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CIA intelligence fiasco in Lebanon

Press TV – November 21, 2011

Hezbollah has dealt a heavy blow to CIA operations in Lebanon, forcing the intelligence agency to curtail its espionage activities in the country, US officials say.

According to current and former US officials, CIA operations in Lebanon have been badly damaged after the resistance movement identified and captured a number of US spies this year, AP reported.

They have also said that CIA officials have secretly been scrambling in recent months to protect their remaining spies, foreign assets or agents working for the agency, before Hezbollah finds them.

Giving credit to Hezbollah for uncovering the espionage rings, the US officials blamed negligence by CIA managers and sloppy practices used by the spies for their networks being discovered in Lebanon, which is considered a key watching post for collecting crucial intelligence on Middle East countries including Syria and Iran.

It remains unclear whether anyone has been or will be held accountable in the wake of this counterintelligence disaster.

Hezbollah Secretary General Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah in June announced the arrest of several spies affiliated with the CIA, who had infiltrated the ranks of the group. Nasrallah said that CIA officers, posing as diplomats at the US Embassy in Beirut, had recruited them in early 2011.

At the time, US officials denied the report, but now current and former US officials concede that Hezbollah busted several US spy rings and arrested a number of American spies, which affected CIA espionage activities in Lebanon.

“Beirut station is out of business,” said one source using the CIA terminology.

In April 2009, Lebanon launched a nationwide crackdown on spy cells, mostly Israeli networks, arresting nearly 100 people, including members of the country’s security forces and telecommunications personnel, on suspicion of espionage for Mossad.

A number of the suspects have admitted to their role in helping Israel identify targets inside Lebanon, mostly belonging to Hezbollah, which Tel Aviv heavily bombed during its 2006 war against the country.

November 21, 2011 Posted by | Aletho News | Leave a comment

The Bloodshed in Honduras: Obama’s Disgrace

Biofuel Death Squads

By MARK WEISBROT | CounterPunch | November 21, 2011

Imagine that an opposition organizer were murdered in broad daylight in Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador or Venezuela by masked gunmen, or kidnapped and murdered by armed guards of a well-known supporter of the government.  It would be front page news in the New York Times, and all over the TV news.  The U.S. State Department would issue a strong statement of concern over grave human rights abuses.  If this were ever to happen.

Now imagine that 59 of these kinds of political killings had taken place so far this year, and 61 the previous year.  Long before the number of victims reached this level, this would become a major foreign policy issue for the United States, and Washington would be calling for international sanctions.

But we are talking about Honduras, not Bolivia or Venezuela.  So when President Porfirio Lobo of Honduras came to Washington last month, President Obama greeted him warmly and said:

“Two years ago, we saw a coup in Honduras that threatened to move the country away from democracy, and in part because of pressure from the international community, but also because of the strong commitment to democracy and leadership by President Lobo, what we’ve been seeing is a restoration of democratic practices and a commitment to reconciliation that gives us great hope.”

Of course, President Obama refused to even meet with the democratically elected president that was overthrown in the coup that he mentioned, even though that president came to Washington three times seeking help after the coup.  That was Mel Zelaya, a left-of-center president who was overthrown by the military and conservative sectors in Honduras after instituting a number of reforms that people had voted for, like raising the minimum wage and laws promoting land reform.

But what angered Washington most was that Zelaya was close to the left governments of South America, including Venezuela.  He wasn’t any closer to Venezuela than Brazil or Argentina was, but this was a crime of opportunity.  So when the Honduran military overthrew Zelaya in June of 2009, the Obama Administration did everything it could for the next six months to make sure that the coup succeeded.  The “pressure from the international community” that Obama referred to in the above statement came from other countries, mainly the left-of-center governments in South America.  The United States was on the other side, fighting — ultimately successfully — to legitimize the coup government through an “election” that the rest of the hemisphere refused to recognize.

In May of this year, Zelaya  stated publicly what most of us who followed the events closely already guessed was true:  that Washington was behind the coup and helped bring it about.  While no one will likely bother to investigate the U.S. role in the coup, this is quite plausible given the overwhelming circumstantial evidence.

Porifiro Lobo took office in January 2010, but most of the hemisphere refused to recognize the government because his election took place under conditions of serious human rights violations.  In May 2011 an agreement was finally brokered in Cartegena, Colombia, that allowed Honduras back into the Organization of American States. But the Lobo government has not complied with its part of the Cartegena accords, which included human rights guarantees for the political opposition.

Here are two of the dozens of political killings that have occurred during Lobo’s presidency, as compiled by the Chicago Religious Leadership Network on Latin America (CRLN):

“Pedro Salgado, vice-president of the Unified Campesino Movement of Aguán (MUCA), was shot then beheaded at about 8:00 p.m. at his home in the La Concepción empresa cooperative. His spouse, Reina Irene Mejía, was also shot to death at the same time. Pedro suffered a murder attempt in December 2010. … Salgado, like the presidents of all the cooperatives claiming rights to land used by African palm oil businessmen in the Aguán, had been subject to constant death threats since the beginning of 2011.”

