Guardian Continues To Spread Misinformation About Eyjafjallajokull
By Steven Goddard | 21 04 2010
Yesterday WUWT reported on the inaccurate #1 environmental story at Guardian.
The Guardian article originally read:
The volcanic eruption has released carbon dioxide, but the amount is dwarfed by
the savings. Based on readings taken by scientists during the first phase of
Eyjafjallajokull activity last month, the website Information is Beautiful
calculated the volcano has emitted about 15,000 tonnes of CO2 each day.
After their article was written, more accurate information spread across the web – The Guardian numbers were off by more than an order of magnitude :
Experts said on Monday that the volcano in Iceland is emitting 150,000 to 300,000 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) per day, a figure comparable to emissions released from a small industrial nation.
The Guardian responded by updating their article with better numbers, but failed to update their conclusions:
So what is wrong with their correction? Lots of things.
- Their source of information now claims that the numbers are 206,465 tons saved vs. 150,000 tons emitted by the volcano. Those two numbers are well within the margin of error of the volcano estimates, and are the very low end of what scientists are claiming. If we use the average scientific estimate of 225,000 – the volcano was actually producing more CO2 per day than the savings from grounded aircraft. Yet the Guardian story still claims that emissions are dwarfed by the savings.
- The Guardian story claims that there have been 2.8 million tons of savings, and the math doesn’t work out. At the time the story was written there had been six days of grounded flights. 206,465 tons/day X 6 days = 1.2 million tons, not 2.8 million tons.
- The Guardian failed to research the actual volcano estimates, and again published the very low end numbers from an apparently unreliable source.
- They failed to consider that the eruption has been going on for more than a month, while the flight ban has lasted only six days. Total volcano emissions actually dwarf the savings from the aircraft.
- They failed to consider Anthony’s point that people stranded by grounded aircraft seek other means of transportation, including cars, trains and battleships, etc. The BBC estimated that these other modes of transport generate as much CO2 as the planes would have.
- They failed to consider that the airlines will eventually run extra flights in order to catch up.
The evidence indicates that the net balance from the volcano is a large increase in CO2 emissions. The Guardian article was just Plane Stupid.
Furthermore, we know that plants, soil and the oceans generate 30 times as much CO2 as all fossil fuel burning combined. That is 200,000,000,000 tons of CO2 per year from natural sources, compared with The Guardian’s inaccurate claim of 2,800,000 tons in savings from aircraft grounded. In other words, even their exaggerated claimed savings are less than 0.0014% of all natural emissions of CO2.
Numbers from Woods Hole Institute
End Israel lobbies’ pervasive and damaging influence in US politics
Support for Israel is not only tragic and immoral, it is also extremely damaging to Americans.
By Debbie Menon | Salem News | 1 April 2010
In a recent article in the journal Foreign Policy entitled “Petraeus wasn’t the first”, Mark Perry describes succinctly the opposition to US support for Israel, the rationale for this support and how American publishers cover it up.
The article is extremely valuable reading, recommends Alison Weir, the executive director of the website If Americans Knew. “It corrects misconceptions that so many Americans have on the causation of US support for Israel, including even some who are otherwise well informed on Palestine,” she asserts.
Mark Perry is correct in all respects. He quotes Joe Hoar, who remind him that it’s all old history. “What’s the news here? Hasn’t this been said before?” and hasn’t it all been done before?
Indeed, have humans ever learned from history? I think it says something about the nature of our species when you reflect that Albert Einstein once said that “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
Key elements of the US government have always opposed the concept of a Zionist Israel, ever since the state and defence departments advised President Harry Truman not to sign up to the Zionist project, which he nevertheless did but with reservations, qualifications and conditions that were immediately ignored.
But none of these key elements of governance has influence over the Zionist-controlled US corporate press, entertainment, academic and public (mis)information media (and the corporate and business advertising budgets that drive them) where the roots of American public opinion are planted and from which the blissfully ignorant American masses take the cues for their views and feelings. Nor do they control the free-spending lobbies that buy and sell legislators and politicians on Capitol Hill with the same ease with which they trade banks and corporations on the stock market.
