John Prescott defends China’s role at Copenhagen climate summit

• Former deputy PM attacks US envoy’s stance at talks• Negotiator at Kyoto rejects Obama’s view of 1997 deal

Patrick Wintour and Jonathan Watts
The Guardian, Monday 28 December 2009
John Prescott has defended China’s role in the climate change summit, saying the blame for its flawed outcome must lie with the United States and Barack Obama.
The former deputy prime minister helped negotiate the Kyoto protocol in 1997, and was in Copenhagen acting as an informal bridge between the Chinese delegation and others.
As a frequent visitor to China, who knows many of its officials personally, Prescott fears privately that the Chinese will walk away from the talks if they continue to be singled out for blame.
In a letter to the Guardian, Prescott criticises the US climate change special envoy, Todd Stern, who “said at Copenhagen emissions weren’t about ‘morality or politics’, they were ‘just maths’, with China projected to emit 60% more CO2 than the US by 2030″.
In his letter Prescott claims that Stern’s arguments “ignored the more transparent measure of pollution per capita, which shows the US emits 20 tonnes per person every year, compared to China’s six tonnes, whilst America’s GDP per person is almost eight times greater than the Chinese”. He also attacks President Barack Obama for suggesting there had been a period of “two decades of talking and no action. That might have been true in America, which refused to sign up to Kyoto, but not in the case of China or Europe, who followed a lot of that protocol’s policies. Indeed Obama’s offer of a 17% cut is wholly dependent on Congressional approval and will still be less than Kyoto targets.” Prescott is climate change convenor for the Council of Europe, with the role of exploring how to keep the talks on the road.
China itself defended its “crucial role” in saving the Copenhagen conference from failure, according to the state media’s first blow-by-blow rebuttal of European claims that China wrecked a climate deal.
In a florid account of prime minister Wen Jiabao’s 60 hours in Copenhagen, the Xinhua news agency said the premier staved off the “unrealistic and unfair demands” of Britain, Germany and Japan.
There is no direct criticism of the US, but Obama is described as “awkward” in the presence of the Chinese premier.
According to the lengthy defence of China’s actions, European nations repeatedly tried to impose secret drafts, unscheduled meetings and a hidden agenda on China and other developing nations.
The article, likely to have been approved at the highest level of government, notes that Wen walked out of a state dinner after hearing that an unscheduled meeting of leaders was being arranged soon afterwards to discuss a new draft text.
“It was really absurd that the country who called for the meeting never informed China,” the report says. “Premier Wen concluded that this was no small matter.
“Since the start of the conference, there had been cases where individual or small group of countries put forward new texts in disregard of the principle of openness and transparency, arousing strong complaints from other participants.”
Such accusations infuriate senior European negotiators, who claim China was fully informed ahead of Copenhagen of the plan for a new document, though it never agreed to the content.
Xinhua avoids mention of how and why China killed attempts to impose 2050 targets for reducing emissions. Beijing has consistently rejected such long-term goals, which it sees as a threat to itseconomic growth.It also fails to address claims that China torpedoed the inclusion of a 1.5C maximum global temperature rise, requested by small island states and African nations. Instead, it says, Wen showed sincerity by accepting a rise of no more than 2C by 2050.

China threatens to slam brakes on price of lead

Leo Lewis, Asia Business Correspondent

After a surge of more than 125 per cent, the price of lead ends the year in limbo — its future at the mercy of Chinese bureaucracy, the stroke of a pen and the legal status of 100 million electric bicycles.
The cycles in question, known as “e-bikes”, are battery-enhanced machines that are the darlings of the modern, urban Chinese. More than 20 million were sold this year, putting a vast army of commuters, unable to afford cars or motorcycles — and without licences — on the roads at a sedate maximum speed of 12 km/h (7½ mph).
If the rules stay as they are, analysts say, e-bike sales may rise to 25 million next year. If they change, as seems possible, the ramifications will stretch far beyond the streets of Shanghai, Beijing, Wuhan and Guangzhou.
Crucially, more than 90 per cent of e-bikes use a lead-acid battery — and, with each one needing about 12kg (26lb 7oz) of lead, China’s cyclists represent more than 6 per cent of global demand for the metal. If the Chinese are allowed to continue to own e-bikes without a licence, according to analysts at CLSA, the Asia-based brokerage, the price of lead may continue to rise. If rules are tightened severely, commodity traders in Hong Kong think that much of the speculative “froth” that has been driving up lead may vanish.

