domingo, 8 de fevereiro de 2009

The politics of bollocks


In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger borrows from Lord West of Spithead to deconstruct current mythology, such as the 'impartiality' of the BBC and the 'radical changes' implemented by President Obama.

Growing up in an Antipodean society proud of its rich variety of expletives, I never heard the word bollocks. It was only on arrival in England that I understood its majesterial power. All classes used it. Judges grunted it; an editor of the Daily Mirror used it as noun, adjective and verb. Certainly, the resonance of a double vowel saw off its closest American contender. It had authority.

A high official with the Gilbertian title of Lord West of Spithead used it to great effect on 27 January. The former admiral, who is security adviser to Gordon Brown, was referring to Tony Blair’s famous assertion that invading countries and killing innocent people did not increase the threat of terrorism at home.

“That was clearly bollocks,” said his lordship, who warned of the perceived “linkage between the US, Israel and the UK” in the horrors inflicted on Gaza and the effect on the recruitment of terrorists in Britain. In other words, he was stating the obvious: that state terrorism begets individual or group terrorism at source. Just as Blair was the prime mover of the London bombings of 7 July 2005, so Brown, having pursued the same cynical crusades in Muslim countries and having armed and disported himself before the criminal regime in Tel Aviv, will share responsibility for related atrocities at home.

There is a lot of bollocks about at the moment.

The BBC’s explanation for banning an appeal on behalf of the stricken people of Gaza is a vivid example. Mark Thompson, the director general, cited the BBC’s legal requirement to be “impartial... because Gaza is a major ongoing news story in which humanitarian issues... are both at the heart of the story and contentious.”

In a letter to Thompson, David Bracewell, illuminated the deceit behind this. He pointed to previous BBC appeals for the Disasters Emergency Committee that were not only made in the midst of “an ongoing news story” in which humanitarian issues were “contentious”, but demonstrated how the BBC took sides. In 1999, at the height of the illegal Nato bombing of Serbia and Kosovo, the TV presenter Jill Dando made an appeal on behalf of Kosovar refugees. The BBC web page for that appeal was linked to numerous articles meant to support the gravity of the humanitarian issue. These included quotations from Blair himself, such as “This will be a daily pounding until [Slobodan Milosevic] comes into line with the terms that Nato has laid down.” There was no significant balance of view from the Yugoslav side, and not a single mention that the flight of Kosovar refugees began only after Nato had started bombing. Similarly, in an appeal for the victims of the civil war in the Congo, the BBC favoured the regime of Joseph Kabila without referring to the Amnesty, Human Rights Watch and other reports accusing his forces of atrocities. In contrast, the rebel leader Nkunda was “accused of committing atrocities” and was ordained the BBC’s bad guy. Kabila, who represented western interests, was clearly the good guy – just like Nato in the Balkans and Israel in the Middle East.

While Mark Thompson and his satraps richly deserve the Lord West of Spithead Bollocks Blue Ribbon, that honour goes to the cheer squad of President Barack Obama, whose cult-like obeisance goes on and on.

On 23 January, the Guardian’s front page declared, “Obama shuts network of CIA ‘ghost prisons’ ”. The “wholesale deconstruction [sic] of George Bush’s war on terror”, said the report, had been ordered by the new president who would be “shutting down the CIA’s secret prison network, banning torture and rendition...”.

The bollocks quotient on this was so high that it read like the press release it was, citing “officials briefing reporters at the White House yesterday”. Obama’s orders, according to a group of 16 retired generals and admirals who attended a presidential signing ceremony, “would restore America’s moral standing in the world”. What moral standing? It never ceases to astonish that experienced reporters can transmit PR stunts like this, bearing in mind the moving belt of lies from the same source under only nominally different management.

Far from “deconstructing [sic] the war on terror”, Obama is clearly pursuing it with the same vigour, ideological backing and deception as the previous administration. George W. Bush’s first war, in Afghanistan, and last war, in Pakistan, are now Obama’s wars – with thousands more US troops to be deployed, more bombing and more slaughter of civilians. On 22 January, the day he described Afghanistan and Pakistan as “the central front in our enduring struggle against terrorism and extremism”, 22 Afghan civilians died beneath Obama’s bombs in a hamlet populated mainly by shepherds and which, by all accounts, had not laid eyes on the Taliban. Women and children were among the dead, which is normal.

