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Israel’s Impunity Enables War Crimes to Continue

By Johannes Hautaviita | teleSUR | December 16, 2014

It has been more than three months since Israel halted its latest massacre in the Gaza Strip. The destruction wrought by Israel’s onslaught was nothing short of apocalyptic. “The destruction which I have seen coming here is beyond description”, said the UN Secretary General during his visit to Gaza. In a similar vein, the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Peter Maurer, stated, “I’ve never seen such massive destruction ever before.”

While many of the world’s crimes remain unknown and unacknowledged, the systematic and deliberate nature of Israel’s atrocities against the Palestinians are both carefully documented and, by now, starting to enter the mainstream. Although the lofty rhetoric of the Israel Defense Force would have it that its most important mission is “saving human lives, both Israeli and Palestinian”, the human rights record and military doctrine of the Israeli army are too well-established for such slogans to be taken seriously.

According to UN figures, 2,192 Palestinians, including 1,523 civilians and 519 children, were killed during this summer’s operation. By the time the ceasefire was announced, there were “110,000 internally displaced persons living in emergency shelter and with host families. The UN estimated that about 18,000 housing units were destroyed or rendered uninhabitable, leaving approximately 108,000 people homeless. A further 37,650 housing units were damaged.”

There is little doubt about the reason for this colossal death and destruction. The UN fact finding mission, headed by Richard Goldstone, concluded, that the Israeli offensive in 2008-2009 (Cast Lead) was “a deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population”. According to the mission, Israel’s military doctrine involved the “application of disproportionate force and the causing of great damage and destruction to civilian property and infrastructure, and suffering to civilian populations.”

Significantly, the mission placed primary responsibility for the commission of these crimes, not on the individual soldiers that carried them out, but instead, on the political and military leadership of Israel. And as Israel, yet again in July-August 2014, in Operation Protective Edge, wielded its sledgehammer on the civilian population of Gaza, there’s no doubt that the mission’s conclusion is applicable this time around as well.

Indeed, UN Human Rights Chief Navi Pillay condemned Israel for its, as she put it, apparently deliberate violations of international law. Pillay referred to the findings of the previous UN mission of inquiry and noted, that “[t]he same pattern of attacks is occurring now on homes, schools, hospitals, UN premises.”

Although the death and destruction has ended for now, similar crimes are likely to continue, unless Israel’s impunity is properly challenged. As the Goldstone report noted, referring to crimes on both sides, “long-standing impunity has been a key factor in the perpetuation of violence in the region and in the reoccurrence of violations, as well as in the erosion of confidence among Palestinians and many Israelis concerning prospects for justice and a peaceful solution to the conflict”.

With an abundance of evidence of Israeli war crimes, the issue of criminal accountability for the Israeli leadership comes down to the political will of the international community to enforce the law.

Universal jurisdiction – a path towards accountability?

The prospects for the prosecution of Israel’s leadership in the International Criminal Court (ICC), however, appear bleak. The US is likely to veto any UN Security Council action on the matter. In addition, the Palestinian Authority is under pressure from the US and its allies not to invoke the jurisdiction of the ICC in order to prosecute crimes committed on Palestinian territory. The ICC’s prosecutor’s office has also been pressured not to open the case. However, even if the ICC fails to act, this need not be a nail in the coffin for efforts to pursue war crimes charges against the Israeli political and military leadership.

Many individual states have adopted the principle of universal jurisdiction and thus enabled their national courts to investigate and prosecute persons suspected of committing serious crimes regardless of their nationality, or where the crime was committed. This means that national authorities can step in to prosecute serious human rights violations anywhere in the world.

There are important precedents of how universal jurisdiction has been put into practice in the past. One of the major cases was against Chile’s former dictator Augusto Pinochet (1915-2006). In October 1998, a Spanish judge, Baltazar Garsón, issued an international arrest warrant for Pinochet for his responsibility for human rights violations during his years in office. Within a week, Pinochet was arrested in London.

In 2008, ten years after the indictment of Pinochet, a case against Alfredo Cristiani, the former president of El Salvador, and members of his military, was brought before a Spanish court. They were charged with the murder of six priests and human rights workers, their housekeeper and her daughter in El Salvador in 1989. The assassinations were carried out by the Atlacatl Battalion, a US-trained elite unit of the Salvadoran army.

Eventually, 20 Salvadoran soldiers were indicted for the murders.

