Ban Ki Moon: Israel ist verantwortlich

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Erstellt am Samstag, 01. August 2015 11:22

UN-Generalsekretär Ban Ki-moon verurteilte den offenbar von radikalen jüdischen Siedlern verübten Anschlag, bei dem ein palästinensisches Kleinkind gestorben war, scharf.

Für den jüngsten Brandanschlag im Westjordanland fand UN-Generalsekretär Ban Ki Moon deutliche Worte: Es handle sich um eine "heimtückische Terrorattacke", dessen Verantwortlichen umgehend zur Rechenschaft gezogen werden müssten, erklärte Ban am UN-Sitz in New York. Er machte Israels Siedlungspolitik für den Tod eines Kleinkindes bei dem Anschlag mitverantwortlich.

"Die Abwesenheit eines politischen Prozesses und Israels illegale Siedlungspolitik sowie die harsche und unnötige Praxis, palästinensische Häuser zu zerstören, haben gewaltsamen Extremismus auf beiden Seiten befördert", sagte Bans Sprecher Stephane Dujarric. Radikale jüdische Siedler seien für ihre Gewalttaten oft nicht ausreichend bestraft worden.
http://www.freunde-palaestinas.de/palaestina-heute/2345-ban-ki-moon-israel-ist-verantwortlich.html

German Know-Nothings Today and The Refugees By Victor Grossman

"... too few (people) realize that the wars which force so many (refugees) to risk their lives in leaky death traps were caused or armed by the major western powers in Bagdad, Kabul and Aleppo, or that the poverty sending Africans along the same route derives from giant, lasting exploitation, with cheap exports of “northern“ goods destroying the livelihoods of small farmers, tailors and other craftsmen, forcing them... across the deserts to Libya, where warplanes of the great powers created the chaos conducive to today’s racketeering boat-dealers."

Berlin Bulletin No. 96, August 1 2015

“I don’t know.” Those words, often repeated 160-odd years ago in the USA, earned the gang of those using them the nickname “Know Nothing Party”. Those were no expressions of intellectual modesty; party doings were secret, so members were not supposed to disclose anything about them, but just say “I don’t know”. Their patriotic title was actually “American Party” but many members truly knew almost nothing except that they hated immigrants, especially Catholic Germans and Irish, and wanted to bar them from entry, from citizenship and from the vote. This uplifting program, including violent attacks on those fleeing famine in Ireland or repression in Germany after a lost revolution, won the “Know-Nothings” by 1856 eight state governorships, five seats in the US Senate and forty-three in the House of Representatives. 

Today we are also blessed with Know-Nothings – in many countries. We hear similar views in London and Paris, in Amsterdam and Copenhagen, in Munich and Berlin. And we hear of results worse than in 1855 in Maryland or Massachusetts: of desperate misery in the “Jungle” of Calais or at the Italian-French border, of broken windows and flaming roofs in refugee hostels in more and more German towns. Such attacks, vicious graffiti, insulting hog carcasses, increasingly, Molotov cocktails as well, numbered 173 in Germany alone in the first half of 2015, almost three times the number in 2014.

No-one can deny that serious problems exist. Refugees today are not from Ireland or Germany, now one of their main goals; 160,000 applied here for asylum by June 30th and the numbers are increasing. Very many are fleeing war zones, their direct dangers and their hunger and destruction – people from Afghanistan, Iraq, Gaza, Turkey, Sudan and South Sudan. Hunger and destitution play key roles for many from African countries, often paired with repression. Then there are those from Bulgaria, Rumania and the countries carved out with the dismemberment of Yugoslavia. These ”Eastern Balkan” asylum-seekers are mostly Roma (“Gypsies”), discriminated against nearly everywhere, pressed into miserable schools, largely bound to the worst of jobs or none at all, subject to hatred and often violent attacks. All the refugees want only a chance to earn a living, care for their families, return where possible or to find peaceful new homes. 

Germany was often faced by waves of newcomers, not only in past centuries. Millions of ethnic Germans, forced to leave Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary after 1945, faced difficult, often frosty receptions in places where they were resettled. Then huge sums were invested to build up West Germany and workers from Spain, Italy and then Turkey were “imported” by government agreement, especially after 1961, when the Wall prevented further recruitment of East Germans. Most of these nicely titled “guest workers” were given heavy and dirty jobs, on shift work and assembly lines, and their employment helped keep wages down in Germany while lessening unemployment and political radicalization in their home countries. The program ended in 1973; almost all 14 million returned home; two million stayed, grew roots, fetched and raised families and are now in their second and third generations. But the integration process is far from concluded and was complicated in the early 1990’s by German unification – or annexation. There was nasty violence against people with different colors, clothes and languages, by West Germans but even worse by East Germans suddenly deprived of their jobs, less accustomed to many nationalities hence more easily misguided in their frustration and disappointment to attack peaceful, industrious people they were led to see as intruders.

The situation cooled somewhat after 2000. But today, with large new numbers arriving, it is again threatening, indeed very threatening. Despite some people’s theories, however, not all Germans are the same! Many feel great sympathy toward them after the terrible scenes of warfare in Syria and Iraq or the terrible tragedies of capsized vessels and lost human beings in the stormy Mediterranean. Perhaps some recalled their own travails. In addition to many who accept the newcomers with at least mental welcome mats, not a few offer food, clothing, toys and personal care to help them settle at least temporarily. Thousands, especially young people, demonstrate in their defense, march with “Welcome” signs, and defiantly confront that other contingent – the modern Know-nothings. 

However, as more and more are assigned to city boroughs, small towns, even villages, as container homes are erected and even school gymnasiums get filled with cots or mattresses, it becomes easier to stir up hatred, spread fear of disease or crime and warn of dangers to schoolchildren. Public aid sums are falsely magnified to encourage envy. Donald Trump’s vicious words about Mexicans or pictures of anti-alien vigilantes in the US-Southwest can give a hint of this. But very icy fears are bor of recollections of the not so distant German past, of similar visages and bulging, shaven napes. 