While this is well documented, the sad thing is that today many editors, journalists, analysts and publishers, even in the so-called progressive American media, either still do not know these facts or have chosen not to inform the public about them.
Recent “hate speech” legislation in the US Congress has already eviscerated the freedom of speech guarantees of the First Amendment. Try to persuade me that abuse and vilification of Islam and Christianity will get you the same treatment in the courts that open and objective political criticism of Israel will. The fact that it will almost certainly not is a perfect example of the power of lobbies in controlling the law of, and restricting free speech in, the USA.
The recent 300-36 vote by the US House Representatives rejecting the UN-sponsored Goldstone Report, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)-initiated letter “Reaffirming the US-Israel Alliance”, which was signed by 76 senators and pressed the US president not to put pressure on Israel – and repeated the “unbreakable bond” mantra – is the best evidence of who controls US Middle East policy and how powerless the US president is to serve his own country’s interest. Barack Obama would do well to heed George Washington’s advise, when he warned in his farewell address against “passionate attachment” to an ally. (Also see Anthony Lawson’s video, “Treason by Members of the United States Congress”.)
Yes, it is about this ally’s powerful lobbying and its pervasive influence on American politics, policy and institutions that these and other writers have long written valuable books, revealing facts about the extent of the stranglehold of the Israel lobby over the US Congress and the US administration.
It’s long past time to end one of the most damaging and pervasive cover-ups in the US today, and time for people and institutions to confront Israel’s lobbies.
Paul Findley They Dare to Speak Out
Edgar Tivnan The Lobby: Jewish Political Power and American Foreign Policy
Donald Neff Fallen Pillars: U.S. Policy Towards Palestine and Israel Since 1945
George W. Ball and Douglas B. Ball The Passionate Attachment: America’s Involvement With Israel, 1947 to the Present
John Mulhall America and the Founding of Israel: An Investigation of the Morality of America’s Role
James Petras The Power of Israel in the United States
John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy
Jeff Gates Guilt by Association: How Deception and Self-Deceit Took America to War (2008) his first release in the Criminal State series.
Debbie Menon is a freelance writer based in Dubai. Her articles have been published widely in print and online. She can be reached at debbiemenon@gmail.com. For more of her work, visit My Catbird Seat.
Israel First: More on Dr. Lani Kass
By Philip Giraldi | April 22, 2010
My recent account of the career of Dr. Lani Kass was based on what has appeared about her in the public record and media, including her own comments regarding national defense and security policy. To recapitulate, Kass was born, raised, and educated in Israel. She has a PhD in Russian studies and is fluent in Russian and Hebrew in addition to English. Kass reportedly reached the rank of major in the Israeli air force before moving to the United States and working her way up through the US defense establishment. She is currently the most senior civilian adviser to Air Force Chief of Staff Norton Schwartz and is believed to have access to most American defense secrets. Kass is best known to the public for her role in promoting Air Force cyberwarfare, but she also appears to have been a major player in counter-terrorism policy and in war preparations directed against Iran even though she has no actual substantive background in those areas. She believes that the US is engaged in a long war against Islamo-radicalism and that “winning” against Iran is necessary but the American people must be willing to pay the price to succeed.
My concern regarding Dr. Kass is based on the potential conflict of interest and divided loyalty that is normal in anyone who is born in one country and moves to another. She comes from a country that has a history of large scale and highly aggressive espionage directed against the United States and she appears to continue to have close ties to her birthplace. Dr. Kass has become a naturalized American while apparently retaining her Israeli citizenship and her three children were reportedly born in Israel, not the United States. The information she has access to would be extremely valuable to Israel and potentially damaging to US interests, particularly as she likely knows what the US Air Force response to a unilateral Israeli attack on Iran would be.