The courage of these activists and organizers in the face of such horrific violence and repression is amazing.  Many of the killings over the past year have been in the Aguán Valley in the Northeast, where small farmers are struggling for land rights against one of Honduras’ richest landowners, Miguel Facussé.  He is producing biofuels in this region on disputed land.  He is close to the United States and was an important backer of the 2009 coup against Zelaya. His private security forces, together with U.S.-backed military and police, are responsible for the political violence in the region.  U.S. aid to the Honduran military has increased since the coup. … Full article

November 21, 2011 Posted by | Environmentalism, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

Ex-Inspector Rejects IAEA Iran Bomb Test Chamber Claim

By GARETH PORTER | CounterPunch | November 21, 2011

A former inspector for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has repudiated its major new claim that Iran built an explosives chamber to test components of a nuclear weapon and carry out a simulated nuclear explosion.

The IAEA claim that a foreign scientist – identified in news reports as Vyacheslav Danilenko – had been involved in building the alleged containment chamber has now been denied firmly by Danilenko himself in an interview with Radio Free Europe published Friday.

The latest report by the IAEA cited “information provided by Member States” that Iran had constructed “a large explosives containment vessel in which to conduct hydrodynamic experiments” – meaning simulated explosions of nuclear weapons – in its Parchin military complex in 2000.

The report said it had “confirmed” that a “large cylindrical object” housed at the same complex had been “designed to contain the detonation of up to 70 kilograms of high explosives”. That amount of explosives, it said, would be “appropriate” for testing a detonation system to trigger a nuclear weapon.

But former IAEA inspector Robert Kelley has denounced the agency’s claims about such a containment chamber as “highly misleading”.

Kelley, a nuclear engineer who was the IAEA’s chief weapons inspector in Iraq and is now a senior research fellow at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, pointed out in an interview with the Real News Network that a cylindrical chamber designed to contain 70 kg of explosives, as claimed by the IAEA, could not possibly have been used for hydrodynamic testing of a nuclear weapon design, contrary to the IAEA claim.

“There are far more explosives in that bomb than could be contained by this container,” Kelley said, referring to the simulated explosion of a nuclear weapon in a hydrodynamic experiment.

Kelley also observed that hydrodynamic testing would not have been done in a container inside a building in any case. “You have to be crazy to do hydrodynamic explosives in a container,” he said. “There’s no reason to do it. They’re done outdoors on firing tables.”

Kelley rejected the IAEA claim that the alleged cylindrical chamber was new evidence of an Iranian weapons program. “We’ve been led by the nose to believe that this container is important, when in fact it’s not important at all,” Kelley said.

The IAEA report and unnamed “diplomats” implied that a “former Soviet nuclear weapons scientist”, identified in the media as Danilenko, had helped build the alleged containment vessel at Parchin.

But their claims conflict with one another as well as with readily documented facts about Danilenko’s work in Iran.

The IAEA report does not deny that Danilenko – a Ukrainian who worked in a Soviet-era research institute that was identified mainly with nuclear weapons – was actually a specialist on nanodiamonds. The report nevertheless implies a link beween Danilenko and the purported explosives chamber at Parchin by citing a publication by Danilenko as a source for the dimensions of the alleged explosives chamber.

Associated Press reported Nov. 11 that unnamed diplomats suggested Volodymyr Padalko, a partner of Danilenko in a nanodiamond business who was described as Danilenko’s son-in-law, had contradicted Danilenko’s firm denial of involvement in building a containment vessel for weapons testing. The diplomats claimed Padalko had told IAEA investigators that Danilenko had helped build “a large steel chamber to contain the force of the blast set off by such explosives testing”.

But that claim appears to be an effort to confuse Danilenko’s well-established work on an explosives chamber for nanodiamond synthesis with a chamber for weapons testing, such as the IAEA now claims was built at Parchin.

One of the unnamed diplomats described the steel chamber at Parchin as “the size of a double decker bus” and thus “much too large” for nanodiamonds.

But the IAEA report itself made exactly the opposite argument, suggesting that the purported steel chamber at Parchin was based on the design in a published paper by Danilenko.

The report said the alleged explosives chamber was designed to contain “up to 70 kg of high explosives” which is claims would be “suitable” for testing what it calls a “multipoint initiation system” for a nuclear weapon.

But a 2008 slide show on systems for nanodiamond synthesis posted on the internet by the U.S.-based nanotechnology company NanoBlox shows that the last patented containment chamber built by Danilenko and patented in 1992, with a total volume of 100 cubic metres, was designed for the use of just 10 kg of explosives.

An unnamed member state had given the IAEA a purported Iranian document in 2008 describing a 2003 test of what the agency interpreted to be a possible “high explosive implosion system for a nuclear weapon”.

David Albright, director of a Washington, D.C. think tank who frequently passes on information from IAEA officials to the news media, told this writer in 2009 that the member state in question was “probably Israel”.

Although the process of making “detonation nanodiamonds” uses explosives in a containment chamber, the chamber would bear little resemblance to one used for testing a nuclear bomb’s initiation system.

