US Missile Defense will not be Deployed...

on Monday, “Russia test-launched a new intercontinental ballistic missile part of a system that can outperform any anti-missile system likely to be deployed” according to Reuters. “The missile was launched from the Tula nuclear-powered submarine in the Barents Sea in the Arctic.”

“The military hardware now on our weapons, and those that will appear in the next few years, will enable our missiles to outperform any anti-missile system, including future systems," Col.-Gen Nikolai Solovtsov was quoted as telling journalists.” (Reuters)

Bush's Missile Defense system has restarted the nuclear arms race. Welcome to the new Cold War.

Finally, Russia Chief of Staff, General Yuri Balyevsky warned:

“A possible launch of a US interceptor missile from Central Europe may provoke a counterattack from intercontinental ballistic missiles....If we suppose that Iran wants to strike the United States , then interceptor missiles which would be launched from Poland will fly towards Russia and the shape and flight trajectory are very similar to ICBMs” (Novosti Russian News Agency)

Balyevsky's scenario of an “accidental” World War 3 is more likely than ever now that Bush is pressing ahead with his plans for Missile Defense. Russia's automated missile warning systems can be triggered automatically when foreign missiles enter Russian air space. Its a dangerous game and may prove potentially fatal every living thing on the planet.

To great extent, the American people have no idea of the reckless policy that is being carried out in their name. The gravity of the proposed Missile Defense system has been virtually ignored by the media and Russia's protests have been dismissed as trivial. But hostilities are steadily growing, military forces and weaponry are being put into place, and the stage is set for a major conflagration

One week, no different than most others...

One week, no different than most others. Shows the road to peace isn't through Annapolis nor can it be achieved without a willing partner or with the legitimate Palestinian government excluded. Talks are futile as long Israel spurns peace, violates international law, attacks Palestinian civilians, seizes their land, destroys their homes, restricts their movements, conducts targeted assassinations, denies them essential services, and holds Gaza under a medieval siege in the world's largest open-air prison while blaming the victims.

Unreported is that the West Bank is also under siege that's been tightened in recent weeks on targeted communities. Palestinian civilians are severely impeded especially in their movement in and out of Jerusalem. Other communities affected include Nablus, Tulkarm, Bethlehem, Jenin, Hebron and Ramallah. None of this is reported in the mainstream.

Each week, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights reports on conditions on the ground by documenting Israeli human rights violations in the Territories. They're systematic, unending and savagely brutal by a nation pretending to want peace in the latest theatrics going nowhere. Against a backdrop of talks, photo-ops and high-sounding rhetoric, here's the reality on the ground from November 22 to 28. It's much like most previous weeks and those yet to come. It's why talk of peace is pretense, and the struggle continues.


The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF):

-- killed 11 Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank; one victim was extra-judicially assassinated; two others were killed by banned flechette shells that propel metal fragments on detonation for maximum destructive effect against human targets;

-- wounded 28 Palestinians, including four children and an Israeli human rights defender; prevented ambulances from reaching victims to provide medical aid and transport to hospitals; one or more victims bled to death as a result;

-- conducted 12 incursions into the West Bank and two into Gaza; in all cases, civilians were victimized;

-- conducted air strikes at locations in Gaza including against the Palestinian naval police in Khan Yunis and Hamas' Izziddin al-Qassam Brigades military wing;

-- arrested 30 Palestinian civilians in the West Bank plus 12 in Gaza making the total number of arrests this year 2476 in the West Bank; year to date Gaza arrests weren't reported but may be comparable in number to the West Bank; as many as 12,000 Palestinians are in Israeli prisons under deplorable conditions, most are uncharged under administrative detention, and Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem estimates 85% of them are subjected to torture or abuse;

-- destroyed one house and razed 7 donums (about 2 acres) of agricultural land in Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza;

-- destroyed buildings and factories in the Gaza Erez industrial zone that remained after others there were destroyed earlier;

-- allowed one patient to die because she was denied access to treatment outside Gaza;

-- continued construction of the illegal annexation wall in the West Bank on seized Palestinian land;

-- used force to disperse peaceful demonstrations protesting the wall's construction in Bal'eom village, west of Ramallah, and al-Ma'sara, south of Bethlehem;

-- continued illegal West Bank settlement activities;

-- allowed Israeli settlers to continue attacking Palestinian civilians and their property; attacks also injured 13 Palestinian civilians traveling in a minibus;

-- continued to violently beat Palestinians attempting to bypass checkpoints to enter Jerusalem; this happens mostly on Fridays when they wish to pray at the al-Aqsa Mosque;

-- seized the homes of three Palestinian families for use as military sites; and

-- Israeli settlers attacked a Hebron school causing damage; they broke windows, uprooted trees, demolished walls and tried to burn down the building; Settlers also attacked a private home; they set fires, broke windows and damaged a car and barnyard; in both instances, IDF forces were nearby but didn't intervene as they almost never do in situations like this so settlers can freely terrorize Palestinian civilians.


The result is a humanitarian and economic disaster.
Where is the law ?

What is the international community doing with regard to this?? Roll over and go back to sleep !

US Roman Catholic Bishop

Bishop Williamson, whose talk was held Nov. 4, 2007 in Bedford, Mass., is quoted as saying:

"Without 9-11, it would have been impossible to attack Afghanistan or Iraq. The forces inside the United States government and driving the United States government absolutely wanted to attack and destroy Iraq. The destruction wrought upon Iraq is unspeakable. And now the same forces want to do the same thing to Iran . . . They may well be plotting another 9-11."

The news item continues: "Heat from the burning fuel of the planes that flew into the twin towers of the World Trade Center could not have melted the 47 steel columns in each tower, causing them to collapse, he claimed. And a commercial airliner could not have penetrated six of the ten walls that were breached by 'whatever hit the Pentagon,' he said."

What did hit the Pentagon, according to Bishop Williamson?

"It was a missile that hit the Pentagon. It was a missile that could only have been fired by the American military."

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Well it isnt the first time these theories have been suggested. I guess we will never know .... or will we ?

Radioactive Ammunition Fired in Middle East May Claim More Lives Than Hiroshima and Nagasaki

By firing radioactive ammunition, the U.S., U.K., and Israel may have triggered a nuclear holocaust in the Middle East that, over time, will prove deadlier than the U.S. atomic bombing of Japan.

So much ammunition containing depleted uranium(DU) has been fired, asserts nuclear authority Leuren Moret, "The genetic future of the Iraqi people for the most part, is destroyed."

"More than ten times the amount of radiation released during atmospheric testing (of nuclear bombs) has been released from depleted uranium weaponry since 1991," Moret writes, including radioactive ammunition fired by Israeli troops in Palestine.

Moret is an independent U.S. scientist formerly employed for five years at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and also at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, both of California.

Adds Arthur Bernklau, of Veterans For Constitutional Law, "The long- term effect of DU is a virtual death sentence. Iraq is a toxic wasteland. Anyone who is there stands a good chance of coming down with cancer and leukemia. In Iraq, the birth rate of mutations is totally out of control."

Moret, a Berkeley, Calif., Environmental Commissioner and past president of the Association for Women Geoscientists, says, "For every genetic defect that we can see now, in future generations there are thousands more that will be expressed."

She adds, "the (Iraq) environment now is completely radioactive."

Dr. Helen Caldicott, the prominent anti-nuclear crusader, has written: "Much of the DU is in cities such as Baghdad, where half the population of 5 million people are children who played in the burned- out tanks and on the sandy, dusty ground."

Caldicott goes on to say the two Gulf wars "have been nuclear wars because they have scattered nuclear material across the land, and people---particularly children--- are condemned to die of malignancy and congenital disease essentially for eternity."

Because of the extremely long half-life of uranium 238, one of the radioactive elements in the shells fired, "the food, the air, and the water in the cradle of civilization have been forever contaminated," Caldicott explained.

