Du hast nach Grossman gesucht – Seite 3 von 8

Suche nach ‘Grossman’

78 Resultate.

Dez01

am 1. Dezember 2017

Veröffentlicht in: Allgemein

Victor Grossman

Crisis in Germany?

Berlin Bulletin No. 138
.

Victor Grossman

The impasse in forming a government in Germany has dragged on since election day, September 24th – often like a traffic gridlock, hardly moving forward. But Germany is Europe’s main central power – and with no proper government! Angela Merkel still acts as boss, the old ruling cabinet holds on as caretakers, but it’s all on borrowed time, with no legitimacy.

This old cabinet was called a “Grand Coalition”, with the biggest parties, former foes, joining to form it. Five ministers were from Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and two from its purely Bavarian sibling, the Christian Social Union (CSU). The two usually stick together to form the “Union” (the word has nothing to do with labor unions in German). Counting Chancellor Merkel that makes eight while the junior partner, the Social Democrats (SPD), hold five cabinet ministries. All three did miserably in the election, but since the Union remained the strongest, Merkel is the one to form a new government – if she can! But the SPD lost so miserably – down to 20.5 % – that Martin Schulz, its leader, declared bluntly: “Never again will we be junior partners in a Grand Coalition. We will again become an opposition party until we can rebuild our strength”.

But his SPD may well have to swallow those words, and his position may get swallowed up as well!

The problem is that a majority of delegates in the Bundestag is needed to pass laws or actions the government decides upon. With only two parties this would be easy; winner takes all! With one more, a smaller third party can choose which big one it favors and tip the seesaw in that direction. For years this tilting element was the Free Democratic Party (FDP), a strange “libertarian” party founded by both civil rights liberals and former Nazis, but now basically a secular big business party fighting against both environmental or workers’ rights restrictions and regulations.

In 1983 the Greens squeezed past the required 5% minimum to win seats in the Bundestag.

They were a pretty radical bunch then, reflecting a giant West German peace movement which led over a million people on one day (with many labor unions) in demonstrations against stationing missiles in Germany. Those first Green deputies resembled the American SDS, defied conservative traditions, wearing and even knitting wool sweaters during Bundestag sessions and in one case wearing sneakers to a swearing-in ceremony (and having more than 50 % female delegates).

German Bundestag, plenum

With four factors in the Bundestag, a balance was possible: one side was a so-called “center-right” with the twin “Christian Union” plus the FDP. Opposing them was what some called a “center-left”. The SPD kept its union ties but the leaders of both were mostly well-off and tame. As for the Greens, after German unification former dissident groups from the defunct German Democratic Republic joined them and pushed them rightward. They still stressed ecology and were good on gay rights, immigrants and equality for women. But on foreign policy they became the most belligerent of all, and they had almost no contacts with working class folk, who rarely voted for what became a party of well-off intellectuals. But it could help form governments; the Greens and the SPD alternated with the Union and FDP.

Then the LINKE party entered the picture (at first under an earlier name). Though at first no others wanted to have anything to do with them and they are still only partially accepted as ”decent democratic citizens”, their very presence, now with 69 seats (out of a total 709) made it harder to find over half the seats and form any coalition. In 2013 this made it necessary for the two biggest parties, the CDU and the SPD, to overcome old-time differences and form the coalition described above. Since both had moved closer politically this was not quite so difficult – for the leaders. But both lost big chunks of their voters, thus landing them in the current quagmire – with the SPD “No”.

To make matters worse in every way, the far-right, Nazi-tinged Alternative for Germany (AfD) soared to 12.6 % of the vote, getting them 94 deputy seats, some ripe to be adorned with swastikas.

No-one would coalesce with them either (as yet?), but their very number made it harder than ever – now with seven parties – to reach that 50% level. To make it, with the Social Democrats proudly resisting a renewed Grand Coalition, Merkel’s Siamese-twin Union parties (with only 246 seats) needed both the Free Democrats and the Greens, who hated each other. But she tried to lure the two onto the ship of state, so the four parties negotiated, bargained, argued, made compromises, rejected them, insulted each other and withdrew the insults, talked and talked for weeks and weeks. As Angela Merkel’s final deadline arrived it seemed they had at last swallowed their differences, with the Greens, the smallest, making the most compromises on its remaining principles. Then suddenly, at the last moment, the head of the Free Democrats called a press conference to say that his party was bowing out. No deal! All hopes for a “Jamaica government” – with party colors like those of the flag of far-off Jamaica, black, green and yellow – were now shattered.

Three possibilities remained. One was a minority government, hitherto unknown on the federal level, with the chances of passing any law or decision dependent on which non-government parties would agree to support it. Angela Merkel rejected this out of hand; she wanted no unstable force, open to pro or con pressures on her plans for Europe and beyond. And new elections? Nobody wanted them; they could end up much the same as the September vote or perhaps bring more gains for an opponent. Worst of all, they might well wind up with even bigger gains for the fascistic AfD, disgracing Germany’s image in all the world.

The third possibility is for the Social Democrats to swallow their pride and their brash words and slink back in again with the Merkel crowd as junior partners. Left-leaning Social Democrats, especially their Young Socialist wing, opposed such a compromise. But then Germany’s otherwise figure-head President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, himself an SPD man, urged his old fellow members to weaken up and come to the rescue of Germany. At the moment this seems the most likely outcome. And the president was happy to find, at last, some role other than just cutting ribbons, shaking hands and making speeches.

Distribution of seats in the 19th German Bundestag,
from October 2017

Yes, the SPD will probably eat crow “for the good of the nation”, with a return to the “same old same old” of the past four years. There will be quarrels. One courageous woman, the Minister of Environment, a Social Democrat, opposed further use of Monsanto’s herbicide Glyphosat in the European Union. But the Minister of Agriculture, from the Bavarian CSU, went to Brussels and defied her decision, breaking the rules to vote Yes on Glyphosat. Was that on his own or with Merkel’s OK? (And Monsanto pressure?) It’s not known, but it was a bad start by these care-taker ministers even before any new coalition had been agreed upon; no good omen for a possible new cabinet made up of the same parties and perhaps the same ministers. Will the Social Democrats voice valiant words about favoring progressive policies and then once more be satisfied with a few ripples while going along with the conservative tide of Merkel and the toughies behind her?

The LINKE party, with its 64 Bundestag deputies (a majority are women), was never asked and rarely mentioned in all this Ring-around-the-Rosie politics. Although some in the party do dream of someday being asked to join a coalition, this idea was never even vaguely broached by Merkel. And yet, the LINKE remains the only single political factor with principle and conscience. Yes, the Greens (and that one SPD cabinet minister) did hit at environmental issues, but other basic issues were hardly even mentioned. German soldiers are killing and dying in Afghanistan and Mali – and will soon march into Niger. Tanks and troops of the Bundeswehr are maneuvering dangerously near St. Petersburg on the Russian border. The Minister of Defense has set her sights on a super-modern European army with Germany leading the pack. No other party seems worried, all bow down to media anti-Russian attacks all too reminiscent of eighty years ago while the result of that policy then, the defusing of rusted old bombs, is still forcing people to leave their homes for hours, day or night.

Too many are forced to leave their homes more permanently. Görlitz on the Polish border, untouched by the war and called by many the prettiest town in Germany, was told last week that Siemens factories there and in Leipzig are planning to close and to cut jobs in Erfurt and Berlin. In out-of-the way Görlitz this is one of the last two job chances, and the Bombardier railway car factory, the other, is hinting at following suit. Thousands have already left the wilting town. While the LINKE has sadly been unable to reach enough working class people – its vote is about 15% – the AfD got 32.7%, making it the leading party in Görlitz as well as in all of Saxony. Although its program favors forces like Siemens, which is raking in more billions than ever, its clever propaganda, full of hatred, mostly against refugees and often helped by the media, is all too effective, although there are only 157 refugee families in Görlitz. Too many people, faced with such shut-downs, with low-paid, increasingly uncertain but overworked jobs, few chances for their offspring and worries about their retirement, are led to fear invented, non-existent threats like “Islam” instead of real threats from real foes. Merkel still boasts of how good things are going, but her pleasant smiles are increasingly unconvincing.

Unless ways are found to reach large numbers of the worried and dissatisfied, the menaces facing Germany – and perhaps world neighbors, near and far, will hardly be dispelled even if Social Democrats and the Christian Union parties now find their way to a renewed coalition.

More by Victor Grossman
.

1 Komentar

Jan31

am 31. Januar 2018

Veröffentlicht in: Marx-Engels-Lenin

Victor Grossman

GROKO or no GROKO

Berlin Bulletin No. 139
.

Victor Grossman

It happened in Bonn last Sunday, on January 21st. There were close to 650 delegates, the gallery in the congress hall was also packed with observers. The suspense was almost visible, also among the demonstrators outside. All over Germany millions were watching closely to see if the future path of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), Germany’s oldest political party, might be taking a new fork. Party representatives from all sixteen states moved towards a vote – for or against renewing the Grand Coalition (in German “Grosse Koalition”, shortened to GROKO) with their traditional adversaries but senior partners for the past four years, the “Union” – Angela Merkel’s right-center Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian offshoot, the Christian Social Union (CSU).

The speeches had lasted all day. SPD leader Martin Schulz urged a Yes vote; join with them! After four months since the September elections with no proper government and cabinet, only the old one hanging on as caretakers, Germany must at last be saved from political disintegration. Only two alternatives were available; an unprecedented minority government for Merkel’s Union (and she has already rejected such a rickety structure) or new elections. But the far right, fascistic wolves of the Alternative for Germany (AfD), already howling in the Bundestag with 94 seats, might very possibly win even more. His warning about them was the only point in his speech to get more than luke-warm applause, which is all he got at its end, a strong hint of the weakened position of the man who, one year ago, was welcomed so warmly – very briefly – as a new party savior, who had boldly pledged the SPD after the election to quit the coalition and become an active opposition party to Merkel & Co., and so regain its old-time strength. He has since swallowed those proud words.

SPD party convention

The SPD certainly needs to regain strength! Four years of compromise under the pressures of the Merkel crowd, achieving little of value for the working people who traditionally supported the SPD, were punished with a measly 20.5 % of the vote, a loss of 5% in four years. The CDU and CSU lost even more, getting their worst results since 1949, but still led the field of seven parties with 34 %, while the SPD teeters on the edge of losing its position as major competitor and rival.

This explains why a surprising leftish resistance could swell up in the SPD during the one short week since the three party coalition negotiators presented their compromise agreement, and opposing it! Its proposed four year government, they argued, with the Union always in a stronger position, would lose our SPD even more voters, it could push us out of the central court forever! It’s plain suicide! We must stay out, stand up for old-time principles, win back lost support, as Schulz had once demanded.

A few smaller state delegations risked opposition. But almost unanimous in condemning any move to join a new government and enjoy those warm, comfy Cabinet chairs was the independent young members’ annex to the party, the Jung Sozialisten – called Jusos – traditionally more militant and further to the left than the main party organization. It was their posters which had predominated all week – and now outside the congress hall: NO GROKO! And inside the hall their speeches outshone the loud but less convincing words of Martin Schulz. It was a division somewhat resembling current wing fights within the Democratic Party in the USA.

Speech of the Young Socialists

Taking the floor as last speaker before the vote was Andrea Nahles, who chairs the SPD caucus in the Bundestag. She was once a leader of the party’s left-wing, in fact, she was president of the Jusos – in 1995-1999. Years in the coalition, also as Minister of Labor, have mellowed her views considerably. But they have not depleted her oratorical skill! She blasted the present Juso leader and demanded a vote in favor of a coalition. She praised the skimpy points gained during the negotiations and promised to try for a few more in the direct coalition bargaining which must now follow: just as good medical care for patients with government–supported insurance as for those favored with private insurance, protection against uncontrolled job lay-offs, support in uniting split-up refugee families. But, she admitted, new gains would, at best, be very thin; the two Union parties, facing strong attacks from further right wing forces within and outside their own parties, were against any new compromises. Nevertheless, she warned, there was no alternative to a Yes for GroKo!

The major union heads present, with their close ties to SPD leaders, nodded in agreement, as usual preferring the “lesser evil”. Fifty-odd party apparatchiks, like super delegates in the US Democratic Party, had been preaching around the country till they were hoarse: in favor. And there were at most about 90 Juso delegates. The result seemed predictable, yet the suspense was almost intolerable.

The hand vote outcome was unclear so an exact count was necessary. To the huge relief of some, the great disappointment of others, the result was: Ja – 362, Nein – 279. One delegate abstained.

With this OK the three-party negotiations have now moved into forming a new government, framing, now definitely, an agreed-upon program and deciding who gets which Cabinet job. (Many wonder whether a modicum of decency after his once proud, now forgotten words will move Schulz to refrain from such a job.) All this will again take time; it is hoped it can be inked before the jolly Karneval days (like Mardi Gras) in mid-February, by ancient tradition a time when fools rule the day! Fools or not, by Easter the new government, after six months of haggling, should finally take over.

But halt! Between the fools’ parades and the Easter bunny comes Lent, a time of repentance and, perhaps even for secular SPD leaders, unwanted abstinence. By their own ruling there must first be a referendum; the entire 430,000-strong SPD membership must vote for approval or rejection. So another tense period of exhortation and recrimination lies ahead.

The mostly youthful NO GROKO forces have taken a tip from Jeremy Corbyn’s success in upsetting the hidebound and/or corrupt, Blair-faced forces in the British Labour Party; his supporters recruited thousands of new members who voted “for Jeremy” and have greatly enlivened that party ever since. In Germany, a Juso spot in Google to join the SPD (ten euros for the first two months) won 1700 new members within one day. The party leaders got worried; are they genuine Social Democrats – our kind? They may be able to set a cut-off date after which newbies could not vote.

