Obama Says ISIS Is A Direct Consequence Of Our 2003 Invasion

By RT, March 18, 2015

President Barack Obama traced the origins of Islamic State militants back to the presidency of George W. Bush and the invasion of Iraq back in 2003, arguing that its growth was an “unintended consequence” of the war.

In an interview with Vice News, President Obama said the rise of Islamic State (IS, also known as ISIS/ISIL) can be directly linked to America’s excursion into Iraq under Bush.

“Two things: One is, ISIL is a direct outgrowth of Al-Qaeda in Iraq that grew out of our invasion,” Obama said in an interview with VICE News. “Which is an example of unintended consequences. Which is why we should generally aim before we shoot.”

 Obama stated that he is “confident” a coalition consisting of 60 nations “will slowly push back ISIL out of Iraq,” but added that the challenge of stopping extremism won’t stop unless there is a political solution to the internal strife affecting so many countries in the Middle East.

“What I’m worried about” he said, “is even if ISIL is defeated, the underlying problem of disaffected Sunnis around the world – but particularly in some of these areas including Libya, including Yemen – where a young man who’s growing up has no education, has no prospects for the future, is looking around and the one way he can get validation, power, respect, is if he’s a fighter.”

 “That’s a problem we’re going to have, generally. And we can’t keep on thinking about counterterrorism and security as entirely separate from diplomacy, development, education.”

Continues >>

Ilan Pappe: The messages from Israel’s election

Ilan Pappe,The Electronic Intifada, 20 March 2015

Jewish Israeli voters have steadily turned away from liberal Zionism, preferring the “real thing.” (Matan Portnoy/Flickr)

Those of us who know the nature of the beast could not have been surprised by the results of the Israeli election.

Like many of my friends, I was also relieved that a liberal Zionist government was not elected. It would have allowed the charade of the “peace process” and the illusion of the two-state solution to linger on while the suffering of the Palestinians continues.

As always, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself provided the inevitable conclusion when he declared the end of the two-state solution — inviting us all to the long overdue funeral of an ill-conceived idea that provided Israel with international immunity for its colonialist project in Palestine.

The power of the charade was on show when the world and local pundits unrealistically predicted a victory for liberal Zionism, an Israeli ideological trend that is near extinction — embodied by the Zionist Union list headed by Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni.

Continues  >>

Iran, Israel and the Question of Nuclear Threat

Nasir Khan, March 8, 2015 

On March 3, 2015, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel delivered his speech before a joint session of the US Congress. His reception was of a kind, which has amused very many of us around the world. Still, we may ask: For what was Netanyahu accorded such a heroic reception and standing ovations? Only the AIPAC, the Zionist lobbyists or US Congress may have the answer. Somehow, it seemed the US Congress had finally found the right man, almost a messianic figure, a saviour, who was among them to their great delight! All they had to do to show their esteem and devotion. This they did and in abundance.

During his speech, the members rose on their feet repeatedly as if they heard something novel. What he offered was only a theatrical performance that could easily have moved a Sunday school congregation but was hardly worth a fig for experienced legislators and politicians. Indeed, his deceptive rhetoric in his fluent American English was well suited for the audience. However, a few things did not tally with facts. First, he is not a messianic figure or a hero. Netanyahu is a vile politician, a ruthless Zionist leader who has committed the horrendous crime of genocide in Gaza only a few months earlier. ‘The fact that his obnoxious performance was received so warmly in Congress … is not surprising, but it is nonetheless discouraging for anyone interested in peace and foreign policy restraint,’ wrote Daniel Larison in The American Conservative.

In his speech, Netanyahu did what he could to sabotage the nuclear deal with Iran that the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and Germany are hoping to finalise soon. Just to pre-empt the deal he unleashed his foray of misleading claims that was to scare Congress and the American people. A nuclear deal with Iran was therefore a potential danger to the world and Netanyahu was only trying to save the world. Such scaremongering no doubt has many followers in Congress who will do anything to implement the Zionist agenda and block any US-Iran rapprochement.