Among such German Know-Nothings are still the Pegida demonstrators with their “anti-Islamic” shouts and banners. Nationally more organized are those in the Alternative for Deutschland party (AfD), which recently ousted its moderately far right leader and moved even further to the racist right; the split cut its poll numbers to 3-4 %, which would at least keep it out of the Bundestag. The older National Democratic Party (NPD), no longer seated in Saxony’s legislature but very present in its main districts, has now been augmented by a newer group called the Third Way, a mix of violence-prone neo-Nazis which has spread from Bavaria to the eastern Brandenburg -  and of course Saxony.

Though small in number, they are clever in stirring fear and resentment, especially when those responsible for bringing in refugees fail to discuss and explain the move to local residents. Freital near Dresden, in GDR days a flourishing steel town, has been plagued for weeks by noisily menacing rallies led by such right-wing forces. The police hold them back from the hotel assigned to asylum-seekers, but just barely; at a public meeting those supporting the refugees were booed and denied the word, including Saxony’s Interior Minister, who as mayor in another town once took a strong stand on the issue, but more recently, like his boss at the helm in Saxony, often seems nearly tongue-tied. Freital’s mayor, on the other hand, was anything but tongue-tied during his election campaign when he demanded “sanctions against the swarming, violent asylum-seekers…adventurers coming to Germany to live a life of ease at the cost of the community”. All three politicians are from the ruling Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the party of Angela Merkel. 

One city councilor, a leader of the LINKE (Left) party who took a courageous stand for the refugees, awoke one night when his car exploded and burnt. Threats mailed to him had been dismissed by the police. In Meissen, to the north of Dresden, threats to a building being repaired for use by the new arrivals were similarly dismissed. It was also wrecked by fire. 

German politics are again split. With a low birthrate and sinking population, new people are needed by many corporations, to whom national background is of little importance. Upright democratic words come easily to the tongue-tips of politicians – if they want them. But above all the demands of working people must be contained, and how better than, despite all doubletalk, to let them be misled into fighting not the big firms but those “greedy foreigners” – whether Greeks in Athens or Syrians in Dortmund? New laws now demonstrate this bipolarity; refugees who have lived here four to six years, if they speak German and have jobs, have better chances to remain, which is humane. But for those refugees still outside the borders it will be tougher. 

Perhaps not for all of them. Qualified engineers, doctors and other desirable professionals will now have better chances, for they are needed. The right-wing Bavarian leader Horst Seehofer had a new plan, now being copied elsewhere. Sort out those from the “East Balkans” with little hopes of acceptance, keep them in gyms or tents and throw them out speedily. Only a few on the Left or some Greens have noted the possible resemblance of such “Gypsy camps” with those of the Nazis before the trains brought the Roma to Auschwitz. 

No, it’s not the same. But too few realize that the wars which force so many to risk their lives in leaky death traps were caused or armed by the major western powers in Bagdad, Kabul and Aleppo, or that the poverty sending Africans along the same route derives from giant, lasting exploitation, with cheap exports of “northern“ goods destroying the livelihoods of small farmers, tailors and other craftsmen, forcing them into giant, hopeless slums and from there across the deserts to Libya, where warplanes of the great powers created the chaos conducive to today’s racketeering boat-dealers. s.

The solutions will not be easy. They demand peace and justice in the Near East, without western armies and armaments, they demand truly independent, healthy development in Africa, north and south, and fair, humane treatment of everyone living in a country, regardless of origin. No, not easy!

The old Know-Nothings in the USA, with nothing to offer voters except hatred, were soon overrun by the approaching Civil War, though the human problems still remain. In Europe, especially in Germany, the forces misusing the problems of properly treating such increasingly desperate “undesirables” represent a growing threat, far more dangerous than the old Know-Nothings, and actively awaiting their chances – in all continents.   

