The end of the "Lampedusa strategy"? Part 1: The people behind the numbers - the story of Ahmad

"Due to instructions by the authorities, the train service to Germany via Salzburg has been suspended" - these are the announcements at Vienna's train stations for the time being. This very formal rhetoric is masking the very informal way in which one of the seemingly matter-of-course "freedoms" of Europe - i.e. the freedom to travel across borders at will and without any control - has been shaken by "urgent contingencies".

Fortress Europe: the fence at the Schengen external border
 of Hungary (Magyarország) with Serbia, September 13, 2015

Introduction: as it happens

Central Europeans are currently faced with people, whose fate is - as far as their personal "lifeworld" is concerned - far removed from their own, (relatively) orderly circumstances of life, or at least far removed from abject poverty, existential plight or even fears for their own lives. They are, as opposed to the past years and months, not faced with their fate in the news anymore, but now in the flesh, in person.

The topic of the constant periphery-centre migration had already been in the focus of the broader newscast audience in most European countries for several times within the past decade or so - but only for brief periods of time, let's call them "Lampedusa moments" (most recently, when almost a thousand "boat people" drowned earlier this year). This has now changed, as unprecented numbers of people are now reaching "the centre", i.e. the prosperous countries of Western and Northern Europe, for the first time in more than a decade, i.e. since the wars in Yugoslavia in the mid and late 1990s. Ironically, it is now from the same area, the former Yugoslav countries and their respective the borders to Hungary and Romania, that many of the refugees have been trying to enter the more prosperous areas of Europe, namely Austria and Germany.

The current waves of migration are dubbed a "refugee crisis" in the mainstream discourse. However, these didn't come out of thin air - the "refugee problem" and the topic of asylum had and has not comprehensively been dealt with by the individual European (and other) governments, let alone on a transgovernmental level. On the contrary, oil has been put into the geopolitical fire several times ever since those late 1990s. Even more fundamentally, this is a systemic problem, i.e. the crisis of a global capitalist "world system" (Immanuel Wallerstein) based on inequality and accumulation. Since the ludicrous "Dublin Agreement", first signed in 1990, and in place virtually unchanged ever since, (it contradicts the Schengen Agreement of 1995), and the (restrictive, regressive) creation of Frontex in 2005, nothing fundamental has been done on a major policy level (Immanuel Wallerstein calls this inaction the "Lampedusa strategy of the neoliberals"). Makeshift "solutions" have ever since been offered by those governments, such as rescue missions to save (mostly unsuccessfully) the "boat people" in the Mediterranean (and most of these efforts have only been temporary and/or abortive), and financial support for the countries neighbouring the respective "crises areas" and war zones, such as Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, and, within the EU, Italy, Greece, and Hungary. Now, as a short-term "solution" of the momentary "refugee crisis", a quota for the distribution across the continent of the several million who have been and will be arriving has been imposed on the EU level; it is very unlikely, however, that many countries outside of Austria, Germany and Sweden, especially those in Central and Eastern Europe, and the UK, will commit to fulfilling this quota.

Wien Westbahnhof (Vienna Western Station) - top of the screen: Arrival of the Sonderzug (special train) from Nickelsdorf at the Austrian-Hungarian border, and of another (delayed) train from Budapest Keleti (Eastern Station). Bottom of the screen: all train services from and to Germany via Salzburg are suspended.

                            Refugees at Wien Westbahnhof (Vienna Western Station),
               having arrived on the special train from Nickelsdorf, September 20th

The people behind the numbers: the story of Ahmad 

Despite the increased "immediacy" and "proximity" of the refugees now having arrived in Central Europe, most of them remain mere numbers in the public discourse, where the main questions are about quotas and distribution, not about individual stories. With most of the asylum seekers being distributed across the countries (so far mainly Austria and Germany) into specific camps or other provisional housing, otherwise uninvolved locals going about their normal chores and daily lives are unlikely to meet them in a non-encamped situation. However, it occasionally does happen. I had seen them arriving in drones the day before at Vienna's train stations, but then I met eight of them in person, with Ahmad (pictured above) willing to progress into a conversation about more than how to go about washing the laundry in the laundromat in Vienna's 10th district. At first glance I wasn't sure of his background, as he looked very similar to many of the local young men of Arab, Persian or Turkish descent, who have been living for decades, or were even born, in that very district of the Austrian capital, Favoriten. But as our conversation started and then progressed, it turned out very quickly that he was a (now former) employee of the IOM (International Organization for Migration) in Latakia, Syria, until he and his colleagues there lost their jobs as their building was shelled by IS forces, on September 10th. So, he and his group fled Latakia, and made it to Vienna, through nine countries, in ten days. After a bus trip to Beirut, they boarded a plane to Izmir, where their northbound journey into the unknown began in earnest. On "a small boat carrying only 16 people" they made it across the sea to the Greek island of Leros.

Ahmad Moussa, from Latakia, Syria, who I met at a laundromat in Vienna's 10th district, on Monday evening. He told me he dreamed of studying music and becoming a professional musician, but at the insistence of his father, he studied international law instead and worked for the International Organization for Migration. Now, he is a refugee himself as his IOM/UN building was shelled by ISIS recently. His favourite composers are J. S. Bach and Franz Liszt and he likes to listen to "Hungarian Rhapsody no. 2", but as well as the violin and the cello, he likes to play his favourite "Western rock songs" on the e-guitar.

A ferry brought them to Athens, from there, they went on to Northern Greece, and crossed the border into Macedonia following the train tracks to Skopje. With the "help of the local police", they caught a train to "the last village in Macedonia" and then two more trains, a twelve-hour train to Belgrade and then another one to Subotica. It ended there due to the closure of the Hungarian border. When they walked the last bit towards the border, they witnessed "war between the refugees and the Hungarian police" due to the fence being closed about one and a half days earlier. After spending the night "sleeping in a car park", they were taken to the Croatian border the next day on buses. Along with 3000 people, they were stuck there for a couple of days before they managed to cross over into Croatia and then Hungary, where they were seized by the police. The police "accompanied them" to the Austrian border, where they stayed for a night before being taken to Vienna last Sunday.

On this day in 1945: In memoriam Georg Elser

At this time of day, 11 pm, seventy years ago, on April 9, 1945, Georg Elser was executed by the Nazis at the KZ (concentration camp) at Dachau near Munich.

