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Who Will Save Libya From Its Western Saviours?

Not the Left

By JEAN BRICMONT and DIANA JOHNSTONE | CounterPunch | August 16, 2011

Last March, a coalition of Western powers and Arab autocracies banded together to sponsor what was billed as a short little military operation to “protect Libyan civilians”.

On March 17, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1973 which gave that particular “coalition of the willing” the green light to start their little war by securing control of Libyan air space, which was subsequently used to bomb whatever NATO chose to bomb. The coalition leaders clearly expected the grateful citizens to take advantage of this vigorous “protection” to overthrow Moammer Gaddafi who allegedly wanted to “kill his own people”.  Based on the assumption that Libya was neatly divided between “the people” on one side and the “evil dictator” on the other, this overthrow was expected to occur within days.  In Western eyes, Gaddafi was a worse dictator than Tunisia’s Ben Ali or Egypt’s Mubarak, who fell without NATO intervention, so Gaddafi should have fallen that much faster.

Five months later, all the assumptions on which the war was based have proved to be more or less false. Human rights organizations have failed to find evidence of the “crimes against humanity” allegedly ordered by Gaddafi against “his own people”.  The recognition of the Transitional National Council (TNC) as the “sole legitimate representative of the Libyan people” by Western governments has gone from premature to grotesque.  NATO has entered and exacerbated a civil war that looks like a stalemate.

But however groundless and absurd the war turns out to be, on it goes.  And what can stop it?

This summer’s best reading was Adam Hochschild’s excellent new book on World War I, To End All Wars. There are many lessons for our times in that story, but perhaps the most pertinent is the fact that once a war starts, it is very hard to end it.

The men who started World War I also expected it to be short.  But even when millions were bogged down in the killing machine, and the hopelessness of the whole endeavor should have been crystal clear, it slogged on for four miserable years.  The war itself generates hatred and vengefulness. Once a Great Power starts a war, it “must” win, whatever the cost – to itself but especially to others.

So far, the cost of the war against Libya to the NATO aggressors is merely financial, offset by the hope of booty from the “liberated” country to pay the cost of having bombed it.  It is only the Libyan people who are losing their lives and their infrastructure.  So what can stop the slaughter?

In World War I, there existed a courageous anti-war movement that braved the chauvinist hysteria of the war period to argue for peace. They risked physical attack and imprisonment.

Hochschild’s account of the struggle for peace of brave women and men in Britain should be an inspiration – but for whom?  The risks of opposing this war are minimal in comparison to 1914-1918. But so far active opposition is scarcely noticeable.

This is particularly true of France, the country whose President Nicolas Sarkozy took the lead in starting this war.

Evidence is accumulating of deaths of Libyan civilians, including children, caused by NATO bombing.

The bombing is targeting civilian infrastructure, to deprive the majority of the population living in territory loyal to Gaddafi of basic necessities, food and water, supposedly to inspire the people to overthrow Gaddafi.  The war to “protect civilians” has clearly turned into a war to terrorize and torment them, so that the NATO-backed TNC can take power.

This little war in Libya is exposing NATO as both criminal and incompetent.

It is also exposing the organized left in NATO countries as totally useless.There has perhaps never been a war easier to oppose.  But the organized left in Europe is not opposing it.

Three months ago, when the media hype about Libya was launched by the Qatari television Al Jazeera, the organized left did not hesitate to take a stand.  A couple of dozen leftist French and North African organizations signed a call for a “solidarity march with the Libyan people” in Paris on March 26.  In a display of total confusion, these organizations simultaneously called for “recognition of the National Transition Council as the sole legitimate representative of the Libyan people” on the one hand and “protection of foreign residents and migrants” who, in reality, needed to be protected from the very rebels represented by that Council.  While implicitly supporting the military operations in support of the NTC, the groups also called for “vigilance” concerning “the duplicity of Western governments and the Arab League” and possible “escalation” of those operations.

The organizations signing this appeal included Libyan, Syrian, Tunisian, Moroccan and Algerian exile opposition groups as well as the French Greens, the Anti-Capitalist Party, the French Communist Party, the Left Party, the anti-racist movement MRAP and ATTAC, a widely based popular education movement critical of financial globalization.  These groups together represent virtually the entire organized French political spectrum to the left of the Socialist Party – which for its part supported the war without even calling for “vigilance”.

As civilian casualties of NATO bombing mount, there is no sign of the promised “vigilance concerning escalation of the war” deviating from the UN Security Council Resolution.