America’s Barbaric Logic of Hiroshima 70 Years On

Finian CUNNINGHAM | 02.08.2015 | 00:00

Even if we accept that there was a plausible military imperative to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki – to bring about a swift defeat of Japan and thus an end to the Pacific War – the horror of civilian death toll from those two no-warning aerial attacks places a disturbing question over the supposed ends justifying the means. But what if the official military rationale touted by US President Harry Truman and his administration turns out to be bogus? That is, the real reason for dropping the A-bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki 70 years ago on August 6 and 9, 1945, had little to do with defeating imperial Japan and saving the lives of American troops. What if the real reason was the deliberate and cold-blooded demonstration of raw military power by Washington in order to warn the Soviet Union of America’s postwar demarcation of global hegemony? That leads to the most chilling conclusion – a conclusion far worse than the official American narrative would have us believe. For it means that the act of obliterating up to 200,000 Japanese civilians was an event of premeditated mass murder whose intent was solely political. Or, in other words, an ineffable act of state terrorism committed by the United States. This conjecture about the ulterior motive for the American atomic bombing of Japan has been around for many years. In January 1995, the New York Times reported: «Indeed, some historians contend that the bombing was not aimed so much at the wartime enemy Japan as at the wartime ally Soviet Union, delivered as a warning against postwar rivalry». With complacent equivocation, the New York Times did not follow through on the horrendous implications of its own partial admission for why the atomic bombs were dropped. If the official US calculation was indeed «a warning against postwar rivalry» to the Soviet Union, then that makes the act an indefensible political decision that had nothing to do with a moral imperative of promptly ending a war. It was, as noted, a supreme act of terrorism. Professsor Gar Alperovitz – one of several American historians – has over the decades compiled a compelling case that the Truman administration did in fact make the decision to use the A-bombs as a political weapon against the Soviet Union. The author of ‘The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb’ wrote: «Though most Americans are unaware of the fact, increasing numbers of historians now recognise that the United States did not need to use the atomic bomb to end the war against Japan in 1945. Moreover, this essential judgment was expressed by the vast majority of top American military leaders in all three services in the years after the war ended: Army, Navy and Army Air Force». Alperovitz cites then US Secretary of War Henry L Stimson and such military luminaries as General Dwight Eisenhower and Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral William D Leahy who were explicitly opposed to using the A-bomb on Japan. Eisenhower said it was»completely unnecessary» while Leahy noted: «The use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender». This points to covert political decision-making during the critical three-week period between the Potsdam conference (July 17-August 2 1945) and the dropping of the A-bombs on Japan. During that period it appears that Truman and his aides decided in secret that the then Soviet wartime ally was to be henceforth made the postwar enemy. The Cold War was being formulated. Bear in mind that for months before Potsdam, the US and Britain were appealing to Russian leader Josef Stalin to join the Pacific War soon after the defeat of Nazi Germany. Two months after the Third Reich was vanquished in May 1945, the Potsdam conference between the Big Three allies achieved the much-anticipated commitment from Stalin to redeploy the Red Army against Japan. The Soviet Union was scheduled to officially enter the Pacific War on August 15. As it turned out, Stalin ordered the Red Army into Manchuria on August 8, a week ahead of the scheduled offensive. As Harry Truman gleefully wrote in a private letter during Potsdam this commitment from the Soviet Union meant that «the Japs were finished». However, the successful testing of the first A-bomb by the United States in the desert of New Mexico on July 16 – only the day before begining the Potsdam summit – was a point of no return. With this awesome new weapon, US planners must have quickly realised that they could finish the war against Japan without the Soviet Union entering the Pacific theatre, by dropping the A-bomb. But the primary US objective wasn’t to finish the Pacific War per se. American and British military chiefs and intelligence were convinced that the mere entry of Russia into the war against Japan would precipitate the latter’s surrender. And besides the American invasion of mainland Japan was not planned to take place until November 1945. It seems clear then that the Truman administration rushed ahead to use its new atomic weapon on Japan because its concern was to circumscribe any advance by the Soviet Union in Asia-Pacific. Not only was the Red Army poised to take Manchuria and the Korean Peninsula but mainland Japan as well. Hiroshima and Nagasaki – two civilian centres of no military value – were thus selected as the venues for demonstrating the most spellbinding act of terror, not to an all but defeated Japan, but to the Soviet Union. The atomic bombing of Japan was therefore not the last act of the Pacific War, as the official American narrative contends, but rather it was the first, brutal act of the nascent Cold War by the US towards Soviet Russia. That puts the horrific events in an altogether different criminal light. Because the atomic bombings can then be seen as a deliberate act of mass murder for no other strategic reason other than to intimidate a perceived geopolitical rival – Moscow. Seventy years on, history proves that this barbaric logic of the US ruling elite still holds. After the official end of the Cold War nearly a quarter of a century ago, Washington has evidently no intention of disarming its nuclear arsenal. In fact, the US government under President Barack Obama is planning to spend $355 billion over the next decade to upgrade its stockpile of some 5,000 nuclear warheads – each many times more powerful than the A-bombs that were originally dropped on Japan. Furthermore, Washington has offiicially declared Russia, along with China, as its top strategic enemy, as recent as this month, according to senior Pentagon figures. The unilateral withdrawal by the US from the Anti-Ballistic Missiles Treaty in 2002 and the ongoing expansion of US missile systems on Russia’s borders and in the Pacific with provocative reference to China are testimony to the inherent bellicose intent that resides in Washington. As with the first and only use of nuclear weapons 70 years ago, the US logic that led to the holocaust at Hiroshima and Nagasaki is a barbaric logic than pertains to this day. It is still being aimed at Russia, as it was seven decades ago. Only the full exposure and eradication of this uniquely American barbaric logic will lead to peaceful international relations.

source: http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2015/08/02/america-barbaric-logic-hiroshima-70-years-on.html

Greece – The Refugee Crisis and the Horror of Europe By Peter Koenig, July 31, 2015

Url of this article:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/greece-the-refugee-crisis-and-the-horror-of-europe/5466130

A voice from Hellas, Greece. According to UNHCR about 50 million refugees are on the move every day on our globe. This is most likely an understatement, as this figure doesn’t take into account what takes place in the almost hermetically closed-off Central Africa, Congo, Zaïre, where western corporations are exploiting for a pittance and with millions of slaves precious metals, uranium, hydrocarbons and rare earths – and where millions have died over the past ten years, by butcher regimes supported and armed by the west – and where millions are on the run.

The real figure of refugees on the run is easily 60 to 65 million; forced migrants in temporary camps, in transit to nowhere and under the most horrible human and abject hygienic conditions, no running water, hardly any medical attention, sparse food if any. At least a quarter of them originate in the Middle East.

And most, if not all of these tens of millions, are fleeing countries destroyed directly or by proxy by the US empire and its European vassals. They try to escape as their homes have been burned to the ground, their families in many cases decimated. They are under constant threat of being bombed, by the ISIS and sorts, all fully funded by Washington, the EU, Turkey, the Saudis, Qatar – and militarily supported and trained by the CIA, Pentagon and NATO. This is not new. It has been known for years. But known to whom? The truth does still not penetrate the brain of most people. – Why? – Because the west is totally brainwashed with lies and distortions by its own corporate presstitute media.

I fully subscribe to Andre Vltchek’s plea to the world – we must demand that at least public places like airports, railway stations, hotel lobbies switch channels from the bought rightwing, CNNs and BBCs of this world –to TeleSUR, CCTV, PressTV, RT and other emerging truth news channels. People must wake up. A growth swell of truth must engulf our western society – if we have any chance to be salvaged from ourselves.

When people are confused and ask in desperation – how to stop this flow of refugees? – The answer is simple:

stop the wars and conflicts, stop NATO; and for those who are NATO members like Greece and Turkey – quit NATO! – Stop the eternal war machine; stop the western business of killing – launch truth news against the propaganda lies, destroy them economically...

Yes you can! – boycott western economies. Join the peaceful eastern economies – the alliances of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization), consisting of Russia, China and most of the Central Asian States, as well as the EEU (Eurasian Economic Union) with their new financial development institutions, the AIIB (the new Chinese-funded Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank), as well as the NDB (the BRICS’ New Development Bank).

Today TeleSUR reports that Javier Couso, a member of the European Parliament from the Spanish United Left, was threatened with death for admonishing the EU for slandering Venezuela, for defending the truth about Venezuela! – At the same time it is reported that Greece’s PM Tsipras, traitor not only of the Greek people, but of all of Europeans who strive to be free, is poised to sell the elite of the so-called ‘creditors’ (sic) – the troika – 1,200 of the Greek islands, as a fraction for paying off illegal debt! – Yes, totally illegal, as all contracts concluded under duress and corruption, as is the case with almost all of Greek’s debt – are void, null, illegal; and would be declared as such by any justinternational Court of Justice – if there is still something left like a just court of justice – that has not been corrupted by the west, or worse, whose judges are not yet coerced and threatened with their life if they deviate from the western norms and wants, irrespective of whether the law would stand behind them.

