US Vows New Sanctions Against Iran in ‘Weeks’
By Jason Ditz | April 20, 2010
Much as they did several times last week, and several times the week before that, and indeed innumerable times this year, last year, and the year before that, the US today vowed that there would be new sanctions against Iran in a matter of weeks.
This time the pledge came in the form of comments by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D – MD) who promised that the United States would act “sooner, rather than later” in more harsh sanctions against Iran for its civilian nuclear program.
The comments came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu once again demanded that the US enact “crippling sanctions” against Iran, blocking the nation’s gasoline imports in the hopes of crushing the government. Netanyahu made similar demands earlier in the month, and several times last month, and also innumerable times since coming into office last year.
But once again, the prospect of the sanctions, despite US optimism, seems slim. Russia has repeatedly opposed “crippling” sanctions, and said it would only support very limited sanctions targeting just the nuclear industry. China for its part again declared today that it remains firmly in favor of diplomacy, and says negotiations, not sanctions, remain the best way to solve disagreements.
Background:
March 08, 2010
Israeli Official: West Has 4-8 Weeks Left for Iran Diplomacy
Anti-govt. demos held in Egypt
Press TV – April 21, 2010
Egyptian activists shout anti-government slogans and hold posters that read in Arabic: “shoot us”.
Dozens of anti-government protesters have taken to the streets of the Egyptian capital Cairo to demand more political freedom.
The demonstrators slammed calls by politicians and officials loyal to President Hosni Mubarak to use force against anti-government protesters. They also called for an end to emergency rule that allows indefinite detentions of people under the pretext of national security.
A lawmaker earlier questioned the Interior Ministry for being soft on the protesters. He said anti-government protesters should be shot.
Amnesty International has condemned the MP’s outrageous remarks, saying that it was “a clear incitement to excessive force and potentially unlawful killing of protesters.”
Mubarak has been the President of Egypt since 1981.
UK: To Vote Or Not
By Robin Yassin-Kassab | Pulse Media | April 20, 2010
Democracy is supposed to mean ‘government by the people’. In the ancient Greek city states all the free men (but not women or slaves) would cram the theatre for lively, informed debate on a relevant issue, and then would decide it by a show of hands. Not so today. Putting a mark on a piece of paper every five years and imagining that you run things seems like a sad parody of such activity, a demotic populism masking power rather than a popular democracy negotiating it.
In our society the most important decisions are often made by unelected movers of capital and unelected civil servants and generals. Elected officials are very often at least as loyal to the lobbies easing their way as to the voters they supposedly represent.
And there’s the problem of ignorance. “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free,” Thomas Jefferson said, “in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.” Why has there been no campaign discussion of the causes and long-term ramifications of the current recession? (I mean the failure of the neo-liberal economics which both Tories and Labour have pursued in government, and a global power realignement). Surely because the politicians know most people don’t understand economics. (Most politicians don’t understand economics either). As far as foreign policy is concerned, the mainstream media and culturally-embedded imperialist assumptions are effective obstructions to open, informed debate. Add to this the postmodern simulacrum which many of us inhabit, in which an actual explosion attracts no more attention than a computer or Hollywood-simulated explosion, in which the boundaries between image and reality are beyond blurred. Baghdad fills less space on the screen than Bruno’s swinging penis.
So voting doesn’t mean nearly as much as the culture pretends it does, but it still means something, or at least could do. Public opinion, though manipulated and frequently scorned, plays a key role in the management of state and empire. Our enemies know this, which is why they have it tied up so well.
For us, to blithely ignore an election is to fail to understand and engage with the real world of lobbies and influence. (If there were a mass oppositional movement in this country, we could forget about lobbies and the established parties – but there isn’t). The Israel Lobby, for instance, not only commands a great deal of money, but very effectively marshals its supporters to write letters to MPs and ministers, to vote for candidates that express pro-Israel sentiments, and to demonise and isolate those who speak out against Zionist crimes. If candidates for parliament were to receive as many pledges of support for a pro-Palestine as for a pro-Israel position, things might change a little.
Politicians don’t fear majorities of passive opinion; they fear organised, committed minorities. Perhaps two million marched in London against the invasion of Iraq. It was the biggest demonstration in British history, and it certainly wasn’t passive. When it finished, however, most marchers politely returned home, feeling better about themselves. A million dead Iraqis later, many of the marchers will vote for Labour or Tory candidates who supported the invasion.
Some of the marchers won’t vote at all, believing that by not voting they make a statement of non-cooperation with the system. But their protest is invisible. Their absent votes are lumped with those millions who do not vote out of apathy or alienation, because inside their simulacrum an episode of Eastenders takes precedence over a visit to the polling booth.
This time I’m going to vote, but not with illusions. I know voting isn’t an alternative to other actions. And I’m not going to play the game to the extent of voting Labour, even though I’m in a constituency where Labour will probably lose to the Tories. I just can’t vote Labour. There’s the matter of a million dead Iraqis for a start. There’s Blair’s Lebanon war, and Afghanistan, and the assault on civil liberties. There’s the economic mess which is about to undo much of what has been done. Plus Labour has presided over and often directed a dramatic resurgence of racism and Islamophobia, which makes my life more difficult.
Many people will vote Tory simply because they are sick of Labour. Many will vote Labour only because they fear the Tories more. Very few people will vote out of genuine enthusiasm for a party or politician. This is the particular curse of the British-style ‘first-past-the-post’system, a curse which suits the two main parties. The Liberal Democrats, on the other hand, have been proposing a proportional representation system for years. There is a chance that the next parliament will be hung, with the Liberals acting as kingmakers. Therefore there’s a slight chance that Proportional Representation will be their king-making price. It’s in their interests of course, for under PR the Liberals would no longer be a minority party. It also means that people could vote for who they like rather than for who scares them least. PR would allow the BNP to enter parliament, but also the Greens and socialist movements. It would certainly make electoral politics more interesting, and could allow more space for genuinely oppositional voices.
I notice the Liberal Democrats also because their leader, Nick Clegg, has called for an arms embargo against Israel. Clegg should be rewarded for this brave and principled stand, which is a million miles beyond what we could expect from the Labour or Tory leaders. Clegg should know that there’s political mileage in taking a pro-justice position, and other politicians should observe and learn the lesson.
This sounds like an endorsement of the Liberal Democrats, and to an extent it is. I recommend of course that voters research their local candidates’ allegiances. There’s a Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel just as there are Labour and Tory versions. And I’m only endorsing the Liberals for the moment. If they ever become a fixture of government they’ll become as targetted by lobbies, corruption and imperial ‘realpolitic’ as the other two.
As for me, I’m voting SNP. Where I live they are in third place behind Labour and the Tories. The Scottish Nationalists are to the left of New Labour and are (except for Plaid Cymru) the only party to call for a rethink of the British military presence in Afghanistan.
