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Justice Done, 25 Years After Venezuela’s Yumare Massacre of 1986

By Rachael Boothroyd – Venezuelanalysis.com – May 9, 2011

This past Friday, the Judiciary Circuit in Yaracuy state sentenced retired army general Alexis Ramón Sanchéz to 13 years house arrest due to his participation in the 1986 massacre in Yumare.

On the 8th of May 1986, during the presidency of Jaime Lusinchi, nine revolutionary leaders from the socio-political movement “The Historical Social Current” were tortured and executed by four undercover agents from the now disbanded “Intelligence and Prevention Services Agency” (Disip) under command of Henry Lopéz Sisco.

In an attempt to end impunity the Chávez administration re-opened the case of the Yumare massacre – as well as those of La Cantaura (1982) and El Amparo (1988) – and legal proceedings began in 2006. Charges were officially brought against Sanchéz and other ex-Disip personnel including; Oswaldo Ramos, Eugenio Creassola, Freddy Granger, William Prado, Raúl Fernández, Adán Quero and Hernán Vega in August 2009.

Sanchéz confessed to his role in the massacre, confirming that the killings were part of an ‘intentional’ and ‘planned’ operation, orchestrated by state security forces at the time. In addition, the ex-general collaborated with the Venezuelan authorities by providing the identities of other individuals responsible for the massacre. According to the lawyer acting on behalf of the victims, Adán Navas, Sanchéz asked the families of the eight men and one woman for forgiveness.

Navas highlighted the importance of the judgement, stating that “this proves that, for the first time in Venezuela, justice is being done with regards to this crime.”

Drawing a comparison with other South American countries, Navas stressed that “the fact that a general confessed and denounced (others who participated) sets a precedent in Latin America, since in other legal proceedings against the dictatorships of the Southern Cone (such as in Argentina and Uruguay) no military official has admitted to being guilty”.

Whereas trials against protagonists of human rights abuses committed during military dictatorships have taken place in Argentina, Uruguay and Guatemala, the significance of the Venezuelan case is that the massacres being investigated took place under democratic government.

Owing to his age and ill health, Sanchéz was granted permission to serve out his sentence at home, as well as being given a reduced sentence in view of his cooperation and confession.

The Offical Story

The Historical Social Current, which was formed by social movements, neighbourhood organisations, trade-unions and students in the 1980s, was dedicated to the dissemination of the Bolivarian message and the creation of a nationalist and socialist political project through autonomous community organisation.

According to one of the survivors of the massacre, Luis Machado, the group was infiltrated by Norberto and Alirio Rebanales, Argenis Beracierta and Antonio Rafael Rojas. Machado explains that “they had all been members of the Red Flag (revolutionary group) in 1979, but had been captured by Disip and had then begun to work for the organisation…nobody knew about this situation and they were accepted by the group.”

The group had organised a meeting in order to consolidate the movement’s plans for the 8th of May. Machado describes how the movement’s leaders began to make their way to the designated meeting place on the 7th of May, with the rest of the movement expected to arrive the following day.

“Alirio Rebanales and Antonio Rojas took us to a place in the area, they split us into two groups, one went up with them and the other group, which I was in, waited…There were 9 who went up and 6 of us who stayed…When all of a sudden we heard gun shots and we threw ourselves to the floor. We heard them calling us by our names, telling us to surrender, but what we did was to flee from the area.”

Machado describes how his group managed to escape, spending 16 nights in the mountains, whereas the group of 9 were tortured and then executed.

The bodies of Luis Rafael Guzmán Green, Carlos Silva Rodríguez, Dilia Rojas, Ronald José Morao Salgado, Nelson Martín Castellano, José Rosendo Silva Medina, Pedro Pablo Jiménez García, Rafael Ramón Quevedo Infante and José Romero Madrid were then dressed up as guerrillas by the four agents, who claimed that they had been ambushed by insurgents while patrolling and had acted in self defence – an account which was reaffirmed by Octavio Lepage, Minister of Internal Relations.

An investigation ordered by the Ministry of Defence confirmed this series of events – despite serious discrepancies between the official story and evidence discovered at the scene.

Although the agents claimed they had been ambushed in woodland area, photographs showed an area with few trees, inappropriate for a guerrilla ambush. The backpacks worn by the victims also showed no signs of perforation or damage, despite the fact that many of the bodies had gun-shot wounds in the dorsal region.

Further examination also confirmed that many of the victims had been tortured, several of whom also received an execution-style coup de grace to the head – inconsistent with the agents’ accounts that they acted defensively.

“Motivation” for the Costa Rican Government?

Despite the Bolivarian government’s commitment to ‘no more impunity’, several of the accused have fled the country, greatly hindering the justice process. One of the main figures wanted in connection with the massacre is Henry Lopez Sisco, who was head of Disip at the time.

Sisco has been living in Costa Rica since 2006 and is wanted by the Venezuelan government on various charges including; pre-meditated murder, false testimony, false imprisonment and the falsification of documents.

At the end of 2009 an official request for Sisco’s extradition to Venezuela was submitted to the Costa Rican government, who then released a warrant for his capture in April 2010 in order to ‘examine the request for expedition’.

In a statement to the television station VTV, Navas said that the judgement on Sanchéz would act as ‘motivation’ for the Costa Rican government to extradite Sisco – who is also wanted in connection with the massacres of El Amparo, La Cauntara, the Caracazo of 1989 and the siege of the Cuban embassy during the 2002 opposition-led coup.

May 10, 2011 Posted by | Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | 1 Comment

Does Israel support counterrev​olution in Arab world? A response to Philip Weiss

By Maidhc Ó Cathail | The Passionate Attachment | May 10, 2011

Regarding Philip Weiss’s recent post “Lobbying for Syrian dictatorship, Israel leaves no doubt about its support for counterrevolution in Arab world,” I believe there’s far stronger evidence, contrary to the assertions of Ben Wedeman and Ted Koppel, that Israel is actually supportive of revolution throughout the Arab world.

