MINNING IS KILLING US

Alhaji Fuseini, Minister for lands and Natural Resources

By Ekow Mensah

Mining is gradually but surely destroying the livelihood of many Ghanaians and the country’s eco-systems.

This is in spite of the fact that revenue from the industry is negligible.

Hannah Owusu Koranteng, Associate Executive Director of Wacam, a nongovernmental organization on mining says that surface mining has destroyed many fertile lands in the country.

“Mining and other land based activities continue to dwindle the pristine forest of the country “she said.

 According to her although crops and immovable property destroyed by mining attract compensation, land does not.

 She said though the Minerals and Mining Act requires that there should be negotiated compensation for loss of  land and the destruction of crops and immovable  property, many communities which have  lost their property especially land  have not been paid compensations.

She said their livelihoods have also not been restored by the mining companies.

Mrs. Koranteng was speaking at a seminar for journalist in Tema.

She also complained bitterly about the lack of adequate prior consultation and consent from communities affected by mining activities.

She said by law, communities  affected  by mining projects should be part of the process of the Environmental impact Assessment  to determine whether the projects would not  adversely affect such communities.

 “Although the Government of Ghana has ratified and gazetted the ECOWAS  directive on the harmonization of guiding principles  and policies in the mining  sector, Ghana’s laws and regulations are silent on Free Prior and Informed Consent of the communities” she said.

 Available statistics indicate that Ghana gets only five per cent of the total value of gold exported from the country.

Editorial

Stop This!

Out of the desire to score very cheap political points, some politicians have embarked on a smear campaign and they don’t care a hoot about whose hard earned reputation is damaged.

Yesterday, one of the many newspapers affiliated to the New Patriotic Party (NPP) carried a feature article which was utterly shocking.

It claimed that had it not been for the intervention of the then Deputy British High Commissioner to Ghana, Dr Afari Gyan would have declared the late Professor John Evans Atta Mills as the winner of the Presidential election in 2000.

Part of the feature read “ Indeed, legend has it that some key military operatives of the NDC had invaded the private residence of the Electorial Commissioner, held his wife and children at gun point, and rudely and crudely demanded that the Election 200 presidential result be called in favour of the Rawlings-handpicked NDC presidential candidate”.

The writer also claims that the 2004 election result was declared in favour of President J.A. Kufour only because he had made his brother Addo Kufour the Minister of Defence.

Anybody slightly familiar with the electoral history of Ghana knows that this is balderdash.  It did not happen.

Perhaps the only reason for the publication of such concoction is that some people in the NPP feel that it is important to dent the credibility of Dr Afari Gyan to buttress the point that the 2012 election was won by Nana Akufo-Addo.

This is most unfair to Dr Afari Gyan and Ghana as a whole.

The deliberate publication of falsehood with intent to destroy the reputation of those they don’t like is unacceptable.

The Insight urges all politicians to end the needless mudslinging now.

Dr Charles Wereko Brobby

TARZAN’S NEW LETTER TO NPP

17 June 2013
The Chairman
The Disciplinary Committee
New Patriotic Party 
Ghana

Attn: Rev Asante-Antwi

Dear Sir, 
I write to request you to abandon the Disciplinary proceedings instituted against me by the party and to recommend the immediate quashing of the illegal suspension of my membership of the New Patriotic Party.

My request is predicated on the unconscionable actions of two officers of the party, namely Mr. Ayikwei Otoo and Mr. Perry Okudzeto; which actions completely undermined and prejudged the outcome of the as yet unconcluded deliberations of the committee. . 

Mr. Ayikwei Otoo, a member of the Disciplinary Committee, appeared on a live current affairs programme on TV3 on Saturday morning and virtually sat as both JUDGE & JURY on the matter, delivering a very one sided account of our encounter and literally saying that my guilt had been established bar a little issue of formalizing it at your next meeting

Mr. Okudzeto on the other hand, granted an interview to the media immediately after the fracas at the headquarters in which he suggested that my apology t Dr Bawumia had exposed my insincerity. (See attached)

I have no difficulty whatsoever with these gentlemen sounding off to the media. However, I am perplexed that they do not see the supreme irony and inconsistency of their actions in the context of the charges that have been concocted against me. 

The Lawyers say that “HE WHO WANTS EQUITY MUST COME WITH CLEAN HANDS”, so Messrs Ayikwei Otoo and Perry Okudzeto must realise that they have well and truly shot themselves in their collective feet by going public on a quasi-judiciary matter before it has been concluded; the very basis of my purported crime which has established my guilt and delivered punishment ahead of the due process of investigation

I also want to draw your attention to media interviews granted by the former National Youth Leader, Anthony Karbo, in the wake of the assault by mobs, during which he virtually admitted to have orchestrated the violent actions that took place and suggested that they would take the law into their own hands to mete out their brand of justice on their own terms. Is this not a veritable case of FAILURE TO UPHOLD THE GOOD NAME OF THE PARTY?

All of the foregoing suggests to me that the party of the RULE OF LAW, DUE PROCESS AND “KABI NA ME KABI” has come to a sorrowful and pitiable crossroads in its history and unless it takes immediate and urgent action to restore its basic principles, Ghana’s democratic politics could face a very uncertain and intolerant future.

Signed
Charles Wereko-Brobbey (Dr)

CC: Nana Akuffo- Addo, NPP Presidential Candidate for 2012 Elections
The Chairman, The New patriotic Party

ASANTEHENE

Asantehene opens his mouth wide again

The Asantehene Otumfuo Osei Tutu II has enjoined the government to wane itself off employment and job creation.

He says it should rather be the preoccupation of the government to come up with deliberate policies for private businesses to thrive.

“Policies must be put in place to help private sector to go into agriculture, to go into manufacturing, industrial development to create employment for the people. They [government] should come up with the right policies to facilitate private sector development”, he stated.

The Otumfuo was speaking in Kumasi at the grand opening of the corporate headquarters of Akuafo Adamfo Marketing Company, a subsidiary of Finatrade Group of Companies.

Managing Director of the company, Antoine BouDib acknowledged that “doing business in Ghana is getting more difficult on daily basis”.

Poor power supply is the topmost challenge restricting growth of businesses, according to the Association of Ghana Industries’ Business Barometer for the first quarter of this year. But the regular twin-challenge of difficulty in accessing credit and high cost of credit remains high. 

According to the Asantehene, government should only come up with policy direction to address development challenges of private sector and not get involved in direct employment.

Tax incentives and concessions should be considered whilst empowering the banks to meet the needs of private businesses, he said.

“I know the banks alone cannot cope but there should be policies in place that would help advance private sector”, stated the King.

Uncertain Fate of the U.S.-NATO Installed Libyan Regime

Assassinated Libyan leader Muammar Al Gaddafi

By Abayomi Azikiwe

After more than two years of a full-fledged Pentagon and NATO-led war against the North African state of Libya, the installed General National Congress regime is now requesting assistance from their neo-colonial masters. In a press release issued by the Secretary General of NATO, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the chief of this military alliance of the imperialist world indicated that the western-backed government in Tripoli had requested assistance on security matters.

A team of so-called “experts” is expected to leave as soon as possible and report back to NATO by the end of June “so we can decide on the way ahead,” Mr. Fogh Rasmussen said. The NATO official also said that three principles would guide any help NATO provides.
According to the statement issued by NATO on June 4, it says that these principles would “include strong Libyan ownership, providing advice in areas where NATO has an expertise, such as building security institutions. And thirdly let me stress this is not about deploying troops to Libya. If we are to engage in training activities such activities could take place outside Libya,” said the Secretary General. (NATO press release, June 4)

These statements are taking place within the context of a worsening security situation both inside Libya and throughout North and West Africa. The security and social stability of Libya and both regions of Africa are a direct result of Pentagon and NATO military actions beginning in February and March of 2011.

During the course of the imperialist war against Libya, some 26,000 sorties were flown by the U.S., the NATO countries and their allies in the region and 9,600 airstrikes hit the oil-rich state. An arms embargo was imposed by the United Nations Security Council against the Libyan government under Gaddafi but the western trained and supported rebels were armed to carry out attacks against supporters of the Jamahiriya, civilians and patriotic forces.

In addition to the U.S. and NATO’s military actions against this country of approximately 7 million people, $US160 billion in Libyan-owned foreign assets were seized by the western banks. Concerted mob violence was leveled against dark-skinned Libyans and Africans from other parts of the continent.

The entire foreign policy and public affairs apparatus of the western states and their surrogates were mobilized to demonize Libya and its leadership. Corporate media outlets parroted the false claims by the imperialist governments in order to sway public opinion in favor of the war of regime-change against Col. Muammar Gaddafi and his supporters inside the country and internationally.

Consequences of U.S. and NATO’s War Against Libya
At present in Libya thousands of Africans and dozens foreign nationals from Eastern Europe remain in detention by the GNC regime. Seif al-Islam, the son of the martyred former leader Col. Muammar Gaddafi, is imprisoned by a militia group which is, along with the GNC leaders, are refusing to turn him over to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The ICC played a role in the isolation of Libya during 2011 as well. The Hague prosecutors at the time claimed, alongside the imperialists, that human rights violations were carried out by the Jamahiriya under Gaddafi. Consequently, indictments and warrants were issued by the ICC against Gaddafi, Seif al-Islam and other leading patriotic Libyan officials.

Today there is a battle taking place between the GNC regime, which the ICC was instrumental in creating the conditions for its installation, and the Libyan rebels who say that they are capable of providing Seif al-Islam with a so-called “fair trial.” Yet if the regime in Libya cannot provide an adequate security situation for ordinary citizens and regime officials, then how will they be able to carry out an impartial judicial proceeding for others who are victims of the current political crises.

The NATO leaders, the ICC, as well as select putative “human rights groups” have refrained from commenting and analyzing the disastrous consequences of the imperialist war against Libya. A manifestation of this denial is reflective of the current efforts to extradite Seif al-Islam to The Hague to stand trial within a court system, the ICC, which has been condemned by the African Union (AU) as biased against the leaders and peoples of the continent.
Perhaps the most outrageous statement in regard to the situation in Libya was made by NATO Secretary General Rasmussen when he audaciously uttered in relationship to the delegation being sent to the North African state to establish a training program that “I believe this would be a fitting way to continue our cooperation with Libya, after we successfully took action to protect the Libyan people two years ago.”

The situation of the people in Libya is more precarious than it has ever been since the period of colonial war of conquest carried out by Italy between 1911 and 1931 when hundreds of thousands of people were slaughtered by the imperialists and the fascists, who after 1923 were led by Benito Mussolini. Even after the country gained nominal independence under a monarchy in 1951, it would take the September 1 Revolution of 1969 that was led by Col. Gaddafi and the Revolutionary Command Council to unify the state and set it upon a path of development and national reconstruction.

Massacre in Benghazi Reflects Devolution of Libyan Society
On June 8, militia members in Benghazi–which was the birthplace of the counter-revolution against the Jamahiriya in February 2011–massacred demonstrators who were demanding that armed groups terrorizing the population be either arrested or neutralized. There have been disputed reports over the number of people killed and wounded in this latest assault on the Libyan people, but it clearly demonstrates the degree of lawlessness prevailing inside the country.

In an article published by the Associated Press it reported that “Clashes between protesters and militias aligned with the military in Libya’s eastern city of Benghazi left 27 people killed and dozens wounded, a health official said Sunday. The violence broke out Saturday after protesters stormed a base belonging to Libya Shield, a grouping of militias with roots in the rebel groups that fought in the country’s 2011 civil war who are tasked with maintaining security.” (June 9)

Inside Libya the country’s militias have been attempting to partition the state into three regions in the East, West and South. In a recent law passed by the GNC legislature, former members of the Gaddafi government—even if they had turned against the Jamahiriya in favor of imperialism—were banned from public service.
Prior to the announcement by NATO that they would be sending a delegation to Libya, France–which is occupying Mali and spreading its war in West Africa into neighboring Niger–had called for military intervention into the south of Libya. France claims that Libya’s south, which has never been brought under the control of the rebel GNC, is the source of resistance to its military efforts in West Africa.

Developments in Libya and Mali indicate clearly that imperialist intervention in Africa and other geo-political regions of the world will only destabilize these areas and provide rationales for further military occupations. Despite efforts to contain and pacify the peoples of these regions, resistance will escalate and create even deeper crises within the industrialized states already suffering from escalating levels of unemployment, poverty, austerity and political repression.

Western emperors have no clothes

The victorious Syrian armed forces

By Finian Cunningham

The military victory for Syria’s government forces in the strategic central town of Qusayr last week was a watershed event for several reasons. But of the crucial turning points heralded by this event, one is inimitably clear - the Western powers, the would-be emperors of Syria, stand naked in their failed criminal conspiracy to destroy that country.

These would-be emperors - Washington and the region’s former - has been colonial powers, Britain and France - have been shown demonstratively to have not a shred of credibility. The emperors have no clothes and they are running for cover.

The Syrian army now has the upper-hand and the momentum towards outright victory in a conflict that has ransacked large swaths of the Levantine nation, resulting in up to 80,000, mainly civilian, deaths, and causing 4-5 million internal and external refugees.

Western-backed insurgents are being destroyed or routed from villages and towns across Syria as the Syrian army moves swiftly on to its next objective of freeing the country’s second major city, Aleppo, in the north. That clash may prove a more bloody and protracted fight than the three-week campaign to retake Qusayr. But, given their withering loss of fighters and the severance from key supply routes through Qusayr, the eventual defeat of insurgents in Aleppo looks all but assured.

The recapture of Aleppo, and shutting off the NATO weapons supply line from Turkey in the north, would then prove to be the last stand for the foreign-backed mercenaries. These mercenaries have been terrorizing Syria since March 2011 at the behest of NATO powers and their regional allies, including Israel, Jordan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The Western agenda of regime change to oust President Bashar al-Assad is therefore, in a word, a dead letter.

But perhaps a more telling repercussion from the victory in Qusayr is the stripping bare of the ugly face of Western imperialism in Syria and the wider region.

The routing of the mercenaries who had laid siege to Qusayr for the past year showed more clearly than even the largely foreign component of the so-called Free Syrian Army and the minimal support among the Syrian population for this outfit of Al Qaeda-linked extremists. The FSA should henceforth be known as the Foreign Supplied Army. Without foreign supplies, there is no FSA, and there never would have been one in the first place.

Why were the 30,000 inhabitants of Qusayr obliged to hide in their homes for the past year while gangs of Libyan, Egyptian, Tunisian, Saudi, Chechen, Yemeni, French and British self-styled jihadists and, yes, local Syrian criminal opportunists, roamed the streets, looting and brutalizing?

When these Western-backed killers and bandits were eventually run out of Qusayr last Wednesday, why did the inhabitants greet the Syrian army and their Lebanese Hezbollah comrades with relief and gratitude? Why have street celebrations been held in Qusayr feting the restoration of civilian life?

Why did thousands of Qusayr’s residents flee the town over the past year? Of course, it was to escape from the Western-backed so-called “rebels” who imposed their draconian, twisted fundamentalist tyranny that they have adopted from their Saudi and Qatari paymasters. This is the same kind of tyranny that is being imposed on the suffering communities of Aleppo still under the control of the mercenaries.

This week, reports emerged of a 14-year-old boy in Aleppo who was executed in a public square by foreign gunmen because he allegedly blasphemed over a cup of coffee. He was sentenced to death by a kangaroo court before being shot twice in the head in front of his mother and father.

Why is it that now those inhabitants who had fled Qusayr - Muslim, Sunni, Shia, Alawite, Christian alike - are returning to the resumed safety of their town to pick-up their hitherto peacefully co-existing lives?

None of these questions are being asked in the mainstream Western media, or off Western politicians, since the fall of Qusayr. Incredibly, the Western media coverage on Syria seems stricken by a sudden muteness over the past week, as if crippled by a huge spanner tossed into its wheels. Conveniently, the news agenda seems to have inexplicably moved on to other matters.

At this juncture, what Western governments and their media propaganda system want most to avoid is for the Western public to see the naked, glaring truth: that these governments and media have been lying for the past two years about what is going on in Syria. This country is not undergoing a pro-democracy uprising, supported by Syrian people and benevolent Western powers. Rather, Syria has been subjected to a criminal covert war of aggression by Western powers for selfish strategic interests in the oil and gas-rich Middle East. This kind of conspiracy is what war criminals at Nuremburg were hanged for.

Qusayr has made Western government crimes in the Middle East abundantly clear. And that is why the story is being discarded down the Western media memory hole.

So let’s drag it out of the memory hole. To achieve their illicit objectives, Western governments have secretly funneled weapons, money, Special Forces and networks of foreign cutthroat killers into a sovereign country to terrorize its people into submitting to their agenda for regime change. The blood of 80,000 Syrian people is on the hands of Western presidents, prime ministers and their foreign diplomats: Barack Obama, David Cameron, Francois Hollande, John Kerry, William Hague and Laurent Fabius. They all stand accused and should be tried before a war crimes tribunal.

When Syrian army forces retook the bombed-out, sabotaged town of Qusayr, the façade of Western pretense and propaganda was demolished forever.

Now, as with the dregs of the retreating insurgents, Western governments are running scared from the damning exposure. This week the White House is to hold a series of emergency meetings on Syria. US Secretary of State John Kerry has had to cancel a tour of the Middle East in order to attend those meetings. On the cards for discussion is the US moving towards sending weapons and other lethal aid openly to its Foreign Supplied Army in Syria - a desperate move that probably won’t happen because the Western criminal agenda has already been defeated. The Obama administration - assailed by other scandals and imploding legitimacy among the American people and the wider world - is in no position to step up criminality in the Middle East.

The Associated Press reports, “[Syrian] opposition leaders [that is, Western stooges] have warned Washington that their rebellion could face devastating, irreversible losses without greater support.”

That one sentence says it all. The emperors have no clothes.

Nakba History and the Origins of the Jewish State: the Role of the Balfour Declaration

By Karin Brothers

Global Research

The Balfour Declaration, issued on November 2, 1917, committed Britain to set up Palestine — then part of the Ottoman Empire –  as a Jewish homeland; it was an extraordinary letter from the Government of Britain to a member of the banking house of Rothschild. 

As Arthur Koestler noted, ” One nation solemnly promised to a second nation the country of a third”  — a  country that then belonged to a fourth country, namely Turkey!

The reason for the creation of this document — the British obligation to perform such a service to Zionists — has not been well understood.

Robert John’s booklet “Behind the Balfour Declaration” uses sources provided by the late US activist Benjamin Freedman to provide the fascinating background for this history.

Freedman’s passionate 1961 address has the benefit of firsthand observations but some of his perspectives were not borne out by John’s evidence.  According to Freedman, Zionists approached Britain at a crucial point of World War I with the offer of badly needed financial help in exchange for a commitment to secure Palestine as a future Zionist state; the deal required the entry of the United States to give Britain the ability to deliver Palestine from the Ottoman Empire.  Freedman claimed that Germany’s post-WW I resentment against the Jewish community stemmed from what they regarded as the betrayal and complicity of German-Jewish financiers in their defeat.

The following excerpts of John’s booklet attempt to make his information more accessible; the full document has been made available by the 2013 Institute for Historical Review at URL: http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v06/v06p389_John.html   Footnotes embedded in the excerpts can be referenced in the original document.

The early Zionists who wanted to establish a Jewish homeland faced what looked like an impossible task at the turn of the 20th century.  Most Jews were unsympathetic to the establishment of a “homeland”, and the Zionist community itself was divided between those — like founder Theodore Hertzl — who believed that a pragmatic choice in Africa would be adequate and those determined to obtain Palestine.  The Ottoman Empire refused to release Palestine to the Zionists and European leaders were — while often sympathetic– unhelpful.  Hertzl claimed prophetically that they would obtain Palestine “not from the goodwill but from the jealousy of the Powers.” [112]

The conflicts gripping Europe in 1916-1917 created the fertile ground for Zionist aims in Palestine.

The start of World War I saw the Allies of Britain, France, Italy and Czarist Russia facing off against the Entente: Germany, Austria- Hungary and the Ottoman Empire of Turkey.  The human losses were staggering, and by 1916 the Allies were running short of money and credit.

To quote excerpts of John’s description of the situation and a key encounter:

 1916 was a disastrous year for the Allies. “In the story of the war” wrote Lloyd George, “the end of 1916 found the fortunes of the Allies at their lowest ebb. In the offensives on the western front we had lost three men for every two of the Germans we had put out of action. …”

 As for paying for the war, the Allies at first had used the huge American debts in Europe to pay for war supplies, but by 1916 the resources of J.P. Morgan and Company, the Allies’ financial and purchasing agents in the United States, were said to be nearly exhausted by increased Allied demands for American credit. [91] …

[And, given the uncertainly of the outcome of this conflict, funding was not forthcoming.]

Into this gloomy winter of 1916 walked a [well-connected] new figure. He was James Malcolm, [S] an Oxford educated Armenian [T] who, at the beginning of 1916, with the sanction of the British and Russian Governments, had been appointed … to take charge of Armenian interests during and after the war. …. He was passionately devoted to an Allied victory which he hoped would guarantee the national freedom of the Armenians then under Turkish and Russian rule.

Sir Mark Sykes, with whom he was on terms of family friendship, told him that the Cabinet was looking anxiously for United States intervention in the war on the side of the Allies, but when asked what progress was being made in that direction, Sykes shook his head glumly, “Precious little,” he replied.

James Malcolm now suggested to Mark Sykes that the reason why previous overtures to American Jewry to support the Allies had received no attention was because the approach had been made to the wrong people. It was to the Zionist Jews that the British and French Governments should address their parleys.

“You are going the wrong way about it,” said Mr. Malcolm. “You can win the sympathy of certain politically-minded Jews everywhere, and especially in the United States, in one way only, and that is, by offering to try and secure Palestine for them.” [96]

What really weighed most heavily now with Sykes were the terms of the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement. [Not to mention Britain's 1915 promise to the Arabs!] He told Malcolm that to offer to secure Palestine for the Jews was impossible. “Malcolm insisted that there was no other way and urged a Cabinet discussion. … Malcolm pointed out the influence of Judge Brandeis of the American Supreme Court, and his strong Zionist sympathies.” [97]

 In the United States, the President’s adviser, Louis D. Brandeis, a leading advocate of Zionism, had been inducted as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court on 5 June 1916. That Wilson was vulnerable was evident, in that as early as 1911, he had made known his profound interest in the Zionist idea and in Jewry. [98]  … Wilson had been blackmailed for $40,000 for some hot love letters he had written to his neighbor’s wife when he was President of Princeton. He did not have the money, and the go-between, Samuel Untermeyer, of the law firm of Guggenheim, Untermeyer & Marshall, said he would provide it if Wilson would appoint to the next vacancy on the Supreme Court a nominee selected by Mr. Untermeyer. The money was paid, the letters returned, and Brandeis had been the nominee. [Wilson was also surrounded by the pro-Zionist Col. E. M. House, who he had made his effective Secretary of State, and Brandeis's nephew, Felix Frankfurter.]

In December 1916, Lloyd George, formerly counsel to the Zionists, was named Prime Minister of Britain, with Arthur Balfour his Foreign Minister.  Lloyd George planned to pursue the war more aggressively than had the preceding Asquith government.  Germany, so far the winner in the conflict, offered generous peace terms in January 1917, according to Freedman, which were “status quo ante,” giving Germany no benefit for its lead in the conflict.

But Britain had other ideas at that point, and the situation in Russia, with the approaching success of the revolution in March of 1917, was a positive development.  Lloyd George’s memoirs noted that:

Russian Jews had been secretly active on behalf of the Central Powers from the first; they had become the chief agents of German pacifist propaganda in Russia; by 1917 they had done much in preparing for that general disintegration of Russian society, later recognised as the Revolution. It was believed that if Great Britain declared for the fulfilment of Zionist aspirations in Palestine under her own pledge, one effect would be to bring Russian Jewry to the cause of the Entente.

It was believed, also, that [an agreement to obtain Palestine for a Jewish homeland] would have a potent influence upon world Jewry outside Russia, and secure for the Entente the aid of Jewish financial interests. In America, their aid in this respect would have a special value when the Allies had almost exhausted the gold and marketable securities available for American purchases. Such were the chief considerations which, in 1917, impelled the British Government towards making a contract with Jewry. [189] …

John noted that:

 The reports reaching England of impending dissolution of the Russian state practically removed the need for Russian endorsement of Zionist aims, but made French and Italian acceptance even more urgent. This at any rate was the belief of Sykes, Balfour, Lloyd George and Winston Churchill, who, as claimed in their subsequent statements, were convinced that proclaimed Allied support for Zionist aims would especially influence the United States. 

Events in Russia made the cooperation of Jewish groups with the Allies much easier. ….

On 22 March 1917 Jacob H. Schiff of Kuhn, Loeb & Co., wrote to Mortimer Schiff, “… because of recent action of Germany (the declaration of unlimited U-boat warfare) and developments in Russia we shall no longer abstain from Allied Governments financing when opportunity offers.”  …. [emphasis added]

  [Thus:] In London, the War Cabinet led by Lloyd George lost no time committing British forces first to the capture of Jerusalem, and then to the total expulsion of the Turks from Palestine. The attack on Egypt, launched on 26 March 1917, attempting to take Gaza, ended in failure. By the end of April a second attack on Gaza had been driven back and it had become clear that there was no prospect of a quick success on this Front. …

In March of 1917 Wilson had unsuccessfully tried to get Congressional agreement to an undeclared naval war against Germany.  On April 2, 1917 — within six months of James Malcolm’s suggestion to Sykes — Wilson called a special session of Congress to declare war. John describes it:

 He asked for a declaration of war with a mission:  for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free.

That night crowds filled the streets, marching, shouting, singing “Dixie” or “The Star Spangled Banner.” Wilson turned to his secretary, Tumulty: “Think what that means, the applause. My message tonight was a message of death, How strange to applaud that!” …

In July of 1917, Woodrow Wilson sent a delegation to Turkey to examine the possibility of peace negotiations with the Allies; Wilson was concerned about the Armenian genocide which was then taking place.  The mission, which consisted of Henry Morgenthau, Sr. and Justice Brandeis’s nephew Felix Frankfurter, was intercepted by Chaim Weizmann and persuaded to return home [147]  An Allied peace with Turkey would have spelled the end of Zionist intentions for Palestine.

The drafting of the documents to enable the British obligations in Palestine took place in the summer of 1917.  They were not drafted entirely in Britain. According to John:

 Brandeis …  busied himself in particular with drafts of what later became the Balfour Declaration and the British Mandate for Palestine, and in obtaining American approval for them. [149] A considerable number of drafts were made in London and transmitted to the United States, through War Office channels, for the use of the American Zionist Political Committee. Some were detailed, but the British Government did not want to commit itself to more than a general statement of principles.

Brandeis cabled Weizmann on September 23, 1917, that Wilson would be sympathetic to the Declaration [165] although how he had induced Wilson to change his mind was unclear [166].

The letter known as the Balfour Declaration was issued on November 2, 1917:

Foreign Office, November 2nd, 1917

 Dear Lord Rothschild,

 I have much pleasure in conveying to you on behalf of His Majesty’s Government the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations, which has been submitted to and approved by the Cabinet:

 ”His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”

 I should be grateful if you would bring this Declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.

 Yours sincerely,  Arthur James Balfour. [1]

It was decided by Lord Allenby that the “Declaration” should not then be published in Palestine where his forces were still south of the Gaza-Beersheba.  Although leaflets containing its message were reportedly dropped over Germany, Austria and “the Jewish belt from Poland to the Baltic “, the German government was not aware of the Balfour Declaration until 1920.  (A German-Jewish society, the V.lJ.O.D. [HH] had approached Turkey in January of 1918 to get support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine but had to be satisfied with an Ottoman promise of legislation by means of which: “all justifiable wishes of the Jews in Palestine would be able to meet their fulfilment.”)

When Winston Churchill asked the House of Commons on July 4th 1922 to keep the British pledge of the Balfour Declaration, a member of Parliament noted that “The House has not yet had an opportunity of discussing it.”  American Congressman Hamilton Fish, who had authored a 1922 resolution modelled on the Balfour Declaration, was horrified at where it led.  He claimed: “As author of the first Zionist Resolution patterned n the Balfour Resolution, I denounce and repudiate the Ben Gurion statements as irreconcilable with my Resolution as adopted by Congress, and if they represent the Government of Israel and public opinion there, then I shall disavow publicly my support of my own Resolution, as I do not want to be associated with such un-American doctrines.” [180]

 Why did Wilson involve the US in WW I?

In examining Woodrow Wilson’s motives for entering WW I, John noted that the 1937 study of Prof. Alex M. Arnett indicated that Wilson had decided to enter WW I on the side of the Allies “many months” before the March 1917 German resumption of U-boat warfare. [182]  Given that Brandeis joined the Supreme Court in June 1916, and the British approaches to Zionist leaders would have taken place in the fall of 1916, Wilson’s decision could have reflected those influences.  Wilson’s peace delegation to Turkey in July 1917, however, indicated that the cause of the Armenian genocide took precedence over Zionist ambitions in Palestine.

Some observations can be made from this study relating to responsibility for WW I and its tragic consequences:

1.  Germany, which was forced to accept responsibility for WW I as part of the Treaty of Versailles terms, was the one country that tried to obtain peace in January of 1917 and was recognized by the Allies as the source of “peace propaganda”.
2. While Jewish financial power and the Zionist agenda were attractive to WW I belligerents, the responsibility for those with the power to make use of them was not attributable to the Jewish community.  Zionist leadership did appear to be responsible, however, for the waylaying of the American peace delegation to Turkey in July of 1917, a delegation believed to be motivated by Wilson’s concern for Armenians and Greeks then being slaughtered.  The Zionist leadership’s self-serving action thus gave them some possible responsibility for the continuation of Turkey’s genocide of the Armenians.
3. The involvement of Justice Brandeis in drafting the Balfour Declaration (as well as the British Mandate for Palestine) along with early Congressional support, indicate an American responsibility for the theft of Palestinian self-determination that is rarely acknowledged. That the United States had little    to gain from an action that contradicted everything that the United States was supposed to stand for was a testament to American naïveté in international affairs.

To conclude with Robert John’s (and Benjamin Freedman’s) observations: “We should not allow ourselves to be made pawns in the games of others.”

The Judicial Lynching of Bradley Manning

Bradley Manning, an advocate of freedom of information

By Chris Hedges

The military trial of Bradley Manning is a judicial lynching. The government has effectively muzzled the defense team. The Army private first class is not permitted to argue that he had a moral and legal obligation under international law to make public the war crimes he uncovered.

The documents that detail the crimes, torture and killing Manning revealed, because they are classified, have been barred from discussion in court, effectively removing the fundamental issue of war crimes from the trial. Manning is forbidden by the court to challenge the government’s unverified assertion that he harmed national security.

Lead defense attorney David E. Coombs said during pretrial proceedings that the judge’s refusal to permit information on the lack of actual damage from the leaks would “eliminate a viable defense, and cut defense off at the knees.” And this is what has happened.

Manning is also barred from presenting to the court his motives for giving the website WikiLeaks hundreds of thousands of classified diplomatic cables, war logs from Afghanistan and Iraq, and videos. The issues of his motives and potentially harming national security can be raised only at the time of sentencing, but by then it will be too late.

The draconian trial restrictions, familiar to many Muslim Americans tried in the so-called war on terror, presage a future of show trials and blind obedience. Our email and phone records, it is now confirmed, are swept up and stored in perpetuity on government computers. Those who attempt to disclose government crimes can be easily traced and prosecuted under the Espionage Act. Whistle-blowers have no privacy and no legal protection.

This is why Edward Snowden—a former CIA technical assistant who worked for a defense contractor with ties to the National Security Agency and who leaked to Glenn Greenwald at The Guardian the information about the National Security Council’s top-secret program to collect Americans’ cellphone metadata, e-mail and other personal data—has fled the United States. The First Amendment is dead. There is no legal mechanism left to challenge the crimes of the power elite. We are bound and shackled. And those individuals who dare to resist face the prospect, if they remain in the country, of joining Manning in prison, perhaps the last refuge for the honest and the brave.

Coombs opened the trial last week by pleading with the judge, Army Col. Denise Lind, for leniency based on Manning’s youth and sincerity. Coombs is permitted by Lind to present only circumstantial evidence concerning Manning’s motives or state of mind. He can argue, for example, that Manning did not know al-Qaida might see the information he leaked. Coombs is also permitted to argue, as he did last week, that Manning was selective in his leak, intending no harm to national interests. But these are minor concessions by the court to the defense. Manning’s most impassioned pleas for freedom of information, especially regarding email exchanges with the confidential government informant Adrian Lamo, as well as his right under international law to defy military orders in exposing war crimes, are barred as evidence.

Manning is unable to appeal to the Nuremberg principles, a set of guidelines created by the International Law Commission of the United Nations after World War II to determine what constitutes a war crime. The principles make political leaders, commanders and combatants responsible for war crimes, even if domestic or internal laws allow such actions. The Nuremberg principles are designed to protect those, like Manning, who expose these crimes. Orders do not, under the Nuremberg principles, offer an excuse for committing war crimes. And the Nuremberg laws would clearly condemn the pilots in the “Collateral Murder” video and their commanders and exonerate Manning. But this is an argument we will not be allowed to hear in the Manning trial.

Manning has admitted to 10 lesser offenses surrounding his leaking of classified and unclassified military and State Department files, documents and videos, including the “Collateral Murder” video, which shows a U.S. Apache attack helicopter in 2007 killing 12 civilians, including two Reuters journalists, and wounding two children on an Iraqi street. His current plea exposes him to penalties that could see him locked away for two decades. But for the government that is not enough. Military prosecutors are pursuing all 22 charges against him. These charges include aiding the enemy, wanton publication, espionage, stealing U.S. government property, exceeding authorized access and failures to obey lawful general orders—charges that can bring with them 149 years plus life.

“He knew that the video depicted a 2007 attack,” Coombs said of the “Collateral Murder” recording. “He knew that it [the attack] resulted in the death of two journalists. And because it resulted in the death of two journalists it had received worldwide attention. He knew that the organization Reuters had requested a copy of the video in FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] because it was their two journalists that were killed, and they wanted to have that copy in order to find out what had happened and to ensure that it didn’t happen again. He knew that the United States had responded to that FOIA request almost two years later indicating what they could find and, notably, not the video.

“He knew that David Finkel, an author, had written a book called ‘The Good Soldiers,’ and when he read through David Finkel’s account and he talked about this incident that’s depicted in the video, he saw that David Finkel’s account and the actual video were verbatim, that David Finkel was quoting the Apache air crew. And so at that point he knew that David Finkel had a copy of the video. And when he decided to release this information, he believed that this information showed how [little] we valued human life in Iraq. He was troubled by that. And he believed that if the American public saw it, they too would be troubled and maybe things would change.”

“He was 22 years old,” Coombs said last Monday as he stood near the bench, speaking softly to the judge at the close of his opening statement. “He was young. He was a little naive in believing that the information that he selected could actually make a difference. But he was good-intentioned in that he was selecting information that he hoped would make a difference.”

“He wasn’t selecting information because it was wanted by WikiLeaks,” Coombs concluded. “He wasn’t selecting information because of some 2009 most wanted list. He was selecting information because he believed that this information needed to be public. At the time that he released the information he was concentrating on what the American public would think about that information, not whether or not the enemy would get access to it, and he had absolutely no actual knowledge of whether the enemy would gain access to it. Young, naive, but good-intentioned.”

The moral order is inverted. The criminal class is in power. We are the prey. Manning, in a just society, would be a prosecution witness against war criminals. Those who committed these crimes should be facing prison. But we do not live in a just society.

The Afghans, the Iraqis, the Yemenis, the Pakistanis and the Somalis know what American military forces do. They do not need to read WikiLeaks. They have seen the bodies, including the bodies of their children, left behind by drone strikes and other attacks from the air. They have buried the corpses of those gunned down by coalition forces. With fury, they hear our government tell lies, accounts that are discredited by the reality they endure. Our wanton violence and hypocrisy make us hated and despised, fueling the rage of jihadists and amassing legions of new enemies against the United States. Manning, by providing a window into the truth, opened up the possibility of redemption. He offered hope for a new relationship with the Muslim world, one based on compassion and honesty, on the rule of law, rather than the cold brutality of industrial warfare. But by refusing to heed the truth that Manning laid before us, by ignoring the crimes committed daily in our name, we not only continue to swell the ranks of our enemies but put the lives of our citizens in greater and greater danger. Manning did not endanger us. He sought to thwart the peril that is daily exacerbated by our political and military elite.

Manning showed us through the documents he released that Iraqis have endured hundreds of rapes and murders, along with systematic torture by the military and police of the puppet government we installed. He let us know that none of these atrocities were investigated. He provided the data that showed us that between 2004 and 2009 there were at least 109,032 “violent deaths” in Iraq, including those of 66,081 civilians, and that coalition troops were responsible for at least 195 civilian deaths in unreported events. He allowed us to see in the video “Collateral Murder” the helicopter attack on unarmed civilians in Baghdad.

It was because of Manning that we could listen to the callous banter between pilots as the Americans nonchalantly fired on civilian rescuers. Manning let us see a U.S. Army tank crush one of the wounded lying on the street after the helicopter attack. The actions of the U.S. military in this one video alone, as law professor Marjorie Cohn has pointed out, violate Article 85 of the First Protocol to the Geneva Conventions, which prohibits the targeting of civilians, Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which requires that wounded be treated, and Article 17 of the First Protocol, which permits civilians to rescue and care for wounded without being harmed. We know of this war crime and many others because of Manning. And the decision to punish the soldier who reported these war crimes rather than the soldiers responsible for these crimes mocks our pretense of being a nation ruled by law.
“I believed if the public, particularly the American public, could see this, it could spark a debate on the military and our foreign policy in general as it applied to Iraq and Afghanistan,” Manning said Feb. 28 when he pleaded guilty to the lesser charges. He said he hoped the release of the information to WikiLeaks “might cause society to reconsider the need to engage in counterterrorism while ignoring the situation of the people we engaged with every day.”

But it has not. Our mechanical drones still circle the skies delivering death. Our attack jets still blast civilians. Our soldiers and Marines still pump bullets into mud-walled villages. Our artillery and missiles still raze homes. Our torturers still torture. Our politicians and generals still lie. And the man who tried to stop it all is still in prison.

Trial transcripts used for this report came from the nonprofit Freedom of the Press Foundation, which, because the government refused to make transcripts publicly available, is raising money to have its own stenographer at the trial. Transcripts from the pretrial hearing came from journalist Alexa O’Brien.