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‘Deal lets US keep bases in Afghanistan’

Press TV – August 7, 2011

The draft of a strategic deal between Washington and Kabul envisions giving the United States the authority to set up permanent military bases in Afghanistan.

American and Afghan official are set to discuss the deal at Loya Jirga (Traditional Grand Assembly) with tribal elders and political figures.

The recently-released draft shows that the US would be able to establish permanent military bases in Shindand, Shorabak, Kandahar, Bagram, and Khost.

According to the agreement, Washington can set up more military bases in other parts of Afghanistan whenever it deems necessary.

The military bases, which will be run based on US Army regulations, would be in complete control of the US government.

The Afghan airspace will be handed over to American forces after the strategic deal comes into effect.

If an agreement is reached on the permanent bases, US troops will remain on Afghan soil beyond 2014, when they are scheduled to transfer their security responsibilities to Afghan forces.

The draft also states that all US military and civilian personnel must act according to the American constitution at the time of military operations.

August 7, 2011 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | 2 Comments

White Ashkenazi Affordable Housing: The Wrong Struggle

By Seraj Assi | Palestine Chronicle | August 6, 2011

Nearly three weeks ago angry young residents of Tel Aviv took to the streets to protest soaring housing prices. The protests have rapidly reached different sectors of the Israeli society. The Israeli media has propagated the event as a glorious democratic manifestation, while Western media rushed to compare it to the people revolutions in neighboring Arab countries.

Yet it must be recalled that by far the Tel Aviv protests are taking place within the Zionist consensus. For many Arab citizens, the protests are widely seen as a bourgeois distributional conflict over Zionist colonial spoils. No wonder the protests are directed against high housing prices per se rather than against the founding policies and fundamental causes behind the crisis.

We should remember that the real victims of the state’s housing policies are not the middle-class Jewish Israelis longing for the exclusive and luxurious privileges offered by the Tel Aviv center. They are the poor Arab residents of Jaffa who have been pushed out of the city by decades of ethnic gentrification, urban exclusion and alienation.

In the meantime, the Israeli media reports the event as if the Arab population, the real victims of the state’s economic policies, does not exist. The real narrative- the dispossession, the disempowerment, the unrelenting daily grind of injustice and discrimination, and the daily violation of human rights and dignity – does not fit into the format of the Israeli media’s agenda.

When a year ago Arab residents of Jaffa took to the Ajami neighborhood to protest the new housing plan designed exclusively for Zionist-Jews, known as Be’emuna Jews-Only housing project, they were dismissed as subversives to the state’s Jewish character. When they later marched to Jerusalem to demonstrate ahead of the High Court hearing over the project, they were widely presented as a bunch of unruly Arabs. Requests and petitions by Ajami residents to stop work on the project have been unanimously dismissed by the Tel Aviv District Court and the High Court of Justice.

While the shortage of housing had been threatening Arab residents of Jaffa for decades, the Israel Lands Administration gave itself the right to sell public land to a construction company devoted to pushing Arab residents out of the city. Nothing has been done to stop Bemuna’s attempts to dilute Arab neighborhoods by moving in religious Zionist Jews at the expense of local residents. Nor to address Be’emuna’s repeated racist statements, discriminatory marketing methods and housing policies. The “domino effect” of the project has instead brought more and more racist housing projects to Jaffa.

The process of internal occupation of Arab lands is by no means confined to Jaffa. Judaization is expanding all over the country from the Negev region in the South to the Galilee in the North, including the Arab Triangle in the center, and the major mixed cities of Haifa, Acre and Jerusalem. Policies of transfer, dislocation, land expropriation and housing demolition continue uninterrupted. Statics show that over the past few decades, Arab lands in Israel were rapidly diminished from nearly 19.5 million dunams (in 1947) to only 404 thousand dunams (in 2005). At the same time, Jewish settlements inside Israel have grown from 317 to 907, and they now constitute 96 percent of the country territory.

Moreover, we have not seen a single protest against the wave of fascist and racist laws directed against the Arab population, starting from the Nakba law through the loyalty law, and multiple bills regulating admission to “Jews-only” communities. Protests by Arab residents were rather rooted out by state violence and widely condemned by the Israeli society. Only when the state’s economic policies began to threaten the narrow interests of the White Ashkenazi society did they draw attention and media coverage.