Far from “shutting down the CIA’s secret prison network”, Obama’s executive orders actually give the CIA authority to carry out renditions, abductions and transfers of prisoners in secret without the threat of legal obstruction. As the Los Angeles Times disclosed, “current and former intelligence officials said the rendition program might be poised to play an expanded role.” A semantic sleight of hand is that “long term prisons” are changed to “short term prisons”; and while Americans are now banned from directly torturing people, foreigners working for the US are not. This means that America’s numerous “covert actions” will operate as they did under previous presidents, with proxy regimes, such as Augusto Pinochet’s in Chile, doing the dirtiest work.

Bush’s open support for torture, and Donald Rumsfeld’s extraordinary personal overseeing of certain torture techniques, upset many in America’s “secret army” of subversive military and intelligence operators as it exposed how the system worked. Obama’s nominee for director of national intelligence, Admiral Dennis Blair, has said the Army Field Manual may include new forms of “harsh interrogation”, which will be kept secret.

Obama has chosen not to stop any of this. Neither do his ballyhooed executive orders put an end to Bush’s assault on constitutional and international law. He has retained Bush’s “right” to imprison anyone, without trial or charges. No “ghost prisoners” are being released or are due to be tried before a civilian court. His nominee for attorney-general, Eric Holder, has endorsed an extension of Bush’s totalitarian USA Patriot Act, which allows federal agents to demand Americans’ library and bookshop records. The man of “change”, is changing little. That ought to be front page news from Washington.

The Lord West of Spithead Bollocks Prize (Runner-up) is shared. On 28 January, a national Greenpeace advertisement opposing a third runway at London’s Heathrow airport summed up the almost willful naivety that has obstructed informed analysis of the Obama administration. “Fortunately,” declared Greenpeace beneath a God-like picture of Obama, “the White House has a new occupant, and he has asked us all to roll back the spectre of a warming planet.” This was followed by Obama’s rhetorical flourish about “putting off unpleasant decisions”. In fact, Obama has made no commitment to curtail the America’s infamous responsibility for the causes of global warming. As with Bush and most modern era presidents, it is oil, not stemming carbon emissions, that informs the new administration. Obama’s national security adviser, General Jim Jones, a former Nato supreme commander, made his name planning US military control over the exploitation of oil and gas reserves from the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea to the Gulf of Guinea in Africa.

Sharing the Bollocks Runner-up Prize is the Observer, which on 25 January published a major news report headlined, “How Obama set the tone for a new US revolution”. This was reminiscent of the Observer almost a dozen years ago when liberalism’s other great white hope, Tony Blair, came to power. “Goodbye Xenophobia” was the Observer’s post-election front page in 1997 and “The Foreign Office says Hello World, remember us”. The government, said the breathless text, would push for “new worldwide rules on human rights and the environment” and implement “tough new limits” on arms sales. The opposite happened. Last year, Britain was the biggest arms dealer in the world; currently it is second only to the United States.

In the Blair mould, the Obama White House “sprang into action” with its “radical plans”. The new president’s first phone call was to that Palestinian quisling, the unelected and deeply unpopular Mohammed Abbas. There was a “hot pace” and a “new era”, in which a notorious name from an ancien regime, Richard Holbrooke, was dispatched to Pakistan. In 1978, Holbrooke betrayed a promise to normalise relations with the Vietnamese on the eve of a vicious embargo that ruined the lives of countless Vietnamese children. Under Obama, the “sense of a new era abroad”, declared the Observer, “was reinforced by the confirmation of Hillary Clinton as secretary of state”. Clinton has threatened to “entirely obliterate Iran” on behalf of Israel.

What the childish fawning over Obama obscures is the dark power assembled under cover of America’s first “post-racial president”. Apart from the US, the world’s most dangerous state is demonstrably Israel, having recently killed and maimed some 4,000 people in Gaza with impunity. On 10 February, a bellicose Israeli electorate is likely to put Binyamin Netanyahu into power. Netanyahu is a fanatic’s fanatic who has made clear his intention of attacking Iran. In the Wall Street Journal on 24 January, he described Iran as the “terrorist mother base” and justified the murder of civilians in Gaza because “Israel cannot accept an Iranian terror base (Gaza) next to its major cities”. On 31 January, unaware he was being filmed, Israel’s ambassador in Australia described the massacres in Gaza as a “pre-introduction” - dress rehearsal - for an attack on Iran.

