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London faces calls to make its case for a possible war before parliament

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Press TV – August 27, 2013

Opposition to a possible military intervention in Syria has intensified in Britain with the Labour party demanding that the government “make their case” before the parliament.

An alleged chemical attack hit parts of the Syrian capital Damascus on Wednesday killing hundreds of people.

Foreign-backed terrorists in the country claimed that the government forces were behind the assault in the Damascus suburbs of Ain Tarma, Zamalka and Jobar while medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres, which treated those affected in the attack, said it cannot even “scientifically confirm” the use of chemical weapons.

Shadow Foreign Secretary Douglas Alexander said on Monday that the cabinet has to “make their case” in the parliament before they can make a decision whether to go to a new war, if any such decision is to be made.

“Given both the seriousness of the reported chemical weapons strikes in Syria, and the enduring and complex nature of the conflict itself, ahead of any action being taken I would fully expect the Prime Minister to make his case to Parliament,” Alexander said.

“[The Prime Minister must be] open about the objectives, the legal basis, and the anticipated effect of any [British military action],” he added.

Meanwhile, British Conservative MP John Baron, who is leading MPs’ demands for a parliamentary session on the matter, expressed serious concerns about Britain going to war without the approval of the UN Security Council because of a Russian opposition to military intervention in Syria.

“Essentially, it is a civil war. If the West intervenes without a UN resolution … I think there is a more serious risk of this escalating beyond Syrian boundaries,” he said.

This comes as legal experts have seriously questioned the legality of a military move against Syria, saying it would create a “controversial situation”.

“The difficulty here is there’s no threat as I understand it to the security of this country or the United States and therefore on what basis can we intervene?” Michael Caplan, an international lawyer, asked during an interview on BBC Radio 4.

Following the alleged chemical attack in Syria, which government forces say was a false flag attack by foreign-backed militants, Britain, the US and France have been beating drums of war to punish what Washington described as a “moral obscenity” by Bashar al-Asad government in Syria.

Russia has demanded evidence from the three on their claims but no proof has yet been presented or even announced to exist.

The situation has sparked fears that Britain is assisting the US to justify another war based on totally unfounded claims after former British PM Tony Blair tampered with evidence related to Iraq weapons of mass destruction to facilitate the invasion of the country in 2003.

The fears are especially strong because the Syrian government cannot have sensibly carried out a large-scale attack when UN weapons inspectors were stationed almost 20 kilometers away from the site of the attack, waiting to probe earlier claims of poisonous gas strikes.

Qualms are also fueled by sporadic reporting of Syrian foreign-backed militants being in possession of chemical weapons, including a Twitter post by Abdola Al-Jaledi, a former high-ranking member of the Jabaht al-Nusra militant group, which said his colleagues were in possession of chemical weapons.

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August 27, 2013 Posted by | Deception, Militarism | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Russia ‘regrets’ US decision to shelve Syria talks

RT | August 27, 2013

Moscow has voiced “regret” over a US decision to put off bilateral talks over Syria. Russia has sought to placate calls for military action over the alleged use of chemical weapons, saying there is no evidence of the Assad regime’s complicity.

The US government announced it was postponing bilateral talks with Russia late Monday, citing “ongoing consultations” over the Syrian government’s alleged use of chemical weapons.

Russian and American officials had been scheduled to meet in The Hague on Wednesday for bilateral talks on the Syrian conflict.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov tweeted a response to the move Tuesday morning, expressing concern over Washington’s decision.

“It is a pity that our western partners have decided to cancel the bilateral US-Russian meeting to discuss calls for an international conference on Syria,” Gatilov wrote on Twitter. He added in a later post that discussing terms for a political solution were needed now more than ever in the face of possible military intervention in Syria.

Plenary session of Russian State DumaDeputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Gennady Gatilov (RIA Novosti / Vladimir Fedorenko)

Foreign Affairs Committee chairman of the Russian Duma, Aleksey Pushkov also posted on his Twitter, alleging the US had already made the decision to strike Syria and they had gone too far.

A number of western countries including France, the US and the UK have condemned President Bashar Assad’s government for last week’s alleged chemical weapons attack in a Damascus suburb and called for a response, hinting at possible military action. On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin told British Prime Minster David Cameron in a phone conversation that there was still no evidence the Assad government was behind the attack.

However, Cameron insisted that Assad’s forces were behind the “chemical weapons” attack, saying that the Syrian opposition did not have the facilities to orchestrate such an attack. Cameron also cited the Syrian government’s delay in allowing a team of UN experts to examine the site as an indication that it had something to hide.

Washington has also seen an increase in rhetoric, urging action against the Assad government. Samantha Power, the US Ambassador to the UN, decried the Assad government for the attack on her Twitter account, and demanded accountability:

“Haunting images of entire families dead in their beds. Verdict is clear: Assad has used CWs against civilians in violation of int’l norm.”

Meanwhile, the UN weapons inspectors are due to start their second day of investigations in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta, where the toxic attack happened last Wednesday. The team’s convoy of vehicles came under fire from unknown assailants Monday as they visited the area.