It can be argued that bourgeois Israeli Jews are now paying the prize that Arabs in Israel have been paying for decades. But we should remember that soaring housing prices in Tel Aviv are themselves the outcome of the racist policies that were originally designed to prevent Arabs and other poor Jewish communities from approaching the city center. We should also remember that those middle-class Israeli yuppies that came to live in Jaffa for an “oriental” experience are no less responsible for turning Jaffa into a fashionable neighborhood and making prices unaffordable for the local Arab residents.

The dirty secret of the Tel Aviv protests is that the bulk of those middle-class Ashkenazi protestors are moved by a racist hysteria. They are simply afraid of being moved to the city peripheries and the far less fashionable parts of the country. For when they complain that they only feel at home in Tel Aviv, they explicitly express a racist desire to stay away from the development towns and neighborhoods populated by Arabs, poor Mizrahi and Ethiopian Jews.

This should not be taken as an invitation for a common struggle between Arabs and poor Mizrahi, Ethiopian and Russian Jews. Nor should it let us forget that the struggle of Arab Palestinians with the state cannot be simply reduced from a struggle over land and existence to class and civil struggles. Indeed, nothing is more ironic than to see Arabs protesting against high housing prices in Tel Aviv as if they were allowed to live in Tel Aviv at all.

The struggle of Palestinians in Israel cannot be separate from politics colonization, ethnic discrimination and racism. That is to say that Palestinians in Israel have not to join the protests so much as to make sure they formulate their own struggle away from the Tel Aviv bourgeois protests that are now taking on racist Zionist formulations and being joined by racist settler movements like Yesha Council and Im Tirzu.

We are running out of time. Even as we speak, the circle of internal colonization is closing up. Palestinians in Israel should be fully aware that their struggle cannot be formulated within the Zionist framework, but only outside of it.

– Seraj Assi is a PhD Student in Arabic and Islamic Studies at Georgetown University, Washington DC.

August 7, 2011 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | 1 Comment

The Landlord Wannabe Protest

By Gilad Atzmon – August 7, 2011

It is almost amusing to find out that some of the most clichéd Marxists around are so taken by the current Israeli popular protest, which they foolishly interpret as a manifestation of the ‘Israeli revolutionary spirit’. They are convinced that now that the Israeli ‘working class’ are rising, peace will necessarily prevail.

Yet in fact, what we are really seeing unfold in Israel (at least for the time being) is the total opposite of a ‘working class’ re-awakening. Indeed, some in Israel  are calling it the ‘Real Estate Protest,’ because basically, those protesting want assets: they all wish to have property, a house of their own. They want to be landlords. They want the key, and they want it now. What we see in Tel Aviv has no similarity whatsoever to the struggles taking place in al-Tahrir or in Athens. At the most, the Israeli demonstrations mimic some manifestations of a struggle for justice or Socialist protest.

But that is where the similarities end.

Motti Ashkenazi (a legendary Israeli anti establishment figure)  wrote in YNET yesterday that “another Left is needed (in Israel), a Left that is primarily concerned with the poor of its country rather than with the plight of our neighbours.” In clear terms that cannot be interpreted otherwise: Motti Ashkenazi is exploring what he considers to be a necessary shift in Israeli ‘progressive’ thought, and what he appears to conclude is, forget about Palestine; let’s once and for all concentrate on  ‘us,’ the Jews.  Ashkenazi continues,  “we need another Left, a modest one. Instead of a vision for the entire Middle East, it had better present a vision of the State of Israel.”

Professor Nissim Calderon (a  lecturer in Hebrew literature ) also presented a similar line:  “We have erected a Left that has been focusing on the fight for peace, and peace only.   But there is a huge hole in our struggle- we failed to  struggle for social justice.”  Again  ‘Lefty’ Calderon refers to the social struggle within the Israeli Jewish population.

The mass protest in Israel is, in fact, the complete opposite of a genuine social revolution: whilst it may present itself as a popular protest, in practice, it is a ‘populist festival’. According to reports from Israel, the leaders of the emerging protest are even reluctant to call for Netanyahu’s resignation.  The same applies to security matters, the occupation the defence budget- the organizers wouldn’t touch these subjects in order not to split their rapidly growing support.

