fredag den 29. april 2011

Bevar Fristaden!


De borgerlige har i årtier haft et horn i siden på Christiania.

Det, at man har formået at tage et i årtier ubrugt og forfaldent område i brug til kulturliv, beboelse og samfundsmæssige alternativer og hvad der vel er Danmarks største socialcenter, har alle dage været noget nær umuligt at sluge for de borgerlige.

Under påskud af at ville bekæmpe et ulovligt rusmiddel, som ingen fornuftige mennesker kan forstå hvorfor er illegalt, har man gennem ti år forsøgt sig med at indføre en miniature-udgave af en stærkt repressiv politistat på Christiania: Såkaldt præventive anholdelser og vilkårlige visitationer; mange hundrede uanmeldte politibesøg på Stadens restaurationer; ugentlige magtprojektioner i form af kampklædte betjente i dusinvis der intimiderende vandrer rundt.

Beskeden er svær at tage fejl af: Inordn jer under den statsligt dikterede korrekte levevis eller find jer i at magtens knusende jernnæve griber hele jeres tilværelse i sit kvælertag!

Demonstration i morgen klokken 11 fra Christianshavns Torv

onsdag den 20. april 2011

Secret memos expose link between oil firms and invasion of Iraq

The British newspaper The Independent yesterday:

Plans to exploit Iraq's oil reserves were discussed by government ministers and the world's largest oil companies the year before Britain took a leading role in invading Iraq, government documents show.

Graphic: Iraq's burgeoning oil industry

The papers, revealed here for the first time, raise new questions over Britain's involvement in the war, which had divided Tony Blair's cabinet and was voted through only after his claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

The minutes of a series of meetings between ministers and senior oil executives are at odds with the public denials of self-interest from oil companies and Western governments at the time.

The documents were not offered as evidence in the ongoing Chilcot Inquiry into the UK's involvement in the Iraq war. In March 2003, just before Britain went to war, Shell denounced reports that it had held talks with Downing Street about Iraqi oil as "highly inaccurate". BP denied that it had any "strategic interest" in Iraq, while Tony Blair described "the oil conspiracy theory" as "the most absurd".

But documents from October and November the previous year paint a very different picture.

Five months before the March 2003 invasion, Baroness Symons, then the Trade Minister, told BP that the Government believed British energy firms should be given a share of Iraq's enormous oil and gas reserves as a reward for Tony Blair's military commitment to US plans for regime change.

The papers show that Lady Symons agreed to lobby the Bush administration on BP's behalf because the oil giant feared it was being "locked out" of deals that Washington was quietly striking with US, French and Russian governments and their energy firms.

Minutes of a meeting with BP, Shell and BG (formerly British Gas) on 31 October 2002 read: "Baroness Symons agreed that it would be difficult to justify British companies losing out in Iraq in that way if the UK had itself been a conspicuous supporter of the US government throughout the crisis."

The minister then promised to "report back to the companies before Christmas" on her lobbying efforts.

The Foreign Office invited BP in on 6 November 2002 to talk about opportunities in Iraq "post regime change". Its minutes state: "Iraq is the big oil prospect. BP is desperate to get in there and anxious that political deals should not deny them the opportunity."

After another meeting, this one in October 2002, the Foreign Office's Middle East director at the time, Edward Chaplin, noted: "Shell and BP could not afford not to have a stake in [Iraq] for the sake of their long-term future... We were determined to get a fair slice of the action for UK companies in a post-Saddam Iraq."

Whereas BP was insisting in public that it had "no strategic interest" in Iraq, in private it told the Foreign Office that Iraq was "more important than anything we've seen for a long time".

BP was concerned that if Washington allowed TotalFinaElf's existing contact with Saddam Hussein to stand after the invasion it would make the French conglomerate the world's leading oil company. BP told the Government it was willing to take "big risks" to get a share of the Iraqi reserves, the second largest in the world.

Over 1,000 documents were obtained under Freedom of Information over five years by the oil campaigner Greg Muttitt. They reveal that at least five meetings were held between civil servants, ministers and BP and Shell in late 2002.