In spite of the sniper attack, the team managed to collect samples for analysis and gather witness testimonies at a local hospital. Contradicting claims from the US and UK that the probe was too late to yield accurate results, the UN stressed the mission was still valid, although almost a week has passed since the supposed attack.

The alleged attack took place last Wednesday in an eastern suburb of Syria’s capital. Media published conflicting reports on the death toll, ranging from “dozens” to over 1,300 dead. French charity Medecins sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders) put the death toll at about 355.

August 27, 2013 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , | Leave a comment

Jewish Peer Attacks Violinist for Israel Apartheid Remark

Anthony Lawson · August 26, 2013

World-renowned violinist Nigel Kennedy has been attacked by Baroness Deech, of Cumnor, for something that he said at a BBC Proms concert, featuring the Palestinian Strings, a group of talented young musicians aged between twelve and twenty-three.

REFERENCES:

Nigel Kennedy plays Spring from Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons at the 2013 BBC Proms
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDXBnS…

انظرو كيف تعامل النساء-Women in Palestine
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aveeY…

Dispatches: Inside Britain’s Israel Lobby Video – Channel 4 UK – Broadcast November 16, 2009.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0E70Bw…

Gresham College The Universities: Under Regulation – Baroness Ruth Deech
Published on Apr 24, 2012
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sYzVl…

August 26, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , , , , | 2 Comments

U.S. spied on UN: German weekly

Xinhua | August 26, 2013

BERLIN — The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) bugged the video conferencing system at the UN headquarters in New York and cracked its encryption, German weekly Der Spiegel reported Sunday.

The tapping scheme succeeded in the summer of 2012, the magazine said, citing secret documents disclosed by former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden.

The move offered the NSA “a dramatic improvement of data on video conferencing and the ability to decrypt that data,” a quoted document said, noting that the number of decrypted communications jumped from 12 to 458 within three weeks.

Der Spiegel also reported that the U.S. intelligence agency spied on the European Union mission after it moved to its new embassy in New York last September.

The new embassy’s plans, as well as its IT infrastructure and servers, were among the copies of relevant NSA documents provided Snowden.

According to the documents analyzed by the weekly, the NSA also ran a monitoring program covering more than 80 embassies and consulates worldwide.

The program was called “the Special Collection Service” and operated without the knowledge of the host country, said the magazine.

NSA documents urged to keep the existence of the program as a secret at all costs, as “relations with the host country would be seriously damaged” if it was leaked, Der Spiegel reported.

Revelations about PRISM and other surveillance programs that obtain personal information by hacking phone calls and emails have embarrassed Washington and triggered outrage around the world.

Some EU privacy watchdogs are demanding an independent investigation into the extent of PRISM as well as other platforms used by the NSA.

U.S. President Barack Obama defended the spying program as a “modest encroachment” on privacy necessary to prevent terror attacks, but pledged to overhaul U.S. surveillance and turn it more transparent.

August 26, 2013 Posted by | Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | Leave a comment

Egyptian media outlet condemns government intimidation

MEMO | August 26, 2013

The Cairo-based Rassd News Network has condemned the latest intimidation by the coup government which has seen the killing and arbitrary arrests of journalists, including of five of its own correspondents. The network’s Executive Director, Samihi Mustafa, and founding member Dr Abdullah Al-Fakharani are among those detained by the authorities since the start of the bloody campaign against anti-coup demonstrators.

According to Rassd, neither Al-Fakharani nor Mustafa, the father of a new-born boy, were armed when they were arrested. “They were only armed with the truth about what is going on out there,” said a spokesperson. “Professional journalists are attempting to break the media blackout imposed by the coup authorities and government-controlled media on what is happening in Egypt.” Freedom of expression, it was pointed out, is a basic human right.

Describing a “savage and vengeful” campaign of arrests, the spokesperson said that the government is targeting Rassd journalists after killing photographer Musaab Al-Shami while he was covering the violent assault on Rabaa Al-Adawiyya Square. He was shot in the head and chest by soldiers. Rassd correspondents Mahmoud Abdul-Nabi and his brother Ibrahim, both professional journalists, were arrested in Alexandria at the start of the coup. Both men are on hunger strike in protest at the conditions under which they are being held by the authorities.

Rassd not only condemned the killing, arrest and harassment of its staff but also holds the Egyptian coup government fully responsible for the safety and well-being of those in detention. It demanded their immediate release.

“We will not give up in our efforts to protect human rights and the right of journalists to carry out their work unimpeded by the brutal acts of the security forces,” said the Rassd spokesperson. “We will use all legal means to defend them and to hold accountable those responsible for their illegal detention.”

The network insists that it remains committed to the professional ethics of journalism, including accuracy, balance, independence and integrity, to convey the truth as it is without any bias or distortion. Rassd appealed to all colleagues in the profession, international press associations and human rights organisations to stand by all detained journalists, to press for their release, and to ensure their right to work without threats or harassment.

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August 26, 2013 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

US Uses Past Crimes to Legalize Future Ones

By Diana Johnstone | Ron Paul Institute | August 26, 2013

The liberal warhawks are groping around for a pretext they can call “legal” for waging war against Syria, and have come up with the 1999 “Kosovo war”.