For Netanyahu, the reassuring news is that Obama’s administration is the most Zionist in living memory – a truth that has struggled to be told from beneath the soggy layers of Obama-love. Not a single member of Obama’s team demurred from Obama’s support for Israel’s barbaric actions in Gaza. Obama himself likened the safety of his two young daughters with that of Israeli children while making not a single reference to the thousands of Palestinian children killed with American weapons - a violation of both international and US law. He did, however, demand that the people of Gaza be denied “smuggled” small arms with which to defend themselves against the world’s fourth largest military power. And he paid tribute to the Arab dictatorships, such as Egypt, which are bribed by the US Treasury to help the US and Israel enforce policies described by the United Nations Rapporteur, Richard Falk, a Jew, as “genocidal”.

It is time the Obama lovers grew up. It is time those paid to keep the record straight gave us the opportunity to debate informatively. In the 21st century, people power remains a huge and exciting and largely untapped force for change, but it is nothing without truth. “In the time of universal deceit,” wrote George Orwell, “telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”

Touching a nerve: a case study in propaganda


When I set up this blog I didn’t intend it to be so heavy on Western Sahara. However, the more I’ve worked in Western Sahara the more I have been exposed to the politics of the region - in particular the anti-independence, anti-referendum, and especially anti-Polisario propaganda that emanates continuously from Rabat and supporters of Morocco’s occupation. This runs the gamut from laughable through inventive to sometimes offensive, and can be quite sophisticated. Having an over-developed social conscience I sometimes feel compelled to address this propaganda, and expose it where I can (although I really don’t want to end up as an apologist for the Polisario - the issue to me is not the nature of the Polisario, but rather Morocco’s occupation and the issue of self-determination, which would be at the heart of the Western Sahara question whether opposition to Moroccan occupation was led by Polisario or Mickey Mouse). My efforts in this regard are necessarily small, as countering the Moroccan propaganda machine could easily be a full-time job, and not one I’d want, even if someone was paying me (and they’re not, despite rumours to the contrary).

There are plenty of people on the Moroccan side (and the Polisario side - let’s be fair) for whom “information management” is a full-time job. Perhaps foolishly, in terms of time costs, I allowed myself to get drawn into a discussion with someone whom I presume is one of these professionals, over at Global Voices Online. The gentleman in question calls himself Ahmed Salem Amr Khaddad, and he claims to be a “Unionist Sahrawi”. (i.e. in favour of the forced union between Western Sahara and Morocco). I gave him the benefit of the doubt, and we had a long exchange, which eventually fizzled out. He paid me the compliment of commenting on Sand and Dust at long last, under a recent post. Now, when people post on your blog you can see their IP address, so I established that Ahmed Salem, or at least his internet connection, is based in Casablanca, with the IP address registered to the Office National des Postes et Telecommunications (based on plugging the IP address into the free web software at http://www.ip-adress.com/ip_tracer/).

After my last post on the McDonald’s and the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s maps (I wonder if they’re now using the same source, or should that be sauce?), Ahmed Salem underwent a veritable eruption on Global Voices online, which had linked to my ramblings. Apparently I hit some sort of nerve. This is what he wrote:

“The article above comes from the blog of a very well known Polisario supporter under the name of Nick Brooks. His pro-polisario blog is about biases he is far from the situation on the ground. I have already discussed with Nick about his position. He always argues that he is impartial in his blog ?!#2~à@)&°0 !!!!! I told him so why putting just pro-polisarian links on your blog? Why not putting URLs form the unionist sahraouis website as CORCAS and many others supporting unionism in the region of Western Sahara? No way. Nick is not credible at all. He is supposed to conduct some research work in a buffer zone established by the UN in 1991 just after the war held between the moroccan army and the polisario troops supported by Algeria & Lybia. HE IS SPONSORED BY AN ALGERIAN STAKEHOLDER OIL COMPANY ;-) . He is very closed to Polisario troops in the buffer zone.

