World to Rights

Should the CIA be classed as a terrorist organization and the USA a state sponsor of terror ?

2009-12-31T02:05:00.000-08:00

CIA - Like all potential trouble spots in the world the US has covert operations operating deep within Iran. For many years Kurdish guerrilla fighters referred to as the PJAK have been operating on cross border operations from Eastern Kurdistan into Iran. This group work in conjunction with US Covert Operation inside Iran and are CIA finananced with additional weapons support. As we have seen in many other parts of the world these covert operations are intended to disrupt or destabilize the political base in any country. It is only a matter of time before those militia that have worked in cooperation with or been trained by the US turn against them. Like the biggest touted threat in the world, the CIA created/ trained Al-Qaeda… Meaning the CIA are obviously the experts.

If the UN General Assembly voted on decisions instead of the Security Council, then the world would be a different place....

Iran would not be under any sanctions, as they are currently under UN inspection over its peaceful Nuclear program.

"To put it simply: Iran must comply with U.N. Security Council resolutions.", Obama – “But not Israel”, Me…

Israel would be under numerous sanctions because they dont allow inspections and are acting illegally under international law, regarding colonization, inflicting constant daily terror and war crimes.

"For all of these war crimes, acts of state terrorism and systematic human rights violations committed against the Palestinian people, Israel, the occupying power, must be held accountable and the perpetrators must be brought to justice,"
The assassin is the worst ever terrorist group deceptively called the Israeli Defense Forces under the leadership of the theocratically most racist "god's chosen" deceitfully self-proclaimed "democratic Jewish-only" Israel. Israel had been created, financed, armed, and politically protected by, mainly, British and American rapture-vision-obsessed Talmudist power elites consisting of profit-seeking financiers and military-industrial complex. In December 2008 this Israeli Terrorist Forces added another war crime to its long list of war crimes against the Palestinians since 1948.

Egypt would be under sanction for assisting Israel with the illegal blockade of Gaza.

Mubarak's regime has committed crimes against humanity by fully participating in the Israeli siege against Gaza. Rather than helping the next door homeless and hungry Arab brothers of Gaza Strip the Mubarak's regime preferred to send, last May, an airplane full with humanitarian aid to Sri Lanka on the opposite side of the globe.

The US would be under sanctions for illegal wars and mistreatment of POWs under Geneva conventions. Its leaders would be standing trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity. America would be under the most sanctions and no one allowed to deal with the country as it has conducted the worst of all crimes, torture and disregard for internationally recognized borders.

WASHINGTON, September 9, 2008 - The Defense Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress of a possible Foreign Military Sale to Israel of GBU-39 Small Diameter Bombs as well as associated equipment and services. The total value, if all options are exercised, could be as high as $77 million.
The UK also provide software and hardware to Israel such as tank components, attack helicopter components and engines for Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAV's) etc, all of which delivered the weapons concerned.
It should also be noted that certain concerned were raised in the US Congress as to if the shipment of such weapons was in violation of the US Arms Export Control Act when In January 2009, Congressman Dennis Kucinich sent notice to Secretary of State, Dr. Condoleezza Rice, that Israel's actions in Gaza since December 27th, 2008 may constitute a violation of the requirements of the Arms Export Control Act.
What is ironic about the whole programme are the huge sums of money in military aid that is sent to Israel under the carefully chosen words: "That strengthens the security of the United States and promote world peace;" One could hardly state that this has any connection with world peace but rather the opposite.....this has a direct link with the instability in and around the entire Middle East.
The US is the largest arms exporter to Israel. Successive American Administration had sold Israel the latest and most technologically and most devastating weapons.
EU and US don't mind breaking their own laws for the sake of arming terrorist Israel. Under Criterion 2 of the EU Code of Conduct on Arms Exports, Member States are supposed to "deny an export license if there is a clear risk that the proposed export might be used for internal repression, or be used in the commission of serious violations of international humanitarian laws". Israel is proved to commit both offenses.

The US breaks three of its own arms export laws; US Arms Export Control Act (P.L. 80-829), Foreign Assistance Act (P.L. 97-195), and the Leahy Law (Foreign Ops Appropriation Act).
“nations with nuclear weapons must move towards disarmament and those that do not have such weapons must forsake them.” Obama --- but the US will still produce "Mini Nukes" or weapons that contain uranium components. Also Cruise, Harpoon, Maverick, Hellfire and many other missiles. And again more, Bunker Busters, JADAM bombs and a new range of 4th Generation Bombs.

Lastly, there would be a state on historic Palestine for all the people of the land. If Jerusalem was still disputed, then it would be declared a state within a state, with a religious leadership, as with the Vatican. Peace would be assured by peacekeepers, as was the role of the world’s armies, before the invasions on behalf of Zionists or NeoCons (the corporations and bankers).

"All national groups claim self-determination and that gives logic to two states, but Israel has eliminated that option with a half a million settlers in the West bank, the apartheid highway system and the settlement freeze was just a smoke screen of the Matrix of Control."

"Time is not on our side and it is certainly not on the side of Israel," he said. "The idea of two states is losing in favor of one state. There is a possibility that a Palestinian state would not be viable. In that case the only possibility is one state - not a Jewish state, not an Arab state ... a state of its citizens." - Arab League

Tragic shooting at Fort Hood, the U.S.A.'s largest military post ...

2009-11-11T10:20:00.000-08:00

... Not what you would ever expect to happen in army bases, by there own people. So the truth is that, obviously everything is not merry in there ! . So is it one fanatic, like the 911 fanatics, or do they not want to admit the alternative. That there is a moral problem with DISHONEST WARS, and people will resist being forced to do something against there will. You would not give a soldier a weapon, then try to force them to do something they know is wrong and dont want to do, without expecting a little resistance. If you tried to persuade the soldier using violance, armed or not, then you would expect to get hurt.
The only way there could have been so many killed and injured automatically implies multiple shooters, so it cant have just been , or even at all, Doctor......

------------
Charlotte Huffman / KETK News

November 6, 2009 - 9:29am

FORT HOOD, TX—Authorities continue their investigation Friday morning into the tragic shooting at Fort Hood, the nation's largest military post.

The death toll continues to rise from the most violent attack in history on a U.S. military base.

"There was a single shooter that was shot multiple times at the scene, however, he was not killed as previously reported. He is currently in custody and in stable condition," said Fort Hood General Bob Cone.

The investigation will focus on the suspected gunman and solider, Major Nidal Malik Hassan. Hasan, 39, is an army psychiatrist who was recently promoted from Captain and preparing for his first deployment to Iraq. Hasan was transferred to Fort Hood in July from Walter Reed Medical Center where he was stationed for six years. Originally from northern Virginia, Hasan enlisted in the army directly following high school graduation.

Another victim died early Friday morning bringing the death toll to 13 people. Thirty people remain injured and some of them are in critical condition.

A hotline has been set up for those with family at Fort Hood. For information on victims call (254) 288-7570 or 1-866-836-2751. In addition, updated information will be available at forthoodsentinel.com and Fort Hood's Twitter and Facebook pages.

------------------------------------------------

Neighbor: Fort Hood suspect emptied his apartment
http://www.9wsyr.com/mostpopular/story/Lawmakers-briefing-causes-confusi...

Cone acknowledged that it was "counterintuitive" that a single shooter could hit so many people, but he said the massacre occurred in "close quarters.

"With ricochet fire, he was able to injure that number of people," Cone said.

You know the story is starting to come apart when they start using the "magic bullet" explanation.

So, here is what I think happened.

I think that a GROUP of soldiers rebelled against further deployment. This is why we had early reports of multiple shooters, numbering up to 5.

But 5 soldiers shooting their officers signals mutiny in the ranks. It recalls the "fragging" of Vietnam days. It looks really bad to the citizenry. It could even spread to other soldiers and other bases where the military are stretched to the breaking point.

So, the DC boys look around and say, "Oh, we have this dead Muslim guy; we'll just blame it on him!" And presto-chango, five shooters pissed off with the wars becomes one conveniently dead Jordanian Palestinian Muslim with possible links to Al Qaeda.

Only turns out Major Hasan isn't dead. Which creates a whole new problem the instant he gets off that ventilator at the hospital.

Which is hardly likely to happen.

Meanwhile, the top of this article reports that Hasan was making the normal preparations for deployment. He emptied out his apartment, gave away things he didn't want to take with him, and told everyone he was deploying today. Does that really sound like a man about to go postal?

So... Just how many shooters were there at Fort Hood????

Texas Gov. Rick Perry Gives Remarks on Fort Hood Shooting Tragedy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IL61yoWnk4&feature=related

He says there were THREE shooters!

It's clearly obvious that the violent mutiny at Fort Hood is being spun into a fiction story by Zionists, Pentagon & MSM liars to promote Islamophobia & Neo-Communist/Fascist agenda

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NVPl9UsYlg&feature=player_embedded#

Initially, when I heard of the news about Fort Hood, my reaction was shock and disbelief that fatalistic violence occurred on a U.S. military base. And for what motive? Why would a Jordanian-descent man with an Arabic-sounding name be fingered as a guilty-before-proven innocent spree shooter suspect, who happens to be a psychiatrist?

Inevitably, Mainstream Media jumped into this tragedy with subtle gun control propaganda (total disarmament by revocation of constitutional rights) in full throttle.

For an alternative view of the tragedy, the post (at the bottom) has been salvaged for posterity before chance of memory-hole. That hypothesis may make sense because of the "redacted and quietly suppressed reports" there were the shooters numbered between 3 or 5 with the arsenal of assault weapons to destroy and maim the victims, which is not possible with (as reported by lying Mainstream Media) just a handful of semiautomatic pistols that require rotation of full magazine clips in rapid succession to annihilate as many targets as possible in just a few minutes of stunning shock of a sudden attack that transpired in panic, terror and chaos.

I know this from a minimal experience handling and target-shooting variety of pistols at the target range. Dropping the empty magazine clip to replenish with another full clip (8 to 12 combat bullets per clip) slammed in to fire with working precision (not jamming) takes a lot of practice to execute competently. It may not be possible to achieve with rigid determination in the midst of stress and chaos of violence. It takes steel-cold determination to commit an act of violence and mayhem that cause mortal wound and critical injury like this.

The cruel bullying of conscientious objectors who refuse to deploy by ultra-nationalist fanatics caused the mutinous few to rebel by striking at the core of the American imperialist machine with the furious counterstrike of violence. This is the act of fatalistic desperation by exerting psychological force to turn on the bullies. Whatever happened to the real perpetrators is hereto not known, whether they are captured or dead.

The cover-up has been convened with an official story to blame a psychiatrist, of Arabic descent, who just cleaned his apartment to be readied for deployment without indication of behavioral problems that could lead to outburst of violence. They found the suspected 'patsy' -- alive. Not dead as initially reported. And on a golf course, 'violently' detained by MP and SWAT teams. 2.5 miles away from where the carnage occurred. The 'patsy' is wounded but in stable condition as reported, under military guard.

As far as the truth is concerned, whether it happened or not as described above, the truth has disappeared into the mist surrounded by lies and cover-up facilitated by the powers-that-be leading to Texas law enforcement agencies and Fort Hood officials under the thumb of the Pentagon in coordination with the compliant local and national media. The above hypothesis is what I suppose happened, even though it's difficult to discern with a degree of plausibility because of conflicting and contradictory reports, but I do not know if it's accurate. Just a wild guess. Mainstream media pundits and producers, law enforcement, Fort Hood Army officers, U.S. Government officials, and others complicit in the cover-up are lying through the teeth to pin the blame on a lone suspect, with predictable hysterical attack on Islamic culture & religion like Fox News Channel and right-wing neoconservative blogosphere do nowadays to influence public opinion to behave with extreme prejudice against Islamic practitioners in America and overseas.

This reeks of a cover-up with the mainstream media going wild, gleefully reporting on the horrific carnage with the pretension of an authoritatively moralistic view while simultaneously calling for national disarmament in eventual modification or repeal of the Second Amendment and state constitutional provision on citizen firearm and defense rights.

It began with psychological violence and bullying of conscientious objectors (who vehemently resisted deployment to Afghanistan on account of a wrong, protracted, misguided war that have no effect on favorable outcome but continuous occupation and destruction of Afghan civilian lives to ostensibly control the access to Eurasian/Caspian Sea oil) in the Army in Texas that devolved to a violent mutiny when psychological pain became overpowering to the perpetrators who lashed out because there is no way out other than dishonor to self as unwilling pawn and death.

The mainstream media have no interest to even consider this hypothesis. It is a crazy and implausible "conspiracy theory" that deserves scorn and dismissal in their neo-Fascist view. The public have been deliberately misled and willingly deceived by the compliant mainstream media that is more than happy to play ball with the "insiders" who know what really happened but would rather cover up humiliation than admit the facts outright pointing to mutiny.

Case in point: Similar massacres led to national banishment of firearms in the U.K. and Australia in the mid-90's, within months of each other. Cui bono?

Case in point again: The assassination (murder beyond reasonable doubt) of Pat Tillman in Afghanistan and exaggerated claims about Jessica Lynch's ordeal as a rape victim-hostage in Iraq. Corrupt media, effectively called the Fourth Estate, played ball with the Pentagon in boldly lying and covering up the truth for maximum propaganda effect.

My take on Zionists' mammoth plan "Fortress Americas" hypothesis following de facto repeal of Second Amendment rights, dissolution of the U.S. Constitution, and established foothold of tyrannical power that destroys the remnants of liberty, property, personal freedom, and peace.

Mouser 11/06/2009

"In Washington, a senior U.S. official said authorities at Fort Hood initially thought one of the victims who had been shot and killed was the shooter. The mistake resulted in a delay of several hours in identifying Hasan as the alleged assailant."

The truth is probably something VERY different. For example:

'Two US privates John Smith and John Henry had been seeing a military psychiatrist major Hasan at Fort hood for a few weeks. Both privates said they were completely against the war of oppression in the middle east and would refuse to report for active duty if ordered to do so.

So the army put them both in therapy with Dr. Hasan. After more than five weeks of therapy both Christian privates were called to go to Afghanistan. Both privates warned they would not go and they would defend themselves with force if the army tried to force them to fight in a war they believed was morally wrong.

Yesterday fellow soldiers tried to surprise the two conscientious objectors but the privates were prepared and killed 12 soldiers who tried to force their way into the privates' barracks at Fort Hood.

During the melee their psychiatrist major Hasan, tried to talk the two privates into surrendering but he was shot twice.

Finally both privates were overcome and killed. Their psychiatrist major Hasan is in hospital recovering.

Officials of the military have spun the story to make it seem the privates' doctor (who has a muslim sounding name) was the perpetrator so that the public does not understand just how much resistance there is to the middle east war in the military rank and file.

The whole official Fort Hood cover story is 98% a lie - just like 9/11. Do you trust the main stream media for the truth in a story like this? Heck, for any story?

I do not.

Support the troops. End the fake wars on terror (which actually are for oil, drugs, military expansion, invasion and takeover of foreign lands, minerals and resources, etc.. and war profiteering) in the middle east and bring the troops home.

Now.

a fair deal

2009-10-26T00:28:00.001-07:00

"This is the Israeli notion of a fair deal: We're entitled to do whatever the hell we want to the Palestinians because, by definition, whatever we do to them is self-defense. They, however, are not entitled to lift a finger against us because, by definition, whatever they do to us is terrorism.

"That's the way it's always been, that's the way it was in Operation Cast Lead.

"And there are no limits on our right to self-defense. There is no such thing as 'disproportionate.'

"We can deliberately destroy thousands of Gazan homes, the Gazan parliament, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Interior, courthouses, the only Gazan flour plant, the main poultry farm, a sewage treatment plant, water wells and God knows what else.

"Deliberately.

"Why? Because we're better than them. Because we're a democracy and they're a bunch of Islamo-fascists. Because ours is a culture of life and theirs is a culture of death. Because they're out to destroy us and all we are saying is give peace a chance.

"The Goldstones of the world call this hypocrisy, a double standard. How dare they! Around here, we call it moral clarity."

I saw this and now i believe everything i am told regarding 9/11

2009-10-13T09:26:00.000-07:00

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/celebritynews/6177194/Charlie-Sheen-urges-Barack-Obama-to-reopen-911-investigation-in-video-message.html

Charlie Sheen will be viewed by history as a very brave individual...

The Official Version of 9/11 goes something like this...

Directed by a beardy-guy from a cave in Afghanistan, nineteen hard-drinking, coke-snorting, devout Muslims enjoy lap dances before their mission to meet Allah...

Using nothing more than craft knifes, they overpower cabin crew, passengers and pilots on four planes...

And hangover or not, they manage to give the world's most sophisticated air defense system the slip...

Unphased by leaving their "How to Fly a Passenger Jet" guide in the car at the airport, they master the controls in no-time and score direct hits on two towers, causing THREE to collapse completely...

Our masterminds even manage to overpower the odd law of physics or two... and the world watches in awe as steel-framed buildings fall symmetrically - through their own mass - at free-fall speed, for the first time in history.

Despite all their dastardly cunning, they stupidly give their identity away by using explosion-proof passports, which survive the fireball undamaged and fall to the ground... only to be discovered by the incredible crime-fighting sleuths at the FBI...

...Meanwhile down in Washington...

Hani Hanjour, having previously flunked 2-man Cessna flying school, gets carried away with all the success of the day and suddenly finds incredible abilities behind the controls of a Boeing...

Instead of flying straight down into the large roof area of the Pentagon, he decides to show off a little...

Executing an incredible 270 degree downward spiral, he levels off to hit the low facade of the world's most heavily defended building...

...all without a single shot being fired.... or ruining the nicely mowed lawn... and all at a speed just too fast to capture on video...

...Later, in the skies above Pennsylvania...

So desperate to talk to loved ones before their death, some passengers use sheer willpower to connect mobile calls that otherwise would not be possible until several years later...

And following a heroic attempt by some to retake control of Flight 93, it crashes into a Shankesville field leaving no trace of engines, fuselage or occupants... except for the standard issue Muslim terrorists bandana...

