afflicted his Grangemouth office and that he had better have a word with them. The consequences might not only be a collapse of union membership - that's happening anyway - but serious damage to the Labour Party in Scotland. Johann Lamont is a Unite member and the union backed her leadership campaign in 2011.

Some Labour people might have been content to see the plant close, the better to damage Salmond, but the people of Scotland were looking for a solution, not another 1980s industrial horror show. This alerted Labour leader Ed Miliband, who has of course been in dispute with Unite over the Falkirk selection fiasco.

There were also direct appeals to the Grangemouth workers who had been divided on the action, about half having voted against it. By Wednesday night, confident of the workers' agreement, Salmond had persuaded Ratcliffe and brokered a deal which involved Ineos reopening the plant, investing £300m (most of which was effectively underwritten by the government) to provide a 20-year future for Grangemouth as a global player turning shale gas from America into plastics."

So now we can better understand Len McCluskey's reference to the "security of Scotland" when he announced his surrender plan.

Could there have been another way? It seems to me that in the present political situation, workers have to be prepared to occupy and take over plants, offices, banks and anything else, rather than being advised to wait passively for government -and a hostile government at that - to nationalise. At the same time I'm aware that's not easy, and saying "just like UCS", referring to an occupation more than thirty years ago in pre-Thatcher Britain, will not suffice to give confidence.

According to Jerry Hicks' supporters, "Unite could have altered the whole history of the dispute by organising the immediate occupation of the plant as soon as the lock out was threatened in mid-October. Its members would have been called on to close down the refinery; with union backing they could have refused and the workforce seized control of the equipment and the dispute.

Flying pickets and solidarity action around Britain’s other refineries would soon have had an effect in the petrol stations across the country. From a position of strength, the  British and Scottish governments should have been faced with the demand that Grangemouth be nationalised ..."      

http://www.jerryhicks4gs.org/  

Just like that?

Even if Len McCluskey had felt able and willing to call such action, there is no guarantee it would have been supported. As Jeremy Dewar notes elsewhere the union was only able to get 60 per cent support for opposing the Ineos plans.

Dewar speaks of the need to build a rank and file movement and "wrest control" of the union, but I think focussing on elected officers (at a time when many union reps are victimised), official's salaries and leadership ballots, even if you are right, is not confronting the all-round political class consciousness which we need. Not that the political 'left' as it manifests itself these days is that much help.   

Could it be the end for Copland?

IT's almost a year since I went to a quiz night in Wembley, and teamed up with a trio of teachers. While we didn't win, I learned from them an interesting piece of information, namely that the former head of Copland School where they taught was to appear in court with five associates on charges of fraud and money-laundering.

Since the long-running affair at Copland had at one stage seen the suspension of the teachers held responsible for whistleblowing, and the school and its pupils are suffering from lack of funds, one could hardly accuse my informants of being vindictive when they nodded satisfaction that the head and his team looked like facing custodial sentences.

But this month, as teachers throughout the country joined action to defend their pensions, the news from the court and from Copland school was a bit of an education.

First,  the knighted "superhead” Sir Alan Davies and five former colleagues walked free from court on October 3, when prosecutors dropped charges that they had plotted to defraud Brent Council of £2.7m in bonuses.

Davies, 65, had been accused of authorising illegal  payments over six years while he was headmaster of Copland School in Wembley. He was said to have received more than £900,000 in “inappropriate payments” himself.

But the conspiracy charge against him and five other senior figures was dropped. Instead he pleaded guilty to six counts of false accounting between April 2007 and June 2009.

Judge Deborah Taylor sentenced him to 12 months imprisonment suspended for two years.

“I take into account your achievements but your dishonesty represents a very great fall from grace,” she said. He had failed to ensure transparent management at the school and had lied to protect himself. “What sort of message does that send out as head of a school when you resorted to lies?”

Davies has admitted tampering with dates on payroll forms but insisted the cash was honestly paid to and received by him. He was also acquitted of a further count of money laundering for allegedly flushing more than £270,000 of dirty money raked in from the scam from a NatWest bank account into a Spanish account in May 2008.

