Madonna turned Esther

Madonna is a pop icon and some of her songs, such as “Like a Virgin” and “Material Girl” will remain popular forever. One can appreciate songs whatever the religious belief of the performers. But Madonna is going too far. Brought up a catholic, she converted to Kabbalah, a Jewish sect condemned as heretic by the orthodox rabbis. As most of Kabbalah's holy sites are located in Israel, Madonna frequently visits the Zionist state. This week, at the end of the Jewish New Year, she even met Israel's president, war criminal Shimon Peres, who gave her a copy of the Old Testament. As she converted to Kabbalah, she even took a new name “Esther”.

Madonna, the famous pop singer is dead, reincarnated as a Jewish fanatic who is cozying up to war criminals. She is hereby deleted from the list of my favorite singers. (CNN: “Madonna meets Shimon Peres”)

Monstrous crimes remembered

Twenty-five years ago this week, more than 1,700 Palestinians were slaughtered in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatilla in 48 hours of carnage while Ariel Sharon watched from a safe distance. Most victims were women and children. An Israeli commission of inquiry concluded that then defense minister Sharon was "indirectly" and "personally" responsible, but far from being punished for this despicable crime, he would still rise to the top and become prime minister of Israel. Franklin Lamb notes that it is considered "the bloodiest single incident of the Arab-Israeli conflict and a crime for which Israel will be condemned for eternity". (Counterpunch: "A Letter to Janet About Sabra-Shatilla"), (Aljazeera: "Sabra Shatila recalled")

All of those who perpetrated the massacre, the hundreds of Phalange and Haddad militia, escaped justice, because they acted on the orders of the Israeli government. Survivors are still haunted by the memories 25 years later and most still live in refugee camps. 45,000 people still live in Sabra and Shatilla today. But many Lebanese, let alone people around the world, have never heard of Sabra and Shatilla. Therefore it is imperative to keep the memories alive and remember the victims.

Belgium is fading

Almost three months after the Belgian general elections of June 10 there is still no new government and no solution in sight to the problems preventing a coalition government to be formed. Finally, the foreign press also starts noticing. (The Economist: “Time to call it a day”); (The Independent: “The Big Question: Is Belgium on the brink of breaking apart, and would it matter if it did?”, “Pressure grows on Belgium's fragile state”)

The disappearance of Belgium may be the result not of a conscious act but of a general acknowledgment of its irrelevance. It is true – at least for now – that there is no majority for a break up of the country. Even in Flanders, there is no majority for a declaration of independence. Rather Belgium may “fade from the page of history” to borrow an expression used by Ayatollah Rohollah Khomeini when he was talking about Israel. The Jewish state will disappear because it is built on a gross injustice – the genocide of the Palestinian people and the establishment of a racist apartheid state. Belgium will fade simply because it is no longer needed. There are altogether seven parliaments and governments where three will suffice to guarantee governance: one each for Flanders, Brussels and Wallonia. There will still be chocolates and beers, although they may no longer be called Belgian. The only thing for which Belgium is indispensable is the monarchy. The royals will have to look for another job.

Stop "Stop Islamisation"

On September 11, some European right-wing forces planned a demonstration in Brussels about what they view as the islamisation of Europe. But the mayor of Brussels banned the demonstration fearing counter manifestations by migrants.

While being firmly opposed to the viewpoints of the organizers, banning demonstrations is never a good option. When there is a demonstration, there is always the possibility of a counter-demonstration. The best the authorities can do is to separate both demonstrations to avoid clashes. In the end even the main organizer withdrew his support for the demonstration and only around a hundred people turned up where about 20,000 were expected.

The leaders of law-and-order Vlaams Belang – who usually always defend an increase in police powers – were briefly arrested when they showed up to demonstrate. Now they claim to defend the freedom of expression, but if a left-wing demonstration would have been organized, they would be the first to support a police crackdown. Their hatred of migrants and Islam led them to break the law. (Al-Jazeera: “Clashes at Belgian anti-Islam rally”)

Believers in Islam should be allowed to practice their religions and customs.

