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Meet the warmongering billionaires who will spend a fortune to influence the next U.S president

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The candidates will be flooded with money from these pro-Israel extremists.

Sheldon Adelson, left, and Haim Saban flank Israeli-America Council Chairman Shawn Evenhaim at the IAC conference in D.C. (Shahar Azran)

Sheldon Adelson, left, and Haim Saban flank Israeli-America Council Chairman Shawn Evenhaim at the IAC conference in D.C. (Shahar Azran)

by Alex Kane is AlterNet

On November 9, the ugly face of America’s money-saturated election process was put on full display.

Sheldon Adelson and Haim Saban, two billionaires with right-wing, pro-Israel agendas, took the stage at the Israeli American Council’s inaugural conference in Washington, D.C. They fantasized about bombing Iran and about buying the New York Times because they said it’s biased against Israel. Both are bound to play an outsized role in the 2016 presidential elections by flooding the campaign with money to support their favored candidates. In a post-Citizens United world, Adelson and Saban are kings, and Israel will be the beneficiary of their largesse if the donors have the ear of a future president.

Saban and Adelson are on opposite ends of the mainstream (and narrow) political spectrum. Adelson is a casino mogul who bankrolled the 2012 presidential campaigns of GOP candidates Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney. Saban is in the entertainment business and is a major Democratic Party donor. But when it comes to U.S. foreign policy and Israel, Saban and Adelson take many of the the same positions, displaying an eagerness for war with Iran and a desire to keep the U.S. alliance with Israel rock-solid.

“There’s no right or left when it comes to Israel,” Saban said in what news reports called a joking reference to the moguls’ seating positions at the conference where they spoke.

But the quip was more than just a joke. It was a nod to how the Democratic and Republican parties are united in singing Israel’s praise, backing its military actions and voting to give the country $3.1 billion in U.S. military aid annually. If Adelson’s and Saban’s chosen candidates in 2016 get their way, that unity will shine through during the presidential campaign, with the debate being reduced to who would support Israel the most.

Saban, an Israeli-American famous for producing the TV show Power Rangers, is currently the CEO of the Saban Capital Group, which invests in media companies around the world. A 2010 New Yorker profile of Saban by Connie Bruck paints a portrait of a man who is heavily influential, charming and hawkish. “I’m a one-issue guy and my issue is Israel,” he told the New York Times in 2004.

At the the event with Adelson, Saban had a crude prescription for what Israel should do about Iran. “I would bomb the living daylights out of the sons of bitches.” The answer came during a discussion of what Saban would do if he were Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and thought a nuclear deal with Iran was a threat to Israel.

His chosen candidate is Hillary Clinton, the front-runner for the Democratic Party nomination in 2016. As Bruck reported in the New Yorker, Saban has given millions of dollars to the Clintons in the form of donations to Bill Clinton’s presidential library and the Clinton Global Initiative.

Speaking about Clinton to the Washington Post at the conference, Saban said, “I have told her and everybody who’s asked me, ‘Whatever it takes, we’re going to be there…’ She would be a fantastic president for the United States, an incredible world leader and one under whom I believe — deeply — the relationship with the U.S. and Israel will be significantly reinforced.”

Clinton has given backers like Saban ample reason for thinking of her as the perfect candidate for Israel. During the 2008 presidential election, Clinton was asked by ABC’s “Good Morning America” what she would do if Iran used a nuclear weapon on Israel. “In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them,” she said. This year, in an interview with the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, she doubled down on her pro-Israel agenda. “If I were the prime minister of Israel, you’re damn right I would expect to have control over security [in the West Bank],” she said.

GOP donor Adelson’s choice for who to back in the 2016 race is trickier. The leading GOP candidates include people like Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, two politicians with divergent views on U.S. foreign policy, though Paul has been moving towards a more hawkish position in recent months. What is more clear is that Adelson’s impact, no matter who he backs, will be large. After the GOP losses in 2012, Adelson promised he would “double” his donations to the party. That means Adelson is prepared to spend as much as $300 million on Republican candidates.

Adelson, who made his fortune in the casino business, is one of the richest people in the world. He has used his largesse to shower pro-Israel groups like the Republican Jewish Coalition and the Zionist Organization of America with millions of dollars. In 2012, it was Adelson who prolonged the GOP primary by boosting Newt Gingrich, who famously proclaimed, in line with Adelson’s views, that the Palestinian people were “invented,” that there is no such thing as a Palestinian nation. When Gingrich finally dropped out, Adelson gave $30 million to a pro-Mitt Romney super-PAC.