The 20-year contracts signed in the wake of the invasion were the largest in the history of the oil industry. They covered half of Iraq's reserves – 60 billion barrels of oil, bought up by companies such as BP and CNPC (China National Petroleum Company), whose joint consortium alone stands to make £403m ($658m) profit per year from the Rumaila field in southern Iraq.

Last week, Iraq raised its oil output to the highest level for almost decade, 2.7 million barrels a day – seen as especially important at the moment given the regional volatility and loss of Libyan output. Many opponents of the war suspected that one of Washington's main ambitions in invading Iraq was to secure a cheap and plentiful source of oil.

Mr Muttitt, whose book Fuel on the Fire is published next week, said: "Before the war, the Government went to great lengths to insist it had no interest in Iraq's oil. These documents provide the evidence that give the lie to those claims.

"We see that oil was in fact one of the Government's most important strategic considerations, and it secretly colluded with oil companies to give them access to that huge prize."

Lady Symons, 59, later took up an advisory post with a UK merchant bank that cashed in on post-war Iraq reconstruction contracts. Last month she severed links as an unpaid adviser to Libya's National Economic Development Board after Colonel Gaddafi started firing on protesters. Last night, BP and Shell declined to comment.

www.fuelonthefire.com

Source: The Independent.

torsdag den 7. april 2011

Søren Pind Kontra Kendsgerningerne.


Søren Pind hævder i dag i Jyllandsposten, at angribskrigen mod Irak var startskuddet til det arabiske forår. Søren Pind er “helt sikker på, at demokratiet i Irak har inspireret under det arabiske forår.” Irak-krigen var iflg. Pind “bestemt en faktor for, at det [arabiske forår] kunne lade sig gøre,” hvilket foranlediger udviklingsministeren til at konkludere “at modstanderne af Irak-krigen får en sværere og sværere sag, som tiden går.” Det fortjener en kort gendrivelse, men så heller ikke mere:

* Der er ikke - og har ikke på noget tidspunkt været - et funktionelt demokrati i Irak, hvorfor påstanden om at "demokratiet i Irak" har virket som inspirationskilde for oprørerne i bl.a. Ægypten og Tunesien er svær at tage seriøs. For lidt over en måned siden fængslede den amerikansk støttede Nouri al-Maliki-regering 300 journalister, advokater og intellektuelle for at stoppe igangværende protester imod regeringen, mens op mod tredive mennesker blev dræbt. Disse kendsgerninger er vist ikke ligefrem et udtryk for en succesfuld demokratisering af landet!

* Uanset om der på et tidspunkt skulle komme til at ske en ændring af den nuværende situation hen imod en funktionel demokratisk orden så implicerer dette ikke, at krigsmodstanderne bliver nødt til at sluge nogle kameler, da angrebskrigen mod Irak blev solgt til befolkningerne i Danmark, Storbrittanien og USA som en sikkerhedspolitisk motiveret krig der havde med afvæbning af Saddam Hussein-regimets påståede masseødelæggelsesvåben at gøre. At dette var ren og skær svindel, løgn og bedrag er idag velkendt og det kommer næppe i nogen nær fremtid til at blive en god sag for krigsfortalerne.

* Søren Pind kommer ikke i artiklen nærmere ind på hvordan det mere præcist hænger sammen, når han påstår, at Irak-krigen gjorde det arabiske forår mulig, hvilket selvfølgelig gør det svært at gendrive. Det er imidlertid kendsgerninger, at mens Iraks vej mod en forhåbentlig bedre og mere demokratisk orden på sigt er sket oppefra, er oprørene i Ægypten og Tunesien - og mange andre steder i den arabiske del af verden - sket nedefra. Muligheden for modstand mod Saddam Husseins styre blev endvidere i høj grad begrænset af sanktionerne man påførte landet som forvoldte at landets befolkning blev så underernærede, at oprør gennem længere tid næppe overhovedet var en fysisk mulighed.

* Interessant er det da også i denne sammenhæng at fremhæve, at Pinds påståede demokratisering af Irak ikke kan siges at have skabt et positivere billede af USAs tilstedeværelse i regionen. Den amerikanske tænketank, The Brookings Institute, udgav i slutning af 2010 deres årlige 'Arab Public Opinion Poll'. Iflg. denne undersøgelse er man langt fra begejstret for den amerikanske tilstedeværelse i regionen.