The issue of Israel aside, one might reasonably argue in any event that a senior officer in any foreign country’s military establishment should be considered an undesirable candidate for a top post in the Pentagon on security grounds. If Dr. Kass were a dentist it would make absolutely no difference where she came from and what her political views might be, but a person’s ultimate loyalty is not just an abstraction for someone who has relatively free access to the Defense Department’s most highly classified information and is probably also able to influence policy.
I continue to question to what extent Kass has been properly security vetted for her position, to include rigorous inquiry into whether or not she still has ties to the Israeli government. I also can only speculate at the type of advice that Kass is providing to her Pentagon associates as she appears to embrace particularly hard line views about Muslims and about the desirability of going to war with Iran, positions that are rather similar to those promoted by the Israeli government.
Additional information has come to light on Kass that heightens my concern about her high position in the United States government’s defense and security establishment. Her first job in Washington was with the Advanced International Studies Institute (AISI), a Washington DC area based think tank. After being recommended by someone at the Pentagon, she was hired for her Russian language skills in an unclassified program funded by the Department of Defense called Soviet Watch. Her fellow employees understood that she was a former major in Israeli intelligence. A few months later she moved on to beltway bandit Booz Allen Hamilton. Some months after she departed AISI, one of her colleagues received a call from a personnel manager at the Industrial War College asking to confirm Kass’s employment with AISI. The Industrial War College was, as the name implies, an institute set up to coordinate industrial production with Defense Department needs. Some of its work was classified. Kass’s colleague told the caller that Kass was an intelligence officer who thought of herself as an Israeli and added that putting her in any position of influence would be a bad idea.
From there and then to here and now has taken more than twenty years, proceeding through a number of Defense Department positions with ever-increasing responsibility and access. It would not be out of place to observe that if the report that Kass was truly an intelligence officer for the Israeli Defense Forces is correct the Department of Defense security screeners should have erred on the side of caution based on the supposition that she was still in touch with her former employers. She should never have been given a security clearance and provided access to United States classified information in the first place, which again raises the issue of just if and how thoroughly her background was actually investigated.
More information has also been developed regarding Kass’s current role. According to a highly reliable source, Dr. Lani Kass is now the principal adviser to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen regarding the Middle East. She recently was involved in a very important meeting, one that concerned Israel.
The meeting took place because of concerns that the United States has been losing the “war of ideas” in the Muslim world. At the end of last year, General David Petraeus sent a special emissary out on a fact finding mission to meet with the heads of state and top military officers in all of the Muslim countries considered to be friends or allies of the US for a frank exchange of views. The emissary, an Arabic speaker, learned that no country any longer trusts the United States because it is widely believed that all American policies in the Near East region are subject to veto by Israel. It was also commonly observed that Washington is complicit in the genocide against the Palestinians because of its failure to do anything to restrain Israel, making it extremely difficult to rally popular support in any Muslim country for US policies.
Petraeus was surprised by the unanimity and emotion of the views that were confidentially expressed and thought the issue to be important enough to move it up the chain of command. In February, he met with Admiral Mullen and briefed him on his findings. Mullen was accompanied only by Dr. Lani Kass, who was described to Petraeus as his special assistant for the Middle East. Mullen expressed some dismay at the implications of the findings while Kass disputed Petraeus’ conclusions and said that the concerns being expressed were greatly exaggerated. Petraeus nevertheless presented his report to the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 17th together with his judgment that the failure to address the Palestinian issue was putting US soldiers in danger because it was inflaming anti-American sentiment and giving groups like al-Qaeda an unnecessary propaganda victory.
One might argue that Dr. Lani Kass is just another Israel firster who has risen to high office in the US government, not really unlike Dennis Ross, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Elliott Abrams, and Douglas Feith. And that might well be true. But at the same time one must challenge the judgment of those who enabled her rise to a position of great responsibility and power and there should be serious questions about whether her bellicose and racially tinged viewpoint comes from objective and honest analysis of the genuine challenges confronting the United States or from her loyalty to her country of birth.
