Until international justice proves “blind to political maneuvering”

It will forever suffer “virus of illegitimacy”

By Carolyn Bennett (incl. news editing)

The rule of law cannot exist until and unless all  without exception submit to the rule of law

Exhibit A: Charles Taylor at the ICC viewed by Robtel Neajai Pailey

ICC Pre-trial chamber

“What Charles Taylor’s verdict signifies for me is the need to reconfigure Africa’s domestic systems of justice so that we don’t have to rely on the West to judge when, where, and under what circumstances we can punish for transgressions that we deem unacceptable,” the Liberian scholar, Robtel Neajai Pailey, wrote yesterday at Pambazuka News.

“If a mob can stealthily execute an alleged rogue for stealing a loaf of bread from a local market anywhere on the continent, then surely we can channel that kind of misappropriated anger and violence to constructively tackle the most egregious criminals who break the public trust.

Surely we can ensure that wielding money and power and influence cannot cloak a common criminal from facing the full weight of the law, no matter who she or he is.”

International Criminal Court 

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is the first permanent international judicial body capable of trying individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes when national courts are unable or unwilling to do so.

Yesterday the Court found former Liberian president Charles Taylor guilty of aiding and abetting acts of terrorism, murder, violence to life, health or physical well being of persons, rape, sexual slavery, outrages upon personal dignity, violence to life, health and physical or mental well being of persons, other inhumane acts, a crime against humanity, conscripting or enlisting children under the age of 15 years into the armed forces, enslavement, and pillage. At the end of May, the Court will announce Taylor’s sentence and he will be moved to a prison in Britain.

Former UK and U.S. (Blair-G.W. Bush)
heads of state
Malaysian tribunal found
Bush and Blair guilty of
committing crimes against humanity 
during the Iraq war

The rhetoric of the prosecution in the Charles Taylor case suggests theoretical agreement on an international level with his position. However, in response to an apparent selective use or abuse a judicial system, Robtel Neajai Pailey continues, “International justice is clearly blind to the atrocities committed by Western agents as well as non-Western countries that wield international clout or power.

Russia, China and the United States never ratified the International Criminal Court because they were concerned that their nationals could be held accountable for crimes committed in other countries.

In May 2009, backed by India, Russia and a majority of Asian, African and Latin American member states, Sri Lanka successfully organized a counter resolution [and] a UN resolution accused the administration of war crimes.”

Exhibit B: criminal West, convenient allies

Lawlessness, impunity, ‘select justice,’ refusal to submit to rule of law

In early April, according to a Press TV report, the International Criminal Court announced its refusal “to investigate the Israeli regime’s war crimes in the Gaza Strip during Tel Aviv’s December 2008-January 2009 offensives against the populated enclave.” The reasons reportedly given by the Court were that Palestine was not an official state and the ICC had no jurisdiction over the Palestinian territories.

That December-January Gaza War executed by the Israelis “killed more than 1,400 Palestinians and inflicted a damage of more than $1.6 billon on the already impoverished people of the Gaza Strip.” The Palestinian Authority has persisted in its plea to the ICC for justice. Some major human rights groups have accused Israel of committing war crimes during the invasion.

“… It is not enough,”  Pailey says, “for the likes of Taylor, Bashir, Kony and other Africans to be called before an international tribunal.” As argued by Charles Taylor’s lawyer, Courtenay Griffiths, “all who commit atrocities around the world deserve the same kind of justice — from the former Prime Minister of the UK, Tony Blair, to former President of the United States, George W. Bush, for their participation in an illegitimate war in Iraq.” It will likely be “a long time indeed before three Africans in black robes sit in judgment of the likes of [former U.S.Vice President] Dick Cheney and [former U. S. Defense Secretary] Donald Rumsfeld for their endorsement of torture, or [Russian Federation President] Vladimir Putin for his war in Chechnya, or Chinese officials for their actions in Tibet.”

A news article at the blog on international justice, iLawyer, reported that at the end of oral arguments in the Taylor trial, Alternate Judge Malick Sow of Senegal attempted to voice his dissenting opinion and was effectively silenced. Judge Sow reportedly said this before is microphone was silenced.

Under any mode of liability, under any accepted standard of proof, the guilt of the accused from the evidence provided in this trial is not proved beyond reasonable doubt by the Prosecution and my only worry is that the whole system is not consistent with all the principles we know and love, and the system is not consistent with all the values of international criminal justice.

I’m afraid the whole system is under grave danger of just losing all credibility…

U.S. allied with Taylor

Al Jazeera reported in a January that Charles Taylor had been used as an “asset” to U.S. officials.