I believe Nick is among those who would like to maintain the status quo in the Western Sahara issue to keep alive his research work and SPONSORING.

Nick has no lesson to give to the international community about the reality on the ground in Western Sahara. It becomes clear to everyone that Polisario leaders were lying and they are still continuing to lie on Human rights in Western Sahara.”

Of course I replied. In fact I was quite flattered to have generated such a response. Whatever its other impacts, this blog appears to be raising the blood pressure of at least one Moroccan propagandist, and the fact that the practitioners of the Maghrebian dark arts find it necessary to indulge in such slander suggests that they feel my views have some relevance, and that’s gratifying. By the way, he’s right about my not being impartial (but wrong about my claims to be) - as another blog puts it: “truth not balance”

I have to say I’m not sure whether to be amused or disapproving of Ahmed Salem’s accusations, which I suspect are a little hypocritical, given that he’s probably employed to peddle propaganda. Out of interest I googled “Ahmed Salem Amr Khaddad” to see what his web footprint was like - i.e. how busy he is on the web with his propaganda. Not huge, but significant. Maybe this isn’t his full-time job but he’s certainly pretty active, and his arguments are well-rehearsed and often inventive. In any case his arguments provide a good case study of the Moroccan propaganda machine, and anyone interested in what sort of arguments and tactics the Moroccans are using to persuade, cajole and insist would do worse than look at the works of Ahmed Salem Amr Khaddad.

In addition to Global Voices and this blog, he crops up on: Flickr; Magharebia; Wikipedia (as Moroccansahraoui, claiming to be from Laayoune); Palestine Think Tank (under his own name alongside another “Moroccan Sahrawi” using similar language and levelling the same accusations at the author of the article in question as he levels at yours truly: “you looks well paid by the Algerian regime to defend a false cuase, from the bigining and Algeria is spending money to find people like you to spread this kind of lies….the only HYPOCRIT HERE IS YOURSELF“); and Christianne Vienne’s website (she’s a Belgian senator, from what I can see). So he’s certainly busy, pushing the same line - that the majority of Sahrawi want to be Moroccan, that Polisario is a Marxist (or post-Marxist, now Islamic fundamentalist) organisation holding people against their will, that only a small percentage of the people in the camps around Tindouf are Sahrawi, the remainder being economic migrants from the Sahel, and so on, and accusing anyone who disagrees with him of being on the Algerian payroll.

Ahmed Salem likes to point to the CORCAS website a lot. CORCAS is the Royal Advisory Council on Saharan Affairs, appointed by the Moroccan government to give the appearance of a legitimate devolved administration. Their website has lots of articles about how great the Autonomy Plan is and how wicked the Polisario are, and not a few pictures of King Mohamed VI. I couldn’t help but think of the Egyptian Gazette, which I used to glance at in the early 1990s when I was living in Cairo, and which always kicked off with a story about President Mubarak.

Ahmed Salem also likes to argue that Morocco is bringing the benefits of development and modernity to poor primitive, neglected Western Sahara, and points to a number of Moroccan sites boasting about investment in the territory. His Flickr account (westernsaharaoccidental) consists of photos presumably intended to illustrate modernity and abundance in Laayoune and Dakhla, in the Moroccan-controlled areas of Western Sahara (market stalls groaning with fresh produce and aerial shots of modern conurbations). Most of these photos are captioned “Autonomy and more development to face the Globalization”. Of course different kinds of images can be found on sites such as ASVDH, which monitors human rights abuses in the occupied areas.

So, why am I bothering to devote attention to this propaganda merchant? Partly as a sort of right-to-reply after his outburst at me, but also (and more importantly) to cast a spotlight on the Moroccan propaganda machine while it’s in action and allow the few readers of this blog to scrutinize the arguments and tactics that form its backbone. The propaganda of Ahmed Salem and his fellow practitioners follows a number of key principles, which seem to include the following:

1. Steer the debate away from the issue of Morocco’s occupation and the holding of the referendum, and turn it into one about the Polisario, whom you should portray as a separatist group driven wholly or predominantly by Marxist or Islamist ideology. Ideally you should transform the debate into one about the historical origins and legitimacy of the Polisario, which you should misrepresent. Your aim should be to discredit the Polisario through accusations of slavery, child abuse, terrorism, human rights abuses, communism, and Islamic fundamentalism. People should be left with the opinion that the Polisario are so reprehensible that the Sahrawi, whom they represent, do not deserve independence. By contrast Morocco should be portrayed as a champion of democracy and human rights which offers a much better future.