Uranium is a heavy metal that enters the body via inhalation into the lung or via ingestion into the GI tract. It is excreted by the kidney, where, if the dose is high enough, it can induce renal failure or kidney cancer. It also lodges in the bones where it causes bone cancer and leukemia, and it is excreted in the semen, where it mutates genes in the sperm, leading to birth deformities.

Nuclear contamination is spreading around the world, Caldicott adds, with heaviest concentrations in regions within a 1,000-mile radius of Baghdad and Afghanistan.

These are, notably, northern India, southern Russia, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Tibet, Pakistan, Kuwait, the Gulf emirates, and Jordan.

"Downwind from the radioactive devastation in Iraq, Israel is also suffering from large increases in breast cancer, leukemia and childhood diabetes," Moret asserts.

Doug Rokke, formerly the top U.S. Army DU clean-up officer and now anti-DU crusader, says Israeli tankers fired radioactive shells during the invasion of Lebanon last year. U.S. and NATO forces also used DU ammunition in Kosovo. Rokke says he is quite ill from the effects of DU and that members of his clean-up crew have died from it.

As a result of DU bombardments, Caldicott writes, "Severe birth defects have been reported in babies born to contaminated civilians in Iraq, Yugoslavia, and Afghanistan and the incidence and severity of defects is increasing over time."

Like symptoms have been reported among infants born to U.S. service personnel that fought in the Gulf Wars. One survey of 251 returned Gulf War veterans from Mississippi made by the Veterans Administration found 67% of children born to them suffered from "severe illnesses and deformities."

Some were born without brains or vital organs or with no arms, hands, or arms, or with hands attached to their shoulders.

While U.S. officials deny DU ammunition is dangerous, it is a fact Gulf War veterans were the first Americans ever to fight on a radioactive battlefield, and their children apparently are the first known to display these ghastly deformities.

Soldiers who survived being hit by radioactive ammunition, as well as those who fired it, are falling ill, often showing signs of radiation sickness. Of the 700,000 U.S. veterans of the first Gulf War, more than 240,000 are on permanent medical disability and 11,000 are dead, published reports indicate.

This is an astonishing toll from such a short conflict in which fewer than 400 U.S. soldiers were killed on the battlefield.

Of course, "depleted uranium munitions were and remain another causative factor behind Gulf War Syndrome(GWS)," writes Francis Boyle, a leading American authority on international law in his book "Biowarfare and Terrorism," from Clarity Press Inc.

"The Pentagon continues to deny that there is such a medical phenomenon categorized as GWS---even beyond the point where everyone knows that denial is pure propaganda and disinformation," Boyle writes.

Boyle contends, "The Pentagon will never own up to the legal, economic, tortious, political, and criminal consequences of admitting the existence of GWS. So U.S. and U.K. veterans of Gulf War I as well as their afterborn children will continue to suffer and die. The same will prove true for U.S. and U.S. veterans of Bush Jr.'s Gulf War II as well as their afterborn children."

Boyle said the use of DU is outlawed under the 1925 Geneva Convention prohibiting poison gas.

Chalmers Johnson, president of the Japan Policy Research Institute, writes in his "The Sorrows of Empire"(Henry Holt and Co.) that, given the abnormal clusters of childhood cancers and deformities in Iraq as well as Kosovo, the evidence points "toward a significant role for DU."

By insisting on its use, Johnson adds, "the military is deliberately flouting a 1996 United Nations resolution that classifies DU ammunition as an illegal weapon of mass destruction."

Moret calls DU "the Trojan Horse of nuclear war." She describes it as "the weapon that keeps killing." Indeed, the half-life of Uranium-238 is 4.5-billion years, and as it decays it spawns other deadly radioactive by-products.

Radioactive fallout from DU apparently blew far and wide. Following the initial U.S. bombardment of Iraq in 2003, DU particles traveled 2,400 miles to Great Britain in about a week, where atmospheric radiation quadrupled.

But it is in the Middle East, predominantly Iraq, where the bulk of the radioactive waste has been dumped.

In the early Nineties, the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority warned that 50 tons of dust from DU explosions could claim a half million lives from cancer by year 2000. Not 50 tons, but an estimated two thousand radioactive tons have been fired off in the Middle East, suggesting the possibility over time of an even higher death toll.

Dr. Keith Baverstock, a World Health Organization radiation advisor, informed the media, Iraq's arid climate would increase exposure from its tiny particles as they are blown about and inhaled by the civilian population for years to come.

The civilian death toll from the August, 1945, U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki has been put at 140,000 and 80,000, respectively. Over time, however, deaths from radiation sickness are thought to have claimed the lives of another 100,000 Japanese civilians.

The "No" Peace conference

"The mountain went into labor, then it gave birth to a rat ," so says the famous Arab proverb. This adage is likely to caricature the outcome of the upcoming American-sponsored "peace conference," slated to take place on 27 November, in Annapolis , Maryland .

Forecasting the failure of the Annapolis meeting is more than speculation. It is a realistic assessment of an event that is not intended to be successful, even if the declared desire suggests otherwise.

Indeed, apart from the pleasantries which are meant to create positive atmospherics, Israel and the PA have failed to reach any modicum of agreement on the core issues that define the Palestinian problem.

A few weeks ago, PA officials were almost euphoric about the conference. PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas vowed to boycott the Annapolis meeting unless Israel agreed in principle at least to end its occupation of the West Bank , Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem , as well as accept a just settlement of the refugee problem pursuant UN resolution 194. But Israel, of course, agreed to none of that.

Now, the PA will go to Annapolis without any assurance policy, relying mainly on George Bush's "good will," (whatever that means in real terms).

There will be several categories of participants and attendees at the Annapolis conference: First, the master of disaster, George W. Bush, the Fuhrer of the White House who has invaded, occupied and destroyed two Muslim countries and killed or caused the death of over a million innocent human beings under the pretext of ridding the world of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction that turned out to be nonexistent.

The man, who claimed that God had told him to do what he did, has never had the moral courage to say "I made a mistake, Mea Culpa." Instead, he concocted all sorts of pretexts, canards and lies to justify his criminality and evil designs. After all, criminals show no concern about their crimes.

Which really begs the following question: can the peoples of the Middle East in particular and humanity in general count on one of the world's most premier murderers and liars to force Israel to make peace? Let us not forget that this is the man who had described Ariel Sharon, the certified Israeli war criminal, as a man of peace.

Then there is the perpetual murderer, liar land thief, namely Israel, a state that murders school children and calls the murder self-defense and then lies about its crimes and calls the lying hasbara and public relations, a state that claims to have ended its occupation of Gaza while continuing to tightly control Gaza's borders, border crossings, territorial water, skies and the region's very lifeline.

The leader of this nefarious state, Ehud Olmert, is going to the Annapolis conference, not to make peace and show good will towards Israel's victims, but rather in order to make sure that no substantive progress will come out of it.

Olmert, a man notorious for his criminality, mendacity and deceitfulness, will heavily indulge in prevarication, verbal juggling and red herrings, but will shun the real issues, namely ending the hateful occupation of the Palestinian homeland and brutality against the Palestinian people.

Olmert will not even allude to millions of miserable Palestinian refugees languishing in squalid refugee camps all over the Middle East because a state calling itself a light upon the nations wouldn't allow them to return to their homes and villages from which they were uprooted when that state was born sixty years ago.

He will not mention East Jerusalem whose Arab Christian-Muslim identity successive Israeli governments have sought to decapitate, humanly spiritually, demographically and economically.

And, of course, he will completely ignore the sinister Israeli blockade of 1.4 million Gazans who are being tormented and starved to death because Zionism can't forgive Palestinians for electing a political party that Israel doesn't like.

