Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

5 injured in West Bank demonstrations

Ma’an – 23/03/2012

(MaanImages/reuters)

RAMALLAH – Five people were injured on Friday in weekly West Bank demonstrations, a local group said.

Three women sustained bruises after Israeli soldiers assaulted them in a weekly demonstration in al-Masara village, Bethlehem, the Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements said.

The demonstration began at a cultural center in the village, before heading towards Israel’s separation wall.

In Nabi Saleh, Izz al-Abdul Hazfith Tamimi, 15, suffered facial injuries after being hit by a rubber bullet, the Popular Committee said.

Usama Bilal Tamimi, 16, was hit by a rubber bullet in the leg.

Palestinian and international activists gathered in the village for the weekly protest, which was also dedicated to hunger striking detainee Hana Shalabi, as well as other Palestinians in Israeli jails.

The protest was held on the first anniversary of the arrest of anti-wall activist Bassem Tamimi.

In March, Amnesty International said Tamimi should be released immediately, calling him a prisoner of conscience.

In December, 28-year-old Nabi Saleh resident Mustafa Tamimi died after he was struck in the face by a tear gas canister fired by Israeli forces.

On Tuesday, Israeli troops raided the village, ransacking several homes and confiscating computers and cell phones, according to the local popular resistance movement.

Related articles

March 23, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture | , , | 1 Comment

Israel excitedly rejects cooperation with UN over settlements

Press TV – March 23, 2012

Israel has rejected cooperation with the United Nations in an investigation by the world body’s Human Rights Council to probe the impacts of Israeli settlements on the occupied Palestinian territories.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday dismissed the resolution and attacked the UN human rights body, saying, “This council ought to be ashamed of itself,” The Jerusalem Post reported.

“This is a hypocritical council with an automatic majority against Israel,” he added.

Meanwhile, the Israeli foreign ministry dubbed the resolution “another surrealistic decision” and accused the council of promoting a one-sided political agenda.

On Thursday, the 47-member UN Human Rights Council adopted a resolution condemning Israel’s announcements of new settlement homes, and ordering an investigation into the effects of the Israeli settlements on the rights of Palestinians.

It was passed with 36 votes in favor, 10 abstentions and only one – the United States – against.

The resolution calls on Israel to “take and implement serious measures” such as confiscating arms to prevent acts of violence by Israeli settlers. The council, which met in Geneva, also passed four other resolutions critical of Israel.

Nabil Abu Rudeineh, the spokesman for the acting Palestinian Authority chief, Mahmoud Abbas, described the vote as a shift in position of the world in favor for the rights of Palestinians.

Nearly 500,000 Israelis live in more than 100 settlement units built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the West Bank and East al-Quds (Jerusalem).

Related articles

March 23, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Is it an Israeli False Flag Again?

By Gilad Atzmon | March 22, 2012

Israeli press reported this evening that French gunman Mohamed Merah had been on a trip to Israel in the past.

According to the report, Merah’s passport had Israeli stamps in it. The purpose of his visit is  unknown. Israeli analysts suspect he was either trying to visit the Palestinian territories or preparing for a terror attack.

However, I won’t rule out the possibility that Merah was actually trained by Israeli forces. Marah may have conducted a false flag operation. By way of deception is,  after all, the Mossad’s motto.

Read the story of Naeim Giladi, an Israeli agent operating in Iraq in the late 1940’s.

“On May 10, at 3 a.m., a grenade was tossed in the direction of the display window of the Jewish-owned Beit-Lawi Automobile Company, destroying part of the building. No casualties were reported.

On June 3, 1950, another grenade was tossed from a speeding car in the El-Batawin area of Baghdad where most rich Jews and middle class Iraqis lived. No one was hurt, but following the explosion Zionist activists sent telegrams to Israel requesting that the quota for immigration from Iraq be increased.

On June 5, at 2:30 a.m., a bomb exploded next to the Jewish-owned Stanley Shashua building on El-Rashid street, resulting in property damage but no casualties.

On January 14, 1951, at 7 p.m., a grenade was thrown at a group of Jews outside the Masouda Shem-Tov Synagogue. The explosive struck a high-voltage cable, electrocuting three Jews, one a young boy, Itzhak Elmacher, and wounding over 30 others. Following the attack, the exodus of Jews jumped to between 600-700 per day.

