‎”We must be prepared to make the same heroic sacrifices for the cause of peace that we make ungrudgingly for the cause of war. There is no task that is more important or closer to my heart.”

What was true for Albert Einstein (quote via Metta Center) might be equally true for each of us for which it might be the only practical path to follow.

The case to withdraw the Australian military involvement from Afghanistan is on its’ face overwhelming, and is in fact what is planned in 2014.

Of course there will be some exceptions to that made by the lead imperialists, the Military Industrial Complex based in the United States, as has happened in Iraq, such as leaving behind mercenaries, a extravagantly expensive embassy, and claiming the right to violate the air space by flying drones.

The behavior of the US occupation in Iraq was disgraceful. We witnessed the savagery and presumably criminality, for which there have been no indictments, as if war crimes can be discounted:

The comments made by the unindicted murderers bears reflection. Imagine bringing children to a city. The laws of war apply or they do not.

And the lack of accountability for the money from the Iraqi Treasury amounts to possible theft on a grand scale. Josh Levs reports for CNN:

The U.S. Defense Department cannot account for about $2 billion it was given to cover Iraq-related expenses and is not providing Iraq with a complete list of U.S.-funded reconstruction projects, according to two new government audits.

The reports come from the office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction.

The Iraqi government in 2004 gave the Department of Defense access to about $3 billion to pay bills for certain contracts, and the department can only show what happened to about a third of that, the inspector general says in an audit published Friday.

The problem with the alliance, if it can be so described, is that one party sets the agenda and the morality of actions. Things are made extremely difficult when any military is engaged in an occupation, has entered into a civil war, paradoxically it would seem in the case of both Iraq and Afghanistan on the side of Iran.

As the Israelis have discovered that you can create mass imprisonment, but nonetheless the opponents are not devoid of human intelligence and genius, and they find ways of fighting back.  For example,Juan Cole notes:

In the 2006 Lebanon War, Hizbullah and its backers (Iran and Syria) cracked Israeli communications encryption and so knew everything the Israeli army planned to do as soon as the orders were radioed. Hizbullah used micro-war techniques, including small rockets, the emplacements of which could not be easily found and destroyed, to force 1/4 of Israelis from their homes. Toward the end of the war Hizbullah was threatening to hit toxic gas storage areas in Haifa and it wasn’t clear that the Dimona nuclear facility was safe. Tiny Hizbullah, with only about 5,000 fighters, drawn from a religious group with only about 1.5 million members in Lebanon, is a harbinger of things to come. Arabs and Muslims are no longer push-overs, and will become less so over time.

Then the recourse is to invent a fictional nuclear existential threat with the prospect of mass murder at a larger scale. Violence begets violence.

Tom Engelhardt describes some of the phantasmagorical context:

Imagine that, in late 2007, Iran’s ruling mullahs and their military advisors had decided to upgrade already significant covert activities against Washington, including cross-border operations, and so launched an intensification of its secret campaign to “destabilize” the country’s leadership — call it a covert war if you will — funded by hundreds of millions of dollars of oil money; that they (or their allies) supported armed oppositional groups hostile to Washington; that they flew advanced robot drones on surveillance missions in the country’s airspace; that they imposed ever escalating sanctions, which over the years caused increased suffering among the American people, in order to force Washington to dismantle its nuclear arsenal and give up the nuclear program (military and peaceful) that it had been pursuing since 1943; that they and an ally developed and launched a computer worm meant to destroy American centrifuges and introduced sabotaged parts into its nuclear supply chain; that they encouraged American nuclear scientists to defect; that one of their allies launched an assassination program against American nuclear scientists and engineers, killing five of them on the streets of American cities; that they launched a global campaign to force the world not to buy key American products, including Hollywood movies, iPhones, iPods, and iPads, and weaponry of any sort by essentially embargoing American banking transactions.