The Pentagon’s spy arm, DIA or Defense Intelligence Agency, “confirmed” without revealing details that “its agents and CIA agents worked with Taylor in the 1980s.” A former investigative campaigner in West Africa with the NGO Global Witness, Alexander Yearsley, reportedly told Al Jazeera “Taylor was DIA asset” in 1989 when he (Taylor) led a rebel army invasion of Liberia from the Ivory Coast that left took control of most of Liberia and killed thousands of people.

When George W, Bush assumed the U.S. presidency in 2001, Al Jazeera reported, he discovered that Taylor was on the CIA payroll and “put a stop to it.”

 

U.S. drone murders (update)

Press TV reports today, “A U.S. assassination drone attacked Somalia’s southwestern region of Gedo. The attack left 22 (est.) people dead and caused injuries to dozens of people.

Washington’s unmanned aircraft have attacked several countries in addition to Somalia. Among them are Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, and Yemen. These CIA-run attacks the United States claims aim at ‘militants.’ Local authorities’ witness reports and figures in these countries show the attacks have caused “massive civilian deaths.” The United Nations has repeatedly condemned the use of U.S. assassination drone strikes, saying they pose a challenge to international law. Instead of ending these attacks, the current government in Washington has increased this lawlessness against the region, the countries and their people.

Is there any surprise then that a new opinion poll deems the United States “the biggest threat to global security”? This latest negative response by half of Spain’s population indicates a drop in U.S. popularity in that country.

Exhibit C: Root of impartial adjudication

Pailey concludes with thoughts on the consequences of the status quo and what must happen to arrest the capriciousness of power, strengthen the rule of law to which all peoples and nations submit, and ensure access for all peoples to justice without prejudice.

Eleanor Roosevelt
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
1948

“… Until international justice proves that it is blind to political maneuvering and power,” Robtel Neajai Pailey writes, “it will always suffer from the virus of illegitimacy….

 “If we are serious about the idea that basic human rights belong to all people on Earth, no matter where they live — a principle enshrined in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights — then a justice system that can cross national boundaries is essential.”

  

The former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and former prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunals for Yugoslavia and Rwanda, Louise Arbour, said in 2010 —

 Louise Arbour

If international criminal justice is ever to be effective, its enforcement cannot be selective.

Sources and notes

“One man, two wars, one guilty verdict — Charles Taylor judgment reveals selective international justice” (Robtel Neajai Pailey). April 26, 2012, Issue 582, http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/81694

Monrovia, Liberia-native Robtel Neajai Pailey is a Mo Ibrahim Foundation scholar currently pursuing a doctorate in Development Studies at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS)

Pailey notes continued: “Much has changed since I covered the first day of Charles Taylor’s trial for Pambazuka News on June 4, 2007. That day, he failed to show up to court, calling the case against him a ‘farce.’ Today, he was in full view, stoic, resolute and somber. As I sat in the public gallery of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon building at The Hague, peering at the man portrayed as the most notorious African warlord in contemporary history, Taylor’s fate was solidified by one word: ‘GUILTY.’…

“It is clear, however, that the decision to convict him was not unanimous. After Taylor’s verdict was announced, Judge Malick Sow disagreed with the judgment openly while being rebuffed by colleagues, who stormed out of the court: ‘I disagree with the findings and conclusions of the other judges…the guilt of the accused from the evidence provided in this trial is not proved beyond a reasonable doubt by the prosecution.’ Judge Sow, like others before him, had argued that Taylor did not make or break the war in Sierra Leone…

“Regardless of the dissenting judge, Taylor’s sentence will be announced on May 30, two weeks after the prosecution and defense have given their oral arguments in a hearing. He will be transferred thereafter to a British prison to serve whatever sentence he is given. Again, another non-African prison will hold Taylor for crimes committed in Africa.

“Lest we have selective amnesia, Taylor walked out of a Plymouth prison in Massachusetts while undergoing extradition charges to Liberia in 1985. That was the beginning of Liberia’s tragic epic. Presumably it was also the beginning of Sierra Leone’s.”

Pambazuka’ in Kiswahili means the dawn or to arise as a verb

Pambazuka News is produced by a pan-African community of some 2,600 citizens and organizations - academics, policy makers, social activists, women's organizations, civil society organizations, writers, artists, poets, bloggers, and commentators who together produce insightful, sharp and thoughtful analyses and make it one of the largest and most innovative and influential web forums for social justice in Africa.

Pambazuka News also publishes podcasts, videocasts and books and has won a number of international awards; and, in a competition organized by PoliticsOnline and the World E-Gov Forum, it has been voted (2005, 2006, 2007, 2008) one of the ‘Top 10 sites that are changing the world of internet and politics.’ http://www.pambazuka.org/en/about.php

Pambazuka News is produced and published by Fahamu (Networks for Social Justice).

