Who is doing the killing in Gaza?

Posted on November 21, 2012 by Damian

Noam Chomsky and others challenge world’s media.

The article originally appeared on the Stop the War Coalition’s website.

While countries across Europe and North America commemorated military casualties of past and present wars on November 11, Israel was targeting civilians.

On November 12, waking up to a new week, readers at breakfast were flooded with heart rending accounts of past and current military casualties.

There was, however, no or little mention of the fact that the majority of casualties of modern day wars are civilians.

There was also hardly any mention on the morning of November 12 of military attacks on Gaza that continued throughout the weekend.

A cursory scan confirms this for Canada’s CBC, Globe and Mail, Montreal’s Gazette, and the Toronto Star. Equally, for the New York Times and for the BBC.

According to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) report on Sunday November 11, five Palestinian civilians including three children had been killed in the Gaza strip in the previous 72 hours, in addition to two Palestinian security personnel.

Four of the deaths occurred as a result of Israeli military firing artillery shells on youngsters playing soccer. Moreover, 52 civilians had been wounded, of which six were women and 12 were children. (Since we began composing this text, the Palestinian death toll has risen, and continues to rise.)

Articles that do report on the killings overwhelmingly focus on the killing of Palestinian security personnel. For example, an Associated Press article published in the CBC world news on November 13, entitled ‘Israel mulls resuming targeted killings of Gaza militants,’ mentions absolutely nothing of civilian deaths and injuries. It portrays the killings as ‘targeted assassinations.’ The fact that casualties have overwhelmingly been civilians indicates that Israel is not so much engaged in “targeted” killings, as in “collective” killings, thus once again committing the crime of collective punishment.

Another AP item on CBC news from November 12 reads ‘Gaza rocket fire raises pressure on Israel government.’ It features a photo of an Israeli woman gazing on a hole in her living room ceiling. Again, no images, nor mention of the numerous bleeding casualties or corpses in Gaza. Along the same lines, a BBC headline on November 12 reads ‘Israel hit by fresh volley of rockets from Gaza.’ Similar trends can be illustrated for European mainstream papers.

News items overwhelmingly focus on the rockets that have been fired from Gaza, none of which have caused human casualties. What is not in focus are the shellings and bombardments on Gaza, which have resulted in numerous severe and fatal casualties. It doesn’t take an expert in media science to understand that what we are facing is at best shoddy and skewed reporting, and at worst willfully dishonest manipulation of the readership.

Furthermore, articles that do mention the Palestinian casualties in Gaza consistently report that Israeli operations are in response to rockets from Gaza and to the injuring of Israeli soldiers. However, the chronology of events of the recent flare-up began on November 5, when an innocent, apparently mentally unfit, 20-year old man, Ahmad al-Nabaheen, was shot when he wandered close to the border. Medics had to wait for six hours to be permitted to pick him up and they suspect that he may have died because of that delay.

Then, on November 8, a 13-year-old boy playing football in front of his house was killed by fire from the IOF that had moved into Gazan territory with tanks as well as helicopters. The wounding of four Israeli soldiers at the border on November 10 was therefore already part of a chain of events where Gazan civilians had been killed, and not the triggering event.

We, the signatories, have recently returned from a visit to the Gaza strip. Some among us are now connected to Palestinians living in Gaza through social media. For two nights in a row Palestinians in Gaza were prevented from sleeping through continued engagement of drones, F16s, and indiscriminate bombings of various targets inside the densely populated Gaza strip.

The intent of this is clearly to terrorise the population, successfully so, as we can ascertain from our friends’ reports. If it was not for Facebook postings, we would not be aware of the degree of terror felt by ordinary Palestinian civilians in Gaza. This stands in stark contrast to the world’s awareness of terrorised and shock-treated Israeli citizens.

An extract of a report sent by a Canadian medic who happened to be in Gaza and helped out in Shifa hospital ER over the weekend says: “the wounded were all civilians with multiple puncture wounds from shrapnel: brain injuries, neck injuries, hemo-pneumo thorax, pericardial tamponade, splenic rupture, intestinal perforations, slatted limbs, traumatic amputations. All of this with no monitors, few stethoscopes, one ultrasound machine. …. Many people with serious but non life threatening injuries were sent home to be re-assessed in the morning due to the sheer volume of casualties. The penetrating shrapnel injuries were spooky. Tiny wounds with massive internal injuries. … There was very little morphine for analgesia.”

Apparently such scenes are not newsworthy for the New York Times, the CBC, or the BBC.

Bias and dishonesty with respect to the oppression of Palestinians is nothing new in Western media and has been widely documented. Nevertheless, Israel continues its crimes against humanity with full acquiescence and financial, military and moral support from our governments, the U.S., Canada and the EU.