Instead of dealing honestly and seriously with the real issues, Olmert, will launch a charade about strengthening PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and encouraging "the forces of moderation and peace" as if the real problem in Palestine was the absence of moderation and peace among Palestinians, not the Nazi-like Israeli occupation and oppression of Palestinians.

And then there is Abbas, the American-backed PA leader who apparently thinks that now is the best time for making peace because America's conscience has suddenly waked up from its slumber and George W. Bush has undergone a graceful metamorphosis, from an evil man to a saint.

Abbas looks really very pathetic. He had already placed all his eggs into the American basket which means that he won't be able to say "No" to the Americans even when he must.

This is why all he can do to save his Palestinian Authority, which is actually devoid of any real authority, is to day-dream and implore the werewolf of the White House to press Israel to demonstrate true desire for peace. Day-dreaming, psychologists say, represents the highest degree of frustration.

But, as the famous Arab poet Zuheir said more than 1400 years ago, he that doesn't respect himself shall not be respected by others. Abbass should have himself to blame. He trusted Bush and Olmert too much to the extent that he has become a vanquished supplicant at their doorsteps. He maltreated his people and did many things that should not have been done, all to please and appease Olmert and Bush, but to no avail.

In a nutshell, beggars can't be choosers.

And then there will be the usual horde of Arab despots who are at America's beck and call and who always value the legitimacy that comes form America's acceptance more than which comes from their own masses' acceptance.

Most of these kings and presidents-for-life are quite tired of the enduring Palestinian cause and are very much eager to sell out whatever has remained of Arab honor and Arab rights, probably including the al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam's third holiest shrine. This inertia, this exhaustion, can be detected in the tone of their voices.

These are the same so-called leaders who are now quietly colluding with Israel to decimate and starve to death the people of Gaza in order to appease America and obtain from it a certificate of good conduct.

Then there is the European Union (EU), whose leaders continue to curry favor with Israel, despite its wicked treatment of Palestinians. This is the same EU that has proven ad nauseam that it won't miss an opportunity to succumb to Israeli and Zionist pressure, even at the price of seeing innocent civilians starved and killed.

A few days ago, France 's Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner assured Israel that France would always seek to ensure Israel's security. You see the moral whoredom! The security of Israel, a country that possesses 300 nuclear weapons, 700 state-of-the-art fighter bombers, and 4000 battle tanks and several nuclear-fit submarines, must be protected and preserved, while the Palestinians who can hardly put food on the table for their starving children, must be blockaded and punished.

We shouldn't forget Tony Blair, the deceitful and duplicitous former British Prime Minister, who has tons of Iraqi blood on his dirty hands. This war criminal is now trying to bribe the Palestinians with "economic projects," in the hope that this would make them forget some of their inalienable rights, including the right of return for the refugees and Jerusalem .

Finally, Annapolis will be honored to have the comical Ban Ki-moon attending the conference. For those who don't know, this Ki-moon must always watch his tongue very carefully lest he inadvertently says something Bush and Condoleezza Rice don't like.

Well, with such a great company, the Palestinians need not worry!! Their cause is in honest hands!

War and Lies - from someone who knows....

Matt Howard gave this statement at a recent protest at the Statehouse.

In 2003 I illegally invaded the sovereign nation of Iraq with 1st Tank battalion 1st Marine Division. My commander in chief unleashed the world's fiercest fighting force upon the country and people of Iraq, and now those of us used and betrayed by him are demanding justice.

Four and a half years after our opening "shock and awe" Bush's lies are known throughout the world, and yet he continues to act with impunity. Four and a half years later the Bush regime has unleashed a hell upon the country of Iraq that only those who have been there can truly understand.

As a two-tour combat veteran of this brutal war, I have a responsibility to speak honestly and openly about what has been done and what continues to be done in our name. We veterans know that this war is not the one being sanitized on the nightly news. It has nothing to do with the liberation of the people of Iraq; instead it has everything to do with the subjugation and domination of these people in the name of U.S. imperial economic and strategic interests.

We did not go to war with the country of Iraq, we went to war with the people of Iraq. During the initial invasion we killed women. We killed children. We senselessly killed farm animals. We were the United States Marine Corps, not the Peace Corps, and we left a swath of death and destruction in our wake all the way to Baghdad.

Let me say again so that there is no misunderstanding. I stand here today as a former U.S. Marine saying we are killing women and children in Iraq. This is the true nature of war. War lends itself to atrocities. Don't think you can use an organization designed to kill other human beings for anything humanitarian. That has never been our mission. That was crystal clear from the moment I was forced to bury the crate of humanitarian food given to me in Kuwait.

Four and a half years later we as soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines are done. We are done being told under threat of court martial to run over children that get in the way of our speeding convoys.

We are done raiding and destroying the homes of innocent Iraqis on a nightly basis.

We are done abusing and torturing prisoners.

We are done being hired thugs for the 160,000 contractors and U.S. corporate interests in Iraq.

We are done being poisoned by depleted uranium, the unspoken Agent Orange of this war.

We are done coming home broken, from two, three, four tours of duty - only to find our commander in chief has actually tried to CUT funding to the Department of Veterans Affairs. To find our doctors being told to diagnose us with pre-existing personality disorders instead of post traumatic stress syndrome.

We are done killing for lies.

So Iraq Veterans Against the War is taking back our history - the history that has been robbed from us. We are dispelling the myth that the Vietnam war ended when the Democrats started voting against it. Instead we are spreading the truth about how the American War in Vietnam ended.

The Vietnam War ended when soldiers put down their weapons and refused to fight; when pilots dropped their bombs in the ocean.

We are re-educating the public to let them know that the power ultimately lies with the people. Just take a look at the thousands of pages of internal documents from the Department of Defense explicitly detailing how at the end of the Vietnam war the military had collapsed. It was literally in a state of mutiny. And that movement is slowly starting again. Because ultimately in every war waged throughout human history, those forced to fight quickly realize they have much more in common with those they are being told to kill than with those telling them to do the killing.

And we are re-educating the public about the true nature of sectarian violence. No, the middle east is NOT inherently violent. In fact, in the 1,400-year schism between Sunnis and Shias - there has NEVER been a civil war fought. They have always lived in the same neighborhoods and even intermarried. The United States has caused this civil war using the classic colonial techniques of divide and conquer.

George Bush is a war criminal who has violated international law, the Geneva convention and the Nuremburg standards and needs to tried accordingly for crimes against humanity.

I ask every red-blooded American today: What would you do if your homeland was savagely invaded and occupied by another country? The Iraqis will continue to resist and fight until the last American has left their homeland. Period. End the violence in Iraq? End the occupation.

We veterans are speaking out to stop the violence being perpetrated in our name. When we voted in the Democrats on an anti-war mandate, the Bush regime expanded the war. As we are marching against further occupation, the Bush regime is making threats against Iran.

And we will not continue to be silenced by the mainstream media. Top generals and bottom privates are all speaking in unison now. We know the truth about the slaughter of upwards of one million Iraqis. Why is no one listening? We will not stand by as this regime tricks the country into thinking that if you oppose the war you do not support the troops. We ARE the troops and we have never felt support from this administration. Stop mindlessly supporting the troops. Start demanding that we come home - and maybe think about apologizing to us when we get back.

The US is not Japan - Will history repeat itself ?

A top US scholar of wartime Japan said Wednesday that the Bush administration's "war on terror" bore close parallels to Japan's past militarism through a defiance of international law.

Herbert Bix, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 2001 for his landmark biography of wartime emperor Hirohito, said he believed US aerial bombings and alleged use of torture in Afghanistan and Iraq constituted war crimes.

"The current American rampage in Iraq and elsewhere, not to mention the Bush administration's threats of war against Iran, so clearly replicates Imperial Japan during the period when its leaders willfully disregarded international law and pursued the diplomacy of force," Bix said during a visit to Tokyo.

The point is that Japan is still paying for these crimes decades later. Will America ?