The production of diamonds does not require the same high degree of precision in simultaneous explosions as the initiator for a nuclear device. And unlike the explosives used in a multipoint initiation system, the explosives used for making synthetic nanodiamonds must be under water in a closed pool, as Danilenko noted in a 2010 PowerPoint presentation.

Having endorsed the IAEA’s claims, Albright concedes in a Nov. 13 article that the IAEA report “did not provide [sic] Danilenko’s involvement, if any, in this chamber.”

In an interview with Radio Free Europe Friday, Danilenko denied that he has any expertise in nuclear weapons, saying, “I understand absolutely nothing in nuclear physics.” He also denied that he participated in “modeling warheads” at the research institute in Russia where he worked for three decades.

Danilenko further denied doing any work in Iran that did not relate to “dynamic detonation synthesis of diamonds” and said he has “strong doubts” that Iran had a nuclear weapons program during those years.

Albright and three co-authors published an account of Danilenko’s work in Iran this week seeking to give credibility to the IAEA suggestion that he worked on the containment chamber for a nuclear weapons programme.

The Albright article, published on the website of the Institute for Science and International Security, said that Danilenko approached the Iranian embassy in 1995 offering his expertise on detonation diamonds, and later signed a contract with Syed Abbas Shahmoradi who responded to Danilenko’s query.

Albright identifies Shahmoradi as the “head of Iran’s secret nuclear sector involved in the development of nuclear weapons”, merely because Shahmoradi later headed the Physics Research Center, which the IAEA argues has led Iran’s nuclear weapons research.

But in late 1995, Shahmoradi was at the Sharif University of Technology, which is a leading centre for nanodiamonds in Iran. Albright argues that this is evidence supporting his suspicion that nanodiamonds were a cover for his real work, because the main centre for nanodiamond research is at Malek Ashtar University of Technology rather than at Sharif University.

However, Sharif University had just established an Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology in 2005 that was intended to become the hub for nanotechnology research activities and strategy planning for Iran. So Sharif University and Shahmoradi would have been the logical choice to contract one of the world’s leading specialists on nanodiamonds.

~

GARETH PORTER is an investigative historian and journalist with Inter-Press Service specialising in U.S. national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book, “Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam“, was published in 2006.

November 21, 2011 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | Leave a comment

US shoots down Russian missile defense proposals

RT | November 21, 2011

Russia’s Ambassador to NATO has said that Russia-US missile defense negotiations have hit an impasse, as Washington rejects Russia’s cooperation in the controversial project.

­The United States has rejected every missile defense proposal offered by Moscow, Permanent Representative to NATO Dmitry Rogozin said in an interview with Echo of Moscow radio.

Washington has said “no” to the Russian idea of a common missile defense network, Rogozin said. More telling as to the true purpose of the project, perhaps, the US also refused to give legally binding guarantees that the system would not be aimed at Russia’s strategic nuclear defenses under any circumstances.

The United States and NATO have been working on a European missile defense shield to protect Eastern Europe from a rogue missile strike. Russia has warned the West that such a system, without full interoperability between NATO and Russia, will necessarily be viewed as a potential threat to its national security.

In May, during the G8 Summit in Deauville, France, President Dmitry Medvedev warned of “another arms race” unless the two sides reached an acceptable position.

Meanwhile, Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev ordered the negotiators back to the table to continue negotiations until NATO makes its decision on the missile defense architecture.

A final decision is expected to be announced at the NATO Chicago summit in May 2012.

November 21, 2011 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | Leave a comment

More Anti-Iran Propaganda By Joby Warrick & Co

Moon of Alabama | November 21, 2011

The currently “most emailed story” at the Washington Post site is Iran may have sent Libya shells for chemical weapons.

May, may, may?

The 1.500 words piece is clearly written to suggest some Iranian “Weapon of Mass Destruction” business even though, as a not-so-casual read will find, there is nothing to it. Just many mays, vague anonymous sources and innuendo added to each other.

The picture above the article shows unmarked empty gas canisters with handles, not artillery shells.

In the second picture in the gallery accompanying the article a container marked “Hydroxyde de Sodium” somewhere in Libya is shown. It is describe as:

Chemical containers are seen in an unguarded storage facility in the desert, about 60 miles south of Sirte, Libya.

But “hydroxyde de sodium” is just caustic soda which:

is used in many industries, mostly as a strong chemical base in the manufacture of pulp and paper, textiles, drinking water, soaps and detergents and as a drain cleaner. Worldwide production in 2004 was approximately 60 million tonnes, …”

This has, unlike the Washington Post placement of the pictures suggests, nothing to do with chemical weapons.

The article begins:

The Obama administration is investigating whether Iran supplied the Libyan government of Moammar Gaddafi with hundreds of special artillery shells for chemical weapons that Libya kept secret for decades, U.S. officials said.The shells, which Libya filled with highly toxic mustard agent, were uncovered in recent weeks by revolutionary fighters at two sites in central Libya. Both are under heavy guard and round-the-clock surveillance by drones, U.S. and Libyan officials said.

So the whole issue is about empty artillery shells found somewhere in Libya (the piece does not even say where), which may have come from Iran, decades ago.