His influence in the Republican Party was made clear in March of this year. Chris Christie and other potential presidential candidates flew out to speak to the Adelson-backed Republican Jewish Coalition. But Christie tripped up when he used the term “occupied territories” to refer to the West Bank and Gaza. While the Palestinian territories are indeed under occupation–a term used even by the U.S. State Department–Adelson and his ilk reject that view. The audience at the RJC event in March was no fan of the “occupied” remark, and Christie later apologized to Adelson.

The casino mogul apparently believes Israel should hold onto the West Bank forever, even at the cost of democracy in the area. “I don’t think the Bible says anything about democracy,” Adelson said on November 9. “God talked about all the good things in life. He didn’t talk about Israel remaining as a democratic state, otherwise Israel isn’t going to be a democratic state — so what?”

Adelson also said that the U.S. should “not just talk [with Iran]. I would take action.” Last year, Adelson made waves when he suggested that President Obama should launch a nuclear weapon at Iran to send a message to the country’s leaders. Saban’s and Adelson’s tough talk on Iran comes as a deadline to reach a final nuclear agreement with Iran approaches. Many Democrats and Republicans are deeply skeptical of reaching any deal with Iran.

The 2016 election campaign will likely feature the GOP and Democratic candidates slugging it out on issues like climate change, inequality and immigration. But when it comes to Israel and Iran, the two candidates, backed by people like Saban and Adelson, will have many of the same prescriptions: ramp up pressure on Iran and back Israel no matter what. The only debate will be on how far to take those positions. Think of it as a battle between the Saban position of bombing the “sons of bitches” vs. the Adelson position of nuking Iran.

Video of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi allegedly injured in Mosul aired by Egypt's Balad TV

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Screenshot of footage aired by Balad TV supposedly showing ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi injured after his convoy was attacked by coalition air strikes.

Screenshot of footage aired by Balad TV supposedly showing ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi injured after his convoy was attacked by coalition air strikes.

by Abdelhak Mamoun, Iraqi News

The video below, broadcast on Balad TV, claims to show ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and his convoy being attacked in an airstrike that led to his injury or death.

The video claims to show al-Baghdadi next to a black SUV car, suffering injuries due to the airstrike.

In the beginning, Baghdadi appears to be lying on the ground, groaning in pain while one of his aides is lying dead beside him. Baghdadi moves slightly before ISIS elements hurry to rescue him.

The injured, who Balad TV claims is al-Baghdadi, is dressed in a military uniform and is said to be wearing a watch on his right hand which appears similar to the one he wore during his sermon at Mosul. IraqiNews.com has not independently verified these claims.

A spokesman for the Central Command of the US Army, Col. Patrick Raider, said two days ago that warplanes of the international coalition targeted ISIS leaders who were meeting near Mosul and that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi may have been among those who were targeted.

According to officials from the United States, US air raids managed to destroy a convoy of 10 cars belonging to the organization of the Islamic State; they were traveling in a convoy near the city of Mosul in northern Iraq.

‘We crossed the line’, US admits to UN anti-torture body

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gitmo-prisoners

by Agence France-Presse

The United States said Wednesday it did not condone torture under any circumstances, but acknowledged to a UN anti-torture watchdog it had “crossed the line” following the September 11 attacks.

“The US is proud of its record as a leader in respecting, promoting and defending human rights and the rule of law, both at home and around the world,” acting US legal advisor Mary McLeod told the 10-member UN Committee on Torture.

“But in the wake of 9/11 attacks, we regrettably did not always live up to our own values,” she said.

“We crossed the line and we take responsibility for that,” she said, quoting US President Barack Obama.

McLeod was one of about 30 top US officials gathered in Geneva for Washington’s first grilling by the committee since 2006.

In its first review since Obama came to power, several delegates acknowledged abuses had occurred during the so-called “War on Terror” under the previous administration of George W. Bush.

“We recognise that no nation is perfect, ours included,” Keith Harper, US ambassador to the UN Human Rights Council, told the committee.

The delegation faced a barrage of questions from committee members on how the country was dealing with rectifying and providing redress for acknowledged abuses during the “war on terror”.

The US delegation was asked to explain why the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba remains open, why many detainees remain there without charge and when Washington plans to shut it down.