...Further south in Florida...

President Bush, our brave Commander-in-Chief continues to read "My Pet Goat" to a class full of primary school children... shrugging off the obvious possibility that his life could be in imminent danger...

...In New York...

World Trade Center leaseholder Larry Silverstein blesses his own foresight in insuring the buildings against terrorist attack only six weeks previously...

While back in Washington, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz shake their heads in disbelief at their own luck in getting the 'New Pearl Harbor' catalyzing event they so desired to pursue their agenda of world domination...

And finally, not to be disturbed too much by reports of their own deaths, at least seven of our nineteen suicide hijackers turn up alive and kicking in mainstream media reports...

<- That is what we call CLASSIC ->

Why Not Crippling Sanctions for Israel and the US?

2009-08-31T10:27:00.001-07:00

Paul Craig Roberts
VDare
Monday, August 31, 2009

In Israel, a country stolen from the Palestinians, fanatics control the government. One of the fanatics is the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. Last week Netanyahu called for “crippling sanctions” against Iran.

The kind of blockade that Netanyahu wants qualifies as an act of war. Israel has long threatened to attack Iran on its own but prefers to draw in the US and NATO.

Why does Israel want to initiate a war between the United States and Iran?

Is Iran attacking other countries, bombing civilians and destroying civilian infrastructure?

No. These are crimes committed by Israel and the US.

Is Iran evicting peoples from lands they have occupied for centuries and herding them into ghettoes?

No, that’s what Israel has been doing to the Palestinians for 60 years.

What is Iran doing?

Iran is developing nuclear energy, which is its right as a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Iran’s nuclear energy program is subject to inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which consistently reports that its inspections find no diversion of enriched uranium to a weapons program.

The position taken by Israel, and by Israel’s puppet in Washington, is that Iran must not be allowed to have the rights as a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty that every other signatory has, because Iran might divert enriched uranium to a weapons program.

In other words, Israel and the US claim the right to abrogate Iran’s right to develop nuclear energy. The Israeli/US position has no basis in international law or in anything other than the arrogance of Israel and the United States.

The hypocrisy is extreme. Israel is not a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and developed its nuclear weapons illegally on the sly, with, as far as we know, US help.

As Israel is an illegal possessor of nuclear weapons and has a fanatical government that is capable of using them, crippling sanctions should be applied to Israel to force it to disarm.

Why Not Crippling Sanctions for Israel and the US?

Israel qualifies for crippling sanctions for another reason. It is an apartheid state, as former US President Jimmy Carter demonstrated in his book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.

stolen or democracy ? depends whos having the election...

2009-08-26T09:52:00.000-07:00

taken from Barry Grey
World Socialist Web Site
Wed, 26 Aug 2009 15:03 UTC

The attitude of the US government to rampant electoral fraud was summed up by Richard Holbrooke, Obama's special envoy to Afghanistan, who said it was too soon to question the legitimacy of the vote. "We have disputed elections in the United States," he quipped. "There may be some questions here...But let's not get out ahead of the situation." The US, he added, "will respect the process set up by Afghanistan itself."

In fact, Washington has intervened massively in the elections, seeking to manipulate the outcome so as to force a runoff between Karzai and Abdullah. Despite Karzai's service as a US puppet, Washington has become increasingly critical of his regime, which it sees as hopelessly corrupt, ineffective and unpopular. The American military has also complained of Karzai's occasional criticisms of US bombings of Afghan civilians.

The Obama administration is openly discussing installing an unelected "chief executive officer" to oversee the daily functioning of the government, regardless the final outcome of the vote.

The contrast between the US response to the Afghan election and the Iranian election two months ago is stark. In Afghanistan, Washington is downplaying pervasive evidence of fraud and charges by numerous candidates of massive vote-rigging. In Iran, the US government and media immediately embraced charges of a "stolen election" by the pro-Western opposition to incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, without presenting any substantive evidence of fraud.

The difference is to be explained by the foreign policy interests of the United States. In both cases, the overriding aim is to establish US imperialist domination of Central Asia, a region rich in energy resources and occupying a strategically critical position at the crossroads of Europe, the Middle East and East and South Asia. But the US considers the Ahmadinejad regime an obstacle to this goal and has sought to use the disputed Iranian election to destabilize or remove the incumbent president, while it has a vested interest in shoring up a puppet "democratic" government in Kabul.

Gaza: The horror ignored by western hypocrisy (never again obviously means for 60+ years)

2009-08-24T09:54:00.000-07:00

Lisa Karpova
Pravda.Ru
Sun, 23 Aug 2009 02:46 UTC

The Israeli blockade of Gaza Strip, now in its third year, has shown the extremely deep seated hypocrisy in what is put forth as pristine, faultless, superior "western values." Westerners have been inoculated against any sympathy for the victims by the skillful portrayal in the western corporate media of them as perpetrators and mad suicide bombers, instead of people in the midst of a serious crisis of human dignity and people fighting for the right to live on their own land. Rather than feeling sympathy, the westerner at best has been taught that "both sides are at fault" and that people should "stop killing each other."

Meanwhile Israel...exploding beyond its agreed upon borders, holds the power of life and death over all of them. They have the bombs, the jets, the armored vehicles and all the latest technology at their disposal. What do Palestinians have? Primitive rockets at best and more often than not, just stones.

The population of Gaza has been forced to live with the steady degradation of the conditions of everyday life, caused by the erosion of the means of subsistence and by the gradual evaporation of the infrastructure. Vital services in the areas of the health, water, sanitation and education have been seriously eroded. Many are unable to go to their jobs, as nearly 120,000 Palestinians have lost their means to support their families. Water is a serious problem, as only 15% is allocated for the use of Palestinians while the Jewish residents around the block fill their swimming pools.

This blockade and the subsequent genocidal attack were the result of Hamas acquiring the majority of votes in the 2007 election. Since then, funds have been cut off, humanitarian workers have faced imprisonment and intervention against their efforts. While pretending to believe in free elections, the west has soundly condemned and refused to accept the collective will of the Palestinian people. In other words, vote for whom you are told or you will be starved, bombed, forced to live like animals, have your electric power cut off until you decide you've suffered enough. To remind, collective punishment is a war crime!

Haughtily, Israel and western leaders proclaim they will not speak to Hamas. Why? Because they are to be compelled to accept things as they are. They must declare Israel's right to exist, right along with Israel's denial of the Palestinian right to exist.

Worst of all was the recent Israeli attack on Gaza, using cluster bombs and white phosphorous bombs, burning and maiming countless children. But hey! Today a child, tomorrow a terrorist, right? On more than one occasion, Israeli authorities have declared that civilians are legitimate targets. The Yesha Rabbinical Council announced in response to an IDF attack in Kfar Qanna in Lebanon that "according to Jewish law, during a time of battle and war, there is no such term as 'innocents' of the enemy. All of the discussions on Christian morality are weakening the spirit of the army and the nation and are costing us in the blood of our soldiers and civilians," the statement said. (Efrat Weiss) I hate to report that one photograph of a little girl's severed head may be just a bit much for general viewing.

Israel also deployed a terrifying new tactic against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip by letting loose deafening "sound bombs" that cause widespread fear, induce miscarriages and traumatise children. Military air force jets create dozens of sonic booms by breaking the sound barrier at low altitude, sending shockwaves across the territory, often at night. Palestinians liken the sound to an earthquake or huge bomb. They describe the effect as being hit by a wall of air that is painful on the ears, sometimes causing nosebleeds and "leaving you shaking inside". The Palestinian health ministry says the sonic booms have led to miscarriages and heart problems. The United Nations has demanded an end to the tactic, saying it causes panic attacks in children. The shockwaves have also damaged buildings by cracking walls and smashing thousands of windows.

Additionally, as though this genocidal campaign against Palestinians weren't enough, 1,500 Palestinian sick captives are threatened with death in Israeli jails due to deliberate medical neglect. A recent report said that 47 prisoners died in Israeli occupation authority (IOA) jails due to such intentional medical neglect while 70 were tortured to death in IOA dungeons and 73 were executed in cold blood. Jails are void of specialized medical teams and some of them do not have a doctor at all or at best a doctor would be present for only two hours.

In conclusion, "Israel" means the original boundaries drawn up by the United Nations. Until Israel respects the norms of international law, it cannot claim full rights as a member of the international community. The international community must demand that Israel live within its originally drawn up borders and abide by all agreements, including the right of return. Israel must leave the lands it occupies illegally.

They have certainly proven themselves to be worse than Nazis during this illegal occupation. These people who have lived on this land for generations are under siege. Where is the outrage? Where are the sanctions? Where are the condemnations? Where are people's consciences?

are there any circumstances ?

2009-07-03T11:37:00.000-07:00

are there any circumstances in which the US/EU would be content for Iran to have uranium enrichment facilities on its own territory? For example, could additional measures be put in place to provide assurance that these, and other nuclear facilities, are being used for peaceful purposes only?

In the past, Iran did allow an enhanced form of IAEA inspection, under a so-called Additional Protocol to its basic inspection agreement with the IAEA. This isn't mandatory on a state under the NPT (and Brazil, which also has uranium enrichment facilities, doesn't allow it). The Additional Protocol is designed to allow the IAEA to get a full picture of a state's nuclear activities by providing the agency with authority to visit any facility, declared or not, and to visit unannounced -- and thereby seek to eliminate the possibility that a state is engaging in nuclear activity for military purposes at sites that it hasn't declared to the agency.

Iran signed an Additional Protocol in 2003 and allowed the IAEA to operate under it from December 2003 until February 2006. But, it withdrew permission in February 2006 when it was referred to the Security Council. There is little doubt that Iran would be prepared to allow the IAEA to operate under an Additional Protocol again, if the Security Council dogs were called off and the economic sanctions imposed by the Security Council were lifted.

That is one additional measure that could be taken to help provide assurance that Iran's nuclear facilities are being used for peaceful purposes only. Another measure was suggested by Iran, as long ago as 17 September 2005. Then, in a speech to the UN General Assembly, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made the following extraordinary offer, which goes way beyond the requirements of the NPT:

'... as a further confidence-building measure and in order to provide the greatest degree of transparency, the Islamic Republic of Iran is prepared to engage in serious partnership with private and public sectors of other countries in the implementation of [a] uranium enrichment program in Iran.'

Needless to say, the US/EU have ignored this proposal, which would have put Iran's uranium enrichment facilities under a degree of international control. Perhaps, President Obama's staff should draw this proposal to his attention.

David Morrison is a political officer for the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10621.shtml

who is them ? the governments ? the media ? or both ?

2009-06-10T11:53:00.000-07:00

from Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch , Tue, 02 Jun 2009 19:37 UTC

"You are, I assure you, 'living in' an extreme world at an extreme moment. Don't leave it solely to them to describe it for you. Don't just let yourself be used by the language that our world makes so readily available to you.

Back in 1946, in his stirring essay, "Politics and the English Language," which he would later vividly illustrate in his novel 1984, George Orwell wrote of the problems, but also the satisfactions, of letting them define the limits of what can be spoken. You can, he pointed out, certainly save yourself some trouble "by simply throwing your mind open and letting the ready-made phrases come crowding in. They will construct your sentences for you -- even think your thoughts for you, to a certain extent -- and at need they will perform the important service of partially concealing your meaning even from yourself."

But he also wrote: "Political language... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind." "

Jews have the rights over Palestine because....

2009-06-07T00:09:00.000-07:00

we do unto others as we would have them do unto us

2009-06-04T07:31:00.000-07:00

I was not going to post anymore regarding Obama's speech , but the last part is so true that it needs to be said over and over again... Billions of people feel the same way and we have to start shouting this from the rooftops if required and this man was brave enough to stand up and say .....

"It is easier to start wars than to end them. It is easier to blame others than to look inward; to see what is different about someone than to find the things we share. But we should choose the right path, not just the easy path. There is also one rule that lies at the heart of every religion - that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. This truth transcends nations and peoples - a belief that isn't new; that isn't black or white or brown; that isn't Christian, or Muslim or Jew. It's a belief that pulsed in the cradle of civilization, and that still beats in the heart of billions. It's a faith in other people, and it's what brought me here today.

We have the power to make the world we seek, but only if we have the courage to make a new beginning, keeping in mind what has been written.

The Holy Koran tells us, "O mankind! We have created you male and a female; and we have made you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another."

The Talmud tells us: "The whole of the Torah is for the purpose of promoting peace."

The Holy Bible tells us, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God."

The people of the world can live together in peace. We know that is God's vision. Now, that must be our work here on Earth. Thank you. And may God's peace be upon you.
"

Israel Nuke inspections on there way ??

2009-06-04T07:14:00.001-07:00

Last quote from Obama - 4th June 2009.

"I understand those who protest that some countries have weapons that others do not. No single nation should pick and choose which nations hold nuclear weapons. That is why I strongly reaffirmed America's commitment to seek a world in which no nations hold nuclear weapons. And any nation - including Iran - should have the right to access peaceful nuclear power if it complies with its responsibilities under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. That commitment is at the core of the Treaty, and it must be kept for all who fully abide by it. And I am hopeful that all countries in the region can share in this goal."

So what has Iran done wrong ? NOTHING ....

So what has Iran got to do to build trust ? NOTHING ...

So what has the US got to do ? Get the UN to inspect Israel and get it to join the NPT.

Wether it is one state or two

2009-06-04T06:51:00.000-07:00

Obama - Cairo - 4th June 2009

"Too many tears have flowed. Too much blood has been shed. All of us have a responsibility to work for the day when the mothers of Israelis and Palestinians can see their children grow up without fear; when the Holy Land of three great faiths is the place of peace that God intended it to be; when Jerusalem is a secure and lasting home for Jews and Christians and Muslims, and a place for all of the children of Abraham to mingle peacefully together as in the story of Isra, when Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed (peace be upon them) joined in prayer."

I still dont think either will see peace until there is one state for all people of all faiths with one government. Personally, i think the only other alternative would be something like 3 states, Israel, Palistine and Jerusalem State (Like Vatican state example)......

.... then again, it might just be me !

Quote from Obama in Cairo - 4th June 2009

2009-06-04T06:30:00.001-07:00

I like many parts, but this part is not known or taught in many countries, although if it was, i probably missed it anyway ....

"As a student of history, I also know civilization's debt to Islam. It was Islam - at places like Al-Azhar University - that carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe's Renaissance and Enlightenment. It was innovation in Muslim communities that developed the order of algebra; our magnetic compass and tools of navigation; our mastery of pens and printing; our understanding of how disease spreads and how it can be healed. Islamic culture has given us majestic arches and soaring spires; timeless poetry and cherished music; elegant calligraphy and places of peaceful contemplation. And throughout history, Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality."

I will ask the General Assembly ... to Strip Israel of its Membership..... -why did this not happen 10,20,30,40 years ago??? who knows

2009-05-16T00:19:00.000-07:00

"I will ask the General Assembly ... to Strip Israel of its Membership"
Transcript of statement by Ban Ki-Moon – via Global Research May 15, 2009

United Nations General Assembly,
New York, NY
11 May 2009
Mr. President

Excellencies,

Ladies and Gentlemen:

With each passing year, we come closer to our past. Every year brings with it momentous anniversaries of events that shaped our world. For example, we have recently marked the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II and of the United Nations itself. These two events, inextricably linked, form the basis of what we have come to know as the modern era, the post-war era.

For me, as Secretary–General, looking back on where the UN started and where it is now has a special importance, for I am now charged with guiding the world body through unknown and uncertain territory. “Terrorism” has long since replaced “arms control” and “détente” as the focus of international security, yet the term defies definition. One country’s terrorist is another country’s revolutionary hero. Some insist that terrorists are opposed to democracy, but we have all seen democracies behave like terrorists.

In many ways, the world today does not seem to be very removed from the barbarity of world war. The invasion of Iraq has lasted longer than World War II, and more tons of bombs have been dropped on that poor country than all the bombs dropped in that great war. The International Declaration of Human Rights, so prized and venerated by men and women of honour everywhere, stands as an impotent relic of a forgotten time because conquest, cruelty, and arrogance are still with us and growing stronger.

For all of the good the UN has accomplished since its founding, and there have been successes, the sheer magnitude of human suffering and violations of international law that have occurred and are still occurring must also be taken into account.

Few people know that Israel is the only state to be given a conditional admission. Under General Assembly Resolution 273, Israel was admitted on the condition that it grant all Palestinians the right to return to their homes and receive compensation for lost or damaged property, according to General Assembly Resolution 194 paragraph 11. Suffice to say, Israel has never lived up to these terms, and never intended to.

For 60 years Israel has violated its terms of admission, and for 60 years the UN has done nothing about it. It has watched as Israel heaped misery upon misery on Palestine, and violated international law with impunity.

After “Operation Cast Lead,” no person, no country, no democracy can look at Israel without thinking of the inhuman slaughter and destruction committed by the axis powers in World War II, though one could have said the same about numerous past massacres. What atrocities might the world have been spared if the UN had refused to admit Israel 60 years ago?

Of course, the immediate post war world was a different time. The world had just witnessed the horrors of Hitler’s racist excesses, and collective Western guilt for the Holocaust dictated attitudes toward the idea of Jewish state. Even the UN could not withstand the moral pressure.

On Nov. 29, 1947, it passed General Assembly Resolution 181, “The Partition Plan,” to carve a Jewish state out of Arab Palestine. However, it was never ratified by the Security Council, and so does not exist in law, which means the UN played no role in the creation of Israel. Nevertheless, “The Partition Plan” was utterly illegal and a violation of the UN Charter, because the UN had no right or power to take land from one people and give it to another.

If it hopes to play a meaningful role in the 21st century, the UN must do more than simply promise to enact reforms. It must search deep within its soul to redress the fundamental violations of its founding principles, which have long since ceased to have any force. That recommitment must begin now, for it was 60 years ago today, May 11, 1949, that Israel became a member of the UN. The UN cannot hope to achieve any measure of peace or justice as long as it condones war crimes, which it does every day that Israel is allowed to flout its terms of admission.