Watching the invasion unfold
By Eva Bartlett | In Gaza | April 22, 2010
It was an early morning, farmers relieved to have harvested the 6 dunam (1 dunam is roughly 1000 square metres) field of lentils planted 5 months ago in Al Faraheen borderlands. The village, east of Khan Younis, includes land cut off to farmers by the Israeli-imposed “buffer zone”. That technically 300 metre no-go zone stretching south to north along Gaza’s border with Israel actually extends far beyond the few hundred metres, up to 2 km in some areas where Palestinian civilians have been shot, injured or killed, by Israeli soldiers while on their land.
Abu Qater Tabbash has 100 dunams of land he can no longer access, he says, because it lies in the buffer zone. The land he worked today, along with 5 women from his family, is rented land. Their crop will not pay off, but it will provide lentils for the family and hay for their animals.
“I knew they were going to do something today,” says Jaber Abu Rjila. “I saw the bulldozers line up at the border yesterday and knew today there’d be a party,” making light of his dangerous reality.
Rjila is an old hand at Israeli invasions, even prior to the one which destroyed his farm and livelihood. Being shot at and having his and neighbouring land churned to waste by Israeli bulldozers is so normal that he continues sorting garlic and harvesting lettuce, to give to his guests, as the tanks line up at the gate before entering and nearing within 200 metres of his home.
But when the bulldozers and tanks begin to thunder in through the Israeli-controlled gate nearest Rjila’s land, he, Leila and a few neighbours are the only ones who stay.
“All of Faraheen will be in Khan Younis after a while,” says Jaber, referring to the proximity of the town and the fact that Israeli invasions have repeatedly harassed the citizens of his town, destroyed their houses, shot up their walls and terrified their children.
One of Rjila’s young daughters has never gotten over the experience of being in a house surrounded by and being shot at by Israeli tanks and soldiers as military bulldozers destroyed their land. The girl, just 7 or 8 years old, is slight and shows signs of malnourishment, despite her parents best efforts and the comparative health of her siblings.
“She was traumatized,’ Leila says, explaining that of her siblings, the girl was the most terrified during the 2008 Israeli invasion, which including shelling and gunfire on her home.
The tanks enter the gate some 500 metres from the house we are at and seem to be bee-lining for the Rjila home. When they are roughly 100 metres away, we leave our vantage point, not wanting to bring further wrath on the home by the provocation of documenting Israel’s invasion.
Continuing to film from a different spot still near the home and the convoy of tanks, we hear their rumble as they tear up the earth.
*the area, tranquil, before the invasion
*this land will have all been torn up in the invasion
Veolia tries to greenwash its involvement in the occupation
Adri Nieuwhof, The Electronic Intifada, 22 April 2010
 |
Nesher cement found at a construction site in occupied East Jerusalem, June 2009. (Clean Hands Project) |
By participating in the touring Veolia Wildlife Photographer of the Year Exhibition, the French transnational company Veolia Environnement is attempting to spin its image that has been tarnished by the exposure of its involvement in the Israeli occupation.
The UK Palestine Solidarity Campaign used the occasion of the exhibition, featured at London’s Natural History Museum and in BBC Wildlife Magazine, to remind the public of Veolia’s participation in a segregated transportation project and the building of infrastructure to service Israel’s illegal settlements in the West Bank. The exhibition at the Natural History Museum was met with a “Dump Veolia” demonstration on 10 April and further protests are anticipated as the exhibition will travel to other UK cities and Ireland, Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain and the US.
Veolia Transport, a subsidiary of Veolia Environnement, is involved in the construction and operation of a light rail system undertaken by the City Pass Consortium that links West Jerusalem to the illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. The company also operates regular bus services to the illegal settlements, including Beit Horon and Givat Zeev, along road 443, on which Palestinians are banned from traveling. Through its involvement in these projects, Veolia is directly implicated in maintaining illegal settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and plays a role in Israel’s attempt to make its annexation of Palestinian East Jerusalem irreversible.