The Chinese have embraced the machines more vigorously than any other nation. Even without government “green” subsidies of the sort used to push e-bikes in Europe, 80 per cent of the world’s electric bicycles were sold to Chinese commuters. Ecological concerns have little to do with their decision. E-bikes outsell cars in China by a ratio of two-to-one for reasons of economy. A standard e-bike, costing 1,700 yuan (£155) and used as an alternative to a daily commute by bus, pays for itself in 100 days. Competition between China’s 1,000 licensed e-bike makers is likely to keep prices down.
The e-bikes are also easier to negotiate through China’s huge traffic jams. This month, the four millionth private car hit the roads of Beijing. In every big Chinese city, the roads are clogged to a standstill as the highway infrastructure bends under the strain.
Recent talks in Beijing over the status of the larger e-bikes have loomed over the industry just as its golden era seemed to be approaching. Citing accidents and the use of silent e-bikes as an ideal stealth vehicle for bag-snatchers, the Government said that it might re-classify some as motorcycles. That, manufacturers argued, would make them too expensive for many consumers and make millions of existing users criminals because they do not hold driving licences.
Ten days ago Beijing’s State Standardisation Authority seemed to back down, postponing the new classification, which would have gone into force this Friday, but industry insiders think that the delay could prove to be short-lived. Local reports suggest that many e-bike makers, wary of the industry’s future, are planning to shed workers.

Democrats pose threat to President Obama’s cap-and-trade climate Bill

Giles Whittell in Washington

Less than ten days after claiming a breakthrough on climate change in Copenhagen President Obama is facing a mutiny from senior Democrats who are imploring him to postpone or even abandon his cap-and-trade Bill.
Democratic Senators, fearful of a drubbing in the mid-term elections next year, are lining up to argue for alternatives to the scheme that is the centrepiece of the carbon reduction proposals that Mr Obama hopes to sign into law. With the Congressional battles over Mr Obama’s healthcare reforms fresh in their memory senior Democrats are asking the Administration to postpone the next big climate change push until at least 2011.
Senators from Louisiana, Indiana, Nebraska and North Dakota, some with powerful energy companies among their constituents, are falling out of love with the idea of a large-scale cap-and-trade scheme — which seeks to allocate tradeable permits to major polluters — in favour of less ambitious proposals that put jobs and the economy first.
Each of their Senate votes is vital for any climate change Bill to have a chance of being passed, and a firm American commitment to cap and trade is essential for similar carbon reduction mechanisms to be effective on a global scale.