The past cannot be undone, but the future can change. As its newly elected Secretary-General, I promise that the UN will no longer be a passive enabler of genocide. Therefore, I will ask the General Assembly to meet in special session at the earliest possible time to strip Israel of its membership.

Ordinarily, a motion to expel a member nation would have to come at the recommendation of the Security Council, but this is not an ordinary motion. Because Israel is in violation of its terms of admission, it is not a member in good standing, so the UN has every right to declare General Assembly Resolution 273 null and void. Since Israel’s membership depends on adherence to that resolution, its expulsion is automatic.

Essentially, the unavoidable, lamentable truth of the last six decades is that the UN has been a moral and political failure because it has refused to enforce its own rules and defend the Charter. Nothing the UN does can have any value as long as this illegitimate member occupies a place in the General Assembly. I want the UN to have value.

I count on your support.

Thank you very much.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13636

Last updated 15/05/2009

i am so glad i come across other bloggers who can put things better than me

2009-04-21T10:27:00.000-07:00

So… let me get this straight. The conference was boycotted by the people who are guilty of international racism, expressed through debt enslavement and murder and they boycotted it because of pressure from the main country in the world presently performing genocide upon the people whom they have displaced from their land through force and murder. Further, let it be said that this country practicing the genocide is claiming to be the Biblical inheritors of the land when DNA tests prove that it is the Palestinians who are the original people from the Bible and not them.

Reflections in a Petri Dish - 21st April
http://zippittydodah.blogspot.com/2009/04/shame-on-you-you-pathetic-blood-stained.html

Famous last words.... at least someone is willing to stand up and say it

2009-04-20T23:34:00.001-07:00

... which leads to others not liking hearing it.... So what about free speech,... ah , it has to be those western hypocrites !!! lol

"The Security Council helped stabilize the occupying regime and supported it in the past 60 years giving them a free hand to commit all sorts of atrocities. It is all the more regrettable that a number of Western governments and the United States have committed themselves to defending those racist perpetrators of genocide while the awakened-conscience and free-minded people of the world condemn aggression, brutalities and the bombardment of civilians in Gaza. The supporters of Israel have always been either supportive or silent against the crimes.

Dear friends, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen. What are the root causes of the US attacks against Iraq or the invasion of Afghanistan?

Was the motive behind the invasion of Iraq anything other than the arrogance of the then US administration and the mounting pressures on the part of the possessors of wealth and power to expand their sphere of influence seeking the interests of giant arms manufacturing companies affecting a noble culture with thousands of years of historical background, eliminating the potential and practical threats of Muslim countries against the Zionist regime or to control and plunder the energy resources of the Iraqi people?

Why, indeed, almost a million people were killed and injured and a few more millions were displaced? Why, indeed, the Iraqi people have suffered enormous losses amounting to hundreds of billions of dollars? And why was billions of dollars imposed on the American people as the result of these military actions? Was not the military action against Iraq planned by the Zionists and their allies in the then US administration in complicity with the arms manufacturing countries and the possessors of wealth? Did the invasion of Afghanistan restore peace, security and economic wellbeing in the country?

The United States and its allies not only have failed to contain the production of drugs in Afghanistan, but the cultivation of narcotics has multiplied in the course of their presence. The basic question is that what was the responsibility and the job of the then US administration and its allies?

Did they represent the countries of the world? Have they been mandated by them? Have they been authorized by the people of the world to interfere in all parts of the globe, of course mostly in our region? Are not these measures a clear example of egocentrism, racism, discrimination or infringement upon the dignity and independence of nations?

Ladies and gentlemen, who is responsible for the current global economic crisis? Where did the crisis start from? From Africa, Asia or from the United States in the first place then spreading across Europe and their allies?"

President of Iran - April 20th 2009

Of course according to the BBC, Sky, US and Israel, these are all lies... WHATEVER !! cant handle the truth !!

An almost unspeakable blasphemy

2009-03-16T11:33:00.000-07:00

It is no longer possible to believe with an honest conscience that the deplorable conditions in which Palestinians live and die in Gaza and the West Bank come as the result of specific policies, leaders or parties on either side of the impasse. The problem is fundamental: Founding a modern state on a single ethnic or religious identity in a territory that is ethnically and religiously diverse leads inexorably either to politics of exclusion (think of the 139-square-mile prison camp that Gaza has become) or to wholesale ethnic cleansing.

Ben Ehrenreich
Los Angeles Times
Mon, 16 Mar 2009

Anyone who would take a fresh look at this would easily turn and say, make it one country or federal state for all its citizens and leave racism at the door.

Make peace not war

2009-03-02T11:07:00.000-08:00

And if you hear any of the statements from the donars conference, we just ignore reality and carry on ..... Is Bush pulling Obama's Strings !!
It appears that people need reminding of the masacre of a few weeks ago.... DAILY i think for some.. The following are the facts that the US And UK like to ignore, that dam pesky, ugly TRUTH !

After the Gazans were starved for months, Israeli forces bombed homes, mosques, hospitals, ambulances and UN aid distributing centers and sanctuaries; most of the factories and food processing plants were destroyed; businesses, Gaza's major municipal buildings, including its parliament building (legislative assembly building), police stations and whole neighborhoods were reduced to rubble; 70 per cent of the agricultural sector in Gaza was destroyed.

Talk of peace sits ill in the mouth of those who let loose a devastating attack in which, on the very first day of the offensive, fighter jets and attack helicopters struck more than 170 targets, killing at least 230 and wounding 780 and which, by the time it was over, killed 1300 (equivalent of 300,000 dead in US terms, on the basis of population ratio), more than half of them civilians, including 420 children, and injured more than 5400.

A million and a half tons of explosives were dropped on Gaza after the Gazans had been starved for 50 days.

Every single police station in Gaza was bombed.

Israel used white phosphorous and Dense Inert Metal Explosives (DIME) weapons that have inflicted horrific injuries on victims and are having unusual effects, never before seen by doctors; its forces killed wives, husbands, mothers, fathers, children in front of the eyes of those who escaped the bloodbath; ambulances were prevented from getting near the injured and the dying; most houses visited by the Israeli Defense Forces were demolished and some, from those left standing, were defaced by graffiti.

In numbers, 100,000 were displaced; 50,000 made homeless; 4,100 residential homes and buildings were destroyed; 17,000 residential homes and buildings, accounting for 14 per cent of all buildings in Gaza, were damaged; 3 UN schools being used as shelters for displaced persons were bombed, leaving 45 dead, including 13 children; 21 hospital and clinics and 16 ambulances were destroyed or damaged; 40 mosques and 29 educational institutions were destroyed and about 30 more damaged, including the American International School and Gaza Music School; 1,500 shops, factories and other commercial factories were destroyed.

Even a cemetery came under fire and body parts were strewn all over.

Signs of the Times News for Wed, 31 Dec 2008

2008-12-30T23:11:00.000-08:00

Signs of the Times News for Wed, 31 Dec 2008: "http://www.sott.net/articles/show/171874-Barack-Obama-on-Israel-s-Siege-of-Gaza-No-comment-"
Remember the Truth is always there and even if you dont admit it publicy (like knowing there were No WMDs in Iraq) the rest of the world knows it. Do you want respect or Ire from people of the world..... People should be chanting "We Want Change" at his Inauguration and not let him be sworn in until he promises to cut Israel loose from US politics.

And the winner is......

2008-12-30T04:04:00.000-08:00

......for the most war crimes in one day (and yes, more than the US)

The Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip represent severe and massive violations of international humanitarian law as defined in the Geneva Convention, both in regard to the obligations of an occupying power and in the requirements of the laws of war.

Those violations include:

Collective punishment - the entire 1.5 million people who live in the crowded Gaza Strip are being punished for the actions of a few militants.

Targeting civilians - the air strikes were aimed at civilian areas in one of the most crowded stretches of land in the world, certainly the most densely populated area of the Middle East.

Disproportionate military response - the air strikes have not only destroyed every police and security office of Gaza's elected government, but have killed and injured hundreds of civilians; at least one strike reportedly hit groups of students attempting to find transportation home from the university.

Earlier Israeli actions, specifically the complete sealing off of entry and exit to and from the Gaza Strip, have led to severe shortages of medicine and fuel (as well as food), resulting in the inability of ambulances to respond to the injured, the inability of hospitals to adequately provide medicine or necessary equipment for the injured, and the inability of Gaza's besieged doctors and other medical workers to sufficiently treat the victims.

Certainly the rocket attacks against civilian targets in Israel are unlawful. But that illegality does not give Israel any right, neither as the occupying power nor as a sovereign state, to violate international humanitarian law and commit war crimes or crimes against humanity in its response. I note that Israel's escalating military assaults have not made Israeli civilians safer; on the contrary, the one Israeli killed today after the upsurge of Israeli violence is the first in over a year.

Israel has also ignored recent Hamas' diplomatic initiatives to re-establish the truce or ceasefire since its expiry.

Richard Falk, United Nations Special Investigator

finally someone who got it right.

2008-12-29T12:59:00.000-08:00

Just read this , Robert Fisk - The Independent- Mon, 29 Dec

We hear the usual Israeli line. General Yaakov Amidror, the former head of the Israeli army's "research and assessment division" announced that "no country in the world would allow its citizens to be made the target of rocket attacks without taking vigorous steps to defend them". Quite so. But when the IRA were firing mortars over the border into Northern Ireland, when their guerrillas were crossing from the Republic to attack police stations and Protestants, did Britain unleash the RAF on the Irish Republic? Did the RAF bomb churches and tankers and police stations and zap 300 civilians to teach the Irish a lesson? No, it did not. Because the world would have seen it as criminal behaviour. We didn't want to lower ourselves to the IRA's level.

Perfect!!

Its like i have been looking for this comparison for years

Christmas again - celebrate the birth of Jesus with airstrikes

2008-12-28T01:20:00.000-08:00

AZA, Dec. 24 (Xinhua) -- Palestinian Christians living in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip will not celebrate Christmas this year and do the midnight Christmas mass.

"I will play music and celebrate what the Israeli air force is doing." Those were the words, spoken on Al Jazeera today by Ofer Shmerling, an Israeli civil defense official in the Sderot area adjacent to Gaza, as images of Israel's latest massacres were broadcast around the world.

US-supplied Israeli F-16 warplanes and Apache helicopters dropped over 100 bombs on dozens of locations in the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip killing at least 195 persons and injuring hundreds more. Many of these locations were police stations located, like police stations the world over, in the middle of civilian areas. The US government was one of the first to offer its support for Israel's attacks, and others will follow.

Reports said that many of the dead were Palestinian police officers. Among those Israel labels "terrorists" were more than a dozen traffic police officers undergoing training. An as yet unknown number of civilians were killed and injured; Al Jazeera showed images of several dead children, and the Israeli attacks came at the time thousands of Palestinian children were in the streets on their way home from school.

Shmerling's joy has been echoed by Israelis and their supporters around the world; their violence is righteous violence. It is "self-defense" against "terrorists" and therefore justified. Israeli bombing -- like American and NATO bombing in Iraq and Afghanistan -- is bombing for freedom, peace and democracy.

The rationalization for Israel's massacres, already being faithfully transmitted by the English-language media, is that Israel is acting in "retaliation" for Palestinian rockets fired with increasing intensity ever since the six-month truce expired on 19 December (until today, no Israeli had been killed or injured by these recent rocket attacks).

But today's horrific attacks mark only a change in Israel's method of killing Palestinians recently. In recent months they died mostly silent deaths, the elderly and sick especially, deprived of food and necessary medicine by the two year-old Israeli blockade calculated and intended to cause suffering and deprivation to 1.5 million Palestinians, the vast majority refugees and children, caged into the Gaza Strip. In Gaza, Palestinians died silently, for want of basic medications: insulin, cancer treatment, products for dialysis prohibited from reaching them by Israel.

What the media never question is Israel's idea of a truce. It is very simple. Under an Israeli-style truce, Palestinians have the right to remain silent while Israel starves them, kills them and continues to violently colonize their land. Israel has not only banned food and medicine to sustain Palestinian bodies in Gaza but it is also intent on starving minds: due to the blockade, there is not even ink, paper and glue to print textbooks for schoolchildren.

That is an Israeli truce. Any response to Israeli attacks -- whether peaceful protests against the apartheid wall in Bilin and Nilin in the West Bank is met with bullets and bombs. There are no rockets launched at Israel from the West Bank, and yet Israel's attacks, killings, land theft, settler pogroms and kidnappings never ceased for one single day during the truce. The Palestinian Authority in Ramallah has acceded to all of Israel's demands, even assembling "security forces" to fight the resistance on Israel's behalf. None of that has spared a single Palestinian or her property or livelihood from Israel's relentless violent colonization.

Once again we are watching massacres in Gaza, as we did last March when 110 Palestinians, including dozens of children, were killed by Israel in just a few days. Once again people everywhere feel rage, anger and despair that this outlaw state carries out such crimes with impunity.

"Tel Aviv's bombardment of the Gaza Strip is yet another brazen example of Israel's terrorist mindset and its gross violation of human rights," it adds.

The statement condemns the barrage of Israeli attacks on civilian non-military targets as being in stark defiance of the Geneva Convention and UN resolutions.

Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states that no protected person may be punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed, hence collective punishment and all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.

Mustafa Barghouti, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, rejected the Israeli government's claims that the air raids were in self-defence.

"This is a bloodbath, the bloodiest bloodbath since 1967," he told Al Jazeera. "This is an attack on the civilian population of Gaza."

Hundreds of Palestinians were injured in Saturday's attacks [GALLO/GETTY]
"They try to claim that this was done as a response to missiles, but they are denying the fact that the whole year not a single Israeli was killed by missiles. The first Israeli killed was only because of the Israeli invasion, the Israeli attack."

Many of the dead in Saturday's attacks were police officers, including Tawfiq Jabber, the Gaza chief of police.

Hospitals, already suffering from shortages due to an 18-month blockade on the Gaza Strip, said they were struggling to cope with the number of injured, which included women and children.

One of the buildings hit on Sunday was reportedly a warehouse used to supply local pharmacies with medicines.

"This is going to make us unable to supply any of the local families that depend on us," Dr Hussam Abu Hashem, the owner, told local Hamas radio. "It's a war against human beings."

The Israel-Hamas ceasefire expired on December 19, with Hamas arguing that Israel had violated the truce by preventing vital supplies from entering the Strip.

Hamas won control of the Palestinian Legislative Council in elections in January 2005. The international community refused to accept a Hamas-led government, demanding that the faction recognise Israel and renounce violence. Economic sanctions by the EU and US followed.

Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in June 2007 after bloody street battles against its rival, Fatah.

Bush Camp singing their own prases

2008-12-17T05:03:00.000-08:00

All the talk this month and for another couple of weeks is about the Bush regime, patting themselves on the back for all the good work they have done over the past 8 years.
THIS MAKES ME SICK!!!
But a lot of people tend to believe the crap they spout, which makes me ever more sick....
Here is an example from the Guardian blog today that is very common.

Iraq and Afghanistan have been given the chance of a more liberal future. (Women in schools, democrats in office, etc etc)

Well if you watch our western news, then this would be true. But of course it ignores all the reported facts. i.e. Iraqs people are waiting for the US to go, so that it can have its own rules, not the Wests'. Afganistan has reported cases of Women having acid thrown over their face, for following the Wests' suggestions of changing their culture, the taliban will be back in charge within 12 months. Thats supposed to be positive ???

Al Queda have less of a safe haven for training in Afghanistan ("they ran the country and now they barely run a cave" - as Bush rightly said (I paraphrase slightly)).

Well i never... .Considering that most analysts put the Taliban in over 70% of control of the country, how does that make that less of a safe haven. In fact, i guess they can pretty much do what they want and with the capturing of NATO convoys, probably with better equipment than before.

Libya has been brought in from the terror camp.

Like that had anything to do with the US. The leader of the country found the right time to get away from the terrorist brand, and Europe jumped at the chance for some extra business. But when Libya was on the Security Council for the UN, back to refering them as a terrorist country, because they said the suffering in Gaza was wrong and wanted to condem Israel. Well we cant have that !!

Terrorists have been killed in the horn of Africa and their networks thereby made void.

Well apart from some US airstrickes on some villages, the Islamists look to regain there country again, once Ethiopia leaves. The only peace Somalia has seen in the last decade was when Islamists were running the country. But we cant have that !!

US and western bases have been established in an arc around the caucasus.

And that has made all those countries involved fearful of war.. Great Job again !! Well thanks to Bush for bringing up the fear of nuclear war again... we really appreciate that one !!

As a consequence of the above, Iran is hemmed in by western bases or western-leaning countries.

Well not exactly.... they have some US guys pretending to liberate Iraq and Afganistan, building bases next to the border of Iran and supplying some local rebels to attack the Iranian Police. Great Stuff... Something we can be proud of. What was the outcome of the stratergy of surrounding them. Oh yeah. They have spent millions beafing up their defence forces. Well thats not good if someone actually carries out their threat to attack Iran is it ??

Bush will be like Truman and Eisenhower - derided at the time, but later seen as the architects of a sensible policy in difficult circumstances - a policy that will last decades.

Simple answer to this one .... BULLSHIT!! Anyone with half a brain who does not learn history in the US or UK will learn of War Criminals that got away scott free and taught never believe anyone just because they smile when they say it.

Cheney and Rumsfeld took a lead role in much of this and I don't doubt they are proud.

Proud, Happy, Rich, Lucky they are not in Nurenburg for War Crimes.

Bush's success in Africa, where he has increased aid and thereby made a huge impact on reducing HIV and malnutrition, are more properly seen as his own triumph.

Trying to help with Aids, without helping with Water and Education has endangered anyone in Africa trying to help these people. Read the reports from people who are there and not the US PR group. The people there struggle with local beliefs and the lack of education. If the US spent less on War and carrying out War Crimes, we would likely have no Aids in the world today. But then we would also not be having a Global Meltdown, which is really going to screw the world.

So , thanks, but no thanks Bush Regime.... and here is my shoe to , to thow into the mix...