Japan defied the Nine-Party Treaty guaranteeing China's sovereignty, signed in 1922 in Washington, when imperial troops invaded Manchuria in 1931.

Bix compared Japan's action to current US efforts to scuttle the Treaty of Rome establishing the International Criminal Court, which President George W. Bush argues could unfairly target Americans.


"US war criminality is justice institutionalised, as Japan's once was," Bix said.

"In today's America, torture is not only standard battlefield practice in the so-called war on terror. Torture is celebrated in American popular culture

When will the US ratify the issue of torture ? Do they have any respect for fellow human beings at all ?

American Hypocrisy - Again

Fifteen months ago, the armed wing of Lebanon's Hezbollah party, listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and most other Western countries, attacked Israel's northern border, capturing two Israeli soldiers and killing eight more. Israel replied with a month of massive air attacks all across Lebanon that destroyed much of the country's infrastructure, leveled a good deal of south Beirut, and killed around a thousand Lebanese civilians.

Washington, London, Ottawa and some other Western capitals insisted that this was a reasonable and proportionate response, and shielded Israel from intense diplomatic pressure to stop the attacks even when Israel launched a land invasion of southern Lebanon in early August, 2006. The operation only ended when Israeli casualties on the ground mounted rapidly and the Israeli government pulled its troops back.

So what would be a reasonable and proportionate Turkish response to the recent attacks by the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and most other Western countries, from northern Iraq into southeastern Turkey? More than forty Turkish civilians and soldiers have been killed in these attacks over the past two weeks, and a further eight Turkish soldiers were captured.

Well, it would be unreasonable for Turkey to bomb Iraq, where the PKK's bases are, for any more than one month. It would be quite disproportionate for the Turkish Air Force to level more than a small part of Baghdad - say, 15,000 homes. Ideally, it should leave Baghdad alone and restrict itself to destroying some Kurdish-populated city in northern Iraq near Turkey's own border. Moreover, when the Turks do invade Iraq on the ground, they should restrict themselves to the northern border strip where the PKK's bases are.

What's that? Washington is asking Turkey to show restraint and not attack Iraq at all? Even after the Kurdish terrorists killed or kidnapped all those Turkish people? Could it be that Turkish lives are worth less than Israeli lives?

More like the US and EU will back Israel in anything they do, even if it breaks international laws and human decency !

US state sponsor of terror

ABC News : Pakistani tribal militant group responsible for a series of deadly guerrilla raids inside Iran has been secretly encouraged and advised by American officials since 2005, U.S. and Pakistani intelligence sources tell ABC News.

The group, called Jundullah, is made up of members of the Baluchi tribe and operates out of the Baluchistan province in Pakistan, just across the border from Iran.

It has taken responsibility for the deaths and kidnappings of more than a dozen Iranian soldiers and officials.

Telegraph : Mr Bush has signed an official document endorsing CIA plans for a propaganda and disinformation campaign intended to destabilise, and eventually topple, the theocratic rule of the mullahs.

Under the plan, pressure will be brought to bear on the Iranian economy by manipulating the country's currency and international financial transactions.

Authorisation of the new CIA mission, which will not be allowed to use lethal force, appears to suggest that President Bush has, for the time being, ruled out military action against Iran.

However, the CIA is giving arms-length support, supplying money and weapons, to an Iranian militant group, Jundullah, which has conducted raids into Iran from bases in Pakistan.

Iranian officials say they captured 10 members of Jundullah last weekend, carrying $500,000 in cash along with "maps of sensitive areas" and "modern spy equipment".

Again, be the hypocrite - Support terrorist groups to do your bidding and without evidence accuse others of providing support against your troops occupying other countries!!! Begs belief

Jimmy Carter Says US Tortures Prisoners

WASHINGTON, 12 October 2007 — No matter your opinion of former US President Jimmy Carter, you have to admit he has guts. At 83, he decided to take on the Bush administration, and took an extra punch at Vice President Dick Cheney. In an interview broadcast Wednesday by the BBC, Carter called Cheney “a militant who avoided any service of his own in the military and he has been most forceful in the last 10 years or more in fulfilling some of his more ancient commitments that the United States has a right to inject its power through military means in other parts of the world.” Carter went on to say that the hawkish Cheney has been “a disaster for our country. I think he’s been overly persuasive on President George Bush.” In the interview, Carter also criticized the Republican presidential candidates. “They all seem to be outdoing each other in who wants to go to war first with Iran, who wants to keep Guantanamo open longer and expand its capacity — things of that kind,” he said. Carter continued his attack of the Bush administration beyond the BBC. Wednesday night he told CNN the US tortured prisoners in violation of international law, following an assertion last week from Bush that the US “does not torture.” Bush was responding to an Oct. 4 report by The New York Times on secret Justice Department memorandums supporting the use of “harsh interrogation techniques.” Bush defended the techniques last Friday by proclaiming: “This government does not torture people.” Carter, the 2002 winner of the Nobel peace prize, said the interrogation methods cited, including “head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures,” constitute torture “if you use the international norms of torture as has always been honored — certainly in the last 60 years since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was promulgated. “But you can make your own definition of human rights and say we don’t violate them, and you can make your own definition of torture and say we don’t violate them,” Carter said. “Our country for the first time in my life time has abandoned the basic principle of human rights,” Carter told CNN. “We’ve said that the Geneva conventions do not apply to those people in Abu Ghraib prison and Guantanamo, and we’ve said we can torture prisoners and deprive them of an accusation of a crime.” During the interview, Carter also blasted fellow Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for refusing to commit to a full withdrawal of troops from Iraq. You also have the fact that Bush is quick to condem any other country like the Junta for torturing anyone. The guy really has to learn the word "HYPOCRITE" - a person who pretends to have virtues, moral or religious beliefs, principles, etc., that he or she does not actually possess!

This rings so true!

While on his morning walk, British Prime Minister Tony Blair falls over, has a heart attack and dies because the accident and emergency ward at his nearest hospital is too understaffed to treat him in time.

So his soul arrives in Heaven and he is met by Saint Peter at the Pearly Gates. "Welcome to Heaven," says Saint Peter, "Before you settle in, it seems there is a problem. We seldom see a Socialist around these parts, so we're not sure what to do with you."

"No problem, just let me in; I'm a good Christian; I'm a believer," says the PM.

"I'd like to just let you in, but I have orders from G-d Himself. He says that since the implementation of his new HEAVEN CHOICES policy, you have to spend one day in Hell and one day in Heaven. Then you must choose where you'll live for eternity."

"But I've already made up my mind. I want to be in Heaven," replies Blair.

"I'm sorry ... But we have our rules," Peter interjects. And, with that, St. Peter escorts him to an elevator and he goes down, down, down ...all The way to Hell.

The doors open and he finds himself in the middle of a lush golf course. The sun is shining in a cloudless sky. The temperature is a perfect 22°C. In the distance is a beautiful club-house. Standing in front of it is Harold Wilson and thousands of other Socialist luminaries who had helped him out over the years --- John Smith, Michael Foot, Jim Callaghan, etc. The whole of the Labour Party leaders were there ... everyone laughing, happy, and casually but expensively dressed. They run to greet him, to hug him and to reminisce about the good times they had getting rich at the expense of 'suckers and peasants.' They play a friendly game of golf and then dine on lobster and caviar.

The Devil himself comes up to Blair with a frosty drink, "Have a tequila and relax, Tony!"

"Uh, I can't drink anymore, I took a pledge," says Blair, dejectedly. "This is Hell, son. You can drink and eat all you want and not worry and it just gets better from there!"

Blair takes the drink and finds himself liking the Devil, who he thinks is a really very friendly bloke who tells funny jokes like himself and pulls hilarious nasty pranks, kind of like the ones the Labour Party pulled with the European Constitution and the Education, Immigration, Tough on Crime promises. They are having such a great time that, before he realises it, it's time to go. Everyone gives him a big hug and waves as Blair steps on the elevator and heads upward.