There are other cases, including charges of genocide against Guatemalan strongman Rios Montt – also a US-ally, who president Ronald Reagan commended as “a man of great personal integrity and commitment”, and who, Reagan assured, wants to “improve the quality of life for all Guatemalans and to promote social justice.” Montt’s commitment to social justice was on display when his security and paramilitary forces slaughtered 166,000 Maya indians during the country’s 36-year-long civil war.

Israel has not remained immune from this practice either. In 2009, an arrest warrant for Israel’s former foreign minister Tzipi Livni was issued in London. Livni was acting foreign minister during Cast Lead in which Israeli forces killed roughly 1,400 Palestinians, including more than 400 children.

During Cast Lead, Livni boasted, that “Israel demonstrated real hooliganism during the course of the recent operation, which I demanded”. She also praised the army for “going wild” in Gaza. The British authorities, however, obstructed her arrest by granting her diplomatic immunity during her visit to the UK in 2011.

As Israel, during this summer, for the third time in five years, committed a massacre in Gaza, prompting worldwide condemnation, and with public opinion in Europe critical of Israel’s actions, it’s time for EU member states to heed the recommendation of the Goldstone report, and open “criminal investigations in national courts, using universal jurisdiction, where there is sufficient evidence of the commission of grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949. Where so warranted following investigation, alleged perpetrators should be arrested and prosecuted in accordance with internationally recognized standards of justice.”

December 17, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | 1 Comment

Khaled Meshaal speaks to MEMO about the EU’s decision to remove Hamas from terror list

Middle East Monitor | December 17, 2014

We, the leadership of the Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas, welcome the decision of the General Court of the European Union to remove Hamas from the European Union’s terrorist list and we consider this to be a step in the right direction and a means of making right a position that was wrong. This past position was not based on objective facts. In addition to this, it was in violation of and contradictory to international law as well as legal and humanitarian norms that guarantee the right of nations to resist occupation. It would be in the European Union’s best interest to align itself with international law and with legal and humanitarian norms and to refrain from violating these laws under the misguided pressure of Israel and its exploitation of the international community.

In this regard I urge the leaders and governments in the EU states to accept and cooperate with the decision of the Court and to take measures to make a brave political decision to remove Hamas from the European Union’s terrorist list in coordination with the Court’s decision and with the values of justice and law, as well as out of respect of the people’s will and their rights. I also urge the leaders and governments in EU states to avoid stalling or wasting time by taking measures or making appeals attempting to circumvent international law and objective facts.

I also hope that all international forces, including the United States, take the initiative and right the wrong that has been made in the past, which, as everyone knows, is a result of Israeli pressure and not a result of the facts on the ground.

I would like to remind everyone that throughout its long history since its inception 27 years ago, Hamas has, and continues to confine its legitimate resistance and struggle to Palestine and exercises this against the Israeli occupation. This is a natural right for the movement and for all nations under foreign occupation and it is in accordance with our religious and international laws, just as the other nations in the East and the West resisted their occupying forces.

We believe that this step by the General Court of the European Union, along with the initiatives made last week by a number of EU states and the Swedish government to recognise a Palestinian state and the rights of the Palestinian people, are all considered important steps that must be followed through in the context of setting the record straight and making the historical mistake against the Palestinian people right again.

The Palestinian people, as well as other people who have suffered and continue to suffer from unjust occupation, are looking forward to the day, in the near future, when the international community and the global superpowers will call things by their true name and explicitly expose the true terrorist forces, countries, and parties that exercise real terrorism against humanity. Such parties work together to commit acts of terrorism in its ugliest forms, in the name of the state, before the eyes and ears of the world without any accountability or deterrence, starting with Israeli terrorism.

December 17, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

Palestinian woman who stabbed Israeli settler was defending herself: official

Al-Akhbar | December 17, 2014

A Palestinian woman suspected of stabbing an Israeli settler on December 1 was defending herself after being harassed by the man, a Palestinian official claimed Tuesday.

Amal Jamal Taqatqa, 22, was shot and critically wounded by soldiers near Gush Etzion on December 1 after allegedly stabbing an Israeli settler.

The director of Bethlehem’s military liaison department told Ma’an news agency that officials requested an investigation into the shooting, but that it has been delayed due to the political atmosphere.

“Is it reasonable that 46 surveillance cameras in Gush Etzion settlement bloc have failed to document what really happened between Amal Taqatqa, 22, from Beit Fajjar and an Israeli settler who claimed that she attempted to stab him?” Khaled Qaddura said.

Taqatqa reportedly engaged in a hand-to-hand fight with the settler after he verbally abused her, causing a minor scratch to the settler’s neck, Qaddura said.