Dear Reader, this is as far as we have fallen since the ascent of neoliberalism in the last twenty-some years. No ethics, no moral, no law, just coercion for greed and ultimate hegemony – enslavement of the people while and after they are lulled and dulled with lies 24/7.

Dear Reader, dear Citizen of this World, dear Souls, Friends, Comrades – wake up! Wake up for your own sake, but also for the sake of solidarity and for the salvation of our planet, of our humanity! – There must be something badly wrong, if an EU parliamentarian who defends and proclaims the truth about a socialist country, Venezuela, which is denigrated, slandered and lied upon by the very European Commission, for propaganda and defeat – and the looting of its resources – if a representative of their own is threatened to death for telling the truth!

Friends – of this globe – there is something terribly wrong, if Greece, a member and brother of the very European Union, is forced to sell off its pristine islands to robbers, thieves, murderers, represented by entire governments and an assembly of governments called the EU! – Can you imagine! Selling your islands! – selling part of your country to settle illegal debt? – People, please wake up. Stop these crimes. NOW. – How? – By taking to the streets, by disobedience, by unlimited strikes, by staying home instead of going to work, by no more traveling, flying, no more consuming. Do whatever it takes to suffocate this killing system. – You are not lost. There is the East with another mindset, with peace and equality as an objective, with an alternative economic scheme, not based on destruction and dominance.

All the southern European countries that are being lynched to death by the world’s most horrendously deadly financial guns – the Zionist-run Wall Street and European banksters – would be more than welcome in this alliance that comprises more than 50% of the world population and controls more than one third of the globe’s economic output. Why accept the Washington-EU dictated financial waterboarding of the west? Economic terror – outright economic fascism? – Nobody needs the west. It’s an obsolete sinking ship.

People don’t know it. They are confused when they are told that the refugees – the endless and steadily growing flood of refugees – are the direct result of western destructive interventions in these peoples’ home countries – destroying not only their families, homes and employment – but also their hope for a decent life – their sense of living – not even living well, god forbid, just living a decent life, with food on the table, medical care and free education for their children; they had lives with rich cultures before the western killing machine destroyed their livelihoods for greed and hegemony. That’s what the West doesn’t know, because no presstitute media talks about it.

Greece is perhaps number one in receiving involuntary migrants, so called paperless refugees. At best (or worst) Greece and Italy compete for number one. But hardly anybody talks or writes about Greek refugees. – Why? – Because the western media, prostitutes to the western powers, cannot on the one hand help to financially strangle Greece to death, while also admitting that Greece, despite all its own misery still is a country with a sense of solidarity receiving thousands of refugees every day- so-called illegal immigrants, coming from countries illegally destroyed by the very west, mostly northern EU nations, Germany, France, UK, Netherlands, Belgium – the most vicious allies of Washington that refuses the most minimal shelter to those plundered and deprived souls, deprived by the west’s fascist war economies.

Greece and the refugees –most of them come from Turkey; many through Bodrum to the Greek Islands of Kos, Lesbos and Samos. Turkey is a hub – a sad hub – for about 2 million refugees, most of them, from Syria. Turkey has spent about 6 billion dollars for building and maintaining refugee camps. But, at the same time Turkey is in full connivance with Washington and the Saudis in funding the Jihadists, ISIS and whatever other pseudonyms they are given – to destroy Syria – to cause the flood of misery. Turkey is a shame.

Kos island hosts some 500-700 paperless migrants, in transit – in transit to where? – Some to Athens to refugee camps, some dream of going to Germany, France, Italy – they have no clue how unwelcome they are in those countries that helped destroy their homelands. In Kos, some 500 refugees from Syria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Sudan – live in an abandoned hotel “Captain Elias”. It is the epitome of misery; lack of hygiene, food, medical services – some volunteers come three times a week to help them clean the place, distribute food – a medical doctor shows up maybe once a week. The Greeks do what they can with their strangled economy.

Yesterday morning a little Iraqi boy of three years, let’s call him Tariq, has been found in a park in Kos, with his father. The boy has cancer – what doctors diagnose may be ‘terminal’. With the help of volunteer, Georgia, the boy was immediately delivered to the only local public hospital, where adequate treatment for his case cannot be obtained. If there is the slightest chance to save him, he will be airlifted to a northern European city, where all will be done to save him. Georgia and her friend Hara are accompanying this boy with all their heart and attention. May this be a sign of solidarity – a cry to open the eyes of Europe, that there is more to our human civilization than war, greed and destruction. There is a little human life to be saved – a symbol of our own fragile lives.

Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a former World Bank staff and worked extensively around the world in the fields of environment and water resources. He writes regularly for Global Research, ICH, RT, Sputnik News, TeleSur, The Vineyard of The Saker Blog, and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance.

Disclaimer: The contents of this article are of sole responsibility of the author(s). The Centre for Research on Globalization will not be responsible for any inaccurate or incorrect statement in this article.

Copyright © Peter Koenig, Global Research, 2015

Patriotismus und Internationalismus sind keine Gegensätze

Wider  den "antideutschen" Ungeist  

Ein Beitrag von Irene Eckert

UFA  in Bashkortostan. Das ist die Hauptstadt einer russischen Provinz von der jüngst weltpolitisch bedeutsame Signale ausgingen. Eine  Bezugnahme auf die hoffnungsstiftende BRICS/SCO-Tagung im russischen UFA ist überfällig. Von den Mainstream-Medien wurde das zukunftsweisende Ereignis ausgespart. Volker Bräutigam erstattete dagegen dankenswerter Weise eine Programmbeschwerde.
Ohne  Gewahrsein der gewichtigen tektonischen Verschiebungen in der  außereuropäisch-NATO-dominierten Welt kann lähmender Pessimismus sich ausbreiten.