This is not surprising insofar as a primary purpose of that US/NATO 78-day bombing spree was always to set a precedent for more such wars. The pretext of “saving the Kosovars” from an imaginary “genocide” was as false as the “weapons of mass destruction” pretext for war against Iraq, but the fakery has been much more successful with the general public. Therefore Kosovo retains its usefulness in the propaganda arsenal.

On August 24, the New York Times reported that President Obama’s national security aides are “studying the NATO air war in Kosovo as a possible blueprint for acting without a mandate from the United Nations.” (By the way, the “air war” was not “in Kosovo”, but struck the whole of what was then Yugoslavia, mostly destroying Serbia’s civilian infrastructure and also spreading destruction in Montenegro.)

On Friday, Obama admitted that going in and attacking another country “without a U.N. mandate and without clear evidence” raised questions in terms of international law.

According to the New York Times, “Kosovo is an obvious precedent for Mr. Obama because, as in Syria, civilians were killed and Russia had longstanding ties to the government authorities accused of the abuses. In 1999, President Bill Clinton used the endorsement of NATO and the rationale of protecting a vulnerable population to justify 78 days of airstrikes.”

“It’s a step too far to say we’re drawing up legal justifications for an action, given that the president hasn’t made a decision,” said a senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the deliberations. “But Kosovo, of course, is a precedent of something that is perhaps similar.”

Ivo H. Daalder, a former United States ambassador to NATO, suggests that the administration could argue that the use of chemical weapons in Syria amounts to a grave humanitarian emergency, just as the Clinton administration argued in 1999 that “a grave humanitarian emergency” presented the “international community” with “the responsibility to act”.

This amounts to creative legality worthy of the planet’s number one Rogue State.

An Illegal War as Precedent for More War

The US/NATO war against Yugoslavia, which used unilateral force to break up a sovereign state, detaching the historic Serbian province of Kosovo and transforming it into a US satellite, was clearly in violation of international law.

In May 2000, the distinguished British authority on international law, Sir Ian Brownlie (1936-2010), presented a 16,000-word Memorandum, evaluating the war’s legal status for the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs of the British Parliament.

Brownlie recalled that key provisions of the United Nations Charter state quite clearly that “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.”

Brownlie added that the alleged right to use force for humanitarian purposes was not compatible with the UN Charter.

During the past decade, the Western powers have invented and promoted a theoretical “right to protect” (R2P) in an effort to get around the UN Charter in order to clear the way for wars whose final purpose is regime change. The use of R2P to overthrow Gaddafi in Libya gave the game away, ensuring Russian and Chinese opposition for any further such manoeuvre in the UN Security Council.

Concerning the Kosovo war, in his Memorandum Professor Brownlie reached the following major conclusions:

– The primary justification for the bombing of Yugoslavia was always the imposition of the NATO plans for the future of Kosovo. It was in this context that the bombing campaign was planned in August 1998.

–  The threats of massive air strikes were made in the same context and were first made public in October 1998. Neither the purpose of the planned air strikes nor their implementation related to events on the ground in Kosovo in March 1999.

–  The cause of the air strikes was quite simple: given that Yugoslavia had not given in to threats, the threats had to be carried out.

–  The legal basis of the action, as presented by the United Kingdom and other NATO States, was at no stage adequately articulated.

–  Humanitarian intervention, the justification belatedly advanced by the NATO States, has no place either in the United Nations Charter or in customary international law.

– If the view had been held that the Permanent Members of the Security Council would recognise the need for humanitarian action, then no doubt a resolution would have been sought.

– The intentions of the United States and the United Kingdom included the removal of the Government of Yugoslavia. It is impossible to reconcile such purposes with humanitarian intervention.

– The claim to be acting on humanitarian grounds appears difficult to reconcile with the disproportionate amount of violence involved in the use of heavy ordnance and missiles. The weapons had extensive blast effects and the missiles had an incendiary element. A high proportion of targets were in towns and cities. Many of the victims were women and children. After seven weeks of the bombing at least 1,200 civilians had been killed and 4,500 injured.

–  In spite of the references to the need for a peaceful solution to be found in Security Council Resolutions, the public statements of Mrs Albright, Mr Cook, Mr Holbrooke, and others, and the reiterated threats of massive air strikes, make it very clear that no ordinary diplomacy was envisaged.

The “Kosovo treatment”

As a final synopsis, Brownlie wrote a prophetic note on future use of “the Kosovo treatment”:

“The writer has contacts with a great number of diplomats and lawyers of different nationalities. The reaction to the NATO bombing campaign outside Europe and North America has been generally hostile. Most States have problems of separatism and could, on a selective basis, be the objects of Western ‘crisis management’. The selection of crises for the ‘Kosovo’ treatment will depend upon the geopolitical and collateral agenda. It is on this basis, and not a humanitarian agenda, that Yugoslavia is marked out for fragmentation on a racial basis, whilst Russia and Indonesia are not.”

He added: “Forcible intervention to serve humanitarian objectives is a claim which is only open to powerful States to make against the less powerful. The fate of Yugoslavia will have caused considerable damage to the cause of non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.”