The Surge deflated

The most anticipated congressional testimony by a U.S. general since the Vietnam War brought nothing new. Even before the start of the Surge, one could have predicted what general David Petraeus would say yesterday and today, which is: the surge is working, the situation is improving and we have to stay the course. And in the meantime reduce the number of surge troops to deceive the public that troops are coming home.

The surge was a dismal failure and could not have been otherwise. Occupying a country doesn't work and intensifying the occupation will only intensify the resistance. Now the general says we have to wait for his next report in March 2008. In the meantime tens of thousands more Iraqis will have been killed. What makes Petraeus think that the situation – from an American point of view – will be better in six months? It's stupid wishful thinking on his part, because it won't. Only an immediate and unconditional withdrawal of American forces from Iraq will create conditions for an improvement in the situation. The experience of Vietnam shows us that generals are consistently wrong in their assessments and recommendations. They only say what they think their bosses in the White House and the Pentagon want to hear.

The aim of the surge was to give Iraqi leaders the security needed to make stabilizing political arrangements. None were made and Iraq is further disintegrating. Effecting a troop surge without any results and then scaling it back won't solve anything. A BBC poll in several countries showed that 67% of the respondents want an immediate or gradual withdrawal of American troops. As even former secretary of state Madeleine Albright had to admit: “Our troops are being asked to risk their lives to solve problems our civilian leaders created.” Still the U.S. is clinging to hopes of an impossible victory, inflicting ever more damage. (The Independent: “The view from Washington: Petraeus offers hope of success to a war-weary America”, “The view from Baghdad: Mounting death toll which makes a mockery of US optimism”, “Patrick Cockburn: The 'surge' has failed to improve the bloody stalemate”, “Under siege: what the surge really means in Baghdad”); (The Guardian: “A wrong ID, a wrong turn can mean death”, “We need to get out of Iraq”, “Delaying the inevitable withdrawal”)

The mistress army strikes back

Many Chinese officials and businessmen have mistresses these days. There's nothing much wrong with that, although some become corrupt to satisfy the money hunger of their mistress. But like with anything else you can overdo it. Take the “Zipper mayor” for example. Pang Jiayu (63) is a former mayor of Baoji in Shaanxi province and has also been deputy chairman of the provincial Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). He had no less than 11 mistresses, most of them the young wives of his subordinates. That seems to be a few too many for a man his age. In return for sexual, he promised them to help their husbands get rich. But when some of the schemes fell through and some of the husbands got the death penalty, the mistresses banded together and informed in a letter the Commission for Discipline Inspection of Pang's misdeeds. As Wang Xiaowei writes in the South China Morning Post, “Pang's case takes the cake”.

Eleven mistresses, joining hands to denounce their former patron, if anybody can do better, please raise your hand. The fact that Pang's case has fueled the imagination and has had a wide-ranging impact guarantees that his punishment will be severe. (The Guardian: “Concubine culture brings trouble for China's bosses”) But the fact remains that Pang could break the law for 13 years and - to borrow the official jargon - "lead a desolute life" without being exposed. Many similar "local emperors" still ride roughshod over the people and only a new cultural revolution can stop them.

Lost remembrance

Chairman Mao passed away 31 year ago today. “31” is not a sexy number, but still one would expect that some commemorative articles would have appeared in the Chinese press. There was no such thing. Chairman Mao's death went by unobserved in China. The party leadership doesn't really know what to do with Mao's legacy. It has clearly betrayed his ideology and policy recommendations. But the leadership also doesn't want to ditch Mao completely. The resulting debate could be devastating for the Communist Party, which remains a communist party only in name. An public debate would open the floodgates. On the other hand the current leaders of the Communist Party are following a policy so opposed to everything the Chairman stood for, that they decided to just ignore him.

But amid the dislocations, exploitation and misery caused by the current capitalist development, many people have not forgotten Mao. He created a massive social experiment, and indeed many things went wrong. Social engineering on the vast scale of China is not an easy matter. And most experiments don't succeed on the first try. But if the imperialist U.S. and the rising capitalist power China are common stakeholders in a “harmonious world”, something must be wrong.