Merry Xmas, and have a happy new year. .... Millions wont !! :)

Ahoy! No Change Ahead.... Steady as she goes...

2008-11-26T03:01:00.001-08:00

Of all the empires in history, the United States will go down as one of the most aggressive and least inspiring. After nearly 160 years of warfare and imperial conquest, US policy, and the war machine it marshalled, has left nothing in its tracks but death and destruction, with no lasting cultural value. Five years after the US invasion, Iraq lies in ruins. Divided, violent, depleted, unstable, rife with sectarian war, a hotbed of terrorism and with 20 per cent of its population killed, wounded, displaced or in asylum in neighbouring countries, Iraq bears no resemblance to its recent past. Meanwhile, allied regimes in the Arab Middle East, which the Bush administration vowed to democratise after invading Iraq, are now more entrenched, more autocratic than ever.

Some people may contest the fact that the US is an imperial power that dominates the world, or most of it. This is either due to self-effacing denial or the legendary American sense of self- righteousness. Drawing on the parallel historical examples of the 16th to 19th century age of colonialism, they will challenge any claimant to point out where American colonial dominion is, the colonised peoples or the colonial governments that rules over them. Little do they know about US neo-colonialism, sprawling American military bases spread around the globe, the 13 American naval armada canvassing the seas and oceans or the hundreds of billions of US dollars spent on them in the name of American security and spreading democracy. According to the US Department of Defense annual Base Structure Report for 2003, which lists foreign and domestic military bases, the US rents or owns 702 overseas bases in about 130 countries, in addition to 6,000 bases in the US and its territories. The report excludes huge US military, naval and air force bases in the Arabian Gulf, the Middle East and Afghanistan. The US Department of Defense deploys 253,288 uniformed personnel and an approximately equal number of civilian personnel, technicians and non-uniformed military and civilian contractors.

In April 2003, the Bush administration and its cohorts conveniently estimated that the Iraq conquest would cost $1.7 billion, part of which would be offset by the participating "coalition of the willing". Allies Britain, Germany, Canada, Norway and Japan would pay the costs of reconstruction, in addition to the expected Iraqi oil revenue. That was in 2003. But according to Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel laureate in economics and a respected former World Bank vice- president, the cost of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2008 will reach $845 billion "for military operations, reconstruction, embassy costs, enhanced security at US bases and foreign aid programmes". In his most recent book, The Three Trillion Dollar War, Stiglitz states: "A trillion dollars could have built an additional eight million housing units; could have hired some 15 million additional public school teachers for one year; could have paid for 120 million children to attend a year of Head Start; insured 530 million children for healthcare for one year; or provided 43 million students with four-year scholarships at public universities."

How much the losing Iraq war is costing the US treasury, financially as well as politically, is increasingly a matter of public debate in the US, as much as the Vietnam War was a matter of public outrage 40 years ago. Except for the Vietnam War, the Iraq war -- now in its sixth year -- is the longest and most costly war in the post-independence history of the US. It has lasted longer than the American Civil War, the Mexican-American War, the Spanish- American War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War and the first Gulf War, not to mention the series of brutal guerrilla wars incited by the Reagan administration in South America during the 1980s.

The five-year long Iraq war has led the world's most feared imperial power to infamy and bankruptcy. It has wreaked untold suffering and destruction on the ancient land of Iraq and its population, all to the benefit of US mega- corporations like Halliburton, Kellogg Brown & Root, and the Pentagon's paramilitary and civilian contractors. The US and its coalition, who defied the UN Security Council and invaded Iraq, owe the country and its people huge reparations for their wanton destruction.

As many polls have indicated, all the Iraqis want -- except their Maliki government -- is for the US to leave and let them lick their wounds, unite their families, mourn their dead, repatriate their refugees, mend sectarian differences and establish a new Iraqi order without American interference.

When Hitler trampled across Europe Occupying countries, we called it War Crimes, we pulled together and defeated him. When the US has spent years using various methods to occupy or control countries, we call it spreading democracy or defending human rights. What do you think the people in those countries call it ..... OCCUPATION ..... do you think they want the world to pull together and defeat the US ??
Will any US President change the way they intrude around the world ? of course not. But the day will come when they will be defeated!

Lest we forget during the media silence .....

2008-10-03T00:41:00.001-07:00

Although the "surge" has failed as policy, it appears to be succeeding as propaganda. It seems to be the only thing that supporters of the war have to point to, and so they point, and they point, and they point. Allow me to point out that while there has been a reduction in violence in Iraq -- now down to a level that virtually any other society in the world would find horrible and intolerable, including Iraqi society before the US invasion and occupation -- we must keep in mind that thanks to this lovely little war more than half the population of Iraq is either dead, crippled, traumatized, confined in overflowing American and Iraqi prisons, internally displaced, or in foreign exile.

Thus, the number of people available for being killers or victims is markedly reduced. Moreover, extensive ethnic cleansing has taken place in the country (another good indication of progress, n'est-ce pas? nicht wahr?) -- Sunnis and Shiites are now living more in their own special enclaves than before, none of those stinking mixed communities with their unholy mixed marriages, so violence of the sectarian type has also gone down; and the powerful movement of Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr has had a cease-fire in effect for many months, unconnected to the surge.

On top of all this, US soldiers, in the face of numerous "improvised explosive devices" on the roads, have been venturing out a lot less (for fear of things like ... well, dying), so the violence against our noble lads is also down. Remember that insurgent attacks on American forces is how the Iraqi violence all began in the first place.

Just imagine -- If the entire Iraqi population over the age of 10 is killed, disabled, imprisoned or forced into exile there will probably be no violence at all. Now that would really be victory.

No American should be allowed to forget that Iraqi society has been destroyed. The people of that unhappy land have lost everything -- their homes, their schools, their neighbourhoods, their mosques, their jobs, their careers, their professionals, their health care, their legal system, their women's rights, their religious tolerance, their security, their past, their present, their future, their lives. But they do have their surge.

by William Blum , Global Research, October 2, 2008

Who made this quote

2008-09-25T14:30:00.000-07:00

"The time for the atomic bomb has come to an end. If the atomic bomb could do any good, it would have kept the Soviet Union from collapsing," he said. "Those who stockpile or build the atomic bomb are backward thinking."

Was it Blair
Was it Brown
Was it Bush
Was it Cheney
Was it Putin
Was it Medvedev

Or none of the above ??

US - State Sponsor of Terror - Another President calls it as it is !

2008-09-24T05:26:00.000-07:00

More and more countries are calling US foreign policy, what it is.... STATE SPONSORED TERROR.
Whether it is encouraging Georgia to provoke Russia, by using genocide against its own people, whilst conduction peace negotiations.
Whether it is supporting the MKO Terror groups Terror activities in Iran
Whether it is trying to upset the peace in Bolivia or Venezuela. I think Morales has said it best, towards the end of this article. It is clear that 'the US works to undermine nations that reject the capitalist model.'.

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Morales scolds US at UN meeting
Wed, 24 Sep 2008 11:27:58 GMT

Bolivian President Evo Morales addresses the UN General Assembly in New York.

Bolivian President Evo Morales has accused the US of backing opponents trying to destabilize his government with “acts of terrorism.”

In an address to the United Nations assembly in New York on Tuesday, Bolivia's first indigenous president referred to what he called a permanent conspiracy among pro-autonomy, largely white groups in Bolivia's wealthy eastern areas.

"I would like to hear representatives of the U.S. government rejecting these acts of terrorism ... But you know, they are allies, of course they will never condemn this,” he said.

Earlier this month anti-Morales protesters from Bolivia's resource-rich "half-moon" states provoked clashes during which 18 people were killed.

Anti-Morales protesters have also caused disruption by setting up roadblocks, attacking police, abducting federal employees, seizing airports and taking over state-run television stations and community radio stations.

Anti-government elements have also targeted pipelines transporting natural gas to countries such as Brazil. One of Morales' key proposals is to nationalize windfall profits from Bolivia's natural gas industry.

Morales told the UN assembly that wealthier states oppose plans to redistribute wealth amongst the people of Latin America's poorest country.

Latin American nations and Europe have supported the Bolivian government, but Morales condemned the US for not responding to the situation.

Morales told the gathering of world leaders that he believed the US works to undermine nations that reject the capitalist model.

In response to growing unrest, Bolivia expelled the US ambassador to La Paz last month. President Morales revealed that US Ambassador Phillip Goldberg had held meetings with secessionist leaders and alleged that the US Embassy had asked Peace Corps volunteers and a Fulbright scholar to act as spies.

In past years, the US Congress-funded National Endowment for Democracy and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) organizations have supported right-wing movements in Bolivia.

Iran seeks report on powers' N-arms

2008-09-24T00:37:00.000-07:00

This also came about during the UN's General Assembly 2008. Which i think is a good point, well made. The country that is the most open about its nuclear activities (Iran) calling for others to follow its example, if only a little bit. We could name a few, but both the US and Israel are developing the most WMD on the planet.
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Iran seeks report on powers' N-arms
Wed, 24 Sep 2008 02:00:19 GMT

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has urged the UN's atomic watchdog agency to report on the nuclear weapons of the world powers.

Ahmadinejad also called for a nuclear disarmament of these powers by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Ahmadinejad, speaking at the 63rd session of the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, slammed some world powers that are stockpiling weapons of mass destruction including atomic weapons and also threatening the world peace by installing new missile systems.

Ahmadinejad was indirectly referring to the US plan to deploy new missile shield in Eastern Europe.

He also voiced the Iranian nation's commitment to defend its nuclear rights, stressing that Tehran will not give up its rights under pressure from certain world powers.

“Despite the inalienable right of all nations to produce nuclear fuel for peaceful purposes and the fact that Iran's nuclear program has been transparent and Tehran has been cooperating with the IAEA inspectors and that the IAEA has confirmed peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program, some bullying powers try to hinder Iran's nuclear program,” Ahmadinejad insisted.

“These are the same countries that are producing new generation of nuclear arms and no international organization is monitoring their program. The catastrophe in Nagasaki and Hiroshima was perpetrated by one these powers,” Iran's president added.

Ahmadinejad stressed that such powers are not against a proliferation of nuclear weapons but they want to monopolize advanced technologies to use them as a tool to impose their own will on others.

“It is natural that the great Iranian nation will resist the bullying powers and will continue to defend their nuclear rights,” remarked the president.

Ahmadinejad suggested that it is time that the UN nuclear agency report to the international community on how it monitors the nuclear activities of major powers.

He also called for formation of a disarmament committee by independent states to monitor the disarmament of the nuclear powers.

UN General Assembly 2008 - Hah Hah

2008-09-24T00:34:00.000-07:00

It was good to hear yesterday more and more countries asking for UN support or condemnation against the US for its policies of inciting violence and state sponsored terrorism.
Here is a report from Haaretz, which through gritted teeth, says how the President of Iran is managing to get his clear peaceful message across. This also makes clear the distinction of his message of peace, Vs, the US Presidents message of Terror. lol.

By Natasha Mozgovaya, Haaretz Correspondent - 24/09/2008

WASHINGTON - Just how weak the international front against Iran's nuclear program is became clear during Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to New York this week. Not only will he address the UN General Assembly just like any other world leader, but he has been sought after by the media, and tomorrow, he will even be hosted at a dinner by several Christian organizations that say they are seeking to promote peace.

On Tuesday, Ahmadinejad did his best to weaken the opposition still further, via an interview with America's prestigious National Public Radio: He insisted that he is not seeking a confrontation with the United States or anyone else, and that the entire problem is "the U.S. administration and its group of friends."

Asked by NPR about Iran's confrontation with the world over its nuclear program, he retorted: "Where is the world that you are speaking of? Again, 118 members of the Non-Aligned Movement are supporting us. Fifty-seven countries of the OIC [Organization of the Islamic Conference]. So the world that is concerned that you refer to, who is it? Which world? Is it really the U.S. administration and its group of friends?"
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He even said he would like to cooperate with the U.S. - but clarified that Iran has already done "whatever we could," so now, "it's time for the American government to act."

Asked about his threat to "wipe Israel off the map," he insisted that he was referring to the country's peaceful disappearance.

"Let me create an analogy here - where exactly is the Soviet Union today?" he said. "It did disappear - but exactly how? It was through the vote of its own people. So therefore in Palestine, too, we must allow the people, the Palestinians, to determine their own future.

"Let's ask ourselves, where exactly did the Zionist regime come from?" he continued. "Palestine has existed historically with people who live there for thousands of years. Then at gunpoint several million of the indigenous people there were forced out of their homes and became displaced. And it didn't stop there; others were brought from elsewhere in the world to replace them. How can you accept this regime?

"Is the problem of the U.S. government the Zionist regime?" he added. "I believe the extremity to which the U.S. government has gone to extend support to the Zionist regime has caused the U.S. government problems around the world."

The other side of the coin

2008-09-22T07:41:00.000-07:00

While the west watches the demonising of Ahmadinejad when he visits NY for the UN General Assy. We here this refreshing news piece, obviously only found on foreign websites (PressTV).
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A group of American rabbis welcome Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to New York in a move aimed at countering an anti-Iran protest.

Iran promotes peace and respects Judaism, spokesman of Neturei Karta International (Jews United Against Zionism) Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss said in a statement issued on the eve of President Ahmadinejad's visit to New York.

This is while a pro-Israeli group called the Conference of Presidents of Major American Organizations has made efforts to organize a rally in front of the UN headquarters on Sunday to protest President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's arrival in the US.

Neturei Karta International, however, took quite a contrary position toward Ahmadinejad's visit and called for dialogue with the Iranian president.

"It is sad that so few have actually attempted to speak to the Iranian President or seek the true opinion of Iranian Jewry who live in peace and practice their faith throughout that nation. We have met this man who has demonstrated time and again that he is sincerely interested in the well being of Iran's Jewish community and has deep respect for world Jewry and their Torah faith. The Zionist attempt to socially isolate this man and his people is immoral and disastrous," said the statement.

"It has been our honor and privilege to meet with President Ahmadinejad ... we have found the Iranian President to be a deeply religious man, dedicated to a peaceful world, based on mutual respect, fairness and dialogue," Rabbi Weiss wrote.

"Out of great respect to the Iranian Nation and their leadership we proudly welcome the Honorable President Ahmadinejad to New York, WELCOME!" added the rabbi at the end of the statement.

Iran's President arrived at New York City's John F. Kennedy Airport on Sunday to address the 63rd annual session of the UN General Assembly on September 23.

Two Timing X 2 By Iconoclast

2008-09-22T07:30:00.000-07:00

Found this amusing, and there is so little amusing regarding the capitalist model of making money for rich people only !!
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isn't it lovely - they found a way to make people pay for the same thing over and over again.

federal reserve creates money out of thin air for the government - citizen pays the interest.
citizen gets a loan for a home - pays again!
now the mortgage broker is broke and being bailed out by the government (=taxes) - time to pay again!

and in the end, the citizen will have payed multiple times for something that should be a human right (housing), but he won't own a home, he will be broke, unemployed and destroyed...

the masterplan is so incedibly fiendish, you have to somehow admire it. (even if it makes you vomit)

Why wont they say no

2008-09-22T01:20:00.000-07:00

Why Won't They Say 'NO!'?
Butler Shaffer
LewRockwell.com
Tue, 12 Aug 2008 06:56 EDT

While critics of the vicious and evil policies of the modern American state continue to ask what can be done to punish and/or remove its practitioners from office, I am far more interested in the question: why do the American people continue to support such destructive and tyrannical behavior, whether eagerly or by silent acquiescence? With almost weekly escalation of government power over their lives, and threats to the lives of innocent men, women, and children in foreign lands, why is there so little willingness to say "No! You have gone too far for decent people to any longer tolerate your actions!"?

America is in terrible straits. It is no exaggeration to suggest that it is well into an irreversible state of collapse. The national government is ruled by psychopaths, with wars being fabricated out of lies, forged "documents," and other deceptions. Two nations that have not posed any kind of threat to the United States have been singled out for unprovoked attacks. With the diminishing returns that have rendered the continued bullying of Iraqi and Afghan people boring to both advocates and opponents of these wars, Republican and Democratic officials now turn their attentions to another country that poses no threat to America: Iran.

Why is there no widespread moral revulsion by Americans against the murderous and destructive policies of its political system? If your son was out with his friends engaging in drive-by shootings, would you be as proud as the parents of those who do their killings on behalf of the state, and who emblazon their cars with bumper-stickers reading "proud parents of a Marine"?

Even if we don't wallow in such savagery, why are so many of us unwilling to openly condemn it? As the current police-state continues its growth, some may understandably fear the midnight knock on their front door that was implicit in the September, 2001 remark by White House Press Secretary, Ari Fleischer: people "need to watch what they say, watch what they do." The message gets through to many that, an administration that thumbs its nose at habeas corpus, embraces the use of torture, and openly regards the Constitution as nothing more than "a piece of paper," is a bully too dangerous to offend.

I suspect that many who secretly oppose what the state is doing believe that such "excesses" amount to little more than a temporary embarrassment; one that will pass upon the end of George W's final term; and that the election of a new president will bring things back to "normal." But it seems clear that what we are now experiencing in America is a new "norm"; that we are dealing not just with the idiosyncrasies and psychotic traits embedded in the present administration. The problem runs much deeper, I believe, as an expression of more sinister purposes of the political establishment that presumes ownership of the nation.

Is the American civilization likely to recover its bearings in time to reverse its moral and intellectual free-fall? In the absence of a fundamental transformation in thought and the nature of social systems, the answer is a firm "no." America - along with the rest of the West - will likely find itself suffering the fate of all previous civilizations. War-lusting empires collapse, but civilizations leave to the rest of mankind their creative and beneficial attributes. Thus were we bequeathed by the ancient Greeks the basic foundations for intelligent thought; the Romans their engineering skills; and the Persians their important work in the sciences and advanced forms of mathematics.