Imagine as well that an embattled American president declared the Gulf of Mexico to be off-limits to Iranian aircraft carriers and threatened any entering its waters with dire consequences. In response, the Iranians promptly sent their aircraft carrier, the Mossadegh, and its battle group of accompanying ships directly into Gulf waters not far from Florida and then stationed a second carrier, the Khomeini, and its task force in the nearby Caribbean as support. (Okay, the Iranians don’t have aircraft carriers, but just for a moment, suspend disbelief.)

And these things, not the full story, true enough in the parallel universe are swallowed whole as if they were Mother’s pills, without any condemnation in the mass media, as Tom Engelhardt notes of immorality.

Where that may be is over there, and they are “unpeople”. We are taught to fear “blowback”, but not to call the reaction by that name, even though the term was coined by the CIA. Occupation is invidious, and the Israeli lessons and experience are not irrelevant. Again paradoxically the Iranian Government learnt from the Israelis how to deal by violence with nonviolent demonstrators.

The same methods of policing are perhaps now in evidence in the US. Here are two current examples. Firstly from Oakland ( video via Truthdig):

And secondly there is this incident from McPherson Square in Washington DC (Click on the link for the full screen video):
http://rt.com/s/swf/player5.4.swf?file=http://rt.com/files/news/occupy-police-taser-protestor-033/ia2ca4471fd6fb1719ba6505572c34558_arrest.flv&image=http://rt.com/files/news/occupy-police-taser-protestor-033/id2d2ab0f2c75d588b3eec77f5203cd7c_occupy-police-taser-protestor.n.jpg&skin=http://rt.com/s/css/player_skin.zip&provider=http&abouttext=Russia%20Today&aboutlink=http://rt.com&autostart=false
Whether there is cause and effect, the underlying principle is the same. We should be careful about the full implications of foreign engagements, of going along for the ride so as not to rock the boat.

POSTSCRIPT:

The Telegraph reports:

British troops are being trained in riot control tactics amid fears that violence and looting will return to Britain’s streets this summer.

Related articles

• ‘War in Iran would mean WWIII’ – RT (rt.com)
• Nuclear Free Middle East: Desirable, Necessary, and Impossible (richardfalk.wordpress.com)
• Ira Chernus: New York Times Hypes Israeli Attack On Iran (huffingtonpost.com)
• Law and Disorder Radio has an interview with Tariq Ali with other reports.

Cosimer Marriner in The Sydney Morning Herald writes:

KEVIN RUDD will use the election campaign in Queensland as the springboard for a renewed push to wrest the prime ministership back from Julia Gillard, Labor Party insiders predict.

The Foreign Minister, who represents the Brisbane seat of Griffith, has promised ”I will help any campaign that they want me to” during the state election, which pits the Labor Premier, Anna Bligh, against the former Brisbane lord mayor Campbell Newman, now Liberal National Party leader.
Labor insiders say Mr Rudd’s involvement in the campaign for the March 24 election is designed to boost his profile, highlight the disparity in popularity between the former and present prime ministers, remind his caucus colleagues how crucial Queensland is in the next federal election – and inevitably stoke leadership tensions.

Antony Green provides a comprehensive account of the state of play in Queensland, concluding:

If the long campaign sees the LNP lead over Labor slip, then the campaigning by Katter’s party may be telling. The more cross bench members elected, the harder it will be for the LNP to win a majority in its own right. The nightmare scenario for the LNP would be for the party to fall short of a majority and for Newman to be defeated in Ashgrove. But given the state of the polls, much would have to go wrong for the LNP for this doomsday scenario to matter.

As an aside, I am slightly surprised that there has not been consideration to move from optional preferential voting given the unicameral parliament and the adoption of system similar to Multiple Member Proportional system used in New Zealand.

Still a change of government in Queensland will have Federal implications with an almost complete transformation of the political complexion of the States. It is certain that ALP members of the House of Reps will be concerned, and a change of leadership, it that is the decision will have to take effect reasonably soon after the Queensland State Election.

If Kevin Rudd was again put in the PM’s office, how would he steer and manage the ship of state differently this time around?

Was this Kevin Rudd’s finest hour?

One suspects that Julia Gillard could not have made this speech and that Tony Abbott certainly would not have given it.