Til spørgsmålet "What TWO steps by the United States would improve your views of the United States the most?" svarede 45% "Withdrawal from Iraq", mens 35% svarede "Withdrawal from Arabian Peninsula." Blot 13% mente at "Pushing more to spread democracy" ville gavne deres syn på USA.

Til spørgsmålet "Which TWO of the following factors do you believe are most important in driving American policy in the Middle East?" Svarede 49% "protecting Israel", 45% "controlling oil", 33% "weakening the muslim world", 33% "preserving regional and global dominance", 13% "preventing spread of nuclear weapons", 9% "promoting peace and stability". Det var kun 2% af de adspurgte som mente drivkraften bag den amerikanske udenrigspolitik i regionen var "Promoting democracy".

Til spørgsmålet "Name TWO countries that you think pose the biggest threat to you", svarede 88% "Israel", 77% "USA" og 10% "Iran".

Forsøget på at hvidvaske Irak-krigen er ikke Søren Pinds første forsøg på at omskrive historien til egen fordel. Check i forlængelse af dette indlæg min artikel fra den 7. Marts 'Skandaløs Hvidvaskning' på Kontradoxa. Suppler desuden ovenstående med mit blogindlæg 'Søren Pind om den aktivistiske udenrigspolitik' fra november 2010.

onsdag den 6. april 2011

Eugenics

"Eugenics is the "applied science or the biosocial movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population," usually referring to human populations."

Wikipedia.

Government Advisory Panel: Test children's genes before they have sex.

Children should be encouraged to undergo genetic testing before they become sexually active to check whether they could pass on “hidden” abnormalities to their offspring, a government advisory group will say this week.

The Telegraph.

War Dollars Could Fill Deficit Gaps of All State Budgets.

In a commentary on Huffington Post yesterday William Hartung, the director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy, estimated that the amount of money spent on the war in Afghanistan could fill the deficit gaps of all state budgets:

"...Those genuinely concerned about war costs need to go where the money is -- Afghanistan. The Pentagon has asked for $113 billion to fight the war there for this year, roughly two and one-half times what has been requested to support the United States' dwindling commitment in Iraq. That gap will only increase as troop numbers in Iraq continue to fall. To put this in some perspective, the entire Gross Domestic Product of Afghanistan is about $29 billion per year, which means that annual U.S. expenditures on the war are nearly four times the value of the entire Afghan economy. That number would obviously change if the drug economy were taken into account, but it is stunning nonetheless.

The tax dollars being spent on Afghanistan are enough to offset the $100 billion per year that House Republicans are seeking to cut from next year's budget, or enough to fill the projected budget gaps of the 44 states that expect to run deficits in 2012. In other words, if the Afghan war ended and the funds allocated for it were returned to the states, no state in America would run a deficit next year. This would save millions of jobs of teachers, police, firefighters and other public employees while holding the line on basic services like Medicaid and income support for families in poverty. This would in turn be good for the economy as a whole. Military spending creates fewer jobs than virtually any other form of expenditure, from education to housing to transportation. So shifting funds away from war spending will result in a net increase in jobs nationwide...."

Source: William Hartung, America's Costliest War, Huffington Post April 5. 2011.

New Noam Chomsky Interview.

CeasefireMagazine interviews Noam Chomsky from Frank Barat on Vimeo.

R. McChesney: Media and Politics in the United States Today.

Dagens Citat: Oscar Wilde.


»Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their life a mimicry, their passions a quotation.«

- Oscar Wilde, DE PROFUNDIS, 1897.

søndag den 3. april 2011

Alfred McCoy - Surveillance State: The Making of the U.S. Internal Security Apparatus.

US Military and CIA interventions since World War II

Dokumentar: Fast Food, Fast Profits.

Cyberwar

Dagens Citat: George Bernard Shaw.


“The thief who is in prison is not necessarily more dishonest than his fellows at large, but mostly one who, through ignorance or stupidity [or, adds George Draffan, racism or poverty] steals in a way that is not customary. He snatches a loaf of bread from the baker's counter and is promptly run into jail. Another man snatches bread from the table of hundreds of widows and orphans and similar credulous souls who do not know the ways of company promoters; and, as likely as not, he is run into parliament.”

- George Bernard Shaw.