(And P.S. – Could I appeal to British Muslims to investigate the positions taken by Muslim MPs before voting for them. Politicians like Birmingham MP Khaled Mahmood must receive some votes simply because they have Muslim names. Mahmood is a tame Blairite who rarely votes in parliament, but when he does he supports attacks on civil liberties. He’s on record as “dismissing” calls for an arms embargo against Israel. On the other hand, Osama Saeed, SNP candidate for Glasgow Central, has a solid record of anti-war and pro-justice activism.)
Massachusetts moving money out of 3 big banks to protest credit card rates
By Ylan Q. Mui | Washington Post | April 15, 2010
Massachusetts officials on Wednesday announced plans to move millions of dollars in state investments out of some of the nation’s biggest banks to protest credit card interest rates.
State Treasurer Timothy Cahill said the state has removed Bank of America, Citi and Wells Fargo from a list of institutions approved for new state investments. Massachusetts, which is the only state to make such a move, is also beginning to divest $243 million in funds held at those banks, though the process could take up to six months.
“We want to bring some fairness into the issue,” said Cahill, who is running for governor. “I don’t think what we’re asking is . . . out of line.”
The announcement — made at a raucous rally on Capitol Hill organized by the Metro Industrial Areas Foundation, a network of religious and citizen advocacy groups — is part of a wave of consumer backlash over the banking industry’s role in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Congress has enacted sweeping credit card reforms that limit how and when issuers can raise rates and is in the midst of debating the creation of an agency dedicated to protecting consumer rights.
That has reignited advocacy groups that support creating a national usury law after a 1978 Supreme Court decision found that interest rate caps could apply only to state-chartered lenders. As a result, many banks moved their headquarters to states with looser usury laws, such as Delaware, allowing them to bypass limits set in other states.
Massachusetts law caps interest rates at 18 percent. In the fall, the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization began urging officials from the state Treasury department to tackle the usury issue. Last week, state officials met with officials from Bank of America, where Massachusetts has $231 million in investments, to request that it meet that cap for state residents. When the bank declined, Cahill said, his office decided it would shift the funds into other accounts. Massachusetts also has $9 million invested with Citi and $3 million with Wells Fargo.
Spokespeople for Bank of America and Wells Fargo said their firms regretted the state’s decision. Bank of America noted that it charges interest rates of about 15 percent for about 70 percent of its customers. Citi did not return a call requesting comment. Credit card companies have said that they face higher costs from increased consumer delinquencies during the recession, which translates into higher interest rates for customers in good standing.
Sen. Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.) said Wednesday that he intends to introduce a 15 percent national cap on credit card interest rates through an amendment to the financial regulation reform bill being debated in the Senate. Six states, including Maryland, have considered bills this year that would have given community banks preference in providing government financial services, but none of them passed.
In Massachusetts, the state treasurer has sole authority over a $7 billion fund composed of contributions from municipalities; the investments at Bank of America, Citi and Wells Fargo are part of that fund. Cahill said the state still maintains other financial relationships with those banks, such as cash management.
Several other labor and religious groups also announced Wednesday that they plan to move money from large banks. Lutheran churches in Missouri said they moved $25 million in investments into community banks, while Civil Service Employees Association Local 1000 said it also would consider a shift.
“We’ve come to tell them all today: Time is up,” the Rev. Hurmon Hamilton, leader of the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization, said at the rally Wednesday. “Move those dollars,” the crowd chanted in response.
El Al sued for racial profiling
Jonathan Cook, The Electronic Intifada, 20 April 2010
Two Palestinian citizens of Israel have won $8,000 in damages from Israel’s national carrier, El Al, after a court found that their treatment by the company’s security staff at a New York airport had been “abusive and unnecessary.”
Brothers Abdel Wahab and Abdel Aziz Shalabi were assigned a female security guard who watched over them at the airport’s departure gate for nearly two hours, in full view of hundreds of fellow passengers, after they had passed the security and baggage checks.
Later, El Al’s head of security threatened to bar Abdel Wahab, 43, from the flight if he did not apologize to the guard for going to the toilet without first getting her approval. Abdel Aziz said he had been humiliated and “cried like I’ve never cried before in public.”
Although surveys of Palestinian Arab citizens, who comprise one-fifth of Israel’s population, show that most have suffered degrading treatment when flying with Israeli carriers, few bring cases to the Israeli courts.
The brothers are now planning to sue El Al and its New York staff in the United States over Israel’s racial profiling of passengers in a country where the practice is illegal.
“I’d rather go to New York by donkey than fly with El Al again,” said Abdel Aziz, 44. “We will keep fighting this case until Israel is embarrassed into stopping its policy of discriminating against its Arab citizens.”
The brothers, who live in northern Israel, were the only Arabs in a party of 17 Israeli insurance agents on a two-week business trip to Canada and New York in 2007.
They arrived four hours early at John F. Kennedy airport in New York for their return flight with Israir, an Israeli charter company, to allow time for the additional checks they expected from El Al’s security staff.
El Al has special agreements with most countries’ airports to carry out its own security checks for passengers flying with Israeli airlines.
The brothers said they were questioned, searched and had to wait two hours while their bags and carry-on luggage were subjected to lengthy inspections.
“The Jews with us went through in minutes,” said Abdel Aziz, in his home in the village of Iksal, near Nazareth. “The difference in treatment was very clear.”
After they had passed the checks, an El Al security guard, Keren Weinberg, was assigned to them until they boarded the plane. They were told to make sure she could see them at all times.
When Abdel Wahab visited a toilet without her permission, a noisy argument broke out between the two, with Weinberg accusing him of “roaming freely.” He said he told her to “either arrest me or go away.”
Ilan Or, the head of El Al security, was then called and issued him an ultimatum that he apologize or be prevented from catching the flight. Abdel Wahab told a magistrate’s court in Haifa this month that he broke down in tears and finally said he was sorry.
“I was in shock. One minute I was made to feel like a terrorist and then the next like a naughty child,” he said.
Judge Amir Toubi said the security staff had admitted that neither brother was deemed a security threat and that Israeli law did not allow checks to continue after passengers had passed the security area.
“With all due understanding of security needs, there is no justification for ignoring the dignity, freedom and basic rights of a citizen under the mantle of the sacred cow of security,” the judge ruled.
El Al told the court that it had been “asked by the state to conduct security checks abroad on behalf of [charter companies] Arkia and Israir airlines, and is acting under the security guidelines set by official bodies of the state.”
Abdel Wahab praised the court’s decision but said the damages were minor and would not act as a deterrent against El Al repeating such behavior in the future. He said the brothers would appeal to a higher court in Israel and were planning to initiate a legal action in New York, too.
“I will not rest until we get an apology from El Al and they acknowledge that what they did is wrong,” he said. He called on all Arab citizens to boycott El Al until it committed to stop its discriminatory policy.