What we see in Israel is neither a socialist revolution; nor is it a struggle for justice. It is actually a ‘bourgeoisie wannabe revolution’, and the Israelis took to the street because each of them wants to be a landlord, to own a property. They do not care much about politics, ethics, or social awareness, and neither do they seem to care much about the war crimes they are collectively complicit in.  Malnutrition in Gaza is really not their concern either. They seem to not care about anything much at all, except themselves becoming property owners.

But why do they want to own a property? Because they cannot really rent one. And why can’t they rent? It is obviously far too expensive.  But why is it too expensive? Because Israel is the ultimate  embodiment of a corrupted, hard speculative, capitalist society.  And I guess that this is the real untold story here. If Zionism was an attempt to solve ‘the Jewish Question’ , as the author Shahid Alam so insightfully explores, it has clearly failed since it has only managed to relocate ‘the Jewish Question’ to a new place, i.e. Palestine.

Zionism promised to bring about a new productive and ethical Jew as opposed to what it defined as the ‘Jewish Diaspora speculative capitalist’(1). It clearly failed, and the truth of the matter is, that in the Jewish State, Israeli Jews are now being  subjected to the symptoms of their own very problematic culture.(2)

Israel, that was supposed to be the state of the Jewish people, has become a  haven  for  the richest  and most corrupted Jews from around the world: according to The Guardian, “out  of the seven oligarchs who controlled 50% of Russia’s economy during the 1990s, six were Jewish.”  During the last two decades, many Russian  oligarchs  have acquired  Israeli citizenship. They also secured their dirty money by investing in the Blue & White financial haven.  Wiki leaks has revealed lately that “sources in the (Israeli) police estimate that Russian organised crime (Russian Mafia) has laundered as much as US $10 billion through Israeli holdings.” (3) Mega-swindlers such as Bernie Madoff  have been channeling their money via Zionists and Israeli institutions for decades. Israel is also a leading trader in blood  diamonds. Far from being surprising, Israel is also the fourth biggest weapon dealer on the planet. Clearly, blood diamonds and guns are proving to be a great match. And it doesn’t stop there — every so often, Israel is caught engaging in organ trafficking and organ harvesting.

Increasingly, Israel seems to be nothing more than a vast  money-laundering  haven for Jewish oligarchs, swindlers, weapons dealers, organ traffickers, organised crime, and blood-diamond traders. But on top of that, rich Jews buy their holiday homes in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem: there are reports that in Tel Aviv alone, thousands of holiday properties are empty, all year round, while native Israelis cannot find a roof.

The Israeli people are yet to understand their role within this horror show: the Israeli people are yet to grasp that they are nothing but the foot soldiers in this increasingly horrendous scenario. They do not even gather that their  state maintains  one of the world’s strongest armies, to defend the assets of just a few of the wealthiest and most immoral  Jews around.

I actually wonder whether Israelis can grasp it all. Yet the truth of the matter is, that the leaders of the present Israeli ‘real estate revolution’ want to maintain the struggle as a material seeking adventure, and they are clearly avoiding politics: the driving sentiment and motivation here is, obviously, ‘give us the keys to our new homes and we clear the square.’

I guess that it is not surprising that within such an inherently greedy and racially oriented society, the dissent that manifests will inevitably, also be reduced to sheer banal materialism.

It seems the Israelis cannot rescue themselves from their own doomed fate, because  they are blindly  hijacked by their own destructive culture.  As myself and a few others have been predicting for a decade or more, Israeli  society is about to implode. It is really just a question of time.

Notes

1. Marxist Zionist Ber Borochov (1881-1917) argued that the class structure of European Jewry resembled an inverted ‘class-pyramid’, a structure in which a relatively small number of Jews occupied roles within the ‘productive layers’ of society as workers, whilst a significant number were settled in capitalist and speculative trades such as banking.