Asked if she has urged the White House to abandon cap and trade — at least until after the mid-terms — Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana told the Politico website yesterday: “I am communicating that in every way I know how.”
At least five other high-ranking Democrats have lobbied the Administration in similar terms. Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota said that winning passage of climate change legislation in an election year had “very poor prospects”, and Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska said that he would “just as soon see [climate change] set aside until we work through the economy”.
Even more significant — as indicators of the majority party’s resolve to pass climate change legislation in the face of almost unanimous Republican opposition — were remarks from Dick Durbin, the Senate Majority Whip, and John Kerry, the Massachusetts Senator who is in the process of drafting a climate change Bill favoured by the White House.
“At this point, I’d like to see a complete Bill but we have to be realistic,” Senator Durbin said. Senator Kerry, speaking at the Copenhagen climate conference this month, said: “I can’t tell you the method or the means by which we might price carbon. We haven’t resolved that issue yet.”
Proponents of cap and trade argue that allowing polluters to trade carbon permits gives them a powerful incentive to emit less than the maximum imposed by the cap — and ensures that these emission reductions are achieved by the most cost-effective means available, whether by investing in new, clean technology at home, or in offsetting schemes in developing economies where greater reductions can be achieved per dollar spent.
Critics of the system point to teething problems in the European pilot scheme, begun under the auspices of the Kyoto Protocol, when the price of carbon collapsed because of excessive free allocations of carbon permits to big, politically connected polluters such as the power generation industry.
Mr Obama has been a personal convert to cap and trade since witnessing the success of a scheme limited to the control of sulphur dioxide emissions in the 1990s. The creation of a market in tradeable sulphur dioxide permits cut emissions of the gas so swiftly that the acid rain it produces has disappeared from the Midwest as a serious environmental issue.
Congress will return from its winter break with healthcare reform unfinished, Democrats wary of any new proposals that can be presented as a further burden on the economy and Republicans eager to depict cap and trade as just such a burden.
The official position of the White House remains that “a cap-and-trade mechanism is the best way to achieve the most cost-effective reductions” — but it is not yet embedded firmly in the Senate Bill being drafted by Senators Kerry, Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman.
That Bill is one of nine competing proposals before the Senate and while most Democrats can be relied on to support it, a half-dozen defectors would leave the party short of the 60-vote majority that they need to overcome a Republican filibuster.
Senator Graham, a Republican, has said that he believes others from his party can be won over. If so, they have gone to ground.
Senator John McCain, once a vocal supporter of cap and trade, now wants huge federal backing for the nuclear industry in return for his vote. Senator Mike Johanns of Nebraska has called the scheme “a death sentence” for farming.
Mr Obama put his political prestige on the line in Copenhagen to reach agreement on a pact to curb carbon emissions while trying to shore up his domestic flank amid rising scepticism about a new climate Bill in the US.
He declined to offer new sweeteners to get a deal, rebuked China’s reluctance to allow outside scrutiny of action on greenhouse-gas emissions and warned developing states that they could forget aid that had no strings attached.
Lobbyists count the cost of power
Senator Mary Landrieu (Dem — Louisiana)
Louisiana is a large oil and gas state and Ms Landrieu has fought hard for energy interests during her 12 years in the Senate. She was listed as one of a “Dirty Dozen” legislators by the League of Conservation Voters and was described in a local newspaper as “the most fervent pro-drilling Democrat in the Senate”.
About 14 per cent of crude oil that is imported by the US comes through the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, a deepwater facility off the state’s coast
Senator Kent Conrad (Dem — N Dakota)
North Dakota is a leading coal state, with coal-fired power stations providing about 93 per cent of its energy production. Large oil reserves were discovered in the state in the 1950s. Much of the state’s economy is also based on agricultural production — a sector that would be hit particularly hard by an increase in the price of fossil fuels. Mr Conrad has poor environmental credentials. He voted against the American Clean Energy and Security Act and called for an increase in oil and gas drilling
Senator Ben Nelson (Dem — Nebraska)
Nebraska has more than 47,000 farms, and is an important agriculture state. Mr Nelson sits on the Senate Agriculture Committee and has in the past vigorously defended the interests of farmers, arguing that climate change legislation would drive up the cost of electricity and damage the agriculture sector.
He said: “Every farm-state senator is aware of what the cap-and-trade proposals could do to their agriculture base.”
Sources: Grist; US Department of Agriculture