Socialism, let alone communism, cannot be realized in poverty. Only when the forces of production are highly developed can socialism be realized. Deng Xiaoping argued that some people could get rich first and common prosperity would be realized. The migrants flooding China's cities in search of factory work are better off toiling in the sweatshops compared to life on the land. But that doesn't mean they are not exploited. Moreover, income disparities between urban and rural residents are still widening. Historical experience proves that capitalist development cannot be skipped. But going out for all round capitalist development also means a revolution is in the making.

An idiot on the world stage

As we all know, Bush's brain has left the White House and now he is acting even more like an idiot on the world stage. While attending a summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum (APEC) he thought he was attending an OPEC summit, that's short for Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. And when thanking his Australian hosts for their contribution to the war in Iraq he was talking about “Austrian” troops. (The Times: “How Australia became Austria – and in Opec”)

This guy really doesn't know what he's talking about, he is merely able to misread the papers and briefing notes written by his staff. This guy is commander-in-chief of the Big Paper Tiger, the army with the most firing power in the world. Not only is he an idiot, he's also a war criminal and still the leaders of other states are treating him like one of their own. Can't the American people see the damage he is doing to its reputation?

A dangerous test strike

Yesterday an Israeli fighter jet intruded into Syrian airspace and apparently has bombed a target inside the country. This may very well be a test run for a more devastating strike on Iran. News reports claim that there is a cooperation in the nuclear field between Syria and North Korea. Israel might have tried to take out a nuclear installation in Syria to prepare for a strike against the Busher reactor in Iran.

Israel has clearly violated the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria. And, of course, the U.N. Security Council is doing nothing. Now imagine that the Iranian Air Force would have attacked a U.S. target in Iraq or a Syrian plane would have dropped a bomb on Israeli territory. This would surely have given the Bush-Cheney war criminal gang an excuse to start another war “to bring democracy to the Middle East”. But the Zionist apartheid state of Israel can violate the airspace of its neighbors with impunity, drop bombs at will, deny any wrongdoing and nobody is doing anything about it.

There can only be peace in the Middle East when the Zionist state vanishes from the page of history.

War in cyberspace

Is the Chinese military hacking into other governments' computer systems to spy on and disrupt them? If you read a slew of revelations in the Western press in the past few days you may think so. It started with an allegation in Der Spiegel that the networks of Germany's foreign and economic ministries were hacked into. When exactly it happened is not very clear, but the revelation was made just before chancellor Angela Merkel's visit to China and was clearly made to embarrass the Chinese and push the spying topic high up the agenda. In the following days news surfaced that also networks at the Pentagon, in Great Britain and in France had been attacked. (The Guardian: “China flexes muscles of its 'informationised' army”)

Chinese premier Wen Jiabao said China was opposed to hacking computer networks and would punish the perpetrators. There is not much proof that the attacks originated in China, but it is of course possible that the PLA is conducting cyber warfare experiments.

The hypocritical thing is that the U.S. and other Western countries are also developing cyber warfare capabilities, but the recent accusations make you believe that China is a rogue state, while the U.S. is strictly adhering to international norms. The U.S. that is, which illegally invaded a sovereign country which posed no threat whatsoever. If they invade with an army of flesh and blood, can you believe they would not invade other countries' networks in cyberspace.

It seems, apart from the reported cyber attacks, it is the attacks in the press that were designed to embarrass China. Without any proof, as hackers in other countries could very well be using insecure computers in China to disguise their location.

Flying nukes

Last week a B-52 bomber flew from Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana carrying six cruise missiles for decommssioning. So far so good. But even the bomber's crew was unaware that nuclear warheads were attached to the cruise missiles. The U.S. thereby violated a treaty committing itself not to fly around with nukes. (CNN: "Air Force investigates mistaken transport of nuclear warheads")

The incident is considered to be a major breach of security. So here we have the U.S. accusing Iran of endangering world security - although the Iranians don't have nuclear weapons - while the U.S. air force is flying nuclear warheads around the country. Nuclear weapons should be dismantled so nobody can fly around with them, even by mistake. No, they could not have detonated, but if the B-52 would have crashed, radiation would have contaminated a large area, possibly including population centers.