When the elevator door reopens, he is in Heaven again and Saint Peter is waiting for him. "Now it's time to visit Heaven," the old man says, opening the gate.

So for 24 hours Blair is made to hang out with a bunch of honest, good-natured people who enjoy each other's company, talk about things other than money and treat each other decently. Not a nasty prank or smart-arse joke among them. No fancy country clubs here and, while the food tastes great, it's not caviar or lobster. And these people are all poor. He doesn't see anybody he knows and he isn't even treated like someone special!

"Whoa," he says uncomfortably to himself. "Harold Wilson never prepared me for this!"

The day done, Saint Peter returns and says, "Well, you've spent a day in Hell and a day in Heaven. Now choose where you want to live for Eternity."

With the 'Deal or No Deal' theme playing softly in the background, Blair reflects for a minute ... then answers: "Well, I would never have thought I'd say this -- I mean, Heaven has been delightful and all -- but I really think I belong in Hell with my friends."

So Saint Peter escorts him to the elevator and he goes down, down, down, all the way to Hell. The doors of the elevator open and he is in the middle of a barren scorched earth covered with garbage and toxic industrial wasteland, kind of like the eroded, rabbit and fox affected Australian outback. He is horrified to see all of his friends, dressed in rags and chained together, picking up the roadside rubbish and putting it into black plastic bags. They are groaning and moaning in pain, faces and hands black with grime.

The Devil comes over to Blair and puts an arm around his shoulder. "I don't understand," stammers a shocked Tony, "Yesterday I was here and there was a golf course and a club-house and we ate lobster and caviar and drank tequila. We lazed around and had a great time. Now there's just a wasteland full of garbage and everybody looks miserable!"

The Devil looks at him, smiles slyly and purrs, "Yesterday we were campaigning; today you voted for us!"

The United Nations or is it 'The United States UN' ?

Freedom of Speech, but i will spend at least 15 minutes to condem you before you have a chance to start. Oh and i will use all the propaganda that i can find in the local press.. 'The Devil walks among us'

Full transcript of Ahmadinejad Speech at Columbia University

Imagine Bush going to Iran, there is nothing he could say, because it is all made up.

So lets ask the nice man at the Columbia University to answer some of our questions ...

Iranian University Chancellors Ask Bollinger 10 Questions

But we must remember HE is the enemy, just listen how he speaks with such hatred at the UN assembly. Not like the French and German Leaders who say that War is the right thing to do, when you consider making the planet safe.

Transcript of UN Speech

Peace is going to take all the nations working in cooperation to limit naked aggression and human rights' violations, not just the ones which the US declare as evil. How many nukes do we have? How many does Pakistan have? How many does India, Israel, North Korea, and the former Soviet Union have? Should the rhetoric be about destroying all weapons of mass destruction and not just prohibiting Iran from obtaining one?

Many countries are committing human rights' violations and sending arms and troops into many parts of the world. America's biggest export is violence and we would do well to call for an end to all occupations and violence by beginning to end our own.

Will Gordon Brown win the next election?

The people did not elect this man to be Primeminister as this was Tony Bairs plan. It is all to do with joining the EU, this will happen if Gordon brown wins the next election.
So far Gordon has handled a number of problems that have happened in our Country quite well with immediete response.
I do not think even if their is any opostion from any other party that he will lose the election.
I think that if Tony Blair had left at the end of his term that Gordon would not have been elected to be Primeminister, so what he did was quite clever to leave earlier to become president of the EU. I think the majority of our Country will have more confidence in Gordon especially if Tony creates some publicity just before the election.
I also think that if the pound became quite weak due to the dept crisis and our banks being too greedy that there would be no excuse not to join the EU. This is an interesting question, what would happen if we join the EU with a strong pound?
I think that Gordon has been re-structuring his party quite well. He has made a Policeman into a minister and a surgeon from the NHS into a minister, it all appears quite professional for a man we have not ellected.
The only thing I hated about Gordon is that when he was Chacellor he taxed us all to the hilt that meant he was able to keep up with most of the overspending of our Country.
I do think that it is quite clear that if he holds an election in as early as October this Year he will win.

Long Term Adult Unemployment

The classic situation is for the main breadwinner in a family having been employed a number of years is made redundant. That type of employment in the area has dwindled away due to general reduction of manufacturing, as it goes overseas, or due to a government establishment closing down, or a large company going bust. That person and the family have long established roots in the area and clearly are reluctant to move.

Now the present system is that to continue getting dole money you go on training schemes or educational courses. But these often are just used as interludes between periods on the dole, they cannot solve the problem unless they can provide the skills needed for particular employment which does exist in that area. If there is no employment which can provide adequate income for the breadwinner to keep the family, then it will not solve the problem.

No-one should be entitled to be supported endlessly by society just because they don't want to move.

It obviously costs the government a tremendous amount of money supporting people in this situation. It would be more cost effective for the government to pay for the family to migrate to an area where there is work. Then to provide assistance for the family during the time the breadwinner is learning the required skills needed to get the job that will support the family.

If the family really doesn't want to move, then the breadwinner must work away from home and return at weekends. That is what many do already by commuting to the big cities and staying in basic accomodation during the working week.

Before the advent of the welfare state, if you didn't work you didn't eat. It might seem tough, but why should anyone get a free lunch if they are capable of working?

Toenail

1 Million Young People on the Dole

Young people leaving school do not instinctively want to work. In fact many people don't instinctively want to work.

The motivation to do work is primarily to provide income to support a lifestyle. The other motivation for those who have learned a skill or craft is the satisfaction of a job well done.

Young people who do not do well at school often lack the self discipline required to see a task through. It is possible that they just don't take to academic work, there is no particular reason why they should.

No-one is entitled to be kept by society free of charge, unless due to impediment they are unable to contibute in any way. To have food and shelter and money for pursuits must require that these are earned.

I believe that everyone leaving school should be routed into something to inprove their ability to find work and to provide for themselves.

I don't believe in Degrees for a large proportion of young people, they are a massive waste of resources and leave the people with huge loans at the very start of their lives. Entrance to university should be made very much harder. For those who do wish to pursue an academic career there should be no fees!! They or their families should have to pay for food and lodgings though.

For those who are wild and lack discipline, a form of national service, with pay.

For those who are unskilled and unisterested in learning a trade or national service, join a community service where they do menial tasks in society, clearing banks of roads, cleaning streets, mending fences etc., etc, with a basic wage a bit better than present dole money.

For those who wish to learn skills, an apprenticeship, with pay, and with the opportunity to study at college paid for by the apprentice master and ultimately the government.

The people will benefit, the country will have no shortage of skilled workers, and unemployed yobs will be removed from the streets, and our neighbourhoods will be well maintained.

Toenail

The UN and Israel

Try in vain to get the UN to do something about Israel. Hasnt happened yet, but you have to keep trying

Egypt and Syria urged the UN nuclear watchdog on Wednesday 19th Sept. to pass a resolution condemning Israel for possessing nuclear weapons.Israel insisted there was no basis for the resolution, scheduled to be presented on Thursday, and called upon the other member states of the watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to reject the proposal.On Wednesday, however, the Egyptian and Syrian ambassadors signalled that their patience was wearing thin.Syrian ambassador Othman complained that Israel was the only country in the Middle East "to have nuclear weapons and nuclear capabilities which are not under international control."

Israel is the target of at least 65 UN Resolutions and the Palestinians are the target of none.

For a full list click here

Aside from the core issues—refugees, Jerusalem, borders—the major themes reflected in the U.N. resolutions against Israel over the years are its unlawful attacks on its neighbors; its violations of the human rights of the Palestinians, including deportations, demolitions of homes and other collective punishments; its confiscation of Palestinian land; its establishment of illegal settlements; and its refusal to abide by the U.N. Charter and the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War.