2. Emphasise that independence is not realistic and that those who support the referendum are seeking to prolong the conflict and are just causing more suffering for the people in the Tindouf camps. Pretend that your concerns are for the well-being of the Sahrawi refugees (although insist elsewhere that they are not refugees and many are not Saharawi), thus making your opponents appear callous and uncaring about the refugees - make it clear that anyone who disagrees with you is guilty of using the refugees as political pawns in pursuit of a sinister political agenda.

3. Portray the Tindouf camps as detention centres in which people are held against their will. Morocco has the best interests of the people in the camps at heart - they want to be Moroccan.

4. Emphasise the nature of the conflict as one between Algeria and Morocco, rather than between Morocco and the Polisario, and insist on Algeria’s links to terrorists, Marxists/communists and Islamic fundamentalists. Always emphasise the leftist or “eastern-block” nature of the countries that have historically supported the idea of independence - your audience is predominantly a western one and this will help to discredit the idea of a referendum on independence.

5. Accuse any foreigners supporting the referendum of being in the pay of Algeria, and any Sahrawi or Moroccan groups who question Morocco’s occupation of belonging to irrelevant, extremist, fringe political groups. It is very important to persuade people that those who disagree with the position of the Moroccan government are a tiny minority whose views do not count.

6. Emphasise the benefits that Morocco is bringing to the occupied areas of Western Sahara - the issue is really one of development, not invasion and occupation. Opponents of autonomy within a greater Morocco are ill informed extremists and are against modernity and development.

7. Deny that the Polisario controls a significant part of Western Sahara and portray this as a buffer zone set up by Morocco in cooperation with the UN. Accuse anyone talking about the “Free Zone” of propaganda. Very few people have been to the Polisario-controlled areas, and most people do not know that they exist, thinking instead that Morocco controls all of Western Sahara. It is very important to maintain this impression.

8. Give the impression that the UN and the international community support Morocco’s position and its autonomy plan, and see this as the only realistic option. Insist that Morocco’s autonomy plan is compatible with the principle of self-determination.

9. Invoke the views of international bodies when they support the Moroccan position, but dismiss views from the same bodies when they appear to support the holding of a referendum or the idea of independence. For example, cite UN envoy van Walsum’s controversial comments that independence is unrealistic, but dismiss the original UN resolutions on Western Sahara as irrelevant.

10. Dismiss countries that recognise Polisario as the legitimate government of Western Sahara as irrelevant, usually Marxist, regimes. Similarly, argue that the original rulings of the UN on the need for self-determination are irrelevant because the security council was dominated by leftist governments whose opinions should not count.

11. Portray the conflict as a hangover from the Cold War rather than a conflict about decolonisation. Emphasise that it was a manifestation of the conflict between Western capitalism and Eastern communism, which the West won. Emphasise that the Polisario and the independence cause had support from the East - the message should be that, being on the losing side in the cold war, the Polisario and Algeria should give up the independence struggle as the world has moved on.

12. Make lots of stuff up and don’t worry about consistency - it doesn’t matter if many of your assertions contradict each other: if you push them hard enough some of them will stick.

13. If people remain unconvinced by all the above tell them to shut up and write, PREFERABLY IN CAPITALS, that they are not impartial/objective, that they have no credibility or authority to speak about the topic, that they do not understand the situation, and that they must be in the pay of Algeria and the Polisario.

I’m sure we can add to this list - suggestions are welcome.

I hope Ahmed Salem appreciates the attention I’ve devoted to him. He’s always telling me off for not linking to pro-Moroccan websites on this blog. While this is a bit rich given his sole focus on links to CORCAS and other pro-Morocco, anti-Polisario websites, I’ll let that pass and hope that this post redresses the balance. I’m sure he’ll appreciate my collecting his works and presenting them as a set of handy links alongside the one to CORCAS. Maybe he’ll do us the honour of commenting again here, saving me the trouble of more harvesting of his opinions from other sites.