Liebknecht-Luxemburg-Lenin’s honor, photo: Uwe Hiksch

Just a week before the SPD meeting in Bonn thousands of people joined in East Berlin, as every year, to march or walk to honor Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht at the handsome memorial site for them and many others who fought and sometimes died for a just world – more precisely, a socialist world. Many who placed a single red carnation at the site were the “old faithful” from GDR days, elderly, dwindling in number, but also young people from all Germany and neighboring countries, of many nationalities. Few if any were from the SPD; the thousands here supported either the LINKE or a panoply of groups and grouplets far and further to the left.

These were people with mostly skeptical views about the on-going SPD conflict. They recalled how Karl Liebknecht had to defy his SPD caucus pressure and – very much alone – vote against war credits for the Kaiser at the start of World War I; how Rosa and Karl went to prison for opposing the war and the Social Democrats who joined a government backing it to the bitter bloody end. And how their hopes for a new, socialist Germany after that war were stymied by the Social Democratic Party which, at least passively, was complicit in the brutal murder of the two in January 1919, a date now being marked by those who still admire them. Though divided by political disagreements, both within and outside the LINKE party, almost certainly everyone taking part here saw that both sides in the planned coalition approved German boots on the ground from Afghanistan to Mali and Estonia (and who knew where next?), plus a new, swift, powerful European military force led by Germany. They saw that the proudest accomplishment of the SPD in the past four years was a new minimum wage in allegedly prosperous Germany: 8.84 euros, full of loopholes (about $11) but no hike in taxes for the super-rich! And they saw the growing danger of the invigorated fascists who used hatred of foreigners, especially Muslims, but aimed at working people Like some CDU-CSU leaders as well! Could the Jusos with their NO GROKO – and could the LINKE and all the antifascists – stop the rightward march? 2018 may well contain many days of suspense!

More by Victor Grossman
.

Kommentar

Feb13

am 13. Februar 2018

Veröffentlicht in: Allgemein

Victor Grossman

Making everyone happy

Berlin Bulletin No. 140
.

Victor Grossman

Thanks be to God! – Gottseidank! That, on Wednesday, was surely the reaction of millions of even nonbelieving Germans! After four and a half months of haggling and recrimination and, four days past the deadline, an all-night session, the three parties had finally settled on a coalition government program – 179 pages long. With a collective sigh of relief there could now be a return to normality. Neighboring premiers and presidents elsewhere thought also, happily or fearfully: Angela’s Germany can take the lead again in trying to settle Europe’s many problems.

Coalition Agreement

But as that late great thinker and baseball player Yogi Berra once cautioned: “It ain’t over till it’s over”! And that fits the coalition deal. It’s still up in the air, like a long Yankee fly ball! Till now it was more like a traffic gridlock, with each party blocking the other two.

All three took heavy losses in last September’s national elections. The Christian Social Union (CSU), the further-right, only Bavarian sister of Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), which has held sway in its Alpine and Danubian domain since 1949, unexpectedly lost ten percent of its voters to the near-fascist Alternative for Germany (AfD). Facing state elections in October, it fears losing even more. Horst Seehofer, its long-time leader, no longer maintaining his usual self-confident, sardonic smile but often with creased brow, is fighting for his political life within his own wounded party. After losing his job as chairman he simply had to oppose every concession to the Social Democratic Party which seemed even vaguely “leftist” to his hardline lederhosen-dirndl voters. And he had to win at least some key cabinet ministry for himself in the planned government!

Seehofer (CSU) – Merlel (CDU) – Schulz (SPD)

The worries of the Social Democrats (SPD) were greater still! Their electoral beating last September was even more injurious; though still in second place, their position in the polls has plunged to a dangerously abysmal 18 %. The current chairman, Martin Schulz, blustered in September that neither he nor his SPD would remain a month longer in a coalition with the two Christian “Union” parties which already, in four years, had caused such a giant loss in popularity. But then, allegedly to save the nation, he ate crow and joined in the long coalition negotiations which, on Wednesday, finally came to a conclusion. Or did they?

Schulz (SPD) in Nov. 2017: „We are not available for entry into a grand coalition“

A large minority of SPD Social Democrats had opposed this humiliating about-face. It meant suicide, they insisted, and waved No GroKo posters, for No Grosse Koalition (grosse means grand in German). To overcome this uppity rebellion the party leaders made all kinds of promises about the left-wing demands they would keep pushing. They warned: if too few of these demands were included in the final program deal it might well be rejected by the party membership, now standing at 463,000 (down from almost a million in 1990). Only the SPD had decided to put it to a vote, a mail-in referendum, to be conducted from February 20 to March 2. Twenty-five thousand had joined the party recently, its first big increase, but most of them expressly to vote “No”! If over half of those mailing in ballots reject the deal, Germany’s political maneuvering will be back at Square One!

Of course, these more progressive demands were exactly the ones which angered the conservative Bavarians the most, and many in Merkel’s CDU as well, who had also suffered severe losses in the September vote – also to the far-right AfD racists, who denounced Merkel’s welcome to refugees in 2015 as a blot on our pure “German culture”. She and her party have backtracked sharply since then, but that friendly smile and matter-of-fact way of speaking – as honored “mommy of the nation” – have lost too much of their appeal. For her, to keep her footing within her own party – with that right foot forward – and win herself a fourth term, some successful deal was imperative! So it was she who tried hardest to tie one up, even through the last night right until breakfast time!

And somehow, several days after putting off the deadline, they finally reached an agreement, with enough small gains and vaguely promised bigger ones to allay Social Democratic fears about losing their referendum yet without overly repelling the Bavarians or other rightist “Christians”.

Among the promises were increases in spending for education and child care, pensions and housing. With Germany’s current well-balanced budget these can easily be afforded. A few protections for people renting apartments from greedy owners were also included.

Some union leaders were more or less satisfied. Opposition parties were not, of course. Leaders of the LINKE (Left) asserted that the huge, escalating gap between the super-wealthy and poor would hardly be diminished, that the 20% child poverty rate (almost 25% in eastern Germany) would be alleviated only slightly, while individual, corporate and inheritance taxes on the extremely wealthy were to remain untouched – and low. Even the benefits offered were only goals or promises, and might well be diluted or forgotten as so often in the past.

Weapons export, in which Germany vies with France for fourth place, would be more controlled – sort of in a way – with no more weapons going to countries “directly” involved in the war in Yemen. The use of drones would be investigated, with no armed drones bought, at least for now. The question of an American drone guiding center and US atomic missiles on German soil – actually illegal – went unmentioned, and foreign policy questions were largely avoided.

Not completely: there would be some more millions for dubious development aid in hard-hit countries, matched by some very definite billions for the military. German armament build-up would conform to US demands. It would further modernize, not in manpower but in its ability to bomb and land anywhere in the world, to engage in battle, even street battle, and otherwise pursue asserted German needs for security and raw materials in Central Asia, sub-Saharan Africa or wherever.

The always charming, always pugnacious Minister for Defense, Ursula von der Leyen, was one of only two cabinet ministers – aside from Chancellor Angela Merkel – to retain their jobs. It was the problem of assigning Cabinet posts which almost stymied the agreement. There were reports, or rumors – that the negotiators spent much of that final all-night session shouting at each other or even sitting at length in angry silence before Merkel in the chair could calm the waves – or the breakers!

What made the deal finally possible was the willingness to cede to the Social Democrats six ministries, one more than before and more than their voting strength deserved, including the mighty Finance Ministry, an unexpected gain, and the prestigious Foreign Ministry. The little Bavarian CSU was recompensed for its final OK by getting the powerful Interior Ministry, responsible for the rapid increase in surveillance and check on terrorists “of the Left and the Right” for its beleaguered Bavarian leader, Seehofer. The CDU took the remaining five and of course Angela’s rule as chancellor.

But despite all the sweat, almost blood and possible tears which were invested, those NO GROKO rebels are still not satisfied and are still hoping not just to rock the boat but to swamp it. Their first target was party chairman Martin Schulz, who had made sure to grab that lofty job as Foreign Minister, while dropping claims to the party chairmanship. But it seems that no-one still loves this unlucky one-time Sir Galahad-type savior of the party. The protests at his self-appointment were so quick and widespread that, with the ink hardly dry, he stepped down – “in the interests of the party”. It looks as if Sigmar Gabriel, the man he got thrown out as party leader and now wanted to throw out as Foreign Minister, will get his revenge, while ambitious Manfred Schultz may land in some lesser job – or be put out to pasture. But even if the SPD leaders, with or without him, do win the referendum and remain part of the government, a century of past history has proved that election-time SPD promises of big future improvements must be taken with a hefty grain of salt, while its participation in German economic and military expansion will not be altered an iota.

Ring Around the Rosie can be a swell game for toddlers. But skulking in the shadows when politician circles jump up or fall down are now the grim figures of the AfD – Alternative for Germany. No, false; they are no longer in the shadows but have 92 seats in the Bundestag. If the coming referendum puts the SPD in a coalition government, the AfD will be the leading opposition party, with the right to make long rebuttal speeches to government statements in the Bundestag, get even more TV time than it has in recent years, and enjoy privileges hitherto held by the LINKE as biggest opposition party. Now, despite slight gains in the election, the LINKE will drop to last or second-to-last place in the seven-party ranking. That is the rock. And the hard place? It might still be a new election, when the AfD might win even more seats from voters angry at the month-long quarrels. And with neighboring Austria now headed by a coalition including just such a foreigner-hating near-fascist party, and similar dangers threatening in almost every other country in Europe (not to even mention the man in Washington), it makes some people like me think of that other great Yogi Berra line – „It’s like déjà vu all over again“ – with none of the original laughs or smiles.

Above all, there is a desperate need for militant, active resistance by the working people of Germany, and elsewhere. Sadly, many in the LINKE party have been concerned, hardly less than in the CSU, CDU, Greens and SPD, with internal bickering and rivalry. Perhaps its congress in June can move past this and regain more of its proper, so urgently needed role as a fighting party.

More by Victor Grossman
.

Kommentar

Feb28

am 28. Februar 2018

Veröffentlicht in: Allgemein

Victor Grossman

Sunday suspense

Berlin Bulletin No. 141
.

Victor Grossman

Speaking politically, Germany is holding its breath. The drama, the quarreling and haggling since last September’s elections, is approaching a climactic decision –on March 4th, next Sunday.

Angela Merkel’s position had become unusually slippery, and not because of the icy weather now assailing Germany! But, aiming at a fourth, last stretch as boss, she again demonstrated sure-handed skill by proposing, at this past weekend’s special party congress, a new cabinet appeasing all three elements in the planned ménage á trois government.

To assuage hard-bitten Bavarian buddies in their special sister party (CSU), now facing attack from even further right-wing assailants, she offered their former leader Horst Seehofer the key job of Interior Minister, in charge of police, immigration, weapons control, the mushrooming surveillance system, in other words “law and order”. That should keep the Alpine crowd happy!

To placate right-wing opponents in her own Christian Democratic Union (CDU) she named young Jens Spahn (37), her most vigorous opponent, to be Health Minister where, as part of her government, he can probably be de-fanged. Unusually in this conservative party, he is gay, with a wedded husband. Also unusual with the patriarchal CDU she named (aside from herself) three women for the cabinet and, as new party secretary-general, the governor in Saarland, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, 55, conservative on immigration issues and against same-gender marriage but so popular in the party she got nearly unanimous approval – and whispers that Merkel is grooming her as her successor.

Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen

Another woman, a lone hold-over from the previous cabinet and once seen as possible successor, was Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen, who loves to greet troops in far-flung units, incessantly calling for more and more modern weapons so Germany can meet US demands for a huge increase in NATO weaponry, start building a swift, strong European army outside NATO, and be ready to pounce down in any continent to meet German “responsibilities” and “defend its interests”.

Thus, Merkel safely bagged both “Christian Union“ parties. But the suspense remained. This week the entire membership of the other coalition partner, the Social Democrats (SPD), was called upon to mail in their decision: for or against renewing their junior partnership in the government for four more years. A strong surge within the party is opposed, even though shrewd, elastic Merkel offered the SPD an additional cabinet seat, and two of the most important ones, Foreign Affairs and Finance.

SPD postal votes

All the postal votes must be in by Friday, with the result announced on Sunday. SPD leaders have been racing from one meeting to another all over Germany, calling – no, demanding that members favor the grand coalition, abbreviated GROKO. Voices of Opposition were banned from the meetings, almost as a kind of treason! The situation rather recalled the US Democratic Party leadership. The big business interests which have mixed into the SPD, influencing decisions, offering well-padded jobs to leaders when they retire or lose their positions – all favored the GROKO coalition.

Those urging a No-vote seem to be a strong minority, with a majority of young party members. The leader of the Young Socialists, a boyish-looking West Berliner, Kevin Kühnert (28), has also been traveling, telling all he can reach that the coalition of past years, with the SPD going along with the conservative CDU, has reduced the party to an emaciated skeleton. Four more years would be suicidal. The party should stay out of the government, as first planned, and grow in opposition to it.

The outcome is not certain. Both Merkel Christians and conservative Social Democratic leaders will be biting their nails until Sunday’s announcement. If the No votes win, that means “Back to Square One” and probably new elections, with more painful losses likely for all three ruling parties.

It looks like a pro-coalition “Yes” will win out. But win or lose, the SPD, one of two major parties since World War Two (and founded way back in the 19th century), is facing disaster. Its lack of fighting spirit, its cuddling up to Merkel’s Christian Union, its ties with big business and, though most union leaders remain close, ebbing connections with its former working-class base have cut deeply. Add on the jockeying between its one-time but no longer leftish leader Andrea Nahles, its brief hopeful Martin Schulz, who proved to be hopeless, its nasty quarrel over who should become Foreign Minister, Schulz or the present minister, Sigmar Gabriel – all this has led to its drop in the polls to less than 20 % (today again to a record low of 15.5%, with the Christian Union at 32.5%.)