“At that point, the settlers asked an Israeli soldier who was in the area to shoot the girl, and the soldier immediately shot her in the chest. The girl fell to the ground then tried to get up and run away, but the soldier shot her again in the feet causing her to fall down again then he approached her and shot a last round,” the official added.

Taqatqa is still receiving medical treatment at Hadassah hospital and is in a stable condition.

Qaddura slammed Israel’s labeling of Taqarqa as a “terrorist”, noting that the term “terrorism” is used automatically when Israelis – whether civilians or soldiers – are injured.

He urged Palestinians who witness such incidents to film them or record the registration number of the military vehicles involved.

Unrest has gripped Jerusalem and the West Bank on an almost daily basis for the past five months, flaring up after a group of Zionist settlers kidnapped and burned a young Palestinian to death because of his ethnicity, and worsened by the deadly Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip in July and August.

(Ma’an, Al-Akhbar)

December 17, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Address to the Cuban people on new opening with the U.S.

By Raul Castro | December 17, 2014

Since my election as President of the State Council and Council of Ministers I have reiterated in many occasions our willingness to hold a respectful dialogue with the United States on the basis of sovereign equality, in order to deal reciprocally with a wide variety of topics without detriment to the national Independence and self-determination of our people.

This stance was conveyed to the US Government both publicly and privately by Comrade Fidel on several occasions during our long standing struggle, stating the willingness to discuss and solve our differences without renouncing any of our principles.

The heroic Cuban people, in the wake of serious dangers, aggressions, adversities and sacrifices has proven to be faithful and will continue to be faithful to our ideals of independence and social justice. Strongly united throughout these 56 years of Revolution, we have kept our unswerving loyalty to those who died in defense of our principles since the beginning of our independence wars in 1868.

Today, despite the difficulties, we have embarked on the task of updating our economic model in order to build a prosperous and sustainable Socialism.

As a result of a dialogue at the highest level, which included a phone conversation I had yesterday with President Obama, we have been able to make headway in the solution of some topics of mutual interest for both nations.

As Fidel promised on June 2001,when he said: “They shall return!” Gerardo, Ramon, and Antonio have arrived today to our homeland.

The enormous joy of their families and of all our people, who have relentlessly fought for this goal, is shared by hundreds of solidarity committees and groups, governments, parliaments, organizations, institutions, and personalities, who for the last sixteen years have made tireless efforts demanding their release. We convey our deepest gratitude and commitment to all of them.

President Obama’s decision deserves the respect and acknowledgement of our people.

I wish to thank and acknowledge the support of the Vatican, most particularly the support of Pope Francisco in the efforts for improving relations between Cuba and the United States. I also want to thank the Government of Canada for facilitating the high-level dialogue between the two countries.

In turn, we have decided to release and send back to the United States a spy of Cuban origin who was working for that nation.

On the other hand, and for humanitarian reasons, today we have also sent the American citizen Alan Gross back to his country.

Unilaterally, as has always been our practice, and in strict compliance with the provisions of our legal system, the concerned prisoners have received legal benefits, including the release of those persons that the Government of the United States had conveyed their interest in.

We have also agreed to renew diplomatic relations.

This in no way means that the heart of the matter has been solved. The economic, commercial, and financial blockade, which causes enormous human and economic damages to our country, must cease.

Though the blockade has been codified into law, the President of the United States has the executive authority to modify its implementation.

We propose to the Government of the United States the adoption of mutual steps to improve the bilateral atmosphere and advance towards normalization of relations between our two countries, based on the principles of International Law and the United Nations Charter.

Cuba reiterates its willingness to cooperate in multilateral bodies, such as the United Nations.

While acknowledging our profound differences, particularly on issues related to national sovereignty, democracy, human rights and foreign policy, I reaffirm our willingness to dialogue on all these issues.

I call upon the Government of the United States to remove the obstacles hindering or restricting ties between peoples, families, and citizens of both countries, particularly restrictions on travelling, direct post services, and telecommunications.

The progress made in our exchanges proves that it is possible to find solutions to many problems.

As we have reiterated, we must learn the art of coexisting with our differences in a civilized manner.

December 17, 2014 Posted by | Economics | , | 3 Comments

No donkeys allowed

International Solidarity Movement |December 17, 2014

Hebron, Occupied Palestine – Mohammad Saleh, a sixty-six-year-old Palestinian resident of Tel Rumeida, al-Khalil (Hebron), waited with his mule outside Shuhada checkpoint for nine hours over the course of two days. He spent four hours waiting before being allowed through on Monday (15/12/14) evening.