How does such a find, even when confirmed, allow for the following passages:

A U.S. official with access to classified information confirmed that there were “serious concerns” that Iran had provided the shells, albeit some years ago. […] Confirmed evidence of Iran’s provision of the specialized shells may exacerbate international tensions over the country’s alleged pursuit of weapons of mass destruction.

Why should decades old empty artillery shells in Libya “exacerbate international tensions” about an alleged nuclear program in Iran?

In an unclassified report to Congress this year, the U.S. director of national intelligence said that “Iran maintains the capability to produce chemical warfare agents … [and] is capable of weaponizing CW agents in a variety of delivery systems.” Those systems include artillery shells, according to current and former U.S. officials.

Any school chemistry lab has the “capability to produce chemical warfare agents” and the means to deliver those. Again – what has this to do with decades old empty artillery shells in the Libyan desert? Is this journalism?

The whole piece is just constructed anti-Iran propaganda. Not astonishingly, it was co-written by Joby Warrick, the Washington Post’s Judith Miller equivalent, who also recently spread the false “Soviet nuclear scientist” stories about an expert in nanodiamond production who once worked in Iran.

What gives me some hope is that the comments to this latest Washington Post smear piece seem to recognize it for what it is. They don’t buy it but call it out as pure propaganda without any journalistic value.

November 21, 2011 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | Leave a comment

Note to Media: The UC Davis “Investigation” is not the Story

By Angus Johnston | Student Activism | November 20, 2011

The UC Davis story has gone global overnight. Here’s a taste of the morning papers:

But see what they all did here? They all led with Linda Katehi’s promised investigation of the incident, which she announced in a statement yesterday:

I am forming a task force made of faculty, students and staff to review the events and provide to me a thorough report within 90 days. As part of this, a process will be designed that allows members of the community to express their views on this matter. This report will help inform our policies and processes within the university administration and the Police Department to help us avoid similar outcomes in the future.

That’s it. That’s the entirety of the relevant portion of the statement. No word on how the task force will be constituted, what its composition will be, how its student and faculty members will be chosen. No hint that it will have any actual policymaking authority. And it’s got 90 days before it’s expected to report — does anyone really think that this situation is going to stay static until mid-February? Does anyone think that the release of this report is going to be a major event?

Come on.

I get why the press is going with this angle for their ledes. It sounds like a big deal. It sounds serious, momentous. And it’s something you can report without seeming to take sides. An investigation! A report! That’s just the thing to get to the bottom of this situation!

But here’s the thing. We’ve already gotten to the bottom of the situation. We know what happened. UC Davis police used unwarranted force on a group of peaceful student demonstrators in violation of university policy, and then top university officials lied about why. That’s the story. That’s the situation. If the task force reports that, they’ll be telling us all what we already know. If they don’t, they’ll be engaging in an act of utterly pointless misrepresentation.

A lot of important stuff happened yesterday. New videos emerged that helped to prove the university’s original cover story false. Katehi was asked to resign, by multiple people in multiple venues, and gave a series of not particularly forceful responses. University officials gave a press conference at which reporters greeted their continuing attempts to justify Friday’s violence with barely concealed scorn. And then Katehi hid from a peaceful crowd for two hours before emerging to slink back to her car in silence and shame.

All that stuff happened. And any of if would make a great lede.

November 21, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Solidarity and Activism | Leave a comment

Ten Things You Should Know About Friday’s UC Davis Police Violence

By Angus Johnston | Student Activism | November 20, 2011

1. The protest at which UC Davis police officers used pepper spray and batons against unresisting demonstrators was an entirely nonviolent one.

None of the arrests at UC Davis in the current wave of activism have been for violent offenses. Indeed, as the New York Times reported this morning, the university’s administration has “reported no instances of violence by any protesters.” Not one.

2. The unauthorized tent encampment was dismantled before the pepper spraying began.

Students had set up tents on campus on Thursday, and the administration had allowed them to stay up overnight. When campus police ordered students to take the tents down on Friday afternoon, however, most complied. The remainder of the tents were quickly removed by police without incident before the pepper spray incident.

3. Students did not restrict the movement of police at any time during the demonstration.

After police made a handful of arrests in the course of taking down the students’ tents, some of the remaining demonstrators formed a wide seated circle around the officers and arrestees.

UC Davis police chief Annette Spicuzza has claimed that officers were unable to leave that circle: “There was no way out,” she told the Sacramento Bee. “They were cutting the officers off from their support. It’s a very volatile situation.” But multiple videos clearly show that the seated students made no effort to impede the officers’ movement. Indeed, Lt. Pike, who initiated the pepper spraying of the group, was inside the circle moments earlier. To position himself to spray, he simply stepped over the line.

4. Lt. Pike was not in fear for his safety when he sprayed the students.

Chief Spicuzza told reporters on Thursday that her officers had been concerned for their safety when they began spraying. But again, multiple videos show this claim to be groundless.

The most widely distributed video of the incident (viewed, as I write this, by nearly 700,000 people on YouTube) begins just moments before Lt. Pike begain spraying, but another video, which starts a few minutes earlier, shows Pike chatting amiably with one activist, even patting him casually on the back.