Western civilization built on these and other attributes to produce great works of literature, art, music, scientific discovery, and invention. But perhaps its greatest contribution to human well-being will prove to have been the confluence of such factors as individual liberty, the private ownership of property, and an understanding of the dynamics of the marketplace, to have produced the industrial revolution. In contrast with its present decline-and-fall, we should learn from history that civilizations are created and sustained by individuals; they are destroyed by collectives.

Recent civilizations have generally followed a westerly course: from Greece to Rome to Western Europe to Great Britain to America. Perhaps the beneficent qualities that once made America great - particularly respect for individuals pursuing their self-interests within free markets - will be embraced by Asian countries - perhaps China - as the creative energies that make for great civilizations continue their westward trek.

Perhaps centuries from now, historians - writing in different languages than English, and for intelligent minds of different cultures than ours - will ponder the question with which Gibbon and others left us after the fall of Rome: why? Having produced such free, prosperous, and humane social systems, why were the foundations of Western civilization so easily allowed to be torn away? As barbarians and looters began to ooze their way upwards through an expanding pool of muck, why were so many millions of people who had benefited from this civilization - and who stood to suffer the most from its collapse - so unwilling or unable to see what was at stake, and to say "No!"?
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I see the problem as simple as, if English media (all forms) do not tell the truth, then people are unaware of how bad the situation is. As long as we are provided a scapegoat i.e. Iran / Russia, then noone thinks our own government is to blame or even if it is blatent that they are, we cannot do anything about it, so they carry on watching the soaps and reality TV, thinking , this does not effect them and if it does then that is just part of life. Not many people believe we can shape the Earth the way it should be.
The truth can be reported Globally in various languages, but we will not know it. Also, if you watch any real news i.e. Al Jazeera, then people still scoff, that it has been labelled and classified as bad / unreliable news.
Lastly , as mentioned in the article above, if you do have your eyes open and you take a day out of your comfortable life to say what needs to be said, you are likely to be labelled and unforeseen things may happen to your comfortable life.

President Bush - Why don't you shut up?

2008-08-13T01:58:00.000-07:00

In your statement on Monday regarding the legitimate actions of the Russian Federation in Georgia, you failed to mention once the war crimes perpetrated by Georgian military forces, which American advisors support, against Russian and Ossetian civilians. Kinda embarrassing, eh?

Your faithful ally, Mikhail Saakashvili, was announcing a ceasefire deal while his troops, with your advisors, were massing on Ossetia's border, which they crossed under cover of night and destroyed Tskhinvali, targeting civilian structures just like your forces did in Iraq. Kinda humanitarian, eh?

The military forces of your faithful ally, Georgia, supported by American advisors, while on a mission as peacekeepers in Ossetia, were ordered to open fire on Russian peacekeeping forces in the same team. Kinda noble, eh?

Your American transport aircraft gave a ride home to thousands of Georgian soldiers from Iraq directly into the combat zone. Did your boys wish them good luck as they stepped off the aircraft? I can almost hear it, "Give 'em Hell!" Kinda friendly, eh?

How do you account for the fact that among the Georgian soldiers fleeing the fighting yesterday you could clearly hear officers using American English giving orders to "Get back inside" and how do you account for the fact that there are reports of American soldiers among the Georgian casualties? Kinda odd, eh?

Do you really think anyone gives any importance whatsoever to your words after 8 years of your criminal and murderous regime and policies? Do you really believe you have any moral ground whatsoever and do you really imagine there is a single human being anywhere on this planet who does not stick up his middle finger every time you appear on a TV screen? Kinda makes ya'll think, eh?

Do you really believe you have the right to give any opinion or advice after Abu Ghraib? After Guantanamo? After the massacre of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens? After the torture by CIA operatives? Kinda difficult, eh?

Do you really believe you have any right to make a statement on any point of international law after your trumped-up charges against Iraq and the subsequent criminal invasion? Like spittin' into the wind, right?

Suppose Russia for instance declares that Georgia has weapons of mass destruction? And that Russia knows where these WMD are, namely in Tblisi and Poti and north, south, east and west of there? And that it must be true because there is "magnificent foreign intelligence" such as satellite photos of milk powder factories and baby cereals producing chemical weapons and which are currently being "driven around the country in vehicles"? Suppose Russia declares for instance that "Saakashvili stiffed the world" and it is "time for regime change"?

Nice and simple, isn't it, President Bush?

So, why don't you shut up? Oh and by the way, send some more of your military advisors to Georgia, they are doing a sterling job. And they look all funny down the night sight, all green. Hahaha!

Thank you, That would be all.

----------------------------------------
Taken from Kevin Gosztola - opednews.com - Tue, 12 Aug 2008 17

US hampering Russian peace efforts – Getting involved in another far away war

2008-08-11T05:42:00.000-07:00

we all know how democratic the US is, except when it involves oil interests. So here we go again, Georgia is supported in an attack against its own countries civilian population. The only problem was that the civilians do not want to be part of Georgia, which happened by default when the soviet republic broke up.
Watching live on Friday 8th August, we know that the only thing that kept these people safe was joint Russion and Georgian peace keepers. As in many countries a token number of troops, with limited weapons.
While Georgia authorities play with joining NATO and enjoying joint military exercises with the US and being the 3rd big contributor to the illegal war in IRAQ, Russia could see problems on the horizon. Especially when Georgia's budget for weapons has increased recently (from US , NATO and ISRAEL), i.e. tanks , anti aircraft systems and drones. So the act was not a surprise for anyone close to the situation, just the fact that it was done in such a in-humane way. Maybe they thought that it would go a little un-noticed, because they chose the Olympic games opening as a cover. The West along with Georgia have made up their own version of events. Discounting the Genocide committed at the beginning and all the witness accounts from the conflict zone. Saying we have stopped shooting , while people are still reporting it on the ground. None of the western media have made clear that the major deaths have been the result of Georgia shelling the capital of the area, that is largely now rubble.
While it was obvious that Russia would retaliate, I guess that Georgia and its allies thought that Russia would just hold the area and make peace, for it all to happen again in a few months time. I think Russia knows this and wants Georgia to get the message (and remove the capability) that this cannot happen again. But, I am also sure that Russia is a little surprised at the lack of support within the UN, in light of the War Crimes committed. But not surprised that the UK, EU and US , support these same crimes, even do not mention that they have even happened. Here is the ex-president putting it quite clearly....

(footnote - During the last 3 days, the US has moved yet another War Fleet into the Middle East Region along with NATO boats. This seemingly is part of the 'Blockade' resolution in the US senate, that normally would be a sign of war).

Russia Today - 11th August
In a stinging attack on the US, Putin told government ministers: "It's a pity that some of our partners, instead of helping, are trying to get in the way”.

He said the US was using “its military transport aircraft to relocate Georgia's military contingent from Iraq virtually into the conflict zone”.

He also voiced his frustration at the inability of Russia's western partners to adequately assess the situation in South Ossetia.

“I’m amazed by their skills at seeing black as white, of portraying aggressors as victims and of blamimg the real victims for the consequences of the conflict.

Putin also accused the West of double standards when it comes to judging war crimes.

“As we all know, Saddam Hussein was hanged for burning down several Shiite villages. But now suddenly the situation is different. The Georgian leaders who in a matter of hours wiped out ten Ossetian villages, who ran over children and the elderly with tanks, who burned civilians alive, those people have to be protected,” he said.

Meanwhile, American Joe Mestas, who witnessed days of shelling, has said U.S. and Georgian leaders are responsible for the violence that has killed 2,000 people in the region. He told RT that Washington will have to answer for the violence.

“I thought that since U.S. is supporting Georgia there would be some control over the situation in South Ossetia and that there would be a peaceful solution to the conflict. But what is happening there now it’s not just war, but war crimes. George Bush and [Georgian president] Mikhail Saakashvili should answer to the crimes that are being committed – the killing of innocent people, running over by tanks of children and women, throwing grenades into cellars where people are hiding,” Mestas said.

“The war is when military fight against military. But the Georgian army is killing innocent civilians. This is genocide,” he added

Siege or no Siege, that is the question

2008-07-29T04:09:00.000-07:00

For more than two years, all border crossings to the Gaza Strip have been closed by the Israeli army. Since then, the 1.5 million inhabitants live in a state of siege, even more so since June, when the siege was tightened. As reasons for the siege Israel refers to Qassam rocket fire from the area and the alleged intention of the Hamas government to destroy Israel. At the same time, Israeli government officials emphasize that the occupation of the Gaza Strip has ended with the withdrawal of the Israeli settlements and army in September 2005 and that the Gaza Strip would now be considered foreign territory. But facts on the ground speak a different language.

The siege has a disastrous effect on the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip as it violates the human, economic and social rights of the population. More than 200 civilians have died because of the restrictions. In addition, the siege has severely impacted the flow of food, medical supplies and other necessities such as fuel, construction materials and raw materials for various economic sectors. Factories have been forced to close. The unemployment rate is the highest in the world, according to a recent UN report. About 60% of the Gazan households rely on donations, says UNWRA, and urges Israel to reopen the borders. The current bloody rivalries between Hamas and Fatah add to the overall problem.

Recently, the European Commission agreed on a direct aid of $ 6.3 million for the poorest, to be distributed until the end of the year. At the same time, Europe supports the suffocation of the civilian population and the boycott of the democratically elected government, causing damage far beyond $ 6.3 million. To relieve the distress, a few weeks ago, a Palestinian-Scottish couple took a truck from Scotland to deliver one and a half tons of medical supplies to the Gaza Strip. At the current moment, Khalil Al Niss and Linda Willis have been waiting for days on the Egyptian side of the partition wall in Rafah and they have not yet gotten a permission to cross the border. The Egyptians deny this.

So, is Gaza under occupation or not? What does the so-called withdrawal of the Israeli army really mean? To clarify this matter two boats are leaving Cyprus for Gaza on or about August 7. Forty members of the "Free Gaza Movement" are on their way now to meet in Cyprus and prepare the vessels. They are invited to Gaza by The Palestinian Medical Relief Society, The Gaza Community Mental Health Programme, The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, The Palestinian Ministry of Youth and Sport, the local popular committee to break the Gaza siege, and diverse individuals in Gaza. Legally, Israel has nothing to do with this enterprise, because the ships will not enter Israeli waters or ports. They will sail directly from international waters into Gazan waters.

Some expect Israeli forces to stop the vessels in order to make a clear statement that the Gaza population are prisoners without any legal or human rights except the ones granted by Israel, and that Israel can thus newly demonstrate to the world how its legal conceptions rank higher than international and human rights laws. In the morning of July 20, for instance, Israeli war vessels opened fire on Palestinian fishing boats north and west of Gaza City, according to the news agency Maan. The usual justification for such action is the Israeli claim (or "fear", respectively) that arms are possibly smuggled into the area. Even the cease-fire, which Hamas and twelve other groups have been keeping since June 19, does not seem to make any difference to Israel - except for the fact that Israeli incursions are momentarily concentrated on Nablus and the West Bank. Legally, there are no grounds for any of these military measures.

Many international organizations and individuals support the Free Gaza project and acknowledge the importance of the mission, among them Noam Chomsky and Luisa Morgantini, Vice President of the European Parliament. Archbishop emeritus Desmond Tutu wrote: "Peace and security, we discovered in South Africa, do not come through the barrel of a gun ... I support the boat convoy in its attempt." Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire adds: "You carry with you the hopes and wishes of many people around the world." The list of endorsers on www.freegaza.org is updated daily now, as the date gets nearer and the world public turns its attention to the Free Gaza event.

The Free Gaza Movement is a humanitarian and a grass roots democratic project and not affiliated to any political party or agenda. Some public voices have tried to associate it with pro- or anti- group interests which the group vehemently rejects. In an email of one of the participants, Monir Deeb, the spirit of the unforgotten Count Folke Bernadotte is showing: "The Free Gaza group are investing their time, money, and safety to speak out against injustice. They are the same people who stood by the Jewish population of the world in the hard times of Nazi persecution." His Gazan father, says Deeb, actually met the Swedish diplomat and UN mediator Bernadotte during negotiations in the Sinai in 1948.

Post Note : Why do people in my country (A) not know about the dire situation in Gaza and (B) Dont Care !!! What is that all about ????

Bomb Eye-ran!

2008-07-29T01:44:00.000-07:00

Although this is satire, it is also very sad, because this IS in fact how a lot of people think of Iran, which the Western media hypes constantly.

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Attempting to disarm Iran's nuclear enrichment program diplomatically has proven futile. Even with the noose tightening around its neck through sanctions, and joint American-Israeli military exercises combined with covert CIA operations being conducted close to its border, Iran still has the sheer audacity to tell America that it will defend itself in the case of an invasion. How dare this 3000-year-old civilization threaten the world's declining 60-year hegemonic superpower? How dare this country stand up for itself after watching America slaughter thousands in neighboring Iraq? It is time to bomb these people into oblivion so the West can once again overthrow its regime and replace it with one that will conform, abide by, and slave to its master. It's time these people got with the times. It is upon America and the rest of the "civilized world" to prevent another 9/11.

I say Bomb Eye-ran!

The inherently evil Ahmadinejad brought it upon himself by demanding oil compensation in euros. Oil has always been bought and sold in American currency. So what if the dollar is at rock-bottom due to America's colonial misadventures? So what if the Iranians want full compensation for a resource that they own? So what if the Iranians want to circumvent American restrictions on banks that engage in business with Iran? These greedy Iranians have to understand that only America can act in its best interest and everybody else has to act in the best interests of America. As long as Iran exists, so does the potential for another 9/11.

I say Bomb Eye-ran!

What are these Iranians thinking by enriching uranium? Everyone knows that only the U.S. and Israel can have weapons of mass destruction, because they have the God-given right to do so. Any other state that even attempts to acquire such technology, even for peaceful purposes, is doing so because it wants to destroy western civilization. Sure, Iran is constantly threatened by Israel, shares a border with nuclear Pakistan and is surrounded by two American client regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq, but that does not matter. If Iran cooperated, did not nationalize its oil industry in 1953, and did not overthrow a brutal US-installed dictator in 1979, then it would not be where it is today. Iran does not have a right to meddle in its own affairs, only Britain, America, and Israel do. If this magnanimous, righteous, and noble trio does not take matters into their own hands, these evil-doers will unleash another attack like 9/11.

I say Bomb Eye-ran!

Ahmadinejad stated that he wanted to wipe Israel off the map so the only logical course of action is that the U.S. and Israel destroy Iran first. In reality he may have said he wanted to "wipe Zionism from the page of history," but those devious Iranians just like to mask their threats in colorful language. Iran's constant meddling in Iraq, support of terrorist organizations like Hezbollah, and combative rhetoric of self-defense is highly disconcerting. If Iran acquired nuclear weapons, they will invade neighboring states and try to spread their Shiite revolution across the Muslim world and into Europe. Maybe present-day Iran has not invaded a foreign state since the Greco-Persian wars before the birth of Christ, and perhaps the US and Israel have a more profound history of invasion and occupation. However, that is all irrelevant because the U.S. and Israel are believers in democracy and freedom. Those who committed the heinous acts of 9/11 despised democracy and freedom.

I say Bomb Eye-ran!

America and Israel can easily target Iran's nuclear reactors that are spread throughout the country. Iran will not see this as an act of aggression because the strikes will be "strategic" and this will minimize any "collateral damage" just like in Iraq and Afghanistan. Their threat to target American interests and to further destabilize the Middle East is hogwash. Their threat to close the Strait of Hormuz, through which 30 per cent of the world's oil passes, is baseless and tantamount to political suicide. If Iran does become that desperate, oil may rise to $500 dollars a barrel and the people may suffer, but it will definitely make the American oligarchy much happier. In the end that is all that matters.

And most important of all, nobody will have the gall to execute another 9/11, because the concept of "blowback" does not really exist.

I say Bomb Eye-ran and let freedom ring.

--------------------------------
Thanks to Aurangzeb Qureshi from Antiwar.com for this piece

War Crimes and the President of Sudan

2008-07-14T04:43:00.000-07:00

The question is who should be charged for Crimes against humanity. Personally i think Sudan should suggest that their president should only be tried after worse war criminals have been charged and sentenced. As this would never happen, it is safe to suggest such a thing.
This has been nicely summerised by a comment on the Gulf News website today. (see below).

The Arab League is being called to rescue one of its leaders, President of Sudan, Omar Al Bashir. Reports say he is being considered by the International Criminal Court (ICC) as a suspect in the ongoing conflict and massacres in Darfur. Al Bashir, being the president, holds a moral responsibility for the bloody conflict in the unfortunate region. He, nevertheless, tried to resolve the crisis long before the West got hold of the issue and made it an election banner in more than one country. But the real question is, why is he being singled out? There are many presidents and international figures, amongst us, who could also be tried for crimes against humanity.

Yes, we are thinking of Ariel Sharon (AKA: the Butcher of Lebanon) who should have been prosecuted years before Slobodan Milosevic was arrested, and George W. Bush, whose catastrophic foreign policies have resulted directly in the killings of thousands of innocent people in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Lest we forget, neither Israel nor the US even recognise the ICC's authority to try their citizens. Also, any of the major powers has the right to veto the prosecution of its own citizens. So depending on which country we're talking about, the concept of "justice" will vary.

International organisations were right when they sounded the alarm over what was taking place in Darfur. It was a real war, in which thousands of innocent women, men and children paid the price. But it was a war between two groups and it could have been addressed long time ago. But going after the Sudanese president and humiliating him will only complicate the conflict and undermine any progress made on Darfur in the past few months.

This is nothing more than an attempt to put together a political show trial and perhaps justify future "international action" in Sudan. Unfortunately with the ICC, which pursues cases selectively, it was seldom about justice or humanitarian considerations and more so about political motivations.

Iran War - One Scenario !

2008-06-24T03:16:00.000-07:00

With former CIA officer Ray McGovern saying President Bush and his ally, Israel, will likely attack Iran in 'late summer or early fall'. I find this nice summary from David DeBatto, which gives us a fasinating scenario.