Notwendig im Interesse des Friedens und der Arbeit für eine  menschliche Zukunft ist darüber hinaus eine  differenzierte Haltung zur  nationalen Identität und Souveränität. Wer den Frieden und den Menschheitsfortschritt herbeisehnt, braucht den Blick auf hoffnungsstiftende Kräfte. Wer einen Ausweg aus der  EU/SA Misere  sucht, braucht den Blick auf vorwärts weisende Entwicklungen. Er braucht ein sicheres  Bewusstsein seiner Selbst und der Möglichkeiten seines Volkes ebenso wie die Bezugnahme auf potentielle Verbündete.
Die Etikettierung und Ausgrenzung von Personen wie sie in völlig obsolet gewordenen, neu-alten  "Friedenszirkeln"  hierzulande seit längerer Zeit stattfindet,  ist nicht nur niederträchtig, sondern  ein zerstörerisches Mittel der politischen Scheinauseinandersetzung. Die Verunglimpfung von Personen als "Querfrontler", als Nationalisten, als potentielle Neonazis gar findet ihre Parallele in der gleichgerichteten Diffamierung unliebsamer Staaten und deren Vertreter. Man umgeht die inhaltliche Auseinandersetzung,  man bedarf keiner sachlichen Analyse konkreter Strategiefragen mehr, man zielt ad personam und entledigt sich so mühevoller Kleinarbeit. Man zielt auf Gefühle und meint so den Verstand außer Kraft setzen zu können.

Die nationale Frage

Die „nationale“ Frage wird zu diesem Zwecke von dem Imperialismus dienenden Kräften in sinnverkehrender Weise missbraucht.  Das Imperium zielt auf Zerschlagung der Nationalstaaten, ja die nationale Idee überhaupt ist ihm zuwider, soweit sie andere Länder betrifft. Intakte Staatengebilde, die auf gewachsene Identität ihrer Völker  gründen und daher  zum Widerstand gegen seine imperiale Anmaßung befähigt sind,  müssen  in seinem Herrschaftsinteresse zerschlagen werden. Das Konzept der nationalen Souveränität wird auf Grund dessen prinzipiell abgelehnt. Es steht  ja der imperialistischen Einmischung in die Angelegenheiten eigenständiger staatlicher Entitäten im Wege.  Eine ziemliche Verwirrung diesbezüglich lähmt infolge solch propagandistischer Einflussnahme die auch in unserem Volk steckende, potentiell einigende Kraft zur Abwehr interessierter Manipulation von oben und von außen.  Jeder Humanist wendet sich berechtigter Weise gegen neudeutsches NAZITUM. Das ist gut so, das ist notwendig. Aber nicht jeder, der ihn die Nähe der verbrecherischen Ideologie gerückt wird, hat solche Stigmatisierung verdient.
  Es kann aber  keine Breitenwirkung entfaltende Bewegung gegen die  immer weiter eskalierende Kriegsgefahr entstehen, solange Freund und Feind nicht klar erkannt und unterschieden werden, solange Opfer und Täter nicht klar unterscheidbar sind.

Auch Deutsche haben ein zu verteidigendes Vaterland


Wenn sich fortschrittlich  oder "links" dünkende Kreise meinen, Deutschland ein „zu verteidigendes Vaterland“ absprechen zu müssen,  dann  hat  das fatale Voraussetzungen und  entsprechend verheerende Folgen.  Es kommt solche Einstellung letztlich  aus  dem  Giftschrank der "Antideutschen". Diese aber sind rotlackierte NAZIS. Die Verkehrung der Begriffe stiftet Unheil. Dem "antideutschen" Unsinn ist mit aller Entschiedenheit entgegenzutreten ist. Denn um mit dem  deutschen Dichter Bert Brecht zu sprechen:

„ ...nicht über und nicht unter

Andern Völkern wolln wir sein

Von der See bis zu den Alpen

Von der Oder bis zum Rhein

Und weil wir dies Land verbessern

Lieben und beschirmen wir's

Und das Liebste mag's uns scheinen

So wie andern Völkern ihrs.“*

Diese Zeilen schrieb der Dichter der "Kinderhymne" in der DDR, wohin er nach dem US-amerikanischen Exil zurückkehrte. Sie gelten aber sinngemäß immer noch auch für unser wiedervereintes  Deutschland, das  wahnwitziger Weise neuerlich imperiale Größe anstrebt.

Das imperialistische Deutschland war weder das erste noch das letzte

Deutschland ist aber  nicht das erste und nicht das letzte imperialistische Zentrum der Geschichte. Sollten wir schon vergessen haben, was die Spanier mit dem Heraufdämmern der Neuzeit dem gesamten lateinamerikanischen Kontinent angetan haben oder ihre Erben die Briten gleich auf mehreren Kontinenten? Die deutschen KZs haben ihre Vorläufer etwa im britisch, belgisch, französisch kolonisierten Afrika und ihre Nachläufer im US-amerikanisch geführten Guantanamo, Baghram und Abu Ghraib, um nur einige der verheerendsten Auswüchse des US-Imperialismus zu nennen. Auch seien die Fußangeln der deutsch-imperialistischen Politik ins Bewustsein gehoben, die allerspätestens seit 1949 vom US-Imperialismus festgezurrt wurden. Ich meine sogar, dass derartige Abhängigkeiten bereits in der Folge des I.Weltkrieges eingetreten sind und dass der Aufstieg des deutschen Faschismus nicht ohne solch äußere Einmischung erfolgt ist. Ich verweise dazu etwa auf eine hochinteressante Broschüre von Oswald Garrison Villard „Shall We Rule Germany?“ (Sollen wir Deutschland regieren/beherrschen?) aus dem Jahre 1943 (!), erschienen in New York und vom Post War World Council herausgegeben. Dort wird sehr krititisch noch zu Roosevelts Zeiten von einem Parteigänger des NEW DEAL auf einschlägige Pläne des State Department Bezug genommen. Alles was dort warnend gesagt wird, ist inzwischen  so oder doch ähnlich eingetroffen, ja sinngemäß übertroffen worden. Washington „wusste“ damals schon, dass Hitler Selbstmord begehen würde und fasste selbstherrliche Pläne zur diktatorischen Unterwerfung und Gängelung Deutschlands und zur Vereinheitlichung Europas.

Wir Deutschen haben wie alle anderen Völker eine gemeinsame Geschichte und eine trennende. Uns gegen imperiale Bevormundung zu stellen ist bei uns ebenso wie überall auf der Welt vonnöten.