The clearest example of Israeli support for pro-democracy Arab dissidents is an organization called CyberDissidents.org. It was launched in 2008 by the Adelson Institute, then chaired by Natan Sharansky. The Adelson Institute was located at the Netanyahu-linked Shalem Center, financed by Ronald Lauder and on whose board Bill Kristol sits. Directed by Sharansky protégé, David Keyes, CyberDissidents.org was created “to research and focus attention on the online activities of democracy advocates and dissidents in the Middle East, in the hope of empowering them at home and raising awareness of their plight abroad.” Advising Keyes was neocon guru Bernard Lewis, who would have been very much at home at the 2007 Prague conference organized by Sharansky on “Democracy & Security” (whose participants reminded one Middle East analyst of Murder, Inc!). Also in attendance were some of the neocons’ favourite Arab dissidents. All of this is covered in more detail in my article “Arab Dissidents’ Strange Bedfellows.”

Moreover, CyberDissidents.org is only the tip of the iceberg. Check out, for example, the Saban Center’s Project on Middle East Democracy and Development (MEDD), WINEP’s Project Fikra, and the CFR’s Middle East Program to see how keenly pro-Israelis have for some time been promoting “democratic change” throughout the Middle East. Then there’s the prominence of pro-Israelis at “democracy promotion” near-governmental organizations such as the National Endowment for Democracy, the National Democratic Institute, the International Republican Institute and Freedom House, as well as “NGOs” like the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (a subject which Jeff Blankfort and I recently discussed on his radio programme). There’s also Joshua Muravchik’s 2009 book, The Next Founders: Voices of Democracy in the Middle East. In fact, the list of pro-Israelis who have enthusiastically backed what Shimon Peres approvingly refers to as the Arab “awakening” goes on and on…

May 10, 2011 Posted by | Deception, Wars for Israel | 5 Comments

Americans Are Living In 1984

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts | LewRockwell.com | May 10, 2011

The White House’s “death of bin Laden” story has come apart at the seams. Will it make any difference that before 48 hours had passed the story had changed so much that it no longer bore any resemblance to President Obama’s Sunday evening broadcast and has lost all credibility?

So far it has made no difference to the once-fabled news organization, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), which on March 9, eight days later, is still repeating the propaganda that the SEALs killed bin Laden in his Pakistani compound, where bin Laden lived next door to the Pakistani Military Academy surrounded by the Pakistani army.

Not even the president of Pakistan finds the story implausible. The BBC reports that the president is launching a full-scale investigation of how bin Laden managed to live for years in an army garrison town without being noticed.

For most Americans the story began and ended with four words: “we got bin Laden.” The celebrations, the sweet taste of revenge, of triumph and victory over “the most dangerous man on the planet” are akin to the thrill experienced by sports fans when their football team defeats the unspeakable rival or their baseball team wins the World Series. No fan wants to hear the next day that it is not so, that it is all a mistake. If these Americans years from now come across a story that the killing of bin Laden was an orchestrated news event to boost other agendas, they will dismiss the report as the ravings of a pinko-liberal-commie.

Everyone knows we killed bin Laden. How could it be otherwise? We–the indispensable people, the virtuous nation, the world’s only superpower, the white hats– were destined to prevail. No other outcome was possible.

No one will notice that those who fabricated the story forgot to show the kidney dialysis machine that, somehow, kept bin Laden alive for a decade. No doctors were on the premises.

No one will remember that Fox News reported in December, 2001, that Osama bin Laden had passed away from his illnesses.

If bin Laden beat all odds and managed to live another decade to await, unarmed and undefended, the arrival of the Navy SEALS last week, how is it possible that the “terror mastermind,” who defeated not merely the CIA and FBI, but all 16 US intelligence agencies along with those of America’s European allies and Israel, the National Security Council, the Pentagon, NORAD, Air Traffic Control, airport security four times on the same morning, etc. etc., never enjoyed another success, not even a little, very minor one? What was the “terror mastermind” doing for a decade after 9/11?

The “death of bin Laden” serves too many agendas that cover the political spectrum for the obvious falsity of the story to be recognized by very many. Patriots are euphoric that America won over bin Laden. Progressives have seized on the story to excoriate the United States for extra-judicial murder that brutalizes us all. Some on the left-wing bought into the 9/11 story because of the emotional satisfaction they received from oppressed Arabs striking back at their imperialist oppressors. These left-wingers are delighted that it took the incompetent Americans an entire decade to find bin Laden, who was hiding in plain view. The American incompetence in finding bin Laden simply, in their minds, proves the incompetence of the US government, which failed to protect Americans against the 9/11 attack.

Those who ordered, and those who wrote, totally incompetent legal memos that torture was permissible under US and international law, thereby setting up George W. Bush and Dick Cheney for the possibility of prosecution, are riding the euphoria of bin Laden’s death by declaring that it was torture that led the American assassins to bin Laden. All of a sudden, torture, which had fallen back into the disrepute in which it had been for centuries, is again in the clear. Anything that leads to the elimination of bin Laden is a valid instrument.

Those, who want to increase the pressure on Pakistan to shut up about Americans murdering Pakistani citizens in Pakistan from the air and from troops on the ground, have gained a new club with which to beat the Pakistani government into submission: “you hid bin Laden from us.”

Those who want to continue to fatten the profits of the military/security complex and the powers of Homeland Security, such as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, use bin Laden’s second, or ninth, death as proof that America is being successful in its war on terror and that the war must continue on such a successful path until all enemies are slain.

Most ominous of all was the statement by the CIA director that bin Laden’s death would lead to new attacks on America and new 9/11s from al Qaeda seeking revenge. This warning, issued within a few hours of President Obama’s Sunday evening address, telegraphed the inevitable “al Qaeda” Internet posting that America would suffer new 9/11s for killing their leader.