The activists who in March insisted that “we must do something” to stop a hypothetical massacre are doing nothing today to stop a massacre that is not hypothetical but real and visible, and carried out by those who “did something”.

The basic fallacy of the “we must do something” leftist crowd lies in the meaning of “we”. If they meant “we” literally, then the only thing they could do was to set up some sort of international brigades to fight alongside the rebels. But of course, despite the claims that “we” must do “everything” to support the rebels, no serious thought was ever given to such a possibility.

So their “we” in practice means the Western powers, NATO and above all the United States, the only one with the “unique capabilities” to wage such a war.

The “we must do something” crowd usually mixes two kind of demands: one which they can realistically expect to be carried out by those Western powers – support the rebels, recognize the TNC as the sole legitimate representative of the Libyan people –  and the other which they cannot realistically expect the Great Powers to follow and which they themselves are totally incapable of accomplishing: limit the bombing to military targets and to the protection of civilians, and stay scrupulously within the framework of UN resolutions.

Those two sorts of demands contradict each other. In a civil war, no side is primarily concerned about the niceties of UN resolutions or the protection of civilians. Each side wants to win, period, and the desire for revenge often leads to atrocities. If one “supports” the rebels, in practice one is giving a blank check to their side to do whatever they judge to be necessary to win.

But one also gives a blank check to the Western allies and NATO, who may be less bloodthirsty than the rebels but who have far greater means of destruction at their disposal. And they are big bureaucracies that act as survival machines. They need to win. Otherwise they have a “credibility” problem (as do the politicians who supported the war), which could lead to a loss of funding and resources. Once the war has started, there is simply no force in the West, lacking a resolute antiwar movement, that can oblige NATO to limit itself to what is allowed by a UN resolution. So, the second set of leftist demands fall on deaf ears.  They serve merely to prove to the pro-war left itself that its intentions are pure.

By supporting the rebels, the pro-intervention left has effectively killed the antiwar movement. Indeed, it makes no sense to support rebels in a civil war who desperately want to be helped by outside interventions and at the same time oppose such interventions. The pro-intervention right is far more coherent.

What both the pro-intervention left and right share is the conviction that “we” (meaning the civilized democratic West) have the right and the ability to impose our will on other countries.  Certain French movements whose stock in trade is to denounce racism and colonialism have failed to remember that all colonial conquests were carried out against satraps, Indian princes and African kings who were denounced as autocrats (which they were) or to notice that there is something odd about French organizations deciding who are the “legitimate representatives” of the Libyan people.

Despite the efforts of a few isolated individuals, there is no popular movement in Europe capable of stopping or even slowing the NATO onslaught.  The only hope may be the collapse of the rebels, or opposition in the United States, or a decision by ruling oligarchies to cut the expenses.  But meanwhile, the European left has missed its opportunity to come back to life by opposing one of the most blatantly inexcusable wars in history.  Europe itself will suffer from this moral bankruptcy.

~

Jean Bricmont is author of Humanitarian Imperialism.  He can be reached at Jean.Bricmont@uclouvain.be

Diana Johnstone is author of Fools’ Crusade.  She can be reached at diana.josto@yahoo.fr

August 16, 2011 Posted by | Militarism, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | 4 Comments

US, South Korea launch provocative joint military drill

Press TV – August 16, 2011

The United States and South Korea are carrying out a joint military exercise within the East Asian country’s territories despite opposition from neighboring North Korea.

The Ulchi Freedom Guardian (UFG) annual military drill, launched on Tuesday, is reportedly aimed at strengthening the defense capabilities of the alliance against any possible attack by North Korea, South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reported.

The Combined Forces Command (CFC) has said in a statement that the UFG will try to enhance the US-South Korea’s joint ability “by exercising senior leaders’ decision-making capabilities and by training commanders and staffs from both nations in planning, command and control operations, intelligence, logistics, and personnel procedures.”

“It is challenging and realistic training focused on preparing, preventing and prevailing against the full range of current and future external threats to the Republic of Korea and the region,” claimed the commander of CFC, General James D. Thurman.

The military exercise provoked severe criticism from the North, as the state had earlier appealed for cancellation of the drill.

Pyongyang cited the move as “extremely provocative,” calling it a preparation for an “all-out war” against the North and the “largest-ever nuclear war exercise”.

“The Korean peninsula is faced with the worst crisis ever. An all-out war can be triggered by any accidents,” North Korean media reported on Tuesday.