This downward plunge is not only alarming as a threat to its own existence. For the second time it was overtaken in the daily polls, for half a point, by the Alternative for Germany (AfD). This young party, now with 92 Bundestag seats, has varying factions but at least a third are genuine fascists, with the others at least in silent approval. Its vociferous leaders shout racist slurs against people of Turkish background, refugees and all Muslims and sometimes Jews – anyone who is not “pure German”. They often seize on socially positive causes, verbally, but are committed not only to homophobic and misogynic ideas but to all the wishes of big business and big armaments. While at first ostracized by all other parties, the media helped them gain acceptance while some on the CDU-right seem increasingly willing to work with them. If new elections were held soon, they might emerge as the second strongest party, as in Austria, where a similar party joined the Christian party to form a coalition government. The rise of fascistic parties, always anti-Muslim, and their entrance into many governments all over Europe, is no longer only a faint reminder of the growth of the Nazi party in Germany and fascists elsewhere in the 1920’s and 1930’s!

Like the AfD, they seize upon the disappointment and fears for the future of many strata of working-people. Like their soulmates in the USA, they direct such feelings and worries not against those truly responsible, who hold tightly to their seats on top of their huge, increasing piles, but against those who speak different languages, wear different clothes, go to different churches and have different skin colors. If this does not suffice, they may turn to jingoist scares about perils from people in other countries or continents.
The Christian Union and, sadly, the leadership of the Social Democrats, could never confront such problems squarely or even escape accusations of collusion by default.

Only one force is genuinely suited to exposing the lies and redirecting emotions away from attacks on the poorest victims and towards solidarity with them against the truly guilty forces on high. It is the Left. In Britain, with Corbyn, it has achieved remarkable initial success in this. There have been partial successes in France and elsewhere, but alarmingly few in Europe’s strongest country, Germany. The LINKE party makes important demands in the Bundestag: get out of Afghanistan and Mali, end weapons shipments to warring parties, increase pensions and minimum wages and lots more. But despite courageous youth-led rallies against fascists, it was often too torn by in-party conflicts to reach and mobilize people on the grass roots level, with genuine alternatives, including a future without fat cats on top of the pile. Will a strong showing Sunday of rebellious young SPD members, and the congress of the LINKE in June raise poll results now stagnating between 9% and 11%, create new goals, new contact points, strong and effective new tactics? We will see – and hope! It is urgent!

More by Victor Grossman
.

Kommentar

Mrz11

am 11. März 2018

Veröffentlicht in: F. - B. Habel

F.-B. Habel

Ein Amerikaner aus der Karl-Marx-Allee

Der Internationalist Victor Grossman wird heute 90 Jahre alt.

F.-B. Habel

„Eine Welt ohne Hunger, Krieg und Not – das war das Crédo meines Lebens“, sagte Victor Grossman schon vor 20 Jahren in einem Film, der mit ihm gedreht wurde. Seitdem hat er einfach weitergemacht, hat Bücher und Zeitungsartikel geschrieben, so manchen Leserbrief, auch an die junge Welt. Er hält Ansprachen mit seinem liebenswerten New Yorker Akzent und ist noch immer an der Spitze von Demos, wie dem Ostermarsch zu finden. Denn die Gründe dafür, dass Hunger, Krieg und Not herrschen, halten sich viel zu hartnäckig. Die Gegenkräfte müssen gebündelt werden, und man darf dabei nicht verhalten agieren. Das ist und bleibt die Überzeugung des jüdischen Kommunisten Stephen Wechsler, so sein wirklicher Name. Die Gründe, weshalb er eine neue Identität annahm, gibt es nicht mehr, aber als Victor Grossman ist er bekannt, ja man darf sagen, populär. Seit den sechziger Jahren war er oft auf DDR-Bildschirmen, um über die reaktionäre Politik der USA zu informieren. In einer Rundfunkreihe spielte er amerikanische Folk- und Protestsongs, war zusammen mit dem Kanadier Perry Friedman Mitinitiator der Singebewegung der DDR. Schon damals schrieb er regelmäßig in der Tageszeitung Junge Welt.

Victor Grossman im Oktober 2016 auf Studienreise in Spanien, Foto: Rosita Mergen

Der Sohn eines nicht eben üppig verdienenden Kunsthändlers und einer Bibliothekarin hat familiäre Wurzeln im Baltikum und in Odessa, von wo seine Vorfahren aus Angst vor antijüdischen Pogromen nach Amerika flohen. die Not der kleinen Leute kannte er genau, wurde mit 14 Jahren Jungkommunist und trat mit 17 in die KP der USA ein. Er konnte an der Harvard University Geschichte studieren, bevor er in die US Army eingezogen wurde. Er wurde im oberbayrischen Bad Tölz stationiert, aber in der McCarthy-Ära war das kein Zuckerschlecken für einen Linken. Als herauskam, dass er auf einem Fragebogen fälschlicherweise angegeben hatte, er sei nie Mitglied einer kommunistischen Organisation gewesen, drohten ihm 5 Jahre Haft. Dem entzog sich Stephen, indem er in einer waghalsigen Aktion die Donau durchschwamm, und vom sowjetisch besetzten Österreich aus wurde er über die Tschechoslowakei in die DDR verwiesen. Zum Schutz seiner in den USA verbliebenen Familie bekam Stephen hier eine neue Identität als Victor Grossman.

Victor Grossman im Gespräch mit dem Autor dieses Artikels anläßlich des Dean-Reed-Treffens 2010, Foto: Michael Fritze

In Bautzen, war er Transportarbeiter und Dreher, lernte seine Frau Renate kennen. Schließlich konnte Victor Grossman in Leipzig Journalistik studieren und ist wohl der weltweit Einzige, der sowohl Diplome in Harvard wie an der Karl-Marx-Universität Leipzig errungen hat. Er zog in die Berliner Karl-Marx-Allee, arbeitete als Verlagslektor, Redakteur bei Radio Berlin International und baute für die Akademie der Künste das Paul Robeson Archiv auf. Vor 50 Jahren begann seine Arbeit als Freischaffender, als Autor, Übersetzer, Gelegenheitsschauspieler. Er ist im Laufe seines Lebens bekannten Amerikanern begegnet – viele waren links eingestellt, wie Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Angela Davis, Dean Reed und Jane Fonda, von denen er lebendig zu erzählen weiß. Anderen sollte er immer wieder erklären, wie er sich in einem Staat, der nicht repressionsfrei war, wohlfühlen konnte. Seine Antwort war so schlüssig wie überzeugend: „Trotz aller Schwächen und Ungerechtigkeiten blieb mir jener Teil Deutschlands näher, der die ANC und SWAPO, die Sandinistas, Allende und Fidel du die Vietnamesen unterstützte, als der Teil, der ihren blutigen Feinden half. Ich war so ketzerisch zu glauben, dass die Zahl mit dem Segen Bonns getöteter Chilenen, Mittelamerikaner und Afrikaner die jener übertraf, die, ebenfalls tragisch, an der Mauer getötet wurden. Gerade als Amerikaner schätzte ich den Mangel an Arbeitslosigkeit und Obdachlosigkeit, die freie Bildung und ärztliche Behandlung.“
Victor Grossman, der in den neunziger Jahren formell aus der US-Army als Deserteur „in Unehren entlassen“ wurde und seine Heimat oft besucht, schreibt für seine Freunde in den USA und aller Welt Berichte über die deutsche Politik in englischer Sprache, bei uns nachzulesen auf der linken Netz-Plattform American Rebel (benannt nach Victors Freund Dean Reed). Er tritt noch immer in politischen Diskussionen auf und erweist sich als echter Internationalist. Zum heutigen 90. Geburtstag rufen wir ihm zu: Venceremos, Victor!

(Der Artikel erschien in leicht gekürzter Fassung am 10.3.2018 in der Tageszeitung Junge Welt)

.
Anhänge der Redaktion:

Veröffentlichungen von Victor Grossman
Der Weg über die Grenze, 1985
Per Anhalter durch die USA, 1976
If I Had A Song. Lieder und Sänger der USA, 1990
Von Manhattan bis Kalifornien. Aus der Geschichte der USA, 1975
Von Manhattan bis Kalifornien, 1978
Der Weg über die Grenze, 1986
Crossing the river, 2003
Madrid – Du Wunderbare, 2006
Ein Ami blickt auf die DDR zurück, 2011
Rebel Girls: 34 amerikanische Frauen im Porträt, 2013

Victor Grossman stellt sich 2014 auf dem 6. Hamburger Klotzfest vor

Victor Grossman beim 6. Klotzfest in Hamburg

Dieses Video auf YouTube ansehen

└ Tags: Dean Reed

Kommentar

Mrz15

am 15. März 2018

Veröffentlicht in: Victor Grossman

Victor Grossman

New faces and not policies

Berlin Bulletin No. 142
.

Victor Grossman

After nearly six months of haggling uncertainty the three-party German coalition puck is in the goal box. The suspense is over, the chickens have come home to roost! And this coop will again be ruled not by a rooster but a hen, for the fourth time in a row, and a tough old hen she is!

Not a few feathers have been ruffled. Until January 2017 stout Sigmar Gabriel was head of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). Because of the party’s disastrous popularity nosedive he was shoved out, but given the prestigious job of foreign minister as consolation. Martin Schulz succeeded him as party leader, chosen by an amazing, unanimous 100% vote, and there was an equally amazing upward swoop in the polls, followed, just as quickly however, by a belly flop. The voters, even in his own party, soon mistrusted his empty, vague promises.

New and old hen Angela Merkel, EPP – Angela Merkel – Flickr.com CC BY 2.0

The election results last September were the worst in over fifty years for the SPD; Schulz, its tarnished leader, swore loudly that his desperate party would not remain an out-powered, losing junior partner to Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats anymore but would restore its strength in opposition. Then this big loser backed down and tried, wily as in any shell game, to join a new coalition cabinet with himself supplanting Sigmar Gabriel as foreign minister. This personal coup was on February 7th, but his sleight of hand didn’t work; no-one wanted him. On February 9th Schulz had to resign from that job and on February 13th step down as party president. The final agreement was managed without him while both he and Gabriel are now banished into a chilly German limbo.

Schulz was replaced by Scholz, Olaf Scholz, till now SPD mayor of Hamburg. Then he too left his brief spell as party boss to Andrea Nahles, once an SPD left-winger (long, long ago!), and climbed higher into the new Cabinet, becoming Vice-Chancellor with Merkel and also Finance Minister, the powerful job in economics policy, not just for Germany but for Europe. Scholz is remembered in Hamburg for his insistence on forcing emetics down the throats of supposed drugs smugglers, despite doctors’ objections, EU condemnation and a death in one case. Also for causing a total snafu during the G-20 summit last summer and defending the actions of 92 policemen accused of physical brutality during the demonstrations. In an earlier Cabinet position he helped get pension age raised from 65 to 67. Above all, he detests the LINKE party. It seems all too clear what to expect from him!

Although the SPD kept floundering in opinion polls, currently at 18 %, Merkel needed it to obtain enough Yes-seats in the Bundestag to stay in power. She found it necessary, therefore, to treat it generously, so that SPD members would vote “Ja” in their referendum. They did, with a 2/3 majority, and were rewarded by Merkel with six Cabinet posts, while her CDU took seven and three went to her Bavarian sister party. The SPD now holds two of the four most important posts, Olaf Scholz as Finance Minister and, as prestigious Foreign Minister, the SPD politician Heiko Maas, until now Justice Minister and whose ideas on foreign policy – if any – are as yet hardly known.

The head of the Bavarians, Horst Seehofer, finally pushed out of control in his own fiefdom in Munich, was consoled with the very important Interior Ministry in Berlin, in charge of police, surveillance and immigration, with an added new “Heimat”(Homeland) sub-department, a sop to those who want to keep Germany very German, with as few foreign-looking immigrants or refugees as possible. Some wonder if in four years Seehofer will have everyone wearing lederhosen or a dirndl, with a big crucifix on every official wall.

The cast of characters has actually been greatly changed. Only four previous ministers have been kept on, but in general with new, different cabinet jobs, as in the game of Musical Chairs (but hopefully not joining Donald Trump in that other variant of the same game, Going to Jerusalem). Ten are newcomers, from all three parties, now with seven women (out of sixteen). Most interesting to Berliners is Franziska Giffey, only 39, also SPD, until now mayor of the West Berlin borough of Neukölln, a mixed area with a large proportion of Turkish, Arabic and other immigrant groups. The media stress how cheery and pretty she is; her politics, as Minister for Families, Seniors, Women and Youth, like those of the other newcomers, remain to be seen.
There are omens enough on which winds will be blowing. The former Environment Minister, Barbara Hendricks, who courageously countered VW and the powerful automobile lobby on their criminal Diesel emission scam, is out. Sigmar Gabriel, who dipped and ducked on many issues as Foreign Minister but was almost the only speaker at the recent Security Conference in Munich to call for easing sanctions against Russia and deal diplomatically, not bellicosely, on questions like the Ukraine, Syria, and the horrifically perilous deployment and maneuvers of NATO troops, including Germans, right on the sensitive Russian border near the Baltic Sea. As mentioned, Gabriel is also out.

The only Cabinet Minister to stay in the same job as before, aside from Chancellor Merkel, is Ursula von der Leyen, and she is the most dangerous. Like some top politicians in the USA and Britain, male and female, she is not interested in diplomacy, she is interested in more and more and more weapons, the most modern to be found, and planting them as provocatively as possible, and as close to Moscow. That this clever-talking war hawk has kept her job does not bode well for the new government, nor for general world hopes for a cooling off of swiftly-growing dangers! Not easy with a Theresa May, an Emmanuel Macron and a Mike Pompeo, to name a few.

With all three ruling parties now remaining in office, and with the SPD struggling to retain its traditional position as second party in the polls, my strained metaphor of chickens coming home to roost might be applied to the growing strength of some very hungry, dodgy foxes. The Alternative for Germany (AfD), now with 92 delegates in the Bundestag, is taking advantage of every sign of dissatisfaction in Germany, and there are many of them, with the same growing gap between the extremely wealthy and the struggling and poverty-stricken as in the USA and elsewhere. The AfD also favors a militarily powerful Germany, it too is aligned with the wealthy. B hat is behind the scenes, while its clever speakers strum social-minded, almost melodic melodies at times, but never without an ongoing background percussion of hatred against “Islamists” and all immigrants and refugees, a sentiment echoed all too often in the tactics of the other parties, hoping to be spared further losses to the right. One AfD leader overdid it recently; his vicious attacks against people of Turkish descent were so racist that he had to resign. But his views were visibly well-received by his audience.

Sadly, the AfD is filling the gap caused by well-founded distrust of the old parties, bringing worried recollections of developments in Germany about ninety years ago. I greatly fear that the LINKE, though holding on to its faithful but all too stagnant nine or ten percent, with only very thin gains, is not filling that gap as it should, but is seen by too many, in eastern Germany, as part of the establishment. It has been too mild-mannered, too hopeful of possible future coalition positions, like those already achieved in two East German states and Berlin (but with not enough to show for them). I find it lacking in a militant, daring policy of streetside action. Unfortunately, it seems caught up, far too much, in internal dissension on its leadership level, especially between co-chair Katja Kipping and co-caucus chair Sahra Wagenknecht. There is disagreement about how many immigrants or refugees should be allowed into Germany, about acceptance or rejection of support for Netanyahu’s rule in Israel and the Palestinians, about policy towards Russia and about the possibilities of forming some larger force, beyond the ranks of the LINKE in a path resembling that of Jean-Luc Mélenchon in France, which Wagenknecht favors and other leaders oppose. It is urgently necessary for the party congress in Leipzig in June to resolve differences and move towards united, popular opposition to current wars and threats of worse wars, and to poverty, in Germany and in all the countries whose refugees seek asylum and a decent life in Germany.

There have been some militant strikes in recent months, some are still going on. Can they help in developing healthy antidotes to foul-egg policies of the new government? Can fences be strengthened against marauding foxes – by nature far from being peaceful vegans? Can trends be reversed? Europe and the world urgently need some changes!

More by Victor Grossman
.

Kommentar

Mrz31

am 31. März 2018

Veröffentlicht in: Jairo Gómez Garcia

Jairo Gómez

Genug ist genug

Jairo Gómez

Die Jugend der Vereinigten Staaten wacht auf und erhebt ihre Stimme im ganzen Land. Sie will endlich ein schärferes Waffengesetz. Das Maß ist voll. Es hat zu viele Tote durch Schusswaffengebrauch gegeben. Könnte dieses Aufbegehren das Potential für etwas größeres in sich bergen?

Enough is enough – Bild von Jairo Gomez mit freundlicher Genehmigung des Autors

Es scheint so, als ob sich in den USA die Jahrhunderte währende Unbekümmertheit mit der man mit Waffen umgegangen ist, nun rächt. Die USA haben im Unterschied zu anderen Ländern, eine umstrittene Gesetzgebung, was den Erwerb und den Besitz von Waffen angeht. Der 2. Verfassungszusatz von 1791 garantiert den Besitz und das Tragen von Waffen auf Bundesebene. Darauf berufen sich die mächtige NRA und einige andere Lobbygruppen.

Während dieser Verfassungszusatz aus der Pionierzeit stammt, ist die Entwicklung der Waffen nicht stehen geblieben. Waffen, die nur in Hände des Militärs gehörten (wenn sie denn überhaupt jemand in die Hände bekommen sollte), haben das Land förmlich überschwemmt. Es ist keine Seltenheit, dass sich Straßengangs mit AK-47, M-16 oder AR-15 Sturmgewehren bekämpfen. Die sture Weigerung der NRA eine Verschärfung des Waffenrechts zuzulassen, erweist sich als ein permanenter Rohrkrepierer, der einen immer höheren Blutzoll fordert.
.

„ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!“

Laut Statistik sind die Vorfälle von Schusswaffengebrauch und dadurch getötete Menschen in den USA, von 2014 bis 2017 stetig gestiegen. Dieses Jahr sind bisher schon 2997 Todesopfer zu verzeichnen. Das Massaker von Parkland im Februar diesen Jahres hat bei der Jugend der USA das Fass zum überlaufen gebracht. Sie hat sich in kürzester Zeit organisiert und am 24.03. war der Ruf:“ Enough is enough! – Genug ist genug!“ in ganzen Land zu hören. Zu viele Menschen sind durch Schusswaffen gestorben, an Orten an denen sie sich sicher wähnten. Schulen, Gotteshäuser, Kinos und Supermärkte. Auf dem Weg von oder zur Arbeit, an Bushaltestellen und auf dem Weg zur Schule.

Waffenladen in Colorado – „Darf’s ein bischen mehr sein?“

Die Jugend fühlt sich von den Erwachsenen verraten und verkauft. Es ist die Generation der Eltern, die in Interessengemeinschaften wie der NRA (National Rifle Association of America) zusammengeschlossen sind und seit Jahrzehnten eine Verschärfung des Waffenrechts in den USA verhindern. Es ist auch die Generation der Eltern, die als Politiker im Kongress der USA stets die Forderungen und Interessen der Waffenlobby und der Rüstungsindustrie durchsetzen. Die Profitgier macht nicht einmal Halt vor der eigenen Jugend. Abstruse Vorschläge wie die Lehrerschaft im Waffengebrauch zu unterweisen oder bewaffnete Security Leute in Schulen einzuquartieren, versteht die US-amerikanische Jugend als Zeichen dafür, dass den Erwachsenen in Wirtschaft und Politik, Profit und Karriere wichtiger ist als die Zukunft des Landes, die Jugend.

In den USA fallen keine Bomben und es sind auch keine fliegenden Standgerichte am Himmel zu sehen, der Krieg den sie in andere Länder über Jahrzehnte hinweg getragen haben, ist meines Erachtens, als Bumerang in die USA zurückgelangt. Armut, fehlende Zukunftsperspektiven, Arbeitslosigkeit und ein mehr als mangelhaftes Gesundheitssystem, ist die Hinterlassenschaft der Generation, die aktuell am Ruder ist. So ist es kein Wunder, dass von eben diesen jungen Menschen die klare Ansage kommt: “Vote them out! – Wählt sie ab!“. Ein starkes Signal, denn ethnische oder religiöse Unterschiede spielten keine Rolle.
.

EUROPAS BUMERANG

In Europa spielt sich (noch) nicht das gleiche Szenario ab wie in den USA, das Potential dafür ist jedoch vorhanden. Auch Europa hat seine eigenen Bumerangs geworfen in Form von Kolonialismus, Waffenhandel, Unterstützung von Despoten und Zerstörung von Märkten mittels Knebelverträgen wie das Freihandelsabkommen mit afrikanischen Staaten EPA geworfen, die jetzt in Form von Flüchtlingen und Terroranschlägen zurück kommen.

Das ist aber noch nicht alles, laut Statistik gab es im Januar diesen Jahres in der EU 17.931.000 Arbeitslose, davon sind ca. 20% Jugendliche. Das ist ein gewaltiges Potential an sozialem Sprengstoff. Und es brodelt schon seit geraumer Zeit. Indikatoren dafür sind Zonen wie die Banlieues in Frankreich, wo es schon mehrere Male zu Gewaltausbrüchen gekommen ist.

Die Jugendarbeitslosigkeit ist auch in Europa stark gestiegen. Besonders hoch ist sie in Ländern wie Spanien

Natürlich kann man die Proteste in den USA isoliert sehen, weil es abgesehen von den Kriegsgebieten in der Welt kaum Orte gibt, wo so viele Menschen durch Schusswaffengebrauch verletzt oder getötet werden wie in den Vereinigten Staaten. Ein Land dass zerrissen ist, weil es sich zur gleichen Zeit in der Vergangenheit und in der Gegenwart befindet und die Zukunft auch schon an es zerrt. Es wird an maßgeblichen Stellen anscheinend nicht erkannt, dass die Pionierzeiten im eigenen Land vorbei sind. Es gibt keine Natives, die man von ihrem Land vertreiben kann, die meisten leben in Reservaten und viele vegetieren dahin. Büffelherden gibt es nur noch in Naturparks und die großen Eisenbahnverbindungen zwischen Ost und-Westküste sind längst fertiggestellt. „Wild wild West“ ist längst tot und die Gesetzgebung dazu ist ein Anachronismus, der nur dazu dient Profit auf Kosten von Menschenleben zu machen.
.

TÖDLICHE HINTERLASSENSCHAFTEN

Es brodelt auf unserem Planeten überall und wenn man genauer hinsieht, ist es die junge Generation die aufbegehrt. Sie leidet über ethnische, religiöse oder ideologische Grenzen hinweg, an den Auswirkungen einer Pandemie die seit Urzeiten grassiert und nicht wirklich als eine solche wahrgenommen wird: Gier nach Profit und damit auch nach Macht. Das ist nicht neu, es existiert meines Erachtens, seit der Mensch aufhörte in überschaubaren Clans zu leben und damit begann in Städten zu leben. In seinem Expansionsdrang hat er den Planeten mehrmals umrundet, hat erobert, kultiviert, ausgebeutet, unterdrückt und weiter ausgebeutet. Nun ist der Planet zum größten Teil vernetzt und es gibt keine weißen Flecken auf unseren Landkarten. Die Ressourcen gehen zur Neige und alles was ab jetzt passiert geht unmittelbar zu Lasten kommender Generationen.

Frankreich ist Europas Atomstaat Nummer eins – und will diese Position weiter ausbauen. Das Atomkraftwerk in Tricastin ist nach Angaben der Betreiber die größte solcher Anlagen weltweit und erstreckt sich über 600 Hektar. Doch immer wieder gibt es Probleme in Tricastin: 2008 gab es zahlreiche Zwischenfälle. Mal gelangte radioaktives Uran durch ein defektes Ventil in einen unterirdischen Abwasserkanal, mal wurden bei der Inspektion etwa 100 Menschen leicht kontaminiert.

Nukleare Energiepolitik ohne eine wirkliche Lösung des Endlagerungproblems, riesige schwimmende Inseln aus Kunststoffmüll, auf Hunderttausende von Jahren radioaktiv verseuchte Landstriche in Kriegsgebieten, in denen man Munition mit abgereichertem Uran benutzt hat, Zerstörung von Regenwäldern, die für die Sauerstoffproduktion wichtig sind, einen zunehmende Totalüberwachung von Bürgern in der ganzen Welt, die Liste der Hinterlassenschaften ist noch viel länger. Für all das wird schon die nächste Generation damit beginnen die Zeche zu zahlen.

Nein, die vielen Toten in den USA kann man nicht isoliert betrachten, es ist ein Auswuchs einer Kamikaze Mentalität, die sich über den gesamten Globus ausgebreitet hat und sich den Umständen entsprechend manifestiert. Es bleibt zu hoffen, dass der „Marsch für ihre Leben“, der sich am 24.03. in Gang gesetzt hat, nicht auf halbem Weg zum stehen kommt. Idealerweise sollte es als ein Startsignal für die Jugend auf der ganzen Welt sein, damit sie sich in einer homogenen Bewegung Gehör verschafft und sich nicht ihrer Zukunft berauben lässt.

Bilder und Bildunterschriften wurden von der Redaktion AmericanRebel hinzugefügt.
Dieser Artikel erschien auch vor ein paar Tagen auf unserem Partnerblog „Graswurzel Post – Stimmen von unten„. Wir danken Jairo Gómez für die Genehmigung der Veröffentlichung.
Dieser Artikel erschien auch vor ein paar Tagen auf unserer Partnerseite INFO-WELT
.
Über den Autor: Seit 1967 lebt der im spanischen Granada geborene Bernardo Jairo Gomez Garcia in Deutschland. Schon vor seinen Ausbildungen zum Trockenbaumonteur und Kfz-Lackierer entdeckte Gomez seine Leidenschaft für die Kunst. Er studierte an einer privaten Kunsthochschule Airbrushdesign und wechselte aus der Fabrikhalle ans Lehrerpult. 14 Jahre war Gomez als Spanischlehrer in der Erwachsenenbildung tätig. Seine Interessen gelten der Politik, Geschichte, Literatur und Malerei. Für Neue Debatte schreibt Jairo Gomez über die politischen Entwicklungen in Spanien und Lateinamerika und wirft einen kritischen Blick auf die gesellschaftlichen Veränderungen in Deutschland und Europa, seit kurzem betreibt er seinen eigenen Blog, „Graswurzel Post – Stimmen von unten„.
.
Weitere Artikel zum Thema:

Victor Grossman – Gun controls in East Germany
Marc Pitzke – Was hinter Amerikas Waffenwahn steckt.

Kommentar

Apr01

am 1. April 2018

Veröffentlicht in: Allgemein

Victor Grossman

Gun controls in East Germany

Berlin Bulletin No. 143
(Note: This was not originally meant as one of my Berlin Bulletins, but rather just recollections based on the wonderful actions of the students in Florida and everywhere else. However, for reasons of clarity I might as well give it a Bulletin number too. The mailing is delayed due to a short-lived bout with the flu.)
.

Victor Grossman

My brother-in-law Werner was a passionate hunter. Until his early death he lived in East Germany, called the Deutsche Demokratische Republik, or DDR (in English GDR), which disappeared 28 years ago. I lived there, too, for many years, and it was there that my brother-in-law took me with him on a few hunting trips. I made clear that I did not at all like the idea of shooting a deer, a gracefully beautiful animal. As for the wild boars, hardly handsome creatures to any eyes but those of their mates and offspring – I didn’t like the idea of shooting them either. I went along partly out of curiosity, partly for the chance to do some bird-watching while he was watching for prey.

Werner had an amazingly sharp eye for distant grazers, he was skilled with his gun, but also with words as he tried to convince me that hunting, despite its death and blood, was a necessity. With no natural enemies (until recent years when some wolves were re-introduced) an overgrown deer population would bite and ruin acres of young woodland, and the very fecund wild hogs can ruin many potato fields. Their numbers had to be kept in check by humans, he insisted. This did not justify excited hobby hunters banging away at all that moved but, he claimed, did justify a strictly planned improvement of their ranks.

Colective hunting in the GDR in the 1970’s

I suspect that even this rationale would anger vegetarians and vegans, and I will not argue. But the interesting aspect for me was a system which many would see as a restriction of freedom and typical for such a Communist-run state. Weapons and ammunition were strictly controlled. Guns, though privately-owned, were stored at the hunting clubs, usually connected with the forest ranger’s home and station. To get licenses as club members, hunters had to attend classes and pass exams on identifying wild life, avoiding unnecessary cruelty or neglect, shooting ability – and some old traditional rules for hunters, once restricted to nobility or men of wealth. The guns had to be picked up and returned on an agreed-upon system, which governed which seasons and which animals were OK for hunting and which were not: ill animals, yes, for example, but no does with fawns or wild sows with offspring. The rules were strict; every bullet had to be accounted for, whether a hit or a miss!

Corresponding rules were in force for shooting clubs. Schooling and licenses were required, weapons were kept not at home but at the clubs, ammunition was apportioned and had to be accounted for.

Yes, these were indeed restrictions on freedom, and most likely had an explanation not only in terms of forestry or sports but also politically, with no unauthorized weapons in possibly rebellious hands. And those authorized for people in uniform were also restricted to their official times on duty.

Also assault rifles are allowed to buy private persons in the USA – although they neither self-defense nor hunt serve

This recalls, in reverse, the reasons why some Americans oppose controls or limitations even on assault weapons, which are certainly not bought for hunting or sport or to protect against robbers. When some NRA-fans raise posters proclaiming that “AR-15’s EMPOWER the people” we can easily guess what kind of people are meant and what kind of power. No, their proliferating gun collections are not only destined for stags, pheasants or range target stands.

The strict weapons’ laws on Werner’s hunting, undoubtedly a restriction of his freedoms of course a Second Amendment was lacking – also meant that that there were virtually no shooting deaths and not a single mass shooting, in schools or anywhere else – not even, as it turned out, in the course of regime change, which occurred in 1989-1990 without any bloodshed.
Were the rules far too stringent? My hunting enthusiast brother-in-law never complained to me about restrictions on his hunting rights (whose rules now no longer apply). He was, by the way, a teacher, who never dreamed of having a gun in a classroom. And his death, before he was 65, was not due to any hunting or weapons’ mishap but rather, almost conclusively, to his addiction to cigarettes, whose use was completely uncontrolled. Being no hunter, sport shooter or smoker, I must reserve judgement.

More by Victor Grossman
.

└ Tags: Allgemein

Kommentar

Apr07

am 7. April 2018

Veröffentlicht in: Victor Grossman

Victor Grossman

Easter march for peace

Berlin Bulletin No. 144

Victor Grossman

Despite the noontime rain it was a good crowd. Frankly, not a very large crowd taking part in the annual peace parade on the Saturday before Easter, not like in “the old days”, as the media stressed – and automatically stresses every year, never failing this dig after its mostly brief reports. Perhaps two thousand braved the weather and stretched in a wide column, ten or twelve blocks long, which moved with a few sound trucks through Moabit in West Berlin, a district known for its large Turkish, Arabic and other immigrant group population.

Easter march for peace, Kassel: „Battle Drones forbid! – Prevent wars!“ Photo by Uwe Hiksch

Those braving the weather were a determined bunch. There were only a few teenagers but a fair number of young adults, often with children and a few babies. A majority, no doubt, were the “old faithful” who take part every year. It was a friendly mix. There were East Berliners, some still sad, even bitter, that their old hopes and dreams of a peaceful Germany had been so disappointed. Others, active much of their lives in the West Berlin peace movement, recall, also with nostalgia, the 1980’s, when hundreds of thousands took part in West Germany’s Easter Marches. Modeled after the Aldermaston marches against nuclear weapons in England, they protested the stationing of atomic missiles along the border to East Germany (where Soviet missiles were then placed). Many from both sides of the city remembered the giant march of at least half a million in 2003 to prevent Bush’s war against Iraq. That world-wide attempt had not succeeded, but was strong enough to keep Germany out of that fateful, fatal military coalition.

What were these indefatigable protesters demanding this time, here in Berlin and at rainy meetings, marches and bicycle parades during the long Easter weekend in over a hundred cities and towns all over Germany?

Good speeches and countless signs and banners, often hand-made, spelled it out: basically the same issue as ever: No war! The main slogan was “Don‘t arm, disarm!”

This was an urgent matter. The one cabinet member to retain her position in the new cabinet, Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen, stuck to the same message: “We Europeans must be both militarily capable and politically resolute”. Germany must “assume its responsibilities”, she repeats, which translates to more and more modern armaments, her reply to convenient carping by the big brass that its weaponry is dated and ineffective; Germany needs more and better killing machines.

Concretely, this means complying with the NATO demand, loudly stressed by Donald Trump, that NATO members must increase military spending to 2% of their budgets by 2024 – in Germany an expansion from about 37 billion euros now ($43.5) to almost double the amount. The Easter protesters pointed at urgent needs always neglected for “lack of funds”: infrastructure, childcare, education, care for the ill and elderly. One banner quoted figures: 19% of German children face problems of poverty which will haunt their entire future lives; in East Germany almost 25%. But, says von der Leyen, the Bundeswehr needs mighty Leopard panzers, the best automatic weapons, swiftest planes and ships, and training in landing operations and occupying hostile cities far from Germany’s safe shores.

Easter march for peace, Bonn: „The guarantee of our freedom is self-defense“ Photo by Sophie Lehmann

One speaker named the one sector of infrastructure with high hopes for financial buttressing from the new government; improving road surfacing, strengthening bridges and heightening underpasses on highway routes leading eastward, where parades of tanks and other heavy weapons have already done damage when clanking toward the on-going military maneuvers of German, American and other NATO troops near the Russian borders. Is this, too, dejá vu all over again?

One sign recalled Bertolt Brecht’s warning words after World War II: “Great Carthage waged three wars. It was still powerful after the first, still habitable after the second. It was nowhere to be found after the third.”

The speaker from the LINKE party recalled hesitant attempts by Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel to repair German-Russian relations and reduce confrontation in weapons and sanctions. He was ousted. His successor Heiko Maas, though also a Social Democrat (SPD), seems to approve the plans of his new colleague Ursula von der Leyen.

Maas also joined the now-fumbling British campaign to heat up relations with Russia after the increasingly opaque poisoning episode, adding the name and face of Vladimir Putin to the long tradition of simplified distortion, caricaturing and demonization of those one plans to attack. Both speakers and banners pointed out that media near-unanimity in this was hardly motivated by Russian human rights violations, election manipulation or actions outside its national borders. If it were, Saudi Arabia’s bloody flogging and executions against opponents and its genocidal war against Yemen, with US assistance and beginning well before Trump, would have been castigated in angry UN speeches, not been smilingly accepted. But Minister Haas, with his new coalition armchair seat hardly warm, has already OK’d the sale of eight military patrol boats to Saudi Arabia. A tactless description of him as a “NATO-male hustler” by the often outspoken orator of the LINKE has given opponents a chance to denounce the entire peace demonstration! It has perhaps also led to new thinking.

Over and over, two places were name and seen on Saturday, always with the demand: “Close them down”! Ramstein Air Base in the Rhineland area is headquarters for the US Air Forces in Europe, for Air Forces Africa and for the NATO Allied Air Command. Of the 600 or 700 US bases in 70-80 countries outside America, it is the largest – and the base where messages from safe sites in the USA arrive, to be passed along to drones bringing death and destruction to a half dozen countries in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and other countries in Africa and western Asia. Its presence is illegal under German law, and protests against this drone center, often organized by people joining in the Easter Marches, have led to growing pressure on the German government. Can they succeed?

The other name is Büchel, not far away. It is here, also in defiance of German laws by the governments of Merkel, Trump and their many predecessors, where twenty B61 nuclear bombs are stored – the only such site in Europe, alongside German and American bombers always ready to carry them eastwards.

It was such menaces which motivated the Easter March protests. Far too few took part; nasty weather, nasty media, the competing march of modern social media which may bring large numbers together but can lead to individualized effortless observation of world events, all in one’s own hand. But it also resulted from the failure of the Left to enthuse and mobilize large numbers of people.

And yet a deep desire for peace, reconciliation, a rejection of more deaths in Afghanistan, Mali, or other places where they don’t belong, is still present with many in Germany, and a political factor. Even when people don’t join marches, most aspiring politicians must take their feelings seriously.
This sentiment was expressed most vividly in the main speech Saturday, by a pastor, Rev. Eugen Drewermann. He based his speech on an old anti-war poem from 1778 by the poet Matthias Claudius, a writer and also pastor, who called out: “It’s war! It’s war!… What use to me are crown and land, gold and honor? … It’s war – and I want to bear no guilt for it!” His long speech, with an eloquence learned by some preachers, approached for me that of Dr. King in eloquence. Sharply but poetically he exposed those who want war and why they do and how they must be fought.

Also very emotional for some was the little “Children’s Hymn”, again by Bertolt Brecht, and vainly considered after World War Two and after German unification as a substitute for the still official anthem “Deutschland über alles”, whose original words called for German frontiers far beyond the present ones. Brecht’s song rejected all such bellicose dreams and pressures for expansion based on presumed Germanic superiority – and still all too present today. It’s singing, by so many in the crowd, brought tears to more than a few eyes. It too was a call for peace!
.

Children’s Anthem (Kinderhymne)
(its difficult translation by Michael E. Geisler)

Grace spare not and spare no labor / Passion nor intelligence
That a decent German nation / Flourish as do other lands.
That the peoples need no flinching / At the crimes which we evoke
And hold out their hands in friendship / As they do to other folk.

Neither over or yet under / Other peoples will we be
From the Oder to the Rhineland / From the Alps to the North Sea
And because we’ll make it better / Let us guard and love our home
Love it as our dearest country / As the others love their own.

Kinderhymne by Hanns Eisler and Bert Brecht
(sung in german)

KINDERHYMNE- Bertolt Brecht

Dieses Video auf YouTube ansehen

More by Victor Grossman
.

1 Komentar

Apr15

am 15. April 2018

Veröffentlicht in: Diethard Möller, Rui Filipe Gutschmidt, Victor Grossman

Die USA, Frankreich und Großbritannien haben für ihre Auftraggeber aus den Chefetagen der Konzerne und Banken Militärschläge gegen Syrien ausgeführt. Bombardiert wurden vorwiegend Einrichtungen des syrischen Chemiewaffenprogramms. Angeblich sind keine weiteren Luftangriffe geplant. Die Deutsche Bundesregierung unterstützt den Militäreinsatz in Syrien.

Die Gesetzeslage in den USA ist eindeutig: Der US-Kongress muss jeden Krieg absegnen und erklären, den ein US-Präsident führen will. Auch, wenn dieser US-Präsident Donald Trump heißt. Doch Trump macht sich offensichtlich seine eigenen Gesetze. Sein Kriegsrecht. Seine Auffassung ist: Wenn er Krieg für seinesgleichen will, bekommt er ihn. Wir können ihn also aus diesem Grund seit vorgestern als Kriegsverbrecher bezeichnen.

Nachfolgend vier Beiträge zur besseren Einschätzung der Hintergründe und Gefahr die von imperalistischen Kriege wie den Angriff auf Syrien für die gesammte Weltbevölkerung ausgeht.

Rui Filipe Gutschmidt: KRIEG! Angriff auf Syrien wirft unbequeme Fragen auf
Diethard Möller: Kriegsgefahr: Trump hetzt zum Krieg! (schon vom 11. April aber dennoch interessant)
Erklärung des russischen Präsidenten Wladimir Putin anlässlich des Raketenangriffs von den USA, Großbritannien und Frankreich auf Syrien
Victor Grossmann: A scrap book of words and actions

.
.
Rui Filipe Gutschmidt

KRIEG! Angriff auf Syrien wirft unbequeme Fragen auf

Rui Filipe Gutschmidt

Es war die Entscheidung von drei Regierungschefs – D. Trump, T. May und E. Macron. Letzte Nacht führten diese drei Staaten einen Luftschlag gegen Syriens Armee aus. Als Grund, geben die respektiven Regierungen den mutmaßlichen Einsatz von Chemiewaffen an. Doch die genauen Ziele des Angriffs werfen unangenehme Fragen auf…

Bei allem was Recht ist, aber diese Leute, „demokratisch“ gewählt um die Interessen ihrer Bürger zu vertreten, spielen hier mit unser aller Leben. Ein Angriff auf Syrien – auch wenn es „nur“ ein chirurgischer Luftschlag war – ist immer auch ein Angriff auf einen Verbündeten Russlands und des Iran. Heute früh dachte ich erst, dass es nur ein Albtraum gewesen sein konnte. Doch als ich den Fernseher anmachte und auf Euronews die selben Bilder von der Nacht sah, wurde mir ganz flau im Magen.

Sie haben es tatsächlich getan! Mit etwa 100 Raketen und Marschflugkörpern, britischen, französischen und us-amerikanischen Flugzeugen, attackierten die selbsternannten „Rächer der Opfer von Douma“ verschiedene Installationen der syrischen Regierung. Auch wenn, syrischen Angaben zufolge, dabei 13 Raketen abgefangen wurden, so erreichten dennoch etwa 87 todbringende Sprengköpfe ihre jeweiligen Ziele. Damaskus gab an, dass dabei 3 Zivilisten verletzt wurden und ansonsten nur Sachschäden entstanden seien. Es ist ein Phänomen der modernen Kriegsführung, vor allem im Nahen Osten, dass nur Zivilisten sterben, auch wenn manche von ihnen einen Tarnanzug und eine Waffe tragen. Übrigens ist das auch ähnlich, wenn man, je nach Standpunkt, bewaffnete Männer und Frauen als Soldaten, Terroristen, Rebellen, Freiheitskämpfer, Milizen, Krieger, Märtyrer, Helden und so weiter bezeichnet. Doch dies nur mal so am Rande.

Raketenabschuss von US-Marine auf Syrien – screenshot YouTube

Doch die Verletzten in diesem Fall sind ausnahmsweise nicht so wichtig wie die erwähnten „Sachschäden“. Denn was Damaskus als Sachschaden bezeichnet, dass nennt das Kriegstreiber-Trio lapidar „militärisch-strategische Ziele“. Genaugenommen soll es sich dabei um ein Forschungslabor für chemische und biologische Kampfstoffe, ein Lager für chemische Waffen und ein Kommandozentrum für den Einsatz chemischer Waffen gehandelt haben. Die Ziele wären „auf Grund geheimdienstlicher Informationen“ bewusst ausgewählt worden und man habe Moskau im Vorfeld gewarnt.

Doch genau damit habe ich ein Problem. Denn wenn Washington, London oder Paris von der Existenz solcher Einrichtungen wusste, wieso wurden diese Informationen dann nicht an die UNO weitergeleitet? Wieso hat man nicht gewartet, bis die Inspektoren den vermeintlichen Angriff mit Chlorgas untersucht haben. Denn man kann weder der islamistischen Rebellengruppe glauben, die vor ihrem Abzug aus der Enklave (sie wurden in türkisch kontrolliertes Gebiet verbracht) dem verhassten Assad-Regime noch eins auswischen wollte, noch kann man der syrischen Armee glauben, denen jedes Mittel recht ist, um die Rebellen aus dem Großraum Damaskus zu jagen, wo sie eine stete Gefahr für die Hauptstadt darstellen, und um diesen Krieg ultimativ zu beenden. Der Abwurf der Atombomben auf Hiroshima und Nagasaki 1945 war übrigens nichts anderes…

Aber es hat doch irgendwie den Anschein, dass Theresa May, Donald Trump und Emmanuel Macron ganz andere Gründe hatten. Wollten sie etwas vertuschen? Wollten sie eine Blamage wie nach dem Irak-Krieg verhindern? Wie lange wusste der Westen von den Chemiewaffeneinrichtungen – wenn es denn welche waren – und kann es sein, dass sie nur auf einen Chemiewaffenangriff gewartet haben, um zuzuschlagen? Warum ist diese letzte Rebellengruppe erst jetzt abgezogen, nach dem vermeintlichen Chemiewaffeneinsatz, statt mit den anderen Gruppen gemeinsam zu gehen? Warum sollte Assad einen Angriff auf die bereits am Boden liegenden Islamisten begehen und damit einen Angriff der USA riskieren?

Es macht alles keinen Sinn! Der Westen riskiert mit einem immer aggressiver werdenden Verhalten gegenüber Russland einen dritten Weltkrieg (=Atomkrieg=totale Zerstörung und Ausrottung der menschlichen Spezies) und ignoriert dabei völlig den mehrheitlichen Wunsch nach Frieden. Russland hat eine dringende Notfallsitzung des UN-Sicherheitsrats einberufen und hat NICHT, wie erst angemahnt, die Raketen und Flugzeuge vom Himmel geholt. Wenigstens Vladimir Putin hat einen kühlen Kopf bewahrt und uns somit den Anblick von Atompilzen über den Millionenmetropolen der Welt erspart.

Die ganze Sache stinkt jedenfalls zum Himmel! Wir, die große Mehrheit der Bürger dieser Welt, die wir Frieden, soziale Gerechtigkeit, eine intakte, saubere Umwelt und ein Leben in Freiheit wünschen, stellen uns nicht energisch genug gegen die obskuren Interessen der Machteliten, der Märkte, Lobbyisten und Finanzwelt.

Weitere Artikel von Rui Filipe Gutschmidt
Dieser Artikel erschien auch auf unserer Partnerseite INFO-WELT

.
.

Kriegsgefahr: Trump hetzt zum Krieg!

Diethard Möller

US-Präsident Trump droht offen mit Krieg gegen Syrien! Gegen das Syrien Assads, das durch Russland militärisch unterstützt wird. Hier droht eine offene kriegerische Konfrontation der beiden immer noch größten Atommächte – mit unkalkulierbaren Risiken.

Elmar Brok (CDU), EU-Parlamentsabgeordneter und bei jeder Kriegsdiskussion dabei, sagte vor wenigen Tagen im Interview mit N24/ Die Welt:
„Der Angriff der Amerikaner in Syrien ist ein historischer Moment, weil bisher galt, dass sich eine Atommacht wie die USA nicht dort militärisch engagiert, wo bereits eine andere Atommacht, in diesem Fall Russland, aktiv ist. Dieses Tabu ist heute gefallen. Daraus kann ein sehr ernsthafter Konflikt entstehen.“

Der russische Botschafter im Libanon hat am 11. April 2018 eine deutliche Drohung an die Vereinigten Staaten gesandt (mal egal, ob das eine besonders gute Idee war): „Wenn es einen Angriff der Amerikaner gibt, dann werden die Raketen abgeschossen und auch die Quellen, von denen die Raketen abgefeuert wurden“, sagte er gegenüber dem Fernsehsender Al-Manar. (Quelle: http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/syrien-russland-warnt-usa-vor-eingreifen-in-syrien-wegen-giftgasattacke-a-1202274.html)

Der amerikanische Präsident Donald Trump beantwortet nun auf Twitter die Drohung. „Mach Dich bereit, Russland, denn sie werden kommen“. Weiter preist er die Raketen als „neu und schön und klug“ an. Russland solle lieber nicht der Partner eines „mit Gas tötenden Tieres“ sein, der seine eigenen Menschen umbringt und es genießt.

Dem Krieg geht bekanntlich immer wüsteste Hetze gegen den Kriegsgegner voraus. Hier noch garniert mit geheucheltem Mitgefühl für „seine Menschen“. Irak, Afghanistan Libyen zeigen, was deren Schicksal die US-Präsidenten interessierte und interessiert!

Aus Russland war schon zuvor im sogenannten Sicherheitsrat der Uno eine deutliche Warnung gekommen: „Ich fordere Sie erneut auf, flehe Sie an, die Pläne zu unterlassen, die Sie derzeit für Syrien entwickeln“, so Moskaus Uno-Botschafter Wassili Nebensja an seine amerikanische Amtskollegin, die notorische Kriegshetzerin Nikky Haley.

„Die Drohungen, die Sie gegenüber Syrien aussprechen, sollten uns ernsthaft Sorgen bereiten, uns allen, denn wir könnten uns an der Schwelle von sehr traurigen und ernsten Ereignissen wiederfinden.“

Aussagen, die deutlich machen, dass Trump, Präsident des US Imperialismus, anscheinend keinerlei Hemmung hat, den mittleren Osten, schlimmstenfalls die Welt mit einem neuen Weltkrieg zu bedrohen! Auch der französische Präsident Macron scheint bereit, sein Land in ein solch unkalkulierbares Kriegsabenteuer zu verwickeln. Frau May aus London zögert laut Deutschlandfunk angeblich noch. Sie täte gerne Beweise für den angeblichen Giftgasangriff Assads auf Duma sehen. Man könnte lachen, wenn es nicht so ernst wäre!
.

Warum ausgerechnet denen glauben, die schon für den Irak-Krieg hemmungslos logen?

Der US-Imperialismus tischte schon haarsträubende Lügen-Stories auf, um im UNO-Sicherheitsrat Zustimmung zum Irak-Überfall zu erreichen. Nichts davon hat gestimmt, was heute auch eingeräumt wird. Mit dabei damals auch Großbritannien, das ja aktuell erneut einen Giftgaseinsatz Russlands im englischen Salisbury behauptet, ohne einen einzigen Beweis vorzulegen. Warum soll man denselben Leuten die Geschichte des angeblichen Giftgasangriffs auf Duma/Ost-Ghuta bei Damaskus glauben?
.

Cui Bono? Wem nützte das?

Angesichts der Berichte über diese angebliche Giftattacke darf man sich schon fragen, wem das ganze nützt. Der syrischen Führung um Bashar al Assad gewiss nicht. Und man sollte die syrische Führung auch nicht für blöd halten! Die syrische Armee war in Ost-Ghuta im Vormarsch, Ortschaft für Ortschaft dieses Distrikts wurden aus den Klauen der „Rebellen“ zurückerobert, islamistischer Terroristen, die wie anderswo auch die örtliche Bevölkerung in Angst und Schrecken hielten. Der Fall der letzten Stadt dort, Duma, ist ein Frage der Zeit, damit wäre das Kapitel „Rebellen vor den Toren von Damaskus“ beendet.

Genau in diesem Moment taucht die Geschichte mit dem Giftgas auf, wird die Beschuldigung lanciert, die Assad-Armee hätte „mit einer Fassbombe“ Giftgas gegen Duma eingesetzt. Eine größere und weiterreichende Behinderung der Offensive im letzten Augenblick ist kaum denkbar. Wenn „Assad“ genau jetzt den Giftgaseinsatz befohlen hätte, mehr hätte er seinen Interessen nicht schaden können!

Syriens Regierung und Armee – sie sind derzeit die eindeutigen Verlierer der Affäre! Der Gewinner aber ist völlig klar: Der im Syrien-Krieg schon völlig ins Abseits geratene US-Imperialismus! Sein Boss, Trump, nutzt die Gelegenheit, jetzt den Versuch zu starten, mit der Drohung eines massiven Angriffs den Kriegsverlauf doch noch zu wenden und den „regime-change“ gegen die syrische Regierung durchzusetzen, Präsident Assad zu stürzen und Syrien doch noch den US-Interessen, bzw. denen seiner Verbündeten zu unterwerfen!

Die Überlegung, dass diese Gelegenheit bewusst herbeigeführt, inszeniert wurde, ist alles andere als abwegig!

Warum sollten eigentlich die „Rebellen“ kein Giftgas haben? Sie verfügen auch sonst über alle möglichen Waffen. Z. B. über Raketen oder Granaten (mit entsprechenden Werfern), mit denen man von Ost-Ghuta nach Damaskus hineinschiessen kann und – wie am 20. März 2018 – einen ganzen Stadtviertel-Markt beschießen kann – mit 43 Toten. Wer gibt ihnen diese Waffen?

Am 5. Oktober 2016 äußerten sich im Deutschlandfunkinterview nacheinander Sadiqu al Moussllie, der damalige Repräsentant der Syrischen „Opposition“ in Deutschland, wie auch der CDU-Außenpolitiker Rupert Polenz.

Al Moussllie damals wörtlich: „Wie es unter Berufung auf US-Regierungskreise heißt, sollen `Manpads über Saudi-Arabien und die Türkei an die Rebellen geliefert werden“ (Manpads: zielgenaue, von der Schulter abschiessbare Raketen wie z.B. die nach Afghanistan gegen die SU gelieferten Stinger-Raketen). Und Polenz: „Sie“ (die „Rebellen“) „bekommen ja Waffen. Es geht – das soll man offen aussprechen – um Luftabwehr-Raketen. Diese sind bisher nicht geliefert worden, weil die USA Sorge haben, das solche…in die Hände von Dschihadisten fallen könnten… Ich kann mir aber schon vorstellen, dass man über Wege nachdenkt, wie man diese Gefahr ausschließen kann und…eine Möglichkeit schafft, die absolute Luftherrschaft Assads und der russischen Luftwaffe … in Frage zu stellen“ So etwas damals ganz offen im Regierungssender Deutschlandfunk!
Wer garantiert denn, dass sie nicht auch Chemiewaffen bekommen haben?!
.

Wenn Trump Syrien in Brand steckt, kann die ganze Welt Feuer fangen!

Bodenlos die Merkelregierung in Berlin: Ungerührt genehmigt Merkel immer neue Waffenlieferungen in die Krisenregion. Sie beliefert Erdogan, der begonnen hat, Nordsyrien zu erobern. Deutschland beliefert die Saudis, deren Waffen überall in den Kriegsgebieten auftauchen. Sie unterstützt den Krieg in Syrien mit deutschen Tornado-Aufklärern, die für alle NATO-Partner, die in Syrien am Werk sind, genaueste Aufklärungsfotos liefern. Schiffe der Bundesmarine kreuzen im östlichen Mittelmeer. Die Bundesmarine fuhr schon vor Syrien mit einer Fregatte Geleitschutz für den französischen Flugzeugträger Charles de Gaulle.

Findet die Luftangriffe auf Syrien „angemessen“: Recep Tayyip Erdogan findet lobende Worte für den Militärschlag.
© Yasin Bulbul

Schon mehrfach wurde in Berlin diskutiert, ob Bundeswehrsoldaten auch innerhalb Syriens, am Boden kämpfen sollten – zusammen mit anderen NATO-Truppen. Kein Mensch soll hierzulande davon ausgehen, dass die drohende massive Verschärfung des Syrienkrieges Deutschland nicht berühren würde, nichts anginge!

Die Politik von Merkels GroKo verstrickt auch Deutschland in unverantwortlicher Weise in diesen Krieg, der das Potential hat, sich zum Weltkrieg zu entwickeln. Wo ist der Protest der Bundesregierung gegen Trumps Drohungen? Wo das Verbot an Trump, von den US-Stützpunkten in Deutschland (Ramstein, Eukom und Afrikom in Stuttgart etc.) aus Kriegsoperationen auszuführen?

Dieser Krieg konfrontiert zwei Atommächte. Das „Bulletin oft the Atomic Scientists“ (Berichte der Atomwissenschaftler) hat am 25. Januar 2018 die „Weltuntergangsuhr“ auf zwei ein halb Minuten vor zwölf gestellt.
.

Fünf vor Zwölf? Das war mal. Wir sind schon weiter!

Es wird Zeit, zum Protest auf die Straße zu gehen! Es wird Zeit, dass die Kolleginnen und Kollegen in all unseren Betrieben, die Gewerkschafterinnen und Gewerkschafter das friedenspolitische Mandat unsrer Gewerkschaften einzufordern und ebenfalls für den Frieden, vor allem aber gegen den Krieg auf die Straßen des Landes gehen!

Kämpfen wir gegen die steigende Weltkriegsgefahr!

.
Erstveröffentlichung am 11. April 2018 in Arbeit Zukunft online. Veröffentlichung mit freundlicher Genehmigung des Herausgebers. Bilder und Bildunterschriften wurden von der Redaktion American Rebel hinzugefügt.

Da die deutschsprachige bürgerliche Presse uns diese Verlautbarung verschweigt:

Erklärung des russischen Präsidenten Wladimir Putin anlässlich des Raketenangriffs von den USA, Großbritannien und Frankreich auf Syrien

„Am 14. April haben die USA mit Unterstützung ihrer Verbündeten einen Raketenangriff gegen Objekte der Streitkräfte und der Zivilinfrastruktur Syriens geflogen. Ohne Genehmigung durch den UN-Sicherheitsrat und unter Verletzung der UN-Charta sowie der völkerrechtlichen Normen und Grundsätze wurde ein Aggressionsakt gegen einen souveränen Staatausgeführt, der sich an der vordersten Front des Kampfes gegen Terrorismus befindet.

Wie vor einem Jahr, als die USA den Luftstützpunkt al-Schairat in Syrien angegriffen hatten, wurde als Vorwand erneut eine Inszenierung des Einsatzes von Giftstoffen gegen die Zivilbevölkerung genutzt – diesmal in Duma, einem Vorort von Damaskus. Die russischen Militärexperten besuchten den vermeintlichen Tatort und entdeckten keine Spuren von Chlor oder einem anderen Giftstoff. Kein einziger Einheimischer bestätigte die Tatsache des chemisches Angriffs.
Die Organisation für das Verbot chemischer Waffen entsandte nach Syrien ihre Experten, um den gesamten Sachverhalt aufklären zu können. Aber die Gruppe westlicher Staaten vernachlässigte dies zynisch, indem sie eine militärische Aktion unternahm, ohne auf die Ergebnisse der Untersuchung gewartet zu haben.

Russland verurteilt aufs Schärfste den Angriff auf Syrien, wo russische Militärs der legitimen Regierung im Kampf gegen Terrorismus helfen.
Mit ihren Handlungen verschärfen die USA zunehmend die humanitäre Katastrophe in Syrien, bringen Leid über Zivilbevölkerung, begünstigen im Grunde die Terroristen, die das syrische Volk sieben Jahre lang peinigen, und provozieren eine neue Welle von Flüchtlingen aus diesem Land und der Region insgesamt.

Die aktuelle Eskalation der Situation rund um Syrien wirkt sich destruktiv auf das gesamte System der internationalen Beziehungen aus. Die Geschichte wird alles ins rechte Gleis bringen, und sie hat schon Washington eine schwere Verantwortung für eine blutige Abrechnung mit Jugoslawien, Irak und Libyen auferlegt.

Russland beruft eine Dringlichkeitssitzung des UN-Sicherheitsrates ein, um das aggressive Vorgehen der USA und ihrer Verbündeten zu erörtern“.

14. April 2018, 11:35 Uhr

Quelle: russland-news

Victor Grossman

A scrap book of words and actions

Victor Grossman

PRESIDENT WILLIAM McKINLEY in April 11 1998
“The destruction of the battleship Maine in the harbor of Havana …has filled the national heart with inexpressible horror. The naval court of inquiry, which, it is needless to say, commands the unqualified confidence of the Government, was unanimous in its conclusion that the destruction of the Maine was caused by an exterior explosion—that of a submarine mine. It did not assume to place the responsibility. That remains to be fixed. (Much later the cause was found to be faulty storage of munitions in the battleship while in Havana harbor)
The only hope of relief and repose from a condition which can no longer be endured is the enforced pacification of Cuba. In the name of humanity, in the name of civilization, in behalf of endangered American interests which give us the right and the duty to speak and to act, the war in Cuba must stop.
In view of these facts and of these considerations I ask the Congress to authorize and empower the President to take measures to secure a full and final termination of hostilities between the Government of Spain and the people of Cuba, and to secure in the island the establishment of a stable government, capable of maintaining order and observing its international obligations, insuring peace and tranquility and the security of its citizens as well as our own, and to use the military and naval forces of the United States as may be necessary for these purposes…

What followed:
Four months of war in Cuba, four years of war in the Philippines, the seizure of the latter, Puerto Rico and Guam, rule in Guantánamo until the present.
.
PRESIDENT LYNDON B. JOHNSON, in August 1964
My fellow Americans: As President and Commander in Chief, it is my duty to the American people to report that renewed hostile actions against United States ships on the high seas in the Gulf of Tonkin have today required me to order the military forces of the United States to take action in reply…There were no U.S. losses…. Aggression by terror against the peaceful villagers of South Viet-Nam has now been joined by open aggression on the high seas … Yet our response, for the present, will be limited and fitting. We Americans know, although others appear to forget, the risks of spreading conflict. We still seek no wider war. … It is a solemn responsibility to have to order even limited military action by forces whose overall strength is as vast and as awesome as those of the United States of America, but it is my considered conviction … that firmness in the right is indispensable today for peace; that firmness will always be measured. Its mission is peace. (Years l<ater it was admitted; the alleged attack had never taken place.)

What followed:
America dropped three times more ordnance over Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia than all sides did during World War II. It is estimated that at least 350,000 tons of live bombs and mines remain in Vietnam, and that at the current rate it will take 300 years to clear them away. Most common were cluster bombs with hundreds of baseball-size bomblets designed to explode near ground level, releasing metal fragments to maim and kill. Many failed to release their contents or to detonate…. Children find baseball-size metal objects and unwittingly toss the “toys” to one another until they explode… Nearly 40,000 Vietnamese have been killed since the end of the war in 1975, and 67,000 maimed, by land mines, cluster bombs and other ordnance.
The USA dropped 18 million gallons of chemical herbicide over South Vietnam from 1962 to 1972. …The best known was Agent Orange, with planes drenching an estimated 3,181 villages. ..While entire forests dried up and died within weeks of spraying… It contained dioxin, one of the deadliest substances known to humankind. … Dioxin affects not only those exposed to it, but also their children. Large numbers of Vietnamese babies continue to be born with grotesque deformities: misshapen heads, bulging tumors, underdeveloped brains and nonfunctioning limbs.
(from: Ariel Garkinkel, March 20, 2018, NY Times)

The My Lai massacre was a pivotal moment in that misbegotten war: an American contingent … known as Charlie Company, …thinking they would encounter Vietcong troops or sympathizers, discovered only a peaceful village at breakfast. Nevertheless, the soldiers of Charlie Company raped women, burned houses, and turned their M-16s on the unarmed civilians of My Lai. Among the leaders of the assault was Lieutenant William L. Calley, a junior-college dropout from Miami…. Pfc. Paul Meadlo recounted his actions in bland, appalling detail. “Once we got there we began gathering up the people… Calley told him, “Get with it. I want them dead.” … At Calley’s order, Meadlo and others had fired round after round into the ditch and tossed in a few grenades. Then came a high-pitched whining, which grew louder as a two- or three-year-old boy, covered with mud and blood, crawled his way among the bodies and scrambled toward the rice paddy. His mother had likely protected him with her body. Calley saw what was happening and, according to the witnesses, ran after the child, dragged him back to the ditch, threw him in, and shot him.
At the time Pham Thanh Cong, the director of the My Lai Museum, was eleven years old. When American helicopters landed in the village, he and his mother and four siblings huddled in a primitive bunker inside their thatch-roofed home. American soldiers ordered them out of the bunker and then pushed them back in, throwing a hand grenade in after them and firing their M-16s. Cong was wounded in three places—on his scalp, on the right side of his torso, and in the leg. He passed out. When he awoke, he found himself in a heap of corpses: his mother, his three sisters, and his six-year-old brother.
… The museum’s count, no longer in dispute, is 504 victims, from 247 families. 24 families were obliterated, three generations, with no survivors. Among the dead were 182 women, 17 of them pregnant. 173 children were executed, including 56 infants. 60 older men died… (from: Letter from Seymour M. Hersh, The New Yorker, March 30, 2015)

hier geht es weiter »

.
President Ronald Reagan in October 1983
My fellow Americans:
Now, I know another part of the world is very much on our minds, a place much closer to our shores: Grenada. The island is only twice the size of the District of Columbia, with a total population of about 110,000 people…. Grenada was without a government, its only authority exercised by a self-proclaimed band of military men.
There were then about 1,000 of our citizens on Grenada, 800 of them students in St. George’s University Medical School. Concerned that they’d be harmed or held as hostages, I ordered a flotilla of ships, then on its way to Lebanon with marines, to circle south on a course that would put them somewhere in the vicinity of Grenada … We had to assume that several hundred Cubans working on the airport could be military reserves. Well, as it turned out, the number was much larger, and they were a military force. Six hundred of them have been taken prisoner, and we have discovered a complete base with weapons and communications equipment, which makes it clear a Cuban occupation of the island had been planned… Grenada … was a Soviet-Cuban colony, being readied as a major military bastion to export terror and undermine democracy. We got there just in time. (The students were never threatened, the Cubans were helping to construct an airport for tourism.)
…. Today, our national security can be threatened in faraway places. It’s up to all of us to be aware of the strategic importance of such places ….
.
PRESIDENT GEORGE H.W. BUSH in December 1989:
Fellow citizens, last night I ordered U.S. military forces to Panama.
No President takes such action lightly. … The goals of the United States have been to safeguard the lives of Americans, to defend democracy in Panama, to combat drug trafficking and to protect the integrity of the Panama Canal Treaty. … General Noriega’s reckless threats and attacks upon Americans in Panama created an eminent danger to the 35,000 American citizens in Panama… As President, I have no higher obligation than to safeguard the lives of American citizens. And that is why I directed our armed force to protect the lives of American citizens in Panama …
… The United States intends to withdraw the forces newly deployed to Panama as quickly as possible. All forces have conducted themselves courageously and selflessly…Tragically, some Americans have lost their lives in defense of their fellow citizens, in defense of democracy, and my heart goes out to their families. We also regret and mourn the loss of innocent Panamanians.
.
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH in October 2001:
Good afternoon. On my orders, the United States military has begun strikes against al Qaeda terrorist training camps and military installations of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. These carefully targeted actions are designed to disrupt the use of Afghanistan as a terrorist base of operations, and to attack the military capability of the Taliban regime.
We are joined in this operation by our staunch friend, Great Britain. Other close friends, including Canada, Australia, Germany and France, have pledged forces as the operation unfolds. …
More than two weeks ago, I gave Taliban leaders a series of clear and specific demands: … None of these demands were met. And now the Taliban will pay a price. …
…At the same time, the oppressed people of Afghanistan will know the generosity of America and our allies. As we strike military targets, we’ll also drop food, medicine and supplies to the starving and suffering men and women and children of Afghanistan. The United States of America is a friend to the Afghan people …
We’re a peaceful nation. Yet, as we have learned, so suddenly and so tragically, there can be no peace in a world of sudden terror. In the face of today’s new threat, the only way to pursue peace is to pursue those who threaten it…A Commander-in-Chief sends America’s sons and daughters into a battle in a foreign land only after the greatest care and a lot of prayer. …
I recently received a touching letter that says a lot about the state of America … a letter from a 4th-grade girl, with a father in the military: “As much as I don’t want my Dad to fight,” she wrote, “I’m willing to give him to you.” …This young girl knows what America is all about. …
We did not ask for this mission, but we will fulfill it. The name of today’s military operation is Enduring Freedom. We defend not only our precious freedoms, but also the freedom of people everywhere to live and raise their children free from fear.
We will not waver; we will not tire; we will not falter; and we will not fail. Peace and freedom will prevail….May God continue to bless America.

What followed – one sample:
On July 6, 2008, a large number of Afghan civilians were walking in an area called Kamala in Haska Meyna district …. When the group stopped for a rest, it was hit in succession by three bombs from US military aircraft. The first bomb hit a group of children who were ahead of the main procession, killing them instantly. A few minutes later, the aircraft returned and dropped a second bomb in the center of the group, killing a large number of women. The bride and two girls survived the second bomb, but were killed by a third bomb while trying to escape from the area. Hajj Khan, one of four elderly men who were escorting the party, stated that his grandson was killed and that there were body parts everywhere. Relatives from the groom’s village stated it was not possible to identify the remains…
…a nine-man commission of the senate found that 47 civilians including the bride had been killed…. a member of the commission told the BBC that there were 39 women and children among those killed, and that eight of those who died were between the ages of 14 and 18. Another nine people were wounded in the attack.
U.S. forces stated they had been targeting an insurgent force, labeled a “target of opportunity,” that was evidently targeting a nearby base with mortars. … The US Government denied that civilians were killed in the incident.
.
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH in October 2002:
Tonight I want to take a few minutes to discuss a grave threat to peace and America’s determination to lead the world in confronting that threat. The threat comes from Iraq. It arises directly from the Iraqi regime’s own actions, its history of aggression and its drive toward an arsenal of terror.
The Iraqi regime has violated all of those obligations. It possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons. It has given shelter and support to terrorism and practices terror against its own people. …
Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction are controlled by a murderous tyrant who has …tried to dominate the Middle East, has invaded and brutally occupied a small neighbor, has struck other nations without warning and holds an unrelenting hostility toward the United States. …
…We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, Sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas.
… knowing these realities, America must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof, the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud… Saddam Hussein must disarm himself or, for the sake of peace, we will lead a coalition to disarm him.
…As Americans, we want peace. We work and sacrifice for peace. But there can be no peace if our security depends on the will and whims of a ruthless and aggressive dictator. I’m not willing to stake one American life on trusting Saddam Hussein.
… This nation, in world war and in cold war, has never permitted the brutal and lawless to set history’s course. Now, as before, we will secure our nation, protect our freedom and help others to find freedom of their own…
The dictator of Iraq is a student of Stalin, using murder as a tool of terror and control, within his own cabinet, within his own army and even within his own family….If military action is necessary, the United States and our allies will help the Iraqi people rebuild their economy and create the institutions of liberty in a unified Iraq, at peace with its neighbors…
May God bless America….

What followed:
Credible estimates of Iraq War casualties range from 150,000 to 460,000. Other highly disputed estimates, such as the 2006 Lancet study, and the 2007 Opinion Research Business survey, put the numbers as high as 650,000 and 1.2 million respectively, with 1-3 million displaced from their homes and 2 million fleeing the country.
One sample:
The plight of of 12-year-old Ali Ismail Abbas, who lost 15 relatives and both his arms when a US missile hit his home in the suburbs of Baghdad three weeks ago, has become the human-interest story of the war. “The despairing face of Ali has become a symbol around the world of the casualties of the Iraq war,” wrote Bronwen Maddox in the Times. Reporters and photographers did not spare readers and viewers the horrific extent of Ali’s injuries. “The child’s legs were smooth, but his entire torso was black, and his arms were horribly burnt,” said Jon Lee Anderson, a correspondent for the New Yorker. “At about the biceps, the flesh of both arms became charred, black grotesqueries. One of his hands was a twisted, melted claw. His other arm had apparently been burned off at the elbow, and two long bones were sticking out of it. It looked like something that might be found in a barbecue pit.”
…“I wanted to be an army officer when I grow up but not any more,” he told journalists. “Now I want to be a doctor – but how can I?”
According to Joan Walsh of the online magazine Salon, her colleagues, after weeks of ignoring the civilian cost of the war, were now circling the wounded like vultures. “CNN hit rock bottom on Wednesday morning, when anchor Kyra Phillips interviewed Ali’s doctor in Kuwait,” said Walsh. “Dr Imad al- Najada explained that, although Ali told reporters he was grateful for his treatment, he also hopes no other ‘children in the war will suffer like what he suffered’. Phillips seemed shocked by Ali’s apparent inability to understand we were only trying to help him. ‘Doctor, does he understand why this war took place? Has he talked about Operation Iraqi Freedom and the meaning. Does he understand it?’”
.
POISON
Dramatic increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukemia in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, which was bombarded by US Marines in 2004, exceed those reported by survivors of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, according to a new study.
Iraqi doctors in Fallujah have complained since 2005 of being overwhelmed by the number of babies with serious birth defects, ranging from a girl born with two heads to paralysis of the lower limbs. They said they were also seeing … a four-fold increase in all cancers and a 12-fold increase in childhood cancer in under-14s. … Infant mortality was found to be 80 per 1,000 births compared to 19 in Egypt, 17 in Jordan and 9.7 in Kuwait. The report says that the types of cancer are “similar to that in the Hiroshima survivors who were exposed to ionising radiation from the bomb and uranium in the fallout”.
Researchers found a 38-fold increase in leukaemia, a ten-fold increase in female breast cancer and significant increases in lymphoma and brain tumours in adults. Of particular significance was the finding that the sex ratio between newborn boys and girls had changed… 2005 there was an 18 per cent drop in male births, so the ratio was 850 males to 1,000 females. … A similar change in the sex-ratio was discovered after Hiroshima.
Dr Chris Busby, a visiting professor from the University of Ulster… added that “to produce an effect like this, some very major mutagenic exposure must have occurred in 2004 when the attacks happened”….
…After an eight-month stand-off, the Marines stormed the city in November using artillery and aerial bombing against rebel positions. US forces later admitted that they had employed white phosphorus as well as other munitions… British officers were appalled by the lack of concern for civilian casualties. … Dr Busby says that while he cannot identify the type of armaments used by the Marines, the extent of genetic damage suffered by inhabitants suggests the use of uranium in some form. He said: “My guess is that they used a new weapon against buildings to break through walls and kill those inside.”
.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA in March 2011:
Tonight, I’d like to update the American people on the international effort that we have led in Libya— …I want to begin by paying tribute to our men and women in uniform who, once again, have acted with courage, professionalism and patriotism. …
For generations, the United States of America has played a unique role as an anchor of global security and as an advocate for human freedom. Mindful of the risks and costs of military action, we are naturally reluctant to use force to solve the world’s many challenges. But when our interests and values are at stake, we have a responsibility to act. That’s what happened in Libya over the course of these last six weeks.
… For more than four decades, the Libyan people have been ruled by a tyrant—Muammar Qaddafi. … Confronted by this brutal repression and a looming humanitarian crisis, I ordered warships into the Mediterranean. ..
Ten days ago …. We knew that if we waited one more day, Benghazi … could suffer a massacre that would have reverberated across the region and stained the conscience of the world.
It was not in our national interest to let that happen. I refused to let that happen. And so nine days ago, after consulting the bipartisan leadership of Congress, I authorized military action to stop the killing ……we have been joined by a strong and growing coalition. This includes our closest allies—… And it includes Arab partners like Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, who have chosen to meet their responsibilities to defend the Libyan people…
… when people were being brutalized in Bosnia in the 1990s, it took the international community more than a year to intervene with air power to protect civilians. It took us 31 days. …So for those who doubted our capacity to carry out this operation, I want to be clear: The United States of America has done what we said we would do…
Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. The United States of America is different. And as President, I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action…
But let us also remember that for generations, we have done the hard work of protecting our own people, as well as millions around the globe. We have done so because we know that our own future is safer, our own future is brighter, if more of mankind can live with the bright light of freedom and dignity.
Thank you. God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America.

What followed:
Fox News published an article titled „U.S. Drone Involved in Final Qaddafi Strike, as Obama Heralds Regime’s ‚End'“, noting that a U.S. Predator drone was involved in the airstrike on Gaddafi’s convoy in the moments before his death.… a graphic video of his last moments show rebel fighters beating him and one of them sodomizing him with a bayonet before he was shot several times as he shouted for his life.
„We came, we saw, he died,“ Hillary Clinton joked when told of news reports of Qaddafi’s death by an aide in between formal interviews. „I’m sure it did“ have something to do with her very own visit to Libya just days earlier, she continued.
.
In March 2013, Sadiq Ghariani, the Grand Mufti, issued a fatwa against the UN Report on Violence Against Women and Girls. He condemned the UN report for „advocating immorality and indecency in addition to rebelliousness against religion and clear objections to the laws contained in the Quran and Sunnah”.
Later in 2013, lawyer Hamida Al-Hadi Al-Asfar, advocate of women’s rights, was abducted, tortured and killed. It is alleged she was targeted for criticizing the Grand Mufti’s declaration. No arrests were made…
During Nouri Abusahmain’s presidency of the General National Congress and subsequent to its decision to enforce sharia law in December 2013, gender segregation and compulsory hijab were being imposed in Libyan universities from early 2014, provoking strong criticism from Women’s Rights groups.
.
As of February 2015, damage and disorder from the war has been considerable. There are frequent electric outages, little business activity, and a loss in revenues from oil by 90%. Over 4,000 people have died from the fighting, and some sources claim nearly a third of the country’s population has fled to Tunisia as refugees.
.
The United States has been active in post-2011 Libya with the military carrying out sporadic airstrikes and raids in the country, predominantly against Islamist groups. In 2014, U.S. commandos seized an oil tanker bound for anti-government militias and returned it to the Libyan national government. Two months later, the U.S. embassy in Tripoli was evacuated due to a heavy militia presence in the capital. In 2015, U.S. warplanes killed the head of the Islamic State in Libya in a strike. In 2016, U.S. President Barack Obama stated that not preparing for a post-Gaddafi Libya was the „worst mistake“ of his presidency. On 19 January 2017, the day before President Obama left office, the United States bombed two IS camps in Libya, reportedly killing 80 militants. These types of operations have continued under the Trump administration with a September 2017 airstrike killing an estimated 17 IS militants.
.
In a TV interview in 3007 General Wesley Clark, Supreme Allied Commander Europe of NATO from 1997 to 2000, revealed the following:
“About ten days after 9/11 I went through the Pentagon and one of the generals called me in. He said… ‘We’ve made the decision, we’re going to war with Iraq.’ This was on or about the 20th of September. I said, ‘We’re going to war with Iraq? Why?’ He said, ‘I guess it’s like we don’t know what to do about terrorists, but we’ve got a good military and we can take down governments… I guess if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem has to look like a nail.’
“So I came back to see him a few weeks later, and by that time we were bombing in Afghanistan. I said, ‘Are we still going to war with Iraq?’ And he said, ‘Oh, it’s worse than that.’ He reached over on his desk. He picked up a piece of paper. And he said, ‘I just got this down from upstairs today’ — meaning Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s office — ‘And he said, ‘This is a memo that describes how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran…’” (from Goodman, Amy, Democracy Now!, March 2 2007)
.
What has gone before: AGAIN DEPLETED URANIUM:

Officials have confirmed that the U.S. military, despite vowing not to use depleted uranium weapons on the battlefield in Iraq and Syria, fired thousands of rounds of the munitions during two high-profile raids on oil trucks in Islamic State-controlled Syria in late 2015. The air assaults mark the first confirmed use of this armament since the 2003 Iraq invasion, when it was used hundreds of thousands of times, setting off outrage among local communities, which alleged that its toxic material caused cancer and birth defects…
The use of the ammunition, a 30mm depleted-uranium bullet called PGU-14, was first reported by a joint Air Wars-Foreign Policy investigation on Tuesday. The roughly 5,265 rounds of the munition were fired from multiple A-10 ground attack aircraft on Nov 16, 2015, and Nov. 22, 2015, in airstrikes in Syria’s eastern desert that targeted the Islamic State’s oil supply during Operation Tidal Wave II, said Maj. Josh Jacques, a U.S. Central Command spokesman.
Before the November strikes, the Pentagon said it would not use depleted-uranium munitions in the campaign against the Islamic State.
Whether exposure to depleted uranium causes adverse health effects has been debated. When it was used during the 1999 NATO bombing campaign in Kosovo, the United Nations advised that children stay away from the impact zones. The Iraqi government has also routinely stressed the danger the munitions pose to its people, soil and air.
Jacques did not rule out the possibility that the U.S.-led coalition might use depleted-uranium rounds again … (from Investigation + Foreign Policy, The United States Used Depleted Uranium in Syria, By Samuel Oakford | February 14, 2017,
.
AGAIN WHITE PHOSPHORUS
The U.S.-led coalition in Iraq and Syria appears to have used white phosphorus-loaded munitions on at least two occasions in densely populated areas of Mosul and in the Islamic State’s de facto capital of Raqqa, according to videos posted online and human rights groups.
The often-controversial munitions are common in western militaries and are used primarily to create smoke screens, though they can also be dropped as an incendiary weapon. When a white phosphorus shell explodes, the chemical inside reacts with the air, creating a thick white cloud. When it comes in contact with flesh, it can maim and kill by burning to the bone.
While international humanitarian law stipulates that civilians must be protected from all military operations, it also says that countries must take even more care when using white phosphorus. Additionally, because of the weapon’s ability to cause grievous and inhumane injuries, rights groups caution against using white phosphorus to kill enemy troops if other weapons are available.
On Thursday, footage posted by the activist group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently showed the signature spread of airburst white phosphorus munitions … exploding over eastern Raqqa, the same area where U.S.-backed Syrian fighters made advances earlier this week.
.
PRESIDENT TRUMP in April 2018:
My fellow Americans. A short time ago, I ordered the United States armed forces to launch precision strikes on targets associated with the chemical weapons capabilities of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. A combined operation with the armed forces of France and the United Kingdom is now underway. We thank them both.
Tonight, I want to speak with you about why we have taken this action. One year ago, Assad launched a savage chemical weapons attack against his own innocent people. The United States responded with 58 missile strikes that destroyed 20 percent of the Syrian air force.
Last Saturday, the Assad regime again deployed chemical weapons to slaughter innocent civilians, this time in the town of Douma near the Syrian capital of Damascus. This massacre was a significant escalation in a pattern of chemical weapons used by that very terrible regime.
The evil and the despicable attack left mothers and fathers, infants and children thrashing in pain and gasping for air. These are not the actions of a man. They are crimes of a monster instead.
The purpose of our actions tonight is to establish a strong deterrent against the production, spread and use of chemical weapons. Establishing this deterrent is a vital national security interest of the United States.
The combined American, British and French response to these atrocities will integrate all instruments of our national power: military, economic and diplomatic. We are prepared to sustain this response until the Syrian regime stops its use of prohibited chemical agents.
I also have a message tonight for the two governments most responsible for supporting, equipping and financing the criminal Assad regime.
To Iran and to Russia, I ask: What kind of a nation wants to be associated with the mass murder of innocent men, women and children? The nations of the world can be judged by the friends they keep.
No nation can succeed in the long run by promoting rogue states, brutal tyrants and murderous dictators…
The United States has also rebuilt our friendships across the Middle East. We have asked our partners to take greater responsibility for securing their home region, including contributing large amounts of money for the resources, equipment and all of the anti-ISIS effort.
Increased engagement from our friends, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Egypt and others, can ensure that Iran does not profit from the eradication of ISIS. America does not seek an indefinite presence in Syria, under no circumstances.
As other nations step up their contributions, we look forward to the day when we can bring our warriors home — and great warriors they are…
Tonight I ask all Americans to say a prayer for our noble warriors and our allies as they carry out their missions. We pray that God will bring comfort to those suffering in Syria.
We pray that God will guide the whole region toward a future of dignity and of peace. And we pray that God will continue to watch over and bless the United States of America.
.
What follows? That depends, in part, on us.