Veolia claims that the contract to operate the light rail does not set any access restrictions on any population or passengers, and has expressed its commitment to operate the Jerusalem light rail on “a clear, non-discriminatory policy based on free access for all parts of the population.” However, statements by City Pass Consortium spokesperson Ammon Elian show that the project will entrench the status quo situation of segregation. He told a Belgian researcher without a trace of irony: “If Palestinians would want to make use of the light rail, both groups will not meet on the train, because of their different life patterns.” Palestinians in East Jerusalem, the territory annexed by Israel after its occupation in 1967, receive starkly inferior municipal services and are subjected to the revocation of residency rights and home demolitions.
Meanwhile, Veolia Transport continues to operate the segregated bus service 322 from Tel Aviv to Ashdod. At the terminal for bus 322 in Tel Aviv, small posters promise eternal damnation for those who do not observe the rules of halacha, or Jewish religious law. On 8 April chairman of the municipal council in Tel Aviv Yael Dayan told the Swiss newspaper Le Temps that bus service 322 is a “kosher” bus route, meaning that gender segregation is practiced with the agreement of the authorities. Women enter through the rear of the vehicle and the men from the front. They cannot touch each other or sit next to one another. In some buses, a thick blanket is hung in the middle of the bus between the two sexes. “It’s the return of the Middle Ages,” Dayan told Le Temps. Veolia Transport confirmed in a phone call with Who Profits from the Occupation? that bus 322 is segregated.
In addition to providing transport services to the settlements, Veolia is also involved in waste collection and dumping in the occupied West Bank. TMM Integrated Recycling Services, a subsidiary of Veolia, owns the Tovlan landfill near Jericho in the Jordan Valley. Veolia has leased the Palestinian-owned land from the Israeli civil military administration, according to British electronic magazine Corporate Watch. The magazine interviewed a worker who monitored the cars entering the landfill from 2002 until 2009 and who stated that until two years ago, Tovlan received some waste collections from Nablus. According to the worker, the waste dumped at Tovlan landfill comes primarily from the numerous illegal settlements in the Jordan Valley (“Veolia’s dirty business: The Tovlan landfill,” 29 January 2010).
Meanwhile, in 2009 Corporate Watch photographed Veolia garbage trucks picking up waste in Massua settlement, and in March 2010 a picture was taken of a Veolia vehicle picking up rubbish from Tomer settlement.
Veolia’s involvement in the occupation does not end there. The company has won a contract with Nesher cement factory to build and operate a large facility for sorting and transforming waste into a source of energy in Hiriya near Tel Aviv. The website of Who Profits from the Occupation? — an Israeli group that monitors corporations’ involvement in Israel’s occupation — states that 85 percent of all cement in Israel is sold by Nesher Cement and the use of Nesher products has been documented in construction sites in West Bank settlements and in the construction of the light rail project in Jerusalem.
Despite the photo exhibition designed to promote Veolia’s image, the corporation’s involvement in the occupation is not lost on solidarity activists. Irish Palestine Solidarity Campaign spokesperson Freda Hughes announced at a 30 March demonstration that the group will this year highlight the role of Veolia in entrenching Israeli apartheid. The city council of Dublin is under pressure not to enter or renew contracts with Veolia, and activists protested in front of the city hall on 12 April.
Meanwhile, in the UK, the Green Party in Croydon is calling the city council to ditch Veolia because of its involvement in the breaching of Palestinians’ human rights. Veolia is responsible for waste and recycling collections in Croydon.
Adri Nieuwhof is a consultant and human rights advocate based in Switzerland.
Erekat: Israel incites settler violence
Press TV – April 22, 2010
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat has blasted Tel Aviv for inciting a new wave of Israeli settler violence as part of a culture of vandalism and extremism.
“Settler violence and the wanton destruction of Palestinian property replicate what is being done on a much larger scale by Israel as it pushes ahead with illegal settlement construction across the West Bank, including East Jerusalem (al-Quds),” Erekat said in a statement on Wednesday.
“They bring into full view the violence that underpins Israel’s policy of illegal settlement construction and the cost to Palestinians,” he added.