2. In Haaretz today Beni Ziper wrote, “I saw on television people shouting against the rich, or tycoons who control the country. Seemingly everyone thinks it’s exciting and daring and nobody reflects on  the chilling historical  equivalence with the Depression in Germany at the time of  Weimar Republic, when the ‘rich Jews who control us’ were targeted by everyone.”  Ziper is clever enough to notice a close and disturbing repetition in Jewish history. However, Ziper is also very critical of his countrymen.  “So I’m all for protests against the state, but in no way against people or groups of people, be they ‘rich’ or ‘ (Jewish) Orthodox’ or even ‘settlers’.  Whoever gives privileges to the settlers in this country and it’s not that the settlers come and rob the cashier at gunpoint.” Whether we agree with Ziper or not, it is clear that he also admits that there is a similarity between the arguments voiced in Israel against the rich, and the German right wing’s anti Semitic attitude towards Jews in the 1920’s-30’s

3. For more information about global organised crime connections with Likud or other major Israeli political parties, follow this link http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/php/topic.php?tid=147

Gilad Atzmon’s latest book is The Wandering Who.

August 7, 2011 Posted by | Corruption, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | 2 Comments

Israeli army detains Freedom Theater actor

Ma’an – 06/08/2011

Acting student Rami Awni Hwayel [MaanImages/Freedom Theater HO]

JENIN — Israeli forces on Saturday detained an acting student of the iconic Freedom Theater at a checkpoint near Jenin, theater staff said.

Rami Awni Hwayel, 20, was detained, handcuffed and blindfolded at Shave Shomeron checkpoint in the northern West Bank. He was returning from rehearsals in Ramallah, the theater said in a statement.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said a Palestinian was arrested at the Shave Shomeron checkpoint but had no further details.

Hwayel is the third member of the theater to be detained by the Israeli army in recent weeks.

On July 27, Israeli soldiers detained Adnan Naghnaghiye and Bilal Saadi during a dawn raid on the West Bank city.

Director Udi Aloni said Hwayel’s detention was “devastating.”

“Rami is playing the main role in ‘Waiting for Godot’ and doing an amazing job, he’s so dedicated to the work. He just left rehearsals today for the weekend to see his family for Ramadan. It’s terrible, we want our Pozzo back.”

The theater urged its friends and supporters to act “in order to stop this outrageous harassment by the Israeli army against a cultural establishment.”

In April, unknown assailants shot dead the theater’s general-director, Juliano Mer-Khamis, 52, an Israeli national, in an unsolved case which has frustrated local security services despite initial claims of success.

Mer-Khamis’ late mother founded the theater in the 1980s.

August 6, 2011 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | Leave a comment

Attackers vandalize Palestinian scout tent in Sweden

Ma’an – 06/08/2011

BETHLEHEM — Unknown attackers vandalized a Palestinian scout tent in Sweden on Thursday during the World Scout Jamboree, the head of the Palestinian delegation told Ma’an.

Traditional artifacts were on display inside the tent to show Palestine’s cultural heritage.

Attackers destroyed parts of the tent, took down the Palestinian flag, ripped a map of Palestine and tore up some photos showing the Palestinian cause. They left a note warning that they would not leave the Palestinian scouts alone.

The head of the Palestinian delegation filed an official complaint with the Jamborees’ organizers, who have opened an investigation into the vandalism.

Some 40,000 scouts from 146 countries are participating in the jamboree, and many scouts from different countries helped to rebuild the Palestinian tent.

Each region was represented by one country at the jamboree, and Palestine was chosen to represent the Arab world and the Arabic language.

August 6, 2011 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | 1 Comment

South African students endorse nationwide boycott against Israel

By Nora Barrows-Friedman – The Electronic Intifada –  08/05/2011

Representatives of South Africa’s oldest and largest student bodies in Johannesburg hosted a press conference on Thursday in which they denounced the upcoming visit by a delegation of Israeli officials and propagandists to South African college campuses.

In the past five years, Israeli public relations professionals and governmental officials have traveled across the world in order to promote a “positive image” of Israel through its multi-million-dollar “Brand Israel” hasbara (propaganda) campaign, and this upcoming visit includes some 150 Israelis meted out to 5 colleges in order to “create some doubt in their [South African students’] minds” — most likely because of recent actions in support of the Palestinian-led boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) call.

Calling for a strengthening of the BDS movement across South Africa, the students declared that “all SA campuses must be Apartheid-Israel free zones” in a statement following the press conference.

The students, representing the South African Union of Students (SAUS), the South African Student Congress (SASCO) and the Young Communist League (YCL), stated that the visit from “Israeli Apartheid agents” was “patronizing,” and re-affirmed their commitment to solidarity with Palestinians fighting against Israeli apartheid policies. Several weeks ago, Palestinian students had asked their South African peers to challenge and boycott the Israeli delegation.