His attempt to kill Adolf Hitler in the Bavarian capital about five and a half years earlier had failed. Elser had planted a bomb into a column at the Bürgerbräukeller (a beer cellar) where Hitler held a speech on the evening of November 8, 1939, on the occasion of the Nazis celebrating their botched putsch attempt ("national revolution", later dubbed "Beer Hall Putsch") of 1923. Unfortunately for Elser and in a fateful evil twist of world history, Hitler left the locality earlier than foreseen, and the bomb detonated thirteen minutes after his departure, without killing any of the Nazi leaders who had been present.

Georg Elser (born January 4, 1903 - died April 9, 1945)

Already on the same evening, Elser was caught at the Swiss border, arrested and held at KZ Dachau, where the Nazis planned he should remain until a show trial after the German "Endsieg" (final victory) in WWII would be held against him. But when faced with the Allied troops' advance onto German territory in early 1945, Hitler ordered Elser's execution on April 9th.

Until recently, the proletarian carpenter from the town of Königsbrunn, near Ulm, Württemberg, Southwest Germany, who wanted to kill Hitler to "improve the situation of the workers and to end the war" (quote Elser) was barely remembered and commemorated as a hero. To this day, he stands in the shadow of others in the official German narrative and practice of commemoration, such as those around the colonel Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, who tried to kill Hitler on July 20, 1944, i.e. much later and out of much more nationalistic motives than Elser. July 20th, 1944, is a date every German and many others associate with resistance to Hitler, whereas Elser's attempt on November 8, 1939, has remained unknown to most, even within Germany, so far. Hopefully, this will change in the future.

“Fuck Minsk II”? “Dr. Strange-(Breed)love” or: How Europe Learns to Start Worrying

"Americans are from Mars and Europeans from Venus" - the famous quote by Robert Kagan, the neocon who legitimated the post-9/11 military interventions, criticizing Europe for its allegedly “weak” and “appeasement” stance in the war on terror, is making a comeback. It dates from back in 2003/04, when the dispute over the US-led invasion of Iraq, that Germany and France had opposed, led to a prolonged period of cooling of the US-German relations (US-French relations had never been as amicable anyway, due to France's temporary refusal to participate in and greater skepticism towards the US and NATO). Now this German-American rift, that had only been patched up for a short period between Iraq and Bush jr.'s presidency and the NSA scandal(s) of the Obama era, is opening up again, as officials in Berlin are accusing the neocons of 'dangerous propaganda' in the confrontation with Russia. 

Victoria Nuland, self-declared "anti-European" (2013)

The 'Martians' are back, led by Kagan and his wife Victoria Nuland, the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs at the Department of State. Along with their supporters and representatives in NATO, they are once again, pitted against those 'Venusians', who, led by Germany and France, have been undertaking diplomatic efforts to achieve a de-escalating peaceful solution of the Ukraine crisis. It had already gotten clear what the 'Martians' thought of a European initiative independent of US interests in Ukraine about a year ago, when Nuland uttered the now infamous expletive “fuck the EU” in a phone call to the US ambassador in Kiev.

In her view, Ukraine was already considered the newest Eastern European outpost of the American Empire as soon as the opportunity to install a pro-American government there became a realistic option in the beginning of 2014, and the US made sure that Arseni Yazenjuk (referred to by Nuland as “Yaz”, “our guy” in the same phone call) became Prime Minister in Kiev in the pro-Western government that was set up after pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovich was toppled in February 2014. Due to that, the complete veracity of the Western narrative of the Maidan or "EwroMaidan" as a purely “peaceful people's protest for the EU and against a corrupt government” began to be questioned. Nuland apparently told Yanukovich: “No violence against protesters, or you'll fall”. Is that a sign that Nuland and her entourage were calling shots in Kiev at the time? That's not entirely clear (as is, who the snipers were that immediately triggered the overthrow of Yanukovych as a reaction - government/pro-Russian or Maidan/(pro-)US agents?). What is pretty clear by now, though, is that (direct or indirect) Russian influence on the conflict in Eastern Ukraine is countered by Academi (formerly "Blackwater") mercenaries, i.e. U.S. "private army" presence in the war zone, and that NATO is continuing to drum up the tone against Russia, in spite of the efforts by the leading European “allies” (?), France and Germany, that lead to a peace deal (or at least truce) being brokered at Minsk in February (the so-called “Minsk II” agreement).

                          
Audio: V. Nuland's phone call to the US ambassador at Kiev, 02/2014 ("Fuck the EU")

Apparently, Nuland's 2014 motto is being amended in 2015. It is now “Fuck not only the EU, but Minsk II, too”. Last year, the expletive only met mild and still mostly veiled protest by the Europeans. Now, though, Germany apparently has had more than enough of it, and is finally calling a spade a spade. Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the German Foreign Minister, and several sources in the Bundeskanzleramt (Federal Chancellery of Angela Merkel) have accused the NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), Gen. Philipp Breedlove, of "dangerous propaganda". Steinmeier was referring to massively exaggerated or even completely fabricated NATO "reports" that were cited by Breedlove as factual information in relation to the Ukraine conflict. The general, who hails from Cincinnati, Ohio, claimed that “well over a thousand combat vehicles, Russian combat forces, some of their most sophisticated air defense, battalions of artillery” had been sent into Eastern Ukraine, contrary to the reports of Germany's foreign intelligence agency, the Bundesnachrichten-dienst (BND), that were saying that the Minks II truce was largely holding and that the agreed withdrawal of heavy weaponry by both sides was continuing. Breedlove often referred to imaginary columns of Russian tanks and although not everything he has been purporting over the last few months has been complete bogus, his “numbers have been significantly higher than those in possession of America's NATO allies in Europe.”                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

Philipp Breedlove, NATO's "Jack D. Ripper" (with US Marine Corps Gen. Joseph F. Dunford, Kabul, September 2014) 

The main domestic counterpart of Nuland and her "General Jack D. Ripper" propagandist is Barack Obama. The president has ordered to put on hold a planned deployment of US army personnel into Western Ukraine to train members of the Ukrainian National Guard there (which would have been another step towards escalation), thus trying not to undermine the fulfilment of Minsk II agreement.