Netanyahu is currently garnering Western diplomatic support for additional operations in Gaza, which makes us worry that another Cast Lead may be on the horizon. In fact, the very recent events are confirming such an escalation has already begun, as today’s death-count climbs. The lack of widespread public outrage at these crimes is a direct consequence of the systematic way in which the facts are withheld and/or of the skewed way these crimes are portrayed.

We wish to express our outrage at the reprehensible media coverage of these acts in the mainstream (corporate) media.

We call on journalists around the world working for corporate media outlets to refuse to be instruments of this systematic policy of disguise. We call on citizens to inform themselves through independent media, and to voice their conscience by whichever means is accessible to them.

Hagit Borer, U.K.
Antoine Bustros, Canada
Noam Chomsky, U.S.
David Heap, Canada
Stephanie Kelly, Canada
Máire Noonan, Canada
Philippe Prévost, France
Verena Stresing, France
Laurie Tuller, France

Posted in Conflict, Human Rights, Islam, Middle East | Leave a comment

Challenging the Long-Held Belief in ‘Shareholder Value’

Posted on October 2, 2012 by Damian

Courtesy of http://dealbook.nytimes.com.

It’s a bedrock principle of our era: Companies should be run for the sole purpose of increasing their stock prices, or returning “value” to shareholders, the ultimate “owners.”

To Lynn A. Stout, however, it amounts to nothing more than a “shareholder dictatorship.”

Ms. Stout, a professor at Cornell Law School, has written a slim and elegant polemic, “The Shareholder Value Myth” (Berrett-Koehler Publishers) to explain the idea’s two problems: It’s worked out horribly and, as a matter of law, it’s not true.

The blame lies with economists and business professors who have pushed the idea, with generous enabling from the corporate governance do-gooder movement, Ms. Stout contends. Stocks, as a result, have become the playthings of hedge funds, warping corporate motivation and eroding stock market returns.

Economists have promulgated the idea of shareholder über alles based on what Ms. Stout says is a misreading of corporate law. In 1970, Milton Friedman wrote an article for The New York Times Magazine that contended “the social responsibility of business is to increase its profits.” Two business professors, Michael C. Jensen and William H. Meckling, expanded on the idea in their paper “Theory of the Firm,” arguing that the only obligation corporations had was to increase profits for their owners, the shareholders.

But the idea that shareholders “own” their companies isn’t actually so set in the law, Ms. Stout argues. It’s almost as if the legal world has been keeping a giant secret from the economists, business schools, investors and journalists.

Instead, as Ms. Stout explains, what the law actually says is that shareholders are more like contractors, similar to debtholders, employees and suppliers. Directors are not obligated to give them any and all profits, but may allocate the money in the best way they see fit. They may want to pay employees more or invest in research. Courts allow boards leeway to use their own judgments.

You can read the rest of the article here.

However, it’s not as if this is a new insight. Joel Bakan covered a lot of this in his groundbreaking book and film, ‘The Corporation’. Well worth checking out.

Posted in Corporations, Economy | Leave a comment

The Oldest Profession

Posted on September 7, 2012 by Damian

We rail against war,
but it’s been our constant companion through the ages.

It’s as old as humanity,
the oldest profession.

Perhaps we should accept its constant presence,
accept that it’ll never be history.

The best we can do is make modern wars humane,
so let’s embrace cyber war…
war that kills computers,
and telecommunications networks.

Then we’ll be free of the tyranny of the cloud,
we’ll be free to talk, read, think and dream.

We’d be ourselves again.

Can war do that?

Posted in Arms Trade, Conflict | Leave a comment

What is a Global Citizen?

Posted on August 31, 2012 by Damian

Posted in Earth, Environment, Human Rights, Natural Resources, Poverty, Sustainability | Leave a comment

Aren’t we all Auschwitz prison guards?

Posted on August 14, 2012 by Damian

Some of the guards and ‘employees’ at Auschwitz claimed not to have known what was going on right in front of them.

They didn’t know people were being herded into gas chambers and ovens.

They honestly thought it was just a work camp.

Are we any different today?

We claim not to know what’s happening on the other side of the world…

…or down our street.

Are we really that blind?

In the era of instant, mass, mobile, accessible information?

Really?

We have no excuse – just as the prison guards had no excuse.

We know what’s going on – we just prefer not to notice.

Posted in Genocide, Human Rights | Leave a comment

What will happen in Syria?

Posted on August 3, 2012 by Damian

The situation in Syria is worrying.

We all know that the Assad regime is/was bad in many ways. Human rights are not one of its strong points – but then the same goes across the Middle East. Even after the ‘Arab Spring’ there are still pitifully few real Arab democracies.

As bad as Assad’s regime is, it’s essentially secular and tolerant of all the religions and ethnic groups in Syria. The same could arguably be said of Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq.