This move comes after a vote in March by the Senate of the University of Johannesburg to cut ties with Ben Gurion University in Tel Aviv — a historic vote that was supported by more than 400 academics across South Africa and tireless BDS activists, scholars, trade unionists and students.

Thursday’s press release by the student representatives:

… We, students and youth of a post-Apartheid South Africa, who bear the scars of a racist history and who continue to fight for complete liberation, have a duty and responsibility to stand in solidarity with those facing oppression worldwide. Israeli apartheid is one such form of oppression.

Israeli media boast that a mission of 150 Israeli propagandists will be sent to universities in 5 countries to fix Israel’s “serious image problems.” The Israeli mission will begin on South African campuses on the 11th of August, with a delegation that includes at least two aides from the Israeli parliament. A delegation member was clear about the intention of their trip: “We have to create some doubt in their [South African students’] minds.”

Don’t patronize us! We lived apartheid, we suffered apartheid, we know what apartheid is, we recognise apartheid when we see it. And when we see Israel, we see a regime that practices apartheid. Israel’s image needs no changing; its policies do! We urge Israeli students to instead join the growing and inspiring internal resistance to their regime, particularly the boycott from within movement, rather than waste time and money on these propaganda trips to deceive us…

August 6, 2011 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | 2 Comments

Construction of 7,000 new settlement units in Jerusalem under way

Palestine Information Center – 06/08/2011

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — The Israeli occupation authorities are planning on carrying out plans to build 7,000 new settlement units in Jerusalem, Israeli media outlets have reported.

Construction plans underway in the occupied city have accumulated since US Vice-President Joe Biden last visited a year and a half ago.

Now plans to build 1,328 units in Ramat Shlom will be put to the expedited building committee formed by Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu in 60 days. These were the same plans that caused crisis between the US and Israel during the Biden visit.

A local planning and construction board also approved 900 homes to be built in the Gilo settlement, and another plan under discussion by the expedited building board for 625 units in Pisgat Ze’ev is slated to begin taking effect.

A separate 930 units have been approved to be built in Har Homa (Jabal Abu Ghneim) between Jerusalem and Bethlehem earlier this week.

Meanwhile, EU Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton has condemned the recent approval of the Har Homa project, saying that she was ‘’disappointed’’ by the decision.

‘’The European Union has repeatedly urged the government of Israel to immediately end all settlement activities in the West Bank, including in East Jerusalem. All settlement activities are illegal under international law,’’ she added in a statement.

August 6, 2011 Posted by | Illegal Occupation | 1 Comment

Reporter Files Complaint Against Israeli Military

By Katie Child | International Middle East Media Center | August 05, 2011

Mati Millstein filed a complaint against the Israeli Foreign Press Association on Thursday, August 5, 2011. The photojournalist was covering a Palestinian protest in Nabi Salih, when tear gas canisters were fired directly at the reporters covering the protest.

The Israeli military fired twelve rounds at the reporters who were clearly visible with yellow jackets labeled “PRESS.” or “TV”. None of the reporters were wounded.

When Millstein went to complain to the soldiers about their actions, the reporter was threatened with arrest and told to stand against a wall.

The American Israeli sent an email to the Jerusalem Post on Thursday saying that this event is, “the product of a military environment that increasingly sees the media as an enemy or a fifth column rather than as one of the key elements required for the maintenance of a democratic, transparent state.”

He further explained in the email that lately the Israeli Military has been using more violent and unsophisticated methods in dealing with the weekly Palestinian protests.

None of the other reporters decided to issue a complaint against the Israeli Military. Millstein saw a formal complaint against the Israeli Military was necessary since “draconian” methods of preventing the press from covering events are too often seen as acceptable in the occupied territories.

Millstein told the Jerusalem Post that many reporters have had their rights violated but decide not to complain out of fear of losing their credibility or their professional career.

August 6, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | 1 Comment

31 US Occupation Troops Killed in Afghanistan

Al-Manar | August 6, 2011

Thirty-one members of the US occupation special forces were killed when a helicopter crash in eastern Afghanistan.

“This helicopter crashed in Wardak province last night, as a result of which including the crew members, 31 personnel of American Special Forces lost their lives”, a statement from Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s office said Saturday. […]

The statement said that seven Afghan troops were also killed in the incident.