If the Taliban knew in December 2001 that bin Laden was dead, does anyone think that al Qaeda didn’t know it? Indeed, no member of the public has any way of knowing if al Qaeda is anything more than a bogyman organization created by the CIA which issues “al Qaeda” announcements. The evidence that al Qaeda’s announcements are issued by the CIA is very strong. The various videos of bin Laden for the last nine years have been shown by experts to be fakes. Why would bin Laden issue a fake video? Why did bin Laden cease issuing videos and only issue audios? A person running a world-wide terrorist organization should be able to produce videos. He would also be surrounded by better protectors than a couple of women. Where was al Qaeda, which according to former Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld, consists of “the most dangerous, best-trained, vicious killers on the face of the earth.” Had these most dangerous men alive abandoned their leader?

The CIA director’s warning of future terrorist attacks, followed by a suspect “al Qaeda” threat of the same, suggests that if the American public continues to lose its enthusiasm for the governments open-ended wars, which are conducted at the expense of the US budget deficit, the dollar’s exchange value, inflation, Social Security, Medicare, income support programs, jobs, recovery, and so forth, “al Qaeda” will again outwit all 16 US intelligence agencies, those of our allies, NORAD, airport security, Air Traffic Control, etc. etc., and inflict the world’s only superpower with another humiliating defeat that will invigorate American support for “the war on terror.”

I believe that “al Qaeda” could blow up the White House or Congress or both and that the majority of Americans would fall for the story, just as the Germans, a better educated and more intelligent population, fell for the Reichstag Fire–as did a number of historians.

The reason I say this is that Americans have succumbed to propaganda that has conditioned them to believe that they are under attack by practically omnipotent adversaries. Proof of this is broadcast every day. For example, on March 9, I heard over National Public Radio in Atlanta that Emory University, a private university of some distinction, treated its 3,500 graduating class to a commencement address by Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Homeland Security.

This is the agency that has goons feeling the genitals of young children and adults and which has announced that it intends to expand this practice from air travelers to shopping malls, bus and train stations. That a serious university invited such a low-lifer, who clearly has no respect for American civil liberty and is devoid of any sort of sense of what is appropriate, to address a graduating class of southern elite is a clear indication that the Ministry of Truth has prevailed. Americans are living in George Orwell’s 1984.

For those who haven’t read Orwell’s classic prediction of our time, Big Brother, the government, could tell the “citizens” any lie and it was accepted unquestioningly. As a perceptive reader pointed out to me, we Americans, with our “free press,” are at this point today: “What is really alarming is the increasingly arrogant sloppiness of these lies, as though the government has become so profoundly confident of its ability to deceive people that they make virtually no effort to even appear credible.”

A people as gullible as Americans have no future.

May 10, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | 3 Comments

US to set up permanent air base in Poland

Press TV – May 9, 2011

US President Barack Obama will reportedly announce the establishment of a US air detachment in Poland during his upcoming visit to the European state.

Poland’s leading Gazeta Wyborcza daily cited an unnamed Polish diplomatic source on Monday as saying that Washington would announce the transfer of an F-16 base from Aviano in Italy to the Lask air field in central Poland during his May 27-28 visit.

Poland’s Defense Minister Bogdan Klich also said on Monday that both sides would be ready for the agreement.

“At the moment we are holding talks with the Americans on the topic of a detailed agreement that will govern on what basis the Air Detachment — the detachment that will permanently service the F-16 and Hercules crews and land personnel periodically visiting Poland — will be stationed on our territory,” he was quoted by the Polish PAP news agency as saying.

Last year, Klich said he hoped the F-16 rotations would begin in 2013.

In 2010, the White House confirmed the “establishment of a US air detachment in Poland to support the periodic rotation of US military aircraft.”

Meanwhile, Russia warned Poland against hosting US fighter jets, saying it would counter the move.

May 9, 2011 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | 2 Comments

Geithner scuppered IMF plan to impose haircut on Irish debt

WakeUpFromYourSlumber | May 8, 2011

According to Morgan Kelly, a highly-respected Irish economist, In November 16th 2010, the rarely-altruistic IMF suggested that unguaranteed bonds in failing Irish banks should be given a haircut by an average of two-thirds.  This plan, which would have lessened the penury imposed on the Irish taxpayer, was apparently scuppered by one Timothy Geithner, US Treasury Secretary and Don of the Wall Street Mafia.  Kelly describes this and more in his op-ed piece in the Irish Times of May 7th 2011, part of which is quoted below

On November 16th, European finance ministers urged [finance minister Brian] Lenihan to accept a bailout to stop the panic spreading to Spain and Portugal, but he refused, arguing that the Irish government was funded until the following summer. Although attacked by the Irish media for this seemingly delusional behaviour, Lenihan, for once, was doing precisely the right thing. Behind Lenihan’s refusal lay the thinly veiled threat that, unless given suitably generous terms, Ireland could hold happily its breath for long enough that Spain and Portugal, who needed to borrow every month, would drown….

Ireland’s Last Stand began less shambolically than you might expect. The IMF, which believes that lenders should pay for their stupidity before it has to reach into its pocket, presented the Irish with a plan to haircut €30 billion of unguaranteed bonds by two-thirds on average. Lenihan was overjoyed, according to a source who was there, telling the IMF team: “You are Ireland’s salvation.”

The deal was torpedoed from an unexpected direction. At a conference call with the G7 finance ministers, the haircut was vetoed by US treasury secretary Timothy Geithner who, as his payment of $13 billion from government-owned AIG to Goldman Sachs showed, believes that bankers take priority over taxpayers. The only one to speak up for the Irish was UK chancellor George Osborne, but Geithner, as always, got his way. An instructive, if painful, lesson in the extent of US soft power, and in who our friends really are.

The negotiations went downhill from there. On one side was the European Central Bank, unabashedly representing Ireland’s creditors and insisting on full repayment of bank bonds. On the other was the IMF, arguing that Irish taxpayers would be doing well to balance their government’s books, let alone repay the losses of private banks. And the Irish? On the side of the ECB, naturally.