“The US war-mongers are planning to carry out a realistic war drill to remove our nuclear facilities with a mobile unit led by the US 20th Support Command which was sent to Iraq to find and disable weapons of mass destruction,” they added.

The North had previously called on the two states to cancel the drill, describing the move as a blow to new efforts to restart six-nations talks aimed at dismantling Pyongyang’s nuclear program.

Pyongyang usually views such exercises as a rehearsal for invasion, and launches its own counter-maneuvers.

Tensions have been running high on the Korean Peninsula since November 2010, when an exchange of artillery fire left four South Koreans dead on a border island.

The North accuses US President Barack Obama of plotting with regional allies to topple the country’s government, insisting that its nuclear program is a deterrent to US forces in the region.

August 16, 2011 Posted by | Militarism | Leave a comment

From Brixton to Tottenham

By MICHAEL DICKINSON | Counterpunch | August 16, 2011

Following the recent disturbances in England in inner city areas of high unemployment and poverty it is expected that the final count of those arrested for riot and looting could reach as high as 4000. Reasons suggested by the press for the scale of the unrest include recreational violence, criminal opportunism, social irresponsibility, gang culture, greed, and cuts in public services, including the closure of youth clubs. But the prime factor that caused the mayhem to spread must come down to local tensions with the police, and their fatal shooting of Mark Duggan, a black man travelling in a minicab.

Similarly, in the early 1980’s young black men in Brixton were victimised by the widespread use of the “sus” law, which enabled police officers to stop and search members of the public even if they had no hard evidence that a crime had been committed. And the shooting of a black woman, Cherry Groce, in her own home by police investigating a robbery in September 1985 was the trigger for a simmering resentment to explode.

I was living in a squat in Brixton at the time. We were just getting ready for supper when news came on the television about the shooting. Apparently, in a search of her flat for her son who was wanted on a suspected firearms offence, Mrs. Groce had been shot dead in bed by a policeman. (We learned later that she wasn’t killed but had been paralyzed from the waist down from the shot.) The news said a group of protesters had gathered at the local police station chanting anti-police slogans and demanding disciplinary action against the officers involved. I said we should get down there and join them. While my squatmates hummed and hawed I decided not to waste any time and set off for Brixton Police Station. As I approached the center I met people coming from it warning me to go back as the protest outside the police station had turned into a battle which was spreading through the streets, but I decided to continue. I saw people coming out of smashed shop windows with goods, people running, throwing stones at lines of charging police, a few cars and buildings burning, lighting the night with orange flames. Police cars and vans rushed around wailing.

Not everyone was out on a riot. Many like myself had just come to see what was going on. (I had my right arm set in a plastercast anyway from an earlier accident.) Halfway up Railton Road, the notorious ‘Front Line’ a barricade of bins and boxes was being erected by rioters. I found a large pile of old discarded newspapers and added them to the defence in solidarity, then went to visit two young women friends, Helena and Rachel, who lived in a flat nearby. We had a chat and a drink and I persuaded them to come out and see what was going on. There was a good view of Railton Road across a tarmacked park from the end of their street. A crowd of mainly black residents had congregated there and were watching the scene. The barricades across the road were now burning and molotov cocktails were being hurled at the charging shield and baton wielding army of crash-helmeted police force. The mood of the onlookers was excited and friendly and they laughed and cheered when I shouted across the tarmac at the police, telling them to get out of Brixton and leave us alone. A few voices joined me.

Helena suggested we go back into the flat and listen to the police radio she had hacked into and learn what was happening. Apparently Brixton was out of control and people were being arrested all over the place.

When we went back out a bit later the barricades were smouldering and the riot police were having a breather, seated with their shields in front of them on the benches on the other side of the park. The onlookers were still crowded together watching. When one of them saw me they said “Ah, here’s Rambo again! (In reference to the small black cyclist’s helmet I was wearing.) Give them some more jaw, Rambo!”

So I made my voice reach the resting cops across the square.

“Do your mothers know you’re out? Isn’t it time you were home in bed? Get out of Brixton! You’re not wanted here!”

Suddenly the gang of police stood up and started drumming their batons against their shields. At the same time one of the crowd shouted a warning.

“There’s a police van coming up the street! Run for it everyone!”

The onlookers began to scarper in every direction, and at that moment the line of bobbies began to charge towards us. I began to run but suddenly stopped and began to walk instead. Why should I flee? I hadn’t done anything wrong.