If the United States attacks Iran either this summer or this fall, the American people had better be prepared for a shock that may perhaps be even greater to the national psyche (and economy) than 9/11. First of all, there will be significant U.S. casualties in the initial invasion. American jets will be shot down and the American pilots who are not killed will be taken prisoner - including female pilots. Iranian Yakhonts 26, Sunburn 22 and Exocet missiles will seek out and strike U.S. naval battle groups bottled up in the narrow waters of the Persian Gulf with very deadly results. American sailors will be killed and U.S. ships will be badly damaged and perhaps sunk. We may even witness the first attack on an American Aircraft carrier since World War II.

That’s just the opening act.

Israel (who had thus far stayed out of the fray by letting the U.S. military do the heavy lifting) is attacked by Hezbollah in a coordinated and large scale effort. Widespread and grisly casualties effectively paralyze the nation, a notion once thought impossible. Iran’s newest ally in the region, Syria, then unleashes a barrage of over 200 Scud B, C and D missiles at Israel, each armed with VX gas. Since all of Israel is within range of these Russian built weapons, Haifa, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and virtually all major civilian centers and several military bases are struck, often with a result of massive casualties.

The Israeli Air Force orders all three squadrons of their F-16I Sufa fighter/bombers into the air with orders to bomb Tehran and as many military and nuclear bases as they can before they are either shot down or run out of fuel. It is a one way trip for some of these pilots. Their ancient homeland lies in ruins. Many have family that is already dead or dying. They do not wait for permission from Washington, DC or U.S. regional military commanders. The Israeli aircraft are carrying the majority of their country’s nuclear arsenal under their wings.

Just after the first waves of U.S. bombers cross into Iranian airspace, the Iranian Navy, using shore based missiles and small, fast attack craft sinks several oil tankers in the Straits of Hormuz, sealing off the Persian Gulf and all its oil from the rest of the world. They then mine the area, making it difficult and even deadly for American minesweepers to clear the straits. Whatever is left of the Iranian Navy and Air Force harasses our Navy as it attempts minesweeping operations. More U.S casualties.

The day after the invasion Wall Street (and to a lesser extent, Tokyo, London and Frankfurt) acts as it always does in an international crisis – irrational speculative and spot buying reaches fever pitch and sends the cost of oil skyrocketing. In the immediate aftermath of the U.S. invasion of Iran, the price of oil goes to $200.00 - $300.00 dollars a barrel on the open market. If the war is not resolved in a few weeks, that price could rise even higher. This will send the price of gasoline at the pump in this country to $8.00-$10.00 per gallon immediately and subsequently to even higher unthinkable levels.

If that happens, this country shuts down. Most Americans are not be able to afford gas to go to work. Truckers pull their big rigs to the side of the road and simply walk away. Food, medicine and other critical products are not be brought to stores. Gas and electricity (what is left of the short supply) are too expensive for most people to afford. Children, the sick and elderly die from lack of air-conditioned homes and hospitals in the summer. Children, the sick and elderly die in the winter for lack of heat. There are food riots across the country. A barter system takes the place of currency and credit as the economy dissolves and banks close or limit withdrawals. Civil unrest builds.

The police are unable to contain the violence and are themselves victims of the same crisis as the rest of the population. Civilian rule dissolves and Martial Law is declared under provisions approved under the Patriot Act. Regular U.S. Army and Marine troops patrol the streets. The federal government apparatus is moved to an unknown but secure location. The United States descends into chaos and becomes a third world country. Its time as the lone superpower is over.

It doesn’t get any worse than this.

Then the first Israeli bomber might drop its nuclear payload on Tehran.

(quoted from David DeBatto, who is a former U.S. Army Counterintelligence Special Agent and Iraqi war veteran)

Vanunu - The Truth Hurts

2008-06-20T02:23:00.000-07:00

VANUNU MORDECHAI J C. - KIDNAPPED IN ROME SEP' 30 TH'-1986. - AFTER 18 YEARS IN ISRAEL PRISON. - Waiting In East Jerusalem.To Be Free,To Leave. Most famous for being the Israeli former nuclear technician who revealed details of Israel's nuclear weapons program to the British press in 1986.

Nice to hear some frank statements from someone who knows ;
What follows is a compilation of email replies from Vanunu regarding Iran, democracy, etc. [with slight editing; punctuation, spelling, grammar].

Vanunu wrote:

They all have their own double standards.

No one should ignore the fact that Atomic weapons are in Israel and that it was France most especially who helped build the Dimona reactor in 1960.

No one should forget that France was the first state to start nuclear weapons proliferation in secret, not Iran.

The world's problem with Iran is the obligation to help the people of Iran to have freedom and democracy; free from a dictator regime.

The problem is not nuclear weapons in Iran but the need for freedom for all the people.

I am not at all supporting this Ayatollahs regime in Iran. This regime should be ended and replaced by freedom and democracy for all Iran people.

The same goes for Israel too, which is only a democracy if you are a Jew. The Israeli problem is the Jewish apartheid regime.

No nuclear weapons program is a true deterrent or safeguard mechanism for security because Atomic weapons can only bring destruction. Atomic weapons are a mechanism of self destruction.

How can Israel, the only country in the Middle East known to have a nuclear weapons program expects all others not to even have peaceful nuclear energy programs?

Since Israel has the Bombs, then they can not speak with credibility about stopping all the Middle East states from having at least Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Science and Technology.

Israel by all its nuclear secret activities opened the way for any state to do the same. My view is that Nuclear Science and technology must be part of any modern state and society, so all the world and every state should have it.

After almost 50 years of secret nuclear activities and productions of bombs, America, France and the entire world should also intervene and demand Israel sign the NPT, follow all of the IAEA orders, regulations and restrictions.

Instead, Israel puts on me distractions.

I fulfilled my sentence of 18 years in prison because I listened to my conscience and reported the truth that Israel was manufacturing weapons of mass destruction. It is over four years now that Israel has held me captive in East Jerusalem; forbidding me to speak to any foreigners or to leave the state, which is all I want to do.

Seems simple, but why do our polititions not say the truth ????? I am baffled.

(Blog post mostly from Eileen Fleming : Senior Correspondent & Editor of http://www.wearewideawake.org)
Original Article

time is running out ...... or is it

2008-06-09T04:55:00.001-07:00

It's been a year since Hamas asserted its rightful role as the democratically elected government in the Gaza Strip after corrupt Fatah forces there had unsuccessfully tried to usurp Hamas's governance of the Palestinian enclave. Hamas's victory in the January 2006 elections was not recognised by Israel or the US, the two nations on our planet that scream loudest about the necessity of democracy in the region. Instead, they ensured that the corrupt Fatah organisation under Abbas took control of Palestinian affairs, a move that, while successful in the West Bank, was unsuccessful in the Gaza.

Ever since Hamas took control of the Gaza, the Israelis have hounded the Gazan Palestinians, in many cases, literally to death through bombing and denial of basic health access. Hundreds of men, women and children have died through indiscriminate IDF helicopter gunship and strike fighter aircraft attacks on the densely populated Gaza Strip. Tens of thousands more are suffering through the lack fuel and other supplies. Scores have died through not being allowed to leave the Gaza for proper medical treatment. Homes have been demolished and much of what little productive land remains that is able to provide food has been bulldozed bare by the Israelis. All this has been in an effort to dislodge Hamas from their position of governance. In short, the Gazan people are being collectively punished for having had the temerity to exercise their democratic rights voting in a government that the Israel and the US do not accept.

In an effort to stem and deter the Israeli attacks on the Gazan people and their government, Palestinian fighters have launched crude and largely ineffective rockets against Israel, acts that Israel simply uses as an excuse for even more attacks against the Gazan people.

Iran is now the only nation left that is powerful enough to stand in the way of the Zionist's dream of a Greater Israel that includes the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights, the Shebaa Farms and south Lebanon up to the Litani River. Without Iran to supply and support Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas the Israeli Zionists believe that their dream of a Greater Israel can be realised.

All they need is an excuse, a casus belli, to attack Iran but it is something that they cannot do alone; they need the US to do it for them.

It's just a matter of timing now - and time is running out ...... or is it.......

Less than 24 hours after he emerged as the presumed Democratic Party nominee for President, Barack Obama didn't help himself one iota, when he showed up on Wednesday at the AIPAC annual convention in Washington.

''Now here's a change we can believe in. A mere 12 hours after claiming the Democratic presidential nomination, Barack Obama appeared before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee yesterday--and changed himself into an Israel hard-liner.''

''He promised $30 billion in military assistance for Israel. He declared that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force has 'rightly been labeled a terrorist organization.' He used terms such as 'false prophets of extremism' and 'corrupt' while discussing Palestinians. And he promised that 'Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided.'

''Vowing to stop Tehran from getting a nuclear weapon, the newly minted nominee apparent added: 'I will always keep the threat of military action on the table to defend our security and our ally, Israel. Do not be confused.'

''How could they be confused? As a pandering performance. 'it was the full Monty by a candidate who, during the primary, had positioned himself to Hillary Clinton's left on matters such as Iran. Yesterday, Obama, who has generally declined to wear an American-flag lapel pin, wore a joint U.S.-Israeli pin, and even tried a Hebrew phrase on the crowd.''

To make matters even worse, ''Obama even outdid President Bush in his pro-Israel sentiments. On the very day that Obama vowed to protect Jerusalem as Israel's capital--drawing a furious denunciation from the Palestinian Authority--Bush announced that he was suspending a move of the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem.''

So, it sounds to me like anything not finished by Bush during his remaining months, can be continued by our new lying leader of the US terrorists.

The West Is In Denial - Support Racial Purity Now !

2008-05-16T05:25:00.000-07:00

On April 9, 1948, members of the underground Jewish terrorist group, the Irgun, or IZL, led by Menachem Begin, who was to become the Israeli prime minister in 1977, entered the peaceful Arab village of Deir Yassin, massacred 250 men, women, children and the elderly, and stuffed many of the bodies down wells. There were also reports of rapes and mutilations. The Irgun was joined by the Jewish terrorist group, the Stern Gang, led by Yitzhak Shamir, who subsequently succeeded Begin as prime minister of Israel in the early '80s, and also by the Haganah, the militia under the control of David Ben Gurian. The Irgun, the Stern Gang and the Haganah later joined to form the Israeli Defense Force. Their tactics have not changed.

The massacre at Deir Yassin was widely publicized by the terrorists and the numerous heaped corpses displayed to the media. In Jaffe, which was at the time 98 percent Arab, as well as in other Arab communities, speaker trucks drove through the streets warning the population to flee and threatening another Deir Yassin. Begin said at the time, "We created terror among the Arabs and all the villages around. In one blow, we changed the strategic situation."

From about 1938 on to the founding of Israel, Begin was the leader of the Irgun. That group regularly assassinated English soldiers in Palestine and frequently hung their booby-trapped bodies in public places. Under Begin, the Irgun blew up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem in 1946, killing 97 British civil servants. The Stern Gang, under Shamir, also assassinated the U.N. representative to Palestine, Count Bernadotte, in 1948.

But Deir Yassin was not the only massacre by the Israeli Defense Force. That army, under Moshe Dayan, took the unarmed and undefended village of al-Dawazyma, located in the Hebron hills, massacred 80 to 100 of its residents, and threw their bodies into pits. "The children were killed by breaking their heads with sticks ... The remaining Arabs were then sealed in houses, as the village was systematically razed ..." (Nur Masalha, The Historical Roots of the Palestinian Refugee Question).

Within the last 10 to 20 years, however, there has been an exponential increase in historical studies of the origins of the state of Israel which have coincided with the release by Israel of many, but not all, of the historical and military archives. Ben-Gurion University historian Benny Morris, as well as others, have systematically mined these documents and found numerous instances of massacres, and, by the way, not one shred of evidence for the frequently repeated official Israeli lie that the Palestinians fled Palestine because the surrounding Arab states told them to.

In fact, according to UN estimates, which some say are conservative, 750,000 Palestinians fled the site of the present Jewish state in 1948. Those refugees and their descendents now number about 4.5 million and constitute the largest and longest standing refugee population in the world. Many live in squalid refugee camps distributed in the surrounding Arab states or in the West Bank or Gaza, many retain the titles to their land, recognized by the British before 1948 or the Ottomans before that , and many retain the keys to their front doors of their former homes in what is now Israel, whether or not those doors still exists.

The '67 War generated a second wave of about 300,000 refugees from the West Bank and Gaza who were either expelled through direct or psychological methods or fled the Israel aerial attacks on the territories which included the extensive use of napalm.

Those who invoke the suicide bombings against mostly Israeli civilians to infer the righteousness of the Israeli cause live in a twilight of psychic denial of an otherwise unambiguous historical record: the state of Israel was founded on terrorism and ethnic cleansing.

The suicide bombings inside Israel, the first of which only occurred in 1994, after 25 years of occupation, is only a side show. That is a symptom and long way from the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

There will never be a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict until Israel takes responsibility, under U.N. Resolution 194, calling for reparation of the Palestinian refugees, and recognizes the immense suffering it caused at that time. We need also to recognize the US is giving unqualified moral support to a state that is based on racial purity and one that is intrinsically expansionist.

How would we feel if it happened to Us

2008-05-01T02:50:00.000-07:00

The Jews who arrived in Palestine throughout the twentieth century did not come because they were cruel people who wanted to snuffle out Arabs to persecute. No: they came because they were running for their lives from a genocidal European anti-Semitism that was soon to slaughter six million of their sisters and their sons.

They convinced themselves that Palestine was "a land without people for a people without land". I desperately wish this dream had been true. You can see traces of what might have been in Tel Aviv, a city that really was built on empty sand dunes. But most of Palestine was not empty. It was already inhabited by people who loved the land, and saw it as theirs. They were completely innocent of the long, hellish crimes against the Jews.

When it became clear these Palestinians would not welcome becoming a minority in somebody else's country, darker plans were drawn up. Israel's first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, wrote in 1937: "The Arabs will have to go, but one needs an opportune moment for making it happen, such as a war."

So, for when the moment arrived, he helped draw up Plan Dalit. It was - as Israeli historian Ilan Pappe puts it - "a detailed description of the methods to be used to forcibly evict the people: large-scale intimidation; and laying siege to and bombarding population centres". In 1948, before the Arab armies invaded, this began to be implemented: some 800,000 people were ethnically cleansed, and Israel was built on the ruins.

The people who ask angrily why the Palestinians keep longing for their old land should imagine an English version of this story. How would we react if the 30m stateless, persecuted Kurds in the world sent armies and settlers into this country to seize everything in England below Leeds, and swiftly established a free Kurdistan from which we were expelled? Wouldn't we long forever for our children to return to Cornwall and Devon and London? Would it take us only 40 years to compromise and offer to settle for just 22 per cent of what we had?
Would we like being Locked In, stripped of all powerful weapons so that every retaliation is from a civilion center with locally made poor excuses for weapons. Then get demomised by the UN for resisting. Branded Terrorists !! And being blown up by tanks for approaching the boarder of Deven or Dorset!

How would you feel if it happened to YOU !

It is 1939 all over again. We own the World

2008-05-01T02:49:00.000-07:00

It is 1939 all over again. The world waits helplessly for the next act of naked aggression by rogue states. Only this time the rogue states are not the Third Reich and Fascist Italy. They are the United States and Israel.

The targeted victims are not Poland and France, but Iran, Syria, the remains of the Palestinian West Bank and southern Lebanon.

The American mass media is overjoyed. War coverage attracts viewers and sells advertising.

The neoconservatives are ecstatic. Hegemony uber alles is back on track.

The US Air Force can't wait "to show what it can do."

Defense contractors see no end of the profits.

Under cover of the mayhem and propaganda, Israel can grab the remains of the West Bank and have another go at grabbing the water resources of southern Lebanon.

Unlike the US and Israel, Iran is neither occupying any other country's territory nor threatening to invade another country. Nevertheless, propaganda against Iran is spouting from US and Israeli mouths at an increasing rate. Lie after lie rolls off the tongues of leaders of the "two great democracies."

On April 27 Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, blamed Iran for "increasingly lethal and malign influence" in Iraq. Has Admiral Mullen forgot that it is the US, not Iran, that is responsible for as many as one million dead Iraqis and four million displaced Iraqis, the "collateral damage" of a "cakewalk war" now into its sixth year?

On April 26 the Washington Post reported that "the Pentagon is planning for potential military courses of action" against Iran.

The Bush Regime's national security advisor says Iran is a threat in Iraq, an accusation echoed endlessly by secretary of defense Robert Gates, secretary of state Rice, vice president Cheney, and president Bush. The US, which has 150,000 troops in Iraq, is not a threat. The US troops are protecting Iraq from Iran, al Qaeda, and the Taliban. Just ask Fox "News."

Doing its part to egg on war with Iran, the US TV news program, "60 MInutes," gave air time to the commander of the Israeli Air Force, General Eliezer Shkedi, who declared in a special interview that Iranian president Ahmadinejad was the new Hitler and that we must not again make the mistake of disbelieving a Hitler.

There are better candidates for the role than Ahmadinejad.

Gen. Shkedi himself sounds like Hitler blaming Poland for the outbreak of the second world war. Ahmadinejad has attacked no country, whereas Israel repeatedly invades its neighbors and continues 40-year occupations of Syrian and Palestinian territory.

As Noam Chomsky has written, the US government thinks that it owns the world (Chomsky could have added that Israel thinks it owns the Middle East and America). Americans can wallow in indignation over China's occupation of Tibet, but be perfectly content with America's occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. Israel can wax eloquently about "Palestinian terrorism" while its military and Zionist settlers terrorize Palestinians.

Americans see no hypocrisy in "their" government's damning of Russia for opposing the incorporation of former Russian satellites and constituent parts in a US military alliance.

Americans see manifest destiny, not US aggression, when "their" government drops bombs on Serbia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, and Pakistan. Americans do not think it is aggression for them to develop war plans to attack Iran or China or N. Korea or whomever, or to maintain hundreds of military bases all over the globe. The same Americans work themselves into hysterical frenzies over "Iranian influence in Iraq" and "al Qaeda plans to bring the war to America."

As Chomsky says, we own the world. No one else counts.

Except Israel.