May 9, 2011 Posted by | Corruption, Economics | 1 Comment

Iran: No Sorcery But A Constitutional Struggle

Moon of Alabama | May 8, 2011

So there is sorcery within the Iranian government of president Ahmadinejad, allies of him have been arrested for it and he will step down?

Today Yves Smith links to a Raw Story piece which is headlined Iranian president may resign after allies arrested, charged with sorcery. Raw Story has no sources for that claim but a link to a Guardian piece which claims:

Several people said to be close to the president and his chief of staff, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, have been arrested in recent days and charged with being “magicians” and invoking djinns (spirits).Ayandeh, an Iranian news website, described one of the arrested men, Abbas Ghaffari, as “a man with special skills in metaphysics and connections with the unknown worlds”.

The Guardian provides no source for its report but that Iranian website Ayandeh it links to.

But there is little Iranian with that website except its use of Farsi language. It has an English title “Iranian Futurist”. It’s full domain name is www.ayandeh.nu and it is registered via Loopia Webbhotell AB in Vasteras, Sweden. The admin email for that website is info@ayandehnegar.org and that domain is registered to one Hossein Mola with an address in Kesta, Sweden.

Hossein Mola also registered the domain vahidthinktank.com. That site only has a Farsi Donation page (google translate link) and a button “English” which brings one to a blogspot page of one Vahid V. Motlagh who claims to be a futurist and looks into “Ideas for a deeper sense of life”.

But back to the Guardian’s source, the futurist Iranian/Swedish/Norwegian website ayandeh.nu. I can not find (google translate link) any article that would fit this as a source for the “sorcery” and “arrests” the Guardian reports. The website is a mix of futurology including from Vahid V. Motlagh, Iranian human rights stuff and a few news items about Iran. It is neither really Iranian nor a reliable source.

The whole sorcery and arrests claims are likely nonsense invented to make a little reported constitutional crisis within Iran’s ruling class look more mysterious than it is.

Now lets talk about that crisis.

While the “west” always claims that Ahmedinejad is a “hardliner” or “conservative” that claim has never been true. He is a rather progressive social democrat with a more laical and secular outlook than many of the “principalists” in the Iranian parliament and the conservative clerics. This was already obvious back in 2006 when Ahmedinejad allowed women into soccer stadiums but was overruled by conservatives and the supreme leader Khamenei.

After the 2009 elections, which he won with a comfortable 60% of the votes, an emboldened Ahmedinejad again pressed for a more laical society. His point man for this project was Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei. Mashaei, an engineer and politician, is a war-comrade of Ahmedinejad. His daughter is married to Ahmadenejad’s son. He is known for a relative liberal view especially with regards to women’s rights and even on relations to people in Israel.

In July 2009 Ahmedinejad made Mashaei his first vice president. Conservatives protested and within a week the supreme leader ordered him out. Ahmedinejad showed them the finger and made Mashaei his chief of staff and gave him most of the powers he would have had as first vice president. It is rumored that he is grooming him for taking up the presidency when Ahmedinejad will end his current last term.

Recently Mashaei made several comments which set out Iranian nationalism and Shia Islam as two equal pillars of Iranian strength. For the clerics this was an unbearable attack on their position and on the prerogative of Islam and they fought him bitterly. In early April this year Ahmedinejad was pressed to let Mashaei go and to get a new chief of staff. The conservative intelligence minister Hojatoleslam Haydar Moslehi, himself a hardline cleric and the cabinet watchdog of the supreme leader, was thought to have led the campaign against Mashaei.

But then Mashaei reasonably claimed that he found his office bugged and Haydar Moslehi was fingered as being behind the plot. The president did not liked being spied on by his intelligence minister and by mid April Ahmdinejhad fired Haydar Moslehi as minister and reinstated Mashaei as chief of staff. The supreme leader Khamenei then demanded the reinstatement of his spy Moslehi.

There was a lot of back and forth on the issue, including Friday sermons from the pulpit,  but Ahmedinejad did not retreat. The Iranian constitution gives the president as the chief executive the right to seat and fire ministers. The supreme leader’s constitutional position is comparable a U.S. chief justice position in the supreme court.  He is certainly not a dictator without bounds. As part of the judicature he has a (small) formal say in (vice-)presidential positions but no formal say at all in cabinet positions.

This led to a situation where Moslehi still acted as minister but was ignored by Ahmedinejad who either boycotted cabinet meetings when Moslehi was attending or ordered him out before they started. For some fourteen days the situation was hanging in balance.

Finally the Iranian parliament, the Majlis, stepped in. In the end a majority requested that Ahmedinejad follow the wishes of the supreme leader. As the parliament has the power to impeach the president Ahmedinejad had little choice but to, for now, give in.

Today Ahmedinejad attended a cabinet meeting with Moslehi present. Also present was Mashaei.

While this all may sound dramatic it was a quite normal situation in the Islamic Republic. Since its foundation, power struggles between the executive, legislative and judiciary branches are a regular occurrence. The conservatives and the Islamic judges, usually somewhat wrongly described as clerics, demand a higher ranking for the judiciary branch led by the supreme leader. The executive points to its democratic legitimation and sees this as an equal source of power. The legislative is usually split on the issues.

So there is nothing in this story about sorcery or arrests. There may have been rumors of such but those were likely more a part of a smear campaign against Mashaei than a real issue.

What astonished me was how little this whole issue was reported on in the “west” over the last weeks. That may well be because the “western” distorted viewpoint of Ahmedinejad as a “hardliner” who “lost the elections” and of the Iranian judiciary branch as “clerics” gives the wrong frame of reference to understand simple politics in Iran. Not understanding what was going on let reporters turn to nonsensical claims.

PS: The above overview on what happened in Iranian politics in the last month is based on many sources I read over the last month and which I currently have no time to collect and link appropriately. The best source to follow the issue was the blog of Nader Uskowi, not a fan of the Islamic Republic but knowing it reasonably well, who regularly posted on it over the last weeks. The, at times quite partisan, discussion in the Race for Iran comments also helped.