The pat on the back occurs just two minutes and nineteen seconds before Pike pepper sprayed the student he had just been chatting with and all of his friends.

5. University of California Police are not authorized to use pepper spray except in circumstances in which it is necessary to prevent physical injury to themselves or others. 

From the University of California’s Universitywide Police Policies and Administrative Procedures: “Chemical agents are weapons used to minimize the potential for injury to officers, offenders, or other persons. They should only be used in situations where such force reasonably appears justified and necessary.”

6. UC police are not authorized to use physical force except to control violent offenders or keep suspects from escaping.

Another quote from the UC’s policing policy: “Arrestees and suspects shall be treated in a humane manner … they shall not be subject to physical force except as required to subdue violence or ensure detention. No officer shall strike an arrestee or suspect except in self-defense, to prevent an escape, or to prevent injury to another person.”

7. The UC Davis Police made no effort to remove the student demonstrators from the walkway peacefully before using pepper spray against them.

One video of the pepper-spray incident shows a group of officers moving in to remove the students from the walkway. Just as one of them reaches down to pick up a female student who was leaning against a friend, however, Lt. Pike waves the group back, clearing a space for him to use pepper spray without risk of accidentally spraying his colleagues.

8. Use of pepper spray and other physical force continued after the students’ minimal obstruction of the area around the police ended.

The line of seated students had begun to break up no more than eight seconds after Lt. Pike began spraying. The spraying continued, however, and officers soon began using batons and other physical force against the now-incapacitated group.

9. Even after police began using unprovoked and unlawful violence against the students, they remained peaceful.

Multiple videos show the aftermath of the initial pepper spraying and the physical violence that followed. In none of them do any of the assaulted students or any of the onlookers strike any of the officers who are attacking them and their friends.

10. The students’ commitment to nonviolence extended to their use of language.

At one point on Thursday afternoon, before the police attack on the demonstration, a few activists started a chant of “From Davis to Greece, fuck the police.” They were quickly hushed by fellow demonstrators who urged them to “keep it nonviolent! Keep it peaceful!”

Their chant was replaced by one of “you use weapons, we use our voice.”

Six and a half minutes later, the entire group was pepper sprayed.

If you’d like to stay in the loop as I continue to cover this story, feel free to follow me on Twitter.

November 21, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Solidarity and Activism | Leave a comment

UC Davis: Open Letter to Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi

18 November 2011

Open Letter to Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi

Linda P.B. Katehi,

I am a junior faculty member at UC Davis. I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of English, and I teach in the Program in Critical Theory and in Science & Technology Studies. I have a strong record of research, teaching, and service. I am currently a Board Member of the Davis Faculty Association. I have also taken an active role in supporting the student movement to defend public education on our campus and throughout the UC system. In a word: I am the sort of young faculty member, like many of my colleagues, this campus needs. I am an asset to the University of California at Davis.

You are not.

I write to you and to my colleagues for three reasons:

1) to express my outrage at the police brutality which occurred against students engaged in peaceful protest on the UC Davis campus today

2) to hold you accountable for this police brutality

3) to demand your immediate resignation

Today you ordered police onto our campus to clear student protesters from the quad. These were protesters who participated in a rally speaking out against tuition increases and police brutality on UC campuses on Tuesday—a rally that I organized, and which was endorsed by the Davis Faculty Association. These students attended that rally in response to a call for solidarity from students and faculty who were bludgeoned with batons, hospitalized, and arrested at UC Berkeley last week. In the highest tradition of non-violent civil disobedience, those protesters had linked arms and held their ground in defense of tents they set up beside Sproul Hall. In a gesture of solidarity with those students and faculty, and in solidarity with the national Occupy movement, students at UC Davis set up tents on the main quad. When you ordered police outfitted with riot helmets, brandishing batons and teargas guns to remove their tents today, those students sat down on the ground in a circle and linked arms to protect them.

What happened next?

Without any provocation whatsoever, other than the bodies of these students sitting where they were on the ground, with their arms linked, police pepper-sprayed students. Students remained on the ground, now writhing in pain, with their arms linked.

What happened next?

Police used batons to try to push the students apart. Those they could separate, they arrested, kneeling on their bodies and pushing their heads into the ground. Those they could not separate, they pepper-sprayed directly in the face, holding these students as they did so. When students covered their eyes with their clothing, police forced open their mouths and pepper-sprayed down their throats. Several of these students were hospitalized. Others are seriously injured. One of them, forty-five minutes after being pepper-sprayed down his throat, was still coughing up blood.

This is what happened. You are responsible for it.

You are responsible for it because this is what happens when UC Chancellors order police onto our campuses to disperse peaceful protesters through the use of force: students get hurt. Faculty get hurt. One of the most inspiring things (inspiring for those of us who care about students who assert their rights to free speech and peaceful assembly) about the demonstration in Berkeley on November 9 is that UC Berkeley faculty stood together with students, their arms linked together. Associate Professor of English Celeste Langan was grabbed by her hair, thrown on the ground, and arrested. Associate Professor Geoffrey O’Brien was injured by baton blows. Professor Robert Hass, former Poet Laureate of the United States, National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize winner, was also struck with a baton. These faculty stood together with students in solidarity, and they too were beaten and arrested by the police. In writing this letter, I stand together with those faculty and with the students they supported.