The Palestinian official described Israeli settlers as the direct beneficiaries of Tel Aviv’s policy which encourages occupying Palestinians’ land and demolishing their houses to further expand its “apartheid system that promotes settlements by stripping Palestinians of their basic rights and freedoms.”
“The result is a culture of violence, hatred and extremism in which Israeli settlers, often accompanied by Israeli soldiers, run riot across the West Bank,” Erekat noted.
The remarks come a day after a group of residents from the Israeli settlement of Givat Hayovel uprooted 250 olive tree seedlings planted by Palestinian farmers in the village of Qaryut to mark Earth Day.
On Monday, settlers attacked the General Union of Palestinian Workers’ housing complex in Ein Sinyia, north of Ramallah, destroying water tanks and nearby property.
Israeli settlers also vandalized a mosque in the village of Huwwara last week and painted racist slogans on its walls. They also torched two cars and damaged more than 300 olive trees.
Erekat charged Israeli officials with encouraging extremists “to intimidate and destroy at will, armed with the absurd notion that they have a divine right to steal, to vandalize and to persecute another people.”
He reiterated his criticism of Israel’s refusal to halt expansion of illegal West Bank settlements as “the major obstacle to peace and the greatest threat to the two-state solution.”
The settlements “are a black hole in which hopes of peace are fast disappearing,” he warned.
Beit Ummar vineyard flooded with settlement sewage
Ma’an – 22/04/2010
Hebron – Israeli settlers opened a sewage pipe running toward the Hebron-area town of Beit Ummar on Wednesday night, flooding a Palestinian vineyard with wastewater, local officials said.
By opening the sewage pipe, residents of the Gush Etzion settlement bloc destroyed some 70,000 square meters of the vineyard belonging to the Sabarneh family, experts visiting the site said.
The land, in the Wad Shakhat area of northern Beit Ummar, was ruined by the flood of sewage, along with the crop after it was contaminated by the untreated wastewater, land experts who arrived at the scene along with the village mayor said.
An Israeli Civil Administration representative confirmed the incident, saying a pump from the Kfar Etzion settlement stopped working due to a power malfunction and sewage overflowed from the network. The official said the matter was a mistake, and as soon as the Beit Ummar governor notified officials of the issue the problem was rectified.
Military officials said compensation for the mistake would likely have to be sought in court.
Residents of Beit Ummar said the mayor informed Israel’s Civil Administration office of the incident, and that he asked Israeli police to investigate what was behind the disaster.
“As far as I know, the mayor of Kfar Etzion called and apologized,” the Civil Administration representative said.
NPR & Trust in Government
Robert Shetterly | 19 Apr 2010
I was just sitting down in my kitchen this morning — Sunday, April 18th, 2010 — to a bowl of oatmeal topped with walnuts, some pieces of ginger, and a little brown sugar when I heard the host of NPR’s Sunday Weekend Edition program, Liane Hansen, say that the next segment would begin a series of programs focusing on Trust in Government. She said, as we all know, that cynicism about our political leadership has metastasized. The new series would look at how it got this way and how it could be different.
I thought, great! I hoped — and expected — that the discussion would hone in on governmental hypocrisy and lying. Nothing builds cynicism and destroys trust like hypocrisy and lying.
But what to my wondering ears should appear but a first guest by the name of Philip Zelikow. Ms. Hansen introduced Mr. Zelikow as a professor of history at the University of Virginia and just the person to frame the discussion.
What surprised me was what Ms. Hansen, and thus NPR, did not tell us about Mr. Zelikow. He was a neocon who worked very closely with Condoleezza Rice, Dick Cheney, and Carl Rove in the Bush administration. He was one of the primary authors of what has been called the Bush Doctrine — the right of our country to make preemptive war on other countries in contradiction of international law and our own Constitution. During the Bush administration Zelikow defended the many lies that they told about the reasons for attacking Iraq. And he was put in charge of the 9/11 Commission, the committee that was supposed to tell the world what really happened on 9/11. He ran that committee so that the official version of events could not be questioned. He did not allow witnesses to testify who had seen and heard things that cast the official version into doubt. The commission totally ignored facts that made the official version untenable and it neglected to even mention that World Trade Center tower #7, not struck by an airplane, also mysteriously collapsed that day.