Seeing is believing...

George W. Bush has now made his third lightening visit to Iraq. Six hours on a U.S. airbase in Anbar province. He doesn't even dare to go to Baghdad anymore. Do you call that visiting Iraq? If the Iraqi people are welcoming the Americans with roses and fireworks, why does the American president not dare to walk among them. Among those whom he has brought “democracy”? Bush said he wanted to “see with his own eyes the remarkable changes that are taking place in Anbar province.” Holed up in a fortified American base. What exactly is it you can see from there? The nearby McDonald's and Kentucky Fried Chicken?

In order to prolong the occupation, Bush wants to prove that progress is being made. Of course there is no such thing. Once again he is on a quest to deceive Congress and get away with war crimes. (The New York Times: “Bush, in Iraq, Sees Possible Reduction in Troop Levels”)

Bush is urging Congress to listen to what the U.S. commanders in Iraq have to say. But they are only saying what Bush would like to hear, totally divorced from reality. Most disgusting of all, the puppet leaders of Iraq, Talabani and al-Maliki are welcoming and schmoozing with the war criminal who is responsible for the utter destruction of their country and the mass murder of its people. They truly belong in the dustbin of history.

Don't support the troops

Usually, The Independent has insightful stories about many issues, including Iraq and Afghanistan, and also publishes columns by Robert Fisk. But yesterday they blew it with a distasteful campaign to “support the troops”. (The Independent: “IoS campaign: Honour our troops”, "A debt of honour: They fight and die for Queen and country. We must support them”)

We should support the troops, the newspaper crows, they lack protective armor and are poorly cared for when they return. The bottom line is: they don't need protection if they stay home and are not sent to wage war abroad. And when they are not fighting, they will need much less care. “Dying for Queen and country” is absurd. It is totally idiotic to die for the Queen, as for dying for the country, they are not fighting to defend their country against aggression, the soldiers themselves are committing aggression against other peoples. The Military Covenant may very well be honored in defense of the country, but not if the military is committing the crime of aggression. In doing so they become war criminals, and the Independent on Sunday is asking us the support them. The U.K. has now lost 168 troops in Iraq and 74 in Afghanistan, plus 1,741 casualties lifted out of both countries. These men and women wouldn't be dead or wounded if they hadn't crossed their country's border to go to a place where they had nothing to defend.

Shame on The Independent!

Deception

The U.S. is preparing a savage air attack on Iran – not excluding the use of tactical nuclear weapons – to prevent it from acquiring an atom bomb. Never mind that Iran and the UN atomic energy agency on August 21 agreed on a timetable for Tehran to clarify outstanding concerns about its nuclear program. If the ghost of the atom bomb is insufficient to justify war, the U.S. will engineer an incident “proving” that Iran is responsible for the deaths of American soldiers in Iraq. “The Pentagon has drawn up plans for massive airstrikes against 1,200 targets in Iran, designed to annihilate the Iranians’ military capability in three days,” The Times writes. (“Pentagon ‘three-day blitz’ plan for Iran”) Not “pinprick strikes”, but “taking out the entire Iranian military”.

But in the same edition The Times (“How the West summoned up a nuclear nightmare in Pakistan”) published an extract from a forthcoming book, written by Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark, showing how the U.S. covered up Pakistan's quest for the bomb. So here we have the U.S. of A. turning a blind eye to Islamic Pakistan getting the bomb and preparing to strike at Islamic Iran to prevent it from getting the bomb. So what's the bottom line? It's not about nuclear non-proliferation. If you are a U.S. ally, you may have all the forbidden toys you want, but if you are not, you're gonna be bombed back to the Stone Age if the U.S. president only presumes that perhaps you would be tempted to acquire forbidden toys.