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He then spent five hours Tuesday (16/12/14) attempting to cross in the opposite direction before eventually turning back, after being denied repeatedly by Israeli forces claiming that donkeys, mules, horses, and carts are not permitted to pass through the checkpoint.

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Shuhada checkpoint serves as the only clear passage between the H2 (Israeli-controlled) neighbourhood of Tel Rumeida and the H1 (Palestinian Authority-administered) neighbourhood of Bab Al-Zawiye, a route many Palestinians must traverse regularly in the course of their work and daily routines.

Mohammad arrived at the Bab Al-Zawiye side of the checkpoint at 13:40 on Mondayafternoon, his mule laden with empty milk jugs and saddlebags packed with various provisions. Israeli forces refused to let him through, claiming no animals were allowed past the checkpoint – a claim no one, including other international organisations at the scene as well as the Palestinian District Coordination Office for al-Khalil, had ever heard before.

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Mohammad explained that he had been allowed pass the checkpoint on Monday morning, with the promise that he would be let back through later in the day. When he returned, he found a new shift of soldiers and no one willing let him pass. The soldier manning the checkpoint claimed he needed permission from his commander to open the gate, which would allow Mohammad to pass with his mule.

An ISM volunteer at the scene later received a call explaining that the Israeli military’s new rule stated that horses, donkeys and mules were not permitted to pass through the checkpoint. No one, however, was able to explain why Mohammad had been allowed through that morning, but denied on his way home. “Look at my ID,” he told the soldier at one point, “I’m in your computer. I go through here all the time.”

He stayed waiting, sitting beside his mule on the cold concrete base of the fence, even as the afternoon turned into evening. The sky grew dark, though the lights from the checkpoint still illuminated the fences,
turnstiles, and barbed wire. Even the soldier seemed concerned, telling him to please go home, as it was cold and late and staying would not help him. But Mohammad had already made it clear he would not leave. About ten minutes later the soldier finally opened the gate, saying it was the “last time” that he would be allowed through. Although Mohammad heard the soldier’s message, it was clear he would not heed it. He intended to continue to resist, no matter what anyone told him.

Sure enough, the following morning he was once again standing outside the checkpoint, this time on the Tel Rumeida side, with full milk jugs tied to the back of his patient mule. The soldiers presented multiple reasons from denying him passage, from a prohibition on taking anything through the checkpoint too large to be carried through the turnstile, to the new rule against allowing donkeys, horses and mules through. ISM volunteers attempted to find a solution, offering to carry the milk jugs around the checkpoint and meet Mohammad and his mule on the other side. The Israeli soldiers manning the checkpoint rejected all suggestions.

“Is the donkey the problem or the milk the problem?” One ISM activist eventually inquired.

“The donkey’s the problem,” a soldier replied.

The animal could have easily passed through the metal detector; only last night ISM activists had witnessed the ludicrous sight of Mohammad’s mule strolling through the concrete structure, empty milk jugs banging against the corners of the gateway. The turnstile served as the only obstacle to the his passage – an obstacle the soldier could easily remove by opening the gate on the other side of the metal detector and letting the mule pass around the turnstile and into Bab Al-Zawiye.

After five hours of waiting, Mohammad’s comment seemed by far the most accurate. “The soldiers are the problem,” he had responded in Arabic.

Barring donkeys, mules, and horses and carts is only the latest in a string of frustrating, humiliating regulations imposed on the people living near the checkpoint, who must pass through to work, study, and shop for essentials such as fresh food. Just a few days earlier a group of elderly Palestinians, ill people, young children, and teachers at a local school had also been forced to wait, some for up to three hours, before being allowed through.

When Israeli forces shut down the checkpoint after it was burnt nearly a month ago , barring most people from passing through for over three weeks, the Palestinians were forced to adapt. Local people know ways around the checkpoint; several paths lead through local families’ yards and over the walls and rubble between Tel Rumeida and Bab Al-Zawiye. These “rabbit runs,” however, are entirely unsuited to traveling through with a mule – as well as for anyone sick, elderly, or carrying large heavy objects.

Since the attempted burning of the checkpoint, the Israeli military rebuilt it larger and with more obstacles for anyone traveling through. One side now has a metal detector, and both sides are equipped with vertical metal turnstiles which are a major impediment to anyone trying to move through with large baggage. Soldiers continue to use the burning of the checkpoint to justify collective punishment imposed on the entire Palestinian population – young and old, men and women, healthy and ill – who live or work near the Shuhada checkpoint.