A 2007 report on racial profiling by Israeli carriers, published by the Arab Association for Human Rights and the Centre Against Racism, concluded: “This phenomenon is so widespread that it is hard to find any Arab citizen who travels abroad by air and who has not experienced a discriminatory security check at least once.”
The two groups found that Arab and Muslim passengers typically faced long interrogations and extensive luggage searches, and were also regularly subjected to body and strip searches, had items including computers confiscated, were kept in holding areas and were escorted directly on to the plane.
The report noted that foreign countries that allowed Israel to carry out its own security checks at their airports failed to supervise them and preferred to “ignore their discriminatory nature and the human rights violations committed on their own soil.”
New York’s JFK airport was one of the airports that refused to answer questions from the groups about incidents of discriminatory treatment of Arabs and Muslims.
Israel has also come under harsh criticism for the standard racial profiling policies it uses against its own Arab citizens and foreign Arab nationals at Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv.
The practice of putting different color-coded stickers on Jewish and Arab passengers’ luggage ended three years ago. However, airport guards still write a number on uniform white stickers indicating the level of security threat. Critics say higher numbers are reserved for non-Jews.
Faced with a lawsuit from Israeli human rights groups, Menachem Mazuz, the attorney general at the time, instructed the airports authority in early 2008 to implement “visible equality” by ending discriminatory screening policies.
However, observers have noticed no change in practice. “This was a very cynical exercise. ‘Visible equality’ simply means making it look like there’s equality when the inequality persists,” said Mohammed Zeidan, director of the Association for Human Rights, based in Nazareth.
In December an airport official told the right-wing Jerusalem Post newspaper: “Profiling makes the biggest difference. A man with the name of Umar flying out of Tel Aviv, whether he is American or British, is going to get checked seven times.”
Two years ago Israel’s racial profiling policy made headlines when a member of an American dance troupe with a Muslim-sounding name was forced to dance at the airport to prove he was who he claimed.
The incident with the Shalabi brothers follows on the heels of a diplomatic crisis between Israel and South Africa over revelations that spies posing as El Al staff have been operating at Johannesburg airport, gathering information on non-Jewish passengers visiting Israel.
El Al has threatened to close the route after South African officials stopped providing the airport guards with diplomatic immunity.
South African TV reported last month that two of the Mossad assassins suspected of killing a Hamas commander in Dubai in January may have used Johannesburg airport to fly back to Israel.
Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel.
Hard Talk
By Nahida | April 20, 2010
Zionists occupiers… Heed my call
Like most people, I do believe in dialogue and civilized coexistence, like most people I long to live in dignity and freedom in my homeland, like most people I yearn for peace and justice for every human, like most people I like to foster loving and trusting relationships with all decent individuals; however, our problem with the Zionist occupiers is not about hate and distrust as they like to believe, it’s not about security as you constantly declare, nor is it about dialogue or lack of it thereof!
Our problem with you is not confined to the many aspects of your occupation, human right abuses, checkpoints, walls, collective punishment and assassinations.
The origin of our problem is as profound as a the roots of a fig tree, buried deep and covered up with piles of dishonesty and deceit, yet its fruits has the pungent taste of supremacy, arrogance, racism, dehumanization, theft, and war crimes, and no amount of fig tree leaves could conceal or beautify.
So, to unearth the core of the problem and spell the truth-out loud and clear, I am going to direct my words towards the Zionists of all shades and affiliations.
Furthermore, I am going to be to honest and blunt here; as the catastrophic situation that they have created does not stomach glossing over any longer
Zionist occupiers:
I must warn you; that what I am going to say is not going to be very pleasant, it will taste as bitter as the chilling years of your occupation, as cold as the barren roots of our uprooted olive trees, and as sour as the dry lips of dying babies at your military checkpoints.
My words will be parched, choking and hard to swallow; it will be as rigid and impervious as the cement of your apartheid wall
My words will smell of tear gas and burning flesh of infants while cuddled in their mothers’ arms after an air raid
My words will be burning hot like a bullet penetrating the head of a little boy as he picked a stone to throw at his oppressor
My words will be sizzling with blazing fire like the one ton bomb dropped from afar at a neighbourhood of sleeping women and children
My words will be gushing causing excruciating pain and discomfort because it stems from the depth of my wounded, distressed and agonised soul that was tormented by your people for the entirety of my existence.
So Zionist occupiers heed my words;
Our problem with you is not a “conflict” between two warring parties, who are similarly wrong and equally guilty as you shamelessly often describe… NO… NO… NO
The problem is one of aggression, oppression, colonization, theft, and occupation on your side, and one of being oppressed, exploited, and occupied on our side.
It’s one is of a crime of theft of a whole country and the ethnic cleansing of a whole nation by your people on the one hand and a displaced and dominated population on the other
It’s one of a CRIMINAL THIEF and a DISPOSSESSED VICTIM
To equate the two is nothing but an act of deception and a manifestation of moral bankruptcy.
A whole lot of your people came from ALL over the world, stole our homeland, dispossessed and expelled us, took over our homes and farms, destroyed our villages and history, occupied our country, oppressed those who stayed behind, killed and maimed who dared to demand their rights or attempted to assert their humanity, demonized and subjugated us to a racist, bigoted and ruthless set of laws that don’t apply to yourselves; then you come with chilling cold-heartedness and assert that both parties are equally guilty!!
Which planet are you living on?
By what principles do you abide?
What ethics do you follow?
Have you ever questioned the morality of your actions as multinationals who gave themselves the liberty to come to our homeland -which I am denied the right to live in- take it over by violence and bloodshed, then settle there on the ruins of the villages you’ve annihilated, dwelling in the homes of some dispossessed Palestinians, for no other justifications than the dominance of your Jewishness and the fact that we are not Jews?
Does that not smell of rotten racism, arrogance and supremacy to your clogged-up conscience?
The only crime that our people committed is that they existed on the land of their ancestors which you proclaimed as a God given-right to Jews only.
Your people have destroyed our culture, denied our existence as human beings, treated us for four generation with sheer cruelty, ruthlessness and contempt, and subjugated us to inconceivable savagery and humiliation, and denied us even the right to defend ourselves on our stolen Palestine under the pretext of “terrorism”
On top of all that your people have lied and lied, until they believed their own lies, you managed to brainwash yourselves with packs of cover-ups and masks of reality until truth became so blur and obscured, so much so that most of your people refuse even to acknowledge their own crimes of theft of a whole country and disposition of a whole nation
You stole the land of our ancestors and forefathers under the claim that some few thousands years back in history, some people who followed your religion have lived there, and apparently secured a contract with God affirming the eternal ownership of this land
How dare you give yourselves these abhorrent privileges of taking over someone’s home and homeland just because you belong to a particular faith?
How does an American Jew, a Russian Jew, an African Jew, a Japanese Jew, an Indian Jew or a German Jew have anything to do with the Land of Palestine?