The crash late Friday represents the biggest death toll in a single incident for international forces in Afghanistan since the US-led invasion in 2001.

The helicopter from the NATO-led foreign force has crashed during an anti-Taliban operation in the eastern province of Wardak, southwest of Afghan capital Kabul, a provincial spokesman, Shahidullah Shahid, said.

In a written statement, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said the group claimed responsibility for the crash. He said NATO had attacked a house in Sayd Abad where Taliban fighters were gathering on Friday.

The Taliban then fired on NATO and downed the helicopter, killing the crew, Mujahid said.

Earlier before the presidential statement, a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said it was still looking into what had happened.

“An International Security Assistance Force helicopter crashed in eastern Afghanistan today and recovery operations are under way”, a spokesman for ISAF, the foreign military force in Afghanistan, said.
“ISAF is still in the process of assessing the circumstances to determine the facts of the incident. Reporting indicates there was enemy activity in the area.”

An eyewitness told AFP news agency that the helicopter had crashed as it was trying to take off after landing on the roof of a Taliban commander’s home during a firefight.

August 6, 2011 Posted by | Militarism | 2 Comments

Rumsfeld Must Face Vet’s Claim He Was Tortured

By JOE CELENTINO | Courthouse News Service |  August 4, 2011

A U.S. citizen and Army veteran who says he was imprisoned and tortured by his own military can sue former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld personally for damages, a federal judge ruled.

Court filings do not name the veteran, but note that he worked for the Marine Corps as an Arabic translator along Iraq’s Syrian border.

He claims he was the first American to begin direct talks with Sunni sheik Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha, who later became an important U.S. ally.

In November 2005, as he prepared to return home on leave, the man said he was taken into an interrogation room for four hours. He refused to answer the questions, citing concern for the confidentiality of sensitive information he had learned during his tour.

He was transported to Camp Cropper military jail for “high-value” detainees and kept for more than nine months. His family had no idea of his whereabouts or whether he was alive.

John Doe said interrogators exposed him to extreme cold and continuous bright light. They also allegedly blindfolded and hooded him, kept him awake by banging on the door and windows, and blasted heavy metal or country music into his cell at “intolerably loud volumes.”

Doe said he also sustained physical attacks from other detainees hostile to the United States because they learned about his military affiliation.

Though the government claimed he had provided classified information to the enemy and helping anti-coalition forces enter the country, he was never charged with a crime.

A detainee status board authorized the translator’s continued detention in December 2005, determining that he was a threat to coalition forces. Doe never got to talk to a lawyer and was not permitted to see the evidence against him.

In August 2006, Doe was placed on a military flight to Jordan and eventually made it back home. U.S. District Judge James Gwin, presiding in Washington by designation from his court in Ohio, found that Doe clearly has a civil rights case.

“The stakes in holding detainees at Camp Cropper may have been high, but one purpose of the constitutional limitations on interrogation techniques and conditions of confinement even domestically is to strike a balance between government objectives and individual rights even when the stakes are high,” Gwin wrote.

Rumsfeld argued that court intervention would improperly allow the court to review wartime matters and foreign affair constitutionally committed to the president and Congress.

But Gwin rejected this argument.

“Avoiding the ‘risk of assuming a role that is almost always best suited for Congress,’ however, does not recommend that courts be entirely powerless to review legislative or executive action during a time of war,” he wrote. “Rather, ‘a state of war is not a blank check for the president when it comes to the rights of the nation’s citizens.'”

Rumsfeld also cannot dodge the suit on qualified immunity grounds, Gwin said.

“Although it may be unlikely that Rumsfeld evaluated the detention conditions of each detainee in detail, it is not implausible that he authorized the use of interrogation techniques on the detainee population at Camp Cropper, or even on specific detainees,” the 47-page ruling states. “Though Doe must eventually support his factual allegations with evidence, a motion to dismiss simply calls upon the court to evaluate whether a plaintiff has alleged with specificity fact supporting a plausible claim.”