Wiederbelebung des deutschen Kulturgeistes nötig und möglich

Uns eint also  nicht nur die deutsche Sprache, die auch  in anderen Nationen geliebt und gesprochen wird  und deren  wunderbare Lieder  etwa ein nach der Heimat sich sehnender, ziemlich  verbürgerlichter Heinrich Heine zu uns aus Frankreich herübersang. Uns eint nicht nur das deutsche Kulturgut, das so unterschiedlich verankerte Geistesgrößen wie Goethe und Schiller, wie Lessing, Kleist und Kant, Hegel und Fichte, wie Thomas Mann und seine Brüder, Luther und Nietzsche, wie Anna Seghers und Bert Brecht, Lion Feuchtwanger und Günther Grass, um nur einige wenige zu nennen, beigesteuert haben und das auch anderswo geschätzt wird auf der Welt. Ähnliches gilt für die Baukunst, die Malerei und sowieso die Musik, zu der Deutsche maßgeblich beigetragen haben, eben so wie zur Entwicklung der Wissenschaft. Uns eint heute auch die Ablehnung der Hetze gegen Russland und die neuerliche Heraufbeschwörung eines Angriffskrieges. Vereinigend wirken  könnte  auch der Rekurs auf die Befreiungsbewegung gegen ausländische Besatzung zu Beginn des 19. Jahrhunderts und im Ansatz gegen die Ruhrbesatzung in den Zwanziger Jahren des folgenden Jahrhunderts. Auch in den diversen Widerstandsbewegungen zunächst gegen päpstliche Bevormundung, dann gegen die absolutistische Adelsherrschaft, später gegen den Faschismus waren klassenübergreifende Kräfte am Wirken. In visionärer Voraussicht waren die Vertreter der unteren Klassen immer führend und brachten die meisten Opfer.

Von deutschem Widerstandsgeistes in Geschichte und Gegenwart

Wir haben als Nation einen erheblichen Beitrag geleistet zur revolutionären Weltbewegung und einen entsprechend hohen Blutzoll bezahlt. Die ersten Opfer des Faschismus waren zehntausende Deutsche unterschiedlicher politischer Couleur in den Lagern, von denen Deutschland übersät war und jene Deutschen die schon früh ins Exil getrieben wurden. Auch jene, die nach Kriegende ihre Heimat verloren haben letztlich als Opfer des Faschismus zu gelten, der die ethnischen Säuberungen allerorten zu verantworten hat.

Wir können uns im Guten wie im Bösen durchaus mit anderen Völkern messen. Der Kampf der Klassen hat - wie überall - auch auf unserem Boden schlimm gewütet und sein Wüten wirkt bis heute nach , wirkt fort.

Für die opferreichen Schlachten des 'Kalten Krieges' sind deutsche Bürger, deutsche Parlamentarier und deren Regierungen ebenso wie viele andere mitverantwortlich. Führend in diesem Krieg war allerdings zu allen Zeiten die selbsternannte 'lead-nation', die derzeitige Führungsnation des Imperialismus und das sind noch immer die Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika. Die Welt ist übersät mit US-amerikanischen Militärbasen, von dort aus werden die Kriege in die Welt hineingetragen. Ramstein in Deutschland ermöglicht unter anderem die Drohnen-Kriegsführung und Stuttgart mit Africom die Kontrolle des afrikanischen Kontinents. Die Atomwaffen in Büchel gehören den Amerikanern und stehen unter deren Kontrolle. Der Verbleib Griechenlands in der EU und der NATO wird ebenso wie die von uns mitverantwortete (!) Kriegspolitik der Türken von den USA aus gesteuert, der wichtigesten Militärmacht der Erde. Dies gilt auch für die völkerrechtsverachtende Politik Israels. Natürlich tragen „wir“ die Verbrechen mit. Unser Regierungspersonal ist genau wie unsere Parlamentarier mitbeteiligt an Verbrechen der NATO, die unser Land völlig unhinterfragt mitträgt. Das ist anzuprangern. Aber wir sind keine Ausnahme, beileibe nicht. Die französische Kolonialmacht ist nicht besser. Das französische Volk inzwischen ziemlich mürbe gemacht. Anderswo geht es zugegeben kämpferischer zu. In unserer Nation wurde dem Widerstandswillen gegen imperialistische Politik durch vielerlei Tricks inzwischen ziemlich komplett der Garaus gemacht, vorübergehend. Aber das gilt mehr oder weniger halt auch für andere Nationen. So wie es ist aber, bleibt es niemals und wir können dazu einen Beitrag leisten.

Verteidigung des nationalen Erbes und der nationalen Souveränität

Zerschlagung des nationalen Erbes aller Völker ist die erklärte Politik des Imperiums. Die Berufung auf ein gemeinsames Erbe schafft nämlich Identitäten, schafft Kraftzentren, von denen aus der Widerstand angeleitet werden könnte. Das Imperium kann solches natürlich nicht dulden. Es muss dazwischen fahren. Teile und herrsche, divide et impera, heißt nach wie vor die Devise. Die versuchte Zerschlagung der Nationalstaaten, der Staatsidee überhaupt, des Souveränitätsgedankens, die Schaffung von Chaos (!) das ist der Kern der Strategie des PNAC, des Projekts für ein Neues Amerikanisches Jahrhundert, das ist Kagan und seine Frau Victoria Nuland etwa an führender Stelle.

Seien wir also vorsichtig bei unserer Kritik der Staatsidee und des Konzepts der Nation. Wohl temperierter Patriotismus ist nicht Chauvinismus. Chauvinismus ist ein Kennzeichen imperialer Überhebung, ein Ausdruck nationalistischen Größenwahns, der sich für einzigartig und unbesiegbar hält. Die Verteidigung nationaler Souveränität und der Stolz auf die Leistungen, die ein Volk im Laufe einer langen Geschichte erbracht hat, ist nicht ungesund und hat mit solchem Größenwahn nichts gemein. Ziehen wir also  die richtigen Lehren aus den Dokumenten der „Brüsseler Tagung“ von 1935. Lernen wir  aus den Empfehlungen etwa eines Georgie Dimitrov  oder Wilhelm Pieck und verteidigen wir Seite an Seite mit allen friedliebenden nationalen Kräften  über all auf der Erde das Völkerrecht auf nationale Selbstbestimmung und Frieden.