Clowning around, or McForeign Policy


Moroccan incarnation of fast food giant McDonald’s felt it appropriate to apologise for producing and distributing an accurate map of Morocco which scandalously omitted to include Western Sahara as a part of the kingdom. The map was apparently included with its “Happy Meal”. McDonald’s dutifully responded to a complaint from the guardians of the occupation by saying that “borders were incorrectly drawn” and exhibting due contrition (1).

I guess this is understandable - small considerations such as respect for international law and UN resolutions, and squeamishness about territorial aggression, occupation of neighbouring territories, and widespread human rights abuses obviously take a back seat when it comes to the important business of selling burgers and making lots of money.

So what’s the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s excuse? Apparently even more eager than McDonalds to appease the Moroccan imperial machine, the FCO includes on its website a map of Morocco which includes all of Western Sahara. As far as I’m aware this isn’t as a result of a public scandal in which an accurate map respecting internationally recognised borders, and Western Sahara’s status as a disputed non-self-governing territory, was distributed to Moroccan kids along with Union Flags or Beefeaters in little plastic tubes. This rather gives the lie to the British government’s claim to support the upholding of international law and UN resolutions, and to favour the Sahrawi’s right to self-determination.

A comparison might be interesting here. Syrian approved maps (2) show the Turkish province of Hatay as part of Syria, which has long claimed this region. As it probably should, the The FCO map of Syria shows Hatay as part of Turkey. Now, this is entirely different, you may think, as Morocco at least exercises de facto control over Western Sahara, whereas Syria has no presence in Hatay. Well, as I’ve pointed out elsewhere, Moroccan control does not extend throughout all of Western Sahara, with a large swathe of the territory being controlled by the Polisario independence movement. So, the FCO map includes, as part of Morocco, areas which are not formally recognised as Moroccan by any government except that of Morocco, and areas which Morocco does not even control. Furthermore, these latter areas are administered by a functioning government of a state that is recognised by the majority of African nations.

I guess the lesson here is that, if you’re a government that wants the UK to recognise your “sovereignty” over a region (even if only informally), you just have to throw your weight around and convince the poor spineless saps at the FCO that your country is strategically important. Belligerence and intransigence pay, apparently. It doesn’t even matter if the areas you claim are not under your control and are governed by someone else, as long as you are persuasive enough and convince the poor dears at the FCO that said region needs to recognised as “yours” in order to combat the terrorist bogeyman (even if he isn’t there - invoking terrorism is usally enough, regardless of the facts).

When I first visited Western Sahara in 2002 I contacted the FCO to see what their travel advice said (I needed to know about this for my insurance). Even though I told them that I was going to a part of Western Sahara only accessible from Algeria and Mauritania, which was not under Moroccan control, they forwarded my query to the embassy in Rabat. The embassy never replied to me, but no doubt passed the information to their Moroccan buddies responsible for monitoring activity in the Free Zone.

Maybe there are elements in the FCO that regret the passing of the British Empire, who indulge their tastes by assisting other countries with colonial aspirations. Or perhaps the FCO and McDonald’s have more in common than one might think, namely the role of clowns in their business activities. In the FCO’s case, these activities involve supporting things like the sale of weapons and the provision of military training to, er, Morocco (Shelley, 2004, p. 194; War on Want).

References:

(1) AFP. McDonald’s sorry for wiping Western Sahara off map. 1 Dec. 2008: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jNkJV9kHBK656tZKlx5UnPE_uVcw.

(2) 1991 Road Map of the Middle East, published by GEOprojects, PO Box 133.5294, Beirut, Lebanon (purchased in Syria).

Shelley, T. Endgame in the Western Sahara: What Future for Africa’s Las Colony. Zed Books, London.

UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office:

Western Sahara page: http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/travelling-and-living-overseas/travel-advice-by-country/middle-east-north-africa/western-sahara

Morocco page: http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/about-the-fco/embassies-and-posts/find-an-embassy-overseas/middle-east-and-north-africa/embassy-rabat

Syria page: http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/about-the-fco/embassies-and-posts/find-an-embassy-overseas/middle-east-and-north-africa/embassy-damascus

Note: the Morocco and Syria pages are those of the respective British embassies, housed on the UK FCO website.