Mark Bergfeld - On Germany’s decision to arm Iraqi Kurds

The Ultima Irratio: On Germany’s decision to arm Iraqi Kurds Mark Bergfeld is a writer and activist based in Cologne, Germany and London, UK. He tweets @mdbergfeld http://on.rt.com/vh0cok Published time: September 03, 2014 11:38 In Germany, every school child knows that September 1, 1939 marks the date of Hitler’s invasion of Poland. It is also the day that peace activists and campaigners celebrate World Peace Day, with demonstrations all over Germany. This year the German parliament ‘commemorated’ the beginning of World War II by debating whether to send armor-piercing weaponry to a battalion of 4000 Iraqi Kurds fighting ISIS. This is not a historic coincidence. This is the logical conclusion of the continuous militarization of German foreign policy since the invasion of Kosovo in 1999, and the war in Afghanistan in 2001. As former chancellor Willy Brandt would have put it: The ultima irratio! Merkel and four of her ministers had already decided to send weapons to Peshmerga fighters ahead of the parliamentary debate on Sunday evening. For this, she did not require approval from the German Bundestag. Seemingly, Merkel and co. did not care about the opinion polls either. These showed that 60 percent of the German population is against this form of military intervention. With parliament relegated to a debating chamber, and the German public to mere spectators, Merkel’s government is the first to send German arms into a warzone. But weapons exports are nothing new. Germany is the third largest weapons exporter in the world. While in recent years, Merkel has not been keen to bomb innocent children, the export of weaponry doubled between 2005 and 2009. Merkel’s government has supplied the State of Israel with arms against the Palestinians, and Saudis with tanks to crush the Bahraini uprising in 2011. Subsequent governments have always sought to prove themselves as reliable partners to the USA. Even when they have not supplied ground troops or military equipment, as with the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, German intelligence services willingly aided – and contributed to the destabilization of the Middle East. As much as politicians would like to cloak the export of heavy weaponry in the language of helping the oppressed Kurds nothing could be further from the truth. In the past, Germany has supplied Turkey - its close ally and NATO partner - with weaponry to crush the Kurdish PKK in Eastern Anatolia. No German or US government has ever stood with the Kurdish people in Turkey or Iraq until ISIS laid siege on the oil and gas fields in Northern Iraq. It is questionable whether Peshmerga fighters are up to the task. Recently, they abandoned the mountains when Yazidis sought refuge there. Instead the PKK/YPG had to step in to protect the Yazidis’ lives. A horror scenario for Germany and its allies which consider the PKK a terrorist organization. Kurdish Peshmerga troops participate in an intensive security deployment against Islamic State militants in a village on the outskirts of the province of Nineveh near the border province of Dohuk, August 9, 2014. (Reuters/Ari Jalal) Germany is unlikely to change its relation to the PKK any time soon - even though there are plenty of reasons to do so. Until this day, Turkey continues to facilitate the entry of European jihadists into Syria, closed its border to Iraqi and Syrian refugees and has been holding aid deliveries at the border for the last three weeks. Worried about the deep economic ties between Germany and Turkey, Merkel has not lost a word about it. By providing Peshmerga fighters with 40 machine guns, 10,000 hand grenades 30 Milan anti-tank missile systems equipped with 500 missiles, and five Dingo armored cars Germany is pouring fuel on to the flames. This will neither stop ISIS nor facilitate a peaceful solution in the region. Is the German government really that naïve to believe that the weapons will remain with Peshmerga fighters, not sold on to third parties or even captured by ISIS forces in combat? If Merkel were serious she would apply diplomatic pressure on to governments who currently buy oil and gas off ISIS. This would undermine ISIS economically, and peel away disenfranchised Sunni communities in Northern Iraq. Moreover, Germany could increase the aid for Yazidi, Christian and Shi’ia refugees fleeing ISIS terror. The €50 million in aid will not alleviate the plight of a hundred thousand refugees. Under the guise of “humanitarianism,” Germany supplies weapons worldwide. Yet, its immigration policy is anything but. While southern and eastern European states bear the brunt of the refugee crisis, Merkel’s government is yet to commit itself to lifting the cap on the number of Syrian and Iraqi refugees it welcomes. One would think that this would be the first step for such a “humanitarian” country! It appears the German political elite have forgotten many of the lessons of World War II. Even worse, they have forgotten the fact that the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 created the conditions for the rise of ISIS and this mess in the first place. War cannot be the solution. The ultima ratio would be to stop all weapons export. It necessarily would change the very fabric of German export-led growth, and also effect Germany’s bourgeoning role in the world. But it would also lay the foundation for peace. Source - RT News - here.