Zionist propagandists still maintain that the bombs in Iraq were set off by anti-Jewish Iraqis who wanted Jews out of their country. The terrible truth is that the grenades that killed and maimed Iraqi Jews and damaged their property were thrown by Zionist Jews.”

March 23, 2012 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Will a zionist fifth column commandeer Canada’s left-wing party?

By Greg Felton | March 23, 2012

Soon, the New Democratic Party will have a new leader. Whether it will have any meaningful political future is another matter. I’ve already shown that a Thomas Mulcair victory would formally complete the Israelization of Canada’s national political parties, thereby depriving voters of their last Canadian electoral option.

Lamentably, many delegates to the NDP convention seem oblivious to this obvious fact, including one MP with whom I spoke after my earlier column came out.

In spite of my presenting evidence of Mulcair’s dual loyalty, bullying, and pro-Harperite proclivities, this highly personable, well-spoken person managed to finesse, deflect, deny or rationalize it away. His responses were so effortless, so polished, that they seemed rehearsed, as if this weren’t the first time he had had to justify his support for Mulcair.

For example, he claimed that concerns over Mulcair’s loyalty are exaggerated or taken out of context, although how “ardent supporter of Israel in all situations and in all circumstances” could be misconstrued escapes me. He also quickly tossed off the bald assertion that, at any rate, voters didn’t much care about foreign policy—the exact same line I got from Wayne Moriarty, the pro-Israel hasbaratchik posing as editor of the Vancouver Province. When pressed to justify this claim, though, he backtracked.

At any rate, Mulcair had given him “written assurance” that he would respect the NDP’s current policy on Palestine, and that was good enough. The idea that this assurance was inconsistent with Mulcair’s earlier profession of zionist fealty, or that he may have just been manipulating him to buy leadership support, didn’t compute.

It wouldn’t have made any difference if I had told him that Mulcair’s co-campaign chairman is former MP Lorne Nystrom, now a director of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, the the Israel Lobby’s main pressure group.

The most disquieting aspect of this exchange, though, was not the lame answers I got, but the fact that this person is intelligent and has had at least a basic education in the Middle East. He is not your typical hasbarat from whom one would expect anodyne clichés and cognitive denials.

So what does it mean for the future of the NDP if MPs like this willingly refuse to acknowledge a danger staring them in the face? Former leader Ed Broadbent knows all too well.

In a candid interview with the Globe and Mail, the former party leader launched a broadside at Mulcair for abandoning core social-democratic values for Liberalish centralism, and not being capable of maintaining unity among the party’s 101 MPs: “People should look carefully at the fact that of the people who were there [in caucus from 2007 to 2011] with Tom, 90 per cent of them are supporting other candidates than Tom,” said Broadbent.

Already, talk of increased infighting is making Broadbent look prescient, and this development invites questions of how long the NDP could expect to hold itself together under Mulcair. If conference delegates want a historical example of what infighting and a sudden lurch to the right might do to the party, they need look no further than what happened to the Progressive Conservative Party.

Brian Mulroney, a venal, temperamental, outsider was chosen leader at a convention in June 1983 for reasons that had everything to do with image and none to do with competence. The man he replaced, Joe Clark, was a highly principled MP who unfortunately lacked the political acuity to maintain his party in government, or hold it together in the face of concerted internal dissention.

Under Mulroney, the PC Party would follow a reactionary, right-wing economic dogma that was also ascendant in the U.S. and U.K. Reason and balance in foreign and economic affairs would give way to the uncritical embrace of U.S. militarism and Israeli “self-defence,” denial of Palestinian rights, lower corporate taxes, minimal government, and economic continentalism. Under Clark’s short-lived prime ministership, the party followed economic moderation, an independent foreign policy, and showed respect for Palestinian rights.

Mulroney’s two majority governments allowed him full rein to remake Canada in his own image. As such his time in office would be characterized by arrogance, corruption, sleaze and patronage, making him the most despised prime minister to date. (Stephen Harper has since broken that record.)

In June 1993, 10 years to the month after becoming leader, Mulroney retired from politics, the damage having been done. In the electoral rout that same year, hapless bag-holder Kim Campbell led the PCs to near obliteration—two seats. The rest of the party fissured into a Quebec Separatist Party (the Bloc Québécois) and a Corporatist Christian Party (the Reform Party), which would form the nucleus of the present-day Harperite party.