A Fast, Cheap Way to Cool the Planet

Forget about carbon. If we want to buffer global warming, cutting methane is the key.
By ROBERT WATSON AND MOHAMED EL-ASHRY
This month’s Copenhagen talks focused on the leading climate change culprit: carbon dioxide. But reversing global temperature increases by reducing carbon emissions will take many decades, if not centuries. Even if the largest cuts in CO2 contemplated in Copenhagen are implemented, it simply will not reverse the melting of ice already occurring in the most sensitive areas, including the rapid disappearance of glaciers in Tibet, the Arctic and Latin America.
So what can we do to effectively buffer global warming? The most obvious strategy is to make an all-out effort to reduce emissions of methane.
Sometimes called the “other greenhouse gas,” methane is responsible for 75% as much warming as carbon dioxide measured over any given 20 years. Unlike carbon dioxide, which remains in the atmosphere for hundreds of years, methane lasts only a decade but packs a powerful punch while it’s there.
Methane’s short life makes it especially interesting in the short run, given the pace of climate change. If we need to suppress temperature quickly in order to preserve glaciers, reducing methane can make an immediate impact. Compared to the massive requirements necessary to reduce CO2, cutting methane requires only modest investment. Where we stop methane emissions, cooling follows within a decade, not centuries. That could make the difference for many fragile systems on the brink.
Yet global discussions about climate and policies to date have not focused on methane. Methane is formally in the “basket” of six gases targeted by the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. But its value is counted as if it has the same lifetime as carbon dioxide.
This ignores its much larger, near-term potential. As a result, methane represents only about 15% of the projects under the Kyoto Protocol’s emissions offset program. And it is not a major focus of climate protection programs in any nation.
This is huge missed opportunity, and not just for the climate. Methane also forms ozone, the smog that severely damages food crops and kills tens of thousands each year by worsening asthma, emphysema and other respiratory diseases
Captured methane gas can be used as a clean energy source, contributing to energy security and diversification as well as reducing damaging black carbon (soot) and CO2 emissions. Solving the methane problem will lead to a higher quality of life by cleaning up city and agricultural wastes and odors, and curbing air pollution from dirty stoves and local industries. It will also create local jobs in construction and operation of methane-abating equipment.
Methane comes from a variety of sources: landfills, sewage streams, coal mines, oil and gas drilling operations, agricultural wastes, and cattle farms. For most of these sources, relatively cheap “end of pipe” technologies are available to collect methane and convert it to useful energy rather than venting it to the atmosphere.
These technologies include drilling into coal seams before mining to release and collect methane (this also reduces the risk of mine explosions, which kill hundreds of miners per year); depositing manure into “biogas” digesting tanks where pipes collect methane produced from decomposition; and covering and lining open landfills, shunting methane into a collection pipe.
In most cases, the collected methane can be used to run a village- or city-scale power plant. The Institute for Applied Systems Analysis and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimate that as much as 40% of the world’s projected methane could be reduced at less than $60 dollars per ton of carbon equivalent. Some methane projects even have “negative” cost, as the value of the captured gas exceeds the investment.
Experience has shown that even with modest incentives, methane projects, which are typically small scale, can move fast. Timberline Energy, a U.S. company, reports an expected construction time of six to eight months for landfill gas projects once financing is secured. And the United Nations Clean Development Mechanism estimates that setting up biogas projects can take as little as five months. Hundreds of shovel-ready projects around the world are ready to go, but are stalled because of uncertainty over future carbon rules.
This is why on Dec. 11, along with a distinguished group of colleagues from the scientific and financial communities, we proposed the creation of a Global Methane Fund to address the specific measures needed to get methane projects off the ground now. This includes a guaranteed price floor for methane projects to allay uncertainty over future carbon prices.
Funded by governments and private foundations, a Global Methane Fund with only $100 million to $200 million could leverage tens of billions of dollars for other projects, which will have a quick and measurable cooling effect in the Arctic and elsewhere. Scientific studies, such as the EPA’s June 2006 report, “Global Mitigation of Non-CO2 Greenhouse Gases,” conservatively indicate that we could eliminate 1.3 gigatons of annual CO2 equivalent emissions—that’s half the U.S. power industry’s emissions—just by targeting landfills, coal mines, and oil and gas leaks.
Such a fund would benefit melting glaciers in the Arctic, and in the Andean and Himalayan mountains. And it would demonstrate to the world that we can do something to quickly slow climate change.
We need to get moving to cool the planet’s temperature. Methane is the most effective place for us to start.
Mr. Watson is former chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Mr. Mohamed El-Ashry is a senior fellow at the United Nations Foundation, and former CEO of Global Environment Facility, an independent partnership that funds environmental projects in the developing world.

Millions More to Lose Homes in the United States During 2010

Millions more to lose homes

Gov’t continues to bail out bankers, not homeowners

Published Dec 23, 2009 4:32 PM

Moratorium on foreclosures needed now more than ever

By Jerry Goldberg

Testimony at a hearing on Dec. 8 by the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services documented how the foreclosure crisis is getting worse.

Laurie Goodman, senior managing director at Amherst Securities, a leading broker/dealer specializing in trading mortgage-backed securities, testified that in the third quarter of 2009, 14.1 percent of borrowers — or 7.9 million homeowners — did not make their mortgage payments. She estimated that 7 million of these 7.9 million homeowners will lose their homes. (www.house.gov)

Julie Gordon from the Center for Responsible Lending testified that the effects of high unemployment and defaults in exotic Alt-A and option mortgages will add millions of homeowners to this total. She estimated that by the time this crisis abates as many as 13 million families will have lost their homes. In addition, tens of millions of other homes are suffering a decrease in property values totaling hundreds of billions of dollars in lost wealth, costing states and localities enormous losses in tax revenues used to pay for government services.

