The Chronikler

First, the good news. Arab countries have the lowest levels of malnutrition and hunger in the developing world, have made "striking progress" in extending the lives of their citizens, abject poverty is comparatively low and, surprisingly (for me at least), levels of income inequality are moderate across most of the region. These are some of the few silver linings contained in the latest disillusioning and disturbing Arab Human Development Report (AHDR).

Despite the bad international press the conflicts in the region draw, the Arab world is, based on its level of violent crime, just about the safest place in the world. The real threat to people's safety comes not from outlaws but from those above the law, an altogether different gang of criminals: Arab leaders and foreign occupiers.

The AHDR concludes that the Arab state is often "a threat to human security, instead of its chief support". This edition of the report has shifted its perspective from collective security and development to the emerging perspective of individual "human security". It describes human security as "the rearguard of human development" which "focuses on enabling peoples to contain or avert threats to their lives, livelihoods and human dignity".

The report identifies seven categories of threats which can be divided into two broad groups: internal and external. One of the greatest of these threats, as hinted above, is the state's role as defender of a ruling elite rather than champion of all the people. This is achieved through repressive security measures and a bloated security apparatus, built-in institutional weakness, and the co-opting of nationalism to serve the survival of the regime.

In the absence of impartial law and order and as a side effect of political and economic powerlessness, women are particularly vulnerable to abuse. "Arab women, like many of their peers in other regions, sustain both direct and indirect violence," the AHDR observes.

In this, as with so many other issues, taking a regional perspective masks the massive differences between individual countries. In fact, there is a mind-boggling diversity of societies: from multi-ethnic Sudan to largely homogenous Egypt, from dirt-poor Yemen to the super-rich princedoms in the Gulf, from the largely secular Lebanon and Tunisia to the autocratic theocracy of Saudi Arabia. For example, the proportion of women who get married before they are 18 ranges from a massive 45% in Somalia to 2% in Algeria.

In my view, the Arab state's failure to serve its citizens is intimately connected – both as a cause and effect – with the region's lacklustre economic performance, as is the region's instability. Shockingly, the AHDR quotes World Bank figures that show the region's economies to have grown collectively by a mere 6.4% in real terms in the quarter of a century between 1980 and 2004.

This is partly due to the Arab world's addiction – both direct and indirect – to oil-fuelled growth, and the dismantling of the industrial infrastructure in the more industrialised states that occurred as part of the so-called 'reforms' pushed by the World Bank and IMF. In fact, today, Arab countries are less industrialised than they were in 1970.

Modest economic growth or even stagnation in itself is not a problem if the fruits are distributed equitably and the population is stable. But Arab elites are increasingly hogging big slices of the economic pie, while the 'youth bulge' has led to mass unemployment in most countries, especially among young people. To add pain to indignity, the 'structural reforms' many countries had to undergo mean that subsidies and other benefits are becoming almost non-existent.

And the region's ecological carrying capacity is being strained by its continued population growth and global environmental pressures. Ironically, although the Arab world is a minor contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, it is set to become one of the main victims of climate change, as the region's water sources dry up and desertification spreads on the back of rising temperatures.

Another more controversial external threat is foreign military occupation and intervention. "Many of the threats to human security discussed in the report coalesce in situations of occupation, conflict and military intervention," the authors note, drawing on the evidence of three case studies covering Iraq, the occupied Palestinian territories and Somalia. "They spark both resistance and a cycle of violence and counter-violence that engulfs occupied and occupier alike [and] undercut human security in other Arab and neighbouring countries."

In an apparent pre-emptive bid at damage control with the US and Israel, the UNDP, according to the report's lead consultant, moved the chapter on foreign occupation to the end of what is billed as an "independent" report. "[This] undermines the impact of Israeli occupation in Palestine and American occupation in Iraq to human security," Mustapha Kamel al-Sayed, who disowned the report, told al-Masry al-Youm.

This has sparked some heated debate among Arab intellectuals, with some going so far as to suggest that the AHDR is little more than intellectual cover for Western expansionism in the region. Some have even linked the report's absence for the last four years with ill intent. "Suddenly, out of nowhere, it appears again this year to lecture us about security, while foreign military occupations and interferences, and their catastrophic consequences on the region are at the bottom of its concerns," wrote one journalist.