One of the charging policemen reached me and grabbed my arm.

“Let’s hear you shouting now, Rambo!” he said, and another cop grabbed my helmet and chucked it away. I was bundled into the back of the police van which had now arrived and was driven back into the heart of Brixton, stopping and picking up other young men, black and white, along the way, who had been arrested. The van was soon full and we were driven to a police station where we were made to line up outside while they dealt with detainees ahead of us. An officer handed out leaflets.

“Read and inwardly digest,” he said. I took one and shoved it into my mouth, biting and chewing. It didn’t taste very nice so I didn’t pursue the joke. Inside mug shots were being taken of all those arrested. One guy’s nose was pouring with blood as his picture was taken. Then it was time for fingerprints. I refused to have mine done. When asked why not, I said it was my right, and a senior officer confirmed this, but he said it might make matters difficult for me later. Then I was put into a small cell with about ten other guys and we were there for the rest of the night, most of us seated on the floor. At one point two policemen came and removed one black guy and made him take his trousers and underpants down outside the cell before putting him back in again.

In the morning my cellmates began to be released one by one, collecting summons for their court appearances on various charges connected with the riots of the previous night. Finally there was just me in the cell, and when, by lunchtime, I demanded to know why I was being kept, I was told that if I gave my fingerprints I would be released. What else could I do? I gave them and got my summons to appear in court a couple of days later.

Before that, the next morning at about seven the front door of our squat was battered down by police officers saying they were looking for goods looted in the riots. We were confined to our rooms while they searched. I objected when they started going through my letters and private documents, saying that none of them had been stolen, but there was nothing I could do. After combing the flat they took away one of my squatmates, Frank, to question at the station because he had a suspiciously large amount of rolling tobacco, but he hadn’t stolen it and no charges were brought.,

Meanwhile I got Helena and Rachel to come along to my court hearing, and a neighbour of theirs who had been in the crowd that night to act as witnesses to the fact that I had done nothing wrong. A lawyer was provided. After I talked to him he said that considering my list of previous arrests there was a possibility I might be facing time in prison. I was a little worried at first, but when the judge heard the circumstances presented as police evidence against me he quashed the charge.

I was charged with ‘Incitement to Racial Hatred’. The story that the arresting officer told in the dock was extraordinary. He said that the accused (me) had been in the company of a gang of black youths. When I had appeared on the scene where the police were resting I had pointed to them and announced: “There they are! Kill the devils!” And my little gang had proceeded to throw bricks and stones at them.

“Just a minute,” said the judge. “This man is white. Him telling black people to kill white people cannot be classed as ‘Incitement to Racial Hatred’. It only works if you are inciting hatred of another race, not your own. This is a waste of time. Case dismissed.”

And so to my relief I was free. Free? Well, at least not in prison.

In 1987 Inspector Douglas Lovelock, the officer who shot Cherry Groce was acquitted of all charges, including malicious wounding, and was reinstated. Mrs Groce received compensation but remained paralyzed for the rest of her life. She died in May 2011.

Meanwhile, the identity of the policeman who shot Mark Duggan remains unclear.

Michael Dickinson can be contacted at his website – http://yabanji.tripod.com/

August 16, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture | 1 Comment

British police kill indiscriminately

Press TV – August 16, 2011

British police have played a significant role in triggering civil disobedience in the UK through their unprofessional and brutal way of dealing with innocent civilians.

Mark Duggan, recently killed in a police shooting in the London suburb of Tottenham and whose death sparked a wave of street protests across Britain, Ian Tomlinson, an English newspaper vendor who was killed during G20 summit protests in London, Jean Charles de Menezes, who was shot seven times in the head after the London bombings of July 7, 2005, and David Emmanuel , a British reggae singer who was killed during a police raid on his home, all are the names included in a long list of people killed at the hands of British police forces.

Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), a police watchdog that deals with complaints against police has been established to investigate police’s crimes.

The IPCC’s job is to make sure that complaints against the police in England and Wales are dealt with effectively, it claims.

The body claims to be setting standards for the way the police handle complaints against themselves and, when something has gone wrong, it helps the police learn lessons and improve the way it works.

But they neither have learnt lessons nor have they tried to improve their performance, the example of which are:

1- Mark Duggan, whose family said it has no trust in the IPCC. The police shooting victim’s friends and family said that they don’t feel the police watchdog is sufficiently independent. The police watchdog has admitted it may have wrongly led journalists to believe that Mark Duggan fired at officers before he was killed. The Independent Police Complaints Commission has confirmed that it may have “inadvertently” given reporters misleading information in the early stages of the investigation. It was initially reported that Duggan, 29, shot at police. But ballistic tests later found that a bullet which lodged itself in one officer’s radio was police issue. An inquest into Duggan’s death heard the father-of-four died from a single gunshot wound to the chest.