One week after this happened at UC Berkeley, you ordered police to clear tents from the quad at UC Davis. When students responded in the same way—linking arms and holding their ground—police also responded in the same way: with violent force. The fact is: the administration of UC campuses systematically uses police brutality to terrorize students and faculty, to crush political dissent on our campuses, and to suppress free speech and peaceful assembly. Many people know this. Many more people are learning it very quickly.

You are responsible for the police violence directed against students on the UC Davis quad on November 18, 2011. As I said, I am writing to hold you responsible and to demand your immediate resignation on these grounds.

On Wednesday November 16, you issued a letter by email to the campus community. In this letter, you discussed a hate crime which occurred at UC Davis on Sunday November 13. In this letter, you express concern about the safety of our students. You write, “it is particularly disturbing that such an act of intolerance should occur at a time when the campus community is working to create a safe and inviting space for all our students.” You write, “while these are turbulent economic times, as a campus community, we must all be committed to a safe, welcoming environment that advances our efforts to diversity and excellence at UC Davis.”

I will leave it to my colleagues and every reader of this letter to decide what poses a greater threat to “a safe and inviting space for all our students” or “a safe, welcoming environment” at UC Davis: 1) Setting up tents on the quad in solidarity with faculty and students brutalized by police at UC Berkeley? or 2) Sending in riot police to disperse students with batons, pepper-spray, and tear-gas guns, while those students sit peacefully on the ground with their arms linked? Is this what you have in mind when you refer to creating “a safe and inviting space?” Is this what you have in mind when you express commitment to “a safe, welcoming environment?”

I am writing to tell you in no uncertain terms that there must be space for protest on our campus. There must be space for political dissent on our campus. There must be space for civil disobedience on our campus. There must be space for students to assert their right to decide on the form of their protest, their dissent, and their civil disobedience—including the simple act of setting up tents in solidarity with other students who have done so. There must be space for protest and dissent, especially, when the object of protest and dissent is police brutality itself. You may not order police to forcefully disperse student protesters peacefully protesting police brutality. You may not do so. It is not an option available to you as the Chancellor of a UC campus. That is why I am calling for your immediate resignation.

Your words express concern for the safety of our students. Your actions express no concern whatsoever for the safety of our students. I deduce from this discrepancy that you are not, in fact, concerned about the safety of our students. Your actions directly threaten the safety of our students. And I want you to know that this is clear. It is clear to anyone who reads your campus emails concerning our “Principles of Community” and who also takes the time to inform themselves about your actions. You should bear in mind that when you send emails to the UC Davis community, you address a body of faculty and students who are well trained to see through rhetoric that evinces care for students while implicitly threatening them. I see through your rhetoric very clearly. You also write to a campus community that knows how to speak truth to power. That is what I am doing.

I call for your resignation because you are unfit to do your job. You are unfit to ensure the safety of students at UC Davis. In fact: you are the primary threat to the safety of students at UC Davis. As such, I call upon you to resign immediately.

Sincerely,

Nathan Brown
Assistant Professor
Department of English
Program in Critical Theory
University of California at Davis

Source

November 20, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Solidarity and Activism | Leave a comment

The Struggle to Control Libya’s Military Future

By Moammar Atwi | Al-Ahkbar | November 21, 2011

The struggle for control over Libya’s military establishment is on amid concerns that Western powers want to establish a major NATO base in the country under the guise of fighting ‘terrorism’.

The one-month deadline Libya’s Transitional National Council (NTC) had set for itself to form an interim government ended on Sunday.

If the NTC can reach an agreement with rebel field commanders over the formation of the new government, Libyans would have surpassed the first major hurdle on the path to democracy.

However, there are significant divisions behind this facade of agreement between two contending parties.

One current within the council is close to the United States and is seen to be carrying out Washington’s bidding in the state building process that Libya is currently going through.

Another group seeks to maintain good relations with the West, while retaining some level of independence by minimizing interference from those powers who contributed to the toppling of the former regime.

The latter group can be described as patriotic, consisting of nationalists, leftists, Islamists, and independents. They backed the nomination of Abdel Rahim al-Keib for prime minister and therefore succeeded in winning the first round with the opposing faction.

Al-Keib is a businessman and a moderate technocrat. It seems that he is well regarded by both the majority of political parties within Libya and some of Tripoli’s key foreign backers.

However, the pro-US faction managed to win the second round after Khalifa Haftar was chosen as head of the Libyan National Army, which is in the process of being reactivated.

Haftar, who is known to be a reliable Washington ally, used to be an officer in Gaddafi’s army until he was discharged during Libya’s war with Chad in the late 1980s.

Haftar then broke with Gaddafi and joined the opposition, establishing the “National Army” during his captivity in Chad. He then went on to live in the US before returning to Libya and joining the ranks of the transitional council’s forces in the wake of the uprising last February.

Haftar comes from the al-Furjan tribe, one of the biggest in Libya, with a strong presence in Sirte. He fought for leadership of the rebel army, but was initially sidelined by the late general Abdel Fattah Younes.