May 9, 2011 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | Leave a comment

Meshaal told to choose between committing to Quartet’s conditions and Bin Laden’s fate

MEMO | 09 May 2011

In a startling statement, the chairman of the Israeli Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee has threatened to assassinate the head of the political bureau of Hamas. Shaul Mofaz, MK, said that Khalid Meshaal should declare his organisation’s commitment to the conditions set by the International Quartet, including the recognition of Israel, “or become a target for assassination in the way that Bin Laden was dealt with”.

Speaking to Radio Israel on 8th May, Mofaz said, “I know the Hamas movement very well, and I believe that it is one of the most difficult terrorist movements that Israel has known. And our records for Hamas are long and bitter because of the many operations that the movement has carried out against us.”

The MK said that Meshaal has two choices: “Either accept the Quartet’s conditions, which include the cessation of terrorist operations, the recognition of Israel and an acknowledgement of all the agreements signed with it”, or face assassination attempts. “He has to make the choice,” added Mofaz.

Tel Aviv is ready to negotiate with the Palestinian government that will be formed post-reconciliation, claims Mofaz, if and when Hamas declares its acceptance of the Quartet’s conditions. He stressed that the international community must insist on Hamas adopting them. He also called on Netanyahu’s government to take political initiatives and expend the effort necessary “to prevent Israel’s international isolation because of the country’s lack of real leadership working towards changing the current reality”. This, he concluded, constitutes a big dilemma.

May 9, 2011 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Leave a comment

The Book of Joshua (Muravchic) Prophetic on Arab Democracy

By Maidhc Ó Cathail | The Passionate Attachment | May 9, 2011

Two years ago at the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) in Washington, DC., Joshua Muravchic spoke about his book, “The Next Founders: Voices of Democracy in the Middle East.” In “The Next Founders,” he profiles seven people from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Palestine, Kuwait, and Syria. It’s especially noteworthy that the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) advisor was not promoting democratic voices only in regimes that would be considered unfriendly to Israel.

There to discuss Muravchik’s book was Tamara Wittes, another longtime pro-Israel advocate of democratic reform in the Middle East and author of Freedom’s Unsteady March: America’s Role in Building Arab Democracy. The then director of the Saban Center’s Middle East Democracy and Development (MEDD) Project is currently Deputy Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs (NEA), where she coordinates democracy and human rights policy for the NEA Bureau and supervises the State Department’s Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI). According to an April 18 Washington Post report, MEPI has funneled up to $6 million to Syrian opposition groups since 2006. Wittes commented:

“There are a lot of organizations in Syria and other countries that are seeking changes from their government. That’s an agenda that we believe in and we’re going to support.”

Presumably, those “other countries” included Egypt. After all, as far back as 2005, while she was still working for Haim Saban’s Israel-protecting think tank, Wittes had written a critical piece on Hosni Mubarak entitled “Elections or no, he’s still Pharaoh,” in which she predicted that Egyptians would soon “start thinking, along with other Arabs, about hitting the streets.”

Watch June 2009 video (intro ends at 5:50) – click title for video: Book TV: Joshua Muravchik, author “The Next Founders”

~

See also – 2007 interview:

May 9, 2011 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, Video, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Settlers storm school, post racist slogans

Palestine Information Center – 09/05/2011

NABLUS — Jewish settlers stormed a Palestinian secondary school for girls in Sawiya village, south of Nablus, and placed racist, anti-Arab posters on its entrance in Hebrew.

The education office in southern Nablus said in a statement that the settlers, who were protected by Israeli army troops, also glued other posters on the school’s walls inciting against the Palestinians.

The office condemned the act, which negatively affects the educational process, and called for an immediate halt to such practices.

The Israeli occupation forces provide protection for such violations of this school in the village and other schools in the region, which are routine practice on the part of the settlers.

Meanwhile, groups of settlers barged into the Palestinian Wadi Al-Hilwa grazing area in the northern Jordan Valley and threatened the shepherds there and told them to leave the area.

Local sources said that the settlers came from the nearby Maskiot settlement and were planning to annex the Palestinian land to their settlement, which was already established on usurped Palestinian land.

May 9, 2011 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | 4 Comments

Obama freezes Chicago Palestinian leader’s bank accounts

By Maureen Clare Murphy – The Electronic Intifada – 9 May 2011

The US government has frozen the bank accounts belonging to Hatem Abudayyeh, a Palestinian community organizer and director of a social service organization serving the Arab community in Chicago, and his wife, Naima.

Meanwhile, several members of Congress have written to the Obama administration to express their concerns about violations in civil liberties as a result of earlier government actions toward Abudayyeh and other activists.

The freezing of the Abudayyeh family’s bank accounts on Friday, 6 May is the latest development in a secret grand jury investigation that has been launched by US District Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald’s office in Chicago. The freezing of the accounts has raised concerns that criminal indictments in the case may be imminent.

“I was downtown [in Chicago] on Friday, I had parked my car in a garage and when I tried to use my debit card to get out, it was declined,” Hatem Abudayyeh, director of the Arab American Action Network, told The Electronic Intifada. “I talked to Naima right away and she said she had no access with her card either, so I had to call a friend in the [Chicago] Loop to borrow money to get my car out of the garage.”

The next day the couple went to their bank branch, where the manager said that he had no information but that their accounts were frozen as a result of a government order.

The Abudayyehs’ accounts were frozen just two days before Mother’s Day is observed in the United States. “We were planning on having lunch with my mom and her family, and I couldn’t buy flowers or anything like that,” Hatem Abudayyeh said.

Last September, federal agents raided and searched the Abudayyehs’ home and confiscated the family’s belongings, including financial records and, as Hatem Abudayyeh told The Electronic Intifada last November, “everything that said ‘Palestine’ on it.” Federal agents also confiscated home videos that Naima Abudayyeh, a Palestinian immigrant, had recorded during a family visit to Palestine last summer.