 „Frieden ist ein Menschenrecht“ Mairead Maguire, irische Friedensnobelpreisträgerin. 

Seien wir im genannten Sinne gute Patrioten und Internationalisten zugleich, das ist nicht nur  möglich, sondern  notwendig. 

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*Website mit diesem Bild

Hanns Eisler singt die Kinderhymne von Bertolt Brecht

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UN Srebrenica Resolution Vetoed by Russia (Lending Helping Hand to Those in Need)

Dmitry BABICH | 01.08.2015 | 00:00

The Republika Srpska (RS), populated by Orthodox Christians, has recently come under growing pressure from the United States and the European Union frowning on the decision taken by the country’s President Milorad Dodik to hold a referendum on the authority of Bosnia's national court over ethnic Serbs in September. Now it looks like Dodik has started to look for a middle of the road solution. He said in Belgrade that Republika Srpska is willing to talk about the referendum on the Court and Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina if the reasons for holding it disappear. Despite the President’s readiness to make concessions, the United States, the European Union and servile European politicians have no intention to forgive him or seek common ground. Western media openly call for Dodik’s resignation. The UN draft resolution describing the Bosnia war in 1995 as «genocide» was put forward by the United Kingdom. Under the circumstances, it would make the Republika Srpska an illegitimate entity to greatly weaken the position of President Dodik. If the Republic emerged in 1995 as a result of genocide, then there is no reason to treat its President and government with due respect. If the people of the Republic were involved in the massacre of Muslim men and boys during the 1995 war, they do not deserve a fair treatment.  In case the referendum is held, the West will have to take into consideration the views of Dodik and other citizens who believe that Muslim judges, who lived in Sarajevo and its outskirts to witness the inter-confessional conflict of 1992-1995, should not be allowed to preside over cases in the RS. The referendum will exclude their participation. Nevertheless, there are many people who strongly oppose the idea of plebiscite. They would have welcomed the adoption of the genocide resolution. Taking it all into consideration, Russia has taken the right decision to veto the Srebrenica resolution which mentions the word «genocide» 35 times describing the actions of Bosnian Serbs in 1992-1995 while the word 'reconciliation' is used only three times in the text. It makes one come to conclusion that the goal was not to reconcile the sides and punish the culprits but weaken the position of President Dodik who has fallen out of favor with the West. There's more to it than meets the eye – other peaceful and civilized European nations could share the fate of Bosnia. The RS is not the only target for the EU attempts to topple an «inconvenient» government. The governments of Greece and Hungary are threatened as well. In the heat of political debates on debt problem European Parliament President Martin Schulz said his faith in the Greek government had reached «rock bottom,» and that he hopes it resigns after the referendum. According to him, «New elections would be necessary, if the Greek population votes for the reform program and remaining in the euro zone and Mr. Tsipras duly resigns. But the time until the election would have to be bridged with a technocratic government, which we could keep negotiating with. If this temporary government can come to a reasonable agreement with the creditors, Syriza’s time would be over. Then Greece would have another chance.» https://global.handelsblatt.com/edition/211/ressort/politics/article/alexis-tsipras-is-misleading-people Nobody in the West makes Schulz remember that Greece and Hungary are sovereign nations and members of the European Union. It’s up to them to decide what kind of government – technocratic or not – they want. Even less intrusive remarks on the part of Russia would have provoked protests on the part of EU which would inevitably point at «Russian imperialism». The European Union and the United States get off scot free with whatever they do. Gregor Gysi, an MP and a key politician of the political party The Left (Die Linke), a party which emerged in parts from the old East German communist party, the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), is the only prominent German politician to consistently express his indignation at Germany’s interference into the internal affairs of Greece. Gregor Gysi accused the German government of pursuing regime change in Athens. «You want to get rid of the leftist government in Greece, that is your goal», he said. So the Republika Srpska was not the only one Russia lent a helping hand to by demonstrating its opposition to the use of term «genocide» in relation to the activities of what they call «Serbian soldiery» committed in 1992-1995. Moscow came to the rescue of some Central and South European states the European Union imposes its will on. Actually, by vetoing the resolution Russia helped them to remain sovereign nations. These countries are potential Russian allies. Hungary is a good example. Its Prime Minister Victor Orban is painted as a xenophobe and admirer of the Hungarian fascist regime of the 1940s. A smear campaign is launched to denigrate him. European leaders don’t shy away from outright blackmail. In October 2014 US Chargés d'affaires Andre Goodfriend said in a statement issued by the embassy that the US canceled the visas for some people who belonged to Orban’s inner circle on the basis of «credible information that those persons are either engaging in or benefiting from corruption.» Orban has so far resisted the pressure. As one can see, the attitude of the United States and the European Union is in many respects similar when it comes to the above mentioned countries. They both use the same methods and rhetoric, they both scorn the law and tramp on human rights. Greece and Hungary aside, they have recently made an attempt to topple the government of Macedonia. The action was thinly veiled as «people’s protests». Americans brazenly intruded into the affairs of Hungary, Greece, Macedonia and the part of Bosnia and Herzegovina populated by Serbs acting with cruelty and disrespect for law. Russia spares no effort to make its stance known and understood. Its policy has nothing to do with the attempts to oppress East European countries or draw them into the Russian «sphere of influence» against their will. Quite to the contrary, Russia helps them to defend their independence. Serbia and the Serbian part of Bosnia and Herzegovina are good examples. Russia responded to their requests and protected them by vetoing the UN resolution. Moscow invites Macedonia and Hungary to take part in the implementation of Turkish Stream project and thus get access to cheap energy sources. This is a good alternative to what the United States can offer.