"DoubleThink" featured article: Chutzpah & Criticism. Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to Washington in perspective

Today, we are featuring an article by Scott Stelle, author of our partner blog "DoubleThink", who looks at the historical and familial precedents of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's controversial speech at the United States Congress a few days ago, especially with regard to the its context in terms of the different branches of historical Zionism and the current political climate in Israel.

There are some uncanny parallels between between Israeli politician Menachem Begin’s first visit to the United States during December 1948 and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s trip to Washington [this] month [i.e. March 3, PB].

PM Netanyahu is a frequent visitor to Washington (this was at his address to a joint congressional session in 2011)

While Begin was greeted with a critical letter in the New York Times by such prominent Jews as Albert Einstein, Hannah Arendt, Sidney Hook among others, Netanyahu’s upcomming trip, due to Bibi’s breach of White House protocol and conspicuous re-election campaigning, is provoking unusual harsh criticism from American Jewish leaders as well as the mainstream media across the ideological spectrum from Fox News to the New York Times.       
                  .
The specter of 1948 overshadowing Netanyahu’s visit calls attention to Israel’s own violent and criminal birth, still viciously at work, though now largely forgotten in mainstream public discourse. The Zionist ideology’s emphasis of “restoring” an ancient Hebrew national identity and the claim of “continuity” between the Jewish people and their biblical homeland in Palestine became official orthodoxy after the foundation of the state of Israel, whose formative years also coincided with the Jewish trauma of the Holocaust, which incidentally didn’t find expression in “collective memory” until the late 1950s, after the Israeli state had securely established sovereignty over its new territory. Most American Jews’ knowledge of Israel up until the 1980s was based more on symbolic narratives, like Leon Uris’ popular novel and film Exodus, than historical facts. Yet, in light of archival research and current events is America’s blind solidarity with Israel really warranted?

Politics may be informed by history, but it is always about the present and near future. Soul-searching efforts like Germany’s critical scrutiny of Nazism or America’s attempt at understanding its ambivalent “Manifest Destiny” and racist-genocidal roots are difficult but healthy enterprises. Events ranging from Wounded Knee, My Lai and Abu Ghraib to Ferguson will continue to haunt us until we recognize our rapacious “national character.” Long before Israel’s New Historians became as committed to truth as postwar German historiography, Einstein critically appraised the 1948 Arab-Israel War without glossing over misdeeds, like the ethnic cleansing of locals who had lived in Palestine for over a thousand years.If you replace the names Begin with Benjamin and the attacks of Arab villages with the 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict, Einstein’s et al. letter here could have almost been written today:

“The current visit of Menachem Begin, leader of this party, to the United States is obviously calculated to give the impression of American support for his party in the coming Israeli elections, and to cement political ties with conservative Zionist elements in the United States. Several Americans of national repute have lent their names to welcome his visit. It is inconceivable that those who oppose fascism through out the world, if correctly informed as to Mr. Begin’s political record and perspectives, could add their names and support to the movement he represents. Before irreparable damage is done by way of financial contributions, public manifestations in Begin’s behalf, and the creation in Palestine of the impression that a large segment of America supports Fascist elements in Israel, the American public must be informed as to the record and objectives of Mr. Begin and his movement. The public avowals of Begin’s party are no guide whatever to its actual character. Today they speak of freedom, democracy and anti-imperialism, whereas until recently they openly preached the doctrine of the Fascist state. It is in its actions that the terrorist party betrays its real character; from its past actions we can judge what it may be expected to do in the future.”

The letter "New Palestine Party. Visit of Menachen Begin and Aims of Political Movement Discussed", signed by Hannah Arendt, Albert Einstein, Sidney Hook and others to the "New York Times", published in the "Books" section (p. 12), Saturday, December 4, 1948  

Historically, the politics of the Zionist Movement has generally been more socialist than fascist, yet there has nonetheless been fascist elements within the movement since the 1920s. However, they have grown more powerful since the 1970s onwards, and especially after Christian-Right Zionists, like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, started supporting Israel’s Likud party, the direct heirs of Revisionist Zionism. In 2014, Zeev Sternhell, Israel Prize laureate and renowned scholar of European fascism, was asked by Haaretz duringOperation Protective Edge if he had seen any signs of a budding fascism in Israel? He said most definitely, just consider the new “nationhood law” which would define Israel as the state of the Jewish people only, “the brutal and violent erosion of freedom of speech; and the various manifestations of a witch hunt here, when a journalist like [Haaretz’s] Gideon Levy needs a bodyguard.”

Abstracting and creating agitprop realities: a longue-durée view of political “storytelling” on two sides of the same post-Communist coin

Anyone who is - in a non-ideological way - trying to make sense of the major political stories of the most recent past and of the present “news” (or disinformation) content featured in the media, is having a hard time figuring what is really going on. The amount of information (mostly agitprop (=agitation and propaganda)) coming from the different corners of the boxing ring that is the arena of political ideologies is incoherent and contradictory, to put it mildly. That being said, we will still try to point out what in our view are the five most significant discrepancies of the last twenty-five years in the “political storytelling” between East and West, South and North, i.e. the periphery and core or centre of the global political order (or rather disorder) that has since been centered around the United States of America. It has, however, been an economic and political pecking order that has constantly been challenged and reshuffled ever since the end of the Cold War.
 

  

The Soviet flag being taken down on the Kremlin, Moscow, on December 26, 1991. This
marked the end of the existence of the Soviet Union sixty-nine years after its foundation (Source: YouTube)

In the first “long decade” (1988/89 to 2001) following the anti-Soviet reforms and/or protests that lead to revolutions, that started from Hungary (Miklos Németh/Gyula Horn) in November, 1988, and spread all across Central and Eastern Europe until even the Soviet Union itself was dissolved in late December, 1991, the US had its unchallegend “unipolar moment”. Washington's relations with both the now weakened Russia and the emerging China were mostly neutral or even amicable, they were seen as (second-rate) “partners”; post-Soviet Russia was in the U.S. view demoted to a regional power. The U.S.-led involvement in the war in the collapsing Yugoslavia (against a culturally Christian Orthodox, Russophile Serbia) and the first post-cold war NATO expansion into territories that just ten years earlier had been part of the Warsaw Pact, i.e. the Soviet military and political sphere of influence (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland), didn't meet any fierce resistance at the time - although Russia did support Serbia against the Western forces, but still had to tacitly accept the negative outcome for it (most significantly the breakup of Serbia with the foundation of Kosovo, and the independence of Montenegro that followed later).