Another very interesting article.

Pasted it here for later review.

Lots of information.

US uses NATO for creating New World Order

US uses NATO for creating New World Order: Analyst A political commentator says that the United States is using the NATO military power for creating a global New World Order. “The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is being used for the purposes of the United States and for the purposes of people involved in creating a global New World Order, where NATO is being employed in all kinds of situations around the world,” Mark Dankof, former US Senate candidate, said in a phone interview with Press TV on Tuesday. “The president of the United States is moving the American people closer to a war that is not in their interests and a war ultimately that is in the interests of no decent people and humanity anywhere,” he added. He made the comments when asked about President Barack Obama’s foreign policy in Ukraine and Iraq. Dankof said Washington uses NATO military power as a “911 force” for US and Europe and that must be “disbanded” since it no longer serves the purposes it was created for; protecting the US and European allies against the Soviet Union, which does not even exist anymore. “NATO has become a ‘911 force’ for any time people want to intervene in the US and in Europe in all kinds of situations that have nothing to do with the original purpose that NATO was created,” Dankof said. “NATO should have no legitimate statutory reason to even exist at this point,” he said. The analyst also noted that Washington is creating a pretext “for the very intervention in Iraq and in Syria.” “The congress of the United States is not asking any questions about this ISIS organization, and what are provably the clear links between this organization’s creation and the covert activities of the United States in Saudi Arabia and Israel in that part of the world which arguably have resulted in a situation where the president and the neo-conservative and pro-Zionist forces behind what the president is doing are creating the pretext for the very intervention in Iraq and in Syria, the both Saudi Arabians and Israelis want,” he explained. President Barack Obama formally notified Congress on Monday of the beginning of airstrikes against the Iraqi town of Amerli, as required under the War Powers Act. Administration officials said the attack was “consistent with the military missions we have outlined to date in Iraq.” Under the War Powers Act, the president is allowed only to launch such unapproved operations in the case of “a national emergency,” which would be a difficult case to make in Iraq, and also he can only continue the war for 60 days without a Congressional authorization for the use of military force. “The president has to certify that there is a national emergency involved for him to involve American military activities in a situation, and of course, in the question of Iraq we have to ask whether a national emergency, a true threat to the national security of the United States of the type envisioned by the War Powers Act actually is the case here,” said Dankof. “That’s a very dubious assertion.” AN/AGB http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/09/03/377523/us-uses-nato-for-new-world-order/

Thought this was an interesting article also.

He's not the only one saying that.

IRAQ - TURKEY'S LONG GAME

Is Turkey's long game in Iraq a success? The latest developments in Iraq have proven Turkey's foreign policy strategy effective. Last updated: 03 Sep 2014 11:29 Saban Kardas Turkey's difficult relationship with Iraq's outgoing prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, figured widely in discussions on its Middle East policies. Epitomised at times by the direct confrontation between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Maliki, the tensions manifested themselves in issues ranging from the position of the Sunnis in Iraqi governance structure to oil exports by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). Taking some high risk decisions on several occasions, Turkey challenged the way Maliki governed the country. Many took the deterioration in bilateral relations as an indication of the failure of Turkey's Middle East policies and its loss of influence in the region, while Ankara was also accused by the West of undermining Iraq's territorial integrity by developing closer ties with the Sunnis and Kurds. It has become clear now that the concerns that directed Turkey's foreign policy on Iraq early on - the problematic governance in Baghdad and marginalisation of Sunnis - constitute the root of Iraq's problems and all of a sudden are at the spotlight of international attention. Moreover, Turkey's long game, calling for a new government without Maliki to save the state apparatus and the country's territorial integrity, has now, finally, been backed by the international community. Although it is unclear whether a new government alone can solve the country's security and governance crisis, Iraq at least has made a step forward. What is clear, though, is that those who declared Ankara's Middle East policies a failure were wrong. More importantly, contrary to those suggesting that Turkey has turned into a mere bystander, it has in fact actively shaped the course of events in Iraq paving the way for the new government - a move that should pay off in improving bilateral relations. Listening Post - A divided Iraq and a fractured storyline In fact, Turkey was instrumental in breaking the political deadlock in Baghdad, which led to the appointment of Haider al-Abadi to form the new government. The results of the April 2014 elections were not conducive to the formation of a stable government and the situation was complicated further by the deteriorating security situation following the advance of the Islamic State group. As the new parliament convened, the coalescence of multiple issues - selection of the new parliamentary speaker, replacing the president and forming a new government - paralysed the political processes in Baghdad. Many political actors were pushing for a “package deal” in which all three positions were to be decided on simultaneously; a similar deal was made for the formation of the 2010 government. This demand, however, exacerbated the unstable political situation in Iraq. At this critical juncture, Turkey intervened by reaching out to different groups to push for a gradual approach to consensus. Turkey was able to do that because even at the time of tensions with Maliki, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu made sure not to pursue a narrow Sunni-oriented policy but maintained good relations with all groups in Iraq. During a trip to Iraq in November 2013 in the Shia sacred month of Muharram, he visited not only Baghdad but also Najaf and Karbala; he met all major players, including key Shiite leaders Ammar al-Hakim, Muqtada al-Sadr and Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. These close contacts were maintained through the Turkish Embassy in Baghdad and other channels. The decisive intervention came through Turkey's ties with the Sunni leadership, several of whom visited Turkey. Davutoglu would host them for iftar or sohour in the holy month of Ramadan to discuss ways to resolve the current crisis. He received both the outgoing and incoming parliament speakers. He advised Osama al-Nujayfi and other Sunni political leaders to choose, democratically, a common candidate for the parliament speaker. The Sunni groups under Nujayfi's leadership favoured Salim al-Jabouri whose election in mid-July got the wheels turning for the election of the new president, Fouad Massoum. Throughout the process, Ankara had several phone calls with the political circles of the KRG. This development paved the way for the formation of the new Council of Ministers, following the provisions of the constitution. Meanwhile, the "no-Maliki" coalition gained strength, especially after US Secretary of State John Kerry set a unity government as a precondition for US assistance against the Islamic State. Major Shia groups also withdrew their support for Maliki, allowing President Massoum to grant the mandate to Abadi. Ankara was the first capital to call Massoum to congratulate him and encourage him to move forward with the political processes. In the stand-off caused by Maliki's initial reaction to hold on to power, Turkey openly took a position backing Abadi; the foreign ministry issuing a statement, and Davutoglu calling it a coup attempt. Turkey declared support for Abadi's efforts to form an inclusive and non-sectarian government that can implement federalism. It is Turkey's objective to see Iraq's territorial integrity maintained and its government functioning; the only way to achieve that is by observing the constitutional political process and encouraging national reconciliation. Since the political system in Iraq is based on a delicate balance of power and revenue sharing arrangement, Turkey has promoted an inclusive approach to manage the country's cultural and political diversity and maintain a functioning federalism. Turkey's criticism towards Maliki's policies was a reaction to his inability to demonstrate the subtle leadership required to manage differences, and his strategy to pursue aggressively the monopolitisation of power. As the country goes through a severe security and governance crisis, keeping the political process open still remains a must in order to counter the security threats to the fragile foundations of the country. Ankara is aware that a stable and unified Iraq with a functioning state apparatus, which will also enable the resolution of such pending issues as oil exports, depends on Abadi's success. It sees that the new PM has a good chance to build a wide coalition inclusive of all groups for a unity government. Only then can Iraq have a window of opportunity to direct its energy on the next essential task - ensuring national reconciliation, reintegration and identity-building. In any case, Abadi's task will be difficult, as he first will have to rein in his Dawah Party and the Shiite bloc to form an all-encompassing non-sectarian government. An equally daunting challenge will be to reintegrate the Sunnis and regain the Kurds' trust to stabilise the country. A major impediment in this process will be the extreme fragmentation of the Sunni groups and their disenfranchisement. This will be hard to overcome even with the help of Turkey, which is currently engaged in an ongoing dialogue with the Sunni groups to encourage their participation in the unity government. Dr Saban Kardas is the President of ORSAM (Middle East Strategic Research Center) and a faculty member at the Department of International Relations at TOBB University of Economics and Technology in Ankara. He has published scholarly articles and book chapters on Turkish domestic and foreign policies, human rights, energy policies and international security and has been an occasional contributor to Turkish and international media. He is assistant editor to the quarterly journal Perceptions and writes analyses for the German Marshal Fund's On Turkey series. Source - Al Jazeera - here.

Interesting article.

Do note it is written by an Turkish academic who is also involved in a US NGO.

Figure his views may be Turkish-US perspective.

Worthwhile bearing that in mind, I guess.

Didn't finish marking up because I've got a mass of things opened & have to shut down some of these windows.  Will come back to mark-up -- which is for my benefit.  Bit of a learning tool, or so it seems.

That Turkish business has a stake in the biggest oil refinery in Iraq is also worthwhile noting.

NATO Colonising World - Australia's 'Enhanced Partnership Program'

Australia Plans Partnering With NATO to Increase Role in Global Crises 16:02 02/09/2014 MOSCOW, September 2 (RIA Novosti) - Australia is planning on strengthening its ties with NATO in hopes of attaining a greater role in global crises, Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said Tuesday. "Tomorrow the defense minister and I will travel to Wales to attend the NATO summit and I can confirm that Australia will be accepting a formal invitation to become what is called an enhanced partner," Bishop was quoted as saying by Reuters. Australia is not a NATO member, but has fought alongside the coalition in Iraq and Afghanistan, motivating the move toward a more powerful role in ongoing global conflicts such as between Iraq and Syria and in Ukraine. Becoming a member of the Enhanced Partnership Program will allow Australia earlier access to plans regarding military operations as well as a voice in NATO’s decision-making mechanisms, Bishop said, Reuters reported. Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott is scheduled to host Russian President Vladimir Putin and other world leaders at a G20 summit in November. Australia has sent military equipment and aid to Kurdish forces in northern Iraq fighting the Islamic State (IS) and is considering following the United States’ lead in an airstrike operation. Australia has also made its opinion known over the situation in Ukraine by releasing new sanctions against Russia on Monday. The NATO summit will take place on Thursday and Friday in Wales, where US President Barack Obama, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and French President Francois Hollande are expected to attend alongside other world leaders and senior ministers. http://en.ria.ru/world/20140902/192563197/Australia-Plans-Partnering-With-NATO-to-Increase-Role-in-Global.html

This one caught my attention.

Guess NATO really is colonising the world.

Someone's Twitter comment:  when's Australia going to be towed to the Atlantic. 

Or something like that.  Thought that was rather funny.

Got to sign off. 

Japan $35 Billion Investment into India - joint Indo-Japanese military industrial complex.

Modi's Japan visit is soaked with infra-speak Pramit Pal Chaudhuri, Hindustan Times New Delhi, September 02, 2014 First Published: 18:55 IST(2/9/2014) Last Updated: 18:59 IST(2/9/2014) Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Shinzo Abe were always expected to get along. They’ve known each other for years. Both are driven by a domestic vision of national rejuvenation. And both see each other’s countries as offering a means to accomplish their goals on the home front. But Modi is known to be a hard-nosed man of business. The true test of a foreign relationship is less the geopolitical element than how much a country can deliver on key, largely domestic, policy objectives. At the top of the list of this is providing India a world-class infrastructure on which he can then build smart cities, a revived manufacturing base and so on. What has come out of the Japanese visit is soaked with infra-speak. The key part is the “partnership for prosperity” section and the lines “Abe affirmed a broader and stronger Japanese partnership” for Modi’s “vision for accelerating inclusive development in India, particularly by transforming the infrastructure and manufacturing sectors.” Modi’s praise of Japan as the country that “has done more for modernising India’s infrastructure” than any other is about as fervent as it gets in his foreign policy vision. Even Japan’s “intention” to funnel $35 billion of investment into India targets “next generation infrastructure, connectivity, transport systems, Smart Cities, rejuvenation of the Ganga and other rivers, manufacturing, clean energy” and so on. Greenfield factories and the like don’t get a mention. Modi took a swipe at China, without actually mentioning the country. And he embedded it in a vision of Asia moving down a path of co-prosperity -- inviting Beijing to say that it wants to do the same and allowing him to then say, "Show me your money." My sense is that he wants evoke a sense of competition between Tokyo and Beijing -- because nations see the India $1 trillion infrastructure market as something that could lift their domestic economies for decades and give their huge pile of savings a place to get a decent return. So he’ll play one against the other a bit, even if he trusts Japan a lot more. As one official in his office said, "We have to avoid having the Japanese believe we are desperate for their investment, which sometimes comes through in our talks." China has and will say little about being called "expansionist" and "18th century." Xi Jinping will land in New Delhi in mid-September and he accepts the trust deficit with India will require some work to bridge. In any case, China was always more worried about Indo-US relations than any other, and that bilateral tie-up is a road under repair. The joint statement and fact sheet had a lot of talk about defence technology and manufacturing cooperation between India and Japan. Again, the foundation of this is the Chennai-Bangalore corridor which notably got more mention than the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor. This is partly because the southern corridor will be the infrastructure base for what may prove to be a joint Indo-Japanese military industrial complex. None of this will be easy. Balancing between Japan and China will be diplomacy at its most hair-raising. And while lining up foreign capital for Indian investment is clearly doable, cutting through the thicket of regulations and godawful legislation that holds back infrastructure in India has brought almost everyone who's tried it to their knees. One reason Japan and China are taking Modi seriously is that they sense that in him, unlike Manmohan Singh (who’s vision of Japan was similar), they have an Indian leader who can deliver on his promises. That is the deliverable that will become tangible in time. http://www.hindustantimes.com/comment/analysis/modi-s-japan-visit-is-soaked-with-infra-speak/article1-1259182.aspx

This struck me as rather big news.

Note also, the US has been hanging around India and India recently visited US.

So the US probably want a piece of the action.

Also, the US big ally in the Asia region is Japan ... so I wonder if there's any quiet investment by US???

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls - A 'Third Way' Blair (Sell-Out) Socialist?

Is Manuel Valls really a French Tony Blair? Published: 02 Sep 2014 13:49 GMT+02:00 Updated: 02 Sep 2014 13:49 GMT+02:00 Is the French Prime Minister Manuel Valls really a Gallic Tony Blair? With the help of a political expert we taker a closer look to see if the oft-made comparison is fair or false. Ever since France’s prime minister declared his love for business and nominated a former Rothschild banker as his new economy minister last week, the number of comparisons likening him to former British Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair have been coming thick and fast. Socialist MP Laurent Baumel even accused the Prime Minister of “copying and pasting” one of Tony Blair’s speeches. To see if the comparison really does fit, The Local has asked Marc Lazar, a specialist of the left and social-democrat movements in Europe, from the Institut d'études politiques de Paris (Sciences Po), to help compare. [ ... continued @ source ... ] http://www.thelocal.fr/20140902/manuel-valls-french-tony-blair

Worth a read.

Discovered something called 'The Third Way'.

It's for sell-outs who pay lip service to social justice etc, but serve business interests.
That's what I got at first glance.

As usual, I'm in too much of a hurry to slow down & really consider carefully.
Figure I'll come across this again some time, so this is enough info for now.

Mentioned in the wiki on the Third Way:

• Tony Blair (UK)
• Bill Clinton (US Democrats)
• Bob Hawke(Aust Labor)
• Paul Keating (Aust Labor)
• Matteo Renzi (Italy)
• Manuel Valls (France)

Expect Julia Gillard might be a third-wayer.

Manuel Valls is Spanish born. State school educated.

He's appointed a Rothschild banker as new economy minister (last week).
And he and Blair exploit the following:

* war on crime;
* pragmatism;
* public persuasion;
* supposedly natural leaders, authoritarian, charismatic

IMAGE - US BOMBING SINCE WWII

TWITTER censorship SUCKS  ❌ TWITTER image gone click to enlarge The 'disappeared' image would have been a list of US bombings since WWII. Image was loaded onto the Google system of image upload ... and it worked just fine as at September 2014. Cannot blame Google for this one. It looks like the image was actually LINKED rather than uploaded onto the Google system, so this is a problem with Twitter (or the user simply deleting the image, which is possible but improbable). TWITTER censorship SUCKS  ❌