Davies’ alleged co-conspirators were formally cleared.They included Dr Richard Evans, 55, a former deputy head and education advisor to PM David Cameron, who had been accused of pocketing £600,000.

Also in the dock were the former chair of governors, Dr Indravadan Patel, 73, the former school bursar, Columbus Udokoro, 62, HR manager Michelle McKenzie, 53, and ex-vice chair of governors, Martin Day, were also accused of being involved in the alleged fraud on Brent Council.

Brent Council may now seek compensation through the civil courts.


Copland school was placed under "special measures" this year after an Ofsted report said it was  inadequate in almost all areas.  Headmaster Graeme Plunkett who took over in September 2010was reportedly told he would have to go. 

Teachers and students at Copland may have wondered whether Mr. Plunkett was taking blame for problems not of his making. Among the criticisms outlined by Ofsted was the state of the school building which it said provided an “unacceptable environment for learning.”

A Copland school student directly confronted David Cameron on the neglected state of the school buildings.


Dilapidated classrooms at Copland were due to be rebuilt with money from the Building Schools for the Future fund, but Tory Education minister Michael Gove scrapped that programme. Copland was the only local authority controlled secondary school in the borough but within weeks it was announced it would be converted to an academy.

Many fear Copland's  future has been settled, and it hasn't any.    

Now a correspondent calling theirself 'Mistleflower' has written in the blog Wembley Matters on October 16  drawing attention to further developments:

The cull in the summer resulted in the end in Copland losing around  60 staff, most taking ‘voluntary’ redundancy either because they were desperate to get away from the last regime’s shambolic mismanagement or they saw the way the wind was blowing with the new one (cut Copland to the bone, close it down, flog it off). Many of the teachers who left were happy, like myself, to do supply teaching rather than stay.

I now hear that Phase 2 of the process has begun. Around 50  support staff have been informed that 32 of them are to be made redundant. These include such people as library staff, pastoral support workers, science technicians, mentoring staff, caretakers, ICT technicians and, ( in the week that ex-Copland footballer Raheem Sterling was included in Roy Hodgson’s England squad for the World Cup qualifier), the football coach. Apart from the obviously essential nature of their work, people like these liaise with parents at difficult times, help motivate students, keep them on track and generally promote the social cohesion which is at the heart of any school community. ( Those wielding the axe might need  to look up those two words ‘heart’ and ‘community’).

As in July, in all of this, agreed procedures are being ignored, possibly illegally.

Phase 3, it has apparently already been announced, will take the axe to the Teaching Assistants, the staff who provide in-class support for children with special learning, language or emotional needs, ( Every Child Matters is soooo last century).

After that? Well, what remains of the place is still sitting in a very nice location and the few staff who remain can maybe get jobs helping to clear the site for the next Carpet Warehouse. One way or another, it looks like it will be an Absolute Return for someone, but clearly  not for the current kids and staff at Copland.

I don't know how much it will cost Brent to try and recover some of its money. Maybe I will meet up again with my teacher friends on Monday when I go to another quiz match - one of a series being held by the Save Preston Library campaigners, who fought Brent council over the closure of their local library, another affect of government austerity and the council's cuts.

If not there, then maybe some teachers will come to the public meeting which Brent Trade Union Council is holding on Thursday evening at the Methodist Church in Harlesden. Guest speaker is Kingsley Abrams, a member of the Unite union national executive, speaking on the fight against Austerity. Kingsley made his name as a Labour councillor in Lambeth, by refusing to vote for cuts. That lost him the Labour whip. But it could win him the Labour nomination for the Brent Central parliamentary constituency. And if Brent Labour party has the sense and spirit to nominate him he could get in.  But that's a big if, mind. 

Wednesday 23rd October

The Fight Against Austerity

Speaker: Kingsley Abrams   National Executive member, Unite the union, and Lambeth Labour Councillor

7.30 p.m., Harlesden Methodist Church Hall, 25 High Street Harlesden,  London, NW10 4NE