If you think we are some kind of brainless retarded human beings who lack your “intelligence”, “emotions” and “morality” and who would just disregard what happened to them sixty years ago, and who would be happy to live as your inferiors in their own homeland; you better think again
We are sick and tired of witnessing your crimes for decades on end
We are sick and tired of your deception, false claims and the pretence of innocence and victim-hood
We are sick and tired of your orchestrated peace processes and leading-no-where road-maps
What is needed at this stage is not dialogue and reconciliation, what is most urgently needed is to STOP ALL your incessant ugly racism, supremacy, aggression and assault, to put a halt to your crimes, and to take a serious look in the mirror as a whole “population” and see what monsters have you become!
You need to address within your immoral and utterly sick society the obscene injustices you’ve inflected upon us
You need to deal with the hideous, corrupt, aggressive, militarized and wicked society that you have become
Before worrying about the hate and distrust that engulfs you, you ought to be worrying about the crimes of your own people and the injustices they have committed -and still committing- and how to facilitate for justice to run its course, and how to restore back the rights of millions that you have violated.
That requires an inner reflection of you as a whole people, it requires an honest and sincere look within yourselves, serious questioning of the “history” that you were taught, a bursting of the bubble that you are living in, it requires that you stop all your acts of aggression, theft of land, humiliation, murder, and destruction of our community, and above all, it requires that you step down from the high ground that you placed yourselves on, and be prepared to GIVE UP ALL the privileges that you have bestowed upon yourselves by the “virtue” of your Jewishness!
It also requires restoring our rights back including the right of return of all refugees, AND the compensation to ALL those who suffered from your Frankenstein creation of the racist Zionist entity… more
Poetry for Palestine
A collection of my writings of prose, poems and dialogues with my friends
Of volcanoes and panic
RIA Novosti military commentator Ilya Kramnik | April 20, 2010
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them under control. I trust you are not in too much distress.”
This optimistic statement was made on June 24, 1982 aboard a British Airways B-747 airliner bound from London for Auckland with stop-overs in Bombay, Madras, Kuala Lumpur, Perth and Melbourne.
The airliner, however, failed to reach its destination. At 8:40 p.m. Jakarta time, south of Java in the Indian Ocean, co-pilot Roger Greaves and flight engineer Barry Townley-Freeman noticed St. Elmo’s fire appearing on the windshield. St. Elmo’s fire is a special kind of coronal discharge originating from a high-voltage electrical field in the atmosphere. From inside it looked as though tracer bullets were hitting the plane. Soon the aircraft commander, Eric Moody, also noted the phenomenon. He had returned to the cockpit after a short absence.
As a rule, St. Elmo’s fire indicates thunderstorm clouds nearby, but the weather radar displayed nothing of the sort. Still, the crew switched on a de-icing system for safety’s sake and “fasten your belts” lights went on in the cabin.
There was no thunderstorm in the region, however. It appeared that the airliner, flying at an altitude of 11,000 meters, entered a cloud of volcanic ash suddenly spewed by the Javan volcano Galunggung.
Fumes began building in the passenger cabin. Knowing nothing of the volcano, the general conclusion was that it was cigarette smoking – in those days smoking was allowed on aircraft. Soon, however, the fumes thickened, setting off an alarm in the cabin. Crew members set about searching for the cause, but naturally failed to find any.
Meanwhile, many passengers looking out the aircraft windows spotted an unusually brilliant glow on the body surface and particularly on the engines as though each carried a lamp illuminating the way ahead through compressor blades, which created a stroboscopic effect. This glow came from electrified dust particles that had settled on the surface of engine nacelles and on the compressor blades.
At about 8:42 p.m. Jakarta time, engine No. 4 failed because of a flameout. The co-pilot and flight engineer went into the immediate procedure of shutting the engine down, cutting the fuel supply and, just in case, activating a fire-extinguishing system. In the meantime the commander handled the controls, trying to cope with uneven thrust.
The passengers also noticed long yellow glowing streaks emanating from the remaining engines. Less than a minute after shutting down engine No.4, there was a blowout in engine No.2, which also stopped.
Before the crew could initiate the process of cutting down the engine, there was a blowout in the remaining engines, No.1 and No.3, and the windshield went opaque. The flight engineer exclaimed: “I can’t believe it – all the engines have stopped.” It was at that moment that Eric Moody made the statement quoted at the beginning of the article – with a characteristically British sense of humor.
The heavy airliner headed back to Jakarta, hoping to make an emergency landing. But to reach the capital of Indonesia, it was necessary to re-start at least one engine. The alternative was ditching in the far from welcoming waters of the ocean filled with all kinds of dangers – high waves could make the rescue of the crew and passengers difficult, and strong currents could scatter the safety rafts far adrift, not to mention sharks.
An aircraft with a take-off weight of 380 tons became a glider. With the engines shut down, a Jumbo Jet (the nickname of the B-747) can glide 15 km per each kilometer in lost altitude. Commander Moody calculated that from an altitude of 11 km the airliner could glide for 23 minutes, covering a distance of 169 kilometers.
But the descent was more rapid. Air pressure in the cabin dropped: the cabin pressure compressors were driven by the engines which had stopped. Given these bleak realities, the plane was unlikely to negotiate the mountains and land in Jakarta. The crew began preparing to splashdown in the ocean.
The aircraft exited from an ash cloud at 8:56 p.m. Jakarta time, after about 13 minutes of gliding. At that point, it was at 12,000 feet in the air. At this height, the crew managed to fire one engine and then the three others (one engine, however, later went dead again when the Boeing climbed and reentered the cloud). The aircraft was able to successfully land in Jakarta.
The mechanics who broke down the engines found a great mass of molten ash in the turbines that had plugged the lines. All four engines had to be replaced.
Another volcanic incident also involved a Boeing-747, this time flown by KLM on the Amsterdam-Tokyo route. While on approach to Anchorage, Alaska, the airliner hit a cloud of ash spewed by the volcano Mt Redoubt. All four engines failed. But the aircraft captain, Karl van der Elst, managed to save the day – after descending more than 4,000 meters the crew succeeded in restarting the engines.
Both cases show the dangers of volcano eruptions for aircraft but in both cases the aircraft suddenly found themselves in dense ash clouds while in direct proximity to fire-spewing mountains where the concentration of hard particles was the highest.
At a considerable distance from a volcano, the ash concentration in the air falls off by many orders of magnitude, and such a large-scale closing of air space in Eurasia, following the eruption of the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallojokull, is more reminiscent of hysteria than a real assessment of danger.
Seen against this background, the quiet operation of Russia’s Aeroflot, which continues its flights despite any volcanoes, is worth noting.