What we’re now seeing in Syria is a worrying religious element in the opposition fighters. And, with religious extremism, comes religious intolerance. Daily we are hearing stories of Christians being persecuted in Syria and being driven away from their homes. If this is to continue Syria could well go the way of Iraq and become a nightmare country.

So, what’s best? A secular dictator who tolerates other peoples’ religions, or a hard-line religious leadership that won’t tolerate anything but its own faith?

Tough question – and there’s no easy answer.

Posted in Democracy, Human Rights, Islam, Middle East, Religion | Leave a comment

A World Adrift

Posted on July 31, 2012 by Damian

“Our highly interconnected and crowded world has become a highly complicated vessel. If we are to move forward, we must start pulling in the same direction, even without a single captain at the helm.” (Jeffrey D. Sachs).

Amen to that!

Read the whole article here.

Posted in Earth, Economy, Environment, Food, Geopolitics, Natural Resources, Sustainability | Leave a comment

Housing is a Human Right. Right?

Posted on July 20, 2012 by Damian

Across Africa hundreds of thousands of people each year are left homeless when they are forcibly evicted from their homes by the authorities. In most cases evictions are conducted without any due process, consultation, adequate notice or compensation.

Amnesty International has documented mass forced evictions in Nairobi, Accra, N’Djamena, Port Harcourt, Cairo and Harare in addition to other cities and countries across the continent.

Forced evictions can have catastrophic effects, particularly for people already living in poverty. They do not just lose their homes and possessions, they also lose their livelihoods, their social networks and the basic services they rely on for survival.

They struggle to find clean water, food and toilets. They struggle to find work and schools for their children. And they struggle to rebuild their shattered lives, often with no help or support from the governments that uprooted them.

In March 212, thousands of slum dwellers from informal settlements across Africa rallied together to make their voices heard by housing ministers and heads of state during a week of action organized with Amnesty International and partner organizations. This Campaign video shows archive footage of forced evictions being carried out in various African countries. It also shows parades, concerts, and other events held in Kenya, Ghana, Zimbabwe and Egypt, as part of the Africa Week of Action against Forced Evictions where slum dwellers protested for the right to fair housing and an end to forced evictions.

Take action: http://www.amnesty.org/en/end-forced-evictions

Posted in Africa, Human Rights | 2 Comments

The Environment is a Global Security Issue

Posted on July 6, 2012 by Damian

(Courtesy of Dr. Daniel Ringuet, PhD in International Political Economy)

Environmental challenges have received international attention that has never before been witnessed. There are however still a number of countries and groups that refuse to provide environmental issues the recognition they deserve, and this is to the detriment of the rest of the world. This short essay will strongly argue that environmental threats justify an increase to the concept of global security.

The definition of global security is complex and multi-faceted and is constantly being debated. Realist such as Waltz advocate that global security issues should be limited to traditional military issues, and to increase this scope would be devaluing these security issues. In contrasts liberalists such as Ullman argue for an increased definition of global security to include human security and environmental threats.

The argument here is that environmental issues are security threats, as they cross borders, have serious consequences, are connected to other issues and can result in military consequences. Firstly, environmental issues are inherently global in nature. Issues such as pollution, decreased water supply, global warming and acid rain all impact on nations around and have no respect for the notion of sovereignty. Examples of the global nature of environmental issues include the Indonesian forest fires and the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

Secondly, environmental issues are serious and have significant consequences. Whilst the impact of issues such as global warming are highly contestable, the Bruntland Report outlined the consequences of environmental degradation, including depleting resources and lack of water. Thirdly, environmental issues are connected to other security threats. For example,  rising sea levels are threatening to submerge a number of Pacific islands, causing an environmental refugee problem. The World Health Organisation 2001 Report outlined that 90% of Malarial deaths and one quarter of all diseases is related to environmental degradation being witnessed.

Finally environmental issues have the potential to cause military security issues. The international community is currently witnessing a number of conflicts over different resources, such as the Nile Basin. It has been estimated that by 2050, 75% of internal or regional conflicts will be over access to limited resource, especially water. It has been shown that environmental challenges pose a serious threat, as they can cross boundaries, are connected with other issues, and can create military conflict. It is therefore argued that a revised concept of global security is justified.

The Copenhagen School of Thought (CST) created a new concept of global security, as it is believed that the traditional focus on solely military threats was too limited in application. The CST advocates for for ‘securitisation theory’ where an issue will be a security threat if it affects one or more of the following categories – (1) military, (2) economic, (3) environmental, (4) political and (5) societal.

Environmental challenges impact on all of the five categories provided (1) can result in military conflict, (2) environmental issues can have detrimental economic impacts to countries and regions, (3) results in environmental degradation; (4) can create political insecurity; and (5) can have a destabilising effect on a society.