The committee members also questioned the treatment of prisoners there, and lack of redress for victims of the widely publicised abuses by US troops at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in the early 2000s.

Beyond the “war on terror” legacy, the committee members raised issues of abuses in US prisons, rape in prisons, the broad use of drawn-out solitary confinement, and long years on death row.

And they asked how Washington could justify its widespread detention of non-violent, non-criminal illegal immigrants, including minors.

And they slammed police brutality that appears to disproportionately affect minorities, such as 18-year-old Michael Brown, who was shot and killed by white police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri last August.

His parents were in Geneva this week to take part in events on the sidelines of the committee hearing.

The committee is set to publish its conclusions on November 28.

U.S-China agreement will not fix the climate

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Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) shakes hands with U.S. President Barack Obama at a press conference following their talks at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Nov. 12, 2014. (Photo: Xinhua/Liu Weibing)

Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) shakes hands with U.S. President Barack Obama at a press conference following their talks at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Nov. 12, 2014. (Photo: Xinhua/Liu Weibing)

by Friends of the Earth

In response to the announcement of a negotiated deal between the United States and China on greenhouse gas reductions, Friends of the Earth U.S. President Erich Pica made the following statement:

While the U.S.-China Announcement on climate change creates important political momentum internationally, it falls significantly short of the aggressive reductions needed to prevent climate disruption. The announced U.S. emissions reduction target — 26-28 percent below 2005 levels, by 2025 — is grounded in neither the physical reality of climate science nor the lived reality of hundreds of millions of people in developing countries whose lives and livelihoods are in jeopardy due to drought, flooding, fire and other extreme weather events. Simply put, the non-binding target falls miserably short of what science, justice and equity demand.

Further, the announcement is silent on the U.S. commitment to adaptation, technology transfer and climate finance in regards to the rest of the world. These commitments are fundamental for a meaningful climate agreement in Paris in 2015. The first litmus test of how serious the U.S. is about success in Paris will come during the Green Climate Fund pledging session later this month.

Looking ahead toward the 2016 presidential race, I hope that this pledge becomes a very low floor for presidential aspirants and not a ceiling for what is possible in the United States. Using executive authority, the President can and must go further by denying new fossil fuel leases, rejecting the Keystone pipeline and regulating other forms of greenhouse gas emissions.

An innocent man, tortured by the US, asks the UN: Where's the accountability?

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Murat Kurnaz

by Dan Froomkin, The Intercept

U.S. officials are in for a serious grilling on Wednesday as they get hauled before the U.N. Committee against Torture and questioned about about a multitude of ways in which the U.S. appears to be failing to comply with the anti-torture treaty it ratified 20 years ago.

As Jamil Dakwar, director of the ACLU Human Rights Program noted on Monday:

This marks the first U.N. review of the United States’ torture record since President Obama took office in 2009, and much is at stake. The review will test the pledges President Obama made to reverse disastrous Bush-era policies that led to gross violations of human rights, like torture, secret and incommunicado detention, “extraordinary renditions,” unfair trials, and more. It is also likely to examine practices that emerged or became entrenched during Obama’s time in office, such as indefinite detention at Guantánamo, immigration detention and deportations, and the militarization of the police, as witnessed by the world during this summer’s events in Ferguson.

The ACLU’s “shadow report” to the committee is a profoundly grim indictment of the nation’s failure to live up to its principles.

And although Obama claims to oppose torture, the New York Times recently reported that he could well fail another key test of his sincerity by reaffirming the Bush administration’s position that the international Convention Against Torture imposes no legal obligation on the U.S. to bar cruelty outside its borders.

Obama has already flouted the convention’s requirement that member states hold torturers accountable. I have long argued that his failure there has been particularly profound.

U.S. non-governmental agencies were allowed to address the U.N. committee today, and Murat Kurnaz (pictured above), who was tortured and detained by the U.S. at Kandahar and then Guantanamo over a period of five years, traveled to Geneva with his attorney, Center for Constitutional Rights Legal Director Baher Azmy. He made the following statement:

Good afternoon. My name is Murat Kurnaz. I am a Turkish citizen who was born and raised in Bremen, Germany, where I currently live. I spent five years of my life in detention in Kandahar and Guantanamo Bay from 2001-2006.My story is like many others. In 2001, while traveling in Pakistan, I was arrested by Pakistani police and sold to the U.S. military for a $3,000 bounty. In Kandahar, the U.S. military subjected me to electric shocks, stress positions, simulated drowning, and endless beatings. In Guantanamo, there was also psychological torture—I was stripped of my humanity, treated like an animal, isolated from the rest of the world, and did not know if I would ever be released.