Bush accused Iran of “putting the Middle East under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust”. Iran doesn't even have a bomb. But Pakistan does have several. Moreover, president's Musharraf's grip on the country is slipping and it could fall into the hands of Islamic militants, the very same who have trained and supported the Taliban. The authors of “Deception” describe Pakistan as a “desperately unstable country” [...] “on the failed states index at position 12, just below Haiti, in worse shape than North Korea and Burma”. Finally, Iran's Ahmadinejad was democratically elected (he was not even the candidate of the conservative clergy), while Musharraf took power in a coup.

To Bush that doesn't matter, you're with us or against us.

The book “Deception: Pakistan, the United States, and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons” will be published in Britain in September (Amazon.co.uk) and in the U.S. in October (Amazon.com).

The Belgian split

Belgium still doesn't have a new government following the June 10 elections. And it doesn't look like there will be in the near future. The gap between Flemish and French-speaking parties is too wide to reconcile. Ever more people are now contemplating the split of Belgium. If a Belgian government cannot be formed, Flanders will go its own way. Discussions of outright independence were usually confined to right-wing parties. But now for the first time the daily De Standaard publishes an extensive series of articles exploring how an independent Flanders could come about and what its place in Europe and the world would be.

Some argue that Belgium is already a small country and to split it up further would diminish its place in the world. But having six million inhabitants, Flanders has more people and is certainly more prosperous than many other countries. Even an independent Flanders would still be on a par with Denmark and be much larger than Luxembourg.

Many people who were not in favor of independence in the past are now changing their views because they become aware that Belgium is simply ungovernable. The two communities don't read each others newspapers or watch each others TV programs. Both vote for other parties and if people from the two communities do meet, they speak English, like they do with foreigners.

In 1830, Belgium split off from Holland. Perhaps in the coming years Flanders will split from Belgium and a proud new republic will be born.

The final cheers!

A man called Michael Jackson has died yesterday. No, not his more famous namesake the pop singer. This Michael Jackson was a famous beer writer, who published many books about the world's beers. He also wrote a book about Belgian beers, which helped make them famous all over the world. He was also called "the beer hunter", the title of a popular television series he produced. (CNN: “Famed 'beer hunter' dies”)

Michael jackson was always on the look-out to taste new beers and to try to accurately describe their taste. He wanted something more than pils. When he tasted a beer brewed by Belgian monks he was hooked to discover more: Westmalle, Trappist, Geuze, Orval, Westvleteren, Duvel,... Sales of his books exceeded three million in 18 languages.

At 65 - much too early - he drank his last beer. But his descriptions of beers will continue to guide beer lovers for many years to come. Cheers!

China's happy mask

According to secretary general Giles Merritt of the think tank Friends of Europe , “China is mistakingly downplaying its own serious structural weaknesses”. He says the Chinese leaders fail to mention the country's problems because they don't want to lose face. (The Taipei Times: “Underneath China's happy mask”)

The Chinese indeed don't like losing face, but that's besides the point. Many Westerners see China as a rising power, exporting ever more goods, collecting giant foreign exchange reserves and even getting stronger militarily. Most foreign businessmen only go to the big coastal cities. They are mesmerized by the skyscrapers in Pudong and the Olympic village in Beijing. They hardly know anything about the countryside and the poor regions of the country. But you cannot say that the Chinese leaders themselves do not know this, as Wang Yong correctly points out in the Shanghai Daily. (“Western observer fails to see vigorous debate in China over problems”)

China is still a developing country and is certainly not hiding its problems. Some villages still don't have good roads or even electricity. China is developing fast, but it still needs several decades to become a developed country. To have a comprehensive understanding of China, you need to look at both the developed and the underdeveloped parts.

Poppyland

No, the Taliban are not a nice bunch of guys. Who would want to envelop the bodies of women in a burqa where not even the eyes are visible? Men who impose this requirement must be totally out of their minds. The Taliban wanted to establish a dark medieval society. But what can you expect after 200 years of meddling by the foreign powers: the British, the Russians, the Iranians, the Pakistanis, the U.S. and an assorted collection of NATO troops? But the Talibs scored two achievements: they defeated the warlords and brought some sort of justice. Cruel justice, chopping of hands, feet and penises. And they almost eradicated the opium production.