The Abudayyehs’ five-year-old daughter was present during the raid and the family was mainly confined to their small living room during the hours-long search through their home.

That same day, federal agents raided several other homes and offices across the Midwest, serving subpoenas to 14 anti-war and international solidarity activists to appear before a federal grand jury in Chicago. After those activists refused to testify to a grand jury, saying that they were being unfairly targeted because of their work organizing in opposition to US foreign policy in the Middle East, Afghanistan and Colombia, nine additional activists were served subpoenas around the month of December.

The nine additional activists served subpoenas are all residents of Chicago and all are Palestinians or those who have organized in solidarity with the Palestinian people. The Electronic Intifada’s managing editor, Maureen Clare Murphy, was served a subpoena on 21 December. The subpoena issued to Murphy is not connected to her work with The Electronic Intifada, but likely targets her because of her Palestine solidarity activism.

All 23 activists who have received subpoenas since September have refused to testify, despite risking being jailed for doing so.

A grand jury, no longer in use anywhere outside the US, is an investigative tool that allows the government to compel citizens to testify even if they are not suspected of any crime. Activists targeted by these subpoenas, their lawyers, and their supporters, believe the government is using the grand jury as a form of political inquisition and intelligence gathering, targeting groups and individuals working for a more peaceful US foreign policy.

Attack on the US Palestinian community

According to a statement made by the Committee to Stop FBI Repression and the Coalition to Protect People’s Rights and also distributed by the US Palestinian Community Network, “Not only does the government’s action [to freeze the bank accounts] seriously disrupt the lives of the Abudayyehs and their five-year-old daughter, but it represents an attack on Chicago’s Arab community and activist community and the fundamental rights of Americans to freedom of speech” ( “Demand US Attorney Fitzgerald unfreeze the bank accounts of the Abudayyeh family,” 8 May 2011).

Of the total of 23 activists who have been subpoenaed, seven are Palestinians from Chicago — home to one of the largest Palestinian communities outside of the Middle East. Scores of Arab community and Palestine solidarity organizations, as well as anti-war groups, civil liberties organizations and faith groups, have issued statements condemning the investigation and attempts to criminalize the Palestine solidarity movement in the US.

The investigation for which the 23 activists have been targeted takes places in the context of widespread surveillance and repression of the Muslim and Arab communities in the US.

And as The Electronic Intifada reported in November of last year, the investigation targeting the subpoenaed activists is just the latest chapter in a long history of US government attempts to criminalize Palestine community organizing and support work in the country.

In December 2001, the US government shut down the largest Muslim charity in the US, the Holy Land Foundation, which sent direct humanitarian aid to Palestinians living under Israeli military occupation, amongst other places. Five defendants prosecuted in relation to the case are serving out lengthy prison sentences of 15 to 65 years (for more information, see the Holy Land Foundation case website).

Other prominent Palestinian community organizers in the US who have been put on trial in recent years because of their work educating Americans about the impact of US military aid to Israel and raising funds for humanitarian assistance for Palestinians living under occupation are Dr. Sami al-Arian, Muhammad Salah and Dr. Abdelhaleem Ashqar.

All three were acquitted by juries of US citizens of all terrorism and racketeering-related charges but have been charged with or convicted of obstruction of justice or contempt of court for refusing to name the names of other Palestinian activists in the US and in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Investigation into material support law violations

While the US government does not comment on grand jury investigations or even confirm that they are underway, search warrants used to raid activists’ homes last September indicate that the home invasions and subpoenas are part of an investigation into violations of the law banning material support for foreign terrorist organizations.

The material support legislation was enacted under the Clinton administration, expanded with the PATRIOT act under Bush and expanded even further last summer after the Supreme Court ruled in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project that political speech can be considered material support for foreign terrorist organizations if done in a “coordinated way.”

The broad scope of the material support laws — especially after last summer’s Supreme Court decision — has provoked sharp criticism from civil liberties groups. Humanitarian agencies have also protested the breadth of the laws, saying it impacts their ability to carry out their work.

Critics of the legislation have pointed out that had these laws been in place during the South Africa anti-apartheid movement, it would have criminalized the entire movement in the US. At the peak of the movement, the Reagan administration’s State Department placed Nelson Mandela’s party, the African National Congress (ANC), on the designated foreign terrorist organization list. The South Africa solidarity movement in the US took direction from the ANC.

Undercover agent at center of case

The basis of the investigation for which Abudayyeh and the 22 other activists have been targeted appears to be the word of an undercover law enforcement agent who infiltrated anti-war groups in Minneapolis.

The agent, who went by the name of Karen Sullivan, became involved in the anti-war movement in Minneapolis around the time of the 2008 Republican National Convention — one of the largest anti-war protests in the US in years (“Who was Karen Sullivan?” City Pages, 20 January 2011). The 14 activists subpoenaed in September were all involved in organizing permitted marches to protest the convention.

In addition to apparently surveilling activists, the undercover agent also disrupted their work. “Sullivan” elected to join an educational trip to Israel and the occupied West Bank in the summer of 2009. When she and the two women from Minneapolis with whom she was traveling arrived at Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv, they were detained and ultimately deported. The two women with whom the agent was traveling have since been subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury.

The identity of the undercover agent has been confirmed in discussions between the activists’ legal team and the US attorneys. However, the undercover agent’s identity was not disclosed during the discovery process of the lawsuit filed by Mick Kelly — one of those raided in September — after Kelly was shot at close range and injured by a high-velocity marking device during one of the Republican National Convention marches.

Attorneys representing Kelly, one of the organizers of the march, filed a motion in March of this year to reopen the lawsuit discovery process and subpoena “Sullivan” as she was present when he was shot (“Lawsuit against police violence at Republican National Convention to go forward,” Fight Back! News, 4 March 2011).

Call to action

The Committee to Stop FBI Repression and the Coalition to Protect People’s Rights are calling on supporters to call US District Attorney Fitzgerald’s office today to protest the ongoing investigation and the freezing of the Abudayyeh family’s bank accounts (“May 9: Demand US Attorney Fitzgerald unfreeze the bank accounts …”).