Some (ideologically challenged, naïve, or unforesightful) elites in the U.S. felt that Francis Fukuyama's “end of history” had indeed come, with the main enemy of the previous five decades demoted and, in the short-term (i.e. normal U.S.) perspective at least, no one else on the radar (Europe or the EU, as more or less even until today, couldn't be taken seriously then, except as an economic power). The “end of history” story was the first discrepancy between U.S. “storytelling” or “created reality” and factual challenges of that reality outside that bubble (mind you, the U.S. was dealing with such “important” issues as the sex life of their president during those years). The ideologues in the bubble of the 1990s had dismissed or underestimated what the involvement (by economic, military and/or political, covert intelligence operations) of their own country and its Western (and some non-Western) allies in the Middle East and South Asia had created as a backlash. Muslim-majority, but mostly secularist states had turned into new challengers of the American hegemony in their region, into extremist, Islamist fundamentalist states, committing or at least supporting acts of terrorism (Iran already since back in 1979, with Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, some factions in Palestine and Egypt following suit), with other states in danger of also turning fully Islamist due to the catastrophic economic circumstances, that make a totalitarian, fundamentalist religious extremism attractive to desperate young populations. Furthermore, inequivocal and uncritical US support of Israel (and all the illegal Israeli policies) in the Israeli-Palestine conflict play(ed) its part in the trouble that had (and still has) been brewing there for decades. Those “chickens came home to roost” in a big way in what has to date been the most visible and obvious attack on and challenge of the U.S. hegemony, on that sunny New York morning on September 11, 2001 (soon abbreviated simply as “9/11”). Ironically (if we follow what has generally been presented as the narrative), most (fifteen out of nineteen) of the terrorists were not from Iran or Afghanistan, but citizens of Saudi Arabia, which officially has been (and still is) a US ally, but at the same time, the House of Saud (which is amicably linked to the “House of Bush”) has, more or less openly, financed Islamist terrorism regionally and globally.

Then Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld speaking at a press conference in the pentagon barely eight hours after the September 11, 2001, attacks.
Also at the podium: Sec. of the Army White, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army Gen. Shelton, Sen. Warner (Virginia) and Sen. Levin (Michigan) 

So, this is the second discrepancy between created reality and, at least “historical”, i.e. geopolitical, “truth”. The centre, i.e. the U.S. government, with its “friends and allies” in tow, described “9-11” mainly as “an attack on our Western values of democracy and freedom” which had to be answered by a “crusade”, a “war on terror” (George W. Bush), that is going on to this day; the periphery, where the retaliatory action happened, had to suffer from two long and protracted wars (Afghanistan and Iraq) and their consequences. Many instances of war crimes, e.g. torture and human experimentation, have been committed by U.S. forces as part of the “war on terror”. The periphery side of the “storytelling” was done by channnels such as Al-Jazeera: founded in Doha, Qatar in 1996, it came into prominence in the West in the wake of “9/11”, with the most comprehensive coverage of what was happening as a reaction to those attacks, i.e. the war in Afghanistan. It presented the “collateral damage”, i.e. the civilian victims of the bombings or drone strikes, and aired views that were very critical of that war and of the U.S. policies in relation to it. In November of 2001, the Afghan offices of Al-Jazeera were destroyed in a U.S. bombing raid on Kabul; the following month, a reporter of the network was abducted and brought to Guantanamo. So, the views on this “war on terror” differed, just as the results did: while there hasn't been a terrorist attack on U.S. soil anymore since “9/11”, U.S. allies have been hit in the years as a result of their participation in the controversial Iraq War (Madrid 2004, London 2005).

                         
                     George W. Bush: "CIA people [i.e. torturers] are really good people,
                               and we're lucky to have them" (Source: Young Turks)

The war on terror, dubbed “operation Enduring Freedom”, actually didn't bring freedom to many, on the contrary, it has curbed many freedoms, for both centre and periphery: the civil rights of both U.S. and non-U.S. populations were severely infringed upon by acts such as the Patriot Act, which legalized massive surveillance (e.g. collection of all internet and phone data), basically abolished the basic legal concept of habeas corpus, i.e. the right to protest against unlawful detention, and promoted a militarization of the police force, especially in the U.S. As for (more or less covert) paramilitary or proxy operations abroad, private mercenary armies, unaccountable and “off the record”, have been hired to do the “dirty work”. Anyone can be dubbed an “illegal combatant”, and captured anywhere around the world, be it in the actual war zone or from their home, e.g. in Germany (Khaled al-Masri), and held indefinitely at camps such as Bagram or Guantanamo, where they faced “enhanced interrogation” (torture). Politicians all across the globe (but especially those of the “Five Eyes”, i.e. U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand) have since used the “war on terror” to massively increase the surveillance of their citizens.

The conclusion of this second discrepancy or paradox is: The “democratic freedoms” were “defended” by getting rid of fundamental elements of democracy, i.e. civil rights. Whistle-blowers like Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning, Julian Assange and Edward Snowden, who have disclosed these paradoxes, i.e. the war crimes and/or mass surveillance practices mentioned above in the “name of freedom”, have paid the price of completely or at least massively losing their freedom of movement for that, as they are either already under arrest or facing arrest once they would be within reach of U.S. authorities. Those responsible for the, if not illegal, yet despicable practices, are getting away with them, scot-free.


                                 
            Trailer for the documentary "Citizenfour" by Laura Poitras, with Glenn                                   Greenwald, on the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden (December 2014)
                                                   (Source: YouTube)

Even if we leave the morals aside and look at the results, we have to conclude that, despite all the military and intelligence efforts, the goal of reducing global terrorism has utterly failed: there has been a fivefold increase interrorist fatalities since “9/11”, groups such as the Taliban and al-Qaida have not been weakened significantly, at least in the regions where they originated (Afghanistan, Middle East); others, such as the self-proclaimed “Islamic State” IS (Islamic State in Syria and Iraq) terrorists, are a new Frankenstein's monster that sprung up as a result of the Iraq War and the civil war in Syria, armed with supreme weapons that had been supplied to the post-Saddam Iraqi Army and the Syrian Free Army/opposition to President Assad by Western countries. So, a new monster has been created, and the old ones haven't really gone away. Let's leave aside the debate on how beneficial it is to certain ideologues of illiberal “security measures”, in the West and elsewhere, to keep such monsters alive as welcome enemies and distractions from other urgent problems and issues.