“This case affects tens of thousands of American citizens who work on behalf of the United States in warzones,” Doe’s attorney, Mike Kanovitz, told the Government Accountability Project. “We are relieved that the courts are going to exercise their constitutional role of judicial review instead of giving the president a blank check when it comes to the fundamental rights of U.S. citizens. There is a clear record showing that Mr. Rumsfeld authorized the use of brutal interrogation techniques that violated our nation’s constitution. Like all Americans, my clients just want a level playing field and a fair jury. Now they are going to get that.”
Doe’s suit is one of just two that has been allowed to proceed of the many against Rumsfeld alleging torture of detainees in Iraq.

Last year, two Americans filed suit claiming they were tortured following accusations of illegal activities by their company. A Chicago federal judge allowed them to hold Rumsfeld personally responsible for the torture. The 7th Circuit is expected to rule on the case soon.

August 5, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture | 3 Comments

Shop and Shoot

By Linh Dinh – State of the Union – 8/3/11

We are being ruled by thespians and gangsters. Far from incompetent, they are lethally good at what they do. They create crisis after crisis, then solve each by sacrificing countless innocents while enriching themselves. Whatever the challenge, domestic or international, their only goals are to gorge and to gouge, so they never fail, actually, even when they miscalculate. They’ll make money blowing things up, and they’ll make even more pretending to fix what they have destroyed. They never pay for their mistakes, only you do, and when they function perfectly, you will still pick up the check, if not bleed. In fact, you will pay even more if they’re in top form.

During this never ending public spectacle, they’ve introduced us to a cast of rather outlandish characters: a stuttering Texas idiot; a fist bumping, long range shooting and Harvard educated Muslim Commie; a blow job-loving burger clown. Splitting into opposing camps, they’ve climbed into a ring to perform for the whole world. In the front row, a mob of rightish and leftish pundits. These ad-peddling charlatans have parsed each choke slamming and brain busting move as if it was real. Thus, Obama tapped out on canvas. Thus, Obama steam rolled by Republicans. Thus, Obama’s bad bargain. Obama caved in. He’s no criminal, he’s weak. Thus, Obama surrendered.

Those who don’t swallow entire these farcical blow by blows are branded nutcases and conspiracy theorists. Whether it’s about 9/11, Bin Laden, Iraq, Afghanistan, War on Terror, Iran, Underwear Bomber, BP oil spill, Corexit, Libya, death of Bin Laden, on and on and on, the official narrative is always, and I mean always, nonsense, yet repeated often enough, from all angles, left, right and center, these clumsy fairy tales will coalesce in the brainpans of the inattentive or stupid as uncontestable truths and history.

In spite of all the recent bombast about fiscal responsibility and shared sacrifice, the wasteful wars continue, though few Americans can tell you why or even where we’re unleashing horror, hatred and sorrow. America must kill because wars are so lucrative. No other country has been fighting so continuously, for so long. Anham, a Northern Virginia company, has just been busted for charging the Pentagon $900 for a $7 control switch, $3,000 for a $100 circuit breaker, and $80 for a $1.41 piece of plumbing equipment. Blah, blah, blah. Tell me something new, why don’t you? And Lockheed Martin has just been given a $72 million contract to install those universally despised irradiating scanners at 300 U.S. airports.

Meanwhile, one in six Americans is on food stamps, and more and more Americans are losing jobs, including teachers, firemen and cops, as unemployed and deranged teens run wild in “flash mobs” to beat up random strangers. It has happened repeatedly in Philadelphia, my neck of the woods, as well as Chicago, Milwaukee, Kansas City, Boston, Brooklyn, South Orange and Greensboro. There are racial and class components to this phenomenon, as these wilding youngsters are invariably poor blacks converging on white shopping districts. In the latest episode, an 11-year-old Philly kid was arrested for assaulting a stranger.

With these mobs, all the pathologies of a post-industrial, post productive society, with its dead-end jobs, bad schools and a nonstop, stupefying media, are on full display. Another factor not often cited is the phenomenon of children being raised almost exclusively by strangers, practically right after birth, and the poorer the kids, the crappier the quality of daycare and subsequent schooling. How many times have you seen black women push strollers with well dressed white children, so the rich kids are pampered by their parents and nannies, while the poor ones are left alone in nightmarish neighborhoods. Also, when your government is so openly corrupt, anger is inevitable, although punching a stranger in the face is certainly not a solution. The biggest criminals are out of sight, leaving us bottom feeders to inflict pain on each other.

In any struggle, it’s important to know the nature of your enemy. Is he a klutz, prone to a goofy mistake now and then, or does he have murder on his mind? Again, we are being lorded over by a gang of criminals. War criminals.