So in conclusion, one of the biggest challenges faced by the international community will be how to combat environmental issues so that the next generation will be able to survive and enjoy the earth. The consequences of environmental issues is a hotly contested debate, but it cannot be denied that the world needs to protect its finite resources. This short essay has strongly argued that environmental challenges should be considered a global security threat. This is because they are serious, can cross borders and are connected to other issues and can cause military conflict. The Copenhagen School of Thought “securitisation’ model was also used as a justification for the importance of environmental issues, outlining the significant detriment and impact environmental issues have.

The original article can be found here.

Posted in Climate, Earth, Economy, Environment, Natural Resources, Rights of Nature, Security, Sustainability | Leave a comment

China and the Politics of Development on the African Continent

Posted on May 8, 2012 by Damian

(This article is reproduced courtesy of Global Politics magazine).

The rising influence of China on the international stage has raised a lot of questions from policy analysts and the media in relation to its role in challenging the dominance of the traditional Western powers and in particular the United States. This is most pronounced in relation to China’s involvement on the African continent. China’s development aims have meant that they have become heavily involved in resource rich areas with huge investments across the continent and in particular the Southern African region. With China’s economic involvement in the continent has come a significant degree of political influence; the African Unions (AU) new headquarters in Addis Ababa is a gift from the Chinese and a symbol of the growing political and economic cooperation between China and Africa.

China and the Politics of Development on the African Continent

The rise of China’s influence led US Secretary State Hillary Clinton to state: “we don’t want to see a new colonialism in Africa,” as a warning to African countries in her official five day tour of the continent last year. The majority of commentary on China has focused on the changing geo-politics and security of the African continent but China is also changing the politics of development on the African continent. A quasi-cold war is taking place on the continent in which the Western neo-liberal development agenda is running counter to China’s state led capitalism, a situation which has intensified with the crisis in the American and European financial systems.

The South African government is leading the charge in relation to implementing a development agenda based on the Chinese development model. The South African Minister of Public Enterprises Malusi Gigaba in a piece he wrote for the South African newspaper Business Day states:

The global financial crisis has legitimised state involvement in the economy and has shifted the focus to how this should happen. Part of this debate is how the state should leverage enterprise ownership in the developmental process. SOEs (State Owned Enterprises) have played a critical role in developing an industrial base in highly developed and emerging economies. Experience suggests that private and public companies have performed both well and badly in achieving key national developmental goals. There have been patriotic, efficient private companies that have made long-term investments to achieve national objectives. There have also been corrupt, inefficient and rent-seeking SOEs that have been captured to serve narrow interests and have undermined economic development. (07/02/2012)

The global financial crisis and the emergence of China and Brazil as major economic players in the international system have challenged what was once a political red herring: the role of the state in the economy. The accepted political paradigm since the Washington Consensus in the 1980s was that the state should play no role in a market economy and has dictated the policies and politics of development and aid on the African continent. African states placed primary emphasis on selling state owned enterprises to the private sector and sought to attract international financial capital in response to the policy power of the IMF and the World Bank. The subprime mortgage crisis and the consistent economic growth of China and Brazil have created the political space for politicians on the continent to begin reasserting the role of the state in the development of the economy.

There is an emerging intellectual consensus among the policy elite on the African continent that is actively challenging the economic and political foundations of Western influence on the continent. Dambisa Moyo has been the most celebrated of the emerging thinking taking place on the continent. In her book Dead Aid: Why Aid is Not Working and How there is a Better Way for Africa, she argues that what the continent needs is a reliable trading partner and that China can be both a commercial partner and serve as an example of a country that has pulled itself out of poverty. Singapore used to be the poster child of the Washington consensus and a means for the Western donor nations to scold African governments for their lack of economic growth and development. The resulting rise of China on the continent is leading to a weakening of the kinds of soft power often utilised by the US and other Western donor nations to gain international solidarity and influence domestic policy.

China is actively involved as a commercial partner and investor in Zambia, Sudan, South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Congo, Guinea and Algeria. In addition the China Development Bank estimates that it has lent $7 billion to over 30 African countries since the development of the China-Africa Development Fund. The presence of the fund as an active investor on the continent in bilateral state-led infrastructure projects is leading to the re-emergence of the state as a key driver of economic development in African nation states.

The inability of Western donor nations to match the investment and funding drive of the Chinese will see a long term decline in the ability of the West to act as the sole policeman on the African continent. The waning of Western influence in the long term will open up the opportunities for the rise and development of the African Union (AU) to act as a stabilising force on the continent. The rise of China will provide the political space for African countries to determine their economic and social policy mixes, long held back by seeking to follow the strict orthodoxy of neo-liberal economic policies. It is a phenomenon that policy makers will have to analyse more closely in the coming years.

Posted in Africa, Aid, China, Corruption, Democracy, Economy, Geopolitics, Human Rights, Land Grab, Natural Resources, Protest | Leave a comment