ELSEWHERE:

Kim at Larvatus Prodeo begins a series of posts on the Queensland election.

The BBC reports:

It is not clear if any DNA from Bin Laden or any family members was ever obtained.

Washington has been arguing that Dr Afridi should be freed and allowed to live in the US.

Mr Panetta also repeated US claims that someone in authority in Pakistan must have known where Bin Laden was hiding at the compound – located close to the country’s top military academy.

But were it the case, why would it be so?

Panetta talks to CBS News.

The Pakistan Government has refused to accede to the US request for Afridi to be released. An earlier request in July last year by the Secretary of State was met with a similar rejection:

Official sources have confirmed that US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton telephoned President Asif Ali Zardari on July 28 to seek his help in securing Dr Afridi’s release.

However, President Zardari reportedly turned down the request, arguing that the matter was before the judicial commission, which has been investigating the circumstances surrounding the death and presence of Bin Laden in Abbottabad, sources said.

“The matter is sub judice and it is only the Abbottabad Commission which will decide his (Afridi) fate,” said an official quoting President Zardari as having told Secretary Clinton.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told The Express Tribune that the detained doctor may be summoned by the Abbottabad commission for questioning.

The high-powered commission, which is headed by a recently retired senior Supreme Court judge Justice Javed Iqbal, had already barred the government from extraditing Bin Laden’s widows and other persons who are connected with this incident. Afridi was one of several Pakistanis who were detained by the country’s security agencies over allegations of working for the CIA. Afridi has yet to be charged formally, but if he is, he could face the death penalty for collaborating with a foreign spy agency.

It is unclear how the CIA first recruited Afridi to work for the United States.

It is fairly clear that the CIA is a law unto itself, and the failure again to respect Pakistan’s sovereignty and laws is unlikely it popular in that country. The alternative would be to establish and respect international laws which would have two significant drawbacks. It would call into question the resort and reign of violence to solve differences and laws could not be applied as victor justice.

Press TV reported in February 2011 on the CIA’s secret war in Pakistan:

That might be described as an outlier, an extreme event. Of course, once I saw this video the analogy stuck with me (via Real Climate):

 

The ABC is prepared to continence a wider range of opinion, while always cleaving loyally to the perceived mainstream consensus that the media is in the process of creating. ABC Online reports:

Some of the protesters said they were aware Mr Abbott was inside the restaurant but not the Prime Minster, however others say Ms Gillard is a coward for not stepping outside to speak to them.

“The Opposition Leader talks about ripping the tent embassy off us. The other leader fails to even come out and speak to us as Aboriginal people. She runs like a coward, she runs,” activist Sean Gordon said.

This morning, Mr Abbott said Aboriginal people could be very proud of their achievements since the tent embassy was first established but that it was probably time to move on.

“I think the Indigenous people of Australia can be very proud of the respect in which they are held by every Australian,” he said.

“I think a lot has changed since then and I think it probably is time to move on from that.”

But Mr Gordon says many people were angered by those remarks.

“We have not moved on in 200 years. We are hand out to government,” he said.

“We have no economic base for who we are as Aboriginal people. We have title to land we aren’t able to do anything with. How have we moved on?”

Tent embassy founder Michael Anderson says Mr Abbott’s comments are disrespectful and amounted “to inciting racial riots”.

Ms Gillard has refused to comment on whether Mr Abbott should apologise for his remarks.

There are questions concerning the PM’s behavior. Why did she allow herself to be treated in this way. Why did she not attempt to speak to the demonstrators? Why does she refuse to comment Abbott should apologize? One of the requirements of leadership is physical courage, along with a set of core beliefs and vision. Whatever John Howard’s faults, and I am no fan, he possessed those qualities.

ELSEWHERE:

The BBC report describes the fraca as “absolutely extraordinary scenes in the Australian Capital”.  In this report the protesters do not seem to be exceptionally violent, and numbering about 200 people.

En Passsant was a participant in the demo and reports on what he saw and experienced.