Even though my lawyers proved that the U.S. knew of my innocence by 2002, I was not released until 2006. I lost five years of my life in Guantanamo.

Eight years later, I cannot believe that Guantanamo is still open and that there are almost 150 men detained there indefinitely. My time in Guantanamo was a nightmare, but I sometimes consider myself lucky. I know that part of the reason I am free today is because I am from Germany.

Most of the current prisoners remain in Guantanamo because they are from Yemen and the U.S. refuses to send them home. Many are as innocent as I was. But they are enduring the torture of Guantanamo for over 12 years because of their nationality, not because of anything they have done.

I understand that international human rights laws like the Convention Against Torture were created so that the people who commit torture are punished. Isn’t that how we can end torture in the world? So why has no U.S. official been held responsible for brutal practices and torture at Guantanamo or other U.S. prisons?

I will never get five years of my life back, but for me and others, it is important that the Committee confronts the United States about its actions in Guantanamo and other prisons.

Thank you.

The committee’s proceedings are being livestreamed here. The questioning of the U.S. delegation begins as 10 a.m. on Wednesday, Geneva time — 4 a.m. ET.

More than 850 killed in 50 days of coalition air strikes

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A pair of U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagles fly over northern Iraq

by SOHR

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) documented the death of 865 people since the U.S led coalition started its strikes on Syria in 23/Sep until last night, including 50 civilians (8 children, 5 women), killed by coalition air strikes on oil fields and refineries in al-Hasakah and Der-Ezzor countrysides, al-Raqqa, Around Menbej northeast of Aleppo, and Idlib countryside.

68 fighters from Jabhat al-Nusra were killed by coalition air strikes on their HQs in the western countryside of Aleppo and the northern countryside of Idlib 746 fighters from the IS most of them were Non-Syrian fighters, were killed by coalition airstrikes on their HQs and groupings in Homs, Hama, al-Hasakah, al-Raqqa, Der-Ezzor, and Aleppo.

A fighter from Islamic battalions killed by coalition air strikes on ISIS HQ in Ma’dan in al-Raqqa countryside.

We, in SOHR, believed that the real number of casualties in ISIS is more than 746, because there is absolute secrecy on casualties and due to the difficulty of access to many areas and villages that have witnessed violent clashes and bombardment.

Worth to mention that the coalition air strikes targeted oil refineries and oil fields in Der-Ezzor, al-Hasakah and al-Raqqa, what led to material damages in these refineries and oil fields.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights expresses its strong condemnation, to the fall of the civilians, as a result of the coalition air strikes, and Calls neutralize civilians areas from the military operations from any party, because the the Syrian people who have lost hundreds of thousands and been displaced in millions, is looking forward to a decent safe life away from Humiliation, detention, and destruction, a life of democracy, justice, freedom and equality.

U.S Ebola Response Coordinator Ron Klain: Ebola as a weapon 'unlikely'

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White House Ebola czar Ron Klain says the United States has ramped up its training and equipment to handle U.S. patients.

White House Ebola czar Ron Klain says the United States has ramped up its training and equipment to handle U.S. patients.

by Eric Bradner, CNN

Washington: White House Ebola czar Ron Klain on Tuesday downplayed the chances of Ebola being used as a biological weapon after a scare in New Zealand.

Klain said he was briefed Tuesday after a small vial supposedly sent by jihadis and containing Ebola was sent to the offices of the New Zealand Herald newspaper. The newspaper sent the vial to Australia for testing.

“Based on our best information, I think the odds are high that this turns out to be a hoax,” Klain said on CNN’s “The Lead” with Jake Tapper.

He said U.S. officials are “always watching intelligence traffic and other indicators” to see if terror groups are using Ebola or other diseases as biological weapons, but that “we’re not aware of any credible threat” and that the odds of that happening are low.

Klain touted the overall U.S. response to Ebola cases here and to the outbreak in West Africa, saying health officials have “tried to learn the lessons from Dallas,” where the first case was diagnosed in the United States, by increasing training, preparation and protective gear at health facilities nationwide.

“What we’ve shown now is that we can successfully identify and isolate an Ebola patient, we can make sure he doesn’t infect other people, we can treat him, and we can send him home safely,” he said.