For all of his shortcomings, Clark was still favoured to win the 1984 election. Had the PC Party stuck with him as leader, it would likely still be around today.

Like Mulroney, Mulcair is a party outsider, though he does have political experience—a former Quebec Liberal who later tried to hire himself out to the Harperites. He also has a flash temper, and supports an alien ideology to the right of the NDP’s principles. Social democrats cannot be expected to coexist within the same party as centrist compromisers who would turn the NDP into an insipid Liberal-lite Party. If this were to happen, the Liberal-lite faction would eventually form a formal or informal union with the larger “Labour Zionist” Liberal Party, thereby reducing the NDP to rump status in the House of Commons.

If 42 other NDP MPs are prepared to vote for Mulcair, perhaps disintegration is inevitable, even necessary to revitalize the party. Under the late Jack Layton, the party began to lose focus and ended up sacrificing principle for political expediency, as the Gaza flotilla debacle proved.

Convention delegates will have to decide if the NDP is worth preserving, or admit defeat by embracing their inner Mulroney to let history take its predictable, destructive course.

Related articles

March 23, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

French President Sarkozy Sees Opportunity for Censorship, Seizes It

By Jillian C. York | EFF | March 22, 2012

In the wake of a horrific rampage, in which Mohamed Merah (now dead after a 32-hour standoff with police) reportedly murdered three French soldiers, three young Jewish schoolchildren, and a rabbi, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France has begun calling for criminal penalties for citizens who visit web sites that advocate for terror or hate.  “From now on, any person who habitually consults Web sites that advocate terrorism or that call for hatred and violence will be criminally punished,” Sarkozy was reported as saying.

Apart from the obvious flaws in Sarkozy’s plan–users, can, of course, use anonymizing tools to view the material or simply access it from a variety of locations to avoid appearing as “habitual” viewers–there are numerous other reasons to be concerned about criminalizing access to information.

First, there’s no guarantee that criminalizing access to hate speech or terrorist content will end the very real problems of hate crime and terrorism.  Extremist violence didn’t start with the Internet and it won’t end with it, either.

Second, who defines “hate speech”?  In France, that definition includes Holocaust denial, which in the past resulted in Yahoo! discontinuing auctions of Nazi memoribilia (the collectors of which are not, by any stretch, all sympathizers).  And negative comments about France’s Muslim community have also resulted in criminal penalties, most notably in the case of actress Brigitte Bardot, who has been convicted five times for “inciting racial hatred.”  While Holocaust denial and comments about Muslims such as those made by Bardot may be deplorable, they should not be criminal.

Finally, while Sarkozy is not–yet–calling for websites to be blocked, it wouldn’t be a stretch; after all, France already offers mechanisms for blocking child pornography and “incitement to terrorism and racial hatred.” If Sarkozy were to decide censorship is the answer, one major risk would be overblocking: there’s nary a country in the world that censors the Internet without collateral damage (in Australia, for example, testing on a would-be censorship regime found the site of a dentist blocked, among others).

EFF has serious concerns about the implications of Sarkozy’s comments.  When a democratic country such as France decides to censor or criminalize speech, it is not just the French that suffer, but the world, as authoritarian regimes are given easy justification for their own censorship.  We urge French authorities to judge crime on action, not expression.

March 23, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , , | 1 Comment

Turkey Should Have Thought Twice on Syria

By Michel Sailhan | France Press | March 23, 2012

Turkey may have acted too fast when it took its tough stance against Damascus, expecting a rapid fall for the regime, some observers have argued ahead of a “Friends of Syria” conference in Istanbul.

Now, a number of commentators in Turkey are suggesting it might be time to think again.

“Turkey had better revise its policy toward its southern neighbor, ahead of the second gathering of the Friends of Syria group on April 1 in Istanbul, by placing diplomatic efforts in front of all other options,” wrote Serkan Demirtas in the Hurriyet Daily News.

Those other options circulating in Ankara, as well as Western and Arab capitals, run from humanitarian corridors, to a buffer zone in Syria to accommodate refugees, or even direct assistance to rebels.

Many rebel leaders, including ex-general Riad al-Asaad, are already in Turkey.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan raised the stakes sharply on March 6 when he called on Damascus to allow for the “immediate” opening of humanitarian corridors.