CODA:

The thought occurs, as was once observed they are “a weird mob” .  In those other places, noticeably in Zuccotti Park and the campus of Davis, the police manhandle and mistreat the protesters whereas in this apparent alternative world, the police manhandle the political leaders.

On Tuesday Iran said it expected the EU to backtrack on the embargo and repeated a threat to close the vital Strait of Hormuz shipping lane if the West succeeds in preventing Tehran from exporting crude.

“The West’s ineffective sanctions against the Islamic state are not a threat to us. They are opportunities and have already brought lots of benefits to the country,” intelligence minister Heydar Moslehi told the official IRNA news agency.

The tone in the Islamic Republic was defiant, even sceptical.

“The global economic situation is not one in which a country can be destroyed by imposing sanctions,” Mr Moslehi said, repeating Iran’s stance that with the EU in economic and monetary crisis, it needs Iran’s oil more than Iran needs its business.

A spokesman for the oil ministry said Iran had had plenty of time to prepare for the sanctions and would find alternative customers for the 18 per cent of its exports that up to now have gone to the 27-nation European bloc.

“The first phase of this (sanctions action) is propaganda, only then it will enter the implementation phase. That is why they put in this six months period, to study the market,” Alireza Nikzad Rahbar said, predicting the embargo could be rescinded before it takes force completely.

“This market will harm them because oil is getting more expensive and when oil gets more expensive it will harm the people of Europe,” state TV quoted him as saying.

“We hope that in these six months they will choose the right path.”

The embargo will not kick in completely until July 1 because the bloc’s foreign ministers who agreed the ban at a meeting in Brussels were anxious not to penalise the ailing economies of Greece, Italy and others to whom Iran is a major oil supplier.

Robert Fisk in The Independent has a similar view concluding: Bring on the sanctions. Send in the clowns”. Israeli leaders have a long track record of accusing Iran of wanting to build nuclear weapons. Some of this history is detailed by Robert Fisk:

The Israeli President warns us now that Iran is on the cusp of producing a nuclear weapon. Heaven preserve us. Yet we reporters do not mention that Shimon Peres, as Israeli Prime Minister, said exactly the same thing in 1996. That was 16 years ago. And we do not recall that the current Israeli PM, Benjamin Netanyahu, said in 1992 that Iran would have a nuclear bomb by 1999. That would be 13 years ago. Same old story.

So perhaps the story of an Iranian bomb might help Israel. As Robert Fisk notes:

For Palestinians in the West Bank, Israel is the brutal, colonising, occupying power. But the moment Iran is mentioned, this colonial power turns into a tiny, vulnerable, peaceful state under imminent threat of extinction. Ahmadinejad – here again, I quote Netanyahu – is more dangerous than Hitler. Israel’s own nuclear warheads – all too real and now numbering almost 300 – disappear from the story. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards are helping the Syrian regime destroy its opponents; they might like to – but there is no proof of this.

Kevin Rudd, now in the eyes of some critics, the putative PM, got into the act, but then it turned out that Australia does not import oil from Iran.

RT reports on the suggestion, other wise reported by Press TV that India and China plan to buy Iranian oil with gold:

So what is going on? Pepe Escobar concludes in his article at Tom Dispatch:

t’s not at all far-fetched to imagine hardcore Full-Spectrum-Dominance practitioners inside the Pentagon riding a false-flag incident in the Persian Gulf to an attack on Iran (or simply using it to pressure Tehran into a fatal miscalculation). Consider as well the new U.S. military strategy just unveiled by President Obama in which the focus of Washington’s attention is to move from two failed ground wars in the Greater Middle East to the Pacific (and so to China). Iran happens to be right in the middle, in Southwest Asia, with all that oil heading toward an energy-hungry modern Middle Kingdom over waters guarded by the U.S. Navy.

So yes, this larger-than-life psychodrama we call “Iran” may turn out to be as much about China and the U.S. dollar as it is about the politics of the Persian Gulf or Iran’s nonexistent bomb. The question is: What rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Beijing to be born?