2- Ian Tomlinson was an English newspaper vendor who collapsed and died in the City of London after he was confronted with the police while on his way home from work during the 2009 G20 summit protests. A first postmortem examination indicated he had suffered a heart attack and had died of natural causes. A video footage later showed that a baton wielding police had struck him on the leg from behind and the pushed him on the ground. The video showed no provocation on Tomlinson’s part. He also was not a protester, and at the time he was struck was walking along with his hands in his pockets. The victim walked away after the incident, but collapsed and died moments later.

3- Jean Charles de Menezes was killed in the aftermath of the London bombings of July 7, 2005. He was a Brazilian man shot in the head seven times at Stockwell tube station on the London Underground by the Metropolitan Police. Police misidentified the victim as one of the fugitives involved in the previous day’s failed bombing attempts. The IPCC launched two probes into the incident, none of which brought disciplinary charges against police officers involved.

4- David Victor Emmanuel, known as Smiley Culture, was killed on March 15, 2011 during a police raid on his home. The 48-year-old was a British reggae singer and deejay known for his fast chat style. Police claimed that the victim died of a self-inflicted wound, while officers were searching his house in Warlingham, Surrey. But a post-mortem examination revealed that he had died from a single stab wound to his heart. His death triggered peaceful protests, but it was little reported.

The IPCC was faced with a crisis in February 2008 after more than one hundred lawyers who had specialized in handling police complaint resigned from its advisory body.

They lashed out at IPCC for its indifference towards complaints, favoritism towards police and rejecting complaints, which were strongly documented. Meanwhile, there have happened more than 400 deaths at the hands of police officers in the past ten years alone but no policeman has ever been convicted of murder or manslaughter for just one single death so far.

August 16, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

Is Benny Morris (Professor, Ben-Gurion University) a Serious Historian or Plain Old Racist?

London BDS | 28 July 2011

London BDS is pleased to announce that a video about Benny Morris with footage of what really happened on his visit to London has now been released. People should draw their own conclusions about why Benny Morris referred in a press interview to ‘Brownshirts’, ‘Muslim mobs’ and ‘broken English’.

Benny Morris gave numerous interviews after his lecture at the London School of Economics in June 2011. Typical of these was his interview with The National Interest Magazine in which he claimed that he was accosted outside the lecture by a Muslim mob:

“As I walked down Kingsway, a major London thoroughfare, a small mob—I don’t think any other word is appropriate—of some dozen Muslims, Arabs and their supporters, both men and women, surrounded me and, walking alongside me for several hundred yards as I advanced towards the building where the lecture was to take place, raucously harangued and bated me with cries of “fascist,” “racist,” “England should never have allowed you in,” “you shouldn’t be allowed to speak.” Several spoke in broken, obviously newly acquired, English. Violence was thick in the air though none was actually used. Passersby looked on in astonishment, and perhaps shame, but it seemed the sight of angry bearded, caftaned Muslims was sufficient to deter any intervention. To me, it felt like Brownshirts in a street scene in 1920s Berlin—though on Kingsway no one, to the best of my recall, screamed the word ‘Jew’.”

Please take the time to watch the whole video – it’s a good guide to Benny Morris and what he stands for. The encounter with Benny Morris on London’s Kingsway is also included.

An article to accompany the highly-recommended 34 minute video can be found here.

If you don’t have time to spare, an abridged version commences at 30.00 min.

August 15, 2011 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Islamophobia, Video | Leave a comment

No level playing field for Palestinian athletes

By Samah Sabawi | Mondoweiss | August 15, 2011

With much fanfare, the Peace Team has come once again to Australia to compete in the Australian Football League International Cup. Indeed, what can be more appealing for those of us who are passionate about peace in Israel/Palestine than to welcome this team of Palestinian Israeli youth who have learned to play and interact together not as enemies but as teammates? The answer: the idea that when members of this team return to their homes, the Palestinian players would not have to go through dehumanizing checkpoints, around high barbed wire walls and into Bantustans surrounded and suffocated by a matrix of Jewish-only roads, settlements and security zones.