While his words matched international calls from western powers, the demand lacked substance. It was not clear if Turkey would gear up for the task, given its 910-kilometre (560-mile) common border.

The creation of a buffer zone is another issue that Ankara has not been clear on, since it implies sending troops to secure the area. But it is still on the agenda as Turkey already houses 17,000 Syrians, and its Red Crescent organization says it is preparing for half a million.

“We are determined to consider every possible measure,” Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Monday, adding that the move would aim at ending the suffering of Syrians, but also at securing the border.

Critics however say the buffer zone would be an “interventionist policy” that could prove Ankara too reckless, and too adventurous.

Forming a buffer zone, Demirtas wrote, “would not only break the image Turkey has built in the region, but is also inconsistent with its general foreign policy principles, the main pillar of which is peace.”

“Without a UN resolution to back it up, a buffer zone would be a daring initiative for Ankara,” added analyst Sinan Ulgen from the Istanbul-based Centre for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies.

As for the rebels, Ankara is silent about plans to arm or train them for counter-attacks on Syria’s security forces. The regime in Damascus has already denounced “incursions” into its territory from refugee camps in Turkey.

On Wednesday, AFP journalists witnessed smugglers carry a cargo of shotguns and buckshot into Syria, but the load contained no major weapons of war.

Erdogan embraced the Syrian political opposition after having failed to get President Bashar al-Assad to introduce reforms.

“The day will come when you will also have to go,” he told Assad in late November. But according to columnist Semih Idiz, the Syrian president has “outfoxed Ankara.”

“(Ankara’s) expectation was that the uprising in that country would not drag on for long and that Bashar al-Assad would be toppled relatively quickly — the way it happened in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya– with Turkey emerging as a key mentor for the new Syria,” he wrote.

Along with the threat of a massive influx of refugees, mostly Sunnis, Ankara has also had to contend with dissent at home over its policy on the crisis, Idiz added. Its large Alevi population, close to Syria’s dominant but minority Alawites, are “not all that pleased about Turkey’s stance on Syria.”

The Syrian regime looks to remain in place “for much longer than Ankara expected or is prepared for,” he concluded. That possibility has also prompted the main opposition Republic People’s Party (CHP) to attack Ankara’s decision to cut ties with the Damascus regime.

“For now, the Syrian regime is not ready to leave or be overthrown,” Faruk Logoglu, a CHP lawmaker, told AFP. “Ankara should have kept channels of dialogue and communication open with Damascus.”

Western and Arab countries will join Syrian opposition groups at the April 1 meeting in Istanbul.

But Turkey is not the only nation struggling with its approach to Damascus.

“Does the Western alliance have a plan for Syria? Does the Syrian opposition offer a credible image?,” asked another columnist from the Milliyet daily, Kadri Gurselhe.

March 23, 2012 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | 2 Comments

US public radio journalist fired after calling Israeli occupation ‘brutal’

Al Akhbar | March 22, 2012

A veteran American journalist has been fired after referring to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian and Syrian land as “brutal.”

Sunni Khalid, managing news editor at WYPR-FM in Baltimore, was dropped by the public radio station on Thursday after more than nine years on the job.

He had been on probation following criticism of comments he made on Facebook about Israel’s continued illegal occupation of Palestine.

“I, for one, have had enough of this pandering before the Israeli regime,” he wrote.

“The war-mongering toward Iran has, once again, distracted the world from Israel’s brutal military occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights.”

Khalid, who previously worked for National Public Radio, has also written for Time Magazine, The Washington Times, and USA Today.

Israel maintains economic control over Gaza and the West Bank, with devastating consequences for the Palestinian civilian population.

Rights groups including Amnesty International have repeatedly condemned rights abuses against Palestinians.

Related articles

March 22, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | 10 Comments

NSA Chief Appears to Deny Ability to Warrantlessly Wiretap Despite Evidence

By Trevor Timm | EFF | March 21, 2012

The former NSA official held his thumb and forefinger close together. “We are, like, that far from a turnkey totalitarian state,” he says. — Wired Magazine, April 2012

Last week, in Wired Magazine, noted author James Bamford reported on an expansive $2 billion “data center” being built by the NSA in Utah that will house an almost unimaginable amount of data on its servers, along with the world’s fastest supercomputers. Part of the purpose of this new center, according to Bamford, is to store “all forms of communication, including the complete contents of private emails, cell phone calls, and Google searches, as well as all sorts of personal data trails—parking receipts, travel itineraries, bookstore purchases, and other digital ‘pocket litter.’”