In other words, to kick off a program about cynicism and trust in government, NPR was inviting an expert to diagnose the problem — and what better expert than one of the people who has done more than most to cause it! NPR knows intimately Mr. Zelikow’s history and they chose to expunge it, hide it from their listeners.
Mr. Zelikow failed to mention during the interview that citizens lose respect for their government and become cynical when the government lies. Nor did he mention that when those leaders who lie make sure there is no accountability, the cynicism grows.
And Ms. Hansen neglected to mention that when the media does not identify the history and bias of a guest, it appears that they may be trying to manipulate their audience. It demonstrates a lack of respect for that audience and is a prime cause of cynicism. Such behavior makes a mockery of trust. It makes cynicism and distrust a self-fulfilling prophesy.
I would like to remind NPR that the problems of trust and cynicism would not be rampant in this country if the media fulfilled its obligation in a democracy to expose the lies of government. The only antidote to these problems is an honest media. (One can never expect the government to be honest.) When the media obscures the truth, they show the same contempt for democracy that the politicians do.
And then they wring their hands and ask why the people don’t trust government.
My oatmeal is cold now.
US: All Options on the Table Against Syria
By Jason Ditz, April 21, 2010
Though they have admitted once again that they still haven’t actually got any proof that any such thing happened, the US State Department insisted today that “all options are on the table” with respect to retaliating against Syria over its alleged delivery of Scud missiles to Hezbollah.
Assistant Secretary Jeffrey Feltman says the State Department has “really, really serious concern” about the report, and said if Syria actually turns out to have done such a thing it would be a “provocative action.”
Israel made the accusation last week, but it has since been denied by both Syria and Lebanon’s governments. Israel has not provided any public evidence to support its claim, but Hezbollah has been rumored in the media to have been given some old, unusable Scuds at some point in the past.
Scud missiles would give the Lebanese militant group the ability to hit targets anywhere in Israel at a time when Israeli officials are openly talking of launching another invasion of southern Lebanon.
15 Arrested in Protest, Lockdown at Caterpillar, “Israel’s Weapon of Choice”
5 MACALESTER STUDENTS LOCK DOWN TO BLOCK THE DRIVEWAY OF A CATERPILLAR DISTRIBUTION CENTER, PROTESTING THE COMPANY’S ROLE IN PALESTINIAN HOME DEMOLITION, SLUM CLEARING AND DEFORESTATION.
The lock-down of five was successful; the authorities’ best heavy-duty equipment struggled for hours to cut through the material and thus several shipments in and out of the Caterpillar facility were disrupted. After the lockdowners were ordered to disperse late in the afternoon, however, cops (led by Sheriff Bob Fletcher at the scene) suddenly arrested 10 supporters and legal observers nearby without warning. Only a handful were able to evade the sudden dragnet. In addition to Fletcher, over a dozen police cars plus firetrucks and an ambulance were at the scene.
STATEMENT from Mac MPJC/SDS: Today, we, Macalester Peace and Justice Committee/Students for a Democratic Society, block Caterpillar’s driveway because Caterpillar must be held responsible for the things from which they profit. Caterpillar bulldozers are used to clear-cut forests and demolish natural habitats, clear out slums that are the homes of millions in brutal ‘cleaning’ operations, and, perhaps most visibly, the Caterpillar bulldozer is the weapon of choice in Israel’s systematic assault on the Palestinian people. Caterpillar executives cannot be divorced from responsibility for the consequences of their profit. Caterpillar executives may not be the ones driving the bulldozers, but they gain directly from the injustice and oppression that their products propagate across the globe.