Today, Afghanistan is ruled by nobody. There is the puppet Karzai regime in the presidential palace in Kabul, the warlords, the resurgent Taliban and the NATO troops. And guess what: the opium production is soaring to record highs. (The Independent: “Record opium crop helps the Taliban fund its resistance”), (The Guardian: “UN horrified by surge in opium trade in Helmand”), (The New York Times: “Afghan Opium Crop at Record High”).

Opium production increased more than a third compared to last year. Helmand province is the biggest single opium producer in the world, right under the noses of the NATO armies. The head of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, Antonio Maria Costa had to admit: “The results are very bad, terrifyingly bad”. And who is to be held responsible for this? The foreign armies occupying Afghanistan today.

The mercenary army

It should surprise nobody that the U.S. military is facing ever more difficulties to sign up new recruits. Everybody with a few grams of brain matter knows that after signing up, Iraq is waiting. Either they will have to endure innumerable tours of duty, utterly exhausting even the most battle-hardened soldiers. Now the U.S. Army has found a way: bribery. (The Washington Post: “Many Take Army's 'Quick Ship' Bonus”)

Since late July, more than 90% of new recruits have accepted a 20,000 dollar “quick ship” bonus. For most of them, that's the equivalent of more than a year's pay. Sure, that comes in very handy. But the flipside is that the new recruits leave their homes within days of signing up for a short crash course leaving them unprepared and badly trained. Then it's onwards to the battlefields of Iraq. Many of them will never get the chance to spend their 20,000 dollar, but will instead quickly return to the homeland... in a body bag.

In the first three weeks of the program, which started on July 25, the army enlisted 3,814 new recruits using the bonus. The American people is tired of the war in Iraq and the only way the military can fill its ranks is bribery, wasting more of the taxpayers' money to send the sons and daughters of the country to commit crimes abroad. Some of them would indeed have joined up, perhaps in 2008, without the bonus. So the army may now have a supply of fresh recruits, but will face more difficulties next year. The flow of cannon fodder will dry up.

Meanwhile, Bush wants to launch another criminal war against Iran. That will break the back of the U.S. military and even lots of money will not be able to solve the personnel problem. You can have the best military hardware in the world, you can sow death and destruction on an unimaginable scale, but in the end it's the people who are the driving force. Equipped with the best hardware, bombers, fighter jets, helicopters, tanks, spy satellites... the U.S. is defeated every day by Kalashnikovs and roadside bombs.

So what about the Iraqi resistance? Do they have a problem finding new recruits? No, because the war crimes committed by the U.S. are turning each and every Iraqi into a dedicated resistance fighter,... free of charge.

Puppet-on-a-string

Nouri al-Maliki is an American puppet, frequently traveling to Washington to receive instructions from his boss, George W. Bush. But as it goes with puppets, if they won't or can't fulfill their master's wishes, they are prone to be kicked aside and replaced. al-Maliki is coming under fire because he can't deliver on the “benchmarks” which emerged from neo-con fantasy land. Hillary Clinton said that al-Maliki should be replaced by a "less divisive and more unifying figure". The problem for the U.S. is: another puppet won't be able to deliver either. The Iraqi government is totally irrelevant outside the Green Zone. How can it accomplish anything?
(ZNet: “King George, al-Maliki, & the Press”) (CounterPunch: “Don't Carpool with Nouri al-Maliki”)

In 1963 the U.S. ambassador in Saigon and the C.I.A. supported (behind the scenes of course) the murder by South Vietnamese officers of president Ngo Dinh Diem, because he could not fulfill America's wishes. al-Maliki should watch his back or buy a one-way ticket to Tehran, where as a fellow Shia he is still welcome.

al-Maliki told his American critics to stop meddling in the affairs of his country and behave like colonial overlords. But that's exactly what Iraq is: a colony of the U.S. and al-Maliki is a puppet-on-a-string. Until the master cuts the string...