Gordon testified how the Obama administration’s Home Affordable Modification Program has fallen far short of its promise to help 3 million to 4 million homeowners with loan modifications. After nine months of operation, only approximately 650,000 homeowners are now in a trial modification. However, only a fraction of those in trial modifications have received a permanent loan modification. In addition, HAMP has no provisions for principal reductions and offers no help whatsoever for the unemployed who cannot pay their loans due to the loss of their job.

Government bank bailout continues

How is it that bank profits are rising while foreclosures grow exponentially? The reason is that the government is increasingly guaranteeing bank losses due to foreclosures by reimbursing the lenders at full value for overvalued mortgages when there are defaults. This “silent bailout” continues every day even as the banks make a show of returning their Troubled Asset Relief Program funds so they can go back to paying $30-million executive bonuses.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which own or guarantee about half of the country’s mortgages, were taken over by the government in July 2008. The Treasury Department committed $400 billion in taxpayer money to fund the takeover initially. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are burning so much cash bailing out the lenders — $15 billion by Fannie Mae in November alone — that the Treasury is considering an infusion of another $400 billion in taxpayer funds into these entities. (New York Times, Dec. 17) Coupled with funds from the AIG and GMAC bailouts, which are being utilized to pay off lenders on foreclosed properties, it is estimated the total government lifeline to the banks to cover their losses from foreclosures could rise to $l trillion.

The effect of this continued bailout to the banks is that it actually discourages lenders from reducing the principal on mortgages whose values they inflated through their predatory lending practices. This is because they know the government will pay them full value when the borrowers default.

Goodman testified to Congress that in the second quarter of 2009, 30.5 percent of mortgage loans in bank portfolios received a principal reduction as part of a modification. However, the corresponding number for loans guaranteed by the government through Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Federal Housing Administration, etc., was zero.

Incredibly, while the current situation cries out for a moratorium on foreclosures and fundamental reductions in loan principals, the Obama administration and Congress have been silent in implementing these measures and have not enforced already-passed legislation which could do so.

For example, the Helping Families Stay in the Their Homes Act, passed on May 20, states that it is the sense of Congress that there should be a moratorium on foreclosures until the Treasury Department certifies that HAMP has been implemented. Clearly, the statistics cited above and testified to at the congressional hearing demonstrate that HAMP has not been fully implemented. Yet Congress and President Barack Obama have not enforced this law and implemented a moratorium.

In addition, the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bailout bill, the Home Economic Recovery Act passed in July 2008, provides for loan modifications and workout agreements by servicers when the net value would be greater than the value of the home in foreclosure. Why isn’t the government ordering that banks holding Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans reduce the principal on those loans to their real value? Instead, they are paying lenders the inflated mortgage loan amount, and then selling the homes for less than half that amount, with the taxpayers picking up the difference.

The fight against foreclosures and evictions and against the banks and government that continue to bail them out will be a critical part of the fight for jobs and economic justice as the struggle unfolds in the coming months.

Articles copyright 1995-2009 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.

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Spain’s Wind Energy Increases

CNN’s Al Goodman explains why Spain is now a global leader in wind energy.

Source:
Cable Network News, “Spain’s Wind Energy Increases“, accessed December 21, 2009

Nestle Saga: International Media Rapped

Nestle saga: International media rapped

Herald Reporter

INDUSTRY and Commerce Minister Welshman Ncube has criticised international media organisations for their role which culminated in Nestle Zimbabwe suspending its operations in Zimbabwe last week.

Nestle Zimbabwe was buying milk from Gushungo Dairy Estates, which is owned by the First Family, since February. However, the company stopped after it came under pressure from international media and Western detractors to pull out from the deal.

Last week, the company temporarily stopped operations claiming that some of its managers had been questioned by police after they refused to accept milk from a non-contracted supplier.

Minister Ncube, who was tasked with facilitating the reopening of Nestle, said an agreement had been reached on how milk from Gushungo Dairies will be processed.

In an interview yesterday, Minister Ncube said the whole dispute was sparked by hysterical international media in South Africa, UK and US, which campaigned for the boycott of Nestle products because of its links with Gushungo Dairies.

“That was complete madness on the part of those media organisations which actually decided to go on a negative campaign,” Minister Ncube said. He said the campaign was going to have a negative effect on Nestle internationally. “Nestle were left with no choice since the campaign was calling for a global boycott of Nestle products,” he said. “They had to strike a balance between their relationship here and globally and they realised that they were going to lose out so they had to take action.”

Minister Ncube said Government was not going to interfere in the operations of companies and would not dictate which organisations companies should trade with.

“Zimbabwe has no policy of forcing companies to trade with anyone. Decisions lie with the companies themselves on whom to trade with. No company has ever been forced to trade with certain organisations. There is autonomy for all companies here and international media should stop this madness of trying to paint a bad picture of Zimbabwe,” he said.

Minister Ncube said his ministry was interested in ensuring companies traded in a free environment and if there are any disagreements they should be resolved amicably.

“My ministry is responsible for making sure that businesses survive and grow. In regard to Nestle, we had to make sure their business survives and grows and the same applies for Gushungo Dairy Estates.

“We cannot have companies grounded because of a trade dispute, so we only strive to make sure they are both safe to operate,” Minister Ncube added.

Religious Crisis in Bauchi–2 Soldiers, 4 Children, 2 Others Killed

Religious crisis in Bauchi - 2 soldiers, 4 children, 2 others killed -

Many injured, houses burnt - Police, Army hold meeting

Ishola Michael, Bauchi - 29.12.2009
Nigerian Tribune

NO fewer than eight people, including two soldiers and four children were, on Monday, feared killed while a number of houses were burnt in another religious crisis which erupted in Zango, a suburb of Bauchi metropolis, when an Islamic sect called Kala-Kato went on the rampage demanding for the release of their leader arrested by the authorities.

Two civilians, whose identities are yet to be confirmed, were also killed in the crisis. Those killed, according to unconfirmed reports, were two soldiers from the 33 Field Artillery Brigade, Bauchi, who were drafted to the troubled area alongside other security operatives, while the four children were burnt when their parents’ house was set ablaze by the rampaging sect members who were mainly children aged between 10 and 15 with backup from adult members of the sect.

One of the neighbours of the notorious sect, that is claiming to be the remnants of the original ‘Maitatsine’ sect of the 80s, said that they sensed trouble early yesterday morning, when the preacher of the sect gave a sermon in which he insulted other Muslim sects, calling them infidels.

According to Kamal Adamu, who spoke in Hausa, “I live at the Zango main road but this street is called Saidawa. I was at the open preaching of the sect yesterday night (Sunday) and this morning (Monday) when the preacher questioned the rationale behind the killing of the dreaded Boko Haram members, when all the sect was preaching against is reality.”

He added that “one of the listeners challenged the preacher and he was dealt with there and then, while another who called on the people to leave the place of the preaching was killed instantly. And before we knew what was happening, the sect members had taken to the streets burning down people’s houses and maiming others. It is very unfortunate that this is happening again in Bauchi.”

When contacted, the Bauchi State Police Command Public Relations Officer (PRO), Mohammed Barau, confirmed the crisis, saying that as soon as the command got a security report, it deployed a combined team of regular policemen and mobile policemen to the area to maintain law and order, adding that as of the time of this report, the command was still awaiting situation report from those on the field.

The PRO said that the Police Commissioner, Atiku Yusuf Kafur, was not ready to comment, as he was awaiting directive from the police headquarters in Abuja, saying, however, that the situation was under control and it should be reported as such.

Meanwhile, as of the time of sending this report, a security meeting was going on between the army and the police command on how to tackle the situation. This is the third religious crisis in Bauchi in this outgoing year, including the dreaded Boko Haram, which claimed many lives and properties worth several millions of naira.

“The US Military is Exhausted,” Says Peace Activist

Saturday, December 26, 2009
10:52 Mecca time, 07:52 GMT

‘The US military is exhausted’

By Sarah Lazare

The US army is overstretched and exhausted, says peace campaigner Sarah Lazare

The call for over 30,000 more troops to be sent to Afghanistan is a travesty for the people of that country who have already suffered eight brutal years of occupation.

It is also a harsh blow to the US soldiers facing imminent deployment.

As Barack Obama, the US president, gears up for a further escalation that will bring the total number of troops in Afghanistan to over 100,000, he faces a military force that has been exhausted and overextended by fighting two wars.

Many from within the ranks are openly declaring that they have had enough, allying with anti-war veterans and activists in calling for an end to the US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, with some active duty soldiers publicly refusing to deploy.

This growing movement of military refusers is a voice of sanity in a country slipping deeper into unending war.

The architects of this war would be well-advised to listen to the concerns of the soldiers and veterans tasked with carrying out their war policies on the ground.

Many of those being deployed have already faced multiple deployments to combat zones: the 101st Airborne Division, which will be deployed to Afghanistan in early 2010, faces its fifth combat tour since 2002.

“They are just going to start moving the soldiers who already served in Iraq to Afghanistan, just like they shifted me from one war to the next,” said Eddie Falcon, a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Soldiers are going to start coming back with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), missing limbs, problems with alcohol, and depression.”

Many of these troops are still suffering the mental and physical fallout from previous deployments.

Rates of PTSD and traumatic brain injury among troops deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan have been disproportionately high, with a third of returning troops reporting mental problems and 18.5 per cent of all returning service members battling either PTSD or depression, according to a study by the Rand Corporation.

Marine suicides doubled between 2006 and 2007, and army suicides are at the highest rate since records were kept in 1980.

Resistance in the ranks

US army soldiers are refusing to serve at the highest rate since 1980, with an 80 per cent increase in desertions since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, according to the Associated Press.

These troops refuse deployment for a variety of reasons: some because they ethically oppose the wars, some because they have had a negative experience with the military, and some because they cannot psychologically survive another deployment, having fallen victim to what has been termed “Broken Joe” syndrome.

Over 150 GIs have publicly refused service and spoken out against the wars, all risking prison and some serving long sentences, and an estimated 250 US war resisters are currently taking refuge in Canada.

This resistance includes two Fort Hood, Texas, soldiers, Victor Agosto and Travis Bishop, who publicly resisted deployment to Afghanistan this year, facing prison sentences as a result, with Bishop still currently detained.

“There is no way I will deploy to Afghanistan,” wrote Agosto, upon refusing his service last May. “The occupation is immoral and unjust.”

Within the US military, GI resisters and anti-war veterans have organised through broad networks of veteran and civilian alliances, as well as through IVAW, comprised of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.

This organisation, which is over 1,700 strong, with members across the world, including active-duty members on military bases, is opposed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and openly supports GI resistance.

“Iraq Veterans Against the War calls on Obama to end the war in Afghanistan (and Iraq) by withdrawing troops immediately and unconditionally,” wrote Jose Vasquez, the executive director of IVAW, in a December 2 open letter.

“It’s not time for our brothers and sisters in arms to go to Afghanistan. It’s time for them to come home.”

No clear progress

GI coffee houses have sprung up at several military bases around the country. In the tradition of the GI coffee houses of the Vietnam war era, these cafes provide a space where active duty troops can speak freely and access resources about military refusal, PTSD, and veteran and GI movements against the war.

“Here at Fort Lewis, we’ve lost 20 soldiers from the most recent round of deployments,” said Seth Menzel, an Iraq combat veteran and founding organiser of Coffee Strong, a GI coffee house at the sprawling Washington army base.

“We’ve seen resistance to deployment, mainly based on the fact that soldiers have been deployed so many times they don’t have the patience to do it again.”

As the occupation of Afghanistan passes its eighth year, with no clear progress, goals that remain elusive, and a high civilian death count, this war is coming to resemble the Iraq war that has been roundly condemned by world and US public opinion.

The never-ending nature of this conflict belies the real project of establishing US dominance in the Middle East and control of the region’s resources, at the expense of the Afghan civilians and US soldiers being placed in harm’s way.

The voices of refusal coming from within the US military send a powerful message that soldiers will not be fodder for an unjust and unnecessary war. By withdrawing their labour from a war that depends on their consent, these soldiers have the power to help bring this war to an end, as did their predecessors in the GI resistance movement against the Vietnam war.

And the longer the war in Afghanistan drags on - the more lives that are lost and destroyed - the more resistance we will see coming from within the ranks.