The AFL Peace Team was created in 2008 in order to compete in the AFL International Cup. It is made up of an equal number of Israeli and Palestinian players supported by the Israeli Peres Center – an Israeli organization that aims to promote “peace and reconciliation”. However, the team has come under heavy criticism from Palestinian and other human rights groups who insist that reconciliation is the process of bringing two people together and establishing friendly ties between them after an argument or a disagreement has ended. Reconciliation is the healing phase and as such, cannot be implemented while the environment that breeds the mistrust and the conflict continues to exist.

So far this year, Israel has announced the building of thousands more new Jewish-only homes on stolen Palestinian land in the West Bank. According to UN agencies and human rights groups, Palestinian homes have been demolished by Israel at record rates this year. Israel still maintains a crippling inhumane siege against Palestinians in Gaza while it continues to pursue a process of Judaization in East Jerusalem that is rapidly driving Palestinian residents out of their homes to be replaced by Jewish settlers. In such an environment, how can reconciliation even begin?

The Peres Center fails to understand that peace cannot be achieved by parading Palestinians in the Peace Team around the world in efforts to showcase Israel’s ‘fair play’ in sports without even once addressing the real challenges Palestinian athletes face as a result of Israel’s 43 years of occupation and the devastating impact Israel’s policies have had on Palestinian sports and sports infrastructure. The Peres Center would have met its goals of laying the foundations of ‘peace and reconciliation’ better had it issued a statement calling on its government Israel to lift its crippling blockade and siege of Palestinian sports’ events and athletes.

While the peace team promotes the illusion that Palestinian athletes have equal opportunities to compete and to excel in their fields, in reality, the effect of Israel’s policies tell a different story. The Palestinian National Football (soccer) Team, which was founded in 1952 but only became recognized by FIFA after the creation of the Palestinian Authorities in 1998, has faced insurmountable challenges imposed by Israel aiming to isolate Palestinians in all fields, sports as well as academic, medical and cultural. This year, Israeli policies of occupation have sabotaged the Palestinian team putting them at a great disadvantage as key members of the team were prevented from traveling into the West Bank from Gaza.

This is not news for those who follow this conflict. Many Palestinian athletes have in the past suffered Israel’s blanket boycott on Palestinian sports. Palestinian Olympic players and youth teams are frequently denied both exit and re-entry when traveling from Gaza to the West Bank. In the qualifying rounds for the 2006 World Cup, five key players were prevented exit from Gaza by the Israeli authorities and so as a result Palestine failed to qualify. A year later the Palestine National Team was prevented by Israel from traveling to play a World Cup Qualifier in Singapore and so it was eliminated. In May 2008 the same team was unable to attend the AFC Challenge Cup, which meant they were denied qualification for the 2011 Asia Cup.

This system of Israeli permits that restrict and confine Palestinians, denying them their right to travel, reminds us of the “pass laws” of Apartheid South Africa that were put in place to limit the movement of Black South Africans and keep them in their segregated communities. Such blanket confinement of an entire population is a form of collective punishment and is in violation of Article 33 of the Geneva Conventions.

Unfortunately, Israel’s assault on Palestinian sports and athletes is not limited to its system of permits. During Operation Cast Lead in 2008-09 Israel’s indiscriminate bombardment of Gaza, which destroyed huge areas of the city, flattening houses, schools, hospitals and mosques also destroyed the Rafah National Stadium. Over 1,400 people in Gaza were killed including football players Ayman Alkurd, Shadi Sbakhe and Wajeh Moshate.

So while Israel’s Peres Center parades its token ‘peace team’ of Palestinian and Israeli athletes in a clear effort to normalize the occupation and to reduce the criticism and pressure Israel faces from human rights groups and the international community over its oppression of Palestinians, let us take a moment to consider the harsh conditions that Palestinian athletes endure in their daily lives. Of course an Israeli Palestinian team is worth celebrating, but only if it comes from an Israeli Palestinian society that is free of discrimination, where Palestinians and Israelis live as equals both on and off the playing field.

Samah Sabawi is an Australian Palestinian writer and political analyst. She is Public Advocate for Australian for Palestine.

August 15, 2011 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | 1 Comment

Will TVA gamble with nuke plant?

TVA board to consider gamble completing Bellefonte Nuclear site

Enformable | August 14, 2011

Later this month, the board of the Tennessee Valley Authority could take up a proposal to complete the Bellefonte nuclear power plant in northeast Alabama.

TVA administrators are conducting a campaign to gain public support for the project and nuclear energy in general despite a dangerous incident at a Japanese plant this year.