In the Wired article, Bamford interviewed former NSA official William Binney, a “crypto-mathematician largely responsible for automating the agency’s worldwide eavesdropping network.” Binney further shed light on the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program, first exposed by the New York Times in 2005 and the subject of EFF’s long running suit Jewel v. NSA, which challenges the constitutionality of the NSA’s program.

The NSA claims it only has access to emails and phone calls of non-U.S. citizens overseas, but Binney provides more detail to the many previous reports by the New York Times, USA Today, New Yorker, and many more that the program indeed targets US based email records. In the 11 years since 9/11, Binney estimates 15 to 20 trillion “transactions” have been collected and stored by the NSA. From the Wired article:

He explains that the agency could have installed its tapping gear at the nation’s cable landing stations—the more than two dozen sites on the periphery of the US where fiber-optic cables come ashore. If it had taken that route, the NSA would have been able to limit its eavesdropping to just international communications, which at the time was all that was allowed under US law. Instead it chose to put the wiretapping rooms at key junction points throughout the country—large, windowless buildings known as switches—thus gaining access to not just international communications but also to most of the domestic traffic flowing through the US. The network of intercept stations goes far beyond the single room in an AT&T building in San Francisco exposed by a whistle-blower in 2006. “I think there’s 10 to 20 of them,” Binney says. “That’s not just San Francisco; they have them in the middle of the country and also on the East Coast.”

The Director of NSA, General Keith Alexander, testified at a House subcommittee hearing Tuesday and Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) grilled him on the details of the Wired story. He appeared to deny the main points of the article, including that the NSA was intercepting emails, phone calls, Google searches, and phone records of individuals in the United States—as well as the technical capabilities of the program’s software described by Binney. But perhaps more strangely, Alexander also seemed to claim the NSA did not have the technical ability to collect Americans’ emails and Internet traffic even if it weren’t required to get a warrant:

Gen. Alexander: In the United States we’d have to go through the FBI process, a warrant to get that and serve it to somebody to actually get it.

Rep. Johnson: But you do have the capability of doing it?

Gen. Alexander: Not in the United States.

Rep. Johnson: Not without a warrant?

Gen. Alexander: We don’t have the technical insights in the United States, in other words, you have to have something to intercept or some way of doing that. Either by going to a service provider with a warrant, or you have to be collecting in that area. We’re not authorized to collect, nor do we have the equipment in the United States to actually collect that kind of information. (emphasis ours)

In our lawsuits, EFF has provided evidence that the NSA operated a monitoring center out of AT&T’s switching facility in San Francisco that has the ability to do exactly what Gen. Alexander says the NSA can’t.  In light of all the evidence, it is hard to take comfort from Gen. Alexander’s apparent denial.  In previous discussions of the warrantless wiretapping program, the government has used crabbed and unusual definitions of words to make misleading statements that also seem like denials but turn out to be largely word games.

In one prominent example, then Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence Michael Hayden said in a 2006 statement: “Let me talk for a few minutes also about what this program is not. It is not a driftnet over Dearborn or Lackawanna or Freemont grabbing conversations…”  Later, when confronted with evidence of a wider drift net program during his confirmation hearing, he explained “I pointedly and consciously downshifted the language I was using. When I was talking about a drift net over Lackawanna or Freemont or other cities, I switched from the word ‘communications’ to the much more specific and unarguably accurate ‘conversation.’”

Notably, the NSA’s interpretation of what it means to “collect” communications seems to be quite limited.  Under Department of Defense regulations, information is considered to be “collected” only after it has been “received for use by an employee of a DoD intelligence component,” and “[d]ata acquired by electronic means is ‘collected’ only when it has been processed into intelligible form[,]”  So, under this definition, if the communications of millions of ordinary Americans were gathered and stored indefinitely in Utah, it would not be “collected” until the NSA “officially accepts, in some manner, such information for use within that component.”

The illegality of warrantless wiretapping, however, does not depend on when the NSA officially accepts the information or processes it into intelligible form (whatever that means).  Americans’ privacy and constitutional protections do and should not hinge on word games.  We are looking forward to establishing, in the Jewel v. NSA case, a simpler proposition: that the government can’t spy on anyone, much less everyone, without a warrant.