"There is no alternative" to austerity and privatization? The Varoufakis papers of the Eurogroup meetings

Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, the personalized anti-"tina", is currently the main enemy of the German-led mainstream technocrats of the "Eurogroup" due to his resistance to continue the austerity policies of the "troika". Anyone who (like some German newspapers) claims that "he and the Greek government are brash and asking a lot, but have not provided any papers of propositions or alternatives to the austerity programme at the recent Eurogroup meetings" is now debunked by the documents by Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis that have been published by www.capital.gr (the English version can be found here (via Robert Misik, Viennese journalist)

Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis

The alternatives to be found in these papers can be summarized in four main points: 

a) a development bank instead of privatizations

"[W]e want to invest to reduce energy costs for medium and large scale industries, to support innovation, start-ups and to promote a shift towards sectors with comparative advantages and export potential such as pharmaceuticals, organic agriculture, light manufacturing, energy resources, with the emphasis naturally on renewables. (...)

Quick fire sales of public property, at a time when asset prices are deeply depressed, is not something that anyone would advocate.

Instead, the government will create a development bank which will incorporate state assets, enhance their equity value through reforming property rights and use them as collateral for the purposes of providing, in association with European investment institutions such as the European Investment Banks, funding to the Greek private sector"

b) investment instead of austerity with unrealistic growth goals

"We recognize the tremendous efforts made by your countries’ taxpayers to support Greece’s debt and maintain the integrity of the euro.

However, unrealistic, self-defeating fiscal targets have been imposed on our country and population and hence must be revised. A primary surplus target of 4.5% of GDP year-in-year-out has no historical precedent in any situation resembling that of Greece today. It will simply not be possible for our country to grow if we remain on the growth sapping austerity path imposed on our economy. It is also quite inconsistent with achieving a sustainably reduced debt-to-GDP ratio.

The new contract we propose to discuss with you should recognize this evidence."

c) fight against tax evasion and rent-seeking, stop policies undermining social cohesion

"The government undertakes to reduce tax evasion, tax immunity, smuggling, cartelsand rent-seeking. Reforms will improve the enforcement of income tax, VAT, and social contributions, and fight tax evasion with an emphasis on transfer pricing in large corporates active abroad. The government stands ready to discuss legislative proposals to reinforce the legal framework for an independent tax authority within the Ministry of Finance.

A full legislative package will improve the business climate and undermine rent-seekers, in particular in the oil sector, the financial sector, and the media. Public procurement procedures will be made more transparent and fair thanks to a more centralized system, efficient monitoring and e-procurement. Reforms will increase the overall efficiency of the public sector, with an objective to improve the quality of services delivered to every citizen. Policies undermining social cohesion have failed and will be dropped."

"The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly"? Sanctions and “twisting arms” or: On being on the right or wrong side in the “world of rules”

According to our business and political elites, we in Europe and North America (and, ideally, in all of “global society”) are living in a “world of rules”. According to our business and political elites, we in Europa and North America are living in a free and democratic society. According to our business and political elites, some countries have “left this world of rules” and thus have to be punished.

This "world of rules" (and Russia's "leaving it") was what Radoslaw Sikorski, former foreign minister of Poland, mainly spoke about at a talk on the Ukraine crisis at Harvard University in November of 2014. Yet, time and again, it is becoming increasingly clear, that these “rules” are just political tools – as President Obama put it recently, “we occasionally have to twist the arms of countries that wouldn't do what we need them to do.“ Since 2004, a "Presidential proclamation allows the US government to ban foreign nationals whose corrupt conduct hurts US interests, without providing proof of the charges."

Radoslaw Sikorski (left) elaborating on and defining who is on the good and the bad side of the "world of rules", at Harvard University, Cambridge, Ma.,  November 20th, 2014

So it is up to Washington and New York, but also their transatlanticist (neo-)“liberal“ allies in London, Frankfurt and elsewhere (e.g. Warsaw) and some of their lackeys in the media, to define what is treated as corruption and what is not – i.e. there is “good“ corruption, white-collar crime and fraud, as long as it happens on Wall Street, K Street, in the City of London, at Frankfurt high-rises, at Brussels institutions, or in Ukraine, and “bad“ corruption or white-collar crime, in Greece, Russia, Hungary, or Venezuela etc. You can not only be on the right or wrong side of history, but also of corruption, geopolitics or the war on terror, as above countries and countless civilians in embattled conflict regions elsewhere have learned the hard way (by having their “arms twisted“ or as “collateral damage“ of austerity or "democracy promotion").
Many countries/regimes or armies/groups haved turned from Paulus to Saulus in recent decades, because they started challenging US domination or hegemony: the Mujaheddin, anti-Soviet allies in the 1980s, became the “Taliban“ and enemies in the 1990s, with a war against them starting in 2001; Iraq, an ally against Iran in the 1980s, turned enemy in the 1990s, with a war toppling the regime in 2003; Libya, a business partner until well into the 2000s, turned enemy at the beginning of the next decade, with the regime toppled in 2011; the Syrian opposition fighters, supported with arms, then turned enemies (ISIS/ISIL); Russia, a “friend and partner“ in the 1990s and in the “war on terror“ of the early 2000s, increasingly was seen as an enemy from the late 2000s, with NATO expansion into the Baltics and the war in Georgia, and now the current, even bigger conflict over Ukraine. Others, such as Israel and Saudi Arabia, have always held US support despite the former's illegal settlement policy and war crimes in Palestine, and the latter's funding of Islamist terrorism (not to mention the human rights violations). They have always been exempt from “the rules“, and “more equal than others“.