The Bellefonte Nuclear Generating Station is a partially completed nuclear power plant located in Hollywood, Alabama. A total of four reactors have been proposed over a period of 40 years, and billions of dollars have been spent, but no electricity has yet been produced. The site has sat idle for more than 20 years and some spare parts have been taken from the two incomplete units.

In 1974, TVA announced it would build two 1,200 megawatt nuclear reactors at Bellefonte, located in Jackson County, Ala., and construction began on Unit 1 but was halted in 1988 because of decreased power demand. TVA kept the unit in deferred status until 2005, when it decided to cancel construction.

TVA says reviving the Bellefonte plant would cost about $4.8 billion and take several years…

Mr. Gundersen’s expert analysis identifies seven specific areas of risk that, in Fairewinds’ opinion, will cause further delays, additional costs, and even possible suspension of the Bellefonte project if TVA decides to move forward with its construction. They are:

1. Bellefonte’s Unique Design
2. Groundwater Intrusion That Is Weakening It’s Foundations
3. Missing Critical Nuclear Quality Assurance Documents and Complete Records
4. Cannibalization of Bellefonte’s Operating Systems
5. Containment Problems Unique to Bellefonte
6. Historical Precedent
7. Post-Fukushima Lessons Learned

~

Bellefonte Nuclear Generating Station http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellefonte_Nuclear_Generating_Station

August 15, 2011 Posted by | Nuclear Power, Video | 1 Comment

Rep. Michele Bachmann at the Republican Jewish Coalition


February 5, 2010

. . . I am convinced in my heart and in my mind that if the United States fails to stand with Israel, that is the end of the United States . . . [W]e have to show that we are inextricably entwined, that as a nation we have been blessed because of our relationship with Israel, and if we reject Israel, then there is a curse that comes into play. And my husband and I are both Christians, and we believe very strongly [Genesis 12:3], we believe very strongly that nations also receive blessings as they bless Israel. It is a strong and beautiful principle.

Right now in my own private Bible time, I am working through Isaiah . . . and there is continually a coming back to what God gave to Israel initially, which was the Torah and the Ten Commandments, and I have a wonderful quote from John Adams that if you will indulge me [while I find it] . . . [from his February 16, 1809 letter to François Adriaan van der Kemp]:

I will insist that the Hebrews have done more to civilize men than any other nation. If I were an atheist, and believed in blind eternal fate, I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations. If I were an atheist of the other sect, who believe or pretend to believe that all is ordered by chance, I should believe that chance had ordered the Jews to preserve and propagate to all mankind the doctrine of a supreme, intelligent, wise, almighty sovereign of the universe, which I believe to be the great essential principle of all morality, and consequently of all civilization.

. . . So that is a very long way to answer your question, but I believe that an explicit statement from us about our support for Israel as tied to American security, we would do well to do that.

August 15, 2011 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

On the refusal to recognize Palestine

By Matthew Graber  | Mondoweiss | August 15, 2011

I’ve been reading Judith Butler and Edward Said a lot lately. I’m interested in power dynamics and what it is that drives people to do terrible things in this world.  When I came to Said’s commentary (The Question of Palestine, p.9) on the Zionist slogan of Israel Zangwill for Palestine – “A land without people for a people without land” – I was stirred. Suddenly I had flashes to all of those comments that I see posted all over the internet, on Youtube and Mondo. It was a very visceral reaction to Said’s words.

Some people argue that there has never been a land known as Palestine. Some of these people may point out that, within the Western construct of nation-states, the term “Palestine” has been used to denote a land in the Middle East only as an administrative term during the Roman Empire and then under British mandate in 1922 following the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

And I wanted to verbalize to some of my friends and acquaintances why I am ever frustrated by the refusal of Palestine, and to explain how this refusal constitutes racism and allows for continuing violence against the Palestinian people to this day.

An Arab people living, as they referred to it, in a land known as Palestine is documented back to at least the 7th century (Guy Le Strange, Palestine Under the Moslems: A Description of Syria and the Holy Land from A.D. 650 to 1500 Translated from the Works of the Medieval Arab Geographers).

But we needn’t consult a geographer or historian to recognize this as true. We just need to listen to a Palestinian.

And herein lies the problem that I have.

In order to listen to a Palestinian, one must be able to hear their voice, and to give that voice consideration and legitimation. The refusal to recognize a land known as Palestine coincides with the refusal to consider the Arab people who live there – to refuse to recognize their existence, their humanity, their mortality, and their voices.