Fahamu Ltd & Fahamu Trust: 2nd floor 51 Cornmarket Street Oxford OX1 3HA, UK; Fahamu South Africa,  19 Nerina Crescent, Fish Hoek, Cape Town, 7945, South Africa; Fahamu Kenya

 Physical Address: Block C, 3rd Floor, Peponi Plaza, Westlands, Nairobi, Kenya,  Postal address: P.O. Box 47158, 00100 Nairobi, Kenya; Fahamu Senegal, Physical Address: 9, Cité Sonatel 2 Postal address: BP 13083 Dakar Grand-Yoff, Dakar, Senegal http://www.fahamu.org/

The International Criminal Court

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is the first permanent international judicial body capable of trying individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes when national courts are unable or unwilling to do so. http://www.iccnow.org/?mod=court

“Justice Sow’s Statement/Dissent at the Charles Taylor Judgment” (Shannon Torrens), April 27, 2012 by http://ilawyerblog.com/justice-sows-statementdissent-at-the-charles-taylor-judgment/

iLawyer: a blog on international justice

As Alternate Judge Malick Sow made this statement, the other three Judges walked out of the room. Court technicians cut off an in-house video feed to reporters, turned off the Judge’s microphone and closed the public gallery. Mr. Taylor’s Lead Defense Counsel Courtenay Griffiths Q.C. later quoted from the Judge’s speech at a press conference. An Alternate Judge does not have a vote or a right to dissent but sought to publicly state his concerns that the evidence against Mr. Taylor did not reach the threshold necessary for conviction. Justice Sow made his statement as Justice Lussick, Justice Doherty and Justice Sebutinde rose and prepared to leave the court at the conclusion of the verdict.

Also:

Former Liberian leader, Charles Taylor, convicted at international court, •Length: 4:59 minutes (4.57 MB), •Format: MP3 Mono 44kHz 128Kbps (CBR), News Segments

Thursday April 26, 2012

 Former Liberian President Charles Taylor has been found guilty on eleven counts of aiding and abetting war crimes and crimes against humanity during the civil war in Sierra Leone. The decision came at an international criminal court in The Hague. Taylor is the first former head of state to be convicted by an international court since the Nuremberg trials, and was the first sitting head of state ever to be indicted by an international court. Although human rights groups are calling the decision historic, some are questioning the court’s verdict and the court’s credibility. FSRN’s Hermione Gee reports., http://fsrn.org/audio/former-liberian-leader-charles-taylor-convicted-international-court/10204

“Accused war criminal Taylor worked with CIA’ — Liberia's ex-president, now on trial in The Hague, worked with U.S. intelligence agencies, officials admit” (Chris Arsenault), January 21, 2012, http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/01/2012120194243233526.html

“Decision on former Liberian leader is first ever judgment of a former African head of state by an international court,” April 27, 2012,

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2012/04/201242693846498785.html

“U.S. drone attack in SW Somalia kills at least 22,” April 27, 2012, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/238376.html

“Spaniards say U.S. biggest threat to global security: Survey,” April 26, 2012, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/238274.html

“ICC declines to probe into Israel’s war on Gaza,” April 4, 2012, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/234632.html

Former United Nations high commissioner for human rights and former prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunals for Yugoslavia and Rwanda, Louise Arbour is president of the International Crisis Group, which in 2010 released the report “War Crimes in Sri Lanka.”

Images:

credit ICC International Criminal Court premises. Credit: ICC-CPI

An empty courtroom at the temporary ICC headquarters in The Hague. Credit: ICC-CPI

Louise Arbour, former High Commissioner for Human Rights

http://www.jdslanka.org/2010_06_09_archive.html

 http://www.lawyersdefencegroup.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/justice.jpg

 ___________________________________

Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

___________________________________

Remember Nürnberg, End long, lawless aggression — Rocky Anderson Challenge

Verdict in Nuremberg

U. S. Foreign policy should focus on moral, security, economic aspects of our actions

From presidential candidate Rocky Anderson’s Foreign Policy speech “The Challenge”

Excerpt, editing by Carolyn Bennett

Recap, update

The end of World War II saw unprecedented goodwill in the world toward the United States of America. This goodwill was then squandered, Anderson says. The pattern was repeated after the events of September 11, 2001. As global superpower, we have an unparalleled responsibility to be a moral leader in the world but to do so we must repair a record of aggression and backlash. 

General Dwight David Eisenhower

59-year Record of lawless Aggression 

(34th-44th U.S. Presidents Eisenhower to Obama)

Historically, both Republicans and Democrats have been guilty of extreme illicit aggression against other countries. [Republican President Dwight David] Eisenhower ordered the overthrow of the democratic governments of Iran and Guatemala.