The discord between the U.S. and Europe over their different approaches became increasingly visible ahead of Minsk II in early February

President Obama recently admitted that the US was more than just an benevolent bystander and its politicians more than purely coincidental visitors to Kiev (V. Nuland/J. McCain) in the "Maidan" conflict between pro-Western protesters and the government in Ukraine. These protests, that had started in late 2013, escalated in late January/early February of 2014 and led to the ousting of President Viktor Yanukovich almost exactly a year ago, on February 22nd/23rd. A treaty signed by all parties to the conflict, that would have set up a transitional government, was breached by the radical wing of the protesters, who toppled Yanukovich anyway - but as they were on the right side of the Western “world of rules“, they didn't have to stick to them. Subsequently, as a backlash of this coup and thus the expansion into what Russia perceives as its sphere of influence, the Kremlin annexed Crimea (important due to its Russian naval port Sevastopol), and an “anti-Maidan“, pro-Russian insurgency in the Donbass Region, in Eastern Ukraine, ensued. The US/NATO is allowed to expand its sphere of influence, Russia is not. On the other hand, the Kremlin hasn't acted in the most conciliatory manner either within the last few years; but diplomatic failures have also been committed by the EU/Brussels in its dealings with Russia over the envisaged EU membership of Ukraine. Most recently, though, for the first time since the run-up to George W. Bush's Iraq War in 2003, remarkable cracks in the transatlantic foreign policy axis are highly visible again.

"Enough is enough": Outrage on the outposts of the American Empire. The NSA scandal, mass surveillance, drones and “free trade” corporatocracy

German president Joachim Gauck ("enough is enough") and Chancellor Angela Merkel are yet again “indignant and outraged” over a new surveillance scandal - an employee of the German intelligence service (BND), who has been spying on the NSA inquiry commission of the German parliament, for the CIA. (Will any serious consequences follow? Of course not). Yet, to observers of the usual U.S. modus operandi in foreign relations, this is not surprising, but just the tip of the iceberg of a liberal U.S. imperialism that is becoming increasingly illiberal under the threat of the Empire declining, at least economically, and of intelligence agencies (the “deep state”) acting with as much impunity as ever. 

A graffito of the whistle-blower and leaker Edward Snowden in Astoria, New York (July 2013)

About a year ago, Edward Snowden, whistleblower and hero to most liberally-minded in the West and elsewhere, traitor and foe to conservatives and regressives in the U.S., fled Hawaii to reveal to the “Guardian” and the “Washington Post” documents indicative of the scale of the scandalous mass surveillance of citizens of other states by the NSA and other security agencies in five Anglophone countries (the “Five Eyes”). Later last year it became clear, that even high-ranking officials, most prominently German Chancellor Angela Merkel, were spied upon; (official) indignation was big then, much bigger then among them, in comparison to their indifferent reaction to the revelations that the communication channels of the hoi polloi are being tapped. Nothing followed. But now, after a year of humiliating revelations, even politicians who are not deemed on the left side of the political spectrum, such as Gauck and Merkel, are slowly (at least rhetorically) beginning to doubt the value and sincerity of the transatlantic partnership, or in Germany's case, the “German-American Friendship”, that so far had been invoked as the basis of European-American partnership, security and trust.

Imperial disregard for so-called "friends and allies"

Direct U.S. influence is now felt not only outside Europe, e.g. in the Middle East, anymore, where Israel, despite illegal settlement policies and disproportionate actions in dealing with the Palestinians (and another full-on war on Gaza pending), has been backed with no questions asked and all possible U.N. sanctions on Israel vetoed for decades. In Eastern Europe and the Caucasus pro-capitalist, pro-NATO, pro-neoliberal revolutions (Georgia, Ukraine) have been more or less openly supported, financially and otherwise, by Washington. In the Pacific, a geopolitical confrontation with China in the South Chinese Sea is slowly, but steadily evolving into a serious conflict. While Arabs and other non-Western populations are more or less rightfully accusing the U.S. of meddling into their affairs, if not open imperialism, for decades, this has now, most recently, also been a theme for an increasing number of citizens of states that so far undoubtedly were deemed part of the “West”. The populations of these countries, the most prominent and most powerful of them being Germany, are now also increasingly aware of direct instances of U.S. imperialism in their countries, after decades of indirect U.S. influence through cultural imperialism, i.e.“soft power” (Disney, Hollywood etc.) after World War II. The mass surveillance is just the most obvious instance, that is specifically coming to light with regard to U.S. behavior towards “friends and allies”, and that is now even known to the bulk of the population. Many in the political elites continue to stress the steadfastness of amicable transatlantic, specifically German-American, relations; however, the latest scandal is just another sign that the United States couldn't care less how its “friends and allies” feel about its behavior. This has started (at least) a decade with G. W. Bush's war on Iraq, with which he followed through in 2003, against the resistance of many other states, most prominently France, Germany and Russia, and has been continuing until today, with the PRISM mass surveillance program, and the spying on the citizens of “friendly states” coming to light. Today, news broke that the U.S. intelligence agencies are also spying on some of their own citizens, i.e. on those that are Muslims.

logo of the PRISM surveillance program, in existence since 2005

Drones/UAV's and PRISM: A fictionalization of human rights, international law, democracy and transparency 

It's necessary to “fight terrorism”, is the less and less credible official legitimation of the mass surveillance; the use of drones to kill “terror suspects” without trial (i.e. legal murder) is legitimated the same way (new Ukrainian president Poroshenko has quickly learned this lesson in rhetorics and is now also “fighting terrorism” in Eastern Ukraine by bombing civilians, breaking a truce brokered by diplomats of all parties involved with impunity). Those in Guantanamo are not given a fair trial, Osama bin Laden was immediately shot instead of tried (as a trial would have raised interesting questions over inconsistencies with regard to 9/11). 