And so refusing to recognize a land as Palestine and a people known as Palestinian actually is to refuse to recognize the violence that the Zionist project of Israel has inflicted upon the Arab people of Palestine, and to refuse to recognize the continuing violence of that project today.

Just earlier this week Israel authorized the construction of 1,600 homes in East Jerusalem – constituting even more land stolen from Palestinians for the state of Israel. The apartheid wall being built by Israel continues to confiscate Palestinian land for the exclusive use of Israelis. Farmers across the West Bank have their farmland taken and their crops destroyed. The blockade of Gaza at all ports of entry – land, sea, and air – does not allow for enough food or medical supplies to reach the 1.5 million people living there. The Palestinian people in the West Bank are allowed 50 gallons of water a day per household (the UN says that people need at least 75 gallons to survive) while the Israelis in the settlements of the West Bank use 250 gallons of water a day per household. Palestinian children are abducted and coerced by Israeli soldiers. Palestinians are harrassed at the over 200 Israeli checkpoints throughout the West Bank. Thousands of Palestinians linger in Israeli jails.

This is not historical violence. This is what is happening today, August 15th, 2011, in the Middle East.

And so, I want you to consider who it is that considers Palestinian voices. Why doesn’t the press talk about this violence inflicted upon the Palestinian people? Why don’t people – you, me, people the world over – protest this violence? What happens during the daily protests of Palestinians?

So every time you hear somebody say, “There has never been a country called Palestine,” I want you to consider this note. And I want you to say, “Hey! That’s racism” And then consider how that racism pervades our society. And fight back.

August 15, 2011 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | 1 Comment

Unexplained Gaza communications “blackout” highlights Israeli control of networks

By Benjamin Doherty – The Electronic Intifada – 08/14/2011

On Tuesday, Gaza disappeared from the world’s telecommunication networks for between 12 and 18 hours. This was an anxious time for both Gaza’s residents and those trying to contact friends, colleagues and loved ones from the outside.

The Gaza Strip, home to 1.6 million Palestinians, the vast majority of them refugees, depends on telecommunications to maintain a tenuous link to the outside world, from which it has been physically isolated due to five years of Israeli siege and blockade. The sudden cutoff also sparked fears of an imminent Israeli attack.

Though there was relief when communications were re-established, there has been no satisfactory explanation of the blackout, who was responsible for it, and whether or not it could happen again.

What happened to Gaza’s networks last week?

Ma’an News Agency was the first to report the problem, and a few Twitter users in Gaza remained online because they had BlackBerry service or were able to connect to the Orange network via its towers on the Israeli side of the boundary with Gaza.

The blackout has not been fully explained, and statements from Israeli and Palestinian officials are not consistent. The initial reports of Israeli bulldozers do not mention if the bulldozers were actually digging in the ground. One incident should not have disconnected the entire Gaza Strip, because there are multiple lines at different locations that connect Gaza’s networks to the West Bank. […]

[An Israeli occupation forces] spokesperson denied involvement in the disconnection, but they were very specific about what they were denying. […]

Occupied Lineman

To repair broken equipment in Israel, the Palestinian companies that maintain them must either receive permission from the Israeli authorities or find an Israeli contractor to perform the work. During Israel’s three-week long assault on Gaza in 2008-09, millions of dollars of damage was done to Gaza’s telecommunications infrastructure, but even then, the network did not completely fail as it did last week.

Under the terms of the Oslo Accords, Israel agreed to allow Palestinians’ to develop an independent telecommunications infrastructure, but the communications infrastructure in West Bank and Gaza Strip remains completely dependent on Israel. In fact, Palestinians (along with Israelis) are prohibited from connecting to international networks through any other country. Despite this, Paltel announced its intention to develop an alternate connection through networks in Jordan earlier this year.

In a useful and well-documented paper, Helga Tawil-Souri gives a detailed introduction to the history of Palestinian telecommunications under Israeli occupation and what she terms the “Hi-tech enclosure of Gaza,” the electronic counterpart of Israel’s ongoing physical siege of the territory.

Moreover, Palestinian writer and entrepreneur Sam Bahour, who was part of the core team that established Paltel, has emphasized the importance of telecommunications to economic development and how Israel’s occupation has enriched Israeli companies and hindered Palestinian development in general. … Full article

August 15, 2011 Posted by | Subjugation - Torture | Leave a comment

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