The 37th U.S. president, Richard M. Nixon [in lock step with the 35th and 36th presidents, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Baines Johnson], escalated the war in Vietnam (leaving 3 million Indochinese dead).

Both Presidents Gerald R. Ford and James (Jimmy) Earl Carter [presidents 38 and 39] supported vicious regimes such as Suharto, and the Shah of Iran.

NOTE: Army officer and political leader (Indonesia’s president 1967 -1998) Suharto’s government “was basically an authoritarian regime based on military power.” The Shah of Iran (1941-1979), Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, was the oldest son of Reza Shah Pahlavi, an army officer who in 1925 became the ruler of Iran and founder of the Pahlavi dynasty. Shah means king of kings, emperor. The younger Shah retained a pro-Western foreign policy

Former UK and U.S. (Blair-G.W. Bush)
heads of state
Malaysian tribunal found Bush and Blair 
guilty of committing 
crimes against humanity
during the Iraq war

William (Bill) Jefferson Clinton [42nd president] waged destructive economic and military attacks against the Iraqi people (sanctions left roughly 500,000 children dead) in lock step with 41st president, George Herbert Walker Bush.

Son of the 41st president, George Walker Bush’s ‘War on Terror’ essentially repeated the 40ieth president's, Ronald Reagan’s, ‘War on Terror’ from 1981 focused on supporting right-wing military juntas in Latin America, which led to hundreds of thousands of deaths

The 44th president, Barack Obama, has continued this trend: expanding the war in Afghanistan, continuing the occupation of Iraq (even after the troop withdrawal, 20,000 U.S. personnel are to be stationed in Baghdad), and bombing Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.

President Obama has continued the tradition of transforming overwhelming global goodwill into hatred and hostility. The huge international optimism that met his coming to office has now evaporated. In the Middle East between 2009 and 2010, negative appraisals of his presidency tripled.

Broad Global Consequences

Given the aggression we have [the U.S. has] historically displayed toward the rest of the world, these attitudes are not surprising and the blowback we experience in the form of terrorism and attacks on our military personnel is predictable.

The ‘Arab Spring,” with citizens rising up to overthrow dictatorships, many of which are (or have been) supported by the United States (examples are Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen), reflects millions of people’s resentment toward U.S.-bolstered oppressive governments.

Narrower Impact Abroad

"U.S. President Barack Obama approves
new policy expanding
CIA drone campaign in
Yemen"

We cannot hope to lead the world when much of it sees us as a threat. A 2006 Pew Research poll showed that among European and Middle Eastern countries, we are viewed as the biggest threat to world peace. That, of course, is a major obstacle to persuading countries to support us in our foreign policy efforts, building international coalitions, and persuading other countries to respect international law when we don’t do it ourselves.

Impact at home

The economic costs of our self-defeating empire-building are staggering. Even in 2008, the costs of the Iraq conflict were estimated at $3 trillion – (20 percent of the national debt!)

As of mid 2011, our air conditioning budget in Iraq and Afghanistan exceeded the entire budget of NASA.

We have some 1,000 overseas military bases throughout the globe (a value of close to $150 Billion). These costs cannot be justified, particularly at a time when we are failing to feed our poor and provide basic health care for millions of our citizens.

Rocky Anderson wants to end the foreign policy of lawless aggression

“The Anderson administration,” says his ‘Challenge,’ “will focus on the key moral and economic elements of our foreign policy.

There will be a key distinction made between militarism and empire-building (historically, the primary emphasis of our foreign policy), and national defense (that is, the security of our citizens).

The Rocky Anderson policy, he says, “will be based around three pillars: 

• Eliminate militarism and empire-building: The U.S. will never again engage in an illegal war of aggression. (The U.S. and its allies prosecuted defendants at the Nuremberg Tribunal for aggressive war, an international crime. 

United Nations image

The Anderson Administration will respect the UN Charter and international law, and cease aid and assistance to countries that do not.

• Moral leadership: We will no longer support regimes that abuse human rights and suppress democracy. 

• Economic rationality: We will close down all overseas military bases that are not demonstrably critical to our security, along with at least a 50 percent reduction in the Pentagon budget. (The U.S. military budget is now larger than the military budgets in all other nations combined.)  

This money will be allocated to domestic priorities, including reducing the accumulated debt and interest burden. As Martin Luther King said, every dollar spent on a missile is a dollar taken from a child’s education, or the food budget of a poor family.”

Sources and notes

“Rocky Anderson’s Foreign Policy The Challenge,” http://www.voterocky.org/foreign_policy_policy

Nürnberg

The Nürnberg (also spelled Nuremberg) trials were a series of trials held in Nürnberg, Germany (1945–1946) in which former Nazi leaders were indicted and tried as war criminals by the International Military Tribunal.

The indictment lodged against them contained four counts:

(1) Crimes against peace (i.e., the planning, initiating, and waging of wars of aggression in violation of international treaties and agreements),

(2) Crimes against humanity (that is, exterminations, deportations, and genocide),

(3) War crimes (that is, violations of the laws of war), and

(4) ‘A common plan or conspiracy to commit’ the criminal acts listed in the first three counts.

The authority of the International Military Tribunal to conduct these trials stemmed from the London Agreement of August 8, 1945. On that date, representatives from the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and the provisional government of France signed an agreement that included a charter for an international military tribunal to conduct trials of major Axis war criminals whose offenses had no particular geographic location. Later, 19 other nations accepted the provisions of this agreement. [Britannica note]

Each of the four countries provided one judge and an alternate, as well as a prosecutor.

Nuremberg Judges

Major General Iona Nikitchenko (Soviet main)

 Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Volchkov (Soviet alternate)

 Colonel Sir Geoffrey Lawrence (British main), President of the Tribunal

 Sir Norman Birkett (British alternate)

 Francis Biddle (American main)

 John J. Parker (American alternate)

 Professor Henri Donnedieu de Vabres (French main)

 Robert Falco (French alternate)

 Chief prosecutors

 Attorney General Sir Hartley Shawcross (United Kingdom)

 Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson (United States)

 Lieutenant-General Roman Andreyevich Rudenko (Soviet Union)

 François de Menthon (France) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Trials

  

See also

“An End to Authoritarianism and Plutocracy in the United States: Let us consider the fundamental guiding principles for the United States of America — freedom, equal opportunity, compassion, and security (It’s up to us, says Ross C. (Rocky) Anderson, Hinckley Institute of Politics, March 26, 2012, http://www.voterocky.org/an_end_to_authoritarianism

http://www.voterocky.org/no_war_on_iran

Images

The October 1, 1946 Süddeutsche Zeitung announces "The Verdict in Nuremberg." Depicted are (left, from top): Göring, Hess, Ribbentrop, Keitel, Kaltenbrunner, Rosenberg, Frank, Frick; (second column) Funk, Streicher, Schacht; (third column) Dönitz, Raeder, Schirach; (right, from top) Sauckel, Jodl, Papen, Seyss-Inquart, Speer, Neurath, Fritzsche, Bormann. Image from Topography of Terror Museum, Berlin. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Trials

The Nuremberg judges, left to right: John Parker, Francis Biddle, Alexander Volchkov, Iona Nikitchenko, Geoffrey Lawrence, Norman Birkett

Book cover: Ann Tusa (with John Tusa), London, Cambridge University, is author of The Nuremberg Trial and The Berlin Airlift

http://open.salon.com/blog/markinjapan/2012/02/14/no_police_state_no_war_criminals

The War Crimes of Eisenhower and ZOG/USA, incogman.net

A Malaysian tribunal has found former US President George W Bush and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair guilty of committing crimes against humanity during the Iraq war, Press TV reported. http://presstv.com/detail/211548.html

http://www.un.org/en/globalissues/peacesecurity/

“U.S. President Barack Obama has approved a new policy which allows the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to expand its covert drone campaign in Yemen” http://www.presstv.ir/detail/238263.html

________________________________

Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

________________________________

Learned voices miss critical value in education

MUTUAL RESPONSIBILITY

Not cheap schooling to expand consumer class but a nation’s duty to raise a people, bar none, educated for society

Editing and commentary by 
Carolyn Bennett

Professor and President got it wrong.

“We are being told we should accept a great deal of austerity because we do not want to saddle future generations with this enormous federal debt,” said Geography Professor David Harvey today on Democracy Now. “At the same time,” he continued, “we are saddling a generation of students with immense personal debt.…

“It doesn’t make sense,” the professor said.

The British native said the education system he went through was “a tuition-free system” [wasn't he lucky] and that the City University of New York (CUNY), where he now teaches [doubly lucky], “was tuition-free up until the 1970s” when, according to him, “the Business Roundtable, the Rockefeller Brothers” and others waged a huge campaign to impose tuition on CUNY; and ever since then, there has been “this immense attempt by corporations and the wealthy to pass the costs of education on to the people who are being educated. “

The Business Roundtable, according to Wikipedia, “was founded in 1972 by John Harper, the head of ALCOA Aluminum, and Fred Borch, CEO of General Electric, who were concerned about growing public hostility toward corporations as evidenced by support for government regulation of the workplace environment, and about the power of unions to squeeze corporate profits in an increasingly competitive international market. The two CEOs talked with John Connally, President Richard Nixon’s Treasury Secretary, and Federal Reserve Chairman Arthur Bums, who advised them to set up a lobbying organization that would specifically represent large banks and corporations. Harper was the Roundtable’s first president followed by Thomas Murphy of General Motors, Irving Shapiro of Du Pont, and Clifford Garvin of Exxon.”

Migrant workers

  

The Business Roundtable “is called President Barack Obama’s ‘closest ally in the business community.’”

Two Rockefellers: John Jay (IV) and David (Jr.)

John Davison (Jay) Rockefeller IV (b. 1937), a great-grandson of oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller (the only currently-serving politician of a six-generation Rockefeller family and only the Democrat in a traditionally Republican family), is the senior United States Senator from West Virginia. “In 1993, he became the principal Senate supporter with Ted Kennedy of Bill and Hillary Clinton’s sweeping health care reform package… The reform was subsequently defeated by an alliance between the Business Roundtable and a small-business coalition.”

David Rockefeller Jr. (b. 1941), eldest son of Margaret (Peggy) McGrath and David Rockefeller, is an American philanthropist and an active participant in nonprofit and environmental areas. “In 2001, he joined William H. Gates Sr., George Soros, and 120 other millionaires and billionaires in signing a petition urging the United States Congress not to repeal the estate and gift tax imposed on the families of the rich …”

LOVE LEARNING

In today’s Democracy Now discussion around U.S. college-student debt, Professor David Harvey continued his observations.

“… They [Corporations and the wealthy] don’t want to pay for training their own labor force,” he said. “They want their labor force to train itself, and then they’ll use it.” And the result is that “we have this enormous defect in American higher education. … [The United States] is one of the least educated countries out of all of the OECD countries. Achievements in math and science are way down compared to everywhere else; and this is a disaster from the standpoint of the national interest.”

The 50-year-old Paris (France)-based international organization OECD or Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development offers as its main concerns:

(1)   The restoration of confidence in markets and the institutions and companies that make them function thus requiring “improved regulation and more effective governance at all levels of political and business life”;

(2)   Governments’ re-establishment of “healthy public finances as a basis for future sustainable economic growth” seeking ways of fostering and supporting “new sources of growth through innovation, environmentally friendly ‘green growth’ strategies and development of emerging economies”;  and

(3)    The underpinning of innovation and growth by “[ensuring] that people of all ages can develop the skills to work productively and satisfyingly in the jobs of tomorrow”

Skilled trade workers

According to its self-description, OECD provides a forum in which governments can work together to share experiences and seek solutions to common problems. It sets international standards; works with governments “to understand what drives economic, social and environmental change; measures productivity and global flows of trade and investment; and analyzes and compares data to predict future trends.” Its mission, says its website, is “to promote policies that will improve the economic and social well-being of people around the world.”

But there that “A” word all across the Western world just now. Professor Harvey says it’s not the fault of the academy. Austerity comes from the State capital, Albany, in the case of New York.  Higher education costs escalate “way beyond the rate of inflation,” he says, and tuition rises. The result is “debt peonage [slavery] for a large chunk of the population.”

Consumers in debt prison can’t consume

The U.S. president in Campaign Theater, as evidenced in a clip rebroadcast today on Democracy Now, panders to and pleads the case for a “middle class” — but not for education as a value in itself or as a means of improving society or country as a whole. “Five years ago,” the president said, “Congress cut the rate on federal student loans in half. That was a good thing to do but on July 1st [this year]… that rate cut expires; and if Congress does nothing, the interest rates on those loans will double overnight.… “We can’t price the middle class out of a college education, not at a time when most new jobs in America will require more than a high school diploma. 

“Whether it’s at a four-year college or a two-year program, we can’t make higher education a luxury. It’s an economic imperative.…”

These men fail to see forest, the depth of the education issue. 

IMAGINE

Both the British-born professor and U.S. president — having taught in classrooms or lectured in lecture halls — fail to convey the core value and urgency surrounding education: the importance, indeed the essentiality, of a nation raising a properly educated and able people, generation after generation, kindergarten through secondary and post-secondary levels (and raising innovators employing and sustaining varieties of workers in varieties of satisfying work).

The president and professor blame this one and that one. They talk numbers and consumers and pander to this or that “class.” Their arguments are self-serving and severely flawed, little more than partisan rant; and if this is what goes on in these learned men’s lecture halls, there is little wonder that U.S. education consistently pulls low grades in quality.  These men seem obliviously incapable of comprehending, clearly they do not convey the critical need of education for society; not only for the narrow U.S. society, but for world society of which we are a part and to which we contribute.