There are 149 substantive articles of the Fourth Geneva Convention that protect the rights of every one of these Palestinians living in occupied Palestine. The Israeli Government is currently violating, and has since 1967 been violating, almost each and every one of these sacred rights of the Palestinian People recognized by the Fourth Geneva Convention. Indeed, violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention are war crimes.
So this is not a symmetrical situation. As matters of fact and of law, the gross and repeated violations of Palestinian rights by the Israeli army and Israeli settlers living illegally in occupied Palestine constitute war crimes. Conversely, the Palestinian People are defending themselves and their Land and their Homes against Israeli war crimes and Israeli war criminals, both military and civilian.

Hypocrasy

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Wednesday the United States "will not abandon the innocent Palestinians in Gaza," shortly after Israel declared the territory to be an enemy entity in order to cut off power and fuel supplies to the coastal strip. At the same time, Rice said Gaza, ruled by the Islamic militant Hamas group, "is a hostile entity to us as well."

So, we will not abandon you , but we are abandoning you ??? say that again ?

While Hamas has not been directly involved in the rocket attacks, it has done little to halt them. Israel says it holds the group responsible. Impoverished Gaza's 1.4 million people are almost entirely dependent on Israeli suppliers for power and fuel, and a cutoff would draw international condemnation.

At least someone in Israel is willing to stand up and state the obvious

"With our own hands we are uniting a million and half people against us, in bitterness and hatred" says Gush Shalom (Israeli Peace Bloc). "The inhabitants of the Gaza Strip are completely dependent on Israel for their most basic livelihood. This complete dependence was created, consciously and deliberately, by all governments of Israel since 1967. The state of Israel cannot now just shrug off its responsibility for the fate of the inhabitants of Gaza.
The people of the Gaza Strip have already been living for a long time in terrible squalor, on the very edge of starvation. Now we push them even much deeper into hell. The state of Israel is today roughly trampling International Law, in indiscriminate collective punishments of a whole civilian population. We, too, will eventually pay the price.
This policy of force and oppression is also emptying of content the negotiations supposedly taking place with Abu Mazen and the leadership he heads, presenting him and his followers as accomplices in the terrible suffering caused to their people. There can be no peace without talking to and negotiating with the entire Palestinian people, with all its parts including the Hamas leadership, which has explicitly expressed its willingness to discuss a cease-fire and a mutual end to attacks on both sides of the Gaza border. This is the alternative to the policy of trampling force whose main proponent is Defence Minister Barak, formally leader of the Labour Party - effectively leader of the Extreme Right in Israel".

Mercenaries in Iraq

The number of U.S.-paid private contractors in Iraq now exceeds that of American combat troops, newly released figures show, raising fresh questions about the privatization of the war effort and the government's capacity to carry out military and rebuilding campaigns.
More than 180,000 civilians - including Americans, foreigners and Iraqis - are working in Iraq under U.S. contracts, according to State and Defense department figures obtained by the Los Angeles Times.
Including the recent troop buildup, 160,000 soldiers and a few thousand civilian government employees are stationed in Iraq.
The total number of private contractors, far higher than previously reported, shows how heavily the Bush administration has relied on corporations to carry out the occupation of Iraq - a mission criticized as being undermanned.
Continuing uncertainty over the numbers of armed contractors drew special criticism from military experts.
"We don't have control of all the coalition guns in Iraq. That's dangerous for our country," said William Nash, a retired Army general and reconstruction expert. The Pentagon "is hiring guns. You can rationalize it all you want, but that's obscene."
They are equipped with automatic weapons, body armor, helicopters and bulletproof vehicles and operate with little or no supervision, accountable only to the firms employing them.
Many contractors have been accused of indiscriminately firing at American and Iraqi troops, and of shooting to death an unknown number of Iraqi citizens who got too close to their heavily armed convoys, but not one has faced charges or prosecution.
The wartime numbers of private guards are unprecedented - as are their duties, many of which have traditionally been done by soldiers. They protect U.S. military operations and have guarded high-ranking officials including Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Baghdad. They also protect journalists, visiting foreign officials and thousands of construction projects.
That is another reason why all the talk of surge or no surge is irrelevant, as the pentagon can just go out and hire killers to do the job with no questions asked. The only thing is that soldiers are cheaper. At present there are in excess of 350,000 troops and mercenaries.


This has also been going on in Afganistan with the same companies.

Watch a video of the Contractors in action in Iraq.


There is ample evidence that mercenary companies in Iraq on contract to the Pentagon have been arbitrarily shooting civilians. The recently revealed Blackwater case is not an isolated event. It is part of a pattern, which the mainstream media has carefully concealed. The following 2005 video shows British mercenaries in Iraq shooting civilians "for entertainment". The video shows private security contractors working for Aegis Defense Services "Victory" Group firing indiscriminately at Iraqi civilian motorists in Baghdad.

WMV Windows

Lost History - And we are thinking of doing this again ?

2,000-year-old Sumerian cities torn apart and plundered by robbers. The very walls of the mighty Ur of the Chaldees cracking under the strain of massive troop movements, the privatisation of looting as landlords buy up the remaining sites of ancient Mesopotamia to strip them of their artefacts and wealth. The near total destruction of Iraq's historic past - the very cradle of human civilisation - has emerged as one of the most shameful symbols of our disastrous occupation.
Evidence amassed by archaeologists shows that even those Iraqis who trained as archaeological workers in Saddam Hussein's regime are now using their knowledge to join the looters in digging through the ancient cities, destroying thousands of priceless jars, bottles and other artefacts in their search for gold and other treasures.
In the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War, armies of looters moved in on the desert cities of southern Iraq and at least 13 Iraqi museums were plundered. Today, almost every archaeological site in southern Iraq is under the control of looters.
In a long and devastating appraisal to be published in December, Lebanese archaeologist Joanne Farchakh says that armies of looters have not spared "one metre of these Sumerian capitals that have been buried under the sand for thousands of years.
"They systematically destroyed the remains of this civilisation in their tireless search for sellable artefacts: ancient cities, covering an estimated surface area of 20 square kilometres, which - if properly excavated - could have provided extensive new information concerning the development of the human race.
"Humankind is losing its past for a cuneiform tablet or a sculpture or piece of jewellery that the dealer buys and pays for in cash in a country devastated by war. Humankind is losing its history for the pleasure of private collectors living safely in their luxurious houses and ordering specific objects for their collection."
Ms Farchakh, who helped with the original investigation into stolen treasures from the Baghdad Archaeological Museum in the immediate aftermath of the invasion of Iraq, says Iraq may soon end up with no history.
"There are 10,000 archaeological sites in the country. In the Nassariyah area alone, there are about 840 Sumerian sites; they have all been systematically looted. Even when Alexander the Great destroyed a city, he would always build another. But now the robbers are destroying everything because they are going down to bedrock. What's new is that the looters are becoming more and more organised with, apparently, lots of money.
"Quite apart from this, military operations are damaging these sites forever. There's been a US base in Ur for five years and the walls are cracking because of the weight of military vehicles. It's like putting an archaeological site under a continuous earthquake."
Of all the ancient cities of present-day Iraq, Ur is regarded as the most important in the history of man-kind. Mentioned in the Old Testament - and believed by many to be the home of the Prophet Abraham - it also features in the works of Arab historians and geographers where its name is Qamirnah, The City of the Moon.
Founded in about 4,000 BC, its Sumerian people established the principles of irrigation, developed agriculture and metal-working. Fifteen hundred years later - in what has become known as "the age of the deluge" - Ur produced some of the first examples of writing, seal inscriptions and construction. In neighbouring Larsa, baked clay bricks were used as money orders - the world's first cheques - the depth of finger indentations in the clay marking the amount of money to be transferred. The royal tombs of Ur contained jewellery, daggers, gold, azurite cylindrical seals and sometimes the remains of slaves.
US officers have repeatedly said a large American base built at Babylon was to protect the site but Iraqi archaeologist Zainab Bah-rani, a professor of art history and archaeology at Columbia University, says this "beggars belief". In an analysis of the city, she says: "The damage done to Babylon is both extensive and irreparable, and even if US forces had wanted to protect it, placing guards round the site would have been far more sensible than bulldozing it and setting up the largest coalition military headquarters in the region."