Pepe Escobar talks with Scott Horton on AntiWar.com.

If true, aside from the likely increase in the price of oil for Europeans in particular, the end of the Dollar as the reserve currency of the world that the schemozzle is as much an obscenity of military power as it is of an absurdity – although real people have been, and one supposes may be, murdered.

The BBC reports:

Our planet is being bombarded by high-energy particles unleashed by the strongest solar storm since 2005, scientists say.

The charged particles are mostly a concern for satellites – which they can disrupt – and astronauts.

But they can also cause communication problems for aircraft travelling near the poles.

The geomagnetic storm has been caused by a potent flare that erupted from the Sun at 0400 GMT on Sunday.

The effects are likely to be felt on Earth throughout Wednesday.

A more benign effect of the outpouring of particles is the ability to see aurorae, or “Northern lights”, further south than is usually possible.

A spokesman for US space agency Nasa said that flight surgeons and solar scientists have modelled the flare’s predicted effects.

They decided that the six astronauts on the International Space Station do not have to take any action to protect themselves from the incoming stream of particles.

Solar flares are caused by the sudden release of magnetic energy stored in the Sun’s atmosphere.

In an event called a coronal mass ejection (CME), bursts of charged particles are released into space.

This can interfere with technology on Earth, such as electrical power grids, communications systems and satellites – including satellite navigation (or sat-nav) signals.

Some have seen the potential for disaster in this solar phenomenon, but Nasa physicist Alex Young is not concerned – to the chagrin of at least once critic who suggest that over the last four to five cycles the effect is getting larger:

Lets talk more about the sun and infinity of space more, so as to recognize that what may divide us may in this perspective to inconsequential and our planet and life are precious.

ELSEWHERE:

Astrophysicist, Adam Frank, reviews the latest solar storm and its significance for NPR.

The New Zealand Herald explained the process:

Kim Dotcom and three others were arrested in New Zealand after a request for “mutual legal assistance” by the United States Government – which plans to extradite the accused.

The men have not been charged by police in New Zealand and are being held in custody on the warrant issued by the US Government.

Extradition is the official process allowing for the surrender of a suspected or convicted criminal from one country to another.

Requests are made under the Extradition Act 1999, any relevant treaty and the law of the foreign country. New Zealand signed an extradition treaty with the US in 1970.

Normally, a formal request for extradition is received through diplomatic channels. The Minister of Justice may request an arrest warrant and then the District Court determines whether the individual is eligible for surrender.

The indictments on five counts were sanctioned by a Grand Jury in Virginia, which perhaps was guaranteed to approve the US Government’s action. It is one thing to arrest and charge a person; it is another to confiscate property prior to the judgement of a relevant court. I am not across the legal issues, but perhaps there are issues of extra-territoriality in play here.

Glenn Greenwald draws two conclusions that in their own way are a form of indictment:

1. It’s wildly under-appreciated how unrestrained is the Government’s power to do what it wants, and how little effect these debates over various proposed laws have on that power. . . It’s true that website-seizures-without-trials are not quite as lawless as indefinite detentions, since there are actual statutes conferring this power. But it nonetheless sends a very clear message when citizens celebrate a rare victory in denying the Government a power it seeks — the power to shut down websites without a trial — only for the Government to turn around the very next day and shut down one of the world’s largest and best-known sites. Whether intended or not, the message is unmistakable: Congratulations, citizens, on your cute little “democracy” victory in denying us the power to shut down websites without a trial: we’re now going to shut down one of your most popular websites without a trial.

2. The U.S. really is a society that simply no longer believes in due process: once the defining feature of American freedom that is now scorned as some sort of fringe, radical, academic doctrine. That is not hyperbole. Supporters of both political parties endorse, or at least tolerate, all manner of government punishment without so much as the pretense of a trial, based solely on government accusation: imprisonment for life, renditions to other countries, even assassinations of their fellow citizens. Simply uttering the word Terrorist, without proving it, is sufficient. And now here is Megaupload being completely destroyed — its website shuttered, its assets seized, ongoing business rendered impossible — based solely on the unproven accusation of Piracy.