The Brownlie Memorandum to the British Parliament is the most thorough assessment of the legal status of the Kosovo War. It is quite remarkable that the liberal warhawks around Obama talk of using that war as a “legal precedent” for a new war against Syria.

This amounts to saying that a crime committed once becomes a “precedent” to justify the crime being committed the next time.

How Many Times Can You Fool Most of the People?

If understood correctly, the Kosovo war was indeed a precedent that should act as a warning signal.

How many times can the United States use a false alarm to start an aggressive war? Non-existent “genocide” in Kosovo and Libya, non-existent weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and now what looks to much of the world like a “false flag” chemical weapons attack in Syria.

The United States habitually announces the presence of a desired casus belli, dismissing demands for concrete evidence.

In Kosovo, the United States obtained withdrawal of international observers who could have testified whether or not there was evidence of “genocide” of Kosovars. The accusations escalated during the war, and when, afterwards, no evidence of such mass murder was found, the matter was forgotten.

In Iraq, there was never any proof of WMD, but the US went ahead and invaded.

In Libya, the pretext for war was a misquoted statement of Gaddafi threatening a “massacre of civilians” in Benghazi. This was exposed as a fake, but again, NATO bombed, the regime was toppled, and the pretext falls into oblivion.

Sunday, just as the Syrian government announced readiness to allow international inspectors to investigate allegations of chemical weapons use, the White House responded, “too late!”

A senior Obama administration official demanding anonymity (one can reasonably guess the official was Obama’s hawkish National Security Advisor Susan Rice) issued a statement claiming that there was “very little doubt” that President Bashar al-Assad’s military forces had used chemical weapons against civilians and that a promise to allow United Nations inspectors access to the site was “too late to be credible.”

In the world beyond the beltway, there is a great deal of doubt – especially about the credibility of the United States government when it comes to finding pretexts to go to war. Moreover, setting “chemical weapons” as a “red line” obliging the US to go to war is totally arbitrary. There are many ways of killing people in a civil war. Selecting one as a trigger for US intervention serves primarily to give rebels an excellent reason to carry out a “false flag” operation that will bring NATO into the war they are losing.

Who really wants or needs US intervention? The American people? What good will it do them to get involved in yet another endless Middle East war?

But who has influence on Obama?  The American people?  Or is it rather “our staunchest ally”, who is most concerned about rearranging the Middle East neighborhood?

“This situation must not be allowed to continue,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, expressing remarkable concern for Syrian civilians “who were so brutally attacked by weapons of mass destruction.”

“The most dangerous regimes in the world must not be allowed to possess the most dangerous weapons in the world,” Netanyahu added.

Incidentally, polls have been taken showing that for much of the world, the most dangerous regime in the world is Israel, which is allowed to possess the most dangerous weapons – nuclear weapons.  But there is no chance that Israel will ever get “the Kosovo treatment”.

DIANA JOHNSTONE is the author of Fools Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO and Western Delusions. She can be reached at  diana.josto@yahoo.fr

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August 26, 2013 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | 2 Comments

US cannot afford to wait for UN to attack Syria: Officials

Press TV – August 26, 2013

Rep. Eliot Engel (NY)*, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has said “this is time for us” to launch cruise missile strikes on Syria, and that the US government cannot afford to wait for the United Nations.

“The world is a better place when the United States takes leadership; this is time for us to do this. I hope we’ll do it soon,” the American lawmaker said on Fox News Sunday.

A growing number of Republicans and Democrats in Congress are urging the administration of President Barack Obama to approve military action against Syria after reports of a deadly chemical attack in the suburbs of Damascus emerged last week.

Engel said that the United States had to respond quickly and could not afford to wait for the United Nations.

“We could even destroy the Syrian Air Force if we wanted to… We have to move and we have to move quickly.”

Other senior US officials have also indicated that instead of seeking a UN approval for military action, Washington could work with its partners such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) or the Arab League.

“We’ll consult with the UN. They’re an important avenue. But they’re not the only avenue,” a senior administration official said.

The Syrian government has allowed UN inspectors to visit a site that allegedly came under chemical attack on Wednesday. Obama administration officials, however, have dismissed as too late the Syrian offer.

Although there is still no evidence to blame the chemical attack on the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a senior administration official said there was “very little doubt” that Damascus was behind the attack.

“Based on the reported number of victims, reported symptoms of those who were killed or injured, witness accounts and other facts gathered by open sources, the US intelligence community, and international partners, there is very little doubt at this point that a chemical weapon was used by the Syrian regime against civilians in this incident,” the unnamed official said in a written statement on Sunday, as reported by the New York Times.

The Syrian government and the army categorically denied any role in Wednesday’s chemical attack which killed hundreds of people. Russia, a key ally of Syria, insists that the attack was “clearly provocative in nature,” and that it was staged by foreign-backed militant groups to incriminate the Assad government.

In recent days, the Pentagon has moved more warships into place in the eastern Mediterranean Sea and American war planners have updated strike targets that include government and military installations inside Syria, officials said.