Air strikes in 2003 left historical monuments undamaged, but Professor Bahrani, says: "The occupation has resulted in a tremendous destruction of history well beyond the museums and libraries looted and destroyed at the fall of Baghdad. At least seven historical sites have been used in this way by US and coalition forces since April 2003, one of them being the historical heart of Samarra, where the Askari shrine built by Nasr al Din Shah was bombed in 2006."
The use of heritage sites as military bases is a breach of the Hague Convention and Protocol of 1954 (chapter 1, article 5) which covers periods of occupation; although the US did not ratify the Convention, Italy, Poland, Australia and Holland, all of whom sent forces to Iraq, are contracting parties.
Ms Farchakh notes that as religious parties gain influence in all the Iraqi pro-vinces, archaeological sites are also falling under their control. She tells of Abdulamir Hamdani, the director of antiquities for Di Qar province in the south who desperately - but vainly - tried to prevent the destruction of the buried cities during the occupation. Dr Hamdani himself wrote that he can do little to prevent "the disaster we are all witnessing and observing".
Last year, Dr Hamdani's antiquities department received notice from the local authorities, approving the creation of mud-brick factories in areas surrounding Sumerian archaeological sites. But it quickly became apparent that the factory owners intended to buy the land from the Iraqi government because it covered several Sumerian capitals and other archaeological sites. The new landlord would "dig" the archaeological site, dissolve the "old mud brick" to form the new one for the market and sell the unearthed finds to antiquity traders.
Dr Hamdani bravely refused to sign the dossier. Ms Farchakh says: "His rejection had rapid consequences. The religious parties controlling Nassariyah sent the police to see him with orders to jail him on corruption charges. He was imprisoned for three months, awaiting trial. The State Board of Antiquities and Heritage defended him during his trial, as did his powerful tribe. He was released and regained his position. The mud-brick factories are 'frozen projects', but reports have surfaced of a similar strategy being employed in other cities and in nearby archaeological sites such as the Aqarakouf Ziggarat near Baghdad. For how long can Iraqi archaeologists maintain order? This is a question only Iraqi politicians affiliated to the different religious parties can answer, since they approve these projects."
The legions of antiquities looters work within a smooth mass-smuggling organisation. Trucks, cars, planes and boats take Iraq's historical plunder to Europe, the US, to the United Arab Emirates and to Japan. The archaeologists say an ever-growing number of internet websites offer Mesopotamian artefacts, objects anywhere up to 7,000 years old.
Ms Farchakh adds: "The longer Iraq finds itself in a state of war, the more the cradle of civilisation is threatened. It may not even last for our grandchildren to learn from."

Iran - The next war ?

The Bush war party claim that their strategy is to end Iran's nuclear threat, but Iran does not posses a nuclear weapon and has never threatened to build one; even the CIA estimates that even given the political will Iran is incapable of building a nuclear weapon before 2017, at the earliest. The other claim that Iran is involved in the cross border supply of weapons is after investigations by among others the New York times, the LA, times, British military officials, and even General Peter Pace chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, have all concluded that no such evidence exists, so just what is going on here? Iran has attacked no other country except to defend itself when invaded by Saddam Hussein in 1980 who was backed and equipped by the US, which supplied chemical and biological weapons produced at a factory in Maryland, part of the axis of evil?

Are we planning to attack all the other NPT signatories who are also enriching uranium? Iran is within its rights to enrich uranium under the NPT and the ongoing inspections ensure that they are not using their centrifuges to produce highly enriched uranium. This is why all NPT countries have such inspections in the first place. It is the big 5 who are in actual violation of the NPT by refusing to disarm. The media should be reporting this issue much more than they are. We are under no threat from Iran's non-existent nuclear weapons but are very much under threat from the large nuclear stockpile of the US, the USSR, the UK et al. The statement from the French foreign minister is shocking in itself, and also represents a shocking shift of France's position.

The UN's chief nuclear weapons inspector yesterday warned against the use of force against Iran, in what UN officials said was an attempt to halt an "out of control" drift to war.

Mohamed ElBaradei told reporters at the International Atomic Energy Agency headquarters in Vienna. "There are rules on how to use force, and I would hope that everybody would have gotten the lesson after the Iraq situation, where 700,000 innocent civilians have lost their lives on the suspicion that a country has nuclear weapons."

Concentration Camp

Use of the word concentration comes from the idea of concentrating a group of people who are in some way undesirable in one place, where they can be watched by those who incarcerated them.
The Fourth Geneva Convention was established in 1949 to provide for the protection of civilians during times of war "in the hands" of an enemy and under any occupation by a foreign power. It was ratified by 194 nations.


Both the Karni crossing and the Rafah crossing for people, which sits between Gaza and Egypt, have been closed since mid-June, and there is little prospect, with Hamas in charge, that Israel will allow them to reopen. The stated reason is security, since Israel regards Hamas as a professed enemy and a terrorist group eager to expand its military expertise and power to the West Bank. Israel does not trust Hamas to operate the Palestinian side of Karni or Rafah, or to hire private companies, even Turkish ones, to do so.
Nor is the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah, complaining, since he and his caretaker government in the West Bank also do not want Hamas to succeed in Gaza.
But one result has been the quick collapse of Gaza’s private sector, unable to import necessary spare parts or building supplies or cloth, and unable to export much of anything. According to Faysal G. Shawa of the Palestinian Businessmen Association, 70,000 workers in the private sector have lost their jobs since June; 85 percent of factories are shut or operating at less than 20 percent capacity; and the loss from agricultural exports alone since June is $16 million.
Israel estimates that its own businesses are losing $2 million a day from the closing, but Gaza is losing $1 million a day, an amount it is less able to afford.
“Fatah is paying Palestinian Authority workers to stay at home and not work for Hamas,” Mr. Shawa said. “Hamas is paying its own people. But no one is paying the workers of the private sector. The ones who live on aid do nothing, and the ones who are working get nothing. Soon we’ll all be aid-dependent, and I hate it; it’s destroying us.”
Before the second intifada began in September 2000, Mr. Bowab had 1,200 workers. Before Hamas won legislative elections in January 2006, and the isolation started here, he said, he made up to $120,000 a month in profit. “With the border open, in Gaza you can become a very rich man,” he said. “People are better skilled here than in the West Bank or Egypt, and they work harder and faithfully.”
Hamas is working with the Egyptians to destroy unauthorized tunnels, Muhammad said, while the Egyptians, under pressure from the United States and Israel, have recently changed all the security officers along the border, replacing many of those who had been bought off by smugglers. Egypt, he said, is clearing almost 1,000 feet of houses from the Egyptian side of Rafah, a city cut in two by the border.

Putin - President, Russian Federation

Europe should be more allied with Russia than it is with the U.S. ?
Friend or Foe ?

During this conference it was refreshing to actually hear a leader of a country actually state what seems obvious to most people in the world. It is a shame that no European or US leader had the guts to say this....

"Unilateral and frequently illegitimate actions have not resolved any problems. Moreover, they have caused new human tragedies and created new centres of tension. Judge for yourselves: wars as well as local and regional conflicts have not diminished. Mr Teltschik mentioned this very gently. And no less people perish in these conflicts – even more are dying than before. Significantly more, significantly more!