Netanyahu said: ‘In the Middle East, Iran now dominates four Arab capitals: Baghdad, Damascus, Beirut and Sana. And if Iran’s aggression is left unchecked, more will surely follow. So at a time when many hope that Iran will join the community of nations, Iran is busy gobbling up the nations.’

Oh, really? Let us pause for a minute and see what the facts are. Iran has been a victim of imperial aggression for long. It is common knowledge that in 1953 the British and American governments overthrew the democratically elected government of Prime Minister Dr Mohammad Mossadegh and installed the Shah who proved to a loyal servant of his patrons. He furthered the U.S. interests in the region and was a close ally of Israel. In 1979, the Shah was overthrown and the Islamic regime took over power. The United States opposed the new rulers, not because they had introduced a religious system but because they opposed the role of US imperialism in the Iran during the oppressive rule of the Shah.

With the tacit approval of Washington, in 1980 the Iraqi president Saddam Hussein foolishly attacked and started the Iran-Iraq War that lasted until 1988. This long war proved disastrous for both Iraq and Iran. We should keep in mind it was not Iran that started this war. Iran has not invaded any country for over 200 years. No doubt, Tehran has regional interests but it has no ambitions to invade or conquer any neighbouring land or territory. If Netanyahu asserts to the contrary then he is doing it gain support for war from Congress, neo-conservatives and war hawks in America. He continues to threaten if US will not stop Iran, then he will do it. He has done his utmost to push America to war with Iran because it would serve Israel’s strategic interests in the Middle East.

In fact, Iran has no quarrel with Israel if the Zionists end the illegal occupation of Palestine and let the Palestinian people decide their destiny, live in freedom and dignity. Iran’s support for the Assad regime in Syria in the ongoing civil war has not been motivated to conquer Syria. The situation in Lebanon has been precarious due to the Israeli wars of aggression and military incursions. The Hezbollah with the support of Iran has confronted the Israeli aggressors but it is not the sole political force in Lebanon. The right-wing Christian militias have had Israel as a patron for many decades. Iran has no control over the Houthi coup in Yemen. The ‘gobbling up of nations’ by Iran is an absurd assertion by a warmonger.

If we guess what Netanyahu is good at then the first thing that strikes about him is his capacity to lie, deceive and manipulate others. At present, he has directed his energies to thwarting a nuclear deal with Iran and creating confusion between the powers involved in the negotiations. Because of his enormous political influence in Congress, and support of the AIPAC and the rest of the Israel lobby he can thwart the attempts of negotiators to find a solution. There lies the danger. In such a case, he will be free to push Washington for more punitive sanctions against Iran. In any case, his goal remains to involve the United States in a war on Iran as he previously did in the case of Iraq. Once Iran is demolished as a political force in the region, as happened with Iraq after the US invasion of Iraq, then Israel would be the sole undisputed regional superpower in the Middle East. That will enable the Zionists to pursue their objectives of further expansion and political control over the rest of the Middle East.

The Israeli leaders know that a peaceful outcome of the nuclear talks can have positive effects on US-Iran relations. They see it as a danger to their position and power within and over the United States. If United States can loosen the grip of Zionists and choose normal diplomatic and trade relations with Iran then that would mean the lessening of tensions in the region. Such a change in policy towards Iran will create an atmosphere of mutual trust and co-operation between the two countries. Other countries closely allied with America (except Israel) will also be happy to normalise relations with Iran. However, in the way of any such change stands Israel. It will not let United States follow such a course. As long as there is an unconditional support for Israel in Congress and American ruling elite, any change in US policy towards Iran will not be easy.

The Zionist leader used all deceptive ploys to make false charges of an Iranian threat to Israel and the rest of the world. He referred to the Holocaust and ‘Munich’, because the ‘genocidal’ Iranian regime wanted to kill all the Jews. To accentuate the effect of his tirade on Iranian threat, he referred to a story in the Book of Esther about a ‘powerful Persian viceroy … who plotted to destroy the Jewish people 2,000 years ago’ and ‘another attempt by another Persian potentate to destroy us’. Here this dishonest leader is distorting the facts again. In fact, in the olden times, Jews were well integrated in the Persian empires and Persians protected them. For instance, the great conqueror Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Achaemenid Empire, captured Babylon in 538 BC. He freed the Jews from their former captors and allowed them to return to their native land. They were free to practise their religion freely. He also started rebuilding the Second Temple at Jerusalem; however, he died before the temple was completed. During the reign of Darius the Great the temple was completed. Such are the facts of history, which the Zionist leader did not want to present to Congress.