President Obama met with his national security advisers at the White House over the weekend to discuss “a range of options” for Syria, but officials said late Sunday that the president had yet to decide how to proceed.

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel reiterated Sunday that the Pentagon had prepared “options for all contingencies” is ready to use force if the president gives the green-light.

Meanwhile, the US top military leader is in Jordan to discuss possible strikes on neighboring Syria.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey was set to meet with his Jordanian counterpart and other regional defense chiefs during his visit.

“The exchange is designed to increase the collective understanding of the impact of regional conflicts on nations, foster ongoing dialogue and improve security relationships,” Defense Department spokeswoman Lt. Col. Cathy Wilkinson said.

Obama said last year that the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government would “cross a red line,” provoking a military response.

~~~

* Eliot Engel:

During my time in Congress, I have traveled to Israel many times, including the recent trip with President Obama, and I remain committed to the unbreakable bond between the United States and Israel. Not only are the U.S. and Israel close strategic allies in the dangerous Middle East, but we have a great deal in common. We are democracies and nations of immigrants from all corners of the globe. We are proud to embrace the highest ideals in our laws and policies, while generating an extraordinary caliber of science and culture, benefiting not only our two countries, but the entire world.

I firmly believe that we must stand with our ally, Israel, as it faces a variety of threats and challenges. Today, the most serious danger Israel must confront emanates from Iran. It is simply unacceptable that a country with a history of supporting terrorism and calling for the destruction of Israel could have a nuclear weapon. The Obama Administration has led the international community in imposing crippling sanctions on Teheran, and this process must continue in Congress and around the world until the Iranian regime reverses its nuclear program. While we must not take any actions off the table when it comes to the Iranian nuclear program, we must continue to show the mullah-led regime that continuing its program to build nuclear weapons will only lead to greater isolation.

Further, I am deeply concerned by the dangers of terrorism from Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israel should not have to live under the constant menace that thousands of unguided rockets could again rain down on the Jewish state. That is why I was the lead Democratic sponsor of a resolution condemning Hamas rocket attacks on Israel and why I have strongly supported American assistance to Israel to expand the effective Iron Dome and other missile defense systems.

Finally, I have long advocated a tougher policy toward Syria. As the author of the Syria Accountability Act, which imposed sanctions on Syria in 2003, I believe we must stand up against the Assad regime’s massacres of its own people. I believe that the time has come for the international community to impose serious sanctions on Syria and to begin supporting the opposition Free Syrian Army. I am aware that this strategy has risks and we must take concerns about widening the conflict seriously. But, today, the Iranians and Russians are openly supporting Assad’s massacre squads. The victims deserve a chance to fight back. Moreover, the collapse of Bashar’s government in Damascus would be a body blow to Iran and to Hezbollah, which gets its largess from Teheran through Syria. Syria has supported terror for too long. I think we need to stand against repression and support the rebels.

Israel Allies Foundation:

Congressman Eliot Engel serves as the Democratic co-chair for the Israel Allies Caucus.

Rep. Engel serves on numerous committees, notably the Foreign Affairs Committee and is the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, as well as serving on the Subcommittee on the Middle East and Central Asia, and the Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, and the Global Environment. In addition he serves as Vice Chair of the Democratic Task Force on Homeland Security.

Wikipedia:

Iraq War

In 2002, Engel joined the two Senators from New York, Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton, and almost 300 members of the United States House of Representatives in voting for the resolution granting President Bush the authority to use force in Iraq.[56]

International affairs

Engel is a supporter of recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Energy

In 2005, Engel introduced with Congressman Jack Kingston (R-GA) the Fuel Choices for American Security Act (H.R. 4409), later modified and reintroduced in 2007 as the DRIVE Act (H.R. 670) – the Dependence Reduction through Innovation in Vehicles and Energy Act – with more than 80 bi-partisan co-sponsors. It was designed to promote America’s national security and economic stability by reducing dependence on foreign oil through the use of clean alternative fuels and advanced vehicle technologies. It also called for increased tire efficiency – to increase a vehicle’s gas miles.[24]

Many provisions of the DRIVE Act were included in the Energy Independence and Security Act, which was signed into law on December 19, 2007, and became Public Law No. 110-140. This law mandates increased fuel efficiency standards from 25 miles per gallon to 35 miles per gallon by 2020. The law also requires improved energy efficiency standards for appliances, lighting and buildings, and the development of American-grown biofuels like cellulosic ethanol, biodiesel and biobutanol.

On July 22, 2008, Engel introduced with Congressmen Kingston, Steve Israel (D-NY) and Bob Inglis (R-SC) the Open Fuel Standards Act.[25] This bill requires 50 percent of new cars sold in the United States by 2012 (and 80 percent of new cars sold by 2015) to be flexible-fuel vehicles capable of running on any combination of ethanol, methanol or gasoline. Flex fuel vehicles cost about $100 more than the same vehicle in a gasoline-only version. This bill was resubmitted in the 111th United States Congress by Rep. Engel, Inglis, Israel and Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD). It was re-introduced in the 112th Congress with Rep. John Shimkus as the lead Republican. It will likely be re-introduced in the 113th Congress.