If these learned voices addressed the issue at this depth, they would then have to address critical U.S. priorities:

 The duty of a responsible nation to educate its people, to fund their education (not as “welfare,” “charity,” special scholarships or other “handouts”); and to do it generously, barring no “class” of people; 

 Not to Waste resources and lives on militaries, armaments, wars and the perpetuation of an ethos of division, fear and violence.

Sources and notes

“1T Day: As U.S. Student Debt Hits $1 Trillion, Occupy Protests Planned for Campuses Nationwide,” April 25, 2012,

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/4/25/1_t_day_as_us_student

David Harvey (b. 1935, Gillingham, Kent, England) is an academic geographer and author of many books and essays that have been prominent in the development of modern geography as a discipline. He is Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY).  Among his published works is The Limits to Capital and A Brief History of Neoliberalism and Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution.

http://www1.cuny.edu/mu/forum/2008/02/19/social-theorist-and-cuny-distinguished-professor-david-harvey-to-deliver-lewis-mumford-lecture-on-urbanism-at-ccny-april-3/

The Business Roundtable, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Roundtable

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development

 http://www.oecd.org/pages/0,3417,en_36734052_36734103_1_1_1_1_1,00.html

http://www.oecd.org/pages/0,3417,en_36734052_36734103_1_1_1_1_1,00.html

Images

http://www.mutualresponsibility.org/integrative-education-for-the-integrated-world

http://www.usernetsite.com/film-tv/imagine-john-lennon-lyrics.php

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-2412221/stock-photo-the-word-innovate-

love learning, http://bluelife-jason.blogspot.com/2012/01/learning-to-learn-

A demonstrator holds a sign during a march in London against exploitation of migrant workers. Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty Images, http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2010/dec/22/migrant-workers-remittances

http://www.visualphotos.com/image/2x2739663/skilled_trade_workers

______________________________________

Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

______________________________________

“Friends” breach international law barring intervention

Syria as in Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen — “Humanitarian” criminals

Excerpting, editing by Carolyn Bennett

From Centre for the Study of Interventionism, a Project designed “to provide critical analysis of the burgeoning doctrine of interventionism”

“Friends like these”

The critical consequence of “Friends like these” is ever more bloodshed — and just as there was a flickering     “promise of return to normalcy in Syria and a promise of reform brought about by the recent (unnoticed by the West) constitutional referendum.… Countries like Syria, though, cannot be permitted to solve their own domestic problems, internally; and any solution attempted, internally, must be undermined by the United States/North Atlantic Treaty Organization and its allies.

“Sovereignty must be destroyed in the name of global democratic revolution,” Daniel McAdams writes at the Centre for the Study of Interventionism.

The super-powered “Friends of Syria” have turned the United Nations Charter on its head. As flawed as the concept might have seemed, the United Nations at the least recognized the inviolability of sovereignty that must lie at the core of an international body dedicated to peace, McAdams writes.  “Rip the rug from that concept and you have what we are now witnessing in places like Libya and now Syria:

Various outside interests — corporate, government, NGO, etc. — can plot against any sovereign leader under the cooked up mantle of ‘protecting human rights,’ dismantle the state, and remake it as they wish with their own compliant satraps (rulers, henchmen) in charge.”

BAIT AND SWITCH bloodthirsty “friends”

 

“Secretary of State [Hillary Rodham] Clinton, whose bloodthirstiness makes even the neo-cons cringe, demands that the Syrian government implement the UN-Arab League peace proposal ‘without delay.’ It was suspicious to see the plan that came out of Kofi Annan’s recent visit to Syria embraced by China and Russia as well as the United States, and now we can see why:

Flag of Syria

The ‘Friends of Syria’ simply did a bait and switch operation, substituting the slightly more nuanced demands of the Annan plan that all sides must disarm with the spirit of the original vetoed US/GCC United Nations Security Council resolution demanding that only one side — the government authority — disarm and the president resign, leaving the country open to a Libya-style takeover by the rebel groups.

Flag of Somalia

Revealed —

HR CLINTON (and Co.’s) humanitarian intervention: ‘Our (Clinton’s) message must be clear to those who give the orders and those who carry them out: Stop killing your fellow citizens or you will face serious consequences.’

But, McAdams writes, “Hillary and the ‘Friends’ are lying about the Annan plan. They demand that the government lay down its arms while all the while massively transferring military equipment to the rebels. … The United States provides covert military support through a morally-disintegrating Turkey and overt ‘communications’ equipment — likely targeting devices linked to CIA satellites — to anti-government Syrian rebels.… Saudi Foreign minister Saud al-Faisal, a representative of one of the most brutal dictatorships on the face of the earth, says —

Flag of Libya

‘The arming of the [Syrian] opposition is a duty … because it cannot defend itself except with weapons.’ What a humanitarian!”