Specially armored Caterpillar bulldozers are Israel’s tools for the relentless, slow-motion destruction of Palestinian lives, homes, and livelihoods. Israel uses Caterpillar to demolish Palestinian homes, rip up Palestinian olive groves, and to build new settler homes with manicured lawns and central air. Since 1967, Israel has demolished 24,145 Palestinian homes in the Occupied Territories; in the same time period, Israel has built 214 settlements and erected a separation wall which cuts deep into the West Bank. Time after time, settlements ‘spring up’ right where they are most disruptive to local economies, while Israel further shatters trade routes and freedom of movement with Apartheid walls, Israeli-only roads, and pervasive checkpoints. The goal is to push Palestinian’s off the land, leaving it open for Israeli settlement. This is not a complicated issue–Israel is enacting a policy of ethnic cleansing and Apartheid onto the Palestinian peoples.
We’ve put our bodies here today to oppose Caterpillar’s participation in occupation and injustice. We disrupt business as usual and take direct action against Caterpillar because, despite years of letters, pickets, and marches, Caterpillar continues to ignore the blood on their profits. We ask workers and drivers at this center for their patience and solidarity in the struggle to do our part here, now, to end oppression where it grows boldest.
We share in the responsibility to resist colonialism, imperialism, and oppression propagated by US corporations. We believe that resisting injustice is a fundamental human concern and that the sale of Caterpillar equipment to shore-up apartheid borders, clear-cut forests and natural habitats, and devastate communities is an affront to all people everywhere.
We cannot continue to allow the voices of oppressed peoples to be silenced, no matter how distant. We are committed to holding corporations accountable for their profits, whatever it takes.
In solidarity with the people and the planet,
Macalester Peace and Justice Committee/Students for a Democratic Society.
‘Blackwater/Xe behind Pakistan unrest’
Press TV – April 22, 2010
The former leader of Pakistan’s opposition party Jamaat-e-Islami has accused the US security firm Blackwater/Xe of being behind the unrest in the country.
Speaking to reporters in Peshawar, Qazi Hussain Ahmad said that the situation in the country would never improve if the government in Islamabad continued to be the frontline ally of Washington.
“The rulers have been fighting the US war in our own streets, which is fanning unrest,” he added.
On Wednesday, Jamaat-e-Islami chief Syed Munawar Hassan told Press TV that Pakistan’s alliance with the US was the main reason behind a surge in bomb attacks across the country.
“The notorious Blackwater agents are behind the bomb and suicide attacks in our country as the US wants to destabilize Pakistan… after invading neighboring Afghanistan,” he said.
The people of Pakistan are united against the US and are ready to force the government to end its alliance with Washington on the so-called war against terror, he added.
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How Macrocosmic Western Propaganda Launders Geopolitical Crimes
By Ronald Thomas West | February 10, 2021
This essay goes to the matter of Kosovo; where the Western states (NATO & the EU) have determined Serbia is not fit to govern a minority (of ethnic Albanians) on their own (Serbian) territory but the now purported (by the West) independent Kosovo is fit to govern a minority (of ethnic Serbs.)
The EU position seems to embrace an attitude of ‘never mind the inconvenient fact’ that recent Kosovo ‘leaders’ are being arrested and delivered to international tribunal for crimes against ethnic Serbs (includes organ harvesting), also not to mention what amounts to mere ‘lip service’ (no concrete action or enforcement) concerning the repatriation of 250,000 Serbs driven from Kosovo in an ethnic Albanian engineered cleansing pogrom following the NATO bombing of Serbia.
Insofar as an EU repatriation precedent, Croatia’s ethnic cleansing of Srpska Krajina shows the dishonesty of the EU position; there is no realistic expectation (and never was) by the European Union that the 200,000 Serbs expelled from this (formerly) Serb majority region would be allowed to return to Croatia and their homes. Meanwhile Croatia had been admitted to the European Union.
So, in the context of Serbs are not trustworthy to govern an ethnic minority of Albanians but Albanians are trustworthy to govern a minority of Serbs, the EU de facto embraces (actual outcomes, not political postures) just the sort of ethnic cleansing the NATO bombing was supposed to stop? … continue
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