Israel counts so much that every presidential candidate has declared his and her willingness to expend whatever American blood and treasure are necessary "to protect Israel." There are no limits on the promise "to defend Israel," no matter what Israel does, no matter if Israel initiates (yet again) war with its neighbors, no matter if it continues to force Palestinians out of their homes and villages in order to "create living room" for Israelis.

With this sort of promise, why should Israel ever settle for anything less than "greater Israel"?

Just as the US government launched its illegal invasion of Iraq on the back of lies about weapons of mass destruction and mushroom clouds, the US government claims it must attack Iran or Iran will build a nuclear weapon. The Bush Regime has learned never to discard a lie as long as it works.

The lie works for the US Congress, the US media and much of the US public, but it is breaking down abroad. On April 27 the British newspaper, the Independent, responded to the recent US government claim that the Syrian facility attacked last September by Israel in an act of naked aggression was a nuclear reactor built by N. Korea:

"There is no independent way to verify any of this, especially since the installation has now been destroyed. We must rely on the integrity of the Israeli and US intelligence. That is where we hit a problem. The former US Secretary of State Colin Powell presented similar evidence to the United Nations Security Council in February 2003 showing what we were told was strong evidence of Iraqi storage of weapons of mass destruction. As we all know, that intelligence turned out to be bogus."

A needless war, a country destroyed, all for bogus intelligence. Why must we repeat our crime in Iran?

Why do we persist in our crime in Iraq? On April 27 McClatchy Newspapers reported that 50 Iraqi political leaders representing numerous political groups including Sunnis went to Sadr City to protest the siege by the US military. Why is al Sadr under seige? He called for a halt to bloodshed between Iraqis, for a "liberation of ourselves and our lands from the occupier," for "a real government and real sovereignty." However, for the Bush Regime, rhetoric about "freedom and democracy" is but a mask behind which to impose a US puppet government. Real Iraqi leaders like al Sadr are "terrorists" who must be eliminated.

Why do the American people and "their" representatives in Congress continue to tolerate a criminal Bush Regime that uses lies and propaganda to mask its acts of naked aggression, war crimes under the Nuremberg standard?

Why does the rest of the world continue to receive political representatives from a war criminal government?

What if the rest of the world told the US to close its bases, its embassies, its CIA operations and to go home?

Self-righteous Americans would regard such demands as effrontery! We own the world.

A superpower or a gang?

2008-04-23T02:03:00.000-07:00

The Association of Muslims Scholars' Al Basaer Newspaper highlighted in an editorial titled "A superpower or a gang?" the United States and its relationship with the chaotic situation in Iraq.

The editorial said the failure of the U.S. occupation is a sign the term "superpower" doesn't apply to it anymore because the U.S. presence has turned out to be no more than a joke. It said the United States spent more than $600 billion to invade Iraq but the security, political and economic situation in Iraq is worse today than during the first years after the occupation.

Despite the death of U.S. troops and thousands of injuries, the United States can't control any city or even the Green Zone, the most "secure" area in Baghdad, the paper said.

"The U.S. uses 160,000 troops, 170,000 foreign mercenaries and 250,000 militia mercenaries who work for the Iraqi government of occupation," it said.

It said these large numbers are still incapable of making any real progress to save the lives of the innocent people of Iraq or in providing for their simple needs. The paper also said the United States as a "superpower" purposely pushed Iraqis to carry out elections to result in a Parliament that consists of members who sold themselves and their country to the "devil."

"The political process failed in presenting even one political bloc that gains any respect because they were well-known for being untrustworthy," the Sunni newspaper said.

It said after the militias within the Iraqi government fought each other -- a reference to the latest clashes in Basra -- the "superpower" couldn't find any solution except to beg Iran to interfere and end the clashes.

It said Gen. Kevin Bergner, special assistant to the president and senior director for Iraq, admitted in a briefing March 26 in Baghdad that Iran had a major influence in Basra and northeast cities of Iraq, and called upon Iran to intervene in order to end the violence among the Shiite Mahdi Army militia, Iraqi forces and other Shiite militias related to the Shiite Dawa and Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council parties.

The paper said five years after the occupation of Iraq and the loss of thousands of soldiers and millions of dollars, the United States is asking for the help of a neighboring country that is, according to the White House, an enemy or at least a threat to U.S. interests.

"A superpower is super if it can change the reality in a place, impose its experience on others or impose its will and not by begging others for interference," it said.

The reality of the situation is that the United States is no more than a state of gangs that plans and thinks and operate with a gang's mentality, it said. There is no difference between the U.S. administration and Congress or its journalists and experts who all talk loud when an incident is about to occur, but who become silent when it fails, it said.

"No matter how strong a gang is, it is impossible to consider it as a superpower," it said.

The Petraeus-Crocker dog and pony show - Another War Crime in the making

2008-04-07T04:52:00.000-07:00

On April 5, the London Telegraph reported that "British officials gave warning yesterday that America's commander in Iraq will declare that Iran is waging war against the U.S.-backed Baghdad government. A strong statement from Gen. David Petraeus about Iran's intervention in Iraq could set the stage for a U.S. attack on Iranian military facilities, according to a Whitehall assessment."

Reporting from Tehran on April 4, Reuters quotes Mohsen Hakim, whose father, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, leads the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, an ally of the Maliki U.S. puppet government in Iraq: "Tehran, by using its positive influence on the Iraqi nation, paved the way for the return of peace to Iraq and the new situation is the result of Iran's efforts."

Instead of thanking Iran and working with Iran diplomatically to restore stability to Iraq, the Bush regime intends to expand the nightmare with a military attack on Iran. Crocker was quick to dispute Hakim's report that Iran had used its influence to end the fighting in Basra. Crocker alleged that Iran had started the fighting. The absurdity of Crocker's claim is obvious, as even the neocon U.S. media reported that the fighting in Basra was started by the U.S. and Maliki in an effort to clear out the Shi'ite Sadr militias. Most experts saw the attack on Sadr for what it was: an effort to remove a potential threat to the U.S. supply line from Kuwait in the event of a U.S. attack on Iran.

Crocker alleges that the rockets dropping on the Green Zone during the Basra fighting were made in 2007 in Iran. As should be obvious even to disengaged Americans, if Iran were to arm the Iraqi insurgency, the insurgents would have modern weapons to counter U.S. helicopter gunships and heavy tanks. The insurgents have no such weapons. The neocon lie that Iran is the cause of the Iraqi insurgency is just another Bush regime lie like the lie that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and connections to al-Qaeda and the lie that the Taliban in Afghanistan attacked the U.S.

The Bush regime will tell any lie and orchestrate any event in order to "finish the job" in the Middle East.

"Finishing the job" means to destroy the ability of Iraq, Iran, and Syria to provide support for the Palestinians and for Hezbollah in southern Lebanon against Israeli aggression. With Iraq and Iran in turmoil, Syria might simply give up and become another American client state. With Iraq and Iran in turmoil, Israel can steal the rest of the West Bank along with the water resources in southern Lebanon. That is what "the war on terror" is really about.

The entire world knows this. Consequently, the U.S. and Israel are essentially isolated. The U.S. can only count on the support that it can bribe and pay for.

At the NATO-Russian summit in Bucharest, Romania, on April 4, Russian President Vladimir Putin said, "No one can seriously think that Iran would dare attack the U.S. Instead of pushing Iran into a corner, it would be far more sensible to think together how to help Iran become more predictable and transparent."

Of course it would, but that is not what the warmonger Bush wants.

Your Turn is Next !

2008-04-01T00:55:00.000-07:00

If only America had an independent media and an opposition party. If there were a shred of integrity left in American political life, perhaps a third act of naked aggression--a third war crime under the Nuremberg standard--by the Bush Regime could be prevented.

On March [27, 2007], the Russian News & Information Agency, Novosti, cited "a high-ranking security source: "The latest military intelligence data point to heightened US military preparations for both an air and ground operation against Iran."

According to Novosti, Russian Colonel General Leonid Ivashov said "that the Pentagon is planning to deliver a massive air strike on Iran's military infrastructure in the near future."

The chief of Russia's general staff, Yuri Baluyevsky, said last November that Russia was beefing up its military in response to US aggression, but that the Russian military is not "obliged to defend the world from the evil Americans."

On March 29, OpEdNews cited a report by the Saudi Arabian newspaper Okaz, which was picked up by the German news service, DPA. The Saudi newspaper reported on March 22, the day following Cheney's visit with the kingdom's rulers, that the Saudi Shura Council is preparing "national plans to deal with any sudden nuclear and radioactive hazards that may affect the kingdom following experts' warnings of possible attacks on Iran's Bushehr nuclear reactors."

And Admiral William "there will be no attack on Iran on my watch" Fallon has been removed as US chief of Central Command, thus clearing the way for Cheney's planned attack on Iran.

The Iranians don't seem to believe it, despite the dispatch of US nuclear submarines and another aircraft carrier attack group to the Persian Gulf. To counter any Iranian missiles launched in response to an attack, the US is deploying anti-missile defenses to protect US bases and Saudi oil fields.

Two massive failures by the American media, the Democratic Party, and the American people have paved the way for Cheney's long planned attack on Iran. One failure is the lack of skepticism about the US government's explanation of 9/11. The other failure is the Democrats' refusal to begin impeachment proceedings against President Bush for lying to the Congress, the American people, and the world and launching an invasion of Iraq based on deception and fabricated evidence.

If an American president can start a war exactly as Adolf Hitler did with pure lies and not be held accountable, he can get away with anything. And Bush and his evil regime have.

Hitler launched World War II with his invasion of Poland after staging a "Polish attack" on a German radio station. On the night of August 31, 1939, a group of Nazis disguised in Polish uniforms seized a radio station in Germany. Hitler announced that "last night Polish troops crossed the frontier and attacked Germany," a claim no more true than the Bush Regime's claim that "Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction." Hitler's lie failed, because his invasion of Poland, which began the next day allegedly in reprisal for the Polish attack, had obviously been planned for many months.

Iran is a beautiful and developed country. It is an ancient civilization. It has attacked no one. Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. Iran is permitted by the treaty to have a nuclear energy program. The Bush Regime's case against Iran is based on the Bush Regime's desire to deny Iran its rights under the treaty.

The International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors have repeatedly reported that they have found no evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program. Despite all the disinformation from US Gen. Petraeus and other Bush Regime military lackeys, Iran is not arming the Iraqis who are resisting the American occupation.

If Iran were arming insurgents, the insurgents would have two weapons that would neutralize the US advantage in the Iraqi conflict: missiles to knock down US helicopter gunships and rocket-propelled grenades that knock out American tanks. The insurgents do not have these weapons and must construct clumsy anti-tank weapons out of artillery shells. The insurgents are helpless against US air power and cannot mass forces to take on the American troops.

Indiscriminate American violence has reduced Iraq to rubble. In Afghanistan, death and destruction rains on even the smallest village from the air. America's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are wars against the civilian populations.

Just as the world could not believe Hitler's next horror and thus was always unprepared.

It is important to emphasize that Iran is making no moves toward war.

But like Hitler's planned attack against Poland, Cheney's attack on Iran has long been in the works.

On March 29 the Associated Press reported that Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi "poured contempt on fellow Arab leaders" at the Arab summit that day. Gadhafi told the Arab "leaders," many of whom are on the American payroll, that their American masters would turn on them all, just as America turned on Saddam Hussein after using him to fight a proxy war against Iran.

Saddam had once been an ally of Washington, Gadhafi reminded the Arabs, "but they sold him out." Gadhafi told the American puppets, "Your turn is next."

The Attack on Iran is coming...

2008-03-31T08:28:00.000-07:00

Last Friday, Dick Cheney was in Saudi Arabia for high-level meetings with the Saudi king and his ministers. On Saturday, it was revealed that the Saudi Shura Council -- the elite group that implements the decisions of the autocratic inner circle -- is preparing "national plans to deal with any sudden nuclear and radioactive hazards that may affect the kingdom following experts' warnings of possible attacks on Iran's Bushehr nuclear reactors," one of the kingdom's leading newspapers, Okaz, reports. The German-based dpa news service relayed the paper's story.

Twelve hours. One circuit of the sun from horizon to horizon, one course of the moon from dusk to dawn. What was once a natural measurement for the daily round of human life is now a doom-laden interval between the voicing of an autocrat's brutal whim and the infliction of mass annihilation halfway around the world.

Twelve hours is the maximum time necessary for American bombers to gear up and launch an unprovoked sneak attack – a Pearl Harbor in reverse – against Iran, the Washington Post reports….And when this attack comes – either as a stand-alone "knock-out blow" or else as the precursor to a full-scale, regime-changing invasion, like the earlier aggression in Iraq – there will be no warning, no declaration of war, no hearings, no public debate. The already issued orders governing the operation put the decision solely in the hands of the president: he picks up the phone, he says, "Go" – and in twelve hours' time, up to a million Iranians could be dead.

Another simulation by scientists, using Pentagon-devised software, was even more specific, measuring the aftermath of a "limited" nuclear attack on the main Iranian underground site in Esfahan, the magazine reports. This small expansion of the Pentagon franchise would result in stellar production figures: three million people killed by radiation in just two weeks, and 35 million people exposed to dangerous levels of cancer-causing radiation in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. Bush has about 50 nuclear "earth-penetrating weapons" at his disposal, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Bush himself pointedly refused to take the nuclear option "off the table" this week. But what's more, Bush has made the use of nuclear weapons a centerpiece of his "National Security Strategy of the United States," issued last month, The Progressive notes. While reaffirming the criminal principle of "pre-emptive" attacks on perceived enemies which may or may not be threatening America with weapons they may or may not possess, Bush declared that "safe, credible and reliable nuclear forces continue to play a critical role" in the "offensive strike systems" that are now a key part of America's "deterrence."

Now this paranoid sect has at last seized the commanding heights of American power....

And they have found a most eager disciple in the peevish dullard strutting in the Oval Office. Under their sinister tutelage, Bush has eviscerated 40 years' worth of arms control treaties; officially "normalized" the use of nuclear weapons, even against non-nuclear states; rewarded outlaw proliferators like India, Israel and Pakistan; and is now destroying the last and most effective restraint on the spread of nuclear weapons: the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

The treaty guarantees its signatories – such as Iran – the right to establish nuclear power programs in exchange for rigorous international inspections. But Bush has arbitrarily decided that Iran – whose nuclear program undergone perhaps the most extensive inspection process in history – must end its lawful activities. Why? Because the country is led by "madmen" in thrall to pure evil, impervious to reason, who one day may or may not threaten America with weapons they may or may not have.

So the NPT is dead. As with the Geneva Conventions and the U.S. Constitution, it now means only what Bush says it means. Force of arms, not rule of law, is the new world order. The attack on Iran is coming….

Wretched of the earth

2008-03-04T11:05:00.000-08:00

Once again Israel defies an impotent international community which offers nothing but timid calls for ceasefire on "both sides." And once again Palestinian suffering and death tolls continue to break records in the territories occupied by Israel since 1967.

Perhaps it is easy to dismiss this suffering by blaming the victims and resorting to ready cliches. Indeed, Israeli propagandists go out of their way to repeat the sound bite: we withdrew from Gaza in 2005 and since then the Palestinians have been firing rockets on our southern towns. This sound bite might fly in the western media; after all it resonates with a simplistic world view that ignites stereotypes which have been in the making for centuries, producing demonic and degrading representations of Muslims and Arabs. It becomes easy to describe the Palestinians in this context as the carriers of incomprehensible and irrational rage. This kind of representation has intensified since September 2001 with the "rediscovery" of Israel, and its supreme court, as a western lighthouse amid the darkness of the Middle East.

When examined closely, however, reality rules out crude explanations of "violence without reason" and "terrorism without context." It becomes apparent that one cannot seriously discuss a legitimate resistance to a prolonged and horrendous military occupation within the context of the "war on terrorism." Moreover, even if one finds a place to critique some practices of the oppressed one should keep in mind the root of the problem: it is the occupation, not the resistance. No rhetorical device can conceal the reality of colonialism by transforming it either to a mere "conflict" between equally culpable sides or to portray the occupier as the retaliating victim.

In his most recent report of January 2008, the UN rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied territories has recounted Israel's actions in Gaza, calling them "war crimes" and demonstrating how these have been relentlessly producing a humanitarian crisis. Indeed, more than 80 percent of Gaza's Palestinians are living below the poverty line and depend on the food aid supplied by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA. In recent years Israel has destroyed power plants and other civilian facilities, reduced the fuel and electricity supply, and closed the borders. Palestinians' basic human needs, such as movement, food and medical treatment, became totally dependent on the whims of Israeli security technocrats and political demagogues.

Israel should not be allowed to escape its responsibility. The tens of thousands of Palestinians who have been killed, wounded, imprisoned, or handicapped only in recent years, and the thousands of houses that have been demolished can testify to the cruelty of one of the longest military occupations in recent modern history.

The Palestinians, however, cannot wait till the international community self-awakes into action. They will have to continue to resist in order to assert and restore their humanity. And for that purpose they will have to overcome their own internal differences and unite. Indeed, the long walk toward Palestinian freedom is overwhelming and becoming even more demanding of Palestinian blood. Yet, history informs us that the Palestinians will eventually have their freedom like the South Africans, Algerians, Egyptians, Indians and others.

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Equality

2008-03-04T11:00:00.000-08:00

The world had condemned Israel’s callous treatment of Gaza, where 1.5 million souls are imprisoned, starved, humiliated and subject to being picked off at whim, yet the Israeli government remains impervious to criticism.

Over the past days, over 100 Palestinians have been slaughtered by Israel’s war machine; at least half were civilians and children. Israel says it is targeting workshops where homemade rockets are put together. Who would have thought so many women and toddlers would be working away in such places.

They’re not, of course. If Israel knew where those workshops were, the rockets headed in Israel’s direction would have been stopped long ago. No, this was a brutal exercise in collective punishment. They knew that innocents would die and they went ahead anyway.