Recap 1970 UN declaration on friendly relations

Flag of Afghanistan

DECLARATION ON PRINCIPLES OF INTERNATIONAL LAW CONCERNING FRIENDLY RELATIONS AND CO-OPERATION AMONG STATES IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CHARTER OF THE UNITED NATIONS, 1883rd plenary meeting, October 24, 1970

“Having considered the principles of international law relating to friendly relations and co-operation among States — solemnly proclaim the following principles: excerpt

Flag of Iraq

“Every State has the duty to refrain in its international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State, or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations. Such a threat or use of force constitutes a violation of international law and the Charter of the United Nations and shall never be employed as a means of settling international issues.

A war of aggression constitutes a crime against the peace, for which there is responsibility under international law.

In accordance with the purposes and principles of the United Nations, States have the duty to refrain from propaganda for wars of aggression.

Flag of Pakistan

Every State has the duty to refrain from the threat or use of force to violate the existing international boundaries of another State or as a means of solving international disputes, including territorial disputes and problems concerning frontiers of States.

Every State likewise has the duty to refrain from the threat or use of force to violate international lines of demarcation, such as armistice lines, established by or pursuant to an international agreement to which it is a party or which it is otherwise bound to respect. …

States have a duty to refrain from acts of reprisal involving the use of force.

Flag of Yemen

Every State has the duty to refrain from any forcible action which deprives peoples referred to in the elaboration of the principle of equal rights and self-determination of their right to self-determination and freedom and independence.

Every State has the duty to refrain from organizing or encouraging the organization of irregular forces or armed bands including mercenaries, for incursion into the territory of another State.

Flag of Iran

Every State has the duty to refrain from organizing, instigating, assisting or participating in acts of civil strife or terrorist acts in another State or acquiescing in organized activities within its territory directed towards the commission of such acts, when the acts referred to in the present paragraph involve a threat or use of force.

The territory of a State shall not be the object of military occupation resulting from the use of force in contravention of the provisions of the Charter.

The territory of a State shall not be the object of acquisition by another State resulting from the threat or use of force.

No territorial acquisition resulting from the threat or use of force shall be recognized as legal.

Flag of Palestine

Yet, despite this 42-year old UN Declaration on Friendly Relations, the Centre for the Study of Interventionism continues, “Ever since the end of the Cold War, powerful states have given themselves the right to intervene in the internal affairs of weak ones both militarily and judicially. Various pretexts are invoked — the need to enforce UN Security Council resolutions, to prevent humanitarian catastrophes or human rights abuses, or to maintain peace. Interventionism has received legal basis with the creation of supranational criminal tribunals and with the 2005 General Assembly Resolution on the so-called ‘right to protect.’

“From Yugoslavia to Libya via Iraq and Afghanistan, these theories have now been put into effect. But how true are the claims made in favor of interventionism and how effective is it?

Flag of
Serbia and Montenegro
(formerly Yugoslavia)

Were civilian lives really saved in Libya?

Did the creation of an international criminal tribunal bring peace to Yugoslavia?

Were the United States and Britain justified in invoking UN Security Council resolutions in justification of their 2003 attack on Iraq?”

“Non-interventionism is the forgotten doctrine in international relations,” the Center writes at its website.  The ‘Declaration on Friendly Relations’ adopted by the UN General Assembly on October 24, 1970, stipulates “that ‘No State or group of States has the right to intervene, directly or indirectly, for any reason whatsoever, in the internal or external affairs of another State.

“‘Consequently, armed intervention and all other forms of interference or attempted threats against the personality of the State or against its political, economic and cultural elements are in violation of international law.’”

Sources and notes

 “With friends like these... April Fools Gather To Destroy Syria” (Daniel McAdams), April 1, 2012, http://www.interventionism.info/en/With-friends-like-these...

Centre for the Study of Interventionism

On this site is information about the legal structures that have been created for interventionist purposes, as well as critical analysis of actual military interventions. The purpose of this Project is to provide critical analysis of the burgeoning doctrine of interventionism. http://www.interventionism.info/; and http://www.interventionism.info/en/Non-interventionism

See also

“War on Libya, Syria and NGOs — ‘the humanitarian war’ (facts & interview), http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U86vWB7Cpik

Documentary in which Julien Teil examines the documents and interrogates the NGOs behind the campaign to oust Gaddafi, and shows the lack of evidence for the alleged war crimes that supposedly justified UN intervention.

Images

Nonviolent peace force, http://www.jdslanka.org/2010_08_29_archive.html

Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations ...

untreaty.un.org

Flags from http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/flags/countrys/

______________________________

Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy
_____________________________