For two years, there was a military entertainment complex inside a Philadelphia area shopping mall. At the Army Experience Center, young teens could play shoot them up, blood splattering video games for free, while those over 18 could climb into a realistic mockup of a tank or chopper to massacre bad guys in desert settings, also for free. An advertisement: SHOP FOR SOCKS. GRAB A BITE. PILOT AN AH-64 ATTACK HELICOPTER. After receiving 40,000 visitors and enlisting 236 recruits, the Army decided to shut down this 13-million dollar facility on July of 2010, “It’s been a great success. Basically it’s mission accomplished.”

Though it had planned on opening more of these centers, the Army soon realized there was no longer a need. Thanks to the Mother of All Depressions and rapidly increasing unemployment, desperate Americans are flocking to recruitment stations even without the promise of a free video game. It’s a win, win situation for our military industrial complex: destroy the economy, and Americans will enlist. They will beg to be blown up.

August 5, 2011 Posted by | Deception, Economics, False Flag Terrorism, Militarism | 2 Comments

Meet Debbie Schlussel, who says Norway’s ‘HAMAS Youth’ got what was coming to them

By Paul Mutter | Mondoweiss | August 5, 2011

One of Pamela Geller’s cohorts, Debbie Schlussel, has explicitly stated that those killed at Utoya got what was coming to them because they were “HAMAS Youth” and (at the same time) “Fatah PLO” terrorists.

Schlussel may not be as well-known as Geller (perhaps because Schlussel has not exercised a leading role in anything as prominent as the “Ground Zero Mosque” furor), but she is a politically active Republican and more mainstream than Geller because she is also a culture writer with a strong media presence. (Not that she separates this work from her anti-Islamic campaign – she has criticized the film industry for not doing enough to portray Islam “correctly”).

Her opinion on the Norway terror attacks can be summed up with these quotes taken from her ongoing screeds against the terror victims:

“Based on these pics, seems like he’s [Glenn Beck’s] spot on, though he should have added, HAMAS Youth camp, too. As we all know, Nazis boycotted Jews and were Jew-killers. And these hateful, privileged brats at the camp boycotted Jews and sided with Jew-killers.

But what goes around comes around. You support terrorists against innocent civilians in Israel, then you get attacked by terrorists who are upset with your support . . . .

Frankly, the HAMAS charter and HAMAS’ behavior, all of which these kids at the Norwegian HAMAS youth camp cheered on, is a lot more scary than the screed and deeds of Breivik . . . .

I shed no tears for these HAMASnik campers with a Scandinavian dialect. Perpetrators are not victims. Sorry. HAMAS collaborators don’t get my pity. They never will.”

Far stronger words than Geller was willing to use. But they are par for the course as far as Schlussel is concerned.

Her prominence derives from her utility to the male conservative-dominated anti-Islamic movement. The fact that she is a woman (and also the daughter of Holocaust survivors) speaking out against Islam gives greater credence to an ideological group whose most well-known speakers are white Christian males like Newt Gingrich, Geert Wilders and Pat Robertson (the movement is, as a whole, dominated by sociopolitically conservative men, although many are not Christians).

Gingrich and Robertson, for instance, denounce Islamic attitudes towards women, while still being hostile to “feminism” under the cloak of “family values.” Having women on their anti-Islamic bandwagon helps prove their “point” about Islamic backwardness and their moral righteousness, which is a combination of faux-progressivism (treating Geller and Schlussel as intellectual co-equals) and paternalism (evoking Orientalist images of rapacious Muslim brutes). A similar logic animates the GOP embrace of Sarah Palin, Ann Coulter and Michele Bachmann. Schlussel and Geller, among others, are useful for the right (while at the same time, they castigate individuals on the left for being Islam’s “useful idiots”).

But back to Schlussel’s own anti-Islamic agenda. Before this most recent denunciation of insufficiently Zionist individuals, she famously responded to Osama bin Laden’s death by quipping “1 down, 1.8 billion to go.” When a family of West Bank settlers were murdered earlier this year, she approvingly quoted PM Netanyahu’s son’s remarks that “terror has a religion and it is Islam” and “not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims.”

August 5, 2011 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Islamophobia, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | 2 Comments

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