Then about mandatory Holocaust education in British and French schools, organized school trips to Auschwitz and the French president’s scheme whereby French 10-year-olds would forge a personal link with a Holocaust victim of his own age.

I quoted President Sarkozy as saying, “Nothing is more moving for a child than the story of a child his own age, who has the same games, the same joys and the same hopes as he, but who, at the dawn of the 1940s had the bad fortune to be defined as a Jew”.

Wouldn’t it be equally as moving for a child to learn about a living child, who would love to have the same games and experience the same hopes as he, but who, today, has the bad fortune to be defined as a Gazan?

But Western compassion is selective. It is framed at state levels by individuals who would prefer to eulogize those whose lives were cruelly cut short over half-a-century ago than people dying now whose only crime is being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

And it is framed by a media that gladly floods their broadcasts with gruesome historic pictures and films of Nazi death camp inmates, yet shirks from showing viewers the ashen faces of dead Palestinian children lying on cold mortuary slabs — naturally, to avoid upsetting viewers.

Governments that exercise control or influence media to keep such horrors from permeating the homes of ordinary people are shrewd. They know full well that most ordinary folks operate under a moral code and would be outraged to see the suffering and carnage perpetrated by Israel in the Middle East.

Rather than risking inciting the public with the ugly truth, the media feeds us with the crude antics of Britney or Paris, Oscar ceremonies, ball games, music videos or the minutiae of an investigation into a missing blond-haired five-year-old.

Ponder on the morality of the media-inspired public response to Madeleine McCann as opposed to Gaza’s maimed and orphaned babies. According to the British newspaper Independent, there were 465 stories about her in the British press, the family received 1.1m pounds in public donations, while a host of celebrities — including Simon Cowell, Sir Richard Branson and J.K. Rowling — offered rewards totaling 2.6m pounds.

Remember the extensive media coverage, reserved for captured Israeli soldiers, which encompassed every detail of their personal lives? How many of you are familiar with the name Gilad Shalit? How many of you know the name of even one dead Gazan child?

Perhaps we all need to search our consciences when it comes to fundamental questions of morality when a living Israeli soldier is worth more airtime than dozens of Palestinian children enduring the kind of suffering most of us can’t even imagine; day after day, year after year.

Unless we fight to retain the part of us that makes us human, we might as well give in to the laws of the jungle: Dog eat dog, might is right. As I write, members of the UN are arguing over the wording of a resolution proposed by Libya. Arab states want a strong condemnation of Israel’s strikes on Gaza. The usual suspects, the US and Britain, are demanding a watered-down version heaping most of the blame on the Palestinians.

In other words, a people incarcerated and struggling to find food and medicines are the villains, while their rich and powerful jailor is the innocent victim. If that’s an example of the morality adhered to by Israel and its friends, they can keep it.

Yesterday, the Israelis shut down their Gaza operations just in time for the visit of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Jerusalem today. It wouldn’t do to embarrass their American guest now would it? Moral, the Israeli government isn’t. Polite to those who hold the purse strings and the weapons they are. Let’s give them some credit, eh!

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The defense budget for Israel in 2008 will be NIS 51.3 billion, thereby setting yet another new record for defense spending. What to spend it on ?

2008-03-04T06:47:00.000-08:00

The world community is encouraged to celebrate and commemorate two occasions this year: Israel's theft of Palestine and the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights.

As the British government announces that the educational curriculum is to now include school children visiting Auschwitz “lest we forget” the horrors of the Holocaust and to learn that such inhumanity must never be repeated, the Vice Israeli Minister for Collective Punishment and Serial Killing (sorry, “Defence”) Matan Viilnai, threatened a new “Holocaust” in the Gaza Strip.

Surely, a far better education for the young would be to stay with their counterparts in Gaza and experience the real thing. Rows of children’s shoes and silent gas chambers are terrifyingly thought provoking, but pretty yesterday, when it can actually be lived: real human remains, real blood and even those reduced to real ashes - the real thing, in real time, at a Mediterranean venue near you. A learning experience never to be forgotten.

The 1.5 million souls to whom Gaza is home are entrapped, with no place to hide, pounded from ground and air, by tanks, F-16's and Apache attack helicopters (courtesy of the “land of the free”) in a reign of terror unleashed by “the only democracy in the Middle East”. As little Gaza is set to become the next Sabra and Shatila massacre (with the advanced warning ringing round the globe) the world's governments deafen with their shameful, craven silence. War criminal turned Middle East “peace envoy” in our Kafkaesque world, Anthony Charles Lynton Blair Q.C., was unconcerned, taking a break from his stressful life counting his piles of ill gotten gains, holidaying at an African game park owned by Virgin Airways founder, Richard Branson.

America's shoe in, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, has seemingly borrowed his predecessor Kofi Annan's two word lexicon (“concern” and “regret”) and announced his “concern” at the situation. That, only after he had spoken of Israel's threat from home made rockets, fired by the resistance, before verbally tiptoeing round Gaza's threat from weapons of mass destruction fired by the land baggers.

Jordan's King Addullah did better, citing Israel's “state terrorism, in violation of all international covenants”, with his acting Foreign Minister, Nasser Judah, demanding a halt to the carnage and slamming Israel's violation of “international law”. Rogue states, as Israel, America and Britain, however, care naught for international law, the former two countries stolen and settled on the blood and beloved land of others and Britain, over centuries having plundered and culled across a swathe of the entire globe with impunity.

As the bodies, and the pathetic remains of humanity, a foot, a leg, a head, a hand, a torso and the injured mount, Israel's Prime Minister Olmert stated that Israel was: “... taking an elementary step in self defence”. One of his Ministers told the BBC that the killing and the destruction of infrastructure would continue.

Olmert and his shameful excuse for governmental law makers, of course, are not ending the fragile lives of human beings. They are targetting “terrorists” and “Hamas”.

Should not those suspected of crime be brought before the law rather than summarily executed ? Israel's actions in Gaza are indeed “state terrorism”.

Hamas, of course is a democratically elected government, fully entitled to its followers. Under the new world disorder, sovereignty of elected government also means nothing, to which Saddam Hussein and his colleagues graves are testimony.

And in the new world language, the untried executed are declared “insurgents”, “Taleban”, “terrorists”, statements near never questioned. There are no mothers, fathers, uncles, aunts, no toddlers, teenagers, children, infants. The names and ages of countless dead are the silent scream which addresses this monumental, murderous lie. A family breakfast as the sun's rays spread, dispersing the night's cool, turns to carnage. Kids playing football become seared flesh against the dusty pitch, shouts and laughter forever silenced, in an instant.

A source with considerable expertise also believes that: “The devilish weapons (in Israel's) most extensive armoury (include those) I think designed to disfigure and amputate, so that the loved ones are terrorised.”

A third of the victims of this declared Holocaust are children. There is no kinder transport, no child evacuees sent to safety for the duration. Babies are being buried. Normal people nurture the young. They wake numerous times in the night, for years, to creep and check that the sleeping miracle they have created is still safe, warm. Their heart swells at the waking smile. They wash, cream, dress this new being in special clothes, dream up treats, carry him or her, hugged close, breathing in the special scent of hair and skin. They clutch a small hand in a fledgling walk and speed up to catch them when they run, should they be in danger of tripping, falling. Normal people do not kill kids.

"Uncle, I do not want to die; I want my dad", a toddler screamed as doctors tried to treat burn wounds across her body in Gaza’s main Shifa Hospital. The girl was injured in a house which the Israeli army said was used to store and make weapons, reported the Jordan Times (2nd March.) Israel's “democracy” spreads abnormality at every level. For most benefitting from democracy, few toddlers would even know what dying was.

One image speaks for all the child victims and those left behind, as a result of Israel's criminal actions. It is a father, bent low, laying a small, wrapped child, in a grave, hewn in hardened earth of burned ochre, the sides tooled with care. The little figure looks utterly lost, unbearably vulnerable, searingly alone, the grave seemingly so large. The father, the family will have watched as it was covered and filled in, leaving that mite for ever alone, in rain, shine, cold, heat, unable to ever again wake in the night to stroke the hair, comfort a fear. No faith could ever ease such pain, replicated again and again by America's client state.

"Shame on the Arabs, shame on the Muslims, shame on humanity...” said Tawfek Shaban, a forty four year old school teacher, of Israel's actions.

Shame on humanity indeed. A friend, currently in Palestine, compares the world's shocking indifference to the remarkable Amira Hass's allusion “to what her mother, Hanna saw when women were being taken to the death camps as German women looked on in silence.” Hass wrote: “The vortex is sucking louder and the world looks on from the side.”

My friend concluded: “Palestine is the hinge of humanity. If the world's people turn away, look from the side, the vortex will become a typhoon.”

Prime Minister Olmert sees it differently. Striking at “Hamas”, he said, only advanced the cause of peace.

Apartheid - 2nd Class Citizens (Example) : An Israeli life is worth 10 Arabs ! at least

2008-03-04T03:45:00.000-08:00

Around 10:30pm on the night of February 28, M and his wife S spoke in low tones in a dark room dimly lit by a battery-operated lamp. They were trying to decide if it was still safe to send their children to school and decided in favor because the elementary school building is in a safer part of the city near a number of international offices. The electricity in the building had been out 10 hours by then and the couple pulled blankets around them to keep warm in the damp winter air. They live on the 6th floor of Shifa Tower, an 11-story apartment building housing more than a hundred families.

When the blast occurred that took out the Interior Ministry building across the street, there was no time to think about what to do. M flew into his children's bedroom and threw himself over the sleeping body of his son, Basel, to shield the young boy's body from the glass shattering in the windows beside his bed. Then after a matter of seconds the three young children, two girls and the boy, were taken to the windowless kitchen, all of them now fully awake and crying out in terror. M threw blankets and pillows around them where they huddled for the night in restless sleep and dreams of horror, their mother sobbing silently over them as she caressed their faces.

M returned to the children's room in time for the second deafening blast that made him put up his arms instinctively. When he let them down and looked out into the night sky, it was all brown, the earth from underneath the destroyed buildings was swirling around outside the bedroom windows and he could see nothing but flying debris, smoke and a wall of dirt. For some time he could not hear well, only watch-dazed- hypnotized by the silence after the aerial strikes.

In the morning, no one went outside. "This is a black day in Gaza," M wrote; "a holocaust as (Israeli deputy defense minister Matan) Vilnai put it. There is an attack every five or ten minutes. It keeps our nerves on edge and our senses strained. There is so much rage at what is happening; especially the scenes of murdered children and babies. I am so busy I don't know how to describe my feelings. I work to avoid feeling because right now that's too unbearable."

Watch as A, a Hamas soldier, runs for his life into his house. His pursuers miss shooting him so they launch three rockets into the house on the edge of Jabalya camp killing everyone inside (four family members). They are angry now so every house in the way gets the same treatment and without the "militant" to guide their next moves: rockets fired into the interiors of homes with no knowledge of who is inside. Eye-witnesses report this and worse: a six month old baby girl becomes tiny body parts with her mother and brother. A small child is cut apart by shrapnel and screams that she doesn't want to die just before leaving this world. The mothers and fathers cannot protect them so they weep and scream at the funerals that this side of the world never views, especially during basketball season.

Who really cares about these children? Every Palestinian is a militant because everyone (sooner or later) wants Israel off their land, out of their lives, and forgotten like a horrible dream. It is for this reason that they are all equal targets: none of them is intelligent enough to understand that their land isn't their land, their lives are not their lives, and their horrible dream is their present and future. Have no pity on those who don't get it.

The night strikes from F-16s and helicopter missiles continued throughout the day on Friday the 29 and into the first weekend in March, unceasing in their ferocity and indiscriminate killing revenge for the death early last week of an Israeli student at Sapir College outside Sderot. For every one Israeli life, scores of Palestinians must die. God help us now that two Israeli soldiers have been killed fighting on occupied land, against unwilling slaves; killing innocent people to maintain a 60-year-old injustice. Brace yourself, Gaza. You will pay dearly for the continuation of this crime.

Peace would require relinquishing regional hegemony. Peace would demand sharing the land and the resources equally. Peace might, heaven forbid, require democratic decision making in a region where the Israelis are not better, more entitled, more deserving of Their Way than everyone else in the neighborhood. Well, sorry, but these are not on Israel's agenda.

Israel's Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit who bellowed that if it were up to him, Israeli soldiers going into Gaza should shoot "everything that moves" like babies and toddlers, grandfathers and mothers, orange trees and wasted-away donkeys pulling cartloads of rotten vegetables; like flowers and seabirds, chickens and goats, rats and cockroaches. A scorched-earth policy will suffice. They'll create their apocalyptic wilderness and will call it peace.

Wipe Israel off the map or bring upon themselves a bigger holocaust

2008-03-03T01:51:00.000-08:00

The Media who became obsessed with "wipe Israel off the map" misquote scurry to defend Vilnai after disgraceful comments .

"The more Qassam (rocket) fire intensifies and the rockets reach a longer range, they (the Palestinians) will bring upon themselves a bigger holocaust because we will use all our might to defend ourselves," Vilnai told the Army Radio on Friday.

However, in a Reuters report, despite the fact that the rest of the statement was translated into English, the incendiary word "holocaust" remained in its original Hebrew version - "shoah".

When Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad allegedly called for Israel to be "wiped off the map," the media blindly repeated the quote ad infinitum, and it became second nature for them to carelessly drop it into any propaganda piece intended to hype Iran's supposed threat to Israel and the world.

Barely a day goes by that Israeli, American and British warhawks don't spew the phrase like a broken record in an attempt to create a catchy cliché and brand market the next jaunt of imperial blood-letting.

No matter that, according to numerous different translations, Ahmadinejad never used the word "map," instead his statement was in the context of time and applied to the Zionist regime occupying Jerusalem. Ahmadinejad was expressing his future hope that the Zionist regime in Israel would fall, not that Iran was going to physically annex the country and its population.

To claim Ahmadinejad has issued a rallying cry to ethnically cleanse Israel is akin to saying that Churchill wanted to murder all Germans when he stated his desire to crush the Nazis. This is about the demise of a corrupt occupying power, not the deaths of millions of innocent people.

Refering to Nazis, the West Bank's largest charity, the Islamic Charitable Society (ICS),
Mohamed Qasrawi, an official at the ICS.

Qasrawi said Israel is trying to destroy Palestinian educational and economic institutions in order to subjugate Palestinians to the Israeli occupation. "It is clear they want us to leave, to emigrate, so that Jews will take over our homes, land and businesses. It is Nazism without gas chambers... but the outcome, which is national annihilation, is the same."

It was them... No it was you... Some leaders presume the world is to stupid to see the TRUTH

2008-01-25T05:55:00.000-08:00

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed that no Israelis have been killed by Qassam missiles, while every Israel Defense Forces attack in the Gaza Strip kills dozens of Palestinians.

"The Palestinian territories are like an open-air prison, they are under siege from Israel," he said in a televised speech to lawmakers Wednesday.

He blamed Israel for the situation in Gaza: "The people of Gaza are facing a humanitarian tragedy," he said. "We cannot accept a practice that amounts to punishing nearly 2 million innocent people due to some rocket attacks. ... When we ask [our Israeli colleagues] how many Israeli citizens died as a result of these rocket attacks, we do not get an answer."

So we can all understand why ...

Israel's ambassador to the United Nations criticized the organization's humanitarian affairs chief on Thursday for failing to acknowledge the suffering caused by Palestinian rocket attacks against Israel from Gaza.

Because they hardly ever even cause damage. And ...

Only one of the 15 council members - the United States - opposes the Arab draft. A senior U.S. envoy said Washington was unhappy with it because it fails to condemn what it calls the terrorism against Israel and ignores the causes of the problem.

and, standing up for Israel, which the rest of the world expects again and again...

U.S. Deputy Ambassador Alejandro Wolff said the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which seized control of Gaza after routing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah forces in June 2007, was ultimately responsible for what was happening in Gaza.

Which in fact they were the government at the time, routing the Fatah forces, who were in fact the ones trying to overthrow the elected Government of Hamas.

Whereas at least someone can point out the obvious , which does not reach Western mainstream media outlets...

Ryad Mansour, the permanent Palestinian observer to the United Nations, told reporters "Israel should take note that 14 members of the Security Council ... are saying that the humanitarian situation in Gaza cannot be tolerated."

That is 14 out of 15.... But after ignoring more than 40 resolutions, Israel is above the UN, as is it's partner in terrorism the USA.

Israel has also said, that all Palestinians have to do is stop firing rockets into Israel and life will return to normal. We all know this is untrue, as there have been many ceasefires and then Israel continues targeted assasinations' of leaders of resistance groups, causing injury to innocent passers-by, which then cause people to continue the fighting and struggle against oppression , starvation and being in a continuous lock-down, hence more rocket launches.

Israel and the US area responsible for any backlash from these millions of people, they had been warned repeatedly against collective punishment. The only outcome is to make more people radical under a dire and desperate situation.

The US and Israel always try to make themselves look as if they are the hurt party, but they must start to understand the rest of the world hears a different truth and can see for there own eyes what happens in IRAQ, Afganistan and the Middle East where these 2 countries carry out there awful crimes.

US Missile Defense will not be Deployed...

2007-12-20T04:51:00.000-08:00

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...

2007-12-03T04:46:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-29T04:55:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-23T03:23:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-22T00:41:00.000-08:00

"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....

2007-11-15T01:30:00.000-08:00

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 ?

2007-11-01T06:28:00.001-07:00

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

2007-11-01T04:30:00.000-07:00

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

2007-10-12T00:28:00.000-07:00

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

2007-10-12T00:14:00.000-07:00

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!

2007-10-08T01:53:00.001-07:00

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' ?

2007-09-26T07:48:00.001-07:00

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?

2007-09-24T23:28:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-21T11:21:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-21T01:45:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-20T10:14:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-20T10:11:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-20T02:25:00.000-07:00

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 ?

2007-09-20T01:14:00.001-07:00

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 ?

2007-09-20T01:13:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-20T00:54:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-17T06:16:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-17T05:59:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-17T05:52:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-17T05:23:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-17T00:15:00.000-07:00

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.