Younis had a nationalist orientation; he belonged to the al-Obeidat tribe that dominates Benghazi.

Younes was assassinated last July. Though his death was attributed to Islamists, the identity of his assassins is yet to be revealed. This opened the way for Haftar to take over leadership of the armed forces.

According to numerous reports, Haftar is a longtime CIA agent, and it was the American intelligence agency that dispatched him to Libya during the insurrection to represent Washington’s interests in the TNC.

If Abdel Hakim Belhaj, the former leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, becomes the defense minister, the relationship between the ministry of defense and the leadership of the army will not be an easy one, to say the least.

The first sign of tensions between the two men surfaced a few days ago during a meeting held to designate the next head of the Libyan army. The meeting fell apart after rebels objected to the participation of a large number of former army officers.

The very next day, about 150 military officers resolved the matter in a meeting in the city of al-Baida, choosing Haftar to fill the post.

Many analysts speculate that the US and the Europeans are hoping the new Libyan army will play a key role in fighting so-called Islamic terrorism in the Sahel region.

Some even fear that the ground is being prepared for the establishment of a NATO base on Libyan territory under the pretext of fighting ‘terrorism’ in North Africa.

To this end, a number of intelligence reports have been circulated in Western media about the disappearance of large quantities of dangerous weapons and anti-aircraft missiles from Libyan army ammunition stores. The reports suggested that they may have fallen into the hands of al-Qaeda groups operating in Mali, Algeria, and Niger.

Last Wednesday, at a meeting in Algeria of the Working Group of Capacity-Building in the Sahel, US counter-terrorism coordinator Ambassador Daniel Benjamin said, “the terrorist threat is becoming more and more complex with some of the changes that the region is witnessing. This is particularly the case in the neighboring country of Libya.”

Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika addressed these concerns in Doha last week in a meeting with TNC Chairman Mustapha Abdul Jalil. Both leaders are worried that the missing weapons issue might be exploited by the West to establish a long-term military base in Libya.

November 20, 2011 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

Occupy Oakland Calls for TOTAL WEST COAST PORT SHUTDOWN ON 12/12

By OccupyWallSt |  November 19, 2011

Proposal for a Coordinated West Coast Port Shutdown, Passed With Unanimous Consensus by vote of the Occupy Oakland General Assembly 11/18/2012:

In response to coordinated attacks on the occupations and attacks on workers across the nation:

Occupy Oakland calls for the blockade and disruption of the economic apparatus of the 1% with a coordinated shutdown of ports on the entire West Coast on December 12th. The 1% has disrupted the lives of longshoremen and port truckers and the workers who create their wealth, just as coordinated nationwide police attacks have turned our cities into battlegrounds in an effort to disrupt our Occupy movement.

We call on each West Coast occupation to organize a mass mobilization to shut down its local port. Our eyes are on the continued union-busting and attacks on organized labor, in particular the rupture of Longshoremen jurisdiction in Longview Washington by the EGT. Already, Occupy Los Angeles has passed a resolution to carry out a port action on the Port Of Los Angeles on December 12th, to shut down SSA terminals, which are owned by Goldman Sachs.

Occupy Oakland expands this call to the entire West Coast, and calls for continuing solidarity with the Longshoremen in Longview Washington in their ongoing struggle against the EGT. The EGT is an international grain exporter led by Bunge LTD, a company constituted of 1% bankers whose practices have ruined the lives of the working class all over the world, from Argentina to the West Coast of the US. During the November 2nd General Strike, tens of thousands shutdown the Port Of Oakland as a warning shot to EGT to stop its attacks on Longview. Since the EGT has disregarded this message, and continues to attack the Longshoremen at Longview, we will now shut down ports along the entire West Coast.

Participating occupations are asked to ensure that during the port shutdowns the local arbitrator rules in favor of longshoremen not crossing community picket lines in order to avoid recriminations against them. Should there be any retaliation against any workers as a result of their honoring pickets or supporting our port actions, additional solidarity actions should be prepared. In the event of police repression of any of the mobilizations, shutdown actions may be extended to multiple days.

In Solidarity and Struggle,

Occupy Oakland

– In Oakland: the West Coast Port Shutdown Coordinating Committee will meet on General Assembly days at 5pm before the GA to organize the local shutdown, and to network with other occupations.

November 20, 2011 Posted by | Economics, Solidarity and Activism | Leave a comment

Righthaven Case Ends in Victory for Fair Use

Newspaper Publisher Caves at Last, Agrees Excerpts of Articles Do Not Infringe Copyright

Electronic Frontier Foundation | November 18, 2011

San Francisco – In a victory for fair use, the publisher of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Stephens Media, filed papers yesterday conceding that posting a short excerpt of a news article in an online forum is not copyright infringement. The concession will result in entry of a judgment of non-infringement in a long-running copyright troll case that sparked the dismissal of dozens of baseless lawsuits filed by Righthaven LLC.