~

on March 23, 2012

Recently a report by Wired magazine revealed the details of a spy center in Bluffdale, Utah. It says that the National Security Agency has turned its surveilance apparatus on the US and its citizens, including phone calls and emails. This week the NSA chief testified to Congress and took questions about his agency’s ability – both legally and physically – to spy on US citizens and denied that this is happening. Trevor Timm, an activist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation believes otherwise – he brings his take on the issue.

March 22, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , , | 1 Comment

‘Rafiq Hariri Center for the Middle East’ took part in AIPAC meeting

Al-Manar | March 22, 2012

The Lebanese Al-Akhbar daily published a report Thursday in which it revealed that the “Rafiq Hariri Center for the Middle East”, which was funded and established by the late Lebanese prime minister’s son, Bahaa, took part in an AIPAC meeting on the fifth of March.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, AIPAC, holds yearly one of the most significant conferences in the United States in support of Israel, its policies, and its politicians; and “Rafiq Hariri Center for the Middle East” took part in this conference along with Zionist PM Benjamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Perez.

The center’s director Michele Dunne, who attended as a representative to the center, chose to share her dialogue session with Israeli Brigadier General Michael Herzog, and discussed with him the Egyptian situation and the future of the region.

The paper clarified that the “Rafiq Hariri Center for the Middle East is part of the ten programs that go under the Atlantic Council, which on its part, is a 50-year-old council that aims at promoting Atlantic cooperation with international security.”

The council is the “representative of the Middle East” and its interests lay in “the future of the NATO, financial stability, energy security, and fighting extremism and violence.”

“While “the Atlantic Council” holds conferences on US diplomacy in Iran, global defense strategies, the new challenges for NATO, in addition to energy and global financial markets problems, the “Rafiq Hariri Center for the Middle East” specializes in Arab countries’ issues, especially at these transitional phases, like Yemen, Libya, Bahrain, Egypt and Tunisia,” the paper explained.

It added: “After examining the content of those sessions, it turns out that what unites them is achieving the US as well as the NATO’s financial, security, and political benefits in those countries.”

Al-Akhbar daily said that Michele Dunne worked in the US Foreign Ministry’s Intelligence and Research Bureau, and was a specialist in Middle East affairs in the White House.

In addition, “she took part in “special missions” for the National Security council, and worked in the US embassy in Cairo and in the Consulate General in occupied Al-Quds.”

Related articles

March 22, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | 1 Comment

Amnesty International, George Clooney and the Bidding of Empire

By JOHN VINCENT | CounterPunch | March 21, 2012

In March this year Frank S. Jannuzi was named Washington DC office head at Amnesty International USA (AIUSA). Frank, a former staffer with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is Hitachi International Affairs Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).

The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the most powerful foreign policy pressure group in the world. Over the years, CFR’s membership has included 22 US secretaries of state.

Those on CFR’s Board of Directors today include Robert E. Rubin, former CEO of Goldman Sachs, Secretary of the Treasury under Clinton and special advisor to the Obama Administration; Madeleine Albright, former Secretary of State who when on 60 Minutes was asked by Lesley Stahl on the effects of U.S. sanctions against Iraq: “We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?” Secretary of State Madeleine Albright replied: “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price–we think the price is worth it”; Peter G. Peterson, of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, who has been pushing for the destruction of Social Security for over ten years; and Penny Pritzker, Chairman and CEO of PSP Capital, who besides being one of Chicago’s wealthiest women is also on the Chicago School Board closing public schools in the poorest parts of the city.

These are names not typically associated with humanitarian causes.

In taking his new position Jannuzi is quoted on AIUSA’s website as saying: “I am thrilled to be joining Amnesty International and look forward to connecting the passion and expertise of AIUSA with the policy-making community in Washington that I know well.”

And how might that work?

In a CFR moderated discussion George Clooney discussed the plight of the Sudanese in the Nuba Mountains who are caught up in the country’s civil war. Not surprising the area includes a proposed pipeline route that will carry oil to a seaport in the north.

So George gets arrested on Friday March 16th, and on Monday the 19th AIUSA begins an email campaign calling for Sudanese President al-Bashir to be brought to justice with the banner: What was actor George Clooney doing in jail, while Sudan’s president and indicted war crimes suspect Omar al-Bashir runs free?