Only ignorant people will take the bait of a threat from Iran for real because there is no such threat. The Zionist leaders of Israel have been busy in scare mongering and nurturing such a non-existent threat for their geo-political objectives. For serious political observers and thoughtful politicians the whole game is only a baseless Zionist fabrication. Obviously, because of the Zionist power in the United States, there is much hostility towards Iran. That meets the domestic and regional interests of people like Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders; they are quite happy with this untenable situation. The speech by Netanyahu should be an eye-opener for the naïve gung hu Americans. But perhaps this writer is being over-optimist!

Only Israel has the stockpiles of nuclear warheads in the Middle East. We all know that. But Israeli leaders never say a word that they possess these deadly weapons, which can destroy the whole region in minutes. Even if (a big if though) Iran develops a nuclear device as a deterrent at some time in the future, say in 20 years, will it ever think of using it against Israel that has stockpiles of these weapons? The answer is absolutely in the negative. One thing is certain: Israel will wipe out Iran in minutes. The people of Iran are not so short-sighted; nor are their leaders ignorant of the reality of Israeli and American nuclear arsenal. At the same time, Israel is the only nuclear country that is keeping its nuclear a secret, let’s call it an open secret, which has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, an international treaty, opened for signature on July 1, 1968 to limit the spread of nuclear weapons. It does not submit to IAEA inspections either.

This Zionist leader on whose deceptive words US Congress danced is the man who killed over two thousand Palestinians in Gaza last year and caused devastation on a scale that can be compared with the destruction of Warsaw and Stalingrad at the hands of Nazi Wehrmacht. This unscrupulous leader is blaming the Hamas without saying a word that it is Israel that is keeping Gaza under siege; Gaza is the largest prison in the world. At the same time, the colonisation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem goes on unabated. Israeli rulers are systematically crushing the voice of a captive people who want liberation from the Zionist yoke and oppression. All this happens because Israel gets US  financial and military assistance for whatever it does in the occupied Palestine. The reception of Netanyahu in Congress on March 3, 2015 was a grand spectacle of the Zionist power over the United States of America.

Book review by Jay Raskin: Development of the Concept and Theory of Alienation in Marx’s Writings

Canadian Philosophical Review, xv no. 6-xvi. 2 December. 1995-April 1996

Book review by Jay Raskin

Nasir Khan, Development of the Concept and Theory of Alienation in Marx’s Writings, Oslo: Solum Publishers, 1995

Pp. 294
 at Amazon.co.uk,  £41.93

[NOTE: This book can be downloaded here ]  

This is a good book for Marxist scholars to review some important basic concepts and a good book to include in a graduate course on the early writings of Marx. It increases the understanding of Marx in two important areas. First, it clarifies the logical development that took place in Marx’s thinking as he crossed the boundary from democrat to communist. Second, it gives a precise description of the relationship between Marx’s fundamental worldview and those of Hegel and Feuerbach.

 Not that others have not covered this territory before, it is just that Nasir Khan does it as well or better. Khan accomplishes this by vigorously focusing his research. He examines the period from March 1843 to August 1844, concentrating on three works by Marx: ‘Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right’, ‘On the Jewish Question’, and ‘Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844’. He further delimits his work by examining only the basic topic of alienation.

Khan demonstrates that at the time of writing the ‘Critique’, (in March through September of 1843, at the age of 25) Marx still thought that full political rights for all people and democracy would solve the problem of human alienation. In the ‘Critique’, Marx calls for the full democratization of the state (130). A month or two later, writing in ‘On the Jewish Question’ and his ‘Introduction to the Critique’, Marx rejects such a partial, purely political solution to the problem. Marx now calls for the abolition of the state (131).

This clarification alone makes the book important to Marxist scholars. The transition of Marx from democrat to communist is so swift that it is easy to miss or forget. It often appears that historical materialism just emerges full blown from the head of Marx. Khan carefully refutes this by tracing the progressive steps in Marx’s thinking from the ‘Critique’ to the ‘Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts’. He shows that Marx goes from criticism of religion to criticism of philosophy, from criticism of philosophy to criticism of the state; from criticism of the state to criticism of society; and finally from criticism of society to criticism of political economy and private property (145).

Khan’s second clarification involving the Hegel-Feuerbach-Marx relationship also merits study. George Plekhanov in his chief work Fundamental Problems of Marxism (1908), spent the first 20 pages complaining that the Marxists of his day were unfamiliar with the works of Hegel and Feuerbach, and thus had a distorted picture of what Marx was all about. This complaint still rings true today. Khan gives a clear, demystified model of the relationship.

This is not an easy thing to do. In works about Marx, one often reads how Marx turned Hegel on his head, or how he criticized Feuerbach for only conceiving of man abstractly and not as an historical and sensuous being. Yet the exact relationship among Marx’s concepts and those of Hegel and Feuerbach’s are more interesting.

Khan examines how Hegel had thought he had overcome alienation by showing that ultimately man was God (absolute spirit) in self-alienation (52). Feuerbach reversed this formula and turned Hegel upside down to show that the concept of God was really man in self-alienation. Marx deeply appreciated Feuerbach for this, but realized he had only challenged the top of the Hegelian system. Feuerbach had correctly criticized humanity’s alienation from in its holy form—religion, but not in its unholy forms—the state and private property. Marx attacked Feuerbach for not taking this next obviously necessary step. Marx himself took this step in his later writings. What Feuerbach had done to the crowning religious part of Hegel’s system, Marx did to the rest of it. Marx appreciated Hegel, on the other hand, for his introduction of the historical method into philosophy; i.e., for showing spirit as historically evolving through dialectical conflict. Marx simply replaced Hegel’s Alienated God-Spirit by actual historical man as the true subject of history and ran Hegel’s film backward to reveal that far from having overcome alienation through Hegel’s philosophy, actual man was more alienated than ever by his real socio-economic conditions. This set the stage for Marx’s later works when he delved ever deeper into the exact nature of those alienating conditions and came up with solutions for them.

In the shadowy background of Khan’s book stands Louis Althusser’s anti-humanist theory, as presented in ‘For Marx’ and ‘Reading Capital’. Althusser put forward the theory of an epistemological break in Marx’s works that turned them from reflecting a humanist ideology into a new science of society. Khan refers to this theory obliquely several times and firmly rejects it. Khan maintains ‘Marx’s ideas regarding humanist perspective and the question of alienation show continuity, but with important differences in the content and form of the concept and theory of alienation in the period under review’ (19). Khan’s work will give comfort to those who oppose Althusser’s theory, but because it concentrates so strongly on the early works, it really cannot be considered a strong refutation. Althusser would certainly grant Khan’s thesis that Marx’s early works are strongly influenced by humanism. It is the later works that Khan does not really examine that Althusser would contend go beyond humanism.

Khan writes in an easy, clear and thoughtful style. His writing is pleasantly non-polemical. Khan declares, ‘I have tried to present Marx’s views on alienation as dispassionately as possible and have not let my own likes and dislikes dictate the inquiry’ (18). It is to his credit that he presents conflicting views on many issues quite fairly.

One hears common talk of Marxism being dead as a result of the Marxist parties in Eastern Europe losing state power. Yet, Khan’s book proposes that the essence of Marxism is the overcoming of alienation, and holding state power is only a small part of that. He suggests that Marx thought of Communism in three stages. In the crude stage, equal distribution and consumption are emphasized without an understanding of the mechanism of production. In the second stage, the proletariat controls state power and thinks of society in terms of pure politics. The third stage is the positive appropriation of the human essence by and for man (246-52). If Khan is right, events in the early 1990s in Eastern Europe should have about as much effect on Marxist Philosophy as the Fall of the Roman Empire had on Christianity.

Jay Raskin
 University of South Florida