Meanwhile, hundreds of concerned citizens have signed a pledge issued by the Committee to Stop FBI Repression to take action in the event of activists being jailed for refusing to testify to a grand jury or being indicted (Pledge to resist FBI, grand jury repression).

Activists across the country have built a broad support movement that has seen trade union resolutions in support of the targeted activists from locals representing more than 600,000 workers in the US. They have also lobbied to elected representatives and several members of Congress have written letters to the Obama administration raising concern of the investigation’s violations of civil liberties (see “Statements from legislators about the case,” Committee to Stop FBI Repression).

May 9, 2011 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | 3 Comments

Since Fukushima the real dangers of nuclear power are now better known

By Andrew McKillop | VHeadline | May 9, 2011

In an article published August 1, 2010 I stated what is now clearer than ever, after the Fukushima disaster, and more and more threatening, after perhaps the last time the USA triumphally announces that Bin laden is dead (announcements of his death stretch back as far as December 2001).

In the August 2010 article I said:

Conventional wars, like the conventional nation states that make or “wage” war, are less and less credible due to the new nuclear threat, due to certain or assured massive or total destruction and economic damage, when or if large reactors and nuclear installations are hit.

A quick roundup of admitted and officially announced damage to the 6-reactor Fukushima site in Japan, and economic losses due to this disaster as of early May is as follows:

– At least 4 of the reactors are destroyed and unable to be repaired, and the 2 that could or might be repaired face rising Japanese public opinion in rejection of nuclear power. Radiation levels on-site remain very high, also making it difficult to envisage repair of the 2 potentially recoverable reactors. Dismantling the reactors and safe store entombment and neutralization of radiation danger at the site will cost at least US$12 billion and take several years – perhaps more than 10 years.

-Around 90,000 Japanese have been forced out of their homes, jobs and livelihoods in the 20-kilometre Total Exclusion Zone around the disaster site, that many scientists say should be extended to at least 30-kilometres. There is no known date for when these persons can or might return inside the exclusion zone, resulting in total economic loss. Some 25+ years after the Chernobyl disaster, its 7,800 square kilometre total exclusion zone remains uninhabitable.

– Economic costs and losses from the Fukushima nuclear disaster are presently estimated at a total of around US$130-175 billion, but may further increase.

– The total radiological inventory or radiation potential of each reactor at the Fukushima site is about 200 times the radiation released by the Hiroshima atom bomb, which killed about 60,000 persons by radiation (blast and fire, also killing at least as many persons, in August 1945).

-Including fuel rods in fuel pond storage, ancillary equipment, on-site nuclear wastes and nuclear materials, the total radiological inventory of the Fukushima site is probably more than 10,000 times the radiation released by the Hiroshima atom bomb.

Worldwide, there are about 440 civil reactors of similar size to the Fukushima reactors, in service at this time, as well as about 290 research, scientific and military reactors, and about 370 submarine and surface ship reactors. The radiological inventory of these mostly non-military reactors is vastly higher than the radiation release potential of all nuclear weapons held by the so-called “declared nuclear powers” (USA, Russia, China, France, UK), and the “non-declared powers” (India, Pakistan, Israel, North Korea)

PLAYING WITH FIRE

Since late 2010, world media has repeatedly carried reports claiming Al Qaeda intends to become nuclear capable. One example is a February 2, 2011 article in UK Daily Telegraph headlined Wikileaks: Al Qaeda is planning a dirty bomb, and continuing: “Al-Qaeda is actively trying to secure nuclear material and recruiting rogue scientists to build a radioactive”dirty” bomb, according to leaked diplomatic documents”.

The antiquated, technological naivety of this Wikileaks claim reminds us that Wikileaks has possibly multiple agendas and multiple masters in its so-called quest for truth. The article citing Wikileaks goes on to repeat claims of Al Qaeda being “interested” in dirty bombs, basically nuclear wastes or radioactive material packed in any kind of container and exploded, for example in a city center dustbin.

Al Qaeda operatives would however have no interest in the vast dirty bombs also known as civil nuclear reactors. They would also eschew fuel rod fabrication centers, waste reprocessing and storage centers, road, ship and train convoys transporting ultra-deadly materials, notably plutonium, the world’s uranium mines, and remaining large quantities of smaller sized nuclear ordnance, including atomic mines, torpedoes and artillery shells, leftover from the Cold War period!

Nuclear reactors are in no way designed to resist military attack – even so-called military reactors which are mostly high neutron reactors able to quickly “breed” or produce plutonium and highly enriched uranium, to make atomic weapons, are themselves rarely hard-shell protected or located underground. Most nuclear reactors have so-called containment features rarely exceeding 20 to30 centimetres of concrete and in some cases a few centimetres of mild steel protection of the reactor cores. Fuel rod dumps or cooling ponds – as shown in the case of Fukushima – are sometimes located in open air surroundings with zero protection.

The range and types of conventional military ordnance able to penetrate and destroy reactor cores, or their cooling systems, or both are very wide-ranging. They range from conventional bombs, artillery shells, mines, mortars, anti-tank and anti-building shoulder-fired missiles, to conventional short-range or long-range missiles. These missiles are owned by more than 20 nations, including Iran’s Shahab-4. Other than conventional military ordnance, unconventional and so-called terror war ordnance able to destroy any civil nuclear reactors include a large range of potential weapons. These range from kamikaze explosives like the suicide belt, to long range anti-tank missiles, improvised devices using conventional military or civil explosives, drone-launched explosive charges, and electronic and Internet based hacking attack on the control systems of nuclear plants.

Only after covering some of the more rational and likely weapons choices, do we come on to hijacked airplanes deliberately crashed on nuclear sites – whether reactor sites, reprocessing sites, fuel fabrication centres, waste storage centres, and other parts of the so-called nuclear value chain.