While most of the (Western) world is focusing on the events in Eastern Ukraine and most of the (Western) media is hyping Russia into the the role of the (old and new) antagonist of the “free” world, the rotten, inverted side of the Western Janus face remains largely unseen for many followers of the average mainstream “news”. The covert drone war of the U.S., for example, goes largely unnoticed in the mainstream media. UAV's (“unmanned aerial vehicles”), many of them steered from U.S. bases in Southern Germany, have killed more than 2 400 (not convicted, just declared) terror suspects (with at least 276 civilian casualties as “collateral damage”) since 2004. The latest targeted killings, the biggest U.S. drone attack since December (when at least 12 civilians died (out of 17 victims overall)) went almost unnoticed in the West, as it was overshadowed by the coverage of the anniversary of the Boston marathon bombings, where three people were killed and 264 injured a year ago. While Christians celebrated Easter, at least 13 Yemenis were killed by drones, including at least 3 three civilians; the Yemeni government had officially forbidden the U.S. to carry out further strikes in its territory after the last attacks, but regardless of that, the imperial masters make the rules, not the government of (from the U.S. perspective) a petty Arab state. National sovereignty, who cares? The lawfulness of those targeted killings by drones is doubtful at best, but the U.S. (along with their U.K. poodles) are blocking any resolution criticizing them, let alone initiatives calling for an investigation of the matter. On Monday, April 21, the U.S. government was ordered to release the documents that, from its perspective, legalize the killing of U.S. citizens by drones, by a circuit court of appeals in Manhattan, after the NY Times sued it for doing so; the court ruled that the government waived its “right to secrecy” in the matter by publicly making statements justifying the killings, which means: Had the government remained silent, those documents on the matter could have legally remained secret and the right to secrecy would have overridden the public right to know about the justification, i.e. transparency, that is a vital right in a democratic system. 

The policies and strategies behind the "terrorism" rhetoric are mere instruments of power politics, though, and conducive to nothing else but the increased fictionalization of human rights, international law, democracy and transparency, as is the talk of sanctions to “punish breaches of international law” and “free trade for the benefit of everyone”.

Sanctions: Some animals are more equal than others

Sanctions and free trade are the other “principles”, better mantras, of the neoliberal rhetoric, promoting shiny, happy principles of “more humane warfare”, of “democratic capitalism and creation of wealth” and a liberal world order with seemingly equal rules for everyone (but some (U.S., the “Five Eyes”, Israel) are more equal than others (Russia, Arab states)).

On the death of Hans-Ulrich Wehler (1931-2014), German social historian

German historian Hans-Ulrich Wehler (1931-2014) has died on Saturday. His most prominent work is a five-volume work on the social history of Germany ("Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte") in the Early Modern and Modern Era (1700-1990). He was not a historian in the "ivory tower" of academia, but also commented on socio-political issues; over the last couple of years, he had repeatedly criticized the increasing inequality in income and property in Germany and globally.

Wehler at the Leipzig Book Fair, March 2013

Wehler, born in Freudenberg near Siegen in Westphalia on September 11th, 1931, died in Bielefeld last Saturday (July 5th, 2014). He graduated from high school in 1952, attending the same gymnasium as the most prominent West German post-war philosopher, Jürgen Habermas. A student at Cologne, Bonn and at Ohio Unversity at the time of West Germany's post-war "economic miracle" ("Wirtschaftswunder"), he became a lecturer at Cologne at the height of the "1968er" student movement in Germany; after a couple of years there, he took up a full professor chair at West Berlin's (left-wing) Free University in 1970. For most of his career, from 1971 until 1996, he taught at the "reform" University of Bielefeld, with stints in Berne, Switzerland, and in the U.S., at Harvard, Princeton, Stanford and Yale. 

Recently, Wehler had pointed to the increasing inequality as a danger to social peace and to the ongoing social erosion of the basis of a German society, that for the immediate post-war decades rather aptly had been characterized as a rather "levelled middle-class society" ("nivellierte Mittelstandsgesellschaft") by sociologist Helmut Schelsky (who, like Wehler, was one of the pioneers of the newly-founded "reform" university at Bielefeld).

At Bielefeld, Wehler and others developed and taught the method of Critical Social History ("Kritische Sozialgeschichte", "Bielefelder Schule" (Bielefeld School)). Wehler was influenced by Max Weber's theories and saw grand social and economic developments as the motors of history. He always focused on the complexity and totality of modernity.

In 2013, he wrote in Germany's ZEIT weekly newspaper: "It remains an open question, why there is so little resistance against the exorbitant increase in inequality of incomes and property. After all, labour unions have half of the seats on the boards of corporations; but questions of wages and bonuses are mostly decided upon consensually. Are such delicate [i.e. important, PB] questions simply rubber-stamped? For it is not about the enforcement of genuine market forces, as the hegemonic neoclassical school in the U.S., in Britain and in Germany suggests, but about classical decision-making by a few men in a small arena. (...)

The blatant inequality of income and property is indisputably dangerous, despite the domestic tranquility. For it had always been the basis of legitimacy of the Federal Republic of Germany, that the social product of our economy should be distributed more or less equally. That had been the big achievement of a pragmatic cooperation between corporations and labour unions. But nowadays, the blatant differences can't be legitimated any more, even more so because the middle class and the lower class are suffering from a stagnation of their real income. Political pressure, leading to adequate reforms, is necessary. The overcoming of this inequality is vital, Germany's often-praised ability to reform is at stake here."

“All quiet on the Eastern Front” and “some are more equal than others”? The assocation agreement, the Ukraine, Russia, the EU and the U.S. after “EwroMaidan” and “Crimvasion”

The signature of the association agreement between the de-facto new Ukrainian government of Arseny Yatsenyuk in Kiev and the EU last Friday, four months after the beginning of the protests, is not the end of the Maidan story and certainly not the end of the conflict in the country and the whole Eastern European region. Western hypocrisy and double standards towards Russia with regard to Maidan and Crimea have estranged Moscow not only further from London and Washington, but now increasingly from Brussels and Berlin as well.

E.U. and Ukrainian flags in Kiev, 2008

About a hundred victims of the Maidan later, only superficially “all is quiet on the Eastern front”. The EU has won a Pyrrhic victory in having a pro-Western government in power in Kiev and the treaty signed. Why Pyrrhic? Because the country is virtually bankrupt and, despite the regime change, remains split. As Russia is likely to break all economic and financial ties to and support of the Kiev government, the EU has to foot the bill of its - in the current (financial) state it is in, megalomaniac - expansion drive. Brussels, and NATO, are part of the power game and to blame for their black-and-white, undiplomatic, role in the conflict. 

Yet, European politicians have only condemned Russia's, admittedly aggressive, brash and imperial, realpolitik, and military and political behaviour with regard to the annexation of Crimea. But they remain nauseously tranquil with regard to their own mistakes in the escalation of the conflict and, more importantly, uncritical towards Western imperialism, i.e. neo-conservative and imperial behaviour of the U.S. intelligence agencies and military - if they are not even in open support of it, as e.g. the government of the United Kingdom is. The U.S. strategy of dividing Europe (the EU) and Russia has borne fruit. Especially the German-Russian relations, who could be described as cooperative, if not amicable, about a decade ago (when Vladimir Putin spoke, mostly in German, in the Bundestag in 2001), lie in complete tatters, as Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) and her foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier (SPD), chose to unequivocally side with Washington.