Tags: UN Balkans Bosnia and Herzegovina Republika Srpska Russia Serbia Source: http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2015/08/01/un-srebrenica-resolution-vetoed-by-russia-lending-helping-hand-to-those-in-need.htm

South China Sea and Geopolitics of Islands

Leonid SAVIN | 31.07.2015 | 00:00

On 22 July, the Chinese press reported that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army is carrying out ten days of manoeuvres in the waters off the eastern island of Hainan in the South China Sea. China’s Maritime Safety Administration has stated that during the exercises, «no vessel is allowed to enter the designated maritime areas». Commenting on the event, Xu Liping, an expert on Southeast Asian affairs at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, noted that China is carrying out the training exercises legitimately within its territory and they have «nothing to do with the tension in the South China Sea... It is a normal exercise of sovereignty. China wants to modernise its navy to make sure it has the capability to protect its islands and waterway». Shortly before the exercises, meanwhile, the new commander of the US Pacific Fleet, Admiral Scott Swift, carried out a seven-hour surveillance flight over the South China Sea. On Monday 20 July, China’s Ministry of Defence expressed its opposition to America’s frequent surveillance missions that it believes are too close to China’s borders and seriously undermining Sino-US trust. The old debate about who owns the region’s islands has become a hot topic in numerous political publications once more, especially in the US. Why is the subject, which is sensitive for many Southeast Asian countries, being actively stirred up once again and the situation being inflamed, primarily through the military presence of a country thousands of kilometres away? The US carried out a series of naval exercises in the region in 2015 and intends to carry out several more soon. Obama’s «Pacific axis», which has resulted in the redeployment of a significant proportion of the US Navy to the region, as well as the Marine Corps and Air Force stationed at bases in countries that are allies of Washington, is also directly related to China’s maritime strategy and the creation of logistics posts on previously barren reefs and rocky islets. The fact is that in April 2015, Beijing successfully completed the construction of infrastructure on an artificial island in the Spratly Islands, thus virtually designating the previously uninhabitable area its sovereign zone. China declared its right to these islands in an official address to the UN Secretary General back in May 2009 and its intentions are obvious. With its growing economy and increasing energy and raw material exports shipped through the Malacca Strait, Beijing needs to create strongholds in the sea to insure against possible risks. The «string of pearls» strategy, also referred to as the water-based alternative to the Great Silk Road, is meant to solve the problem by repeating the historical experience of many other countries, including Great Britain and the United States. On the issue of the islands’ ownership, Beijing, along with other regional players, has made use of the ancient law of Terra Incognita in the assimilation of these territories. On Gaven reef, for example, an island has literally grown up out of the water over the past year and a half or so. Modern technological infrastructure answering the logistical needs of such a large country as China has also appeared on other reefs. Nevertheless, it is obvious that the US has no intention of allowing China to strengthen its strongholds and is getting ready to oppose it using military force. This is expected to involve not just the US Navy and Air Force (in accordance with an approved strategy for a possible war with China called «Air-Sea Battle»), but also the US Army. In the guidelines for the US Army’s Strategy in Asia 2030-2040 published in 2014 by the RAND Corporation, it says that America’s military strategy should be aimed at the comprehensive containment of China, including with the involvement of America’s regional partners. The Pentagon has mapped out a special Southeast Asia Maritime Security Initiative, on which it is planning to spend $425 million. Washington is also encouraging the development of bilateral relations between its satellites for the purposes of opposing China. An example is the joint declaration and a number of other documents signed between the Philippines and Japan on 4 June 2015 reflecting not just the intention of both sides to join forces in the face of new challenges, but also to help the US in every way possible, including providing access to its bases and appropriate security. Some experts believe that the US is weak and is acting reactively, while China is using a window of opportunity and is allegedly behaving aggressively by carrying out a policy of expansionism. They are calling on the US to recruit Japan, Indonesia, Australia and India to stand against China. Although they have nothing to do with the disputes in the South China Sea, they surround the region from the outside and are major players in their own right. The Pentagon is also increasing its presence on the territories of all its partners in the region – Singapore, Australia, South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Taiwan and the island of Guam (there is also a British base in Brunei). Objective facts show, however, that China is merely a scapegoat, a role it has been given with a helping hand from the West and the world’s media. According to a publication specialising in international relations in the Asia-Pacific Region, China is far from the only country that has unilaterally marked its territory among the Spratly Islands. Vietnam occupies 21 features, five of which are natural islands and the rest rocks or sand banks. Of these, 17 have territorial status. The so-called Southwest Cay was seized from the Philippines in 1975 and the Philippines now own nine, one of which is an underwater reef. There were also plans to upgrade the airstrip on Thitu Island. In 2014, seeing how quickly China was erecting a number of facilities, the Philippines called for a moratorium on construction in the South China Sea. In 1983, Malaysia seized five islands while Taiwan seized just one – Itu Aba – investing $100 million to restore the infrastructure of the port and the airstrip and placing armed forces there. Work was fully completed on the island in February 2015. There is also Brunei, but, according to official data, it is only used as a platform for the extraction of oil and gas on the shelf of the South China Sea. It is extremely telling that before 2014, when China began to construct a 3 km airstrip on Fiery Cross Reef in the southern part of the Spratly Islands, Beijing did not have an airstrip on the islands at all. Construction also began in 2014 on the southern Johnson South Reef. And so the Chinese are just repeating what other countries have already done, countries whose actions did not arouse the indignation of the US. Incidentally, the Chinese have always stressed that they have no intention of carrying out any kind of aggressive actions in the South China Sea and hope that Obama is not planning any acts of provocation either. However, the US is constantly pouring oil on the fire, not just through its military and intelligence-gathering operations, but rhetorically. Thus the US State Department, represented by the State Secretary and other representatives, have repeatedly stated that freedom of navigation in the South China Sea is in the national interest of the US, a statement that is painfully reminiscent of former US president Jimmy Carter’s statement about the Persian Gulf in 1980, when he threatened to use military force if US interests were threatened. At the same time, and with the cynicism typical of American politicians, the US is declaring that it does not need to ratify the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea to defend its national interests in the South China Sea. Although according to its action plan in the region, Washington will support any lawsuits against China in the arbitration courts. If you bear in mind that 60 per cent of world trade traffic passes through the region, as well as Washington’s continuing attempts to promote its Trans-Pacific Partnership project, then it is unlikely that the US will stop its acts of provocation and China will be left with no choice but to strengthen its security.

Tags: Asia-Pacific China Malaysia Philippines US Vietnam Source:http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2015/07/31/south-china-sea-and-geopolitics-of-islands.html