The case began when the online political forum Democratic Underground — represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Fenwick & West LLP, and attorney Chad Bowers — was sued by Righthaven for a five-sentence excerpt of a Review-Journal news story that a user posted on the forum with a link back to the newspaper’s website. Democratic Underground countersued, asking the court to rule that the excerpt did not infringe copyright and is a fair use of the material, and brought Righthaven-backer Stephens Media into the case.

The Court dismissed Righthaven’s infringement case because it did not own the article, but Democratic Underground’s counterclaim against Stephens Media continued. After initially attempting to defend the bogus assertion of copyright infringement, Stephens Media has now conceded it was incorrect.

“I knew the lawsuit was wrong from the start, and any self-respecting news publisher should have, too,” said Democratic Underground founder David Allen. “I’m glad that they have finally admitted it.”

“This concession comes after more than a year of needless litigation,” said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Kurt Opsahl. “Stephens Media never should have authorized Righthaven to file this suit in the first place, and should never have wasted our client’s and the court’s time with its attempts to keep Righthaven’s frivolous claim alive for the last year.”

The original lawsuit against Democratic Underground was dismissed earlier this year, when Judge Hunt found that Righthaven did not have the legal authorization to bring a copyright lawsuit because it had never owned the copyright in the first place. Righthaven claimed that Stephens Media had transferred copyright to Righthaven before it filed the suit, but a document unearthed in this litigation — the Strategic Alliance Agreement between Righthaven and Stephens Media — showed that the copyright assignment was a sham, and that Righthaven was merely agreeing to undertake the newspaper’s case at its own expense in exchange for a cut of the recovery. In addition to dismissing Righthaven’s claim, Judge Hunt sanctioned Righthaven with fines and obligations to report to other judges its actual relationship with Stevens Media.

Righthaven has filed hundreds of copyright cases based on its sham copyright ownership claims. Despite several attempts by Righthaven and Stephens Media to re-write their Strategic Alliance Agreement, half a dozen judges have ruled against the scheme to turn copyright litigation into a business.

“This is a hard fought and important victory for free speech rights on the Internet,” said Laurence Pulgram, the partner who led the team at Fenwick & West, LLP in San Francisco. “Unless we respond to such efforts to intimidate, we’ll end up with an Internet that is far less fertile for the cultivation and discussion of the important issues that affect us all.”

Democratic Underground’s motion for summary judgment:
https://www.eff.org/sites/default/files/filenode/dumsj.pdf

Stephens Media’s consent to the motion:
https://www.eff.org/sites/default/files/filenode/stephensmediaresponse.pdf

Contacts:

Kurt Opsahl
Senior Staff Attorney
Electronic Frontier Foundation
kurt@eff.org

Laurence Pulgram
Chair, Copyright Litigation Group
Fenwick & West LLP
lpulgram@fenwick.com

November 20, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties | Leave a comment

BDS movement’s strength shown by pro-Israel groups launching defensive “BUYcott” days

By Adri Nieuwhof – The Electronic Intifada – 11/17/2011

Today, Kairos Palestine in Bethlehem released a statement on the Buy Israel activities of “an assortment of anti-Palestinian conglomerates” in the United Kingdom and the United States. The activities are organized in response to the increasing strength of the BDS movement.

United Kingdom

Saturday, 26 November has been declared a national BDS Day of Action in the United Kingdom. The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) is calling on supporters to focus action on supermarket chain Tesco. The company sells a wide range of Israeli goods and is the only supermarket in the UK that is openly selling illegal settlement goods. PSC states:

We are calling on all supporters of Palestinian human rights to get involved through a variety of actions – from street protests, e-lobbying, networking and social media sites – to get more people involved in the boycott movement and help bring an end to Israel’s occupation, just like the movement against Apartheid in South Africa.

This has prompted the Israel lobby in the UK to go on the defensive.

Luke Akehurst, Director of We Believe in Israel — which is supported by the Israeli Embassy in London, the Jewish National Fund and StandWithUs UK — has circulated a letter in response to the national BDS day in which he calls for two “BUYcott” days sponsored by the Board of Deputies of British Jews and StandWithUs UK, “to counter the Boycott of Israeli goods.” He shows his fear for BDS activism in the last sentence of his letter:

You are asked by the organisers not to promote this campaign on public forums, which would alert the Boycotters in advance and give publicity to the Boycott itself.

Akehurst invites people to challenge BDS day “by making an extra special effort to BUY Israeli goods, particularly in the days running up to Boycott day (26 November). Please play your part by encouraging others to buy Israeli products. Speak to branch managers to point out how valued Israeli products are.”

United States

In the United States, StandWithUs has put out a similar call on its website about the Buy Israel Week. Just like in the UK, the activity is planned in response to successful BDS activism in the US. Frances Zelazny, who came up with the idea, expressed her concerns by the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement against apartheid Israel. The initiative is co-sponsored by nine Jewish newspapers throughout the country, including the New York Jewish Week. The Jewish National Fund signed on to take part in the Buy Israel Week campaign. Ahava and El Al are sponsors of the campaign.

The organizers are attempting to lure people into buying Israeli products with discount coupons from more than a hundred local merchants and Israeli retailers.

KAIROS statement

November 20, 2011 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | Leave a comment

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