When President Barack Obama tapped Klain as his Ebola response coordinator, Republican lawmakers howled that the long-time political operative — Klain served as Vice President Joe Biden’s chief of staff and helped Obama with debate preparation during his re-election campaign — isn’t a medical professional.

But Klain told Tapper on Tuesday that he isn’t serving in a role that requires a medical background.

“My role isn’t to give medical advice, it’s to coordinate this massive response that President Obama has marshaled here at home and in Africa,” Klain said.

US Commitment to Terror, Expansionism, Maintains Israel’s Illegal Wall

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by Robert Barsocchini

As seen in the below graphic from the Washington Post, essentially every country recognizes the State of Palestine, except for Western Europe and some of the places it has conquered, such as North America, Australia, and New Zealand, as well as some US “partners” that “wouldn’t want to ruffle Washington’s feathers”, including “South Pacific island nations like Kiribati and Nauru” (WaPo).

palestine-Recognition

The US has for decades used terrorism to singularly prevent Palestine from becoming a full UN member state. Likewise, without the US providing the muscle and money, Israel would not be able to continue, in defiance of the world, to occupy, colonize, ethnically cleanse, and commit terrorism and massacres against Palestine.

Without US muscle backing its terror and expansionism, Israel, despite being the strongest force in the Mid East and in possession of the “world’s best” air force and a large, rogue nuclear arsenal, would have no choice but to decolonize Palestine and remain within its own universally recognized borders, which are those that existed before June, 1967, when Israel illegally invaded and began colonizing and ethnically cleansing areas beyond those lines.

For approximately 40 years, the US has vetoed, generally alone (aside from Israel), every UN resolution demanding that Israel comply with this worldwide legal, democratic consensus.  The vote is typically 165 countries against the US and Israel, and sometimes five or six other countries (European-conquered lands and some tiny islands such as Micronesia).

Obama has continued the reign of terror and expansion, specifically rejecting, at the UN, the demand for Israel to cease even future settlement activities, let alone abandon its current illegal settlements, all war crimes. This particular resolution was brought at the 15 member Security Council, and received 100% approval aside from Obama’s isolated vote of rejection, which is enforceable only due to the US dedication to terrorism and democracy-prevention.

On the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Palestinians have tried to call attention to the wall that still exists, the illegal US-backed wall that Israel is building and using as one of its means of illegally annexing Palestinian territory. Dr. Noam Chomsky, for one, has pointed out that if the wall were about security and not illegal expansionism, it could simply be made gigantic and utterly impenetrable, and be put on Israel’s legal border, which countries are allowed to do.

Palestinians break through illegal Israeli annexation wall. Photo: RT

Dr. Norman Finkelstein has suggested that Palestinians physically break down the wall en masse, as a non-violent solution, since the highest court in the world ruled that the wall is illegal and must be deconstructed, but the USA is preventing UN member states from carrying out the legally required and universally supported task.

Since the recent US/Israeli massacre against Palestine, Israel has continued its ongoing cease-fire violations, and has also announced or built thousands of new illegal settlement units in Palestine, and has illegally stolen over 4,000 more acres of Palestine (see here and here).

Note that although the Washington Post published the above map, a chief reason that the US is able to continue to illegally back Israel, and even increase illegal support for Israel as Obama has done (in defiance of the US population), is that US media never provides the full context of the situation, as Professor Edward Said pointed out (as noted by Jews for Justice in the Middle East):

It is simply extraordinary and without precedent that Israel’s history, its record — from the fact that it..is a state built on conquest, that it has invaded surrounding countries, bombed and destroyed at will, to the fact that it currently occupies Lebanese, Syrian, and Palestinian territory against international law — is simply never cited, never subjected to scrutiny in the U.S. media or in official discourse…

Edward Said in “The Progressive.” May 30, 1996

Given the full and accurate picture of how Israel has come into existence and what it does, already dwindling US public support for Israel (much of which, however, is based on religious fundamentalism) would certainly decrease, as public support for US atrocities generally decreases as information about them increases.

Robert Barsocchini is a researcher focusing on global force dynamics.  He also writes professionally for the film industry. Here is his blog.  Also see his free e-book, Whatever it Takes – Hillary Clinton’s Record of Support for War and other Depravities. Click here to follow Robert and his UK-based colleague, Dean Robinson, on Twitter.