Controversies

Engel was criticized[67] for choosing to attend a July 2008 event hosted by the controversial pastor John Hagee, who has suggested that God sent Adolf Hitler to bring the Jews to Israel.[68]

August 26, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , | 1 Comment

Israeli forces shoot dead three Palestinians in West Bank

Al-Akhbar | August 26, 2013

Plainclothes Israeli police shot dead three Palestinians during a West Bank raid early Monday, local media reported.

Ma’an news agency said that the undercover Israeli forces attempted to raid a home in the Qalandiya refugee camp around 5:00 am to rearrest a former prisoner when residents confronted them.

The occupation forces then opened fire on the residents that had surrounded them, killing 32-year Robin al-Abed, 22-year-old Younis Jahjouh and 20-year-old Jihad Aslan.

Fifteen others were wounded in the assault, six said to be in critical condition, the report added, citing medical sources. It said that most of the injured sustained bullet wounds to the head, chest and upper body.

With Monday’s killings, Israeli forces have taken the lives of 14 Palestinians in the West Bank this year, compared with three killed in the same period in 2012, according to United Nations figures.

Israeli forces last shot dead a 20-year-old Palestinian at the Jenin refugee camp on August 20. A soldier shot him directly in the heart.

The western-backed Palestinian Authority suspended the so-called peace talks with Israel over Monday’s killing.

“The meeting that was to take place in Jericho … today was cancelled because of the Israeli crime committed in Qalandiya today,” a PA official told AFP.

“What happened today in Qalandiya shows the real intentions of the Israeli government,” Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas’s spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina, a separate official, told AFP as reports of the shooting started to emerge.

(Al-Akhbar, Ma’an, Reuters, AFP)

August 26, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Russia Warns US Again Against Syria Intervention

Al-Manar | August 26, 2013

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has warned US Secretary of State John Kerry over the “extremely dangerous consequences” of launching military action against Syria, the foreign ministry said Monday.

Russia, USLavrov told Kerry in a telephone call Sunday that Moscow was “deeply alarmed” by comments from US officials indicating a readiness to intervene in Syria over alleged use of chemical weapons which the Syrian government had strongly denied, it said in a statement.

“Sergei Lavrov drew attention to the extremely dangerous consequences of a possible new military intervention for the whole Middle East and North Africa region,” it added. Lavrov told Kerry that it appeared certain elements inside the United States wanted to launch military action in Syria outside of the United Nations to undermine joint US-Russia efforts to organize a peace conference.

The Russian minister urged his US counterpart “to refrain from using military pressure against Damascus and not to give in to provocations.” The ministry said Kerry promised to “attentively” study the arguments of the Russian side.

Russia underlined the necessity of an objective UN investigation into the claimed chemical attack and repeated its doubts that the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad was to blame. “There is mounting evidence that the incident was a pretence set up by the rebel opposition with the aim of accusing the Damascus government of everything,” the statement said.

August 26, 2013 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Venezuela, Palestine sign oil deal

Press TV – August 25, 2013

Venezuela and Palestine have signed agreements including deals under which Caracas is to sell oil at a ‘fair price’ to the Palestinians.

The accords were signed on Saturday following a meeting between Venezuelan Foreign Minister Elias Jaua and his Palestinian counterpart Riyad al-Maliki.

“It is an agreement of cooperation and solidarity with our oil industry… a sale of fuel at a fair price,” Jaua said.

The agreement also assures “favorable” repayment terms as well as training of Palestinians on handling and distribution of oil.

Maliki, who is on a Latin America tour, said he was “extremely satisfied” with the agreement.

On August 23, Maliki visited Ecuador, where he discussed with Minister for Foreign Affairs and Human Mobility Ricardo Patino. After the meeting, the two ministers expressed interest in opening embassies in both countries to strengthen ties.

A day earlier, Guyana’s President Donald Ramotar said after meeting the Palestinian foreign minister that his country is in the process of appointing an ambassador to Palestine and reiterated Guyana’s continued support to Palestine.

A group of Latin American and Caribbean countries, including Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Bolivia, Uruguay, Ecuador, Chile and Chile, recognize Palestine as an independent state.

On April 10, the Latin American nation of Guatemala became the 132nd nation in the world to formally recognize the state of Palestine.

August 25, 2013 Posted by | Economics, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Genocide Tribunal Against Israel Fails Palestinian Victims

By Yoichi Shimatsu | Global Research | August 24, 2013

KUALA LUMPUR –  Anyone with the chutzpah to accuse Israel of genocide is going to bring on a preemptive strike. That is as guaranteed as cream cheese on a bagel.

The word “genocide” is loaded, since many and probably most Jews believe themselves to have a monopoly on the term. Most often cited in reference to the Holocaust, the G word elicits an intense emotional reaction. “War crimes” is an acceptable term in international parlance, for even Israel’s  most vociferous citizens grudgingly admit to instances of unrestrained violence against Palestinians.

“Genocide”, however, is in a class by itself, being the thermonuclear bomb of moral outrage. How dare supporters of Palestinian rights charge the Mideast’s “only democratic society” with systematic annihilation prompted by racial intolerance, economic greed, cultural chauvinism and religious bigotry?