See also:
Volcanic ash cloud: Met Office blamed for unnecessary six-day closure
Al-Qaeda Chief In Iraq: Captured, Killed, Never Actually Existed, Re-Captured, Now Killed Again
Steve Watson | Prisonplanet.com | April 19th, 2010
U.S. and Iraqi officials have today announced that two “Al-Qaeda in Iraq” leaders have been killed in an air strike carried out by American troops. A major flaw in the story that seems to have been overlooked, is that both of the men have already been reported captured and killed on several occasions, with U.S. officials also having previously declared one of them a “fictional character” that was invented by the other!
The Washington Post reports:
The deaths of Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, and Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, the head of an umbrella group that includes al-Qaeda in Iraq, should disrupt insurgent attacks inside the country, officials said. Their slayings could also provide Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki (pictured above) with a decisive political boost at a critical time.
“The death of these terrorists is potentially the most significant blow to al-Qaeda in Iraq since the beginning of the insurgency,” Gen. Ray Odierno, the top commander of U.S. troops in Iraq said in a statement. “There is still work to do but this is a significant step forward in ridding Iraq [of] terrorists.”
The two insurgent leaders were said to have been killed on Saturday in a night raid involving Iraqi and American forces.
United States military officials confirmed that Iraqi security forces had killed the two men. “The death of these two terrorists is a potentially devastating blow to Al Qaeda in Iraq,” the American command said in a statement.
He (the Iraqi prime minister) said the house was destroyed, and the two bodies were found in a hole in the ground where they had apparently been hiding.
Bizarrely, the Reuters piece quotes the Iraqi prime minister pinpointing the location of the raid as “a house in Thar-Thar, a rural area 50 miles west of Baghdad that is regarded as a hotbed of Qaeda activity”, however, the Washington Post report quotes U.S. officials saying the raid occurred “a few miles southwest of Tikrit”. If you look at a map of Iraq, those two descriptions do not entirely add up, unless you consider “a few miles” to be over 100. Certainly a more specific location could have been given.
However, that is perhaps the least of the problems surrounding this story.
Anyone who reads the news should be feeling a profound sense of déjà vu, because almost a year ago to the day, al-Baghdadi was reported captured by Iraqi security forces. His arrest was confirmed by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, the same man now purporting that Baghdadi has been killed in a raid.
Al-Baghdadi was the replacement al-CIA-da boogie man for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was also previously reported captured and killed on several occasions, after al-Zarqawi was laid to rest for good by the PR arm of the Pentagon in 2006.
The announcement of al-Baghdadi’s capture year ago, jarred with multiple previous reports over a two years period, detailing his arrest, his death and even questioning his existence altogether.
In March 2007, the Interior Ministry of Iraq claimed that al-Baghdadi had been captured in Baghdad. This was reported by AP and picked up by the likes of CNN, whose report stated that another insurgent had positively confirmed al-Baghdadi’s identity.
The U.S. military denied that al-Baghdadi was in their custody, however, and one day later Iraqi officials retracted their statements regarding his arrest.
Indeed this back and forth announcement of capture and later retraction occurred three times in the space of one week.
Then one month later, on May 3, 2007, the Iraqi Interior Ministry announced that al-Baghdadi had been killed by American and Iraqi forces north of Baghdad.
However, in July 2007, the U.S. military declared that al-Baghdadi had never actually existed and was, for all intents and purposes, a myth.
A reportedly high ranking “Al Qaeda in Iraq” detainee identified as Khaled al-Mashhadani, then claimed that al-Baghdadi was a fictional character created to give an Iraqi face to a foreign-run terror group, and that the “Islamic State of Iraq” was a “virtual organisation in cyberspace” created by al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Ayub al Masri.
The person claiming to be Baghdadi continued to release video and audiotapes attacking U.S. occupation of Iraq, but refused to show his face.
The U.S. military’s claim that Baghdadi is a fictitious character was then challenged in May 2008 after a police chief in Haditha said Baghdadi’s real identity is Hamed Dawood Mohammed Khalil al Zawi. “He was an officer in the security services and was dismissed from the army because of his extremism,” the police chief told al Arabiya television.
A year later, in April 2009, following his latest capture, the Iraqi government displayed a picture of Baghdadi for the first time, adding that they were attempting to glean information from him.
The Al Qaeda-linked group the Islamic State of Iraq denied the government reports that al-Baghdadi had been captured, and according to the SITE Institute, released a “genuine” recording of Baghdadi announcing that he was still at large.
But Iraqi officials then released a video of Baghdadi’s interrogation, in which he claimed responsibility for the bombing of a Shia shrine in Samarra in February 2006, and also described how his terrorist group was funded.
However, tapes and messages continued to be released throughout 2009 in the name of Baghdadi, claiming that he had not been captured and spurring on militants in Iraq. Up to the present day in 2010, such messages continued to be reported on by mainstream sources, such as the Associated Press, without any explanation as to how a captured terrorist could be releasing the material.
Now Baghdadi has been reported killed again!
The story becomes even more intriguing given that the second man reported to have been killed and found in a ditch last Saturday was Abu Ayub al Masri – the “creator” of the fictional character of al-Baghdadi.
Al Masri himself was also reported to have been killed in May 2007. He then rose from the dead to be captured in May 2008 in a joint US-Iraqi operation.
Prime Minister al-Maliki’s presumed amnesia over the fact that he already annouced Baghdadi captured less than twelve months ago becomes more suspect when you take into account that he is trying to negotiate support for his State of Law coalition following parliamentary elections in which it emerged only as the second largest bloc.
Presumably the ridiculous loose ends of this soap opera will now be tied off and memory holed – although we cannot put it past al Masri and his imaginary friend to rise from the grave one more time a year down the line, particularly given that the Baghdadi character keeps being resurrected and acknowledged by the Iraqi government, the U.S. military and the mainstream media.
This saga is another example of how a manufactured smoke and mirrors propaganda veils reality. The “war on terror” mantra continues to be propagated as justification to wage permanent occupation and control over the middle east by the global elite.
Already Joe Biden is parading around, announcing the news as a “devastating blow” delivered to Al Qaeda.
Al Qaeda in Iraq, al Zarqawi, al Baghdadi and the legions of other al qaeda operatives who have been reportedly captured and killed over and over are used as interchangeable PR tools.
Are or were any of them ever real? Possibly. Was there more than one Baghdadi? Maybe. However those facts matter little now.
Once again 99% of the corporate media will no doubt enthusiastically champion the latest killings as a key victory in the continuing war on terror, and the majority of Americans who even notice will not take a second glance at the ludicrous back story.
Obama Affirms ‘Unbreakable’ US-Israel Ties
Al-Manar TV – 20/04/2010
President Barack Obama said Monday on the 62nd declaration of the Zionist entity on the Palestinian land that the United States shares an “unbreakable bond” with Israel and he was confident the relationship “will only be strengthened” into the future.
Despite tensions between Obama and the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the US leader stressed that he looks “forward to continuing our efforts with Israel to achieve comprehensive peace and security in the region, including a two-state solution.”
Obama said in a statement released by the White House that “we once again honor the extraordinary achievements of the people of Israel, and their deep and abiding friendship with the American people.”
On Sunday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the United States “will not waver in protecting Israel’s security and promoting Israel’s future,” while noting while the Jewish state is “confronting some of the greatest challenges in its history, but its promise and potential have never been greater.”
Clinton also pointed out that in 1948 it took President Harry Truman just 11 minutes to recognize the state of Israel. “And ever since, the United States has stood with you in solidarity.”
University told to hand over tree ring data
BBC | April 19, 2010
Queen’s University in Belfast has been told by the Information Commissioner to hand over 40 years of research data on tree rings, used for climate research.
Douglas Keenan, from London, had asked for the information in 2007 under the Freedom of Information Act. Mr Keenan is well-known for his questioning of scientists who propose a human cause for climate change.
Queen’s University refused his request saying it was too expensive, but it is now considering its position. The university claimed that as the information was unfinished, had intellectual property rights and was commercially confidential information, it did not have to pass it on. After a series of counter claims from Mr Keenan and the intervention of the Information Commissioner, Queen’s have now been told that they could be in contempt of court if they do not hand the data over.
In his legal decision, the commissioner said that Queen’s had failed in its procedural requirements and had wrongly used legal exemptions to withhold the requested information.
Mr Keenan, who hopes to use the data to reconstruct temperatures during the Medieval Warm period, said “this has taken three years, but it is worth it. “It is an important victory for FoI on research data,” he said.
Tree ring data is used by climate scientists to study historical climate information.
BBC environment correspondent Richard Black said Mr Keenan’s victory has a wider context.
“This is the latest development in an on-going process that has seen ‘climate sceptics’ attempting to obtain raw data and documentation on methodologies from researchers, especially those working to understand the climate of the past, ” he explained.
“The sceptics’ contention is that academics have, through error or will, mis-represented Earth’s temperature record so as to portray a picture of a warming planet.
“The on-going series of reviews into climate science at the University of East Anglia – the so-called ‘ClimateGate’ affair – has concluded that scientists ought to have been more open with data than has typically been the case.”
VoteVets.org Crosses the Line
By Kelley B. Vlahos, April 20, 2010
Anyone paying attention to veterans’ issues on Capitol Hill these days has no doubt heard of VoteVets.org.
During the Bush administration, this group was a thorn in the side of the Republican pro-war agenda that put millions of servicemen and women through the meat grinder in Iraq and Afghanistan. It exposed and derided scandalous weaknesses in the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) mental health care system, called for the closing of Gitmo, and fought for the modernization of the GI Bill so that vets could actually go to college as Uncle Sam promised.
So today we are forced to ask one simple question of VoteVets: what’s up with you?
Though technically it is a non-partisan 401(c)(4) organization (that’s Washington-speak for a political non-profit), VoteVets also has a political action committee (PAC) dedicated to electing veterans to Congress. The group’s preferred candidates happen to be Democrats who subscribe to a “progressive” agenda, particularly on issues of national security and foreign policy. The millions of dollars VoteVets has spent in the last two election cycles also paid for negative campaign ads against Republicans in tight races, including the 2008 presidential contest. Fine. Over the last several years, that mission has seemed almost necessary in terms of providing pushback against the influential neoconservative-dominated national security establishment in Washington.
But then comes this new advertising campaign, and for the first time, VoteVets.org looks less like a veterans’ lobby than a full-fledged water-carrier for Democratic interests on Capitol Hill. Not only that, VoteVets.org is employing the same dirty rhetorical tricks that neoconservative hawks invoked to get us into Iraq and Afghanistan – and now possibly Iran:
There are so many things wrong with this advertisement that one wonders if the smartypants at the American Enterprise Institute put it out themselves and slapped the VoteVets.org logo on it. Indeed, the minute it hit the airways back in March, you could almost hear Michael Ledeen and Frank Gaffney giggling gleefully from either side of the Potomac. Liz Cheney might as well have canceled an ad buy in her own Keep America Safe campaign to save some money.
All joking aside, it is troubling to see a group that has been forthright about taking care of the grunts in the field and veterans in our communities indulging in stale neoconservative tropes to appeal to Americans’ base prejudices and fears, all to win a debate over climate-change legislation that the American public has yet to see, much less absorb and weigh in on.
It’s just another example of how seductive Washington politics can be, and how off-putting it is to see veterans exploited, once again, for political gain.
Fellow Antiwar.com columnist and intelligence expert Phil Giraldi had this to say about the ad: “I don’t have any problem with supporting clean energy, though I wonder what that has to do with VoteVets, unless it is a lobbying effort to get groups behind Obama’s next domestic program, which might be the intention of this promotion.”
That seems to be how it’s shaping up, given that the ads are part of a $3 million campaign to promote clean energy legislation favored by progressive Democrats in Congress. The group is also targeting a “bipartisan” package being crafted by Senators John Kerry (D), Lindsey Graham (R), and Joe Lieberman (I), which VoteVets say is too stacked in favor of Big Oil and takes the federal government out of regulating greenhouse gases. No doubt that is why it is running these emotionally stoked and muscular energy ads in swing districts across the country.
“Three years ago, VoteVets would have never used the word ‘enemy’ in an ad like this,” pointed out Inter Press News Service correspondent Gareth Porter. Now we know why. Making a vote against Big Oil a patriotic act against the “Iranian menace” might prove useful in shaming members who do not agree with the planks in their preferred energy agenda.
Is Energy a Veterans’ Issue?
VoteVets.org chairman John Soltz, who as an Iraq vet has been an effective critic of the war overseas (indeed, VoteVets opposed the current surge of 30,000 troops into Afghanistan), recently repeated his group’s cock-eyed brief on MSNBC. “We have states like Iran who are then earning money off our demand and passing that off to terrorist organizations across the Middle East,” he told liberal host Ed Schultz, who flashed a graphic of a poll commissioned by VoteVets.org [.pdf] that conveniently found 73 percent of veterans in favor of “clean energy legislation.”
Come again?
Simply put, the liberal-leaning VoteVets hired Lake Research Partners, a Democratic polling firm, to gin up this issue as a priority for American veterans. But is it really? The question that elicited the 73 percent positive response was this: “Do you favor or oppose a comprehensive clean energy and climate bill that invests in clean, renewable energy sources in America and limits carbon pollution in the atmosphere?”
Sure, a majority of Democrats, Republicans, and independents favor it, according to the poll, but it tells us virtually nothing about what the respondents want specifically, much less that a plan by progressive Democrats in Washington is at all preferred. We all know veterans are not a monolithic group, and while most would agree they want their VA benefits on time and a GI Bill that works, to suggest they all support federal regulation of greenhouse gases and so-called “cap and trade” measures is quite presumptuous.
Liberal Backlash
Despite the campaign’s progressive goals, the ad itself has certainly left the group’s loyal liberal supporters scratching their heads. Wrote pundit Taylor Marsh in March:
“Well, if you wanted to give Sarah Palin’s bomb, bomb, bomb Iran team a freebie, the new Vote Vets ad is it. However, it’s supposed to be about Congress getting us off oil and on to clean energy in order to keep us out of real life energy wars. Instead it serves up powerful visuals and a narrative that promotes going straight at Iran. …
“[T]he ad is a cynical appeal using fear about Iran, specifically, through EFPs [explosively formed penetrators] to get the job done. Vote Vets could have begun the ad the way you ended it, immediately making the oil-clean energy connection, but didn’t. You purposefully chose to focus on the fear card and the Iran boogieman, complete with a picture of Ahmadinejad, before making your clean energy pitch, because you thought that would get the attention. … But they got the emotional appeal exactly backwards, stressing Iranian dangers instead of energy dependence and they did it deliberately.”
To which VoteVets.org representative Richard Allen Smith immediately responded on Marsh’s Web site, “Being that we also created StopIranWar.com, if we’re trying to convince anyone the US should invade Iran, we’re doing a pretty terrible job.”
Sadly, when you click onto StopIranWar.com on the VoteVets.org Web site, there’s nothing to see. Not sure what that is all about. Smith also wrote: “What is dishonest in the ad? Point to one assertion that is untrue.”
Is the ad untrue? Depends on whom you ask. Dishonest? Certainly. I reached out to VoteVets.org media relations man Eric Schmeltzer over the weekend to get some background on the assertion that for every $1 increase in oil on the global market, the government of Iran gets another $1.5 billion in annual revenue, and moreover, that any increase in oil revenue goes directly to the Iranian manufacture of EFPs used against U.S. forces in Iraq or, by extension, Afghanistan.
He said he’d get back to me on the first part of the question but added that the “claim about EFPs is consistent, it says they were created in Iran, which they were. Now, most insurgents have the ability to make them. But the originals came from Iran.”
Schmeltzer might have been suggesting that VoteVets never claimed Iran was directly supplying weapons to hurt our troops, but the ad certainly insinuates that linkage. Soltz also made the charge more directly on his MSNBC appearance on April 8.
I am going to assume then, that in part, the basic premise of the advertisement was culled from this August 2009 report [.pdf] by the Center for American Progress, which is displayed prominently on the VoteVets.org Web site as an accompanying resource in the clean-energy campaign:
“America’s oil dependence has other indirect but no less serious impacts on U.S. interests. For example, high rates of American consumption drive up global demand for oil, which fuels lofty prices and helps to fund and to sustain undemocratic and corrupt regimes. Because of this anti-Western nations such as Iran – with whom the United States by law cannot trade or buy oil – benefit regardless of who the end buyer of the fuel is. …
“Reducing U.S. oil demand in the world market would be a big financial hit to Iran and other unfriendly petrostates.”
The Iranian Connection
Giraldi called this linking of the production and deployment of IEDs to U.S. consumption of oil “largely baloney.”
“The IED technology is simple and has been adapted everywhere from Northern Ireland (where it originated) to today’s Afghanistan. There is no evidence whatsoever that money used to buy oil goes to terrorists (we are funding them directly through bribes paid to move our equipment and supplies in AfPak) and that Iran is profiting thereby and killing our soldiers. What a load of nonsense!”
“There has never been any proof that the Iranian government has any connection with EFPs or other militarized activity in Iraq or Afghanistan. Zero. Nada,” complained war correspondent Dahr Jamail in an e-mail exchange. “It seems funny they are resurrecting a long-since defunct Bush propaganda tactic … seems to me like they could use a new PR person – someone a little more savvy.”
The military of course has been trying to establish such a link for years. In 2008, the U.S. captured several Iranian agents associated with the so-called Iranian “Special Groups” in Iraq. Also in 2008, military officials said they had evidence that sources within Iran were supplying rogue Shia militias with EFPs, while in 2007, President George W. Bush charged that the Iranian Quds Force, a unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, was causing unrest and supporting the insurgency in Iraq.
Many of the broader linkages have been maintained and promulgated to this day through neoconservative think-tanks and publications such as the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, The Long War Journal, and The Weekly Standard.
However, a report this March [.pdf] by the Congressional Research Service found that while Iran maintained a high and complicated level of political influence in Iraq, the charges regarding its connection to militant activity over the border were simmering down.
Meanwhile, links between Iran and EFP attacks against Westerners in Afghanistan are tenuous. In fact, despite reports about Iranian-made weapons in the hands of the Taliban, Gen. Stanley McChrystal was forced to tell reporters just four days ago that he has no evidence the Iranian government is channeling weapons or fighters into Afghanistan.
But back to the VoteVets advertisement.
It is so hard to stomach because not only does it indicate the group’s willingness to compromise its standards of truth in order to win over votes in a problematic legislative battle, but it is cynically using our feelings about veterans and our fears of war to do it.
Which is disappointing, since Soltz was one of the first people with Iraq credentials to weigh in publicly on the unexpected resignation of Navy Adm. William Fallon in 2008. Fallon, who was considered one of the military’s most important bulwarks against a neoconservative drive toward war with Iran, said he felt he had to resign after his views were showcased in an April 2008 article in Esquire.
This is what Soltz had to say at the time:
“Let’s call a spade a spade here. Admiral Fallon has not so quietly had severe disagreements with the White House on our Iraq policy, how it impacts the region and global war on terror, for which he is largely responsible, and warning against war with Iran.
“Just one year into his tenure as CENTCOM commander, Fallon resigned today, and you can read into it nothing more than a resignation in protest. …
“Another voice of reason bites the dust.”
Please, Soltz, don’t let VoteVets.org be yet another voice of reason to bite the dust. Continue to elect Democratic veterans to Congress if you must. Keep fighting for energy independence, for sure. But leave the neoconservative appeals and the gratuitous use of veterans out of it. As Gareth Porter said so succinctly, it may be “the politically clever thing to do, but never make hash out of the truth – it’ll come back to bite you.”
Israel Support Letter Unsupported by Reality
By Jay Barr, April 20, 2010
The Boxer-Isakson “Israel Support Letter” [.pdf] addressed to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and currently signed by 76 senators [.pdf] answers a question no one needed to ask: Does the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) have the support of the United States Senate? However, unlike the proverbial napkin former AIPAC bigwig Steven Rosen boasted that he could have signed by 70 senators within 24 hours, this particular piece of paper contains a slew of Likud talking points, few of which are supported by reality. Some read an implicit rebuke of the Obama administration in the letter for the administration’s alleged spat with Israel, though despite the new conventional wisdom that there’s a major schism between the two, it would be hard to point to on-the-record words or actions taken by the Obama administration that translate into substantive criticism of Israeli policies.