Today we are witnessing an almost uncontained hyper use of force – military force – in international relations, force that is plunging the world into an abyss of permanent conflicts. As a result we do not have sufficient strength to find a comprehensive solution to any one of these conflicts. Finding a political settlement also becomes impossible.

We are seeing a greater and greater disdain for the basic principles of international law. And independent legal norms are, as a matter of fact, coming increasingly closer to one state’s legal system. One state and, of course, first and foremost the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way. This is visible in the economic, political, cultural and educational policies it imposes on other nations. Well, who likes this? Who is happy about this?"

It seems that a lot of US / UK companies involved in freelance security (Blackwater) and any involved with manufacture of WMD (made in the West i.e. BAE) ...

"However, today we are witnessing the opposite tendency, namely a situation in which countries that forbid the death penalty even for murderers and other, dangerous criminals are airily participating in military operations that are difficult to consider legitimate. And as a matter of fact, these conflicts are killing people – hundreds and thousands of civilians!"

Double standards... us.. cant be ...

"Did not our country have a peaceful transition to democracy? Indeed, we witnessed a peaceful transformation of the Soviet regime – a peaceful transformation! And what a regime! With what a number of weapons, including nuclear weapons! Why should we start bombing and shooting now at every available opportunity? Is it the case when without the threat of mutual destruction we do not have enough political culture, respect for democratic values and for the law? "

I suppose he can use the word peaceful, compared to the way we bring democracy and peace to IRAQ and AFGANISTAN.

I am waiting for other leaders to stand up against the pressures of the US, apparantly the UK cannot stand up for itself. Far be it from our useless government to stand up and say something is wrong, when it is obvious to most of the planet...


Speech at the 43rd Munich Conference on Security Policy

The UK Welfare State

The Welfare State

Although set up with the best of intentions, it has become a bureaucratic nightmare. The more successive governments tinker with it the more of a nightmare it becomes. Not only does it take a veritable army of civil servants to administer, it is virtually incomprehensible to the average person.
The majority of households are now in receipt of some kind of benefit, for the average tax-payer this is merely redistribution of their own income, all done at enormous expense.

A Minister appointed by New Labour to ‘think the unthinkable’ lasted just one year. The situation was nicely summed up on the television programme ‘Wife Swop’. An unemployed couple with eight children are receiving £37400 a year tax free in benefits (equivalent to a taxed salary of £70,000). The second couple, both of whom worked, had a combined income of £27,000. Couple two struggled to make ends meet while their counterparts spend £70 a week on bingo and £140 on cigarettes, in spite of having two children with chronic asthma.

Another example concerns a couple, neither of whom have ever had a job, receiving over £1,000 a month in benefits plus free housing. The female, aged 23, is expecting their fifth child and her partner, aged 19, says it would not be fair if he worked and left his partner to cope with the children. Apparently it never enters his head that it is unfair for everyone else to fund him. They are now looking to be re-housed in a larger property.

The Child Support Agency, again set up with good intentions, is a disgrace. The only absent fathers being targetted are those in permanent employment and steady relationships. The rest are able to run rings round the system because of an apparent inability to keep track of them. This, in spite of the fact they must have a National Insurance Number in order to work. The Agency now operates a system of fixed percentages of a man’s income as child support based on the number of children.

The courts invariably decide on child-care arrangements. Return to them the setting of maintenance based on the CSA system. The money could then be allocated by adjusting the tax codes of both parties. The CSA could then be abolished. Non-working carers could be paid the allowances through the tax credit system.

The above is far too simple a solution for our politicians, they are now replacing the CSA with a similar outfit that will no doubt prove to be just as bureaucratic and incompetent.

Lone parent families were 8% of the total in 1975 but now total 26% and rising. This has been exacerbated by government policy that skews the benefits system in favour of single parents. Since Labour came to power in 1997 the welfare budget has risen from £95bn to £121bn. Most of the increase has been due to the introduction of the tax credit system which cost roughly the equivalent of 2p on income tax.

It now pays to be a single parent rather than a married one. In some instances a
couple with a modest income would be £50 per week better off if they lived
separately. No wonder Britain is the divorce and single parent capital of Europe.

Since Labour came to power there has been an increase of 38% in the number of people claiming incapacity benefit (could this be because the payment is much higher than unemployment benefit? Perish the thought). There are 2.4 million claiming incapacity benefit and a further 2.7 million on other health related benefits. None of these are included in the unemployment figures.


The future of welfare reform



The welfare state needs to be policed at the top as well



Single parents could lose benefits unless they work

The Palestinians Plight

When mentioning the Middle East, any conversation will end up concerned with Israel vs Palestinions.

Do we remember this day ?

"Earlier, Fatah legislator Saeb Erekat said after a meeting with Abbas that the party has already decided to serve in the opposition. "Hamas will be asked to form the new government," Erekat said. "We in Fatah will not join them. We will be a loyal opposition and rebuild the party."
Abbas, who favors peace talks with Israel, has said he would resign if he could no longer pursue his agenda. Aides said he planned a major speech Thursday night.
Israel and the United States have said they would not deal with a government led by Hamas, which has carried out dozens of suicide bombings and which they consider a terrorist group.
Acknowledging the Hamas victory, Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia and his Cabinet ministers resigned Thursday — hours before official results were released.
"This is the choice of the people. It should be respected," Qureia said. "If it's true, then the president should ask Hamas to form a new government." The Cabinet remained in office in a caretaker capacity.
By law, Abbas must ask the largest party in the new parliament — presumably Hamas — to form the new government. Abbas was elected separately a year ago and remains president. "
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2006-01/26/content_515857.htm

Unfortunately Fatah was never really ready to release the reigns of power, the corruption continued and the West tried its best to cripple the whole country, not that we condone 'collective punishment'. I am sure there is mention of rules against that sort of thing in International Law, but that only applies to other countries.

But the last thing we would want is Hammas to compromise with Israel and try to restore Law and Order in their territory.

Who ever heard of "The right to resist occupation" anyway. I guess it depends on the occupiers!

Here are a couple of posts worth a read...

Palestinians agree to peace talks



Gaza: The Auschwitz of our Time
Largest detention camp in the World

Ahmadinejad - Iranian President

For the first post on this new blog, i would like to be about the Iranian President.

A lot of mis-information is quoted regarding this person and translations that have been proved incorrect are still quoted by the west to this day.

Ahmadinejad, the son of a blacksmith, was born in Garmsar, near Tehran on October 28, 1956. In 1976, he took Iran's national university entrance exams (konkoor) to gain admission into Iran's top universities. His test score ranked him 132nd among over 400,000 participants that year,^[17] landing him at the Iran University of Science and Technology (IUST) as an undergraduate student of civil engineering.

After the Iranian Revolution, he entered the Master of Science program for civil engineering in 1984. In 1989, he became a member of the Science faculty at the university where he had studied.^[18] In 1997, he received his Ph.D. in transportation engineering and planning from the Science and Technology University. Even after being elected President, Ahmadinejad continued living in a simple apartment flat and eating meals brought from home, in his office. Both of these traits contributed to his widespread support amongst the poorer classes of Iran.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad

Full transcript: Ahmadinejad interview - 13th September 2007 (CH4 News)

Interview

Iranian President challenges Bush to a debate

Bush would not be up for it, unless he had received the questions at least a month in advance and then still wouldnt.

World to Rights - New Blog

This blog has been created to try and discuss various subjects that have been known to cause many arguments. These subjects relate to local and world issues.

After various emails on these subjects, it is clear that many people hold either out of date or very right wing opinions. Also, even if we are untouched directly by some things, people can have very strong opinions that end with a heated debate.

Sometimes, people state facts that that create tension and then feel that they may have to back down or walk away, because (a) it gets too deep and they start mis-quoting or (b)they dont know enough to carry on.

So here comes the 'blog' a chance to collect your thoughts and not mis-represent yourself by saying something in the heat of discussion.