The U.S. launches another dumb war in the Middle East. Why hitting ISIS will just make matters worse

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For most of this century, we’ve been fighting wars to enhance our security, and each time, we find ourselves with more enemies and less security.

Kobani strike

by Steve Chapman, Reason

War, it’s been said, is God’s way of teaching Americans geography. Maybe we do learn how to locate the countries we invade or bomb on a map. But recent experience indicates how much we don’t know about those societies and how slow we are at learning.

The United States is still involved in a 13-year-old war in Afghanistan, and President Barack Obama has undertaken a new one against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, just three years after he withdrew the last of our troops from Iraq. The administration is also carrying on a drone missile campaign—which looks eerily like war from the receiving end—in Pakistan and Yemen.

Yet the republic has just concluded an election campaign that gave almost no attention to what the United States government is doing, or should be doing, in these places. For the most part, the topic was discussed in only the vaguest terms, but often it was simply absent. No country in history has ever done so much fighting in so many places with so little interest from its own citizens.

Nor do the people in power who make these ambitious commitments necessarily have a clue where they will lead. Over and over, things turn out in ways that come as a complete and thoroughly unwelcome surprise.

No one could have imagined in October 2001, when we went into Afghanistan to crush the Taliban and al-Qaida, that we would still be there 13 years later and so would they. Nor did we realize that our crucial supposed ally in the fight, Pakistan, would prove not merely unhelpful but downright hostile.

As New York Times correspondent Carlotta Gall documented in her book “The Wrong Enemy: America in Afghanistan, 2001-2014,” the government of Pakistan was actively helping our foes while reaping $23 billion in aid from Washington. U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke eventually realized, “We may be fighting the wrong enemy in the wrong country.”

Unexpected? Of course. But it’s the sort of thing that happens when governments act with slivers of knowledge and mountains of hubris, relying on bright visions and brute force. That’s how we stormed into Iraq and won a swift military victory—which we proceeded to squander by disbanding the Iraqi military and banning former members of Saddam Hussein’s party from the new government.

Both decisions sounded sensible—but only because our leaders were so ignorant of Iraq that they had no idea what the effects would be. In practice, we managed to turn huge numbers of Iraqis against us and spawn an insurgency that would kill thousands of our troops. We also inadvertently rained blessings on our longtime enemy to the east. The U.S. fought a war against Iraq, and the winner was Iran.

The war on Islamic State is even more rife with uncertainty, because so many of its enemies are our enemies. If we do damage to it, we are indirectly strengthening the mullahs in Tehran, al-Qaida and Syrian dictator Bashar Assad. We’re also bolstering the irresponsible Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad whose persecution of Sunnis gave rise to the group.

The Wall Street Journal reports that by hitting Islamic State targets in Syria, we helped al-Qaida units to defeat the “moderate” Syrian rebels we have helped in their fight against Assad. Meanwhile, our NATO ally Turkey balks at assisting us. Why? Because those fighting on “our” side include Kurdish groups allied with separatists it has been fighting for 30 years.

For that matter, the U.S. air war is the best recruiting tool the Islamic State ever had. Already, a confidential UN Security Council report recently noted, some 15,000 foreigners have poured into the region to join it and other extremist groups.

“Numbers since 2010 are now many times the size of the cumulative numbers of foreign terrorist fighters between 1990 and 2010—and are growing,” it said, according to The Guardian. As usual, we’re creating jihadis faster than we kill them. Chances are excellent that we are also sowing an array of unforeseen problems that will haunt us for years to come.

For most of this century, we’ve been fighting wars to enhance our security, and each time, we find ourselves with more enemies and less security. By now it should be clear that is not a coincidence. If the war on Islamic State solves nothing or makes things worse, we will be unhappy, but we shouldn’t be surprised.

Steve Chapman is a columnist and editorial writer for the Chicago Tribune.

Feed the poor, go to jail

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Photo: eideard.com

Photo: eideard.com

by Subhash Gatade

Whether serving food to the homeless is a crime?

Ask Arnold Arbott, known as Chef Arbott, a 90 year old man from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, who along-with two other members of a Church charity faces potential jail term for at least six months for the same ‘offence’. In fact his name finds prominent mention in the police records in the past week for breaking the new city ordinance which has come into effect recently which characterises his act as breach of law, according to reports.

Talking to a newsperson he said:

“These are the poorest of the poor. They have nothing. They don’t have a roof over their head. And who could turn them away?”