Interestingly, March 16th was the day AIUSA announced Jannuzi’s new position with the organization.

So is AIUSA, along with George Clooney and Hollywood in general, supporting the CFR in their effort to manage the American peoples’ perceptions of Africa for the purpose of furthering their government’s foreign policy objectives in the region?

Why does AIUSA mount campaigns focused on Africa – Kony 2012, Sudan’s al-Bashir, and the investigation of civilian deaths in Libya – but not promote similar campaigns within the borders of the US calling for the arrest of its known war criminals?

And why doesn’t AIUSA mount campaigns to stop US humanitarian crimes before they occur? The Iran war is the next human rights catastrophe that will be unleashed on the world, but AIUSA isn’t trying to stop it. Why not?

Are AIUSA’s commendable humanitarian efforts being used as a screen for the organization’s work in the service of the American empire?

March 22, 2012 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Mali renegade soldiers claim control of government

Press TV – March 22, 2012

Renegade Malian soldiers say they have toppled the government of President Amadou Toumani Toure and seized power in the West African state.

“We are in control of the presidential palace,” AFP quoted one of the rebels as saying on Thursday.

The rebellion ignited Wednesday afternoon over criticism against the government’s handling of a Tuareg insurrection in the north and turned into an apparent coup.

Following an armed conflict, the rebels seized the presidential palace and arrested several ministers, including Foreign Minister Soumeylou Boubeye Maiga and Interior Minister Kafouhouna Kone, the report said.

Toure, however, has managed to escape from the premises, an independent source said.

Lieutenant Amadou Konare, the spokesman of the soldiers, calling themselves National Committee for the Establishment of Democracy, appeared on television and announced the dissolution of state institutions and suspension of the constitution.

Konare also said a curfew will be in place from midnight to six a.m. local time.

He added that upon consultations with all the Malian political factions, a national unity cabinet will be formed in the coming days and the transitional government will run the country until power is ceded to a civilian government after “free and transparent” elections in near future.

The spokesman cited the former government’s security failures in northern Mali and its “inability” to fight terrorism as well as threats to national unity, and the uncertainty shadowing general elections in 2012 as some of the major reasons behind the mutiny.

March 22, 2012 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | 1 Comment

Human Rights Groups Call on B’Tselem to Withdraw from Conference Featuring Olmert

PCHR Gaza | March 21, 2012

As organizations dedicated to the protection and promotion of human rights—including those acting as legal representatives for war crimes victims— we are disappointed by B’Tselem’s active participation in an upcoming event at which former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will be featured as a keynote speaker.

Olmert has been implicated in the commission of war crimes and other serious violations of international law for his role in Operation ‘Cast Lead’, Israel’s winter 2008-2009 onslaught on the Gaza Strip. A court in the U.K. has already issued an arrest warrant for one of Olmert’s alleged co-conspirators in these acts, former foreign minister Tzipi Livni.

Olmert will speak at a gala dinner on Monday hosted by J Street, a self-described “pro-Israel, pro-peace” lobby group in Washington, DC. Olmert’s speech will be the keynote for J Street’s annual conference. Last week, B’Tselem sent an email to its supporters announcing that it was “proud” of its role in the conference, explicitly mentioning Olmert as a featured speaker.

B’Tselem’s active participation in this event sends a dangerous message. It undermines the fundamental importance of accountability for international crimes, disregards victims’ right to dignity and justice, and implies that political processes may override human rights standards. B’Tselem should be protesting, not celebrating, an event welcoming Olmert.

The decision to release this statement was not taken lightly. We highly value the relationship between Palestinian, Israeli and international human rights organizations, and can look back on many years of successful professional cooperation.

For some Palestinian organizations – particularly those from the Gaza Strip – the relationship with Israeli counterparts is often the last remaining link with Israeli society. This is a link which we all wish to see strengthened and developed.

However, as human rights defenders, we are united by our standards: by our belief in the universality of human rights and the rule of international law. Our legitimacy derives from our unwavering commitment to these principles, and our obligations to act in the best interests of the victims we represent.

We call upon B’Tselem to withdraw from this event, and to use this opportunity to highlight the need for accountability, justice, and the enforcement of the rule of law.

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights

Al Dameer Association for Human Rights

The Palestinian NGO Network (representative of 132 Palestinian ngo’s)

March 22, 2012 Posted by | Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | , , , , , | 1 Comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »