The Vineyard of the Saker

If Only It Were True...

2012-02-02T15:26:00.000-05:00

David came up with another fantastic song. Here is what he writes about it:

Ever since the rightwing nutjobs started complaining that Barack Obama is a tree-hugging, socialist, immigrant-loving, peace-loving Muslim I've thought, "if only it were true." This morning it occurred to me to write a song about it.

Check it out:

&lt;p&gt;&amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;gt;I love&amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;gt;&lt;/p&gt;

I love the man, there is no other way to put it :-)

The Saker

NATO blinked first

2012-02-02T12:53:00.001-05:00

This is encouraging. To my surprise, and relief, it appears that Russia refused cave in the the US/NATO demands on Syria and that they two key (regime change, weapons embargo) were dropped from the next UNSC Resolution.

Good.

As you probably know, I am not exactly an Assad fanboy, but turning Syria into the next Libya would be a disaster for the entire region and a calamity for the Resistance (to Israel).

I hope that Russia will stand firm and that it will not do what it did with Libya (which it deliberately betrayed at the UNSC - Lavrov and Churkin are both very savvy diplomats who must have known what they were doing).

More generally, considering the latest NATO attacks on Russia (ABM system in Europe and strategic psyops about "election fraud" in Russia) is it now time for Russia to bear its teeth and growl with a more menacing tone.

The West wants a "new Cold War"?

I say "let's have it!" (they are imposing it on Russia anyway...)

The Saker

Economic tasks

2012-01-31T09:24:00.000-05:00

by Vladimir Putin

We are living in a period of radical change in the global economy. Technology is being modernised faster than ever before. Much of what is routine to us today looked like science fiction 15 to 20 years ago. The struggle for global leadership has become more acute than ever before, and we see countries whose standing seemed rock solid giving way to those countries that were looked down on only yesterday. The threat of man-made catastrophes and environmental disasters is greater than ever. But human opportunities have never been greater either. And it is those who make the fullest use of these opportunities that will be the winners.

In these circumstances we must ensure sustainable progressive development of our economy and try to shield our citizens from the hardships of crises as much as possible, while at the same time consistently and rapidly modernising all economic sectors, from the material and technical base to approaches to our economic policy.

Russia’s role in the global division of labour

After the collapse of the Soviet bloc, Russia had to find a new place in the global division of labour, whose main power centres and proportions had developed without it and, worse still, in an atmosphere of confrontation with the Soviet Union. The developed economies had erected barriers around their markets to protect their own interests. Differences in technological standards were an additional problem that hindered integration into the global economy.

But we have nevertheless developed an economy that is now an integral part of the global economy. This has been achieved mostly thanks to our natural resources. Global sales of gas, oil, metals, timber and other raw materials and low value-added products account for over 25% of Russia’s GDP.

Today Russia is dependent on the global economy and has been integrated into it very strongly, stronger than the economies of most other countries.

It has become commonplace to speak about a resource-based Russian economy. The Soviet Union’s self-sufficient and self-contained economy was not designed to work in new conditions. Only the most liquid sectors, connected with the export of unprocessed raw materials and semi-finished goods, survived the largely spontaneous market transformation. In fact, there was a large-scale de-industrialisation, with a loss of quality and the structure of production becoming too simple, which explains our excessive dependence on the import of consumer goods, technology and complex products, as well as on the fluctuation of prices of our main export goods. These are factors over which we have, by and large, no control.

Having an economy that cannot guarantee us stability, sovereignty and prosperity is unacceptable for Russia. We need a new economy with a competitive industry and infrastructure, a developed services sector and effective agriculture: an economy based on modern technology. We must develop an effective mechanism for modernising our economy and attract the huge material and personnel resources needed to achieve this goal.

However, we should not rely on protectionist measures to diversify our economy, and not because we have joined the World Trade Organisation. On the contrary, we joined the WTO because our economy is highly dependent on the external market in terms of both production and consumption. Ultimately, it is people and companies that pay high import duties. Excessive protectionism invariably leads to stagnation, low quality and high prices.

Time for technological catch-up

We need to find solutions to overcome our enfolding unilateral technological dependence.

No one is going to repeat the experience of the Soviet Union of course. I am referring to the policy of building a totally isolated technology sector as part of its stand-off with the West. As a result, most of our “original” technology, in conditions of isolation, fell behind that of our rivals; this became clear once the Iron Curtain collapsed.

The scenario we have in mind is entirely different. Russia must play a bigger part in the international division of labour, not only as a supplier of commodities and energy, but as an owner of regularly upgraded cutting-edge technology in at least some sectors. Otherwise, we are doomed to deplete our resources by constantly exchanging them for expensive foreign technology to produce consumer goods, materials and pharmaceuticals that we cannot develop ourselves. These technologies will gradually come to make up a greater share of global GDP, while the share of commodities and conventional services will shrink.

To regain technological leadership, we need to select priority sectors wisely. Candidates include the pharmaceuticals industry, high-tech chemistry, composite and non-metallic materials, aircraft manufacturing, information and communications technologies and nanotechnology. And Russia’s nuclear and aerospace industries have maintained their international leadership positions and technological advantages. This list is not closed; more industries may be added, depending on international market trends and, to a large extent, on the initiatives proposed by business owners and workers in these and other industries.

It is often argued that Russia does not need an industrial policy, since the government often selects the wrong priorities and gives preference to the wrong sectors, supports ineffective and inefficient producers, and hinders innovations which would have emerged naturally in a free market environment. It is difficult to argue with these statements, but they are only true with all other conditions being equal. Russia has gone through deindustrialization, which significantly damaged its economic structure. Large private capital is not flowing into innovative sectors because investors are reluctant to take the high risk. We will certainly use tax and customs incentives to encourage investment in innovative sectors. But it will take years for this to have an effect, and it may not have any effect at all if more attractive investment opportunities open up elsewhere in the world. Capital knows no borders. Are we ready to risk Russia’s future for the sake of pure economic theory?

Our decisions to establish large state corporations and vertically integrated holding companies were in fact dictated by the industrial policy priorities: Russian Technologies, Rosatom, United Aircraft Corporation and United Shipbuilding Corporation, and other conglomerates. The idea was to discourage the decline of the more intellectual sectors of national industry, to preserve its research and production potential through consolidation of resources and centralised management. This goal has definitely been achieved.

We had to consolidate those assets, that were officially government-owned but managed disjointedly, and which had often lost all links with their respective research and design centres.

The strategies of the large industrial holding companies were aimed at creating internationally competitive corporations, with high market capitalisation and stable or expanding niches on the global market. It is these corporations, engaged in versatile activities from the most advanced research and product design to manufacturing, supply and maintenance of their high-tech products, that control the global markets for aircraft, ships, computers, pharmaceuticals, medical equipment and other products. They provide the orders for small innovation companies and are taking over successful start-up businesses.

Most integrated companies have so far failed to become globally competitive or highly capitalised, nor are they consistently profitable. We are not going to abandon our projects halfway through. In some areas, like the aviation sector, we have only just managed to complete the difficult assets consolidation process. Clearly the viability of each such project needs to be evaluated. Right now, they need top managers with expertise in the innovative business sphere.

I want to stress that government efforts were focused on restoring Russia’s ability to compete in those sectors which involved only a few players on the global market. This did not mean there was any attempt to suppress private initiative, because there was no such initiative in these sectors. It would be erroneous to draw conclusions about the expansion of state capitalism on the basis of our work to accumulate and restructure assets and get them ready for sale.

We have compiled a plan for the reorganisation of each company and their subsequent entry into the market. Some of them will become public liability companies and their shares will be subsequently sold off. These include the Russian Technologies, the non-military assets of the Rosatom and some other state corporations. It will be impossible to accomplish this objective overnight, but we cannot delay its implementation indefinitely. I think it will be possible to reduce the level of state involvement in some commodity companies by 2016 and to complete the withdrawal from the capital of major non-commodity companies which are not connected to the natural monopolies or the defence sector.

We are expecting Russian capital to take an active part in the privatisation process and the subsequent development of high-tech assets. At the same time, we need to look for customers among global investors who would be willing to invest in the research production base, as well as bring their connections and their position on the major international markets to the table.

The successful experience of economic modernisation in countries like Korea and China shows that a push in the right direction from the government is necessary, and that the outcome from such a push outweighs the risk of making a mistake. It will be hard to implement diversification without a concerted effort. Understanding all the risks of selectivity, we must have a fully transparent policy of choosing priorities and of state support, open to assessment and discussion by competing companies and professional communities.

Competition lies at the heart of the modern economy and it is founded on companies, who develop and own advanced technologies, striving to prevent the users of these technologies from using the so-called technological core. This means the entire technology servicing cycle, not just research and development projects. This is highlighted by the example of Russian companies attempting to buy foreign assets during the crisis. Our Western partners promptly called a halt to proceedings, as soon as talk switched to the purchase of facilities with a complete production cycle (including even in car manufacture).

As a rule, the supplying company usually seeks to retain control over any complicated aspects of servicing equipment and production processes when selling state-of-the-art technologies. Consequently, customers become dependent on the supplier not only in terms of the technology, but economically as well. A country will incur long-term economic losses if it falls behind in advanced technological solutions. This will happen even if the assembly plants are located on its territory. The lion’s share of profits goes to where the head offices, laboratories and design bureaus are located.

That is why developed economies work on the principle of technology cooperation. Their mutual dependence strengthens economic and political stability.

Russia’s innovation cycle

Ensuring competition is the main pre-requisite for creating the demand for innovation in the economy. It is competition that prompts private businesses to seek better technical solutions and to regularly introduce new product. I can see all the challenges that our accession to the WTO is putting before a number of industries at home. And I would like to assure them that I will do my best to cushion transition-based problems. However, the manufacturers of industrial and technological goods must be clearly aware that the days of competing in a single national market have gone. From now on, there will be no comfortable niches. For hi-tech products there will only be one market – a global one.

The other side of the coin is to offer innovation. Russia can do more than simply buy innovation – we can also generate it. Our place in the future depends on how well we will use our potential.

The high levels of education among our people, our impressive legacy of fundamental science, our engineering schools, and the infrastructure for pilot-scale production which is preserved in many industries, are all factors that we have a duty to use.

In recent years, we have invested heavily in institutions capable of commercializing applied research. One example is RUSNANO, another is the Russian Venture Company, and then there are government-run tenders for innovative facilities at various universities. In addition, many Western companies have been attracted to participate in the Skolkovo project.

However, learning how to sell things is not enough. Sustainable innovative growth also requires a steady inflow of new ideas, fundamental research products, and finally, creative-minded specialists capable of developing new technologies.

Restoring the innovative nature of the economy should begin with universities – which should be seen as both centers for fundamental science and resources for innovative people. We need to pursue a national objective that results in globally competitive Russian universities. By 2020, we should have several world-class universities that span the entire spectrum of modern material and social technologies. This means that we must ensure the steady funding of university-based research teams who have a view to international development.

Like their international rivals, for scientific research purposes, Russian research universities should be receiving resources of up to 50% of budgeted education expenditures. I proceed from the assumption that we will, at the same time, pursue a carefully considered restructuring of professional education – a restructuring that would be carried out in cooperation with the expert community and with the public.

Ten-year programmes of fundamental and exploratory studies should be approved for the Russian Academy of Sciences, leading research universities, and government-run scientific centres. But the viability of these programmes will have to be defended and regular reports will have to be submitted as they are put into practice. They will be submitted to the taxpayers and to the scientific community, rather than just to the officials at the Ministry of Education and Science. Authoritative international specialists will be invited as well. These reports would be assessed by national leadership in cases where defence and other projects of direct national interest are concerned.

Preferential development of research universities does not mean that the Russian Academy of Sciences and government-run scientific centres will be neglected. On the contrary, the Russian Academy of Sciences’ institutes can only develop steadily in a situation where they can attract strong specialists.

We will increase funding by several times, up to 25 billion roubles in 2018, for government-run scientific foundations that support independent research teams. The amount of the grants should be comparable with what researchers receive in the West.

We must continue our efforts to integrate Russian research centres, universities and enterprises into international mechanisms that are available for documenting scientific results and converting them into actual profit.

We must overcome the inertia of our large domestic capital that, to be honest, has nothing to do with innovative projects, research and development. Currently, 47 state-run companies are involved in innovative programmes. But private corporations must make it common practice to spend 3%-5% of their gross product on research and development. There must be proper tax mechanisms in place and, most importantly, private business executives must realise that without this initiative, they won’t be seen as equal players in the global market.

Secondly, the modernisation of technology requires mastering imported technology as soon as possible. There are excellent examples of importing advanced technology culture. Our experience has been quite good in car production, with nearly half of foreign cars being produced by Russian workers. Customers see no difference between their quality of work and our own. The next step is to adapt production through setting up technological development centres here, in Russia. A substantial share of foreign brands of household appliances are produced in Russia. Our largest food producers supply products that are almost exclusively local. It is very important for us that the global leaders in technology make a shift from perceiving Russia as an interesting and potentially successful market and investing in local production, to developing new technology and new products here, in Russia. But they will do so only if they see technical universities and research centres that are competitive on the international level.

By investing in competitiveness of the advanced areas of the economy, Russia is also taking on the solution of a global social task: developing a creative class and shaping an environment in which it can attain its potential. But there are large sectors that are stuck in the previous century in terms of their technology and organisational culture. To a large extent, this can be attributed to the fact that we purchase equipment but forget about new production logistics, quality control and, in some cases, about basic technological regulations. The largest industries that this relates to are of course construction and transport.

The government will support large infrastructure projects. Firstly, this means transportation networks and reliable communication with Siberia and Russia’s Far East. Local road networks are also very important. The current state of affairs is truly paradoxical. With its huge territory, Russia suffers from a lack of land that is suitable for construction. This is due to an underdeveloped infrastructure. You can build a house or a factory 50 km or even 80 km from a big city in Europe, America, Japan or South Korea; while in Russia, untapped lands begin 20-30km away, where there are no roads, gas, water and electricity and the land is worthless because it cannot be used.

Development of Russian land must start with the lands surrounding large economic centres. The expansion of metropolitan areas by 50%-100% will increase the available areas by several times. This will help overcome the deficit completely and reduce the cost of residential and industrial properties by 20%-30%. Rural and suburban farming will see significantly greater profits, with farming industry workers enjoying a much better standard of living.

Businesses, especially small and medium-sized businesses, are quickly engaging with new opportunities that emerge along with the development of infrastructure, and road networks in particular. But only the state is able to build this infrastructure under the current circumstances, along with the participation of private businesses (public-private partnerships). But this will require a substantially more efficient management of expenses. We must not spend more on construction than our neighbours. We are ready to hold international tenders and to attract well-known foreign companies as operators and contractors. Beginning next year, we are going to arrange compulsory public technology and price audits of all large investment projects with state participation. The audit will involve international experts.

The farming industry requires particular attention. The growth in this sector has been quite good in recent years. Most developed countries provide support to their agricultural producers in one way or another, and Russia is no exception. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, uncertainty of the global market and dramatic fluctuations in food prices make agricultural security – that is, the country’s ability to provide food for its people – as important for economic and social stability as a balanced budget and a strong currency. Secondly, the agricultural sector is an important element of a competitive environment in the economy and for creating small and medium-sized business, the foundation of healthy capitalism.

Where to get the capital?

Private investment is the main source for creating new production facilities and jobs. The situation here can hardly be called optimistic. Russia is losing out to rival countries in terms of its investment climate. Substantial amounts of capital are being withdrawn from Russia.

Yes, this situation can be explained in large part by our actions in the late 1990s and early 2000s. At that time, a conflict had flared up between those who had appropriated in the 1990s the main financial flows based primarily on the sale of commodities, fuel and, and those who wanted to return them to the state and use them for the benefit of the entire society. It is my opinion that we did the right thing at the time, increasing the state’s influence in commodity sectors.

This is not only because certain oligarchs had tried to continue directly buying their way through the political system. At the very beginning of my first presidential term, we faced persistent attempts to sell key assets abroad. The preservation of this country’s strategic resources in the hands of several private owners for a period of five to ten years meant subsequent outside control over the Russian economy.

This is not meant to imply some anti-Russian conspiracy. The issue is completely different. Look at how international capital behaves under conditions of instability, turbulence and anticipation of an impending crisis. These investors do not hesitate to withdraw their assets from emerging markets in order to save the national nucleus of their businesses. In their opinion, Russia ranks among such markets, which was no doubt also the case in the early 2000s.

Sustained national development is not only determined by macroeconomic indicators. A country’s stability also hinges on the fact that most investors who make investment-related decisions live in the country, link their children's future with it and associate their long-term interests with the country's development.

What needs to be done in order to solve the problem of capital?

First of all, we must expand the volume of the domestic market, thereby making it more attractive for direct investment. We are currently doing our best in this area. We have made the shift from declarations and statements of intent to real integration for the first time since the break-up of the Soviet Union. The past few years has seen the establishment of the Customs Union, the Common Economic Space and the CIS Free Trade Zone. Technical regulations are being harmonised. Russia is consistently trying to establish a common market together with its neighbours. This market would not hinder the penetration of goods and services in any way, and there is no question of there being any uncertain terms. Of course, we are taking into account the interests of our partners during this process, we compromise and even make concessions. But these concessions will soon pay off many times over. We proceed based on the premise that the huge market of the Common Economic Space will make each of our countries more competitive.

Second, the national business environment and the country’s long-term investment climate still leave a lot to be desired. In the past few years, we have launched numerous reforms on the initiative of President Dmitry Medvedev. These reforms are called upon to improve the business climate. But there have not yet been any noticeable shifts. We are losing in the competition of jurisdictions. Businesses operating in Russia often prefer to register property and transactions abroad. This has nothing to do with our tax regime, which is, in general, competitive. Nor does it have anything to do with the lack of legislation meeting modern requirements. Of course, such legislation must be improved, because it is not yet flexible enough and because it does not provide the entire range of instruments that are needed for the business community. However, the main problem is rooted in a lack of transparency in the work of state representatives from customs and tax services and their accountability to society. This is also true of the judicial and law enforcement systems. Calling things by their names, this amounts to system-wide corruption. Business expenses and the related payments may vary, depending on the “benevolence” of certain officials within the state machinery. In this case, business people find it more appropriate to seek out patrons and to come to some kind of agreement, rather than abiding by the law. Instead of facilitating a more cost-effective performance on the part of their companies, these “agreeable” business people will try to suppress their rivals and carve out a place in the market for themselves by tapping the potential of affiliated officials from the tax, law enforcement and judicial systems.

We must pave the way for businesses that are ready to succeed as a result of fair competition. This is a fundamental and system-wide task which cannot be resolved with the help of any economic policy. We must alter our state, as well as our executive and judicial branches. We must do away with the accusatory bias of law enforcement, investigative, prosecutorial and judicial agencies. We must eliminate all vestiges and leftovers of Soviet-era law enforcement concepts and all legal snags that make it possible to open up a criminal case against any party involved in a commercial dispute. All economic cases must be tried by commercial courts, rather than by general jurisdiction courts. We must openly discuss and submit all the necessary specific proposals on this issue together with the expert community, judges and business people before the year is out. I am confident that State Duma deputies will support these amendments.

As of January 1, Russia and Kazakhstan have established a common economic space. The example of Kazakhstan is quite revealing. The World Bank estimates that Kazakhstan currently ranks 47th in terms of its business environment. Russia is in 120th place. I propose that we come closer to reaching all the best parameters that comparable nations have, facilitating a comfortable business environment within the next few years.

We must change the entire ideology of state control over business activity, and we must drastically limit these functions. Our strategy must hinge on the business community’s presumption of innocence. We must proceed based on the premise that the creation of conditions for the activity of honest business people is more important than possible risks associated with unscrupulous behaviour.

Third, ordinary people’s money is almost useless in the capital market. This means that the population does not receive its share of earnings resulting from economic growth and increased capitalisation of the economy. We need programmes for incorporating people’s money into investments via pension funds, trust funds and mutual funds. In advanced market economies, this makes up a considerable part of the national capital.

We should create a situation in which long-term money in the form of steadily growing private savings, including pension savings, comes into being within the Russian private sector.

This cannot be achieved unless we work consistently to reduce inflation. Price growth affects each person’s earnings and discourages people from saving. We are often advised to solve our economic problems through the irresponsible printing of money or a reckless buildup of public debt. But we know only too well that in this case a short-lived illusion of prosperity will soon give way to a price surge. That's what happened in this country in the 1990s.

But lower inflation rates will not automatically create additional capital. We need to be active in assisting new institutions to emerge.

It is necessary to introduce government-sponsored mechanisms that will provide for the security and even profitability of pension savings accounts. It is necessary to test new methods, such as opening pension savings accounts directly with banks. Support for the formation of long-term money should become a priority for the next 10 to 15 years. This is a protracted process: we must not be anxious that it will not produce an immediate effect. The main condition of its future success lies in the fact that Russia is witnessing a rapid growth of its middle class, which is ready to invest in better healthcare, better housing, higher pensions, etc. The government must see to it that this money does not disappear.

Let me say this, especially for the opposition. What is mentioned above does not mean that we will to any extent draw back from free education and healthcare or stop increasing regular pensions. We will not. We will improve the quality of services guaranteed to every citizen in this country by the Constitution. A separate article will be devoted to this issue.

Reducing government involvement in the economy

The art of economic management under present-day conditions consists primarily of identifying the proper ratio between the role of the government and private initiative.

The global crisis has created supporters of state management, with additional arguments in favour of their position. But we know that Russia differs from many other countries in that the government continues to control a relatively large share of the economy and is more heavily involved in regulation, while its regulation methods, on the contrary, are inferior to the best equivalents. Our economic policy should be adjusted so as to reduce the scale of state regulation, to replace regimentation by market mechanisms, and to substitute liability insurance for administrative oversight.

Earlier I mentioned our plans to privatise a number of key assets. But I should specify that this privatisation will be of a structural, not a fiscal, nature. That means that we sell not only in order to procure additional money for the budget, but primarily in order to encourage economic competition and pave the way for private initiative. But it would be foolish to sell property cheaply while ignoring the market situation. No thrifty proprietor would act in this way.

There is a great deal of talk among the public that the privatisation of the 1990s, including loans-for-shares auctions, was dishonest. I fully agree with that assessment. But any confiscation of property at this point, as some suggest we do, would simply cause the economy to grind to a stop: plants would be paralyzed and a surge in unemployment would follow. Besides, many current owners of these assets are formally good faith purchasers. They did not breach any laws at the time. Many of them are modernising their plants and creating new jobs. They are efficient owners. But their behaviour during the crisis in 2009 and 2010 revealed that the business community’s social responsibility has grown as well.

It is also necessary to reduce the involvement of predominantly public-owned major companies and banks, as well as natural monopolies, including Gazprom, in other companies’ assets. Non-core assets, including media holdings, should be separated.

The purchases of new assets by government-run companies in Russia must be restricted. The major players should not interfere with the normal development of private businesses in their particular sectors, nor should they box private entrepreneurs out from more lucrative projects.

Macroeconomic requirements for growth

Sound capitalism that works for everyone will not emerge in Russia unless macroeconomic stability is maintained and reinforced. This has been perhaps our greatest achievement in recent years. We have learned to appreciate macroeconomic stability and to use various instruments to preserve it even in the most difficult circumstances. Thanks to reserve funds that were created preemptively, we managed to weather the first wave of the global crisis with relative ease.

Economic actors must be confident about Russia’s macroeconomic stability for years to come if they are to make long-term investments. In particular, the business community must understand how the government plans to resolve key fiscal problems and how it will finance approved budget expenditures, including those required for the modernisation of the economy.

We have already assumed significant long-term budget commitments, primarily in the social sphere, and we intend to meet them. In addition, we are planning to spend significant resources on the modernisation of our Armed Forces, on the development of healthcare and education, as well as on road construction and repairs. How can we finance this spending?

First, we need to spend more efficiently, clearly identify our priorities, and reject anything that is superfluous. We need to impose strict control over the cost and quality of construction and government procurement prices. Essentially, we need to eradicate kickbacks in the use of public funds at the federal and regional levels. By tackling these issues, we will save at least 5% and possibly even 10% of the budget, or about 1% to 2% of our GDP annually.

The draft law on the federal contracting system mandates the preliminary public review of the format of government procurement and the starting price for government purchases. I believe this procedure needs to be applied to all major procurements, exceeding say 1 billion roubles in value, without waiting for the new law to come into effect. Let’s put suppliers’ private interests to work for the public good.

Suppliers, along with journalists and all interested public organisations, should get used to discussing whether the technical solution being purchased is up-to-date, what companies can successfully implement the project, and, finally, what is the most cost-effective way of doing it.

In our fiscal policy, we need to turn our backs on the practice of financing agencies rather than the public services that they are supposed to provide. Wherever possible, we need to transition to normative per capita financing, meaning that money will go directly to the citizens that apply for services.

This will ensure an additional 10% to 15% in savings and will allow us to increase the salaries of teachers, doctors, and university instructors, and to provide patients with medication without reducing other forms of social spending.

Second, we need to ensure a balanced pension system that will help reduce budget transfers to the Pension Fund.

Third, we will need tax reform. We have no plans to increase the tax burden on the non-commodity sectors of our economy, which would undermine our policy of economic diversification. But there are other places where we can find additional tax revenue, including expensive real estate, luxury goods, alcohol, and tobacco, as well as increased rental fees in those sectors where they are undervalued.

Most important is a surtax on wealth, or to be more precise, a luxury tax. All major decisions should be taken as early as this year, so that next year the owners of expensive homes and vehicles start paying higher taxes. However, it is important not to go overboard and to ensure that these measures are not applied to the middle class.

There is significant potential for increasing tax revenue by eliminating tax evasion through offshore arrangements and fraudulent companies. Law-abiding businesses will only benefit from this, as they will no longer have to compete with those who thrive on defrauding and deceiving the government.

We must also reject, once and for all, the temptation to adjust the tax system to accommodate increased spending. This policy increases uncertainty in the business environment for companies, thereby seriously undermining the investment attractiveness of our economy.

Our key objective is to restore long-term conformity between government spending and revenue. The two have been out of balance since the economic downturn, when significant resources were allocated to mitigate external shocks. That happened in most of the countries that were hit hard by the crisis.

The experience of the EU and the United States demonstrates the economic, social and political dangers of failing to maintain a balanced budget. In Russia, this problem is exacerbated by the strong dependence of government revenue on oil and gas prices.

In addition, we need to be very careful about taking government loans, always keeping in mind the lessons learned from recent global and Russian economic history. First, large debt always means a partial loss of national sovereignty. It creates a situation wherein any deterioration of the economic environment makes the country dependent on investors, international organisations, and lender nations, which then dictate what measures a government must take.

In this regard, Russia, with the lowest sovereign debt among G20 countries, is currently in a more favourable position than other nations. We should maintain this advantage as a guarantee of our macroeconomic stability. Second, when people lend money to their government, they reduce the money available for private investment. And if we want to increase the level of private investment, we should avoid running high budget deficits.

* * *

Labour productivity in Russia is three to four times lower than that of the developed economies. What does this mean? For a nation, low labour productivity means a globally uncompetitive economy. For the individual, low productivity means a bad job that is not well-paid. The reason for this is not, as some bright individuals claim, that Russia people can’t or don’t want to work, or don’t work hard enough. This is not true. The reason is that their jobs are outdated and unproductive.

A new generation of Russian citizens – young professionals and future graduates – has very high expectations for their careers. Our country has never faced such a serious educational and cultural challenge. But I am certain it is a positive challenge.

A logical solution to low efficiency of labour would be to create highly productive and therefore well-paid job for educated and ambitious people, through upgrading existing production facilities and creating new ones in both traditional and completely new sectors of economy.