The letter states, “Despite your [Clinton’s] best efforts, Israeli-Palestinian negotiations have been frozen for over a year.” If Clinton were truly making her best efforts to restart the peace process, she would wield the considerable U.S. leverage of aid to tiny Israel in order to rein in their increasingly extreme activities that violate even their own lukewarm prior commitments. One commitment, the so-called settlement freeze, involves the seemingly self-evident notion that if you are serious about good-faith negotiations over borders you do not continue to expand your territory into the ever shrinking piece that is well-established as belonging to the other side. Instead, Clinton bragged at her recent speech to AIPAC about the increase in U.S. aid to Israel in 2010 and the planned increase for 2011.
Several paragraphs later, the letter goes on: “Israel continues to be the one true democracy in the Middle East that brings stability to a region where it is in short supply.” How much of a “true democracy” Israel actually is is debatable, especially given restrictions on free speech, discrimination against Arab Israelis based solely on ethnicity, the disproportionate influence of the radical “settler” minority, and the apartheid system and blockade forced on Palestinians in the occupied territories. However, the real whopper in the sentence is the notion that Israel brings any sort of stability to the Middle East. Without a doubt the two most destabilizing forces in the Middle East are the tag team of the United States and Israel, which has a combined resumé that in the past four years includes full-scale wars waged on Iraq, Lebanon, and Gaza; missile and bomb strikes on Syria and Yemen; assassination in the United Arab Emirates; and countless credible threats against Iran. Israel’s undeclared nuclear arsenal and refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty also undermine regional stability, especially given Israel’s penchant for disproportionate escalations of force against its neighbors.
Seventy-six senators want the secretary of state to remember that “Israel has been a consistent, reliable ally and friend and has helped to advance American interests. … We must never forget the depth and breadth of our alliance and always do our utmost to reinforce a relationship that has benefited both nations for more than six decades.” While it is very kind of the senators to at least pay lip service to the interests of the people they were elected to represent, unsurprisingly there are no specifics on exactly what Israel has ever done that “benefited both nations” or “advance[d] American interests.” Support for Israel has certainly exacted a heavy toll, though; from the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing to both World Trade Center attacks, most animosity toward the United States emanating from the Middle East is a result of unconditional support, supply, and diplomatic sheltering of Israel despite its constant deviation from international norms and standards of justice. The cost is also financial, with billions from the insolvent U.S. going to a nation that can even afford to provide universal health care. Furthermore, most people could safely expect a “consistent, reliable ally and friend” not to spy on them repeatedly or attack and kill them as in the 1967 U.S.S. Liberty murders.
Despite all the glaring errors and omissions in this latest statement of support, the senators are not completely incorrect; there is nothing wrong with the people of the United States and the people of Israel supporting each other if it truly benefits both nations (though George Washington warned in his farewell address against “passionate attachment” for an ally). However, in recent years the positions taken by Olmert/Netanyahu and Bush/Obama are desirable to no one but the “settlers” in Israel and the evangelical Rapture-seekers in the United States. If the United States Senate truly wants to express its support for the Israeli people, it will stay out of the way of the peace process and stop prolonging the unacceptable status quo with a steady stream of assistance to their intransigent government.
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With apparently fabricated nuclear documents, Netanyahu pushed the US towards war with Iran
By Gareth Porter | The Grayzone | April 29, 2020
President Donald Trump scrapped the nuclear deal with Iran and continued to risk war with Iran based on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claim to have proven definitively that Iran was determined to manufacture nuclear weapons. Netanyahu not only spun Trump but much of the corporate media as well, duping them with the public unveiling of what he claimed was the entire secret Iranian “nuclear archive.”
In early April 2018, Netanyahu briefed Trump privately on the supposed Iranian nuclear archive and secured his promise to leave the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). That April 30, Netanyahu took the briefing to the public in a characteristically dramatic live performance in which he claimed Israel’s Mossad intelligence services had stolen Iran’s entire nuclear archive from Tehran. “You may well know that Iran’s leaders repeatedly deny ever pursuing nuclear weapons…” Netanyahu declared. “Well, tonight, I’m here to tell you one thing: Iran lied. Big time.”
However, an investigation of the supposed Iranian nuclear documents by The Grayzone reveals them to be the product of an Israeli disinformation operation that helped trigger the most serious threat of war since the conflict with Iran began nearly four decades ago. This investigation found multiple indications that the story of Mossad’s heist of 50,000 pages of secret nuclear files from Tehran was very likely an elaborate fiction and that the documents were fabricated by the Mossad itself. … continue
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Aletho News- 40 Years of Endless War, Data Point by Data Point
- Department of War Using Palantir AI to Pick Targets in Iran
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- ‘Heinous crime’: Iran denounces Israeli assassination of 4 Iranian diplomats in Lebanon
- John Mearsheimer: U.S. Already Lost Iran War – No Off-Ramp in Sight
- UK Parliament Plans ISP Blocking and Age Verification Powers
- World cannot remain silent as US and Israel attack ‘heritage of humankind’: Iran
- If Americans Knew
- Israeli strategic plans to “remake the Middle East” from the 1950s and since
- Honoring Gaza’s women who refused to let the world look away
- 97% of victims of war on Iran are Iranian, 98% of victims in war on Gaza are Gazans – Not a ceasefire Day 152
- Early Iran strikes cost $5.6 billion in munitions, Pentagon estimates
- Israel Decided the War, But Trump’s America Fights and Pays the Bill
- Conscientious Objector Group: Phone ‘Ringing Off Hook’ As Huge Mobilization Underway
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- Threats and missiles fly, death tolls soar in Iran, Lebanon, Gaza – Not a ceasefire Day 151
- Lebanon: Israel’s White Phosphorous Use Risks Civilian Harm
- Corporate Media Go All Out To Support The US-Israeli War On Iran
- No Tricks Zone
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- New Study Documents A 20-Year Pause In Arctic Sea Ice Decline – Driven By Internal Variability
- Wake-up Call: Survey Shows Majority Of Germans Now Favor Postponing Climate Targets!
- Televised! Leading German Political Candidate Tells Schoolchildren CO2 Makes Sun Hotter!
- New Study: A Century Warming Of 1.1°C Is ‘Commonplace’ And ‘Not Unusual’ During This Interglacial
- New Study: ‘Internal Noise’ And Volcanic Forcing Can Trigger 10-15°C Warming Within Decades
- Glaciers Worldwide Are Suddendly Surging, Experts Blame Warming!
- Surprising Discovery: Sahara Is Greening…Billions Of Trees Where Once Thought To Be Barren
- New Research Reaffirms Clouds, Aerosols, And Surface Solar Radiation Are ‘Driving The Climate System’
- Germany: Electric Car Catches Fire At Charging Station, Sets Off Local “Inferno”, Widespread Damage
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