Suspicion Mars Proceedings

The organizers of the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal have brought on just such woe onto themselves by summoning a panel of international judges to rule on whether Israeli is guilty of genocide ever since its national birth in 1948.

The judicial proceedings got no further than the preliminary pretrial stage before it collapsed under acrimonious accusations ranging from prosecutors allegedly “poisoning minds” of Palestinian witnesses to outrage over a judge acting as ”an agent of the Mossad.”

The trigger for the heated denunciations between the prosecution team and the judicial panel was the prosecutors’ request for Judge Eric David, a law professor with the Free University of Brussels, to recuse himself (to voluntararily withdraw from the panel of judges).

The prosecutors had raised the issue of his earlier legal opinion to the effect that the People’s Mujaheedin (PMOI), an Iranian exile paramilitary which until recently was on the U.S. government’s list of terrorist groups should not be categorized as a terrorist entity.

According to media reports, the PMOI was involved in assassinating nuclear scientists and bombing factories in Iran. The group, largely based in Iraq , was militarily trained by the Israel secret service Mossad during the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and subsequent occupation.

Co-Prosecutor Francis Boyle, a New York-based law professor, stated that the favorable opinion on that terrorist group implies that Judge David is politically aligned with the foreign policy of Israel , the defendant in the current tribunal on Palestinian rights. To this question of conflict of interest, Jurist David refused to give an answer, nor did the presiding judge demand him to respond.

Lead Prosecutor Gurdial Singh argued that the complainants, Palestinians who personally suffered war crimes by Israeli forces, had grounds for suspicion about Judge David’s impartiality given his past approval of Mossad-linked forces.

Gurdjial pointed out:

“This tribunal being a court of conscience, there must be not even a single blot on integrity.”

After tension-packed deliberations behind closed doors, the panel ruled in favor of Judge David without examining his controversial opinion and unanimously affirmed that he should serve on the tribunal. That ruling provoked Prosecutor Boyle to call for a mistrial, and the panel responded by accusing him of contempt of court. The proceedings soon descended into chaos and many more back-rooms parleys, before both sides agreed to an indefinite adjournment, possibly of several months, before the start of trial. In total, the preliminary session lasted less than two days, August 21-22, before it whimpered to a halt.

Procedure Matters

After many reporting assignments, along with a long stint at jury duty, in San Francisco criminal trials and New York City gun court, my immediate observation was that the panel of judges in Malaysia overemphasized courtroom decorum while inexplicably failing to follow basic judicial proceedings.

The stress on style rather than the substance of law revealed a “cultural” difference in courtroom custom between the hard-ball rhetoric bandied in American trials versus the polite and deferential manners in wig-adorned chambers under the British tradition. As sadly shown in Kuala Lumpur , however, decorum can often serve as a cloak for institutional inertia and possibly hidden agendas.

Issues of etiquette aside, the most grievous mistake was the panel’s opting for unanimous agreement as a group. Trials with more than one judge, these including tribunals and high courts, are organized for the exact opposite, that is to allow a divided opinion between the majority ruling and a minority dissent. At the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal, whatever its merits and flaws, the guilty verdict of the majority of judges was famously opposed by the minority opinion of the Indian jurist Radhabinod Pal. In hindsight, that lone dissenting voice rings in our consciences to this day with its warning against victor’s “justice” and lynch “law”.

For a body of judges to act in unison in favor of one of their own profession is a gross violation of the principle of independence for each judge in a court of conscience. The disturbing thought that came to my mind was that insistence on acting as a group is completely out of place in a tribunal. Whether there was verbal manipulation in the judges’ chamber is privy only to those inside, leaving those of us on the outside with nothing but doubt.

Code of Silence

Prosecutors have a right to protest a violation of judicial procedures as the basis for mistrial, as was done by the co-prosecutor. Normally, when a capital crime is at issue, a mistrial can lead to a change of venue and a new judge and jury. If a court cannot possibly render a verdict on the basis of fairness, then another fairer arena must be found.

There were other serious problems: for example, the failure of the presiding judge to order the prosecutors to rephrase aggressive accusations as questions, and his neglect to demand that judge Eric David explain his past opinion to the satisfaction of all in the courtroom.

Judge David, one of the drafters of Bertrand Russell Tribunal on Israeli war crimes against Palestinians, did not give a single word of explanation, much less a convincing argument, for his legal opinion and tacit support of a Mossad-trained terrorist group that was a combatant in the Iraq War and responsible for violent acts against Iranian civilians that are illegal under international law.

His silence smacks not only of delivering selective justice but also of harboring a hidden agenda. Instead of ethical clarity, he chose to the muddy waters. If genuinely in support of the tribunal, he would have recused himself as the source of doubt, even if his intentions were misunderstood.

From the inception of this tribunal on Palestinian rights more than a year ago, the prosecution strategy has been to seek a genocide verdict against Israel , while the defense tactic is, logically, to water-down the ruling to less onerous guilt of war crimes falling far short of genocidal state policy.