But such an attitude risks throwing out the baby with the bathwater since, to my mind, it lets off Arab leaders too lightly. Foreign occupation is definitely a major threat – and outright disaster for the societies directly affected – and deserves far more than footnote status. But we most not overlook that, almost without exception, Arab regimes, whether they are Western clients or not, are a major cause of insecurity for their peoples – in fact, the ruling elite often behaves as though they were a foreign occupier.

In addition, the AHDR has taken the consistent and anti-interventionist stance that: "sustainable change can only come from within". It even argues that the region's increasingly dynamic and outspoken civil society offer the best hope for the future.

The UNDP may have toned things down somewhat to deflect some of the heat it might get from the United States, but this does not make it an instrument of 'Western imperialism'. After all, it also seemed to be appeasing Arabs by dropping a chapter on the "ticking bomb" of identity conflicts. "The casualties of the situation in South Sudan, civil war in Lebanon and other such conflicts are very high and yet this chapter was reduced to two pages integrated into another chapter," al-Sayed pointed out.

Arabs and those interested in assisting the region to develop would do well to pay close attention to the seven "building blocks" of human security outlined in the AHDR, which range from empowering women and economic diversification to guaranteeing the rule of law and protecting the environment.

In the court of popular global opinion, George Bush and the other architects of the invasion and occupation of Iraq – including the vice-president, Dick Cheney, and the former defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld – are widely viewed as war criminals. That is one reason why last month's famous shoe-throwing incident was greeted as a heroic act of defiance by millions. But will this symbolic booting-out be the only consequence Bush will face for his dire actions, or is there hope that justice can be served for the many victims of his war-mongering?

All indications point to the probability that when Bush hands over the reins to Barack Obama on 20 January, he will not only get off scot-free, but he will also thrive. Like his father before him, and despite his own dismal business track record and allegations of murky dealings, he may well pursue a lucrative career in the influence-pedalling industry as a "consultant" for investment and oil companies.

But wouldn't it be great if, rather than spending his post-presidential silver years cashing in on his stint in the White House, he would be made to pay for the crimes against humanity he instigated?

Before we consider the possible avenues to justice, let's briefly recount the various charges against him. Most fundamentally, the Bush administration's decision to invade two sovereign nations unprovoked should be enough to indict him under international law, although the situation is a little more blurred in the case of Afghanistan under the Taliban. And protestations of 'pre-emptive' defence hold no legal water.

Benjamin Ferencz, a Nuremburg chief prosecutor, expressed his opinion that Bush's 2003 war of aggression against Iraq constituted "the supreme international crime". This is what has been known since the Nuremberg trials as a crime against peace.

Then there's the charge of crimes against humanity, another pillar of international law. In this instance, legal experts argue that the war's opening 'shock and awe' campaign alone – with its thousands of civilian casualties, wholesale destruction of civilian installation, and severe traumatising and terrorising of an entire population – counted as a serious crime against humanity.

Principle VI of the Nuremberg conventions outlaws the "wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages", while Article 48 of the Geneva conventions demands that parties to a war "shall at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants and between civilian objects and military objectives", which clearly did not happen during shock and awe. Torture – including waterboarding, sensory deprivation and complete isolation – which has been controversially endorsed by the Bush administration at Guantanamo Bay, also counts as a serious war crime.

Now that we have established a powerful case against Bush and the other architects of the Iraq war, what are the possible avenues for prosecution?

With no prosecution on the horizon in the United States, jurisdiction should automatically shift to the International Criminal Court. However, the US is one of only seven countries that has refused to sign up to the ICC, despite its support of the court's indictment of the Sudanese president, Omar al-Bashir.

With this international avenue blocked off, another possible avenue would be to take advantage of the Geneva conventions's 'universal jurisdiction' to bring a case against Bush in another country.

Belgium, before it watered down and then effectively abolished its own courageous and controversial war crimes law, could have been a good place to take legal action. In fact, there had been attempts in Belgium to prosecute George Bush, as well as other leaders, including Israel's Ariel Sharon, Palestine's Yasser Arafat and Cuba's Fidel Castro.

Spain and Canada also have universal jurisdiction laws on their books, but I doubt that courts there will hear a case against the Bush administration after the diplomatic fury Washington unleashed against Belgium.

Although no American president has ever been convicted of war crimes, the US legal system may actually provide the most promising avenue for pursuing legal action. US law prohibits American nationals from committing any "grave breach in any of the international conventions signed at Geneva 12 August 1949, or any protocol to such convention to which the United States is a party".