Sarah Lazare is an anti-militarist and GI resistance organiser with Dialogues Against Militarism and Courage to Resist. She is interested in connecting struggles for justice at home with global movements against war and empire.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.

Source: Al Jazeera

Nigerian President Yar’Adua Refuses Jonathan as Acting President

Yar’Adua refuses Jonathan as Acting President

Headlines Dec 29, 2009
By Leke Adeseri, News Editor & Ise-Oluwa Ige
Nigerian Vanguard

ABUJA—Political hawks have successfully convinced President Umaru Yar’Adua to endorse the Supplementary Budget to be operated till next March, and also worked on him not to sign another document to allow Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan act as President, Vanguard can authoritatively reveal.

The Supplementary Budget, according to sources, is to fast-track development in the Niger Delta, among other things.

Yar’Adua signed the document on his sick bed in the King Faisal Specialist Hospital in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

According to impeccable sources, the cabal that fashioned the documents eventually presented to the President by his Principal Secretary, Mr. David Edevbie, were said to be out to buy time towards the assumption that their principal will be strong enough to resume work fully in mid-January.

Another scheme seemingly on the cabals’ chess board is the arrangement that the out-going Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Idris Legbo Kutigi, swears in Justice Aloysius Katsina-Alu as the new Chief Justice.

A statement by the Secretary of the National Judicial Council, Mr Danladi Halilu, confirmed that Kutigi will swear in Justice Katsina-Alu as the Chief Justice and Justice Isa Ayo-Salami as the President of the Court of Appeal on Thursday, December, 30.

The Attorney-General of the Federation, Chief Michael Aondoakaa (SAN), had, at the weekend said President Yar’Adua needed not fly from Saudi Arabia to perform the swearing-in by himself.

He had argued that the out-going CJN was permitted under the law to perform the function.

NJC had keyed into the explanation but Aondoakaa’s colleagues argued saying that his explanation has no basis in law and logic.

According to an Ibadan-based member of the Inner Bar, Chief Adeniyi Akintola (SAN), it would be strange if such was allowed to happen because such arrangement is not supported by law and logic.

According to him: “The Attorney-General like most Nigerian public officers doesn’t have original thoughts of his own. They are not original in their thoughts. That position, with due respect, was not his own.

“The idea was sold by a lady lawyer. She sent an e-mail to Aondoakaa (SAN) to sell the idea. She forwarded the same e-mail to many of us, making that suggestion. I do not want to mention her name.

“The truth of the matter is that if you carry out that suggestion, you will be creating a kind of absurdity. Look at it this way: if the outgoing Chief Justice of Nigeria will be swearing in the in-coming one, I ask: in what capacity?

‘If the incumbent swears in the in-coming one before he retires, the implication is that we will be having two CJNs at the same time.

“And, if the outgoing CJN swears in the in-coming one immediately after he retires, in what capacity will he be doing that when he is no longer CJN?

“They are confusing the American situation with ours. In the case of the Nigerian presidential system, the executive appoints the head of the court.

“It is a political appointment. And, necessarily so, CJN must be sworn in by the head of the executive. It is unlike the American situation where the entire public and members of the public are involved in who becomes CJN and even who becomes a Supreme Court justice.

‘Ours is a different scenario. Most of the times, our people swallow, hook, line and sinker the ideas of foreign governance without looking at the background and the position of the law in those areas.

“You will be creating a kind of unconscionable absurdity if you say the outgoing CJN should swear in the incoming one.

“The idea was suggested by a lady and the lady in question forwarded the e-mail she did to Aondoakaa to me.

“The lady flew a kite which was swallowed hook, line and sinker by the AGF.

“She sent it to many lawyers including Professor Sagay, Aturu, Femi Falana and the President of the NBA. He sent it to many senior lawyers.

“The Attorney-General was not original. The truth of the matter is that the country is mired in political quagmire.

“We have no head of the executive properly so-called. And, very soon, there will be no head of the judiciary. We can avoid this problem if Mr. President had done the right thing to allow Jonathan to stand in.”

Meantime, Halilu declared in the statement that the appointments were made by President Yar’Adua on the recommendation of NJC and that the swearing-in will hold at the Supreme Court complex at 11a.m.