Vladimir Putin addressing the Bundestag, Berlin on September 25, 2001, mostly in German

Almost exactly four months ago, on November 21, 2013, the protests soon known as „Maidan“ or „Euromaidan“ started when thousands of people, some primarily out of anger at Victor Yanukovich's government for its oligarchic character, some primarily out of their pro-Western or pro-EU stance, and some out of anti-Russian nationalism, rallied on the Independence Square (Maidan Nezaleshnosti) in the Ukrainian capital Kiev. Nine years after a previous series of protests in 2004 in Ukraine, dubbed Orange Revolution, those protests were triggered by the refusal of then-President Viktor Yanukovich to sign an association agreement with the European Union. The protests, directed not only against the pro-Russian policies of Yanukovich, but also against the economic plight of the country, continued for three months, well into the new year, 2014, until an escalation into more severe violence took place, and subsequently, triggered by that escalation, a revolutionary upheaval shook the political foundations of the country, torn between East and West. Right-wing extremists increasingly took over the Maidan, who had consisted of people of mixed allegiances previously. The first fatalities came on February 18 and the following days: about 100 people were killed in clashes between police and protesters, or by snipers (whose affiliation, first believed to be pro-goverment, has recently become less clear). International diplomacy, that had been rather inactive until then, finally tried to solve the conflict; the foreign ministers of France, Germany and Poland brokered a deal, including a snap presidential election, between the Yanukovich government and opposition leaders, which they agreed upon on February 21. However, the more radical elements from the right wing, who had hijacked the leadership of Maidan, didn't accept the deal and ousted the president in a coup, only a day later, on February 22. The newly-formed government that was set up consists of moderate (neo-)liberals, but also of right-wing extremists of the anti-Russian „Svoboda“ party. The protected status of Russian as a minority language was scrapped, angering the pro-Russian or ethnically Russian population in Eastern Ukraine and on the Crimea Peninsula, giving Russia a pretense to get involved not only politically, but militarily.

The host country of the Sochi Winter Olympics in early and mid-February that were overshadowed by the escalation in Kiev, saw its geopolitical interests, i.e. its ecomomic hegemony in Ukraine and the continued existence of its naval base in Sevastopol in Crimea, endangered by the anti-Russian coup in Kiev, and, almost immediately after the Games were over, moved to take the peninsula, largely (70%) populated by ethnic Russians, (back) into its territory, in late February and early March, in a parallel operation of military invasion and political annexation. Russia was welcomed by an autonomous, anti-Maidan government that had taken over power on Crimea. A referendum set up after the de-facto invasion overwhelmingly supported Russia's move, “bringing back Crimea to its mother country”.

The same way Yanukovich had been ousted by force, despite the diplomatic agreement reached just hours before, and a parliament “formally“ voting him out under the pressure of armed neo-Nazi Right Sector thugs, the Crimean population “formally“ voted under the barrel of Russian or pro-Russian soldiers' guns to join the Russian Federation. Two acts of force, that were backed by “legal“ legitimatory acts after the fact.

EU High Representative Catherine Ashton, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, and French foreign secretary Laurent Fabius in Paris, March 5, 2014

But how was this reported and assessed by most European and U.S. politicians and in some (or most) media (with a few exceptions, especially on the Left)? Unbelievably one-sided - apparently “some are more equal than others”. U.S. Foreign Secretary John Kerry made a laughing stock out of himself by uttering in all seriousness, with a completely straight face: ”You just don’t in the 21st century behave in 19th century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped up pretext”. To repeat, this was meant in a serious way. The U.S. must know about this, because when it comes to invading other countries on dubious grounds and without broad international support, they certainly know their stuff, most recently in the Iraq War at the beginning of the 21st century that Kerry mentioned. Destabilizing countries and regions, specifically those who are not “market-friendly” yet, is the favourite hobby of neo-cons like Victoria Nuland, the assistant foreign secretary of State "for Europe and Eurasian affairs", who gained prominence in Europe for saying “fuck the EU”, uttering in a Freudian slip, the U.S. attitude towards Brussels' “foreign policy” in Ukraine and elsewhere, namely that it should not exist independently of U.S. interests.

Whereas Putin is no doubt an authoritarian, undemocratic president, not far short of a dictator, the new Ukrainian government, that the EU just signed the association agreement with, is a government in which right-wing extremists of the Svoboda party run crucial ministries, such as defense; Svoboda's leader, Oleh Tyahnybok, has openly invoked hatred against Russians, Jews and Germans. Neo-fascist or at least right-wing extremist parties are also in power in countries that are already EU members, most prominently in Hungary, and have been in the past, e.g. in Austria from 2000 to 2008. Bulgarian president Rossen Plevnelyev (of the GERB party, a conservative party, member of the European People's Party fraction in Brussels, i.e. affiliated with Merkel's CDU), apparently a parrot of Germany and Austria (and dependent on their economic clout within the EU) and a fan of NATO, had the nerve to dismiss the fact that right-wing extremist nationalists are in power in Kiev as “Russian propaganda” echoed by “controlled” media allegedly “bought by Gazprom”, in a talk on the “prospects of Southeastern Europe from the perspective of Bulgaria”, at Vienna's Diplomatic Academy on Friday (as if Western media was not “controlled” at all). He pointed out the breach of the Budapest Memorandum on Security, signed between the U.S., the U.K., Russia and the Ukraine in 1994, by Russia's “Crimvasion”, but e.g. failed to mention that his country had supported the Iraq War, that was doubtful in its legality, to put it mildly, in 2003. He also failed to mention that the association agreement is basically a dictate by the IMF and the World Bank, to impose a neo-liberal agenda and austerity on Ukraine with no commitment on future membership of Ukraine (or at least lifting visa restrictions for Ukrainians) on the part of EU, in return for “economic and financial aid” by these actors, and that people on Crimea, now Russians (at least from Moscow's point of view), enjoy higher salaries and pensions than they would under the Kiev government.