Now what we need is a few brave lawyers to throw down the legal gauntlet. If justice is done, it will send a powerful message that it is not just the defeated and weak who face punishment for their crimes. It will also dissuade future US leaders from believing they can launch wars of aggression with impunity and go a step towards repairing confidence in American justice.

Conspiracy theories: some believe the 11 September attacks were an inside job. Image ©Copyright Katleen Maes

If I were paranoid, I might start believing that some sinister plot was afoot. It almost seems as though the sheer proliferation of far-fetched, madcap conspiracy theories doing the rounds has been designed by some evil genius to cause 'conspiracy fatigue' in the public mind and to discredit the whole idea that our governments actually do conspire. But as I'm not unduly paranoid, I realise that this is a reflection of the fact that there are legions of gullible and disillusioned folk out there who have lost their faith in the establishment.

As we approach the fourth anniversary of the July 2005 London bombings, there is one conspiracy theory that has proven particularly resilient to reason and evidence. According to advocates of this theory, the 7/7 attacks were not the work of a group of disgruntled and marginalised British Muslims angry at what they saw as their government's war against Islam – a variation on the stubbornly persistent 'clash of civilisations' theory. Instead, they believe – based on evidence so flimsy you wouldn't sit your coffee mug on it – that the whole affair was staged by the British government (possibly with Israeli help) to draw attention away from the catastrophe in Iraq and shore up support for the so-called "war on terror".

And how did the government achieve this? Through controlled explosions. Sounds familiar? Yes, it's a low-budget spin-off of the 11 September conspiracy theory. And like 9/11, it comes with its very own cult film entitled 7/7 Ripple Effect.

The film bases its conspiracy theory on a number of apparent contradictions and "an unbelievable set of circumstances" in the official narrative, such as the fact that an ex-police officer organised, in a nearby office, a mock exercise preparing for a possible terrorist attack on the underground. The film also claims that the alleged attackers were not on the trains that blew up. So, where were they? Apparently being assassinated in Canary Wharf by government agents who were out to frame them for the atrocity. Given the persistent popularity of 7/7 Ripple Effect, the BBC ran a special documentary this week which investigated the credibility of the DVD's claims.

Examining the film's claims one by one, the BBC documentary demolished them compellingly by drawing on convincing evidence. It also unmasked the man behind Ripple Effect, a certain John Hill from Sheffield who is living in Ireland. In addition to making conspiratorial mountains out of coincidental molehills, Hill's other beliefs include that he is the Messiah and that the 'Force' told George Lucas to write Star Wars.

Of course, the flimsiness of the case and the untrustworthiness of the source won't convince a certain faction of diehard conspiracy theorists. In fact, I've found out that it has been declaimed as a "hit piece" by a leading rightwing conspiracy theorist, Alex Jones. No doubt, I will be seen as a mindless pawn in the plot for writing this piece.

In the absence of an official public inquiry and given the government's lack of credibility following the 'sexed up' march to war in Iraq, some people are gullible or disenchanted enough to believe that the government – or other groups they don't like: corporations, Muslims, Jews, etc – is capable of hatching the most fantastical plots.

However, the sensation and ridicule elicited by crackpot conspiracy theorists discredits talk of the very real plots that take place and enables those involved to laugh them off. But just because there are fantastical conspiracy theories out there that does not mean there are no real conspiracies taking place. In fact, behind many far-fetched conspiracies, there is a germ of fact based on precedent. For example, there are rumours in the Middle East that the US is pulling the strings of the protests in Iran, even though no one has been able to show any convincing link or explain how a mass movement can be remote controlled from Washington. What sustains the rumours and gives them life is that the US and Britain have form, having covertly engineered a coup to oust Iran's first democratic government more than half a century ago.

Similarly, the 7/7 and 9/11 theories feed off a deep well of distrust dug by other lies. It seems clear to me that the British and American publics were misled in the run-up to the Iraq war, with all the fanciful claims of fictional weapons of mass destruction and the non-existent and farcical link between Saddam Hussein and his sworn enemies al-Qaida. Now that's a conspiracy, if ever there was one. Instead of giving any credence to 7/7 or 9/11 conspiracy theories, we should dedicate our efforts to campaigning for a proper public inquiry into the real deceptions that took place and demand that those responsible be brought to justice.

This column appeared in The Guardian Unlimited’s Comment is Free section on 3 July 2009. Read the related discussion.