Unfortunately, the reluctance of the unified panel to accept transparency and open debate in the proceedings reinforced the perception of judicial bias among the aggrieved complainants from Palestine . That some and possibly many of the jurists were either hesitant or predisposed to reject a verdict of genocide would be understandable in an Israeli courtroom. That such has happened in a predominantly Muslim country is simply astounding.

Perversion of Justice

Unfortunately, and to their eternal shame, many pro-Israeli legal professionals are not up to ethical par, as was shown in a major investigation at The Hague during the mid-1990s. I served as one of a handful of reporters on the case involving a weapons-loaded El Al cargo jet that crashed into an apartment building in Biljmeer district of Amsterdam, killing residents in an intense fire and harming emergency crews with toxic releases. The legal case was criminally undermined by massive amounts of Israeli bribery of witnesses (guised as unofficial out-of-court settlements), interference by the Israeli security team at Schipol Airport and the eventual silencing of the Dutch team that investigated the air traffic maneuvers of the plane.

That Israeli-subverted case never got to trial in The Hague , and I cannot but now fear that the same fate could await the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal.

There are undoubtedly external factors aligned against the tribunal, other than the Israeli opposition to an undesirable verdict on Palestinian rights. Google, which cooperates with Israeli interests, posted warning signs on the website of the Kuala Lumpur foundation in its earlier tribunal hearings against the U.S. government for the illegal war on Iraq .

Closer to home, U.S. and allied intelligence agencies have actively promoted protests, similar to their Arab Spring sponsorship, to weaken the Malaysia government. Under the White House strategic pivot to Asia policy and the Pentagon’s Air-Sea Battle Concept, Malaysia is perceived as a potential foe of American geopolitical intervention. Is the pressure on from Tel Aviv and Washington to crack the Kuala Lumpur tribunal?

In Bad Faith 

Laymen tend to perceive judges as men and women of ethical principle, non-partiality and free of preconceived biases. Sadly, the vast majority are not. One must remember that for every drone strike against a family home in a remote outland, a judge in a big city signs a writ of execution with not a whit of credible evidence. Constitutional guarantees have been reduced to a scrap of paper, and along with them so goes judicial standards.

For these very reasons, the tribunal in Kuala Lumpur must proceed and in accordance with the highest standard of international law. It is not a predetermined show trial nor a mock court, for this tribunal offers the legal strategy, the arguments and the precedent for the Palestinian Authority to press its long-overdue case in the International Court of Justice.

The Palestinian people have suffered prolonged and inexcusable violations of every human right under a state policy of eviction, banishment, imprisonment, torture and murder, repeatedly in an indiscriminate and cruel manner. If those who speak of the Rule of Law, for those who preside over our courts of law, cannot act, much less decide, against these inhumane practices and policies against a long-standing community, then there exists no law in Israel or at The Hague worthy of our respect and obedience.

The case of the Palestinian people versus the State of Israel is, in fact, a test of conscience for each and every one of us and proof of whether our global civilization is anything more than a facade for brute barbarism.

The Jewish people pride themselves at a moral lamp to humanity in darkness, but with only a few brave and notable exceptions in the cause of Palestinian rights, the dominant reaction of supporters of Israel has been toward obstruction of justice and outright injustice. The outcome can only be tragic for both peoples.

According to the Law Giver

The Hebrew term “Shoah” or calamity, which is also used to describe the Nazi policy against Jews, is the exclusive intellectual property of the Jewish people. “Genocide”, in contrast, is universal, applying to any nationality that faces systematic elimination.

To give credit where it is due, a Polish Jew coined the hybrid word “genocide”, which combines “genus”, Latin for family or breed, with “cide”, which translates as killing. A prosecutor in prewar Poland , before it was divided by German and Soviet forces, devised this word to describe the ultimate crime while drafting his book “Axis Rule in Occupied Europe” (published in 1944 by the Carnagie Foundation for International Peace). After immigrating to the United States , Lemkin joined the faculty of Rutgers Law School and drafted a genocide treaty adopted by the newly formed United Nations in 1948.

The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, to summarize, forbids the killing, maiming and deliberate inflicting on a targeted group those conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.

This lawgiver made very clear that the genocide is applicable to any group threatened with “a coordinated plan” for the destruction of “essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves” with objectives including disintegration of political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even their lives.”

Genocide does not necessarily mean the killing of every single member of a group since total extermination is often not feasible even with brutal efficiency.

Lemkin cited many genocide cases from our troubled world history, including “Christians of various denominations, Moslems and Jews, Armenians and Slavs, Greeks and Russians, dark-skinned Hereros in Africa and white-skinned Poles perished by millions from this crime.” The law must protect not just individuals but also groups of people, and by all accounts, the Palestinians are a group suffering most and probably all of the abuses cited.

Now 65 years after Lemkin formulated the rules of conduct, it becomes painfully apparent that yesterday’s victims can too easily become today’s perpetrators. What has anyone learned from their own suffering?

Yoichi Shimatsu is a Hong Kong-based journalist, is former editor with The Japan Times group in Tokyo and Pacific News Service in San Francisco.

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August 25, 2013 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

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