Russia’s new economy will be a diversified economy where many competitive sectors will be developed alongside a modern fuel and energy industry. The proportion of high-tech and knowledge-based industries in Russia’s GDP must increase by 50% by 2020. This will double Russia’s high-tech exports.

Our new economy will be an efficient economy, with high labour productivity and low energy consumption. We must close the gap with leading countries, which means doubling productivity throughout the economy and, in key sectors, matching or outpacing the productivity of our competitors. Otherwise we will not be able to successfully compete in the global economy.

The new economy will provide highly productive and high paying jobs. The average wage will grow by 60-70% and reach nearly 40,000 roubles per month in 2011 prices. The gross amount will, of course, be higher.

It will be an economy of continuously upgraded technology. The share of enterprises that implement technological innovations must increase two-and-a-half times from the current 10.5% to 25% by the end of the decade, reaching the current average in Europe.

It will be an economy in which small businesses will provide at least half of the jobs in the economy. By 2020 intellectual and creative work must make up a substantial part of the small businesses that export their goods and services on the global market.

Each macroeconomic indicator and each particular project must clearly point to the number of new jobs it will provide and the way it will change the quality of employment and therefore the quality of life in Russia.

The renewed economy must give everyone – entrepreneurs, public sector employees, engineers and skilled workers – an opportunity to realise their potential. This is the social dimension of the economy. I will speak about this in my next article.

source for English text: http://premier.gov.ru/eng/events/news/17888/

original Russian text: http://premier.gov.ru/events/news/17888/

Bush & Obama? Israeli assassinations and US Presidents

2012-01-30T12:12:00.000-05:00

By Alison Weir for "CNI" via Information Clearing House

On January 13th the Atlanta Jewish Times featured a column by its owner-publisher suggesting that Israel might someday need to “order a hit” on the president of the United States.

In the column, publisher Andrew Adler describes a scenario in which Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu would need to “give the go-ahead for U.S. based Mossad agents to take out a president deemed unfriendly to Israel.”

The purpose? So that the vice president could then take office and dictate U.S. policies that would help the Jewish state “obliterate its enemies.”

Adler writes that it is highly likely that the idea “has been discussed in Israel’s most inner circles.”

Numerous Jewish leaders quickly condemned Adler, who has now apologized for the column, resigned, and there are some reports that he plans to put the newspaper up for sale. An Israeli columnist noted that the hatred being stirred up against Obama is similar to conditions in Israel that led to the murder of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by a Jewish extremist.

Many of those criticizing Adler claim that he had defamed Israel by suggesting that it would ever do such a thing. Abe Foxman, head of the Jewish Anti-Defamation League (ADL) proclaimed: “There is absolutely no excuse, no justification, no rationalization for this kind of rhetoric. It doesn’t even belong in fiction.”

In reality, however, Adler’s expectation that Israel’s inner circles have explored such a course of action, and would be willing to undertake it, may be entirely accurate. The fact is that Israel has killed and plotted to assassinate people throughout the world; a number have been Americans. One alleged plot was chillingly similar to Adler’s suggestion.

Secret Service warned of Israeli assassination plans

There is evidence that in 1991 an Israeli undercover team planned to assassinate a U.S. President. The intended victim was George Herbert Walker Bush.

The first person to write of the plot was a former 11-term Republican Congressman from Illinois, Paul Findley. In a 1992 article in the Washington Report for Middle East Affairs, Findley described the alleged scheme and how it was revealed.

Findley writes that the U.S. Secret Service had received a warning that elements of Israel’s spy agency might target Bush when he went to Madrid for the opening day of the peace conference to be held that year.

According to Findley, a former Mossad agent named Victor Ostrovsky who had written a book exposing Israel’s spy agency told a group of Canadian parliamentarians that he had received secret intelligence suggesting that the “the Mossad's hatred of Bush – and support for Vice President Dan Quayle – might lead to an attempt on the president's life.”

Israel considered Quayle much closer to Israel than Bush. Bush had particularly angered Israel by attempting to pressure Israel into ending its illegal settlement expansion on confiscated Palestinian land by withholding loan guarantees until Israel ended this practice.

Findley writes that Ostrovsky’s statements were relayed to Findley’s friend and former colleague Paul “Pete” McCloskey, a prominent former Republican Congressman from California who had recently been named by Bush to the National and Community Service Commission.

McCloskey, a decorated Marine veteran and graduate of Stanford law school who had at one time been considered a presidential contender, flew to Ottawa to debrief Ostrovsky in person and evaluate his information.

Findley reports that Ostrovsky told McCloskey that the Mossad wanted "to do everything possible to preserve a state of war between Israel and its neighbors, assassinating President Bush, if necessary." Ostrovsky said that a PR campaign was already underway in both Israel and the United States to "prepare public acceptance of Dan Quayle as president."

Convinced that Ostrovsky was legitimate and his information significant, McCloskey jumped on the next flight to Washington, where he reported Ostrovsky’s intelligence to the Secret Service and State Department.

The apparent plot never went forward, perhaps because Ostrovsky and McCloskey had given it away.

Ostrovsky gave more details about the plot two years later in his 1994 book, “The Other Side of Deception: A Rogue Agent Exposes the Mossad's Secret Agenda,” published by HarperCollins.

In the book Ostrovsky writes that an extremist group within Mossad was responsible for the plan. He says they kept the plan secret from then Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, though they believed that Shamir would have ordered such a hit himself if he hadn’t been constrained by politics. In the lead-up to Israel’s 1948 founding war, Shamir had headed up a terrorist group known for its assassinations.

In his review of Ostrovsky’s book, Ambassador Andrew Killgore, a retired career foreign service officer and publisher of the Washington Report, called the book an “insider's probing exposé of some Middle East realities that have been hidden too long from all but Israeli eyes.”

Ostrovsky writes that the Israelis planned a “false flag” operation in which they would pin the assassination on Palestinians. They kidnapped three Palestinian militants from Beirut who were to be the scapegoats, took them to Israel's Negev desert, and held them incommunicado.

“Meanwhile,” Killgore writes, “Mossad-generated threats on the president's life, seemingly from Palestinians, were leaked. These were designed to throw suspicion on the organization of rogue Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal. Names and descriptions of the three terrorists were leaked to Spanish police so that, if the plot was successful, blame would automatically fall on them.”

Ostrovsky reports that after the assassination plot was eventually cancelled, the three Palestinian prisoners were “terminated.”

Targeting Americans

If the plot had gone forward, this would not have been the first time that Israel targeted Americans for death. Nor would it be the first false flag operation.

In 1954 the Mossad planned to firebomb American installations, libraries, and other gathering places in Egypt. The Muslim Brotherhood was to be blamed for the attacks, thus causing American animosity toward Egypt. An accidental early detonation of one of the devices caused the plot, known as the Lavon Affair, to unravel before it could kill or mutilate the intended Americans.
In 1967 Israeli air and sea forces perpetrated an almost two-hour assault in which they tried to sink a US Navy ship with a crew of 294. While the attack failed to sink the ship, it succeeded in killing 34 Americans and injuring 174. Some analysts have conjectured that this was also a false-flag operation; it is highly likely that Egypt would have been blamed for the attack if the ship had gone down.
In 1973 Israeli fighter pilots were ordered to shoot down an unarmed U.S. reconnaissance plane (at the time the U.S. was delivering massive weaponry to Israel to prevent it from losing the “Yom Kippur” war with Egypt and Syria). While the Israelis were unable to reach the altitude of the U.S. plane, they did manage that same year to shoot down a civilian Libyan airliner that had strayed over Israeli territory, killing 104 men, women, and children. One was an American.
In 1990 a Canadian-American scientist and father of seven, Gerald Bull, was assassinated in Belgium. All indications are that it was an Israeli Mossad hit team that drilled five bullets into the back of his head and neck. (Israel has assassinated a number of scientists of various nationalities. The most recent is a 32-year-old Iranian father with a young son.)
In 2003 it came out that Israeli leaders had officially decided to undertake assassination operations on U.S. soil. An FBI spokesman, queried about the Israeli plans, said only: "This is a policy matter. We only enforce federal laws."
In recent years a growing number of American peace activists have been intentionally killed, maimed, and injured by Israeli forces, including 23-year-old Rachel Corrie, 21-year-old Brian Avery, 37-year-old Tristan Anderson, 21-year-old Emily Henoschowitz, and 21-year-old Furkan Dogan.

All of this has been minimally reported in the U.S. press. While major news media from England to Israel to Australia covered the Jewish Times’ apparent endorsement of a possible Israeli assassination of a U.S. President, the scandal has been largely missing from U.S. media. Even Atlanta’s AP bureau inexplicably initially decided not to write a report on it, only finally sending out a story many days later.

Such news omissions concerning Israeli partisans are not rare. In 2004 a fanatic Israel loyalist wrote a letter saying that he was going to burn down Presbyterian churches while worshippers were inside (he was furious at the Presbyterian Church’s decision to divest from companies profiting from the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian land). This grisly threat also received minimal media play.

Despite Israeli violence against Americans (even while American taxpayers have given Israel far more of our tax money than to any other nation) American presidential candidates, with the exception of Ron Paul, continue to vie over who is most devoted to Israel.

It is ironic that Adler considers Obama so bad for Israel, given that Israeli analysts have rated him second only to Mitt Romney in his fidelity to Israel. And Obama has now released a seven-minute video that may catapult our first African-American president into first place in pandering to an apartheid nation.

But perhaps he’ll be safe from assassins.

Russia: The national question

2012-01-23T08:15:00.001-05:00

by Vladimir Putin

For Russia – with its wide range of languages, traditions, ethnicities, and cultures – the national question is, without exaggeration, of fundamental importance. Any responsible politician or public figure must recognize that one of the main conditions of our country’s very existence is civil and interethnic harmony.

We see what is happening in the world, the serious risks that are accumulating. Escalating interethnic and interreligious tensions are today’s reality. Nationalism and religious intolerance are becoming an ideological base for some of the most radical groups and movements – destroying or eroding states, and dividing societies.

The colossal immigration flows – and we have every reason to assume that they will continue to grow – are already being referred to as the new “Great Human Migration”, capable of shifting the familiar structure and image of entire continents. Millions of people, in search for a better life, are leaving regions stricken by hunger and chronic conflict, poverty and social unrest.

Some of the world’s most developed and prosperous countries, which had previously boasted about their tolerance, have come face-to-face with the “intensification of the national question”. And today, one after another, they have had to admit their failure to integrate outside cultural elements into society and ensure a peaceful, harmonious interaction between various cultures, religions, and ethnic groups.

The “melting pot” of assimilation is stalling and smoking, unable to “digest” the growing migration flow. In politics, a reflection of this fact has been “multiculturalism”, which rejects the notion of integration through assimilation. It elevates the “right of minorities to be different” to the absolute and, at the same time, fails to balances this right with civil, behavioral, and cultural obligations with regard to the indigenous population and society as a whole.

In many countries, closed national and religious communities are forming, which not only refuse to assimilate, but will not even adapt. There are neighborhoods and entire cities where generations of immigrants are living on welfare and do not speak the language of the host country. The response to this situation has been a rise of xenophobia among indigenous populations in an attempt to protect their interests, jobs, and social benefits from the “foreign competitors”. People are shocked by the aggressive pressure on their traditions and way of life, and are seriously threatened by the possibility of losing their national identity.

Some respectable European politicians are starting to talk about the failure of the “multiculturalism project”. In order to hold on to their positions, they exploit the “ethnic card” – siding with those whom they had earlier considered marginal and radical. Extremist forces, in turn, are rapidly gaining momentum, making claims to state power. In essence, talk of forced assimilation is being proposed against a background of “aloofness” and sharp tightening of migration regimes. People of different cultures must either “dissolve in the majority” or remain an isolated national minority – albeit with various rights and guarantees. In practice, it means being cut off from the possibility of a successful career. I’ll be frank – it is hard to expect a citizen who has been subjected to such conditions to be loyal to his country.

Behind the “failure of the multicultural project” stands the crisis of the very model of a “nation-state” – a state historically built exclusively on the basis of ethnic identity. And that is a serious challenge which will be faced in Europe and many other regions of the world.

Russia as a ‘historic state’

Despite all the superficial similarities, our situation is fundamentally different. Our national and immigration problems are directly linked to the collapse of the Soviet Union and, in essence, Greater Russia, whose historic foundations were built back in the 18th century. To the subsequent inevitable degradation of state, social, and economic institutions. To the enormous gap in development on the post-Soviet territory.

Having declared sovereignty 20 years ago, the then-deputies of the RSFSR, amid a fight against the “union center”, launched the creation of “nation-states” – even within the Russian Federation itself. The “union center”, in turn, while trying to put pressure on its opponents, engaged in a behind-the-scenes game with Russian autonomies, promising to raise their “national and statehood identity.” Today, the participants in these processes are pointing the finger at one another. But one thing is clear – their actions led inevitably to disintegration and separatism. They did not have the courage, or the responsibility, or the political will to successfully and insistently defend the territorial integrity of the Motherland.

That which the initiators of the “sovereignty-related undertakings” had, perhaps, failed to realize, was very clearly and rapidly understood by everyone else – including those living outside of our state. And the consequences were immediate.

After the country’s collapse, we found ourselves on the verge of, and in certain regions, beyond the brink of a civil war, one that was ethnically motivated. With great efforts and great sacrifice, we were able to subdue these flashpoints. But that, of course, does not mean that the problem has been resolved.

However, even at a time when the state, as an institution, was critically weakened, Russia did not disappear. What happened was exactly the process described by Vasily Klyuchevsky, writing about the first Russian revolution: “When the political ties of public order fractured, the country was rescued by the moral will of the people.”

Incidentally, our November 4th holiday – National Unity Day – which some superficially call “the day of victory over the Poles,” is in reality “the day of victory over oneself,” over internal animosity and strife, when classes and nationalities acknowledge themselves as being one community – one nation. We have the right to consider this holiday the birthday of our civil nation.

The historic Russia is neither an ethnic state nor an American “melting pot”, where everyone is, one way or another, an immigrant. Russia emerged and for centuries developed as a multi-ethnic state – a state with an ongoing process of mutual adjustment, mutual understanding, and unification of people through families, friendship and work, with hundreds of ethnicities living together on the same land. The development of these vast territories, which has filled the whole of Russian history, was a collective effort of many nations. Suffice it to say that ethnic Ukrainians live on the territory, stretching from the Carpathians to Kamchatka – just as do ethnic Tatars, Jews, Belarusians…

One of Russia’s earliest philosophical and religious works, The Sermon on Law and Grace, rejects the very theory of a Chosen People and preaches the idea of equality before God. Meanwhile, the Primary Chronicle illustrates the multiethnic nature of the Old Russian state as follows: “Everyone speaks Slavic in the Rus: Polans, Drevlians, Novgorodians, Polochany, Dregovichs, Northerners, Buzhans…But other peoples: Chud, Meria, Ves, Muroma, Cheremis, Mordvins, Perm, Pechera, Yam, Lithuania, Kors, Narova, Livs – these have their own languages…”

It is this special quality of Russian statehood that was outlined in Ivan Ilyin’s works: “Not to eliminate, not to suppress, not to enslave other people’s blood, not to stifle the life of different tribes and religions – but to give everyone breath and the great Russia…to honor all, to reconcile all, to allow everyone to pray in their own way, to work in their own way, and to engage the best in public and cultural development.”

The core, the binding fabric of this unique civilization – is the Russian people, Russian culture. And it is this core that various instigators and our opponents will make every effort to tear out of Russia – with false assertions about Russians’ right to self-determination, “racial purity”, the need to “finish the job of 1991 and complete the destruction of the empire, sitting on the necks of the Russian people” – in order to ultimately force people to destroy their Motherland with their own hands.

I am deeply convinced that attempts to promote the idea of creating a Russian “national” mono-ethnic state contradict our thousand-year-old history. Moreover, it is the shortest path towards the destruction of the Russian nation and Russian statehood – as well as any viable sovereign statehood in our land.

When they start screaming: “Stop feeding the Caucasus,” just wait, as tomorrow a new call will inevitably follow: “Stop feeding Siberia, the Far East, the Ural, Volga, Moscow region…” This is the recipe followed by those who brought the Soviet Union to collapse. As for the infamous idea of national self-determination, which has been speculated on repeatedly by various politicians – from Vladimir Lenin to Woodrow Wilson – while fighting for power and political dividends, the Russian people have long self-determined themselves. Self-determination of the Russian people – a poly-ethnic civilization, held together by a Russian cultural core. This determination has been confirmed many times over by the Russian people – and not in plebiscites or referendums, but with blood. Throughout the entire 1,000 years of history.

A shared cultural code

The Russian experience of national development is unique. We are a multi-ethnic society, but we are one people. This makes our country complex and multidimensional, providing colossal opportunities for development in many areas. However, if a multi-ethnic society is struck by the bacilli of nationalism, it loses its strength and stability. And we must understand the types of far-reaching effects that can come as a result of condoning attempts to incite ethnic strife and hatred toward people with different cultures and different beliefs.

Civil peace and inter-ethnic accord is not a once-established and forever-set-in-stone picture. On the contrary, it is an unending dynamic, a dialogue. It is meticulous work of the state and society, requiring very delicate decisions, balanced and wise policies, capable of ensuring “unity in diversity”. It is necessary to not only adhere to mutual obligations, but also to search for common values. We cannot force people to be together. And we cannot force people to live together because it is convenient, based on weighing the costs and benefits. These “calculations” work until a crisis strikes. And when it does, they start working in reverse.

The confidence that we can ensure a harmonious development of a multicultural community is based on our culture, history and type of identity.

We recall that many citizens of the Soviet Union who found themselves abroad now call themselves Russian. And they consider themselves as being such regardless of ethnicity. It is also interesting that ethnic Russians have never, not in any emigration, formed stable national diasporas, despite having a significant quantitative and qualitative presence, because our identity has a different cultural code.

Russian people are nation-forming – on the basis of Russia’s existence. The great mission of Russians is to unite and bind our civilization. Language, culture and “universal kind-heartedness,” according to Fyodor Dostoevsky, are what bring together Russian Armenians, Russian Azerbaijanis, Russians Germans, Russian Tatars… Bring them together to form a type of state-civilization that does not have “ethnic persons” and where differentiation between “us and them” is determined by a common culture and shared values.

This civilizational identity is based on the preservation of a Russian cultural dominance, which flows not only from ethnic Russians, but all carriers of this identity regardless of nationality. This is the cultural code that has, in recent years, been subject to some serious trials, which people have tried and continue to try to break. And it has, nevertheless, prevailed. At the same time, it needs to be nourished, strengthened, and protected.

This is where education can play a great role. Our choice of educational program, the diversity of our education – are our undeniable achievements. But diversity must be based on unshakable values, fundamental knowledge and worldview. The civil goal of education, of the education system, is to give every person sufficient knowledge of the humanities to form the basis of collective self-identity. And this should mainly include an increased role being played in the education process by such subjects as the Russian language, Russian literature, and national history – of course, in the context of the entire wealth of national traditions and cultures.

A movement for the study of the Western cultural canon emerged in some of the leading American universities in the 1920s. Every self-respecting student was supposed to read 100 books from a specially-designed list. Some US universities continue to hold on to this tradition. Our nation has always been a nation of readers. Let’s survey our prominent cultural leaders and compile a list of 100 books that must be read by every Russian high school graduate – and not simply regurgitated in school, but read in their own time. And let’s make the writing of a composition based on those texts a part of the final exam. Or let’s at least give young people an opportunity to display their knowledge and worldview in competitions and contests.

Similar demands need to be made by the state policy in the field of culture. This applies to such tools as television, cinema, the Internet, and popular culture in general, which shape public opinion and set behavioral examples and norms.

Recall how, with the help of Hollywood, the US shaped the consciousness of several generations – and did so while introducing not the worst-possible values, in terms of national interests and public morality. There is something to learn here.

I’ll stress that no one is encroaching on artistic freedom – I am not talking about censorship or “official ideology,” but about the fact that the state must and has the right to direct its efforts and resources toward the resolution of recognized social and public problems. This includes the establishment of a worldview that binds the nation.

Our nation, where in the consciousness of many there is still an ongoing civil war, where the past is highly politicized and “torn” into ideological quotes (often interpreted by various people as precisely the opposite of what they should mean), requires subtle cultural therapy. A cultural policy that, on various levels – from school subsidies to historic documentation – would form an understanding of the unity of the historic process that would allow representatives of every ethnicity – as well as descendants of a “red commissioner” or a “white officer” – to find their place, to feel equal heirs of the “one for all” controversial, tragic, but great history of Russia.

We need a national policy strategy based on civil patriotism. Any person living in our country should not forget their faith and ethnicity. But before anything else, he must be a citizen of Russia and be proud. No one has the right to put ethnic and religious considerations above the state laws. However, the state laws need to take into account ethnic and religious considerations.

I believe that, within the federal government, there needs to be a special structure responsible for issues concerning national development, inter-ethnic harmony, and inter-ethnic reciprocity. Today, these problems are handled by the Ministry of Regional Development and, with the myriad of current tasks, are often relegated to second or even third place – and this situation needs to be corrected.

It doesn’t have to be a standard agency. Rather, it could be a collegial body that works directly with the country’s president, the head of the government, and has a certain amount of authority. National policy cannot be developed and implemented exclusively in the cabinets of officials. National and community organizations must be directly involved in its discussion and formation.

And, of course, we are counting on an active involvement in this dialogue of Russia’s traditional religions. The foundations of the Christian Orthodox Church, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism – with all of their differences and peculiarities – include basic, shared moral, ethical, and spiritual values: compassion, reciprocity, truth, justice, respect for elders, family and work values. These value systems cannot be replaced by anything: and we need to reinforce them.

I am confident that the state, society, should welcome and support the work of Russia’s traditional religions in the system of education and information, in the social sphere, and in the Armed Forces. At the same time, the secular nature of our state must, of course, be preserved.

National policy and the role of strong institutions

Systemic problems in society are often expressed in the form of inter-ethnic tensions. We should always keep in mind that there is a direct correlation between unresolved socio-economic problems, flaws in the law enforcement system, government inefficiency, corruption, and ethnically-motivated conflicts. If we look at the history of all the recent inter-ethnic incidents, we will notice this “trigger” in practically all of the cases: Kondopoga, Manezh Square, Sagra.

Everywhere we are seeing a keen response to the absence of justice, the lack of responsibility and inaction of certain state representatives, impunity for criminals and disbelief in equality before the law, the conviction that everything can be bought and there is no truth.

When we start talking about infringement of the rights of Russians in Russia, and especially on Russia’s historic territories, this indicates that the government structures are failing to perform their direct obligations – to protect the rights, life and safety of citizens. And because the majority of these citizens are Russian, it becomes possible to focus on the subject of “national oppression of Russians” and cover this justified public outcry in the most primitive and vulgar form of inter-ethnic violence, while at the same time, on every possible occasion, wailing about “Russian fascism”.

We need to be aware of the risks and threats that the situations on the verge of ethnic conflicts entail. Law enforcement and government agencies, whose negligence caused ethnic tensions, must be punished, no matter how high the rank or standing of the people involved.

The range of suitable approaches is not that big. Do not assume anything, do not jump to conclusions. We need to carry out a careful investigation of what is at the core of the problem, what are the accompanying circumstances, and settle the conflict in each individual case of hate crime. Unless there are some specific circumstances, all such cases must be processed publicly because lack of transparency encourages the spread of rumors that often aggravate the situation. In this respect, high professional standards and a responsible attitude on the part of the mass media are of paramount importance.

There is no room for dialogue amidst riots and violence. No one should be tempted to pressure the authorities into specific decisions by means of civil disorders. Our law enforcement agencies have proven that they are capable of easily and efficiently suppressing any attempts at doing that.

Another important point is that we have to develop our multi-party democratic system. We are now working on measures aimed at simplifying and liberalizing the procedures of registration and work for political parties. We are working on the initiative to return the elections of regional governors. All of these things are necessary and correct steps. But there is one thing we cannot allow and that is the creation of regional parties, even in national republics. That is a direct path toward separatism. This requirement should certainly apply to the election of regional heads – those who try to rely on nationalist, separatist and similar forces and groups must be immediately, within the framework of democratic judicial procedures, excluded from the electoral process.

Migration and our Integration Project

Today, people are concerned with – or to put it straight – annoyed by the many troubles caused by mass migration, be it from other countries or different parts of Russia. Now, with the Eurasian Union project underway, people are worried that it could increase the flow of migrants and, correspondingly, aggravate existing problems. I believe we must make our position on the issue clear.

Firstly, it’s obvious that we need to revamp the government’s migration policy. And that’s something we are going to deal with.

No country in the world has been able to eliminate illegal migration completely, but it should – and can – be curbed. This is why we need to expand the relevant powers of the police and migration agencies.

However, simply tightening the screws on migrants won’t solve the problem. In many countries, such crackdowns only spur the flow of illegal migration. The principal measure of migration policy is not its toughness, but its effectiveness.

In this regard, we must clearly define our policy concerning legal migration, both temporary and permanent. This implies that the authorities should give priority and grant favored status to those migrants who are highly-qualified, competent, competitive, and are able to adapt both to the local culture and new standards of behavior. Such positive selection procedures and competition for the quality of migrant workers are common to all countries.

Of course, migrants that meet these requirements are easier and better integrated into the recipient society.

Secondly, migration within the country is very high. A lot of people leave their homes to study, live and work in other parts of Russia, in big cities. These are citizens of Russia enjoying full civil rights.

However, if you come to a region with different cultural and historical traditions, you must show respect for the local customs, for the customs of Russians or any other nation living within the country. Any other behavior – inappropriate, aggressive, outrageous or disdainful – must be tackled by a legal but tough response, first and foremost, by the local authorities who today very often neglect the situation. We need to revise the Administrative and Criminal Codes to toughen punishment for such behavior and introduce criminal responsibility for violations of migration regulations and registration rules. Sometimes it’s enough to warn a person. But if the warning is backed up by a specific regulation it will be more effective and properly interpreted – not as a private opinion of some police officer or official, but as a requirement set forth by the law equal to all people.

Of course, there should be civilized norms even for internal migration. It’s vital for the harmonious development of social infrastructure, medicine, education and the labor market. Many regions and cities which have attracted a lot of migrants are suffering from an overload in these areas. This makes the situation complicated both for the locals and the newcomers. This is why we must toughen both our registration rules and the penalties for their violation. But in doing so, we should not undermine people’s constitutional right to choose their place of residence.

Thirdly, we must bolster our judicial branch and make our law enforcement agencies work effectively. This is of paramount importance not just in tackling the issue of foreign migrants, but, in our case, in dealing with internal migration from the republics of North Caucasus. Without these pillars, we will never be able to reconcile the interests of different societies objectively (both the in-group and the out-group) and foster a perception of migration as something safe and fair.

Also, inefficiency and corruption in both the police and the courts will always result in the twin problems of growing discontent and radicalization of the host society, as well as encouraging mob behavior and a shadow black economy in the migrant community.

We must prevent the formation of isolated ethnic enclaves which, instead of being subject to federal law, are often ruled by their own set of codes. It’s the rights of the migrants themselves that will be abused in this case, both by their own underworld bosses and by corrupt officials.

It is corruption that gives rise to crimes committed by certain ethnic groups. In legal terms, crime groups built on ethnic or tribal principles are no different from regular mobs or gangs. However, our current situation is such that these ethnic criminal groups have become more than just an organized crime problem, they have become an issue of national security. And this is something we need to address.

The fourth problem is that of civilized integration and socialization of the migrants. This requires again addressing our education process. And by this I mean not so much adjusting our education system to help us solve migration policy issues (this being far from the most important task for our schools) as boosting overall education standards in the country.

Increasing the attractiveness and value of proper education is a powerful driving force that can encourage migrants to integrate effectively into the recipient society, while low-quality education cements a tendency for isolation and distancing of the migrant communities that can become a long-term tradition, spanning several generations.

It is important to us to provide appropriate conditions for migrants to adapt in society. It is elementary that people who want to live and work in Russia should be willing to learn the Russian language and assimilate into Russia's culture. Exams in Russian, Russian history, Russian literature and the basics of Russian law should be made compulsory for the granting or extension of migrant status. Like other civilized nations, Russia is ready to put forward learning programs for migrants. In a number of cases, we will need auxiliary professional training programs paid for by the migrants' employers.

My fifth suggestion is to curb chaotic migration from post-Soviet states by means of regional integration.

It has been noted before that the main factor driving mass migration in our region are the hugely unequal levels of development of post-Soviet countries. Understandably, a sensible way to curb migration, if not eliminate it completely, would be to eliminate social inequality. A large number of leftist humanitarian activists in the West have spoken in favor of this method. Regrettably, on a global scale, this ethically irreproachable idea looks like a utopia.

Nothing is stopping us from implementing this idea in our own region, however. One of the main purposes of Eurasian integration is to create decent living conditions in post-Soviet states for millions of their people to prosper.

We understand that it is poor economic situations which force migrants to leave their homes and work in uncivilized conditions to support themselves and their families.

From this standpoint, the goals we have set for Russia (a new economy with an effective employment system, revival of professional communities, proportional development of productive forces and social infrastructure across the whole country), and the goals of Eurasian integration are key to bringing migration flows under control. On the one hand, migrants will move where they will cause minimal social tensions. On the other hand, we should provide for a comfortable and decent life in their home cities and settlements. What we should do is to give people the chance to work and live normally at home, in their Motherland – a chance that most of them are currently deprived of. There are no simple solutions for national and ethnic policies. Their components are scattered across all areas of life, and of the state and society – the economy, the social sphere, education, politics and international affairs. We should build a model of state and civilized society that would be equally attractive and comfortable for everyone who calls Russia their Motherland.

We see what is to be done next. We understand that we have a historical experience that no one else has. We can rely on our mentality, our culture, our identity – it’s a unique and powerful foundation.

We will be strengthening the “historic state” that we inherited from our ancestors – a state and a civilization that can solve the task of harmonizing different ethnic and religious groups successfully.

We have been living together for centuries. Together, we won the most terrible war. And we will continue to live together. To those seeking to divide us, I say: “Don’t waste your time.”

source: http://rt.com/politics/official-word/migration-national-question-putin-439/

original Russian text: http://www.ng.ru/politics/2012-01-23/1_national.html

Brown-nosing Black man

2012-01-22T12:40:00.002-05:00

On Friday, October 17th, 2008, right before the 2008 Presidential election, I posted the following video of Malcolm X:

and I added the following words:

So what do you think? Is Obama a threat to the system (a "field negro") or the obedient slave of the system (a "house negro")? Is Obama a force for "change"?

Time has proven, beyond any doubt, that Obama was not only a 'house negro', but an abject 'Tom' who would subserviently obey any order from his Wall Street masters and happily betray the interests of the 99%, Black, White, Asian or other. Another term which comes to my mind is 'prostitute'. And the only good thing which came out of his election was the proof that a majority of White Americans would vote for a Black man if they were promised "change you can believe in". Hopefully, this has also proved to a majority of Black Americans that prostitutes come in all colors, Black included, and that race really says nothing about a person.

And now this. Check out this abject video: (please, do watch it all!)

I wish I could find strong enough words to express my absolute contempt for Barak Obama and all he stands for. Think about it: here he is, the first Black President, shamelessly brown-nosing a a vicious, genocidal, terrorist regime which has the disgraceful 'distinction' of being the last openly racist regime on the planet.

Words fail me.

House Negro, Tom, prostitute - none of that really expresses my disgust with this man. Obama deserves to have his name become a neologism: "don't be such an Obama!" , "that SOB sure did Obama me!" , "you punk-ass Obama!" or something similar.

And I think of Malcolm X, IMHO the greatest American which ever lived (even though he himself never considered himself as an "American"). Ironically, X and Obama have a lot in common: they are brilliant speakers, they are charismatic leaders, they both achieved quasi-perfection in their lives' mission. And they both faithfully served their masters: X served God, Obama serves Satan (whether he understands it or not).

[disclaimer for the doubleplusgoodthinking atheists: please ignore the last sentence above; I am not interested in discussing it]

Yes, Obama is an "anti-X", the polar opposite of Malcolm X, one of the two greatest "prophets" (in a non religious sense) of the 20th century who spoke on behalf of the oppressed (the other one being Alexander Solzhenitsyn). All Obama really is is a pagan idol.

I think of King David who wrote:

"Do not put your trust in princes, in human beings, who cannot save. When their spirit departs, they return to the ground; on that very day their plans come to nothing. Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God. He is the Maker of heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them — he remains faithful forever. He upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets prisoners free, the Lord gives sight to the blind, the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down,the Lord loves the righteous. The Lord watches over the foreigner and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the ways of the wicked. " (Psalm 146).

A lot of liberals, progressives and otherwise naive people ignored this ancient warning never to turn a man into an idol and foolishly placed their hopes into the 'change' they were promised. Likewise, many Blacks made skin-color into their own idol which they also naively worshiped. Now that this entire edifice of misplaced hopes is coming crashing down in an orgy of lies, hypocrisy, betrayals and prostitution, I hope that at least we will all learn this basic lesson: this regime cannot be changed, reformed or otherwise salvaged. What the USA needs is not another President, but regime-change, in which the 1% currently running the US Empire are given the boot and sovereignty is returned to the remaining 99% (regardless of skin color).

So I offer you all a slogan for the future political campaigns:

"Regime change, the only change you should believe in"

The Saker

Israel creates a super PAC to attack Ron Paul

2012-01-20T10:11:00.000-05:00

Uncle Sam shuts down Megaupload - 'Anonymous' retaliates

2012-01-20T08:01:00.006-05:00

Slashdot reports:

"Federal prosecutors in Virginia have shut down notorious file-sharing site Megaupload.com and charged the service's founder with violating piracy laws. The Associated Press broke the story on Thursday, reporting that the indictment accuses Megaupload.com's owner with costing copyright holders including record labels and movie studios more than $500 million in lost revenue."* "Shortly after a federal raid today brought down the file sharing service Megaupload, hackers aligned with the online collective Anonymous have shut down sites for the Department of Justice, Universal Music Group and the RIAA. 'It was in retaliation for Megaupload, as was the concurrent attack on Justice.org,' Anonymous operative Barrett Brown tells RT on Thursday afternoon."*

'Anonymous' warns:

Twitter - @AnonymousWiki
January 19th, 2012
Popular file-sharing website megaupload.com gets shutdown by U.S Justice - FBI and charged its founder with violating piracy laws. Four Megaupload members were also arrested. The FBI released a press release on its website which you can view here:
http://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/justice-department-charges-leaders-of-megaupload-with-widespread-online-copyright-infringement
We Anonymous are launching our largest attack ever on government and music industry sites. Lulz. The FBI didn't think they would get away with this did they? They should have expected us.
#OpMegaupload
The following sites were taken down in response to the FBI shutting down megaupload.com
:) TANGO DOWN
justice.gov
universalmusic.com
riaa.org
mpaa.org
copyright.gov
hadopi.fr
wmg.com
usdoj.gov
bmi.com
fbi.gov

Megaupload Song (Temporarily) Banned on YouTube:

Britain admits 'fake rock' plot to spy on Russians

2012-01-19T09:17:00.000-05:00

The Guardian reports:

Britain was behind a plot to spy on Russians with a device hidden in a fake plastic rock, a former key UK government official has admitted.

Jonathan Powell, former chief of staff to prime minister Tony Blair, admitted in a BBC documentary that allegations made by the Russians in 2006 - dismissed at the time - were in fact true.

"The spy rock was embarrassing," he said in the BBC2 documentary series, Putin, Russia and the West. "They had us bang to rights. Clearly they had known about it for some time and had been saving it up for a political purpose."

A diplomatic row was sparked six years ago after Russian state television broadcast a film claiming British agents had hidden a sophisticated transmitter inside a fake rock left on a Moscow street. It accused embassy officials of allegedly downloading classified data from the transmitter using palm-top computers.

The TV report showed a video of a man slowing his pace and glancing down at the rock before walking quickly away; another man was shown kicking the rock, while another walked by and picked it up. The Russian security service, the FSB, broadcast X-rays of a hollowed-out rock filled with circuitry and accused four British men and one Russian of using it to download information.

The FSB alleged that British security services were making secret payments to pro-democracy and human rights groups. Soon after the incident, then President Vladimir Putin forced the closure of many non-governmental organisations (NGOs) after introducing a law restricting them from receiving funding from foreign governments.

"We have seen attempts by the secret services to make use of NGOs. NGOs have been financed through secret service channels. No one can deny that this money stinks," said Putin. "This law has been adopted to stop foreign powers interfering in the internal affairs of the Russian Federation."

Britain's ambassador in Moscow at the time, Tony Brenton, denied the government had been involved in covert activities.

"All of our activities with the NGOs were completely above board," he said. "They were on our website, the sums of money, the projects. All of that was completely public."

The revelation comes at a sensitive time, with Putin renewing attacks on human rights and opposition activists as hostility to his premiership grows. He has repeatedly accused the west, namely the US, of using activists to plot to bring regime change to Russia.

"Putin, as a former spy and KGB agent, is trying to discredit us with the only methods he knows," said Lev Ponomaryov, a prominent human rights activist. "For any thinking person this rock meant nothing – it was simply a provocation, a cheap trick used by a former KGB agent."At the time Blair attempted to play down the allegations, and the Foreign Office denied any irregular relations with Russian NGOs. When asked about the incident, Blair smiled as he told journalists: "I think the less said about that, the better."

A plan to solve the Middle-East crisis (free Palestine)

2012-01-17T12:08:00.002-05:00

Speech of Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on January 14, 2012

2012-01-16T17:06:00.000-05:00

I take refuge in Allah from the stoned devil. In the Name of Allah, The Compassionate, The Most Merciful. Peace be on the Seal of prophets, our Master and Prophet, Abi Al Qassem Mohammad and on his chaste and pure Household and on his chosen companions and on all messengers and prophets. Peace be on you, my master and Lord Abi Abdullah, and on all the souls gathering around your holy site. Peace be on you as long as I remain alive and as long as night follows day. May Allah make it not my last visit to you. Peace be on Hussein, Ali the son of Hussein, the children of Hussein and the companions of Hussein.

Scholars, brothers, sisters, and dear people! Peace be on you all and Allah's mercy and blessing. May Allah reward you abundantly, bless you and make your faces radiant in this world and in the Hereafter for consoling the Prophet of Allah – peace be upon him - and His Household – peace be upon them – and for reviving their causes – which are the causes of the prophets, messengers, the divine missions, the Qoran, the Sunna, the nation, the glories of the nation, its past, history, future, fate, pains and expectations.

I address you with esteem, salutation and many thanks for your great, massive and honorable participation. Many among you have started walking since the early hours of dawn. They walked tens of kilometers from the various towns and villages of Al Bekaa. Many came from outside Al Bekaa as well from the various Lebanese regions. They walked for hours in this very cold weather. They bore all these hardships and expressed some of there consolation to that jihadi, Husseini, Zeinabi procession which walked for hundreds of kilometers from Kufa to Musel, Nissibeen, Rikeh, Allopo, Hamah, Homos, Baalbeck and Damascus. Still the long journey, the harshness of the road, hardships, alienation, loneliness, oppression and woes did not harm their determination, will and forcefulness.

Today you are expressing your faith, adoration and your true pledge of allegiance to the Prophet of Allah – peace be upon him - and the Household of the Prophet of Allah – peace be upon them, to the pioneer Muslims of the early stages of Islam, and to the grandson of the Prophet - Abi Abdullah Al Hussein- Peace be upon him. On the tenth day of Muharram, you addressed him on top of your voices saying: At your service, O Hussein. And today on Al Arbaeen, you walked for long distances in a show that expresses the truthfulness of your pledge and compliance through these convoys and processions in this place in particular – the City of Baalbeck - and in the holy site of the Head of Al Hussein in the Field of Marjet Ras Al Ain. You are commemorating the path of that struggling honorable oppressed procession which comprised the sons and daughters of the Prophet of Allah – Peace be upon him – who remained alive following the event of Karbala and who hold the banner of Al Hussein, the blood of Al Hussein and the cry of Al Hussein which will remain reverberating through history and existence until Doom's Day.

Here in the City of Baalbeck and in this holy mosque the procession dismounted. It carried Imam Zein Al Aabideen, Zeinab, the sisters of Zeinab and those who remained alive from among the chaste Household.

On this holy site the heads rested – the heads of Al Hussein, Abbass, Ali Akbar, Qassem, Habib, Zuheir bin Al Qain and the rest of the martyrs from among the Household of the Prophet and the companions.

We gather in this place today to tell the martyrs in Karbala and the prisoners in the procession of woes and pride: you are truly alive in us and in our intellect, culture, awareness, heart, mind, emotions, determination, will, adoration, love and longing.

O our masters! You are the blood in our veins, the tears in our eyes, the beats of our hearts, the breeze of our lives and our absolute dignity. We move on your steps and will never deviate. We will never hesitate and we will move along in this path until we join you and we achieve in our world one of the two virtues: either victory or martyrdom.

On the tenth day of Muharram every year, we reiterate the cry of Al Hussein – peace be upon him – and the stance of Al Hussein – peace be upon him – which may be summed in one phrase. I am enchanted by this phrase and I repeat it and reiterate it on every tenth of Muharram and on every day or occasion in which Al Hussein is mentioned or his memory is marked. It is a resume for the stance, the essence of the religion of the prophets, the divine mission, the core of religion and slavery to Allah only: "The bastard son of a bastard has put us before two choices: war or humiliation. Humiliation, how remote! Allah does not accept that to befall us, neither his Prophet, the believers nor the zealous and haughty souls. They don't accept that we favor the obedience of the ignoble to the death of the noble."

On the day of Arbaeen, we may take a quotation made by Imam Zein Al Aabideen - peace be upon him – as a slogan, stance and a fixed permanent truth, and we may take another quotation made by Sayyeda Zeinab - peace be upon her. As we did on the tenth day of Muharam, through the two stances we may determine our stance, path, view, position and vision of the future.

We start with the stance of Imam Zein Al Aabideen – peace be upon him – in the council of Ibn Ziad. Ibn Ziad undermined this group of small number whose beloved and masters were slaughtered and still feel powerful, prejudiced and proud. In confronting Imam Zein Al Aabideen – peace be upon him – Ibn Ziad threatened Imam Zein Al Aabideen with killing. What was the Imam's response to this threat? The Imam - who was chained with cuffs and inflicted with fever while still seeing his aunts, sisters, the womenfolk and the children around him - said his word which was very much similar to "Humiliation! How remote!" and which remains our slogan, soul, and the essence of our stance. Today we reiterate: "O son of the freed! Are you threatening us with death? Killing is a habit to us and our dignity from Allah is martyrdom."

On this day and before all what is taking place in the region, all what is taking place in the world, all what we hear everyday and in every hour whether US-Israeli threats, US and Israeli agents in the region, the threats and bullying we hear day and night, we also tell them though in a different situation: Do you threat us with death? We are the children of Al Hussein and Zein Al Aabideen. We are the children of the Prophet of Allah and the Household of the Prophet and the companions of the Prophet. We are the children of Badr, Khaibar, Hunain and Karbala. Killing is a habit to us and our dignity from Allah is martyrdom. With such a spirit we confronted you in 1982, and we still mass in the squares.

Now we come to the stance of Zeinab – peace be upon her – in the council of Yazid who thought – as Zeinab told him – that he had control over the nation and the land and that his time had come and that he could take grip of the regime. There he was striking the lips of Abi Abdullah Al Hussein – peace be upon him – while the head of the Imam was placed in before Yazid's hands in Yazid's castle. There Zeinab stood. In what condition did she stand? She was a prisoner, alienated and lonely. She had no supporter. She had no helper. However, what did she tell Yazid in her lengthy, clear, strong and firm speech? I want to take from this speech but the extract through which we look to the future as our Lady Zeinab – peace be upon her – looked to it back in 61 (A H). We are now in 1433 (A H). Despite this long interval, the stance is the same. Back in 61 (A H), what did Zeinab – who was in such a condition – say in a council which seemed to laud Yazid's triumph? She said: "You may contrive and try however much you can. By Him, you cannot achieve our status, nor reach our position, nor can you affect our mention, nor remove from yourself that shame and dishonor that is now your lot because of perpetrating excess and oppression on us. Your word now is weak and your days are counted and your crowds are to be dispersed".

Today we tell all those conspiring against the nation, its sanctities, its peoples, its wealth, its religion and its capabilities. We tell those who are conspiring day and night and waylaying the nation's honorable and resistance fighters. We tell them while we are not in a state like Zeinab's and while we are not in Yazid's castle. Our masses rather gather in squares. Our men mobilize on more than one front and country in which the resistance has fronts and the Opposition groups have an axis and men have stances. We tell all the tyrants in the world: "You may contrive and try however much you can. By Him, you cannot achieve our status, nor reach our position, nor can you affect our mention, nor remove from yourself that shame and dishonor that is now your lot because of perpetrating excess and oppression on us. Your word now is weak and your days are counted and your crowds are to be dispersed."

Today we stand in this square – the Square of the Holy Site of the Head of Imam Hussein – Peace be upon him – and the gathering place of his prisoners. It's the very square which witnessed in our present time the popular jihadi starting place of Imam Leader Sayyed Mussa Sader as well as the starting place of the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon. It also marked the first armed show on the International Al Qods Day on its first commemoration. It is the very square that had always embodied the bodies of the martyrs from among the children of this prideful region who return from the South and the West Bekaa or the martyrs of Israeli shelling on Baalbeck, Duris, the training camps in Jinta and Ain Kawkeb. From this square we firmly and finally and with absolute certitude confirm our adherence to the choice of resistance, the course of the resistance, the path of the resistance and the arms of the resistance. That's because this choice, this path, this weapon along with the Army and the people are the only guarantee for the security of Lebanon, the protection of Lebanon, the dignity of Lebanon and the sovereignty of Lebanon.

Yesterday, I felt happy when I heard the UN Secretary General Pan Kimon saying that he is worried from the military power of Hezbollah.

This makes us appeased. I tell him: Mr. Pan Kimon! Your worry appeases us and makes us happy. We care that you be worried along with America and Israel. We do not care about that at all. We care that our people, women, children and elderly be appeased that in Lebanon there is a resistance which do not allow any new imprisonment, any new occupation, and any new violation of dignities. That's what makes us happy and appeased.

Here I tell him and the whole world: This jihadi armed resistance will carry on and persist and increase its power, capacities and readiness as its certitude in the righteousness of its choice increases. We had our experience in Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq and the whole region which lived under occupation. Palestine is still under occupation as it has been for decades of time. What was the outcome of bargaining on the Arab League and on most of the Arab regimes, the Organization of Islamic Conference, the United Nations, the Security Council and the European Union and so on? What was the outcome?

The result was that Palestine is still under occupation, that more than 10 thousand Palestinian men and women are still in prison, that millions of Palestinians are still in exodus, and that Al Qods of Muslims and Christians is still profaned with Zionists who judaize it everyday.

As for the Resistance in Lebanon which had faith in Allah and bargained on the arms of its men and the embracement of its women and people, it achieved liberation. The resistance in Gaza achieved liberation. The resistance in Iraq achieved liberation.

It is however strange that in this time and on the onset of 2012 and after all these historic achievements of the choice of resistance and the path of the resistance and the very great victories in Lebanon, Palestine and Iraq, some still argue with us over the resistance, the futility of the resistance, and the course of the resistance. Well what is your alternative? What is your path?

Today we stress this concept.

As for national dialogue, I did not say on the tenth of Muharram that we refuse dialogue. I rather said – and I was precise and clear – that some do not want from dialogue but disarming the resistance. I told them: You won't be able to achieve this goal. Today on the day of Arbaeen of Imam Hussein I tell them anew: These are illusions. This is mirage. You won't be able to achieve this goal.

As for national dialogue for setting a national defense strategy to defend Lebanon, we are the people of dialogue and callers for dialogue. We are ready for such a dialogue on the national level or on a bilateral, threefold or quadrate levels.

We always used to say: We are the people of dialogue because we possess the logic, the evidence, the strong proof, the experience and the achievements. When we talk about the futility of the resistance, we do not talk about experiences that took place hundreds of years ago or experiences of other peoples in the world. We rather talk about the experiences of our people, men, women, children and elderly. We talk about experiences made here in the South, Bekaa, Beirut, Dahiyeh, the Mount and the North. Here the experiences were made and the achievements were eye witnessed by the world. Thus we are the people most fit of dialogue because we are the people of evidences, logic, proof and clear vision. We are not the people of slogans, zeal and futile and unclear phrases.

Also here we must recall the Imam of the resistance – absented Imam Sayyed Mussa Sader - May Allah restore him safe and sound. We also recall both his brethrens - His Eminence Sheikh Mohammad Yaqoub and Abbass Badriddine. We assert our support of the steps taken by the Lebanese government and the official Lebanese delegate which headed to Libya these days. We thank the brethrens in Libya on their willingness to deal with this file with the required seriousness, and we demand that from them. We especially demand that efforts be exerted in the framework of a joint investigation to lead this cause to its good final stages which meet the expectations of the family of Imam Sader, the family of Sheikh Yaqoub and the family of Abbass Badriddine as well as all their adorers in this country – and they are many.

As for security and before tackling the governmental issue, I would like to stress today and from the City of Baalbeck our interest in civil peace, security and stability in the country, and that no political dispute over any Lebanese or regional issue - whether we disagreed over Syria, Iraq, Iran, Palestine, Bahrain or any other regional issue - lead to a crack in security, stability or civil peace. This is our commitment, path, position and religion.

I stress this strict commitment of ours. I call for this commitment. I also stress on the responsibility of preserving internal security, social security, confronting thieves, confronting killers, and confronting the aggressors in all the Lebanese regions. This is the responsibility of the state. It's the responsibility of the government, the army and the security institutions. It's not the responsibility of any side whether the resistance or any other party. We refuse that anyone hold us responsible for that. This is the responsibility of the Army and the security institutions.

Any security achievement is counted among their accomplishments. Any security shortcoming is counted among their disadvantages. Through our position in the government, the Parliament, the street and the squares, we recall our demand on the Lebanese Army and the security institutions to assume fully their responsibility of security in all the Lebanese regions. There is no pretext or excuse for failing to assume this responsibility.

As for the government, we are interested on the persistence and continuity of this government, and we are acting accordingly. We hope that its head and ministers exert greater efforts. We hope that this government be more effective. We hope it would give greater interest and more priority to the living and social causes of the people. This is what makes the government more popular and this is what makes it win the interest of the people and their support.

As for the wages of laborers, teachers and employees, it is time this issue be finally settled. Prima facie, this issue does not seem to be that of routine and legal dispute. I can say we started viewing it with suspicion as if there are some who do not want this government in particular to achieve such an important sensitive living issue.

As for the situation in the region, I start with Syria. Lebanon is the country which is most influenced with what takes place in Syria whether we liked it or not. It's just theories to say the opposite. True we in Lebanon are trying to keep our political, security, governmental and official status away from what is taking place in Syria; still, we are the country which is most in the region influenced with what takes place in Syria. As Lebanese, we must thus call on the Syrian Opposition locally and abroad to respond to the calls for dialogue made by President Assad and to cooperate with him to undertake the reforms which were announced and which are very important and which promote Syria and address its crises. We also frankly call for restoring peace and security and for laying down arms so as to address crises with dialogue.

I tell all the countries in response to much of what have been said these days whether statements, declarations or recommendations: Some are warning against a sectarian war in the region which starts off in Syria.

I call on them and tell them that your very conduct – the very political, media, provocative, and field conduct of these states and governments – is pushing things in that direction. Thus warning is futile. If you are faithful in your warning, if you are really interested in sparing Syria and our region a sectarian war and civil conflicts, you only have to start with yourselves. Reconsider this political, media, diplomatic and field conduct. Let all efforts – the efforts of the Arab states and the Arab League along with the influential Islamic states in the region muster not on inflaming fire, embarrassing people and pushing things towards an explosion but rather on partaking in a true, logical address of the crisis. I believe that everyone in Syria is interested in his country, his people and his strategic position in the region and is willing to respond.

As for Iraq, we must strongly condemn the explosions which targeted the visitors which took place in the past few days and today and which led to the fall of hundreds of martyrs and hundreds of wounded. I call anew on the religious scholars of the nation, its governments, movements and parties – especially the Islamic parties – to condemn all of these kinds of explosions especially the suicidal explosions which target civilians because of intellectual, religious, sectarian or political dispute whether in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Somalia, and Nigeria and which target Muslims and Christians.

The only sin of those who are killed in Iraq today is that they walked to visit the grandson of the Prophet of Allah. They are avenging them. The killers are avenging from the spirit of Iraqi resistance which defeated occupation and forced it to withdraw. However I tell the killers whoever they may be: Killing is futile. It will not halt this faithful, prophetic procession which is taking pains for the sake of Allah. Killing in Karbala did not put a decisive end to the battle. It rather made it stronger and fiercer. Neither did the killing in Lebanon, the killing in Palestine, the killing in Iraq, and the killing in Iran. Killing the nuclear scholars in Iran will not halt the scientific development in Iran, the Iranian technological enhancement and Iran achieving the elements of scientific and economic force.

Why do they kill nuclear scholars? That's because they want the Arab world – excuse me! Perhaps what I will say does not go with the occasion – and they want us to be singers and dancers. They want us to be unmindful and among those who waste their days and nights and pant after pleasure and self-indulgence. They do not want us to be scholars in every field whether in physics, chemistry and medicine. They do not want us to be a nation which produces science in every domain. They want us to import science. Imam Khomeini called on Iran to produce science. Today Iran produces science. He called on us to be a nation that produces science and exports science as it used to do in the past ages. This is one of the most important reasons of strength. They do not want this power to be available.

As for Bahrain, we renew our call on the authority in Bahrain to respond to the demands of the people, to start with the true required reforms, and to usher in a serious true dialogue with the Opposition on the basis that achieve the desires and the expectations of this dear people.

On the day of Al Arbaeen, we can't forget Palestine – the kiblah of the noble and the resistance fighters. Day after day, it is proven to the people of Palestine that there is no way other than the resistance, and that the enemies of this nation do not want for the Palestinian people to reconcile and for its factions to unite. They always pressure and frustrate any effort for reconciliation between Hamas, Fatah and the various Palestinian factions because their perpetual project is disjointing our people in Palestine, disjointing our people in Lebanon, disjointing our people in Syria, disjointing our people in Iraq and disjointing our peoples in all our Arab countries.

Our brothers and sisters in Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Iraq and the entire region! Our path for dignity, esteem, independence, freedom, strength, invulnerability, prosperity and security is unity, evading ordeals and conflicts, addressing crises through dialogue, adhering to the resistance, the choice of resistance and the spirit of resistance. Historic experiences including this solemn great occasion have shown that with our spirit that refuses humiliation and longs passionately for martyrdom and which trusts the future and is certain of final victory we may lead our nation which is in this risky stage to the secure side where unity, strength, integrity, dignity and victory are awaiting.

Peace be on you my master and Lord Abu Abdullah – O son of the Prophet of Allah - and on all the souls gathering around your holy site. Peace be on you as long as I remain alive and as long as night follows day. May Allah make it not my last visit to you.

Peace be on Hussein, Ali the son of Hussein, the children of Hussein and the companions of Hussein.

Again may Allah reward you abundantly and thank you for your efforts. O our dear people, men, women, children and elderly! May Allah make your faces radiant in this world and in the Hereafter. May Allah make us and you among the supporters of Al Hussein in this world and gather us along with you with Al Hussein, the grandfather of Al Hussein, the father of Al Hussein, the mother of Al Hussein in the Hereafter. Peace be upon you and Allah's mercy and blessings.

Russia muscles up – the challenges we must rise to face

2012-01-16T08:49:00.001-05:00

by Vladimir Putin

On March 4, the people of Russia will be going to the polls to elect a president of the country. Extensive discussions are currently underway across society.

I consider it necessary to state my position on a number of issues which seem to be important in this broader debate: the risks and challenges Russia will, inevitably, encounter. The position we must take in global politics and the world economy. Will we follow the course of events or take a role in setting the rules of the game? What resources will help us to strengthen our positions and, I stress, ensure stable development? The kind of development that is a world away from stagnation. Because, in the modern world, stability is an asset that can only be secured and earned through persistent effort, by being open to change and being ready to carry through developed, well thought-out, considered reforms.

A recurring problem in Russian history has been the elites’ desire to achieve sudden change, a revolution rather than sustained development. Meanwhile, both Russian and global experience demonstrates how harmful these sudden historical jolts can be: jumping the gun, destroying – not creating.

This is balanced by a different trend, a diametrically opposed challenge –in the form of a certain inclination to inertia, dependency, the elites’ uncompetitiveness and high levels of corruption. And in every case these “rebels” turn into the “smug upper classes” before our very eyes, resisting any change and fervently protecting their status and privileges. Or we witness the reverse process – as the established elites become rebels.

Consequently, politics and policies are short-termist and limited by issues involving the current preservation or re-division of authority and property.

This situation has historically resulted from weak public control over policymakers in Russia, its underdeveloped civil society. Things are gradually improving there, but only very slowly as yet.

There can be no real democracy until politics is embraced by the majority of the population, until it reflects the interests of this majority. True, it is possible to win over a considerable part of society for a short time with catchy slogans and visions of a brighter future; but if people later simply cannot picture themselves in this future – they will turn away from politics and social challenges for a long time to come. This has happened time and again in our history.

Today people talk about different ways to reinvigorate the political process. But what is up for discussion? How state power should be structured? Handing it to the “better people”? But what next? What then?

I am worried that there is virtually no broader discussion of what should be done beyond the elections, after the elections. To my mind, this is not in the national interests; it is not in the interests of the quality of society’s development, the standard of education and levels of responsibility.

I think Russians should be able to discuss not only the advantages and disadvantages of individual politicians, which is clearly in itself no bad thing, but also the actual content of the policies and programmes which various political leaders intend to implement. The challenges and goals which must be at the forefront of these programmes. How we can improve our life and make our social system more just. What avenues of social and economic development we should favour.

We need a broad dialogue – about the future, about priorities, long-term choices, national development and national prospects. This article is an invitation to join just such a dialogue.

Where we are and where we’re headed

In terms of the basic parameters of social and economic development today’s Russia has emerged from the deep recession which followed the collapse of totalitarian socialism and the ensuing downfall of the Soviet Union. Despite the 2008-2009 crisis, as a result of which we “lost” a whole two years, we have attained and surpassed the living standard indices reported in the best years of the USSR. For example, life expectancy in Russia now is higher than in the Soviet Union in 1990-1991.

Our economy is growing – and this is above all about people, their work, their incomes, their new opportunities. Compared with the 1990s, poverty is down by more than 150%. “Areas of stagnant poverty”, when active and employable people could not find jobs or were not paid for months, are essentially a thing of the past. Independent studies show that four out of five Russians have incomes higher than in 1989 – the “peak” of development of the USSR – which was followed by the decline and imbalance of the country’s entire socio-economic organism. Over 80% of Russian families today consume more than their Soviet counterparts did. The availability of domestic appliances has grown by 50%, reaching the level of developed economies. One in two families has a car – a three-fold rise. Housing conditions have palpably improved. Both the statistical average individual and Russian pensioners now consume more basic foods than they did in 1990.

But what is particularly important is that over the past 10 years Russia has produced a considerable segment of the population – people who in the West are called the middle classes. Their incomes allow them a certain freedom in what they choose to spend and what to save, what to buy and how to spend their holidays. They can afford to be choosy over where they work and have some savings under their belt.

Lastly, the middle classes are people who can choose politics. As a rule, their education is such that they can take a discriminating attitude to candidates rather than “voting with their heart.” In short, the middle classes have begun shaping their real demands in various fields.

In 1998, they made up between 5% and 10% of the population – less than in the late USSR. Now the middle classes are estimated to constitute between 20% and 30% of the population. These are people whose earnings are three times as high as the average wage or salary in 1990.

These middle classes must continue to expand. They must become a social majority in our society; to recruit members from among those who really are the lifeblood of the country – doctors, teachers, engineers, and skilled workers.

Russia’s main hope lies with the high educational standards of the population and above all of its youth. This is the case – despite the obvious problems with and complaints about the quality of the country’s educational system.

As many as 57% of people aged 25 to 35 in Russia have a higher education – a level seen in just three other countries: Japan, South Korea and Canada. This explosive growth in demand for educational requirements is continuing: the next generation (15- to 25-year-olds) will likely be one of universal higher education – as more than 80% of young people will either be in the process of attaining, or will have completed courses of higher education.

We are entering a wholly new social reality. The “educational revolution” is fundamentally altering the key features of Russian society and the Russian economy. Even if our economy does not require that many workers with higher education at the moment – there is no going back. People should not have to adapt themselves to the existing economic and labour market structure – it is the economy that must change so as to enable people with a high educational standards and high requirements to find a worthy occupation.

Russia’s main challenge is learning to exploit the “educational drive” of this younger generation, to mobilise the middle class’s enhanced demands and its readiness to assume responsibility for its own welfare in order to guarantee economic growth and the country’s continued stable development.

Better educated people mean a longer life span, less crime, less antisocial behaviour, and more rational options. All of this – in and of itself – is creating a favourable background for our future.

But this is not enough.

The steady growth in Russia’s wealth in the past decade has largely been due to government policy, including a more rational distribution of the country’s commodity earnings. Oil revenues were used to boost people’s incomes – to pull millions out of poverty. We have also ensured that the country had rainy-day savings to support it through crises or disasters. But the potential of our commodity-based economy is becoming depleted, and what’s more, it has no strategic future.

The goal of diversifying the economy and creating new growth sources has been included in our programmes and policy documents as early as 2008.

An innovation-based economy needs to be built for the sake of all educated and responsible citizens, whether they are professionals, business leaders or consumers.

As many as 10-11 million young people will become economically active over the next decade, about 8-9 million of them with university degrees. Today, some 5 million university graduates are not satisfied with their incomes and jobs, and the lack of career growth prospects. Another 2-3 million people employed by public services and agencies wish to find new jobs. In addition, 10 million people are employed by companies that use obsolete technology and equipment. Older technology should become history, and not just because it is not competitive. In some cases it is simply hazardous for a worker’s health or for the natural environment.

In this context, the talk of 25 million new innovation-based high-tech jobs for educated Russians is not just phrase-mongering. It is a vital necessity, a required minimum that should be achieved. This national priority should become the focus of state policy and of business strategy. The country’s business climate should be improved in this respect.

I am confident that Russia’s current and future workforce potential is high enough to provide strong global competition. Russia’s future economy should also meet society’s needs. It should ensure higher incomes and create broader opportunities for professional growth and social improvement.

All the above should become the key growth criteria in the next few years, and not just figures such as GDP, international reserves, rating agencies’ assessments and Russia’s high rank among the world’s leading economies. It is of primary importance that people feel some positive change, mainly growing opportunities.

At the same time, individual initiatives should be the real drivers of growth. We will fail if we rely exclusively on government decisions and on a limited circle of investors and state companies. We are certain to fail if Russians at large remain passive.

Therefore, strong growth in Russia over the next decade implies greater freedom for each of us. Wealth sourced from others, without conscious decision-making and responsibility is out of the question in the 21st century.

There is one more challenge we are facing. Generalities about the benefits of accord or charity are rhetoric that often disguises a lack of trust among our people, their reluctance to make efforts for the public good, to look out for each other and to sacrifice private interests. This is an old and serious ailment in Russian society.

Russian culture includes a longstanding tradition to respect the state, public interest and the nation’s needs. An absolute majority of Russians wants to see their country strong and powerful and it respects national heroes who have given their lives for the greater good. Unfortunately, their pride in their motherland or their patriotic feelings rarely gets reflected in their daily activities such as participation in local policy-making, legal advocacy or real charity.

As a rule, this behaviour is not due to indifference or selfishness. In fact it reflects a lack of self-confidence or distrust of others.

Still, even that has slowly started changing. People have started to do more than make demands of the authorities, however justified they might be. They are taking on important tasks like neighbourhood improvement, supporting people with disabilities, helping those in need, organising leisure activities for children and so on.

In 2012, the government will begin to support these initiatives. Federal and regional programmes have been adopted to support social NGOs. These programmes will be expanded in the future. However, for these programmes to work, we need to overcome state officials’ die-hard prejudice against public activists. This prejudice in fact reflects the officials’ reluctance to share resources, a desire to avoid competition and responsibility for the outcome.

In fact religion – the widespread faiths such as Orthodox Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Buddhism – plays a valuable role in serving the people, in overcoming discord, in boosting trust and willingness to peacefully resolve conflicts that are bound to arise in a fast growing society. Large and important contributions can and must be made by schools and the media, TV and the internet communities.

A society of independent individuals is not the same as a crowd of lonely mercenary egotists indifferent to the public good. We have never been such a people and never will be. Personal freedom is productive only if one looks out for others. Freedom which is not based on morality turns into anarchy.

Trust among people only develops in a society knitted together by shared values and priorities, one where people have not lost their faith, integrity or sense of what is fair. Respect for the law only emerges where the law applies to all, is observed by all and when it is based on truth.

A social portrait of our future would be incomplete without mentioning one crucial element: 10%-11% of our countrymen are living below the poverty line, for a variety of reasons. We have to solve this problem by the end of the decade. We have to overcome poverty, it is unacceptable for a developed country. We must harness the resources of the state and the efforts of most active, committed part of society. We need to ensure that social assistance reaches those who need it and support charitable movements.

Russia must develop a system of social mobility that allows people to climb out of poverty, a system appropriate to a modern society. We must learn to compensate for the negative social consequences of a market economy and the inequality engendered by it, just like other countries with a long-established tradition of capitalism have learned to do. This assistance includes helping children from poor families receive education, providing social housing to low-income families, ending discrimination against people with disabilities and securing them equal access to life essentials and good jobs. Our society will become successful only when our citizens become convinced that it is a fair society.

New stage of global development

The global crisis that erupted in 2008 has affected everyone and has forced us to reassess many things.

Everyone knows that the economic storm was caused not only by cyclical factors and failures of regulation. The root of the problem lies in the accumulated imbalances, which led to a dead-end development model based on unrestrained borrowing, living on credit, sacrificing the future, and on virtual rather than real, values and assets. What is more, the prosperity generated in this model has been distributed among individual countries and regions extremely unevenly. It also undermines global stability, provokes conflicts and reduces the international community’s ability to come to an agreement on the critical, fundamentally important issues.

Phoney principles are developing not only in the economy, but also in politics and the social sphere. The crisis in the developed countries has exposed a dangerous and, in my opinion, purely political trend: a reckless, populist build-up of state social obligations without any connection to the growth of labour productivity, and the engendering of social irresponsibility in some sections of the population. But it is now becoming clear to many that the age of prosperity created by other people's efforts is coming to an end.

No one will be able to live beyond their means. This requirement fully applies to Russia as well.

We have not made empty promises. Our economic policy was well thought out and prudent. Before the crisis, we grew our economy substantially, repaid our debts, increased people’s real incomes and created reserves that allowed us to survive the crisis with minimal impact on people’s living standards. Moreover, we were even able to increase pensions and other social payments considerably during the height of the crisis. Many, particularly those in the opposition camp, urged us to hurry to spend our oil revenues. What would have happened to pensions had we listened to these populists?

Unfortunately, we heard a lot of populist rhetoric during the recent parliamentary election campaign, and we are likely to hear it again during the presidential campaign, from people who have no hope of winning the elections and are therefore free to make promises they will not have to fulfil. I tell you frankly that we must continue to make aggressive use of all available opportunities for improving people’s lives. But as before, we must not act randomly, so that we will not suddenly be faced with the need to take back from the people much more than we so freely handed out to them in the first place, as has happened in some Western countries.

It should be said that the current global imbalances are on such a large scale that they cannot be dealt with within the framework of the existing system. It is true that market fluctuations can be overcome. Most countries have set out a range of tactical measures to respond to the acute manifestations of the crisis, with varying degrees of success.

But speaking in a deeper, longer-term sense, we must admit that the current problems have nothing to do with market volatility. By and large, what the world is facing today is a systemic crisis, a tectonic process of global transformation. It is a visible manifestation of our transition to a new cultural, economic, technological and geopolitical era. The world is entering a period of turbulence, which will be prolonged and painful. We should not be under any illusions.

The end result of the system that has developed in the 20 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union, including the phenomenon of unilateralism, is also obvious. The former single centre of power can no longer maintain global stability, while the new centres of influence are not yet ready to take over. Global economic processes and the military political situation have become increasingly unpredictable and should be dealt with through the confident and responsible cooperation of states, primarily the permanent members of the UN Security Council and the G8 and G20 countries. We must keep working to overcome mutual suspicion, ideological prejudices and short-sighted self-interest.

Instead of boosting development and stabilising the global economic system, the world’s largest economic centres are creating an increasing number of problems and risks. Social, ethnic and cultural tensions are growing rapidly. Destructive forces have strengthened dramatically and have shown their aggressive nature in some parts of the world, ultimately threatening global security. The countries that are using military force to “export democracy” often become allies of these destructive forces.

Even the noblest of intentions cannot justify the violation of international law and state sovereignty. Moreover, experience shows that, as a rule, the initial objectives are not achieved, and the whole venture proves substantially more costly than anticipated.

Given this environment, Russia can and must play a role predicated upon its civilisation model, its great history, geography and its cultural ‘genome’ that organically combines the fundamental principles of European civilisation and many centuries of cooperation with the East, where new centres of economic and political influence are rapidly emerging.

How does Russia perceive the upcoming age of global transformation?

In the 1990s, the country experienced the profound shocks of collapse and degradation, which cost society dear. Inevitably, given the context - statehood atrophied. Indeed, we came close to breaking point. The very fact that several thousand guerrillas were able to attack a country that boasted a one-million strong army – even if they were supported by certain external powers – demonstrates the tragedy of that situation. Too many people believed we could be completely destroyed.

There was a message the FSB intercepted that I remember very well. It was sent by one of the most heinous and murderous international terrorists responsible for the deaths of our people in the North Caucasus – Khattab – to his foreign accomplices. He wrote, “Russia is weak as never before. Now we have our one and only chance to take the North Caucasus away from the Russians.” But the terrorists miscalculated. Russia’s armed forces, supported by the Chechens and other peoples of the Caucasus, defended the country’s territorial inviolability and the unity of the Russian state.

We needed, however, gargantuan efforts and resources to lift the country out of that hole, to restore Russia’s geopolitical status, to rebuild its social system and revive the economy. We restored basic state governance.

We had to restore the authority and power of the state itself. We had to recreate, despite the absence of deep-rooted democratic traditions, popular political parties and a mature civil society, while at the same time locking horns with regional separatism, the dominant influence of oligarchs, corruption and sometimes government bodies’ overt links with the criminal underworld.

Given those circumstances, restoring national unity, which meant establishing Russian sovereignty rather than the pre-eminence of particular individuals or groups, became the priority.

Few people now remember how difficult it was, and how much effort that decision took. Few now recall that in late 1990s, the most reputable experts and many international leaders foresaw one future for Russia: bankruptcy and breakup. The picture of Russia today – seen through the prism of the 1990s – would seem overoptimistic and even unbelievable.

But in fact this ‘forgetfulness’ and society’s readiness to embrace the highest standards in terms of quality of living and democracy – are the best signs of our success.

The country was able to weather the global crisis precisely because of the fact that, in recent years we all, the people of Russia, went such a long way to solving the most pressing and top priority issues. And now we are even in a position to speak about strategies and prospects.

The recovery period is now over. The post-Soviet phase of Russian and global history has now come to a close.

All the prerequisites for progress are in place, with new foundations and at a qualitatively new level. Incidentally, all this -- in the harsh foreign policy and foreign economic conditions. Nevertheless, the inexorable global transformation offers us a tremendous opportunity.

I would like to repeat, once again, why I agreed to stand for presidential election in 2012. I am not going to belittle anyone’s merits in forming this country anew. Many people were involved. But the fact remains that in 1999, when I became prime minister, and later president, our country was in the grips of a severe systemic crisis. And that team of like-minded individuals that your humble servant, the author of these lines, was to form and lead, enjoying majority public support and confident in national unity around our common objectives, helped deliver Russia from the blind alley of civil war, break the back of terrorism, restore the country’s territorial integrity and constitutional order, and spark economic revival – giving us a decade distinguished by one of the world’s fastest economic growth rates and real income growth for the general public.

Now we can see what was successful, what needs improvement, and even what needs to be dismissed.

I see our goal in years to come as sweeping away all that stands in the way of our national development, completing the establishment in Russia of a political system, a structure of social guarantees and safeguards for the public, and an economic model that together form a single, living, ever-changing organism of state that is, at the same time, resilient, stable and healthy. One that is able to guarantee Russia’s sovereignty, and prosperity for our great nation’s citizens, in the decades to come. To defend justice and the dignity of every single individual. Truth and trust in the relationship between the state and society.

A great many issues remain unresolved. New difficult challenges will continue to arise, but we are in a position to use them for the benefit of Russia.

Russia is not the kind of nation to shirk a challenge. Russia muscles up, gathers its strength and responds appropriately to any challenge. Russia comes through any ordeal and is always victorious. We have a new generation of creative and conscientious people who have a vision of the future. They are already taking the lead in industries and businesses, government bodies, and the country as a whole, and will continue to do so.

How we respond to the challenges of the day, how we use this chance to become stronger and reinforce our status in this rapidly changing world is up to us.

In the coming weeks, I will present more detailed statements on this for public discussion.

source: http://premier.gov.ru/eng/events/news/17755/

original Russian text: http://er.ru/news/2012/1/16/putin-rossiya-sosredotachivaetsya-vyzovy-na-kotorye-my-dolzhny-otvetit/

Check out these police goons - they are for real...

2012-01-13T11:55:00.002-05:00

I recently found this video on YouTube. Check it out:

Occupy Oakland: Police Standoff & Brutal Assault, Tear Gas

Aren't they wonderful? Don't they look so evil and dumb that remind you of some Hollywood flick based on Orwell's 1984?

I love the big guy whacking his baton on the barrier to scare off some poor women.

Fascism is already here, folks, make no mistake about it.

Apartheid in all its (supreme court sanctioned) "glory"

2012-01-12T12:02:00.001-05:00

The BBC reports: Israel's Supreme Court has upheld a law banning Palestinians who marry Israelis from gaining Israeli citizenship. The excuse used by the court? "Human rights do not prescribe national suicide," Judge Asher Grunis wrote in the judgment.

Now that is an amazing confession, isn't it? What Judge Grunis is saying is the following: (excuse the large print, but this is worthy of being stressed as much as possible)

==>>HUMAN RIGHTS ARE AN EXISTENTIAL THREAT FOR ISRAEL<<==

Well, we all knew that. But it's very interesting to hear the good judge fess up to this fact. Sure does take away the respectability cloak off "the only democracy in the Middle-East" and show it to be what it really has been all along: the last openly racist regime on the planet and the only form of racism ever based on a religion: Rabbinical (aka. Phariseic) Judaism.

Ok, now its all simple, ain't it? It's either gonna be:

"The Jewish State of Israel with Its Eternal and Undivided Capital Jerusalem"

Human rights.

One must give; listen to Judge Grunis: they are mutually exclusive.

You can guess which I choose...

The Saker

Why Did Defense Secretary Panetta Say Iran Not Building Nukes?

2012-01-12T08:55:00.000-05:00

LEON PANETTA, U.S. SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: Are they trying to develop a nuclear weapon? No, but we know that they're trying to develop a nuclear capability, and that's what concerns us. And our red line to Iran is: do not develop a nuclear weapon. That's a red line for us.

BOB SCHIEFFER, FACE THE NATION (CBS): What would happen if Israel does decide to take this matter into its own hands? And what would be our reaction and response to that?

PANETTA: If the Israelis made that decision, we would have to be prepared to protect our forces in that situation. And that's what we'd be concerned about.

Marine snipers urinate on the people they killed

2012-01-11T22:49:00.001-05:00

Yes, I know, this is all over the Internet, but I decided to post it here before Uncle Shmuel convinces the big video hosting companies to pull it off, not wanting "a few bad apples" to cause resentment against "the fine men and women who serve in uniform to protect our freedoms" etc. etc. etc.

The US-Iran economic war

2012-01-11T11:49:00.000-05:00

By Pepe Escobar for the Asia Times

Here's a crash course on how to further wreck the global economy.

A key amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act signed by United States President Barack Obama on the last day of 2011 - when no one was paying attention - imposes sanctions on any countries or companies that buy Iranian oil and pay for it through Iran's central bank. Starting this summer, anybody who does it is prevented from doing business with the US.

This amendment - for all practical purposes a declaration of economic war - was brought to you by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), on direct orders of the Israeli government under Prime Minister Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu.

Torrents of spin have tried to rationalize it as the Obama administration's plan B as opposed to letting the Israeli dogs of war conduct an unilateral attack on Iran over its supposed nuclear weapons program.

Yet the original Israeli strategy was in fact even more hysterical - as in effectively preventing any country or company from paying for imported Iranian oil, with the possible exceptions of China and India. On top of it, American Israel-firsters were trying to convince anyone this would not result in relentless oil price hikes.

Once again displaying a matchless capacity to shoot themselves in their Ferragamo-clad feet, governments in the European Union (EU) are debating whether or not to buy oil from Iran anymore. The existential doubt is should we start now or wait for a few months. Inevitably, like death and taxes, the result has been - what else - oil prices soaring. Brent crude is now hovering around $114, and the only way is up.

Get me to the crude on time

Iran is the second-largest Organization for Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) producer, exporting up to 2.5 million barrels of oil a day. Around 450,000 of these barrels go to the European Union - the second-largest market for Iran after China.

The requisite faceless bureaucrat, EU Energy Commissioner Gunther Ottinger, has been spinning that the EU can count on Saudi Arabia to make up the shortfall from Iran.

Any self-respecting oil analyst knows Saudi Arabia does not have all the necessary extra spare capacity. Moreover, and crucially, Saudi Arabia needs to make a lot of money out of expensive oil. After all, the counter-revolutionary House of Saud badly needs these funds to bribe its subjects into dismissing any possibility of an indigenous Arab Spring.

Add to it Tehran's threat to block the Strait of Hormuz, thus preventing one-sixth of the world's oil and 70% of OPEC's exports from reaching the market; no wonder oil traders are falling over themselves to lock up as much crude as they can.

Forget about oil at an accessible $50 or even $75 a barrel. The price of oil may be destined to soon reach $120 a barrel and even $150 a barrel by summer, just as in crisis-hit 2008. OPEC, by the way, is pumping more oil than at any time since late 2008.

So what started as an Israeli-concocted roadside improvised explosive device has now developed into a multiple economic suicide bombing targeting whole sections of the global economy.

No wonder the chairman of the Iranian parliament's national security and foreign policy commission, Ala'eddin Broujerdi, has warned that the West may be committing a "strategic blunder" with these oil sanctions.

Translation: as it goes, the name of the game for 2012 is deep global recession.

Obama rolls the dice

First Washington leaked that sanctions on Iran's central bank were "not on the table". After all, the Obama administration itself knew this would translate into an oil price hike and a certified one-way ticket for more global recession. The Iranian regime, on top of it, would be making more money out if its oil exports.

Still, the Bibi-AIPAC combo had no trouble forcing the amendment through those Israel-firster Meccas, the US Senate and Congress - even with US Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner expressly against it.

The amendment just passed may not represent the "crippling sanctions" vociferously demanded by the Israeli government. Tehran will feel the squeeze - but not to an intolerable level. Yet only those irresponsible people at the US Congress - despised by the overwhelming majority of Americans, according to any number of polls - could possibly believe they can take Iran's 2.5 million barrels of oil a day in exports off the global market with no drastic consequences for the global economy.

Asia increasingly will need more oil - and will continue to buy oil from Iran. And oil prices will keep flirting with the stratosphere.

So why did Obama sign it? For the Obama administration, everything now is about electoral calculus. Those terminal wackos in the Republican presidential circus - with the honorable exception of Ron Paul - are peddling war on Iran the moment they're elected, and substantial swathes of the American electorate are clueless enough to buy it.

No one, though, is doing some basic math to conclude the American and European economies certainly don't need oil flirting with the $120 level if some minimal recovery is in the cards.

Show me your balls

Apart from that self-defeating, terminally in crisis euro/North Atlantic Treaty Organization bunch, everyone and his neighbor will be bypassing this Israeli-American declaration of economic war:

Russia already said it will circumvent it.
India is already paying for Iranian oil via Halkbank in Turkey.
Iran is actively negotiating to sell more oil to China. Iran is China's second-largest supplier, only behind Saudi Arabia. China pays in euros, and soon may be paying in yuan. By March they both will have sealed an agreement about new pricing.
Venezuela controls a bi-national bank with Iran since 2009; that's how Iran gets paid for business in Latin America.
Even traditional US allies want out. Turkey - which imports around 30% of its oil from Iran.
Will seek a waiver exempting Turkish oil importer Tupras from US sanctions.
And South Korea will also seek a waiver, to buy around 200,000 barrels a day - 10% of its oil - from Iran in 2012.

China, India, South Korea, they all have complex two-way trade ties with Iran (China-Iran trade, for instance, is $30 billion a year, and growing). None of this will be extinguished because the Washington/Tel Aviv axis says so. So one should expect a rash of new private banks set up all across the developing world for the purpose of buying Iranian oil.

Washington wouldn't have the balls to try to impose sanctions on Chinese banks because they will be dealing with Iran.

On the other hand, one's got to praise Tehran's balls. After a relentless campaign of covert assassinations; abductions of Iranian scientists; cross-border attacks in Sistan-Balochistan province; Israeli sabotage of its infrastructure, with viruses and otherwise; invasion of territory via US spy drones; non-stop Israeli and Republican threats of an imminent "shock and awe"; and the US sale of $60 billion of weapons to Saudi Arabia, still Tehran won't balk.

Tehran has just tested - successfully - its own cruise missiles, and in the Strait of Hormuz of all places. Then when Tehran reacts to the non-stop Western aggressive barrage, it is blamed with "acts of provocation".

Last Friday, the New York Times editorial board was totally in love with the Pentagon's threats against Iran, as well as calling for "maximum economic pressure".

The bottom line is that average Iranians will suffer - as average, crisis-hit, indebted Europeans will also suffer. The US economy will suffer. And whenever it feels the West is getting way too hysterical, Tehran will keep reserving the right to send oil prices skyrocketing.

The regime in Tehran will keep selling oil, will keep enriching uranium and, most of all, won't fall. Like a Hellfire missile hitting a Pashtun wedding party, these Western sanctions will miserably fail. But not without collecting a lot of collateral damage - in the West itself.

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. His new book, just out, is Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009). He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.

-------

Commentary: I really like Pepe Escobar a lot and I consider him one of the very best reporters out there. Which makes it even more mind boggling for me that he could be so wrong about the elections in Iran, in particular with the passage of time which clearly proved that a majority of Iranians did, and still does, support the "Ahmadinejad-Khamenei tandem" (the former being largely symbolic, the latter being the real cornerstone of the regime; also - there are clear signs of tensions between the two, but nevermind that at this point). I wonder if Escobar has ever back off his initial analysis of the elections in Iran. If he has (or ever will, in the future) and you come across some a re-evaluation, please let me know. Many thanks in advance.
The Saker

President al-Assad: It Is No Longer Possible for the Regional and International Parties Seeking to Destabilize Syria to Forge Facts and the Events

2012-01-11T10:36:00.001-05:00

Note: Just to make sure, I want to clarify something here: the fact that I post Assad's speech here should in no way be interpreted as a sign of support for him or his policies (neither of which I have ever supported in any way). I am posting this here "for your information", because it is an important document otherwise hard to find. In the past I have posted many speeches and documents here with which I did not agree at all (including pro-Saddam statements or Wahabi declarations) and I will continue to do so in the future. Unless I specifically express my support for a document or a personality, please do not assume that posting something here implies it. Thank you,

The Saker

DAMASCUS, (SANA)_ President Bashar al-Assad delivered on Tuesday before noon a speech at Damascus University Auditorium covering domestic issues in Syria as well as local and regional conditions' developments.

President al-Assad reiterated in his speech Syria's determination to continue the ongoing process of reforms, whose results are known before hand, citing some of the measures and steps taken to this effect including the abrogation of emergency law, authorization for parties, local administration elections, information law, elections law, and the under-discussion anti-corruption law.

President al-Assad declared that the new constitution is to be soon put into popular referendum, citing some aspects of the constitution as to include 'political and party pluralism', 'the people are the source of power especially through elections'.

The President welcomed an expansion of the government as to include all political forces and national opposition and pointed out to the importance of dialogue.

The second to none priority for Syrians is the restoration of security and fighting terrorism with an iron fist, outlined President al-Assad hailing the Syrians' steadfastness and awareness.

President al-Assad underlined that no orders were given to shoot at the citizens and that no cover-up for any person would be given.

President al-Assad cited in his speech some aspects of the conspiracy hatched against Syria, including the failing media war, blasting the role played by some Arabs as to pave the way for foreign interference in the Syrian affairs.

The President spoke of the Syrian long experience with elected parliaments, parties highlighting the Syrian Arab role in the Arab League, whose Arabism is to be suspended without the participation of Syria, in reference to the decision taken by the League of Arab States to suspend Syria's participation.

The full text of the speech:

I know that I have been away from the media for a long time, and I have missed having direct contact with the citizens, but I have always been following up with the daily occurrences and gathering the information so that my speech can be built on what is said by the street.

I would like to salute you in the name of pan-Arabism which will continue to be a symbol of our identity and our haven in difficult times, as we will continue to be its heart beating with love and affection. I would also like to greet you in the name of our home country which will always be the source of our pride and dignity, as we will remain faithful to its genuine values for which our fathers and grandfathers sacrificed dearly to keep the country glorified and independent. And I am proud of your steadfastness which will keep Syria an invincible fortress in the face of all forms of penetration, and free in resisting submission to foreign forces.

Today, I am addressing you ten months after the outbreak of the unfortunate events which befell the country imposing new circumstances on the Syrian arena. For all of us, these conditions represent a serious test of our national commitment, and we cannot pass this test except by our continuous work and honest intents based on our faith in God, the genuine character of our people, and its solid nature which has been polished over the ages and made brighter and more robust. Although those events have made us pay, until now, heavy prices which made my heart bleed, as it made the heart of every Syrian bleed, yet they require the sons of Syria, regardless of their beliefs and doctrines, to be wise and sensible, and to be guided by their deep national feelings. Only then our entire country can achieve victory with our unity, our fraternity, and our will to go beyond narrow horizons and momentary interests and reach where our noble national issues lie. For this is our destination and there lies the strength of our country and the glory of our history.

External Conspiring Is No Longer a Secret

External conspiring is no longer a secret because what is being plotted in the pal talk rooms has started to be clearly revealed before the eyes of the people. It is not possible anymore to deceive others except for those who do not want to listen or see; as the tears shed by the dealers of freedom and democracy for our own victims can no longer conceal the role they played in the bloodshed which they tried to use for their own purposes. At the beginning of the crisis, it was not easy to explain what happened. Emotional reactions and the absence of rationality were surpassing the facts. But now, the fog has lifted, and it is no longer possible for the regional and international parties which wanted to destabilize Syria to forge the facts and the events. Now the masks have fallen off the faces of those parties, and we have become more capable of deconstructing the virtual environment which they have created to push Syrians towards illusion and then make them fall. That virtual environment was created to lead to a psychological and moral defeat which would eventually lead to the actual defeat. That unprecedented media attack was meant to lead us to a state of fear, and this fear, which could paralyze the will, would lead to defeat.

Over Sixty T.V. Channels in the World Are Devoted to Work against Syria

Over sixty T.V. channels in the world are devoted to work against Syria. Some of them are devoted to working against the Syrian domestic situation, and some others are working to distort the image of Syria abroad. There are tens of internet websites, and tens of newspapers and different media channels, which means that we are talking about hundreds of media networks.

Their aim was to push us to a state of self-collapse in order to save their efforts in waging many battles; and they failed in doing so, yet they did not give in.

One of their attempts which you are aware of is what they did with me personally in my interview with the American news channel. Usually I do not watch myself on T.V whether in an interview or a speech. That time I watched the interview and I was about to believe what I myself was presented to have said. If they were capable of convincing me of the lie, how can they not convince others! Fortunately, we had an original version of the interview, and they did what they did because they thought that we did not have an original version which we can present to the citizens to compare with their version. Had that not been the case, no one would have ever believed the professional fabrication which they did even if I talk now for hours and try to tell you I did not say what was misrepresented on that news channel.

Of course, they had one aim in mind. When they failed in causing a state of collapse on the popular and institutional levels in Syria, they wanted to target the top of the pyramid of the state in order to say to the citizens, on the one hand, and, of course, to the West, on the other hand, that this person lives in a cocoon and does not know what has been going on. They also wanted to say to the citizens, especially those in the state, that if the top figure in the pyramid is evading responsibility and feeling that things are falling apart, then it is normal for things to go out of control.

There were continuous rumors like saying that the president has left the country, as to say that the president has given up on his responsibilities. They did their best to circulate those rumors but we say to them, ‘in your dreams, for I am not a person who surrenders his responsibilities.’

When I sipped some water in my previous speech, they said the president is nervous, but we never fish in troubled waters, neither in crises nor in normal situations. Now they will use the previous statement to say that the Syrian president is announcing that he will not relinquish his post. In fact, they do not distinguish between the two notions of ‘office' and ‘responsibility’, and I did say in the year 2000 that I am not after office and I do not run away from responsibility. An office does not have any value. It is a sheer device and whoever seeks to office does not get respect.

We are talking now about responsibility, and this responsibility derives its importance from public support. This means that I acquire a position with the support of the people; and when I leave it, it will be with the will of this people. This is final, and regardless of what you heard, I always based my external policy in all our positions on public support and public will. What do we make of the interview with the American channel in the media framework? There was repeated talk about the good intention of many from within Syria and the outside world. Why did we not allow the media to enter Syria? In fact, during the first month or month and a half of the crisis, Arab and foreign media networks were completely free to move inside Syria. However, all the media fabrications, and the whole political and media campaign against Syria, were built on that phase of forging and distortion; and there is a difference between distorting the truth then giving it credibility as being presented from the inside of Syria, on the one hand, and distorting the truth from the outside of Syria where less credibility tends to be given to such misrepresentation. That is why we took a decision not to close the door to all media networks, but to be selective in the access given to them in order to control the quality of the information or the falsification which goes beyond the borders.

Victory Is Very Close As Long As We Are Able to Survive and Invest in Our Points of Strength

We were patient in an unprecedented battle in Syria's modern history; a battle that made us stronger. If this battle carries significant risks and decisive challenges, the victory is very close as long as we are able to survive and invest in our points of strength which are many, and to know weaknesses of opponents which are even more. Your public awareness which is based on facts, not on hype, underestimation, exaggerations or simplifications, had the most important role in uncovering the scheme and restricting it in preparation for thwarting it entirely. In our quest to dismantle that virtual environment and to ensure the importance of the internal situation in confronting any external interference, we took the initiative to talk transparently on having a default here and a defect or delay there in some areas. I mean in previous speeches when I was talking about mistakes, but we did not mean at all to underestimate the importance of such external schemes. I do not think that a reasonable person can deny today those schemes that shifted acts of sabotage and terrorism to another level of crime which targeted minds, highly qualified people and institutions. The aim of which is to generalize the state of panic, to destroy morale and to make you reach the state of despair which would open the way for what was planned in the outside to become a reality, but this time with local hands.

At the beginning, they searched for their desired revolution, but their revolution was against them and against their vandals and their tools. Since the early days, however, the people revolted against them, thus precluding them and their henchmen. When they were shocked by your unity, they tried to dismantle and fragment this unity through using the hideous sectarian weapon after masking it with the cover of holy religion. When they lost hope to achieve their goals, they shifted into acts of sabotage and murder under different headings and covers such as the utilization of some peaceful demonstrations and the exploitation of wrong practices done by persons in the state. Thus, they started the process of assassinations and attempted to isolate cities and dividing the various parts of the country. They stole, looted and destroyed public and private facilities and after experimenting with all possible ways and means in today's world with all the regional and international media and political support, they did not find a foothold for their hoped-for revolution.

Arab Countries Are Not the Same in Their Policies towards Syria

Here comes the foreign role after they failed in all attempts; there was no choice but the foreign intervention. When we say foreign, it usually comes to our minds that it is the foreign outside. Unfortunately, this foreign outside has become a mix of Arab and foreign, and sometimes, in many cases, this Arab part is more hostile and worse than the foreign one. I do not want to generalize; the image is not that bleak because Arab countries are not the same in their policies. There are countries which tried during this stage to play a morally objective role towards what is happening in Syria. In contrast, there are countries that basically do not care about what is happening in general. I mean they stand on the fence in most cases, and there are countries that carry out what they are asked to do. What is strange is that some Arab officials are with us in heart and against us in politics. When we ask for clarifications, it is said or the official says I am with you, but there are external pressures. I mean this is a semi-official declaration of losing sovereignty. It is not a surprise that the countries will one day link their policies to the policies of foreign countries just like linking local currency to foreign currencies, and thus giving away sovereignty becomes a sovereign matter.

The truth is that this is the peak of deterioration for the Arab situation, but any deterioration always precedes a renaissance; when we move from the first independence which is the first liberation of land from occupation to the second independence which is the independence of the will. We will reach this independence when Arab peoples take the lead in the Arab world in general. This is because the official policies we see do not utterly reflect what we see on the public arenas in the Arab world.

We do not see this Arab role, which we have suddenly seen now, when there is a crisis or a dilemma in an Arab country. In contrast, we see it in its best forms when there is trouble in a foreign country or a superpower. Saving that state from its crisis is often at the expense of another state or at the expense of Arab states, and often through the destruction of an Arab country. This is what happened in Iraq and this is what happened in Libya, and this is what we see now in the Arab role towards Syria. After they failed in the Security Council when they could not convince the world of their lies, there was a need for an Arab cover and a need for having an Arab platform. Here comes this initiative. The truth of this initiative and the monitors' issue is that I am the one who proposed this issue in my meeting with the Arab League delegation a few months ago. We said since the international organizations came to Syria, reviewed the facts and they got a positive reaction at least through reviewing things - we do not say things are all positive; they see positive and negative things and we do not want more than knowing the truth as it is – it is more worthy of the Arabs to send a delegation to see what is happening in Syria. Of course, there was not any interest in this proposal put forward by Syria, but suddenly after several months, we see that this topic became the focus of global attention. It was not sudden attention towards what we put forward at all, but because the scheme has started from the outside under this title.

In all cases we continued dialogue with various parties and the Foreign Minister spoke in his press conferences on details I will not repeat here. We were focusing on one thing only which is the sovereignty of Syria. We were considering that the Arab citizen, the Arab official or the Arab observer has feelings towards us; I mean we remain Arabs who sympathize with each other no matter how bad the Arab situation is. Why they started the Arab initiative? The same countries that claim concern for the Syrian people were initially advising us to reform. Of course, these countries do not have the least knowledge of democracy and have no heritage in this area, but they were thinking that we will not be moving towards reform and there will be a title for these countries to use internationally that there is a conflict inside Syria between a state that does not want reform and the people who want reform, freedom or the like.

When we started reform, this thing was confusing for them, thus they shifted to the issue of the Arab League or the Arab initiative. The truth is that if we are to follow these countries, which give us advice, we have to go backward at least a century and a half. What happened a century and a half ago? We were part of the Ottoman Empire and we had the first parliament which we are concerned with in one way or another. The first parliament was opened in the year / 1877 / and if we put this aside, the first parliament in Syria was in 1919; this means less than a century ago. Therefore, imagine these countries that want to advise us about democracy! Where were these countries at that time? Their status is like the status of a smoking doctor who advises the patient to quit smoking while putting a cigarette in his mouth.

Eventually, outrage of the Arab or public reaction in Syria towards the issue of the Arab League was the result. In fact, I was not angry; why to get angry with someone who does not know his decision. If someone attacks us with a knife, we defend ourselves not by struggling with the knife but with the person. The knife is just a tool. Our struggle is not with these people but against those who stand behind them. The public reaction was outrage, indignation and surprise; why did not the Arabs stand with Syria rather than standing against Syria? I ask a question: when did they stand with Syria?! I will not go back far in the past, but let us just talk about the past few years. Let us start by the war on Iraq, after the invasion, when Syria was threatened with bombing and invasion. Who stood with Syria in 2005 when they exploited the assassination of Hariri? Who stood alongside Syria in 2006? Who supported our positions against the Israeli aggression on Lebanon in 2008? Who supported us in the IAEA in relation to the alleged nuclear file? Arab states vote against us. These facts may be unknown to many citizens. That is why we need to explain everything in these junctures and situations.

Recently, Arab states voted against Syria with regard to the Human Rights issue. In contrast, some non-Arab countries stand with Syria. That is why we should not be surprised. I mean we should not be surprised with the Arab League status because it is just a reflection of the Arab situation. The Arab League is a mirror of our situation.

The Arab League mirrors our current miserable situation. If it has failed in over six decades in taking a position in the Arab interest, why are we surprised today if the general context is the same and hasn’t changed except in the sense that it is pushing the Arab condition from bad to worse and in that what was happening in secret is now happening in public under the slogan of the nation’s interest.

Has the Arab league actually gained independence for its states, and consequently for itself? Has it ever implemented its decisions and removed the dust off its files and achieved only a fragment of the aspirations of the Arab peoples? Or has it contributed directly to sowing the seeds of sedition and disunity? Has it respected its charter and defended its member states whose land, or the rights of whose peoples, have been violated? Has it returned one olive tree uprooted by Israel or prevented the demolition of one Palestinian house in occupied Arab Palestine? Has it been able to prevent the partition of Sudan or prevent the killing of over a million Iraqis or feed a single starved Somali?

Today, we are not in the process of attacking the Arab League because we are part of it, although we are in the age of decadence. Nor am I talking about the Arab league because it or the Arab states have taken a decision to suspend Syria’s membership in it. This does not concern us in the least. I am talking about it because I have noticed the extent of popular frustration which we need to put in its natural context. The Arab League has been doomed for a long time. When we used to sit in Arab summits listening to criticism and denunciation whose echo reverberated in conference halls, we used to talk about this candidly, as Arab officials; some felt ashamed and some behaved as if it was no concern of theirs. So, being out of the Arab League, or suspending Syria’s membership, and all this talk is not the issue. The issue is who wins and who loses. Does Syria or the Arab League lose? For us, we and the Arab states are losing as long as the Arab condition is bad. This is a chronic situation, nothing new in it, and there are no winners. We have been working for years to minimize the losses because it is not possible to win. But suspending Syria’s membership raises a question: can the body live without a heart? Who said that Syria is the throbbing heart of Arabism? It wasn’t a Syrian, it was President Abdul Naser, and this is still true.

Many Arabs have the same conviction. For Syria Arabism is not a slogan, it is a practice. Who offered, more than Syria, and is still offering and paying the price? Who, more than Syria, has offered to the Palestinian cause in particular? Who, more than Syria, has given to the process of Arabizing culture and education everywhere, in the mass media? Syria is quite strict about Arabization, particularly in school curricula. Who has offered more to Arabism and to Arabization and insisted on Arab culture in their school curricula more than Syria does in its schools and universities. The issue for us is not a slogan. If some countries seek to suspend our Arabism in the League, we say to them that they are suspending the Arab identity of the League itself. They cannot suspend Syria’s Arab identity. On the contrary, the League without Syria suspends its own Arab identity.

Arab League without Syria Means Suspending Arabism

If some believe they can get us out of the League, they cannot get us out of our Arab identity, because the Arab identity is not a political decision. It is heritage and history. Those countries, which you know, have not acquired, and will not acquire, the Arab identity. If they believe that with money they can buy some geography and rent and import some history, we tell them that money does not make nations or create civilizations. Consequently, and as I heard from many Syrians, and I agree with them on this point, maybe in our present condition we are freer in exercising our real and pure Arabism which Syrians have been the best to express throughout history. That is why we say that with this attempt they don’t focus on getting Syria out of the League, but rather on suspending Arabism itself so that it becomes an Arab League only in name. It will no longer be a league – bringing people together – or Arab. It will be a mock-Arab body in order to be in line with their policies and the role they are playing on the Arab arena. Otherwise, how can we explain this unprecedented and unreasonable tact with the Zionist enemy in everything it does and this decisiveness and toughness with Syria?

We have been trying for years to activate the Israel-boycott office; and we have been receiving excuses of the type that this is no longer acceptable; but, within a few weeks, they activate a boycott against Syria. This means that their objective is replacing Syria with Israel. This is only a pattern; and we are not naïve. We have known this Arab condition for a very long time. We have not clung to illusions. By showing our patience regarding these practices, before and during this crisis, we wanted to prove to all those who have their doubts about the bad intentions, wrapped in beautiful and ornamented language, that their intentions are bad and their objectives are vile. I think now this has become abundantly clear to most people.

We Shall Never Close the Door to Any Arab Endeavor As Long As It Respects Our Sovereignty, the Independence of Our Decision and the Unity of Our People

We realize all that. But based on our genuine Arab character, and our desire to restore the original idea of the Arab League, in which we are supported by some sisterly countries keen on making the Arab League a truly collective and Arab body, we haven’t closed the doors to any solution or proposal; and we shall never close the door to any Arab endeavor as long as it respects our sovereignty, the independence of our decision and the unity of our people.

All these negative accumulations on the Arab arena, throughout decades, in addition to the current situation, led some of our citizens to take their anger out on Arabism which has been wrongly confused with the Arab League or the performance of some pseudo-Arabs to the extent that they denounced it.

Brothers and sisters,

The social structure of the Arab world, with its large diversity, is based on two strong and integrated pillars: Arabism and Islam. Both of them are great, rich and vital. Consequently, we cannot blame them for the wrong human practices. Furthermore, the Muslim and Christian diversity in our country is a major pillar of our Arabism and a foundation of our strength. When we get angry with Arabism or abandon it because of what some have done on this wide Arab arena we commit a gross injustice. As we have refused to generalize the mistakes done by some officials to the whole country, we shouldn’t generalize the mistakes of some pseudo-Arabs to Arabism. What we are doing now is similar to what the west did against Islam in the wake of 9/11.

We say that there is a great religion – Islam, and there are terrorists taking cover under Islam. Who should we banish: religion or terrorism? Do we denounce religion or terrorists? Do we fight those who trade in Islam or fight terrorism? The answer is clear: It is not the fault of Islam when there are terrorists who take cover under the mantle of Islam.

Christianity is a religion of love and peace. What is the fault of Christianity in the wars waged under its name and in the crimes committed in the heart of America or in European countries by people who claim to be committed to Christian values? The same applies to Arabism. We should not link it to what some pseudo-Arabs are doing; otherwise we head towards the greatest sin. There are things which have existed through a historical process and we cannot respond to them by an act or a decision. These things didn’t take place through a decision. There is a historical context and there is a divine will behind religions and nationality which we cannot face through reaction.

The first reaction was proposing the “Syria first” concept. It is natural to put Syria first. Every person belongs to his country first and foremost. One’s homeland cannot be in the second, third or fourth place; but the context in which this concept was made was isolationist – only Syria.

Every person belongs first to his city more than to other cities. He is naturally connected to it. Everyone likes the village he grew up in more than other villages, but this doesn’t prevent one from being patriotic and like the whole of the homeland. Being Syrian doesn’t prevent us from being Arabs; and being Arab doesn’t create any contradiction between our Arab and Syrian identities.

That is why we should stress that point, that the relationship between Arabism and patriotism is a close and vital one for the future, for our interests and for everything. It is not about romanticism or principles. It is about interests too. If we separate this fact from reaction, we should always know that Arabism is an identity not a membership. Arabism is an identity given by history not a certificate given by an organization. Arabism is an honor that characterizes Arab peoples not a stigma carried by some pseudo-Arabs on the Arab or world political stage.

Some might wonder about all this talk about Arabism and Arabs while in Syria there are only Arabs. My response is: who said that we are talking about an Arab race? Had Arabism been only the Arab race, we wouldn’t have had much to be proud of. The last thing in Arabism is race. Arabism is a question of civilization, a question of common interests, common will and common religions. It is about the things which bring about all the different nationalities which live in this place. The strength of this Arabism lies in its diversity not in its isolation and not in its one colordness. Arabism hasn’t been built by the Arabs. Arabism has been built by all those non-Arabs who contributed to building it and those who belong to this rich society in which we live. Its strength lies in its diversity. Had there been a group of non-Arabs who wanted to change their traditions and customs and abandon them, we would oppose them on the grounds that they weaken Arabism. The strength of our Arabism lies in openness, diversity and in showing this diversity not integrating it to look like one component. Arabism has been accused for decades of chauvinism. This is not true. If there are chauvinistic individuals, this doesn’t mean that Arabism is chauvinistic. It is a condition of civilization.

All the above will not affect our vision of the internal situation in Syria and how we deal with it. There is no doubt that the current events and their repercussions have posed a huge number of questions and ideas which aim at finding different solutions for the current situation Syria is going through. If it is natural and self evident, but it cannot be positive and effective except when it is based on the importance of facing the problem not running away from it, or when it is based on courage not panic and escaping forward.

We Cannot Carry out Internal Reform without Dealing with Facts

If we want to talk about the internal situation – and I think it is the issue over which all Syrians’ concerns are focused - we should identify issues clearly. There are numerous ideas, which might be good. But unless they are put in the appropriate framework they remain useless and sometimes harmful. Instead of having ideas moving in one strain contradicting and fighting with each other, let’s draw some definitions before we get into the details.

First, we cannot carry out internal reform without dealing with facts as they are on the ground, whether we like them or not. We cannot just hang on to a straw in the air. Neither the straw nor the air will carry us. This means falling. Under the pressure of the crisis, some talk about any solution and call for any solution. We shall not give ‘any’ solution. We shall only give ‘solutions’. Solutions mean that the results are known beforehand. ‘Any solution’ will lead to the abyss. It might lead to deepening the crisis. It might get us into an impasse. The pressure of the crisis will not push us to adopt just ‘any’ plan. Even though time is very important, but it is not more important than the quality of the solution which we shall provide.

Today, we are dealing with two aspects of internal reform: the first is political reform and the second is fighting terrorism which has spread recently to different parts of Syria. In the reform process, there are those who believe that what we are doing now is the way to get out of the crisis or is the whole solution to the crisis. This is not true. We are not doing it for this reason. The relationship between reform and the crisis is limited. In the beginning, it had a larger role, when we decided to separate those who claim reform for terrorist objectives and those who genuinely want reform. This has happened. My vision from the very beginning was that there is no relation between the two, but it wasn’t easy to talk about it then because, as I said, things were not clear for many Syrians as they have become clear now.

What is the relationship between the reform process and the outside plot? Will the outside plots against Syria stop if we introduce the reforms today? I’ll tell you something. We know a great deal about discussions taking place outside Syria, particularly in the West about the situation in Syria. None of those involved cares about neither the number of the victims nor about reforms, neither about what has been achieved nor what will be achieved. Everyone is talking about Syria’s policies and whether Syria’s behavior has changed from the beginning of the crisis till now.

The Outside Part of the Crisis Is against Reform That Makes Syria Stronger

On the other hand, there were those who came to bargain, saying if you do 1, 2, 3, 4, at least the outside part of the crisis and its internal tentacles will stop immediately. So, there is no relation between reform and the outside part of the crisis, because this part is against reform and because reform will make Syria stronger. If Syria is stronger, this means strengthening Syrian policies, and we all know that Syrian policies are not well liked in foreign circles. On the contrary, such policies are loathed by many countries which want us to be mere lackeys.

The second point: what is the relationship between reform and terrorism? If we carry out the reforms, will terrorists stop? Does this mean that the terrorists who are killing and destroying are keen on the political parties law, the local administration elections or things of that kind? They are not. Terrorists don’t care. Reform will not prevent terrorists from being terrorists. So, what is the component which concerns us?

The greatest part of the Syrian people want reform, and they have not come out, haven’t broken the law, haven’t killed. This is the largest part of the Syrian people, it is the part which wants reform. For us, reform is the natural context. That is why we announced a phased reform in the year 2000. In my swear-in speech I talked about modernization and development. At that time, I was focused on state institutions. In 2005, we talked about political reform. Part of what we are doing now was proposed in 2005 in the Bath party conference. At that time there were no pressures in this regard. Pressure was different, in a different direction. No one was talking about internal reform. We proposed it because we thought of it as a natural context not a forced one. It cannot be forced. It is a natural requirement for development. We cannot develop without reform. Whether we were late or not is a different question. Why we were late is a different question. But it remained a natural need. Had reform been part of the crisis, it would fail; and if reform were forced, it would fail. That’s why, in our discussion of reform, let’s separate natural needs from the crisis.

If we start from the current crisis, reform will be abrupt and tied to its current circumstances which are temporary. What about future decades? Things will be different. We have to connect what is before the crisis with what is after it regardless of it and then base our work on the reform process. Of course this is not in the absolute. Sometimes, we take into account what we are going through now in our reform efforts. We don’t separate it completely from the timetable. Sometimes we move quickly. Sometimes we assume that people’s reaction needs a move in a certain direction. There are some impacts of the crisis; but we don’t build our reforms on the crisis. If we do so, we justify foreign powers’ intervention in our crisis under the title of reform. So, let’s agree on separating the two and deal with the details on these grounds.

Now that we talked about the details, I proposed in my speech in this auditorium last June about an action plan; and I talked mainly about the legislative component in relation to laws and the constitution. At that time, I offered a timeframe for the laws which have all been passed within the timeframe identified at the time. Now, we hear many people saying “we haven’t seen any tangible results”. I always like to talk transparently, and I’ll address every subject separately.

The first law we passed was lifting the state of emergency. In such circumstances that Syria is going through, can any state lift the state of emergency. On the contrary, any state would have imposed the state of emergency. Nevertheless, we didn’t do that. We insisted on lifting the state of emergency. Some Syrians accused us of abandoning part of the security of Syria because we lifted the state of emergency. Of course this is inaccurate, because lifting the state of emergency or the state of emergency itself doesn’t provide security. It is rather an organizational issue. When there is a state of emergency, there are certain measures and when it is lifted there is a different set of measures. We haven’t abandoned security.

No state could accept to abandon security. The laws and the measures now in place give us full authority to control security regardless of the state of emergency law. But lifting the state of emergency needs training for the relevant services, including the security and police forces which deal with citizens. We all know that they are all over Syria now; and some of them haven’t taken leave for months. So, it is logical, reasonable or practical to train them now? This is impossible. There will be no training in the current circumstances. Nevertheless, we insist that the services stress some basic regulations in relation to lifting the state of emergency. When there is an environment of terrorism, destruction and law breaking, if there are errors they will multiply tens of folds. That is why we are not dealing only with the results but with the causes too. The results are the mistakes we see being committed by some, but the causes are related to the state of chaos in itself. We need to control the chaos in order to feel the results. In other words, we cannot feel the true effects of lifting the state of emergency while chaos prevails. And here I distinguish, of course, between different levels of mistakes, on the one hand, and killing, on the other.

There Is No Cover for Anyone; There Is No Order at Any Level of the State to Shoot at Any Citizen

There is no cover for anyone; but the issue of killing needs evidence. Some people believe that none of those who committed acts of killing have been arrested. That’s not true in relation to those working for the state. A limited number of people have been arrested in relation to murder and other crimes. I say limited because the evidence was limited and connected with those people. The existence of evidence or searching for evidence needs institutions; and institutions need appropriate conditions; and the current conditions hamper the work of such institutions. But I would like to stress that there is no cover for anyone; and there is no order, I stress, no order at any level of the state to shoot at any citizen. Shooting, under the law, is allowed only in the case of self defence and in defence of citizens and in cases of engaging an armed person. So, there is a specific case in the law. In this regard, I stress the need to deal with causes and effects.

Concerning the political parties, the political parties law has been issued. Some parties have applied and have been given licenses. The first license was given to the first party a few weeks ago; and I believe that yesterday or today there is a second party on the way which met all the conditions. There are many other parties which are still trying to meet the conditions and submit the necessary documents to be licensed. Of course we didn’t feel the existence of these parties, because political parties need time. But, in any case, after the political parties law has been passed, we haven’t only given licenses, but encouraged many groups to form parties. I don’t think that the state is responsible in this regard. We will not form any parties, will not appear in the media or conduct activities on behalf of anyone. So, there are no obstacles in this regard and it is only a question of time.

The local administration law has been passed and elections have been held. Of course they have been held in difficult circumstances; and it is natural that they will not give the desired results because participation, neither on the part of the candidates or the voters, was not as they were supposed to be with a new law because of the security conditions. There was a point of view saying that we should postpone local administration elections to a later stage. But there was a different opinion, which we adopted, saying that there should be change because every change is positive, particularly that most citizens’ complaints were about the performance of local administration. We embarked on that effort. But in any case, anything related to elections will not give results if there is no broad participation on the part of candidates and also on the part of voters, so that there is competition. That is why you will not feel the results. In general, with anything related to elections, part of the responsibility lies on the citizens and not only on the state.

As for the media law, I think the government has completed last week the preparation of executive instructions and have become ready for implementation. There are requests ready for television, press and others. The election law was issued and the aim of which is to frame all these ideas that we hear on the political scene, and anyone who has an idea should go to the ballot box which is the voice of law for everything in this country; this is the core of the issue.

The important law is the law of fighting corruption. It is the only law which has been delayed for several months. The first reason is related to the fact that this law is very important and has many aspects. Therefore, I asked the government to extensively consider it in collaboration with various bodies and parties. It was put on the internet and there were many posts and useful ideas. The government finished this and sent it to the Syrian Presidency which sent it back recently to the government. It is a good law which includes very important points and a point related to the inspecting authority.

In the current law, the anti-corruption law, the inspection commission was abolished, and the Anti-Corruption Commission replaced the inspection commission, but the anti-corruption law is specialized in corruption cases. This means that it deals only with small issue which does not often list all cases of corruption. This commission deals with corruption after its appearance, while the inspection commission was in charge of broader functions, including organization of management, raising proposals in the field of management and control of state action in terms of administration as well as combating corruption. Thus, the abolition of all these tasks and linking them only to one title which is corruption is not good, especially that fighting corruption cannot be done in isolation from the organization of the administration.

We cannot fight corruption alone because this is a great imbalance apart from other points that are present. There are proposals on the integration of the inspection commission with the Financial Control Commission, but this issue is not important. The most important thing is to know the relationship between inspection and Anti-Corruption Commissions. If there is a cancellation of the inspection commission, will the Anti-Corruption Commission include all the tasks of the two bodies or should we leave the two commissions and specify different tasks for each one of them, or should we coordinate between both of them in respect of the issue of corruption? That is why this law was resent to the government to resolve this point. After that, the law of fighting corruption will be issued.

Anyway, if the law was passed in the best of conditions, it will be easy for the state to fight corruption at the intermediate level and above, but it is difficult to fight it from the intermediate level and below without the contribution of the citizens and the media. This means that prosecution will not be done even by this commission because it will only receive information. Thus, we need to look for the information and report them to this commission. This means that the success of this law needs significant popular awareness.

Within the framework of the corruption topic, many people whom I meet say we want the President to hold corrupt people accountable. Here, I want to clarify that the President does not replace institutions; I handle one or two issues when I see an error, but the institution holds thousands of people accountable or address thousands of cases. When the President replaces the institutions, this will not be reassuring even if he is doing the right thing. Therefore, we have to work in order to activate institutions.

I told them that I will take care of this law and the activation of these institutions, and I want to see fighting corruption through normal legal channels. At that time, we solved the problems of thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands and millions of Syrians. I always focus on institutional work. If I solved a problem, it is an individual problem; I solve the problem of someone but not the problem of thousands of people.

The other pillar in reform is the Constitution. The decree that provides for establishing a committee to draft the constitution was issued. This committee was given a deadline of four months and I think that it has become in its final stages. This constitution will focus on a fundamental and essential point which is the multi-party system and political pluralism. They were talking only about article eight, but we said that the entire Constitution should be amended because there is a correlation among articles. The Constitution will focus on the fact that the people is the source of authority, especially during elections, the dedication of the institutions' role, the freedoms of the citizens and other things and basic principles.

There was a question: why we had legal reform before changing the Constitution? Logically, we must begin with the Constitution and then laws come after that. This is true in terms of logic, but people's pressure and questioning the credibility of the state that it wishes to carry out real reform, have led us to work in parallel. Moreover, issuing laws is faster in terms of time; it takes a few months and this is less than needed by the Constitution. If logic contradicts reality, we go with reality and in any case this is not an important issue. What is really important is that when laws are passed and the Constitution is drafted, we will be in a new phase which is not a transition. This is related to the legislation aspect.

The More We Extend Participation in Government, the More Benefits We Achieve in All Aspects and Generally for the Sake of the National Feeling

As for things that we can do as initiative, we heard a lot about a national unity government. I always like to check terminology because we should not take the term without knowing its content. We hear about the national unity government in the states that have complete division on the national level between parties, a civil war, war-lords communities or princes of nationalities who are directly gathered at the table or through representatives to form a government of national unity. We do not have a national division. We have problems, we have a split in certain cases, but we do not have a national division in the sense that could be asked. I know they do not mean this, but I do not use such an expression as 'national unity government'. For this reason we do not have a government of national division. At any rate, governments in Syria are always diversified governments which include independents and various parties.

But now we have a new political map for the crisis and the new Constitution. With the new parties' law, new political forces have emerged and must be taken into consideration. Some may propose the participation of all these political forces in the government. Some others focus on the opposition. I say all political parties from the center to the opposition to the pro-government forces and everyone should contribute because the government is the homeland's government not a government of a party or a state. The more we extend participation, the more benefits we achieve in all aspects and generally for the sake of the national feeling. Thus, expanding the government is a good idea. I do not know what label we may use here because some call it a national consensus and some others call it expansion participation; this does not matter. What is important is that we welcome the participation of all political forces. In fact, we started dialogue recently even in general headlines with some political forces to take their views in this participation and the answer was positive.

I want to go back to a point in the Constitution which is related to the dates. When the Committee finishes the draft constitution within the time limit, there will be several propositions either to be issued by the President as a decree, or to be referred to parliament in order to be issued by a law. I refused the first and the second and I stressed the fact that there should be a referendum because the Constitution is not the state's Constitution; it is an issue related to every Syrian citizen. Therefore, we will resort to a referendum after the committee finishes its work and presents the Constitution which will be put through constitutional channels to reach a referendum. The referendum on the Constitution could be done at the beginning of March.

Parliamentary elections are linked to the constitution, especially as most of the political forces want to have these elections after having the constitution. I was thinking as I said in my last speech that it would be at the end of last year or the beginning of this year, but as a response to their will, I say that elections are linked to the new constitution because this would give much time for these powers to establish and prepare themselves and their grassroots for the elections. We said that we do not have any objection to this.

The timeframe is connected with the new constitution. What is the constitutional grace period: two or three months? If it was two months, and the referendum is held in March, the elections can be held in early May. If the grace period is three months, the elections can be held in early June. This depends on the new constitution.

Back to the subject of the national unity government, if we talk about the participation of the opposition and say that all the parties will take part in the government including the opposition, who do we mean by ‘opposition’? Any person can now call himself/herself ‘opposition’, and I have met some of such people and used to ask them, ‘who do you represent?’ The opposition stands for a public body, not for a person as an opponent. Now we have opposition figures and currents, but the opposition is usually an institutional body which is established by elections. For the time being, we do not have elections; so how do we define the opposition? Who takes part in that opposition, and what is the volume of their participation? We still do not have the criteria for all this. Before the next elections, we could still say that the government will take a certain form after the elections. But we want to accelerate the process and launch the contribution in the opposition before the elections. In other words, we will adopt special, rather than institutional, criteria.

We haven't accused people of being traitors. The criteria are clear stating the establishment of a national opposition. What do we mean by ‘national government?’ We do not want an opposition that sits in embassies and receives gestures from the outside where they will be told not to have dialogue with the state or to delay the dialogue now because things are over and it is a matter of weeks before the total collapse! We do not want an opposition that sits with us and blackmails us under the title of the crisis in order to achieve personal gains. We do not want an opposition that wants to have a secret dialogue to avoid the anger of others. If we take the existing national criteria and figures, we can start to work on this government immediately now that we have understood the subject, whether they call it a ‘national unity government’ or ‘separation government’. What they choose to name it is not important at all.

This means that we will start to work on this within a very short period of time, but there is an important question: will the government be political or technical? Some talked about having a micro political government, but this does not work for several reasons. First, we are a country with a big public sector which is not independent and where each institution still depends on the ministry, the minister, the deputy minister, the directors, and others.

Can a political figure lead a technical sector? This is not possible in addition to the fact that the problems of the people are not limited to the security issue. There are issues to do with the services which everyone is complaining about at the time. Will a political government be able to provide the people with diesel, gas, or medicine? This is unrealistic in our current conditions. Let there be an inclusive government which has a mixture of politicians and technocrats and which represents the political forces, if they want to be represented, and comprises the technical aspect where we do not lose this or that. I believe that this is the best framework, but of course I always like to have dialogue and discuss things with others in order to see the negatives of every proposal. At the moment, I am raising titles which were not agreed upon completely. I am only presenting the framework and introducing preferences which we could change throughout the discussions.

We Will Be Witnessing Changes, the Most Important Is to Focus in Future on the Young Generation

There was a question about dialogue. We launched the dialogue in July, and we were supposed to start with the extensive dialogue and then move to the central dialogue. However, different forces exerted pressure to reverse the process and we agreed and finished the first phase of the dialogue without the contribution of all the opposition forces. Only part of them participated in the dialogue which was a very fruitful dialogue with a wide participation from the different institutions in the governorates.

Two months ago it was suggested to start the third phase of the dialogue on the central level, and I can say that we, as a state, political party, or authority, are ready to start tomorrow and have no problem in that. However, some of the opposition forces are not ready. Part of them wants to conduct a secret dialogue for certain personal gains, as I mentioned earlier, and another part wants to wait and see how things go so that they determine where to go. But we will not wait for those forces to come and join in a celebratory dialogue which is conducted just to show off. We are now having dialogue with other forces which are ready to have a public dialogue and we are discussing the ideas which were raised earlier. What I wanted to clarify is that the delay in the dialogue is not caused by Syria.

We have even accepted to have dialogue under the Arab initiative which was built on the idea of conducting dialogue with all the forces including hostile forces which committed crimes of terrorism in the seventies and the eighties of the last century. We said that we did not have a problem in conducting dialogue with these forces if they wanted to come to Syria, and we gave all the guarantees. In other words, we do not have any restrictions to dialogue and we will show full openness when see that everybody is ready for the dialogue and has a perspective on that dialogue. We are ready to start dialogue right away.

There will always be a question as to whether we will witness changes and transformation. Usually I do not talk about this as we tend to change things whenever there is need for transformation. But it is clear from my earlier speech that we will be witnessing changes. When we talk about a new government and a new structure of the government, and when the Country Command has been announcing for a week now that there will be a national conference very soon, this means that we will be witnessing changes, part of which already started few days ago. The most important thing is for these changes to focus in the future on the young generation which considers itself marginalized to a large extent, although it is the generation which faced the crisis boldly; and we saw how young people have been active in defending their country with all the meaning of the word.

Syria Needs All Its Honest Sons Regardless of Their Political Attitudes

At any rate, Syria now needs all its honest sons, regardless of their political attitudes. And when we talk about the coming phase, while we are still at the beginning of the New Year, some talk about the new Syria. But I say we do not have a ‘new Syria’ but a ‘renewed Syria’ because renewal is a continuous process and we are talking here about a new phase, rather than a new Syria. We have to understand the requirements of every phase; otherwise, all that we have said will be futile. What we have dealt with comprises procedures and regulations whose implementation does not succeed without the awareness needed for any process of development and transition. I can give an answer to this by saying that the previous ten months, with all their miseries, were very helpful in this regard as they proved to the Syrian people that they are capable with their awareness to present a model of a modern country which is stages and centuries ahead of other countries. I was talking about a hundred and fifty years, but actually we are capable of becoming one thousand years ahead of those countries which try to give us lessons about democracy, and I am confident that this future will come. Even so, the more we are capable of spreading the state awareness which we have witnessed, the better the situation. There is no doubt that despite the presence of an overall awareness in Syria, there are small holes of ignorance which might influence the general situation, and we do not want such holes and certain cases of ignorance to influence the process of development. We rather want to have a maximum level of positives and a minimum level of negatives.

In summary, the points which are related to the issue of domestic reform have become clear. After the Constitution is issued, we do not have additional steps to make except for the procedures; and if there is a shortcoming in the laws, we can, after the Constitution is issued, re-study these laws as we will not stop at this stage of development. Notes are also to be taken about the laws and the practices as mistakes might happen throughout the implementation, and the process of renewal is a continuous process on the anatomical level.

Sisters and brothers,

What is taking place in Syria is part of what has been planned for the region for tens of years, as the dream of partition is still haunting the grandchildren of Sykes–Picot. But today their dream turns into a nightmare, and if some believe that the time of conflict over Syria is back, then they are mistaken because the conflict today is ‘against Syria’ and not ‘over Syria’ or ‘on Syria’. And one thing we will never allow them to achieve is defeating Syria as it means defeating steadfastness and resistance and it also means the fall of the whole region to the hands of great powers. Defeat is not necessarily military and it might come true if they succeed in making us withdraw to internal conflicts and forget about our bigger issues on top of which the Palestinian Issue. Their ultimate goal which they aspire to achieve eventually is a Syria which is busy with internal marginal conflicts and withdrawn to its false borders, rather than its natural, historical, nationwide borders. They want to see a shrunk Syria which is prone to demise and deterioration as a result of division and partition, and their aim is to dismantle the cultural identity and character of our people which has always protected us against defeats of all kinds. Dismantling this identity leads to an actual defeat which was not caused by repeated wars, but which could be caused by the destroying the structure of a society that produced the systems of social and cultural resistance. This was the system which raised their concern more than any other system because it is the foundation and incubator of any form of resistance. But they did not succeed in destroying our identity or in shaking our belief that the resistance is at the core of this identity which shall remain firm as it has always been over history.

There Is No Compromise with Terrorism, No Compromise with Those Who Use Arms to Cause Chaos and Division, No Compromise with Those Who Terrorize Civilians, No Compromise with Those Who Conspire with Foreigners against Their Country and against Their People

In cases of war or confrontation, states rearrange their priorities. Our utmost priority now, which is unparalleled by any other priority, is the restoration of the security we have enjoyed for decades, and which has characterized our country, not only in the region but throughout the world. This will only happen by striking these murderous terrorists hard. There is no compromise with terrorism, no compromise with those who use arms to cause chaos and division, no compromise with those who terrorize civilians, no compromise with those who conspire with foreigners against their country and against their people.

The battle against terrorism will not be the battle of the state or state institutions alone. It is the battle of all of us. It is a national battle; and it is everyone’s duty to take part in it. “Internal sedition is more grievous that murder”, because it involves dismantling and fragmenting society and ultimately destroying it. This is what we shall not allow in order to keep Syria immune and impregnable.

Yet, the immune and impregnable state knows when and how to forgive, and knows how to bring its children back to right path. It knows how to take the hired guns out of the hands of those who have been misguided and delusioned and return them to the process of building a modern state while maintaining its authenticity and originality and the spring wells of its Arab and identity. In as much as we need to strike the terrorists in as much as we need to bring those who have gone astray back to the right path. There are those who made mistakes and those who have been misguided. After they started on their mistaken course, they have been told that the state will take revenge against you, so you cannot go back. The objective is to push them on the course of crime and to the point of no return.

The state is like the mother who opens the way for her children to be the best every day in order to maintain security and avoid bloodshed. That is why, in this regard, we have passed one amnesty after another. Some people believed that these amnesties led to more security failures. But the fact is that in most cases the results were positive, particularly when the amnesty was coordinated with local actors in every city, village and governorate and in coordination with the parents whom we met and talked to. They had enough wisdom to bring their children back to the right path.

Of course there are cases which don’t succeed, but this is not the general trend. That is why I believe that decisiveness is necessary but continuing to show tolerance and forgiveness from time to time within the framework of clear criteria and sound mechanisms is equally important. I’ll explain this point because many people didn’t quite understand what we think of when we issue an amnesty in such security conditions. We conducted dialogue with everyone, except the criminals. I met a number of these people, even in the last few days. When they saw things moving in the direction of weapons and killing, a large number of them changed completely and started to cooperate with the state which he had opposed for objective or non-objective reasons. Some, however, persisted on their wrong course and the Quarnic verse “they stumble in their grave error” applies to them. There are those who lose their physical eyesight but compensate and excel in the arts, literature, science or other professions, but those who lose the ‘mind’s eye’ are hopeless, for the real blindness is that of the mind not o the eyes.

Some of those really believe that they are revolutionaries. All right, let’s see what they have done and what are their attributes. Would a real revolutionary steal a car or rob a house or a facility? Can the revolutionary be a thief? For us, the image of the revolutionary is a bright, idealistic untainted one with something very special about it. Those people have assassinated innocent people in and out of the state system. Can a revolutionary be characterized by cowardice and treachery? The prevented the schools from carrying out their tasks and functions in society. They did the same in universities. Can a revolutionary be against education? In some areas, teaching dropped to half, which means our schools would send to society people who are half educated half ignorant. Yet, we have another army fighting together with the armed forces, security services and the police. They are those in the education sector, particularly in schools in some areas where teaching dropped by 50% and they are risking their lives in order to continue the educational processes.

Until the end of 2011, the number of martyrs among teachers and university professors was about 30 and over a thousand schools have been vandalized, burned or destroyed.

On your behalf, I salute all the teachers, councilors, administrators and caretakers in schools. Can a revolution be against education, against national unity? Can revolutionaries use language which calls for the disintegration of society? Can a revolutionary rise against citizens depriving them of cooking gas which they need on a daily basis in order to push them to hunger, or of heating fuel to make them catch their death because of the cold, or medicine to push them to death because of diseases or deprive them of their livelihood by burning government and private factories and facilities to make the poor poorer still?

This is not a revolution. Can a revolutionary work for the enemy – a revolutionary and a traitor at the same time? This is impossible. Can revolutionaries be without honor, moral values or religious principles? Have we had real revolutionaries, in the sense we know, you and I and the whole people would have moved with them. This is a fact.

The basic question which has been put to me with a great deal of intensity is: when and how will it end? This is, of course, a difficult question and we cannot give an answer without having all the facts. There are things which we know and things we don’t. The first thing which we don’t have full information about but we can draw deductions about is the conspiracy. It will end when the Syrian people decide to turn into a submissive people, when we submit and abandon all our heritage: the heritage of the October war of liberation in 1973, when we abandon our pan-Arab positions. We defended Lebanon in 1982, when it was the springboard of resistance which led to the liberation of Lebanon in 2000, when we stop supporting the resistance which we supported in 2006 and 2008 in Lebanon and Gaza, when we give free concessions partially or fully in the peace process, particularly in our occupied land in the Golan, when we abandon our pan-Arab positions towards the Palestinian cause which we have adopted since 1948, when we accept to be false witnesses to the systematic and unprecedented destruction of al-Aqsa mosque.

I don’t know whether the Arab League would set up a committee to address this issue. I don’t think they will, because it is an issue of concern only to 1.3 billion people; so it is not worthy of their concern and that is why they won’t do it – just for the sake of comparison.

The Syrian people will never be submissive for many reasons. First, the principles to which he has been brought up; second, the models presented to us of submissive leaders, submissive policies or submissive states are not encouraging. In all circumstances and in the worst conditions, Syria’s condition was better than the conditions off all those countries, even those who appear to be in good shape now. The symptoms haven’t appeared so far, but one day they will.

We Cannot Abandon Our Dignity That Is Stronger than Their Armies and More Precious than Their Wealth

All these things can be summed up in one word: Syrian dignity. We cannot abandon our dignity because it is the most precious thing the Syrian people possess. Our dignity is stronger than their armies and more precious than their wealth.

The second point is related to the first: when will it stop? When the smuggling of arms and money from outside stops. This related to the first point. When we submit and give in we reach the second point. But what I know fully is that the conspiracy will stop when we beat it. We shouldn’t be reactive. It stops when we stop it. We can defeat it when we do so politically on the outside; and inside the country, we beat it when beat this dangerous arm of the conspiracy which is terrorism. The second point is related to our wisdom and awareness. We beat the conspiracy when we beat our own whims and passivity and return to reason and go back to the state of pure love which we had in Syria. Thank God, this is still the general state in the country, but I am talking about a few areas.

There is no doubt that Syria is strong, but strength is not an absolute. The immunity of the strong and healthy person might drop, and when that happens he might get ill, but death and collapse are not inevitable. Immunity gets weaker when there is chaos. The events and the chaos which happened in Syria weakened this immunity. When that happened, terrorism struck. Consequently, whoever contributes to chaos now is a partner in terrorism and in shedding Syrian blood. We cannot separate the first from the second. We cannot fight terrorism without fighting chaos, for both of them are linked. This should be clear. Immunity drops when national awareness gets weaker.

Here, I am talking about those with god will and good intentions. Those with bad intentions do not concern us. In the beginning, we used to tell those with good intentions that there is a foreign conspiracy. They would respond by saying this is just shifting responsibility to others. We used to tell them there are weapons, and they would respond by saying, these are all fabrications of state media. Now things have become clear, albeit belatedly. This terrorism cannot appear like that suddenly. There are stages which started from the beginning. There was small-size terrorism using small arms and in small areas. Then it grew to reach this stage and this level.

We were late, and they were late in understanding this. This was a major obstacle, but our being late doesn’t mean that we reached the point of no return. The important thing now is to stand united. When we have national causes, there should be no differences. When we differ, we go to the ballot box. We chose our government, our parliament. This is a different issue. But when there are foreign threats, the states which respect themselves stand united. In this case there is no grey color. Those who stand in the middle in national causes are traitors to their country. There is no choice. We must stand united: all of us are responsible. We should all contribute with words, acts, in any way or form.

The second point, when we talk about differences, we should distinguish between mistake made by individuals and mistakes made institutions. I said this before. Institutions do not commit mistakes except when they adopt mistaken policies. This is a different issue. We have two policies: the first is to proceed in the reform process and the second is to fight terrorism. Can anyone say that this a mistaken policy: I am against reform and support terrorism. This is impossible. I am talking about the Syrian arena. When we put these things aside, what this means is that we stand united with state institutions. We help them, we help the army, we morally embrace the army and the security.

If we go back to the 1970s and 1980s, when the devils’ brothers, who covered themselves with Islam, carried out their terrorist acts in Syria. In the beginning there were many Syrians who were misguided. They believed that they were genuinely defending Islam. They didn’t take any position. When things became clear decisive acts were taken and it was quick when the people stood with the state at that time. Of course the killing and the assassinations went on for six years. We don’t want to wait all that long. Things are clear for all of us. If we stood together and embraced members of the security and other relevant systems, I believe the results will be quick and decisive, because terrorism strikes, and every time it strikes it makes reform more costly and more difficult.

The question is a race between the terrorists and reform. Terrorism and those standing behind it don’t want reform and want to reach a stage where we say there is no time for reform. Let’s deal with terrorism. In that case they would have an excuse to ask for intervention in Syria. All of us have recently felt, through television, radio and the internet, that people are worried and upset and all of them are calling for decisive action.

Of course, this issue is already settled for us because dealing with terrorism must be in the strongest legal means. We are keen of the law because we are keen at same time on the blood of innocent people. We do not want the price of the fight against terrorism to be the blood of innocent people, but the problem is that they began to hit innocent people. Now, the Syrian people are being killed and political belonging has nothing to do with the person killed even if he is an opponent to the state. They are killing the Syrian people; they are punishing the Syrian people because the Syrian people refused to abandon his morals, refused to become a mercenary and refused to sell his conscience. Thus, it was necessary to punish the Syrian people everywhere.

Therefore, we have to be united and we have to resolve this issue. As I said, the main pillar is how the citizen stands with the state. In some cases when the army entered a city (which controlled by the terrorists), some people from the region's population formed teams to protect the army’s flanks in order to enter the city. Some other people in other regions formed observing patrols to prevent terrorists from carrying out acts of murder and sabotage or sedition in some areas. In other areas, they were delivering their information to the army. Thus, we have many ways. I think we should start now a direct dialogue among the concerned authorities in the country, in different regions and different activities to see how we can achieve security on all Syrian territories.

I want just to talk about one point linked to the issue of the national reconciliation because it was raised in this context. I mean if we stand together, where to get then? There are those who proposed at the beginning of the crisis the idea of having a national reconciliation. The national reconciliation at the end of the crisis means that everyone forgives everyone; I mean to say that everyone has committed a mistake against everyone and there are many mistakes. Everyone forgives everyone because revenge does not lead to a positive result. Revenge does not build a country. Revenge does not return the blood spilled and, of course, chaos destroys the homeland as we are witnessing now. Only tolerance builds nations and achieves the flourishing future.

This means that national reconciliation stems from this feeling existing among the citizens, because some people at the beginning of the crisis has proposed national reconciliation. National reconciliation needs a general feeling among citizens that we are closer to the end of the crisis and that we stand undivided in one place. The most important point is who are the parties of such reconciliation? The national reconciliation is among parties, who are the parties? The parties are not specified. Thus, we reach a national reconciliation through national awareness not through a decision taken by the President who shall issue a law and a general amnesty, etc. The state may absolve a party, but what about other parties? It is a national situation that is followed by laws and legislations, etc. Thus, we do need to get to that stage but in a timely manner. Now, as a result of the public awareness which has emerged recently, I see that we can move in this direction with putting an end for terrorism on the Syrian arena.

In order to succeed in all these procedures, reforms, confrontations and complex conditions, we must be cautious of the psychologically defeated people who are seeking to spread the spirit of defeat and frustration among citizens, whether from their psychological reasons or their self-interest considerations. If this bunch of few people decided to contribute to the defeat of the homeland in the virtual squares, the overwhelmingly majority of people have decided to achieve victory in the real squares. National battles have its own squares and men where there is no place for the shaking hands and the frightened hearts. As for their embargo, it will not terrorize and will not be able to humiliate our people because it is not the Syrian who sells his honor and dignity for money. This is not out of verbal rhetoric but out of the fact that we are the ones who fed many Arab countries during many lean years.

I am talking about the lean years which prevailed three or four year ago. Four countries, as well as the Syrian people, ate Syrian wheat, and we are the ones who developed their industry in the eighties although we did not have any foreign currency reserves. We did not even have a small amount of reserves and, during that time, we could hardly pay the salaries and we hardly had enough wheat for our bread. So we say to the generation who does not remember that stage, and who was probably not born during that phase, do not allow the fear to control your heart as a result of the media war which is targeting you. Syria has undergone much more difficult conditions during which even the security situation was much more difficult. Yet, we bypassed those conditions and were victorious. With all their negatives and misfortunes, crises give opportunities to genuine people to achieve something, and today we are more capable of transforming all that to gains by our self-dependence. If we think scientifically and collectively away from selfishness, this will help us compensate for our loss in the short term and turn them into gains in the long term.

The most important thing is not to have a monopolizing group which makes use of crises to collect their fortunes at the expense of the food and blood of the people. This is an important point. Of course, it is the responsibility of the state to fight this situation and we always instruct institutions to control this issue, but we also know that, under the conditions of disorder, deficiency infiltrates even through institutions, which is yet another obstacle ahead of us. This is a fact but with our cooperation we can find a solution for this issue.

Under these conditions, and regardless of the crisis, we have to concentrate on small and medium enterprises and on handicrafts. First, we need to establish a wide base for job opportunities and to have more social justice. We always talk about the volume of growth but we do not identify the dimensions of the pyramid or the pyramid’s base which benefits from this growth. Such industries in addition to handicrafts create great social justice and, at the same time, they do not fall under the influence of external blockade and are not highly influenced by the security conditions. Recently, we have started to focus to a large extent on handicrafts as supporting them in this stage is very necessary.

In agriculture we, in Syria, have made very good steps despite the difficulties, and we have continued to pay attention to the conditions of farmers and workers. But I think that paying attentions to craftspeople and similar professions was not as it should have been.

A great part of the psychological war is launched now against Syria. When they failed in the sectarian issue, they also failed in the national issue. They failed in all the issues which have a political aspect. Then they moved to the economic aspect. Of course, the stock market rates and the exchange rates of the Lira do have an effect, and do we know that when the value of the Lira decreases, prices increase. But this is not the only criteria. There is another criterion which is more important. What is the volume of production in Syria? Production in Syria was generally weak, and over the last few years when we opened our economy we turned to consumption. Even products which exist in Syria are bought from non-Syrian producers. This has very badly damaged the economy. Therefore, we have to concentrate on the level of production in Syria, and we are capable even during this crisis to increase this production. We must know that we have many points of strength. For example, the volume of foreign debt in Syria is very limited, our relations with different countries have been ongoing, and we have olives (I believe that we were the fifth olive producer on the level of the world, and some say that we have even jumped to the third or fourth level, which I am not sure of).

For us, as a small country, to occupy the fifth position in producing olives and olive oil among hundreds of countries is a very positive thing. We also have a strong presence as a wheat producer, as I said earlier. The land is there, the farmers are there, and the rainfall is there. This means that we have real points of strength but we have to regulate the economic process and we can kick things off even while under the influence of this crisis.

If They Want to Besiege Syria, They Will End up Besieging a Whole Region

They are trying to depict Syria as an isolated country, trying to stress this over and over again. But our points of strength lie in our strategic position. If they want to besiege Syria, they will end up besieging a whole region. As for our relations with the West, they talk about an international community. This international community is a group of big colonial countries which view the whole world as an arena full of slaves who serve their interests.

For us, the West is important and we cannot deny this truth. But the West today is not like the West a decade ago. The world is changing and there are emerging powers. There are alternatives. It is important but it is not the oxygen which we breathe. If the West closes its doors, we can still breathe. It is not the life buoy without which we drown. We can swim on our own and along our friends and brothers, and there is plenty of them. That is why we decided in 2005 to move eastwards. At that time, we knew that the West will never change. The West is still colonial in one way or another. It is changing from an old colonizer to a modern colonizer and from a modern colonizer during the Sykes-Picot agreement to a contemporary colonizer. It has different forms and shapes but it will never change, which means that we have to turn to the East. We, as a state, started this procedure several years ago, and my visits during the recent years fell under that initiative in one way or another. But this is not sufficient. The private sector must also open channels with those countries.

Most countries of the world have good relations with Syria, and they insisted on having good relations with us even under the conditions of the current crisis and the Western pressures on them. All this does not mean that we will not pay a price or there will not be loss as a result of the blockade, on one hand, and the political and security situation, on another. However, we can have achievements which could reduce the effects of the damages. At this stage, there fundamental points which make all these achievements closely related to the security situation including incidents of highway robbery, and the issues of gas and diesel. For example, we might have to cancel a train shipment and transport the diesel, fuel, or gas by vehicles, which makes the cost higher and the transported amount smaller; and this does not fulfill the citizens’ needs of consumption or the consumption needs of electricity power stations or other systems. Our entire livelihood is now linked to controlling the security situation. That is why I reiterated the importance of this so that we can all cooperate in putting an end to it, and so that, we, as a state, do not break our commitments towards our citizens. Security, economy, and all other issues are indispensable things for the Syrian citizen.

Despite all those complex circumstances, I am greatly confident of the future. My confidence is inspired by you, and by your throats which hailed glory, dignity, and defiance when millions of you filled tens of cities and squares along the country. I say to you I, as you have always known me, am one of you. When we do not face up to the challenges, we do not deserve the name of Syria; and when we do not dare to defend it or cannot defend it against its enemies, we do not deserve to live on its soil. Our people has proven its genuineness and sincerity when the bloody media machine fell short of destroying its unity and when the starvation attempts did not make it kneel and could not taint its honour and dignity. A people with such sophist feelings of belonging to their home country, with such high morals which face the most dangerous crises, and with such strong faith in its ability to overcome those decisive moments in its history will not allow a small group of frauds or delusional people to make it stray from the road of truth and righteousness; and it will not allow groups that sold themselves to the devil of pernicious desires and dubious interests to destroy what it has built over a long history of effort and sacrifice.

Our Martyrs’ Blood Is behind the Steadfastness of Our Country

My confidence in that is inspired by you and the men of our armed forces, the men of living conscience and strong resolve. They are the ones who truly express the feelings of the people, safeguard its values and aspirations, and give all sacrifices in order for the people to enjoy security. On your behalf, and on the behalf of every honourable citizen, I would like to greet them as they stand ready to protect the honor of their country, and the integrity of its soil and people. As for our martyrs’ blood which is behind the steadfastness of our country, it will always be the lightship that will light the road of our next generations to build the future Syria. Because when their blood waters the land, it will make it bear the fruits of a more secure tomorrow, unity and freedom for us all. As for the strength of their families who lost their dearest people, it has made us firmer and more determined and persistent in following on the same road which was taken by their brothers, fathers, and sons in defense of their country and its values, no matter how expensive the price is and to be as an example for all of us on how an individual dies in order for the country to live.

I would like to salute you, the sons of this great people, with all your intellectual, and political doctrines, you who strongly and unyieldingly defend the values of solidarity and love that unify our people against the feelings of malice and hatred which some try to invoke spreading their poisons all over the country, and you who work relentlessly in order to develop our country, regain its security, enhance its unity, and protect its sovereignty. And glory to our proud people who reject defeat in the age of collapse and who say to their enemies, ‘never will we be defeated!’ For you, our proud people, we are persistent, and with your support, we continue to resist and win, and we will insha’ Allah win, and the peace and mercy of God be upon you all.

Iran in the crosshair again?

2012-01-04T18:55:00.002-05:00

I am sure you all have followed it. From Panetta's threats about Iran crossing a "red line", to the saber-rattling of pretty much all the Republicans except Ron Paul, to the Israel's lobby renewed efforts to get the US to not only impose illegal sanctions against Iran, but to actually attack it.

So is this really going to happen?

Last time it appeared that Iran was about to be attacked - in 2007 - I wrote a piece entitled "Iran's asymmetrical response options" in which I took a look at the various forms a US/Israel attack could take and what Iran could do about it. While this analysis is still basically correct, the circumstances have changed rather dramatically in several key aspects since 2007.

First and foremost, the US has withdrawn the bulk of its forces from Iraq and has consolidated its remaining forces. This means that not only will the Iranians have far fewer targets to attack inside Iraq, it also means that the most exposed lines of resupply through the Basra region have now been abandoned. This is huge.

Second, with the withdrawal of the bulk of the US forces from Iraq, there are more troops available for operations against Iran.

Third, the US Air Force does not have to play its role of "airborne protector" of US troops in Iraq, meaning that its assets are now available for other operations.

Fourth, NATO, the eternal slave of the USA, is now heavily involved in Afghanistan and that, in turn, means that NATO assets are also available for any US attack on Iran. You can count on the likes of Sarkozy to send 10-20 Rafales to attack Iran just to prove that France is a "great" country...

Bottom line: the US is far better positioned to attack Iran in 2012 than it was in 2007.

Unlike many other analysts, I do not believe that Iran has the capability to block the Strait of Hormuz. Or let me put it this way: yes, Iran can sink a number of ships in and around the Strait of Hormuz, but the USA does have the means to wrestle the control of this strait back from the Iranians by force.

Worse, should the Iranians attempt to block the Strait of Hormuz it would give the USA a perfect pretext to wage war on Iran under the guise of "guaranteeing the freedom of navigation and commerce in international waters" and "not letting the Mullah's take the rest of the planet hostage". Frankly, I hope that the Iranians will be smart enough not to fall into this trap.

Iran would have the option of attacking US forces in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and other countries, but the problem with that is that this could be presented by the Imperial corporate media as a "Shia attack against the Sunni". My personal opinion is that as long as the USA and Israel attack Iran the majority of the Muslim world will see that as an infidel attack on the Muslim ummah, but any Iranian counter-attack on US basis in majority Sunni countries will inevitably rekindle sectarian tensions, much to the advantage of the USraelian Empire.

As for the "raining missiles down on Israel" option, I did not like it in 2007 and I still don't like it. I oppose symbolic military operations on principle. Militarily speaking, hitting back with missiles at Israel will bring no advantage to Iran, so what is the point?

Frankly, I believe that the best option for Iran is to simply ride out the attack and make the USA and Israel pay a painful political price for their attack. After all, how much damage can the USA and Israel really inflict on Iran?

The Zionists (US and Israeli) can definitely hit a large section of the Iranian civilian and research nuclear program. And it can be rebuilt.

More painfully, the Zionists might use this strike to kill a number of key Iranian scientists. Such scientists are far more precious than any installation and I hope that Iran will do a better job protecting them than it did in the past (many have been killed in assassinations).

No doubt, the Zionists are capable of destroying a large part of the Iranian air defense system and several key naval ships (surface and submarines).

Finally, we can count on the Zionists to attempt to kill key members of the Iranian leadership, but considering similar efforts in the past (Nasrallah, Saddam), they are unlikely to succeed in this effort.

Now, if the Iranians strike back it will give the Zionists an excuse for a much more sustained campaign. But if the Iranians only reply with political measures, it will make it much more difficult for the Zionists to sustain and air strikes campaign similar to what they did in Kosovo or Libya.

Anyway, whatever option Iran chooses a Zionist attack on Iran is inevitable. Not because anybody in Israel or the USA seriously believes that Iran is building a nuclear weapon, but because both countries have gone far to far in their rhetoric and saber-rattling. Not to strike at Iran at this point in time is tantamount to surrender.

Don't be deceived and mislead by all the rational arguments against a strike on Iran. Remember that these are the folks who brought you two of the most embarrassing military defeats in modern history (Lebanon in 2006 and Georgia in 2008), which have lost the war in Iraq, are loosing the war in Afghanistan and which are now elated by their apparent 'victory' against Libya. They are evil enough to do 9/11 and stupid enough to deploy anti-missile systems in Eastern Europe!

So make no mistake, the attack on Iran will happen, sooner or later.

The Saker

Is Hugo Chavez suffering from delusional paranoia?

2012-01-04T17:33:00.000-05:00

Typical headline from the corporate media: "Hugo Chavez Nuttily Claims the U.S. Gives South American Leaders Cancer". The article explains:

Yep, it's another controversial statement from Hugo Chavez -- but he really seems to dial up the Nut-O-Meter to 11 with this cancer conspiracy theory. Late yesterday Chavez decided to go on national TV and drop the mild suggestion (not an outright allegation, he insists!) that the U.S. maybe, just maybe, gave five current and former South American heads of state cancer. "It would not be strange if they had developed the technology to induce cancer and nobody knew about it until now ... I don't know. I'm just reflecting," Chavez said, according to Reuters. "But this is very, very, very strange ... it's a bit difficult to explain this, to reason it, including using the law of probabilities." Cancer ray guns from space? Carcinogenic handshakes? Chavez's tin-foiled tale comes off of Argentinian President Cristina Fernandez cancer diagnosis being made public yesterday. She, Paraguay's Fernando Lugo, Brazil's Dilma Rousseff, Brazil's ex-leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and Chavez himself have all recently been diagnosed. So, five is trend. That's all the science you need for a conspiracy theory. It couldn't possibily have anything to do with those leaders' average age being 61

Hahaha, laughable, isn't it?

Well, yes and no. That five out of twenty Latin American leaders would have cancer at the same time is statistically irrelevant, if only because the of very small overall total (20). I am fairly sure that the laws of probabilities have nothing at all to say about such a 'statistic'.

However, there is no need to talk about "cancer ray guns from space" or "carcinogenic handshakes". Let me remind you of a few undeniable facts:

Fact: Both Apartheid South Africa and Israel have worked on ethnic bioweapons (see here and here). In this case, the purpose of the weapons is to target specific ethnic groups, such as Black South Africans or non-Jews. This is, in fact, harder to do than to target one specific individual.

Fact: The Russians have openly admitted that they killed the notorious Wahabi terrorist Ibn Al-Khattab by using a special poisoned letter whose toxic agent was specifically coded to harm only somebody with Khattab's DNA. Many other people touched the letter and suffered no harm at all while Khattab died with 24 hours of touching the poisoned letter.

Fact: According to Cuban officials, the CIA attempted to kill Fidel Castro a total of 638 times. This figure is probably bloated, but it is safe to assume that such attempts were numerous indeed.

Fact: the list of individuals assassinated by the CIA worldwide is too long to be compiled, but from 1967-1972 Phoenix Program to the quasi-simultaneous 1981 murders of Panamanian President Omar Torrijos and Ecuadorian President Jaime Roldós Aguilera, the CIA has a long history of assassinations of foreign leaders and an even longer history of overthrowing regimes it does not approve of.

Fact: Venezuela is, along with Cuba, Iran and the DPRK, one of the few countries deserving a special "task force" headed by a special "mission manager" officially tasked with "collective timely intelligence" independently of the CIA or the Department of State.

So what is there to laugh about? The USA have the means, motive and opportunity and they have a long history of doing exactly that in similar circumstances.

None of this proves anything, of course. In fact, if the USA is targeting Latin American leaders with genetic bioweapons this would be extremely hard to prove. And one could even argue that the way Hugo Chavez has recently accumulated mistake after mistake does more damage to the Bolivarian Revolution and the ideals of "Chavismo" then any CIA plot (I personally get emails from some hard left-anachists friends who live in Venezuela who are totally disgusted by Chavez almost every week).

All I am saying is that Chavez's hypothesis (it's not even a theory) is not laughable or ridiculous at face value. No, Hugo Chavez is not suffering from delusional paranoia and that there is no reason to ridicule Chavez over this statement.

The Saker

Ron Paul's economics: a very toxic brew indeed

2012-01-04T00:33:00.007-05:00

It appears that Ron Paul did well in the Iowa caucuses tonight. On one hand, I am rather delighted by this, but on the other, I am also very concerned that a lot of people are seeing only one side of Ron Paul's ideology. There is, however, a much darker side to Ron Paul, one which we all must have the courage and intellectual honesty to look at and not kid ourselves about its nature.

Now, before all of you Ron Paul fans get mad at me for posting this, I want to assure you of two thing:

a) I like Ron Paul's views on foreign policy and civil rights

b) I like and respect Ron Paul as a person

However, I always considered his 'Austrian' and 'Laisser Faire' economics as utter nonsense at best, or absolute lunacy at worst. But now they are gaining more and more traction with the US public and I think that it is therefore time to honestly discuss these ideas here.

As a theory, 'Austrian' economics are fantastic. But so are Marxism and Anarchism. These theories all suffer from the same problem: highly loaded assumptions. In the case of 'Austrian economics', the flaw is basic, but huge: the concept of a free market. The fact is, of course, that there never was such a thing and that it will never exist. Markets are always, by definition, regulated by somebody. In the words of the brilliant economist Michael Hudson:

Every economy is planned. This traditionally has been the function of government. Relinquishing this role under the slogan of “free markets” leaves it in the hands of banks.

One might wonder why a political and economic theory based on a so self-evidently flawed idea has so many followers. The fact is, of course, that this theory has followers in significant numbers only in the USA. Why? Because of three uniquely American circumstances:

The evil nature of the state in US history:

It is a fact that throughout the history of the USA the state as always been on the side of the rich and powerful and not of the masses. Not only that, but the US state has spent trillions of dollars in waste, mismanagement and fraud. So it is no wonder that most Americans instinctively dislike a state which has almost never done anything useful for them. Why would Americans care for a state when they never lived in a society in which the state did care for the common folks? From its very inception the US state was both multi-genocidal (extermination of numerous Indian nations), slave-owning (Black slavery), plutocratic (Robber Barons) and oligarchic (Masonic). There is a good case to be made that the US state has been one of the worst ones in mankind's history, so its no wonder that it is also distrusted and hated by so many Americans.

The insular nature of the US society:

The vast majority Americans are hopelessly insular. Not to offend anybody here, but this is an undeniable fact. Not all Americans, of course, but the vast majority. They know only one language, they have rarely, if ever, been abroad. When they are abroad they don't really interact with the locals and, last but not least, they are largely ignorant of world history. I have yet to meet a US libertarian who could even pronounce "laisser faire" correctly, nevermind understand why this idea has been universally rejected by the rest of mankind. This is why Americans have these bizarre views about Obama being a 'socialist' or why they don't realize that civilized mankind has, for example, rejected the death penalty and adopted universal health care as a right for all. No, Americans will still passionately argue about issues which have already been settled pretty much everywhere else on this planet.

Then there are those Americans who are aware of the bigger planet out there, but still fall back on some form or another of 'American exceptionalism" (let them Euroliberals have their health care, this is not the American way!). The fact that what US libertarians call "statism" has been accepted and adopted by the rest of mankind therefore has no influence inside the USA at all. As the lyrics of a song which was popular in the late eighties say: "if it's good enough for Texas it's good enough for me"...

The unbridled power of US corporation:

It is well established that the "Tea Party" has been largely financed by the Koch brothers. But this is just the tip of the iceberg. The roots of this corporate libertarianism go back much further, to Ronald Reagan and his famous words in his first inaugural address:

Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem

That statement was the slogan under which US corporations marched into a real crusade against any form of control over them. We all know what happened after that: massive deregulations crippled entire sectors of the economy and nation, worker's rights collapsed, social safeguards were wiped-off, unions all but died, and every bit of the power vacuum left by a retreating state was immediately filled by US corporations. The difference being that while the US people had at least a modicum of control over their government, they had none over the corporations. Corporate America recognized that, and ever since it has backed anything on the spectrum going from Reaganomics to Austrian libertarian theories.

Compare these factors with the situation in Europe where most Europeans did, at one time or another of their lives, get real, valuable services from their government, where corporations are carefully controlled and regulated and the consumer thereby protected, where civil and worker's rights are considered "social achievements" (acquis sociaux in French) never to be rescinded (although under US pressure politicians like Merkel, Papanderou, Sarkozy, Blair and Co. are now trying hard to dismantle them). Sure, there were plenty of incompetent, corrupt and outright evil governments in Europe, but there were always enough counter-examples sufficiently nearby (geographically or historically) to always remind Europeans that the solution to bad government is good government, not no government.

So we are really dealing with a misnomer here. Austrian Laisser Faire economics should really be called "US Turbocapitalsm" (term concocted by Ed Luttwak), or "US hypercapitalism" or even simply plutocracy.

Coming back to Ron Paul, I invite you all to listen to the interview of Webster Tarpley recorded by Bonnie Faulkner for her show Guns and Butter. Tarpley and Faulkner take a close look at Ron Paul's economic program and what it would mean if implemented.

For the direct link to the audio click here.

For the web page with the interview, click here.

The real danger:

Having said all these highly critical things about Ron Paul and his delusional and outright dangerous economic views, let me say that I understand that it is a fact that a US President has far more influence on foreign policy than in internal politics where he must contend with a Congress which can block the implementation of his economic policies and a Federal Reserve which will fight with everything it has to prevent Ron Paul from abolishing it (let me add here that this idea, to abolish the Fed, is an excellent and fundamentally sound economic idea of Ron Paul!). Finally, there is no doubt in my mind that if Ron Paul was elected President he would be simply murdered by the US "deep state".

So my concern is not that Ron Paul would instantly create millions of starving Americans by giving them a maximum of 15 dollars per week in food stamps or that he would wreck WIC, but that his ideology can be used by Corporate America to further weaken the state and strengthening the power of Wall Street. All this libertarian nonsense really serves only one practical purpose: to turn citizens of a state into corporate subjects/slaves.

Michael Hudson is quite correct. What we are witnessing in the USA (and, to a lesser degree, in Europe) is a return to feudalism, where the 99% serve the 1%, a society in which the people become simply a means of production for their corporate overlords. Laisser Faire indeed...

So ask yourself this question: do Ron Paul's economic ideas strengthen or weaken the power of Corporate America over the US people?

The answer is, I think, sadly obvious.

The Saker

PS: please do listen to the Tarpley interview before commenting here, as it makes no sense to discuss vague declarations of intentions. What we must do is fully fathom is what a Ron Paul Presidency would mean for the US economy.

Check out how Jewish Democrats meddle in the Republican race

2011-12-27T17:47:00.000-05:00

Check out what I found in my email box today:

-------

Dear NJDC Supporter,

Jewish Republicans and Jewish Democrats disagree about so much, but there's one thing on which we see eye-to-eye: Ron Paul is bad news when it comes to Israel.

The New York Times reported Sunday about some of Paul's fringe following, which also includes white supremacists and anti-Zionists -- and how Paul would "not disavow their support." The Ron Paul newsletters that traffic in racism and conspiracy theories are now legendary. If you have any doubts, watch him in the video slam U.S. support for Israel on Iranian government television ( click here or the image at right to watch the video).

But now comes another discovery surrounding Ron Paul: As JTA reports today, a former Paul staffer, who is Jewish, explains that his boss was "most certainly Anti-Israel, and Anti-Israeli in general." To top it off, he notes that Paul "strenuously does not believe the United States had any business getting involved in fighting Hitler in WWII."

Ron Paul has every reason to be taken seriously given the " rock-solid" campaign he's waging. I wrote in the Huffington Post about how serious a threat Paul is, what NJDC has done surrounding Democratic outliers in the past, and how Jewish Republicans should do more than pay lip service.

With the Iowa Caucus one week away, the time to act is TODAY. Please take these three steps right now to encourage the GOP to take this threat seriously!

* Send an email to Mitt Romney (click to send) telling him that you find Ron Paul's views to be abhorrent -- and that as someone who claims to be a leader, the time has come for Romney to break the silence and condemn these dangerous views regarding Israel and so much more.

* Send a message to Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus (click to send) indicating that as leader of the Republican Party, you demand that he break the silence and condemn the abhorrent positions of Republican Rep. Ron Paul -- the current GOP leader in the polls in the Iowa Caucus.

* Forward this critical effort to your friends and family -- help make sure they take action surrounding this presidential frontrunner today.

Both former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and RNC Chairman Priebus have not hesitated to level false criticism at Democrats over Israel; but when it comes to Ron Paul, where Jewish Democrats and Republicans alike agree that he's no friend, Romney and Priebus have been silent.

Please help encourage them to "find their voice" by taking action today.

Sincerely,

David A. Harris
President and CEO

-------

Note: I hesitated whether to calls this post "Check out how Jewish Democrats meddle in the *Republican* race" or "Check out how Zionist Democrats meddle in the *Republican* race" but then I simply decided to call these folks what they call themselves. I personally dislike the conflation of Jewish=Zionist, but then neither do I like to use cute euphemisms. Lastly, not being a Jew myself, it really is not my problem whether these folks give all Jews a bad name or not. Their problem, let them deal with it.

As for the substance of this email, it really shows to what degree tribalism supercedes largely irrelevant differences between the "Republicrats" and the "Demolicans". What matters to them is Israel, as for the USA, its just a tool.

The Saker

Russian v. US Elections

2011-12-27T13:46:00.000-05:00

by Steve Lendman

Russia's December 4 elections filled 450 State Duma seats, Russia's Federal Assembly lower house.

Claims of electoral fraud followed. All elections have irregularities. At issue is whether results are comprised. Election monitor Golos accusations were spurious. America's National Endowment for Democracy (NED) funds it. It supports regime change in non-US client states.

It backs opposition groups, conducts propaganda campaigns, and does openly what CIA operatives do covertly to destabilize sitting governments.

Its mission is subverting, not promoting democracy. It operates with State Department funding and direction. It serves US imperial interests destructively against targeted countries.

So do USAID, the International Republican Institute (IRI), and the National Democratic Institute (NDI). They meddle internally against sitting governments. One way is by funding Golos.

It calls itself a Russian NGO established in 2000 to defend democratic rights and civil liberties. Claiming it's Russia's only "independent" electoral watchdog is duplicitous. It represents imperial Washington's interests against those of Russia's people and government. Moreover, by taking foreign funding, it violated Russian law.

Since early December, Russia's seen on and off street protests. On December 25, RIA Novesti headlined, "Tens of thousands rally in new election protest in Russia," saying:

Peaceful crowds filled "Moscow's Sakharov Avenue on Saturday to demand a rerun of parliamentary elections they claimed had been rigged, as well as liberal reforms in Russia, turning the temperature up on Vladimir Putin and his plans to return to the Kremlin."

Nonetheless, a VTsIOM December 10 - 11 poll showed most Russians support him. However, his 51% job approval rating dropped from 61% in late November and 68% in January. Street protests and legitimate social justice grievances are responsible.

Even though Russia's GDP rose 70% and living standards improved markedly during his tenure as president, millions of Russians still suffer from Yeltsin's post-soviet era "shock therapy."

As a result, 80% of Russian farmers went bankrupt, 70,000 state factories closed, an epidemic of unemployment raged, half or more of all Russians became impoverished, a permanent underclass was created, and crime, suicides, mortality, alcoholism, drug abuse, and HIV/AIDS soared to intolerable levels.

GDP plunged 50%. Life expectancy fell. An oligarch class accumulated enormous wealth at the expense of millions of harmed Russians.

Ignoring essential needs, Yeltsin let corruption and criminality flourish. One scandal followed another. Money-laundering became sport. Billions in stolen wealth were hidden in Western banks or offshore tax havens.

Many problems remain unresolved, especially given today's global economic crisis. In April, Pravda.ru headlined, "Poverty in Russia grows faster than expected," saying:

According to the Russian Federal Statistics Agency, another 2.3 million joined the ranks of Russia's 22.9 million impoverished population. However, "(m)any experts believe that official statistics (don't) reflect the real state of affairs and (are) very often" understated.

Therefore, poverty remains a major growing problem. For millions, wages and pensions aren't enough to get by. Economic weakness exacerbates conditions. As a result, street protests perhaps reflect hard times more than anger over election results.

In contrast to Russia, America's electoral process is scandalously flawed. More on it below.

Major Media Scoundrels Bash Russia

America's media target all non-US client states, including China and Russia. On December 8, a New York Times editorial headlined, "Mr. Putin Seeks a Scapegoat," saying:

He's "determined to resurrect the Soviet playbook. His United Russia Party tried to steal a parliamentary election on Sunday, and, when the results still delivered a stinging rebuke, he claimed the United States was whipping up protests and demonstrations."

Fact check

Though not a decisive majority, United Russia won 49.67% of the vote, compared to the Communist Party's 19.15% second place finish. Hardly a "stinging rebuke." Moreover, independent analysts and observers explained a free and fair process. Results weren't compromised by relatively few regularities.

As explained above, Washington very much interfered as it's done repeatedly in numerous other elections. In Haiti's 2010 first round and 2011 runoff, brazen manipulation rigged the process to install stealth Duvalierist Michel (Sweet Micky) Martelly president. New York Times editorials ignored his illegitimacy, backed fraud, and effectively said Haitians need to move on.

Washington indeed may be behind on and off Russian street protests. The pattern's familiar. Over decades, America advanced the technique. In the 1990s, RAND Corporation strategists developed the concept of "swarming" to explain "communication patterns and movement of" bees and other insects which they applied to military conflict by other means.

Washington used it successfully against Serbia's Milosevic. NED, the International Republican Institute (IRI) and National Democratic Institute were involved.

It repeated during Georgia's Rose Revolution, ousting Edouard Shevardnadze for Mikhail Saakashvili. A US-installed stooge, he's governed ruthlessly and repressively in office.

Ukraine's 2004 Orange Revolution was similar, ousting Viktor Yanukovych for Viktor Yushchenko, Washington's man.

America's manipulated 2007 Myanmar Saffron Revolution and Iran's 2009 Green Revolution failed. Both countries remain targeted for regime change.

Very possibly, Russia's street protests are made-in-the-USA. It wouldn't be the first time nor last. Supportively, America's media pretend otherwise. Putin accused Hillary Clinton of meddling. The Times editorial called his charge "bizarre," saying:

"Mrs. Clinton and the White House did the right thing (by) critici(zing Russia's) vote. She also expressed support for the 'rights and aspirations' of the Russian people."

In fact, political Washington abhors democracy at home and abroad. Imperial wars, numerous coups, internal subversion and destabilization, homeland repression, and rigged elections prevent it. Major media scoundrels approve.

On December 24, they featured Russian protests. New York Times writers Ellen Barry and Michael Schwirtz headlined, "Vast Rally in Moscow Is a Challenge to Putin's Power," claiming 120,000 turned out. Other reports estimated crowd size at from 50 - 80,000.

Ria Novosti said "tens of thousands." So did the Washington Post in an article headlined, "Protesters flood Moscow demanding reforms." It focused on social needs, not electoral fraud in contrast to The Times highlighting comments about dissolving Parliament, holding new elections, and comparing Putin to Brezhnev.

Managed news, misinformation, and hyperbole characterize America's media. Truth and full disclosure aren't their long suit. Or Washington's.

Notorious US Electoral Fraud

Duopoly power runs America. Democrats are interchangeable with Republicans. Differences between them are minor.

On major issues mattering most, they agree, including: war and peace;
capital's divine right to exploit workers, new markets, and global resources;
enriching the nation's aristocracy;
forced austerity when stimulus is needed; and
targeting dissenters challenging political corruption, corporate crooks, or abuse of power lawlessness.

Moreover, today's technology makes election rigging easy. The entire process lacks legitimacy. Elections and their run-up are mere kabuki theater. Major media and PR industry scoundrels play lead roles. Everything's pre-scripted.

Secrecy and back room deals substitute for a free, fair and open process. Candidates are pre-selected. Big money owns them. Key outcomes are predetermined. Power brokers share fault.

Partisan politics serve privileged elites. They get the best democracy money can buy. Elections give them cover. Independents are shut out. Major media scoundrels ignore them.

Issues are unaddressed. Horse race journalism and trivia substitute. Voter disenfranchisement is rife. Many are peremptorily stricken from rolls. Others are intimidated not to vote or are detered by various illegal practices.

"Vote caging" is one. It suppresses minority voters by delisting them for not answering "do not forward" registered mail sent to homes they're not living at - because they're at school, in the military, or away for other reasons.

Millions can't vote because of past criminal records or current incarceration in the world's largest gulag at around 2.4 million. Around two-thirds are Blacks and Latinos. Most committed minor nonviolent crimes, including illicit drug possession.

Moreover, half of eligible voters opt out because their concerns aren't addressed. Today they include impoverishment, unemployment, homelessness, hunger, and government ignoring their needs.

Post-9/11, elections were privatized. Touchscreen electronic machines vote, not citizens. Over 80% of all 2004 and 2008 votes were cast and counted on corporate-owned, programmed, and operated ones. No verification receipts were provided, and no vetting of corporate "trade secret" software was permitted.

Corporate-run machines are easily manipulated. Votes can be erased, added or changed electronically. As a result, losers are declared winners, and not just for president. Power wins. People lose, and America's democracy is pure fantasy.

Moreover, Western and other governments have proportionally representative (PR) government unlike America's winner-take-all system. PR represents all voters and political parties commensurately with their electoral strength. Thus if candidates from one party win 30% of the votes, they get 30% of legislative seats so that government represents all segments of society fairly.

In contrast, America's system gives a 50.1% majority total power. The other 49.9% is shut out. Democracy is fantasy, not real, especially when results are rigged.

In presidential elections, America's Electoral College system is also systemically flawed, especially when popular totals exceed its count. Examples include Bush v. Gore in 2000 (before months later recount totals showed Gore winning both ways), 1824, 1876, and 1888.

Moreover, in 16 presidential elections, winning candidates fell short of majorities. Under a winner-take-all system excluding runoffs, potential second round favorites lost out.

Bush v. Gore: 2000

On December 12, the Supreme Court hijacked Election 2000. In choosing Bush over Gore, it was the first time in US history a High Court reversed a popular vote (5 - 4) to install its own favorite.

It settled a rigged process to elect Bush. Its outcome hung on Florida's electoral vote. Gross irregularities corrupted it, including:

Floridians purged (without verification) because their names, gender, birthplace and race matched countless ex-felons who show up multiple times in state phone directories;
alleged crimes listed as committed in future years; and
ex-felons of other states removed whose voting rights were restored.

As a result, thousands of names were incorrectly listed and removed from voter rolls pre-election.

Under orders from Governor Jeb Bush, other obstructive practices occurred before and on election day, including:

African-American district ballot boxes missing and uncounted;
in black precincts, state troopers (near polling sites) intimidating and delaying voters for hours by searching cars and setting up roadblocks;
some precincts asking for two photo IDs; Florida law requires only one;
obstructing African-American students illegally at polling stations;
turning away Black voters for fabricated reasons;
failing to mail requested absentee ballots; and
forging those received for Bush.

The 1965 Voting Rights Act bans discriminatory practices, disenfranchising blacks, other minorities or anyone. Florida did it egregiously.

Bush v Kerry: 2004

Election 2004 was worse than 2000. The 2002 Help America Vote Act (HAVA) smoothed the way with electronic ease. It was the first electoral law designed to facilitate fraud. It initiated privatized voting.

Kerry was heavily favored. Florida and Ohio proved decisive. Both were stolen for Bush. Incontrovertible evidence proved it. Voter disenfranchisement was rife.

Nearly half those requesting absentee ballots never got them. However, military personnel expected to support Bush received theirs.

The Republican National Committee hired consulting firm Sproul & Associates to register voters in six battleground states. They refused to register Democrats.

Malfunctioning New Mexico voting machines wiped out 20,000 votes to let Bush carry the state by a 5,988 margin.

Faulty voting equipment spoiled one million or more ballots. Another three million Black and Latino district ones weren't counted.

Exit polls in 30 or more states differed from final results by amounts beyond margins of error. In all but four states, discrepancies favored Bush. Exit polling is acknowledged to be highly reliable. Election 2004 was the exception to reelect Bush when, in fact, Kerry won handily.

Ohio was especially rigged. Tens of thousands of eligible voters were illegally purged from rolls. Nearly 360,000 overwhelmingly Democrat voters were prevented from casting ballots or didn't get theirs counted. Bush's victory margin was 118,599.

Republican precincts outnumbered Democrat ones. Democrat precincts got fewer voting machines than Republican ones. People waited up to 12 hours to vote. Some gave up and went home. Others were told they were at the wrong precinct.

One in four registrants were told they weren't listed. Republican Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell purged them illegally.

These and other practices were rampant in Ohio, Florida, and other key battleground states. As a result, voter preferences didn't count. Major media scoundrels suppressed truth to reelect Bush over Kerry who won handily but gave it up without protest.

A Final Comment

America's democracy is pure fantasy. Rigged elections lack credibility. Either way, duopoly power runs things. People have no say whatever.

In September, OWS erupted. Change depends on them. Organized people can beat organized money when they fight back and won't quit.

It's how all great battles are won. Millions are in this together. Given the state of today's America, the stakes are too high for failure. There's no turning back now, and they know it.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/

A Doomsday View of 2012

2011-12-26T18:25:00.000-05:00

By James Petras for Information Clearing House

The economic, political and social outlook for 2012 is profoundly negative. The almost universal consensus, even among mainstream orthodox economists is pessimistic regarding the world economy. Although, even here, their predictions understate the scope and depth of the crisis, there are powerful reasons to believe that beginning in 2012, we are heading toward a steeper decline than what was experienced during the Great Recession of 2008 – 2009. With fewer resources, greater debt and increasing popular resistance to shouldering the burden of saving the capitalist system, the governments cannot bail out the system.

Many of the major institutions and economic relations which were cause and consequence of world and regional capitalist expansion over the past three decades are in the process of disintegration and disarray. The previous economic engines of global expansion, the US and the European Union, have exhausted their potentialities and are in open decline. The new centers of growth, China, India, Brazil, Russia, which for a ‘short decade’ provided a new impetus for world growth have run their course and are de-accelerating rapidly and will continue to do so throughout the new year.

The Collapse of the European Union

Specifically, the crises-wracked European Union will break up and the de facto multi-tiered structure will turn into a series of bilateral/multi-lateral trade and investment agreements. Germany, France, the Low and Nordic countries will attempt to weather the downturn. England – namely the City of London, in splendid isolation, will sink into negative growth, its financiers scrambling to find new speculative opportunities among the Gulf petrol-states and other ‘niches’. Eastern and Central Europe, particularly Poland and the Czech Republic, will deepen their ties to Germany but will suffer the consequences of the general decline of world markets. Southern Europe (Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy) will enter into a deep depression as the massive debt payments fueled by savage assaults on wages and social benefits will severely reduce consumer demand.

Depression level unemployment and under-employment running to one-third of the labor force will detonate year-long social conflicts, intensifying into popular uprisings. Eventually a break-up of the European Union is almost inevitable. The euro as a currency of choice will be replaced by or return to national issues accompanied by devaluations and protectionism. Nationalism will be the order of the day. Banks in Germany, France and Switzerland will suffer huge losses on their loans to the South. Major bailouts will become necessary, polarizing German and French societies, between the tax-paying majorities and the bankers. Trade union militancy and rightwing pseudo-‘populism’ (neo-fascism) will intensify the class and national struggles.

A depressed, fragmented and polarized Europe will be less likely to join in any Zionist inspired US-Israeli military adventure against Iran (or even Syria). Crisis ridden Europe will oppose Washington’s confrontationalist approach to Russia and China.

The US: The Recession Returns with a Vengeance

The US economy will suffer the consequences of its ballooning fiscal deficit and will not be able to spend its way out of the world recession of 2012. Nor can it count on ‘exporting’ its way out of negative growth by turning to previously dynamic Asia, as China, India, and the rest of Asia are losing economic steam. China will grow far below its 9% moving average. India will decline from 8% to 5% or lower. Moreover, the Obama regime’s military policy of ‘encirclement’, its economic policy of exclusion and protectionism will preclude any new stimulus from China.

Militarism Exacerbates the Economic Downturn

The US and England will be the biggest losers from the Iraqi post war economic reconstruction. Of $186 billion dollars in infrastructure projects, US and UK corporations will gain less than 5% (Financial Times, 12/16/11, p 1 and 3). A similar outcome is likely in Libya and elsewhere. US imperial militarism destroys an adversary, plunging into debt to do so, and non-belligerents reap the lucrative post-war economic reconstruction contracts.

The US economy will fall into recession in 2012, and the “jobless recovery of 2011” will be replaced by a steep increase of unemployment in 2012. In fact, the entire labor force will shrink as people losing their unemployment benefits will fail to register.

Labor exploitation (“productivity”) will intensify as capitalists force workers to produce more, for less pay, thus widening the income gap between wages and profits.

The economic downturn and growth of unemployment will be accompanied by savage cuts in social programs to subsidize financially troubled banks and industries. The debates among the parties will be over how large the cuts to workers and retirees will be to secure the ‘confidence’ of the bondholders. Faced with equally limited political choices, the electorate will react by voting out incumbents, abstaining and via spontaneous and organized mass movements, such as the “occupy Wall Street” protest. Dissatisfaction, hostility, and frustration will pervade the culture. Democratic Party demagogues will scapegoat China; the Republican Party demagogues will blame the immigrants. Both will fulminate against “the Islamo-fascists” and especially against Iran.

New Wars in the Midst of Crises: Zionists Pull the Trigger

The “52 Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organizations” and their “Israel First” followers in the US Congress, State Department, Treasury, and the Pentagon will push for war with Iran. If they are successful it will result in a regional conflagration and world depression. Given the extremist Israeli regime’s success in securing blind obedience to its war policies from the US Congress and White House, any doubts about the real possibility of a major catastrophic outcome can be set aside.

China: Compensatory Mechanisms in 2012

China will face the global recession of 2012 with several possibilities of ameliorating its impact. Beijing can shift toward producing goods and services for the 700 million domestic consumers currently out of the economic loop. By increasing wages, social services, and environmental safety, China can compensate for the loss of overseas markets. China’s economic growth, which is largely dependent on real estate speculation, will be adversely affected when the bubble is burst. A sharp downturn will result, leading to job losses, municipal bankruptcies and increased social and class conflicts. This can result in either greater repression or gradual democratization. The outcome will profoundly affect China’s market-state relations. The economic crisis will likely strengthen state control over the market.

Russia Faces the Crisis

Russia’s election of President Putin will lead to less collaboration in backing US promoted uprisings and sanctions against Russian allies and trading partners. Putin will turn toward greater ties with China and will benefit from the break-up of the EU and the weakening of NATO.

The western media backed opposition will use its financial clout to erode Putin’s image and encourage investment boycotts though they will lose the Presidential elections by a big margin. The world recession will weaken the Russian economy and will force it to choose between greater public ownership or greater dependency on state funds to bail out prominent oligarchs.

The Transition 2011-2012: From Regional Stagnation and Recession to World Crises

The year 2011 laid the groundwork for the breakdown of the European Union. The crises began with the demise of the Euro, stagnation in the US and the outbreak of mass protests against the obscene inequalities on a world scale. The events of 2011 were a dress rehearsal for a new year of full scale trade wars between major powers, sharpening inter-imperialist struggles and the likelihood of popular rebellions turning into revolutions. Moreover, the escalation of Zionist-orchestrated war fever against Iran in 2011 promises the biggest regional war since the US-Indo-Chinese conflict. The electoral campaigns and outcomes of Presidential elections in the US, Russia and France will deepen the global conflicts and economic crises.

During 2011 the Obama regime announced a policy of military confrontation with Russia and China and policies designed to undermine and degrade China’s rise as a world economic power. In the face of a deepening economic recession and with the decline of overseas markets, especially in Europe, a major trade war will unfold. Washington will aggressively pursue policies limiting Chinese exports and investments. The White House will escalate its efforts to disrupt China’s trade and investments in Asia, Africa and elsewhere. We can expect greater US efforts to exploit China’s internal ethnic and popular conflicts and to increase its military presence off China’s coastline. A major provocation or fabricated incident in this context is not to be excluded. The result in 2012 could lead to rabid chauvinist calls for a costly new ‘Cold War’. Obama has provided the framework and justification for a large-scale, long-term confrontation with China. This will be seen as a desperate effort to prop up US influence and strategic positions in Asia. The US military “quadrangle of power” – US-Japan-Australia-South Korea – with satellite support from the Philippines, will pit China’s market ties against Washington’s military build-up.

Europe: Deeper Austerity and Intensified Class Struggle

The austerity programs imposed in Europe, from England to Latvia to southern Europe will really take hold in 2012. Massive public sector firings and reduced private sector salaries and job opportunities will lead to a year of permanent class warfare and regime challenges. The ‘austerity policies’ in the South, will be accompanied by debt defaults resulting in bank failures in France and Germany. England’s financial ruling class, isolated from Europe, but dominant in England, will insist that the Conservatives ‘repress’ labor and popular unrest. A new tough neo-Thatcherite style of autocratic rule will emerge; the Labor-trade union opposition will issue empty protests and tighten the leash on the rebellious populace. In a word, the regressive socio-economic policies put in place in 2011 have set the stage for new police-state regimes and more acute and possibly bloody confrontations with workers and unemployed youth with no future.

The Coming Wars that End America “As We Know It”

Within the US, Obama has laid the groundwork for a new and bigger war in the Middle East by relocating troops from Iraq and Afghanistan and concentrating them against Iran. To undermine Iran, Washington is expanding clandestine military and civilian operations against Iranian allies in Syria, Pakistan, Venezuela, and China. The key to the US and Israeli bellicose strategy toward Iran is a series of wars in neighboring states, worldwide economic sanctions, cyber-attacks aimed at disabling vital industries, and clandestine terrorist assassinations of scientists and military officials. The entire push, planning, and execution of the US policies leading up to war with Iran can be empirically and without a doubt attributed to the Zionist power configuration occupying strategic positions in the US Administration, mass media and ‘civil society’. A systematic analysis of American policymakers designing and implementing economic sanctions policy in Congress finds prominent roles for such mega-Zionists (Israel-Firsters) as Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Howard Berman, Dennis Ross in the White House, Jeffrey Feltman in the State Department, and Stuart Levy, and his replacement David Cohen, in the Treasury. The White House is totally beholden to Zionist fund raisers and takes its cue from the 52 Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organization.

The Israeli-Zionist strategy is to encircle Iran, weaken it economically and attack its military. The Iraq invasion was the US’s first war for Israel; the Libyan war the second; the current proxy war against Syria is the third. These wars have destroyed Israel’s adversaries or are in the process of doing so. During 2011, economic sanctions, which were designed to create domestic discontent in Iran, were the principle weapon of choice. The global sanctions campaign engaged the entire energies of the major Jewish-Zionist lobbies. They have faced no opposition from the mass media, Congress or the White Office. The Zionist Power Configuration (ZPC) has been virtually exempt from criticism by any of the progressive, leftist and socialist journals, movements or grouplets – with a few notable exceptions.

The past year’s re-positioning of US troops from Iraq to the borders of Iran, the sanctions and the rising Big Push from Israel’s Fifth Column in the US means expanded war in the Middle East. This likely means a “surprise” aerial and maritime missile attack by US forces. This will be based on a concocted pretext of an “imminent nuclear attack” concocted by Israeli Mossad and faithfully transmitted by the ZPC to their lackeys US Congress and White House for consumption and transmission to the world. It will be a destructive, bloody, prolonged war for Israel; the US will bear the direct military cost by itself and the rest of the world will pay a dear economic price. The Zionist-promoted US war will convert the recession of early 2012 into a major depression by the end of the year and probably provoke mass upheavals.

Conclusion

All indications point to 2012 being a turning point year of unrelenting economic crisis spreading outward from Europe and the US to Asia and its dependencies in Africa and Latin America. The crisis will be truly global. Inter-imperial confrontations and colonial wars will undermine any efforts to ameliorate this crisis. In response, mass movements will emerge moving over time from protests and rebellions, and hopefully to social revolutions and political power.

James Petras, a former Professor of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York, owns a 50-year membership in the class struggle, is an adviser to the landless and jobless in Brazil and Argentina, and is co-author of Globalization Unmasked

Personal announcement - request for information

2011-12-26T09:49:00.002-05:00

Dear friends,

Today I though I would turn to you to ask you for some assistance. Believe it or not, but I have a relative who sincerely doubts the fact that the West is behind the so-called "color revolutions". Nope, she sincerely believes that all this is the expression of a "deep longing for freedom" by "the people"...

For me this has never been even an issue, so I have never bothered collecting any evidence or documents on this topic. Frankly, from my "bad old years" as a military analyst, I remember the role of Carnegie, Open Society Institute, the National Endowment for Democracy, USAID, the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, Freedom House, the various committees of "friends" of country XYZ or for the "liberation" of country XYZ, etc. etc. etc. Heck, I even know the true nature of "humanitarian" organizations such as the ICRC, Medecins Sans Frontieres, the various EU "observers" and most of the "humanitarian" crowd.

But what I know in my head I cannot, for various reasons, put on paper myself. Nor can I just rely on quoting the various government agencies in the target countries since my relative automatically assumes that the "bad guys" always lie about everything.

I remember coming across many well researched articles and reports which did a superb job detailing this entire "democracy fostering constellation" and its links to the "color coded revolutions", "spontaneous" "democracy movements" and the various uprisings and election result overturns which they achieved (or failed to achieve as in Iran and Russia). Alas, I never bothered to write down the URLs or download the articles.

So here is my request to you: could you please point me to some thoroughly researched documents showing the financial, organizational and logistical links between Uncle Sam and his European minions and the various color-coded 'revolutions' (Serbia Georgia, Ukraine, Lebanon, Iran, Belarus, Burma, Moldova, Ukraine, Uzbekistan)? I would also be interested in documents connecting the various Latin American pro "democracy" movements (Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Cuba, etc.) with Uncle Sam and his Latin American minions (Colombia).

Now the limitations: the documents must be written in English and not be authored by any of the governments against whom these"democratization" efforts have been directed. The best possible source would be something written by the Western corporate media (I know, I know, but remember, this is not for me but for this relative of mine... sigh, rolleyes, sigh again...)

Anyway, if you can help me with that, I would be most grateful. If not, not big deal, as my efforts are probably futile anyway (I am sure you know the type: they actually really really sincerely believe all the propaganda the Western corporate media saturates their brains with on a daily basis...).

Many thanks and kind regards,

The Saker

Season's greetings!

2011-12-25T15:18:00.000-05:00

I wanted to send some sort of holiday greeting to my friends and colleagues, but it is difficult in today's world to know exactly what to say without offending someone. So I met with my lawyer yesterday, and on his advice I wish to say the following :

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, nonaddictive, gender neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday practiced with the most enjoyable traditions of religious persuasion or secular practices of your choice with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.

I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2012, but not without due respect for the calendar of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make our country great (not to imply that this country is necessarily greater than any other country) and without regard to the race, creed, colour, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee.

By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms :

This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher actually to implement any of the wishes for her/him or others and is void where prohibited by law, and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. The wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year or until the issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.

Best Regards (without prejudice)

Name withheld (Privacy Act).

source

Hezbollah says U.S. behind Syria attacks

2011-12-24T01:25:00.000-05:00

The Daily Star Reports:

Hezbollah accused the United States Friday of orchestrating the suicide bombings that ripped through the Syrian capital earlier in the day killing over 40 people and wounding scores more.

“These bombings which resulted in the deaths and wounding of tens of people, mostly women and children, is the specialty of the United States, the mother of all terrorism,” Hezbollah’s press office said.

“[The U.S.] specializes in targeting the innocent, killing and terrorizing them to force them to comply to American politics to achieve the Zionist interest which Americans place above all else,” the statement added.

Hezbollah, Syria’s staunchest ally in Lebanon, maintains that a foreign conspiracy led by the United States and Israel aims to target the Syrian leadership for its alliance with Iran and its support for resistance groups like Hezbollah and Hamas.

In its statement Friday, Hezbollah also said the attacks were the beginning of a series of reprisals following what the party described as America’s defeat in Iraq.

“This horrible terrorist crime, which was committed by the enemies of humanity, comes a day following coordinated blasts in Baghdad and other Iraqi cities, which suggests that those affected by the major defeat of the United States in Iraq, has begun a cowardly, bloody operation of reprisal,” the statement said.

Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Meqdad said over 30 people were killed and more than 100 wounded as a result of the attacks that struck just before midday Friday.

State TV said the explosions took place in the upscale Kfar Sousa district and targeted the building housing state security and a nearby intelligence building in the neighborhood.

Nietzsche, Hitchens & God

2011-12-23T16:14:00.000-05:00

"God is dead!" Nietzsche.
"God never existed!" Hitchens.
"Nietzsche and Hitchens are both dead!" God.

Just in case you had any doubts here is...

2011-12-19T16:01:00.000-05:00

...President Obama Speaking at the 71st General Assembly of the Union for Reform Judaism:

Egyptian cops go berserk on demonstrators

2011-12-19T10:24:00.003-05:00

The Vineyard of the Saker

If Only It Were True...

NATO blinked first

Economic tasks

Bush & Obama? Israeli assassinations and US Presidents

­Russia: The national question

Brown-nosing Black man

Israel creates a super PAC to attack Ron Paul

Uncle Sam shuts down Megaupload - 'Anonymous' retaliates

Britain admits 'fake rock' plot to spy on Russians

A plan to solve the Middle-East crisis (free Palestine)

Speech of Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on January 14, 2012

Russia muscles up – the challenges we must rise to face

Check out these police goons - they are for real...

Apartheid in all its (supreme court sanctioned) "glory"

Why Did Defense Secretary Panetta Say Iran Not Building Nukes?

Marine snipers urinate on the people they killed

The US-Iran economic war

President al-Assad: It Is No Longer Possible for the Regional and International Parties Seeking to Destabilize Syria to Forge Facts and the Events

Iran in the crosshair again?

Is Hugo Chavez suffering from delusional paranoia?

Ron Paul's economics: a very toxic brew indeed

Check out how Jewish Democrats meddle in the *Republican* race

Russian v. US Elections

A Doomsday View of 2012

Personal announcement - request for information

Season's greetings!

Hezbollah says U.S. behind Syria attacks

Nietzsche, Hitchens & God

Just in case you had any doubts here is...

Egyptian cops go berserk on demonstrators

Russia: The national question

Check out how Jewish Democrats meddle in the Republican race