Report published in ‘Independent’ tells us that he has been a campaigner of sorts who had sued the City of Fort Laurderdale when he was banned from feeding the homeless on the beach. (1999) and the court vindicated his stand and declared that the rule was against the constitution.

It may be mentioned here that starting in about 2006; several cities began arresting, fining, and otherwise oppressing private individuals and non-profits that feed the homeless and less fortunate.

Las Vegas happened to be the first city which banned feeding the homeless (2006) under the ostensible reason that ‘..[g]iving food to people already in the public park violated statutes requiring permits for gatherings of 25 or more people. “When the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Nevada took issue with this interpretation of permit laws, the City took a more direct approach: “it explicitly outlawed the sharing of food with anyone who looked poor.” Another reason given by the city Mayor to enact such a regulation was to “push all homeless feedings indoors where it would be safer” but according to civil liberty activists it was not to protect the health of the homeless but “to protect city’s image in a tourist area”.

Coming back to Fort Lauderdale, Florida the new regulations – which has come into effect or is planned to in Seattle, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Dallas, and Philadelphia – ‘[r]equire groups to be at least 500 feet away from residential properties and food sites are restricted to one per city block, but charities have criticised the rules as forms of implementing social cleansing.’

It is possible that the international coverage which this case has attracted may deter the law authorities there to send Chef Arbott and his colleagues to jail, but the pertinent question remains how the state itself is keen not only to criminalise the destitute, the homeless, vulnerable sections of our society but also all those people who are genuinely concerned about their plight and want to do something about it.

For example, sometime back one heard of members of a group of women called ‘Women’s Institute’ were stopped from distributing flyers for a charity show. According to another report, Liza Day, 68 who was part of the group was confronted by a council litter warden, who warned her that ‘it was illegal to hand out the charity adverts.’ They were asked to ‘secure a licence from the council to legally hand flyers to passers-by.’ It was for the first time in six years they were told that they must not hand out flyers.

Question arises why the powers that be are keen that ordinary people’s concern towards plight of fellow human beings or their zeal to engage in voluntary action to do something about it is contained under a rubric of law, regulations, talk of order etc. Why they are worried about any unleashing of such concern?

Such disciplining of ordinary people helps establish the hegemony of the ruling classes and their ideas and helps defang any possible resistance to it. People are told that rules are sacrosanct and should be followed because they are in the broader interest of the society and they rarely learn to question the basis of rules themselves.

Look at the question of corporate tax dodgers and the treatment they receive at the hands of establishment.

Interestingly just when the news about Chef Arbott’s possible prosecution hit the headlines, reports of an investigation done by a consortium of Investigative Journalists which has collaborated with reporters from more than 25 countries became public. It found that more than 340 multinational corporations have avoided paying billions of dollars in taxes by obtaining secret deals in Luxembourg. The journalists obtained nearly 28,000 pages of confidential documents which reveal that some of the world’s largest companies, including Pepsi, IKEA, AIG, Coach and Deutsche Bank, have channelled hundreds of billions of dollars through Luxembourg — a small country in Western Europe known as a “magical fairyland” for corporate tax dodgers. Some firms have secured effective tax rates of less than 1 percent.

In a write-up in Daily News, Juan Gonzalez describes how

‘[o]ver the past decade, multinational companies have funnelled more than $2 trillion in profits out of the U.S. and parked it overseas. Much of it is labelled “deferred taxes” and invested to make more money. They keep it overseas to evade paying our 35% federal corporate tax. Meanwhile, they’re lobbying fiercely in Washington for a huge one-year tax reduction to only 5% before they’ll agree to repatriate their money.’ He further adds that ‘Pfizer alone saved $11 billion with it, then turned around and reduced its workforce by more than 40,000, according to David Cay Johnston, the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who routinely exposes corporate tax abuses.’

Anybody can gather from her/his experience that none of these corporate tax dodgers would ever be punished for their act unless and until ordinary people in the United States of America are able to raise their voice unitedly. Possibility is that – thanks to the Republican dominance in both houses of the Congress – they would be granted amnesty. Ten years back the then federal government had granted such a bonanza under President George W. Bush

One can see for oneself that if you dodge taxes i.e. ‘steal’ monies which are meant to go for the government coffers, then forget prosecution, you will be rewarded but if you try to go the Chef Arbott way, helping those very people who are living on the margins of society because of the structural inequalities, you would be sent to jail.

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