NO NEED FOR TERROR WAR

The Fukushima disaster has prized open previously semi-secret information on the fantastic death toll in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus from the Chernobyl catastrophe of 1986. Some 60,0000 Liquidators were forced to work at the site, under panic conditions, with little or no protection and today perhaps one-third to one-half of these Liquidators are already dead. Economic loss from the Chernobyl disaster, in today’s money, was at least US$250 billion. This was not a military attack or terror attack, but a nuclear catastrophe due to human error. The Fukushima disaster was due to earthquake and tsunami, of course aggravated by the proven irresponsibility, lying and cost-cutting of the site operator, Tepco.

Nuclear power is therefore already a dagger pointed at the jugular vein of the global economy and consumer economy. Today, with what is likely the last gasp of the Al Qaeda farce, and its violence and loss of life, created by American geopolitical strategy for unknown or absurd reasons, we have a new and additional asymmetric nuclear war threat.

Western media and the Wikileaks communication side-channel provides false information on the supposed Dirty Bomb threat of Al Qaeda, but totally ignores the reality of existing and vast dirty bomb civil reactors and other nuclear infrastructures in the worldwide nuclear value chain. Since Fukushima the real dangers of nuclear power are now better known. Whatever may remain of Al Qaeda’s operatives will also know.

Andrew McKillop
xtran9@gmail.com
Senior Partner
EP Capital Pty Ltd
Mount Hawthorn
Western Australia
Australia 6016
Phone: +61 411 771 895

May 9, 2011 Posted by | Deception, Nuclear Power | Leave a comment

Murder without Corpse

By Linh Dinh | May 8, 2011

In a photograph, Bush is shown in an Army jacket, his hands holding a tray with a picture-perfect turkey, garlanded by grapes. He is surrounded by American troops, most of whom are not looking at him. This is meant to convey that the photo was spontaneous, casual, and not posed. It is authentic.

In another photograph, Obama is shown in the Situation Room of the White House, surrounded by his top security advisors. They are watching something. Of the thirteen faces, none is looking at the camera. Again, this is to convey that the photo was natural and spontaneous. Obama is shown in a casual jacket, Biden in shirt sleeves, details that indicate they are at work, and not posing for a propaganda photo, god forbid. This image is so authentic, in fact, that it borders on the illicit. This was a secret session, after all. That’s why all of the laptop monitors have been blackened out, and the photo in front of Hillary Clinton has been blurred. We should be thankful, then, for this courtesy peep at a scene we shouldn’t even have access to. The spontaneity is also reinforced by an unfamiliar face at the back, peeking in. She is younger and shorter than the rest, truly a little person among heavyweights, nearly all of whom are men, by the way, yet only the most cynical would conclude that this small woman was added to double the female representation in the room. A really tall and large woman would not do. Like that worm in the British royal wedding photo, this tiny woman provides just enough intrigue without distracting.

As we all know, Bush served up a plastic turkey, so the turkey propaganda photo was itself a turkey, but a much bigger turkey is the Situation Room image. Releasing it, the White House explained that Obama and company were watching the raid and execution of Bin Laden in real time, with the snuff film made possible by a camera mounted on the helmet of a Navy Seal. Now, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that any head during a firefight is not likely to be stationary, not long enough, in any case, to broadcast steadily and clearly to the folks back home, not unless it wants to be a dead head, that is.

“Hey, Seal with the camera, run up that stairs and fix your gaze on Geronimo, will you? Remember to stand still and don’t duck, so our Commander in Chief will have a vivid stream of images, OK?”

Soon after, the White House explained that there was no live feed of the crucial moment, after all, that the camera actually didn’t work for 25 of the 38-minute raid, so there was absolutely no video footage of Bin Laden, but why this sudden reversal? Can’t these people work out their lies before they broadcast them to us?

The White House had to backtrack because it had painted itself into a corner. It had already refused to produce photos of a dead Bin Laden. He had been shot above the eye, it said, shattering his skull, so such a gory image would inflame Muslim sentiments. “We don’t want to spike the football,” Obama explained. But if we can’t see a dead Bin Laden, how about a photo of him alive? If a helmet mounted camera could deliver a live feed to the Situation Room, surely it can produce at least one image of Bin Laden with his head still intact, and in that house? But this, too, was out of the question, incredibly enough.

With webcams, surveillance cameras, Google street view and the ubiquitous camera phones, it seems that the entire world is always photographed, or ready to be photographed these days, that anyone at any moment can be captured by that voracious shutter, then uploaded onto a screen. There are cameras hidden inside pens, books, boom boxes, clocks, air purifiers and smoke detectors. You can probably google any name, a grade school chum, your first lover, long lost cat, dead grandma, bless her soul, and find photos of them online, uploaded by the Pentagon, or maybe God himself.

After any political assassination or execution, the public has also come to expect a photo as evidence or trophy. Just think of the strung up Mussolini, bloody Ngo Dinh Diem inside an armored car, a shirtless Che Guevara or the bandaged head of Leon Trotsky.

We are drowning in photographs, most of which we can do without, yet the one image that everyone wants to see this week, of a Bin Laden dead or alive during the raid, is not available. Instead, we are treated to a wealth of irrelevant information. We are told that there was “a hero dog” involved; that Obama and company had turkey pita wraps, cold shrimp, potato chips and soda, bought from Costco, the cheapo outlet—how nice, this common man touch—in the Situation Room; that Obama has met to congratulate his commandos, all highly intelligent and responsible family men between the ages of 30 and 40. Whatever.

The Bin Laden photos would not matter if there was a corpse, but that too, has gone missing, so without a cadaver or even the flimsy evidence of a photoshopped photograph, what is there to this sensational murder, really? Nothing but words from the CIA and the White House. Though they lied to us about Jessica Lynch’s “rescue” and Pat Tillman’s murder, we are to believe them this time because they have suddenly decided to speak the truth. Honestly.

May 9, 2011 Posted by | Deception | 13 Comments

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