Since US courts are now apparently performing no useful function perhaps they do can be closed, as is suggested for other government functions to save money. Court Martials could used to ensure that the correct conclusions were reached. The letter and spirit of the Constitution is now irrelevant, so that could be another cost saving. Then again as the parties to the action against the Megauploads and the authors of SOPA and PIPA would contend fictions and myths are essential to any national story, with the benefits worth more than a costs.

In a World Public Opinion poll of sixteen nations in 2009, 69 percent of Americans supported the view that nations are obliged to abide by international law even when doing so is at odds with their national interest. Furthermore, a 2010 poll by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs found 82 percent of Americans favored ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (rejected by the GOP-dominated Senate in 1999), 70 percent favored participation in the International Criminal Court (rejected by President George W. Bush), and 67 percent backed a new international treaty to combat climate change. In December 2008, a World Public Opinion poll found that 77 percent of Americans backed an international treaty abolishing nuclear weapons.

Furthermore, most Americans favor expanding the role of the United Nations in world affairs. Polling in 2010 by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs found that majorities of Americans favored creating a standing UN peacekeeping force (64 percent), giving the United Nations the authority to enter countries to investigate human rights violations (72 percent), creating an international marshals service with the power to arrest leaders responsible for genocide (73 percent), and empowering the United Nations to regulate the international arms trade (55 percent).

Overall, as public opinion studies show, Americans want a smaller—rather than a larger—global footprint for their nation. According to a 2010 poll by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, only 8 percent favored the United States playing the role of the preeminent world leader, while 71 percent favored a cooperative approach. Gallup polls have turned up similar results. In 2011, Gallup reported that only 16 percent of Americans endorsed the option of the United States playing “the leading role” in world affairs. According to Gallup, 32 percent of Americans favored “a minor role” or “no role” at all for the United States, while 50 percent wanted the United States to “take a major role, but not the leading one.”

“It’s the media. . .” Justin Lewis deconstructs the mediation of public polling and political leadership (2006):

POSTSCRIPT:

The Republican Primary in South Carolina won by Gringrich with 40.4% of the votes cast is not relevant, even the turnout given rain at 22% of the total number of registered voters was good. By that measure Grinrich overwhelming level of support, compared to Romney’s 27.8%, represents 9% of South Carolina’s potential voters. Of course the percentage of the voters who cast ballots has no effect on the electoral outcomes and suppressing the vote is an effective political tactic in the general election.

ABC News reports:

Afghan security forces, or insurgents dressed in their uniforms, have attacked and killed international troops or trainers more than a dozen times in the past two years.

This latest attack will undermine trust between Afghan and western troops. But London Think Tank Chatham House spokesman Dr Gareth Price says the coalition has no choice but to forge on. “The whole strategy is to build up the Afghan National Army and there isn’t really an alternative strategy,” he said. “The alternative would be just to leave Afghanistan. “It would be quite self-defeating if those western countries stopped building it up.”

As for vetting methods during recruitment, Dr Price says it is “tricky” for the Afghan National Army to improve its measures. “The issue with the Afghan army at the moment is it’s very much an army of non-Pashtuns, and that’s difficult for an army that eventually is going to be mainly operating, if it’s taking the turnabout, in Pashtun areas,” he said. “There are attempts to get more Pashtuns within the Afghan National Army and that’s when things get more difficult in terms of vetting. “But at the moment it’s very much an army of northern ethnic groups rather than the southern ones.”

Former Prime Minister, and now Foreign Minister, Kevin Rudd, could detect no erosion of resolve in his meeting with the French Foreign Minister. This might be as close a reading of French politics as the continued mission in Central Asia is of Afghan politics.

Ramin Mazaheri reports for Press TV Global News that President Sarkozy may have good political reason not to stop at the suspension of combat operations and military training:

John Glaser in an interview with Scott Horton is somewhat pessimistic about the claims of success in Afghanistan.

Will he situation miraculously improve by 2014?