Any Palestinian might be stopped while attempting pass through. Even with the checkpoint officially open, far too many are. Soldiers regularly search bags and make people remove their belts and empty their pockets before being allowed through. These everyday humiliations accompany frequent ID checks and detentions, serving as an inescapable reminder of the illegal Israeli occupation. Soldiers present at checkpoints routinely cite newly imposed rules and orders from superior officers as reasons for denying people passage, but whether someone passes easily through a checkpoint or must wait for hours often seems to be determined by nothing more than the soldiers’ caprice.

Many Palestinians must pass through Shuhada checkpoint multiple times in a day, carrying items as diverse as fresh vegetables, tubs of oil, and gas for cooking and heating their homes. During the hours ISM volunteers stood waiting with Mohammed, they witnessed multiple people struggle with the cumbersome design of the rebuilt checkpoint. One woman was carrying too many grocery bags to be able to fit into the turnstile. Someone on the other side of the turnstile had to reach a hand between the metal bars and move one bag through, returning it to the woman once she had passed. Another Palestinian, this time a young boy, needed the help of multiple passers-by over several minutes to figure out how to get two tubs of oil and a metal trolley through the turnstiles. Soldiers denied passage outright to boys who wanted to walk through the checkpoint with their bicycles.

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At one point on Monday night, a group of off-duty soldiers ran up Shuhada street and stopped near the checkpoint to rest, stretching and laughing, their easy freedom of movement a stark contrast to experiences of Palestinians struggling through Shuhada checkpoint. Almost all of Shuhada street has been closed off to Palestinians, reserved instead for the settlers and soldiers occupying H2. Even Palestinians who manage to get through the checkpoint must pursue long, circuitous routes between the surrounding  areas of al-Khalil. Many, especially the elderly or disabled, are effectively barred from traveling to significant portions of the city their families have lived in for generations.

“I want to resist,” Mohammad told the ISM activists the first day they waited with him. He made sure the man translating said it twice, to make sure the ISM volunteers understood. “I want to resist,” he said, after over three long hours of waiting to be allowed through.

December 17, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , , , | 1 Comment

AND TO ALL, A GOOD NIGHT

A Contemporary Christmas Tale

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By John Chuckman | Aletho News | December 17, 2014

It was only a matter of time before Santa Claus himself came under the Neanderthal-eyed scrutiny of American intelligence. After all, Santa’s citizenship is unknown, and he crosses borders with no passport or other form of identification. No one knows whether he even has a valid pilot’s license.

Although his image is well known, there is no official photograph on file with American border control, and he has never been fingerprinted or body-searched. Most disconcerting of all, he delivers parcels to children all over the world, including the children living in the Axis of Evil. His intentions with this activity are not understood beyond some fuzzy generalization about kindness and generosity to all. Clearly, here was the world’s largest unplugged pipeline to potential terrorists.

It was only after receiving no response to several urgent letters from the State Department requesting an immediate meeting in Washington that a decision was made to approach Santa’s North Pole solitude. As usual in such matters with the people now running America, a wing of America’s most lethal killing machines was employed for the purpose. You never know what you might encounter in such a forbidding place.

As the planes first zoomed over the icy silence of the North Pole workshop, one of the pilots decided to swoop down for a closer look. He was one of those daring fly-boys, and his tail struck the only wire for thousands of miles around, the North Pole Telegraph, sending his plane hurling into the workshop in a ball of flames with tons of ammunition and missiles exploding.

Santa and Mrs. Claus rushed out of their snow-blanketed gingerbread house to see what was happening, trying to calm the terrified reindeer running from their stable at one end of the house. The elves, too, scurried towards the stable, trying to stop the reindeer from running or flying off.

Above, in the dark vault of sky, the other pilots observed the explosion and saw missile trails smoking into the air. They also saw the frantic activity below and quickly concluded their comrade had come under anti-aircraft attack. So they swooped down in attack formation, rapid-fire canon tearing into everything ahead of them.

Most of the reindeer fell in the snow, spurting warm blood across the bluish-white surface. Most of the elves, too, fell gasping for life. Mrs. Claus received a wound in the head and instantly fell limp. Santa tried heroically to reach his wife but realized the situation was hopeless and turned, running into the darkness accompanied by Prancer, the only surviving reindeer.

The only witness to the massacre is one surviving elf now living somewhere in Canada under an assumed identity, fearful for his life. It is only from his testimony that we know anything about Santa’s fate.

Realizing the horrific mistake they had made, the pilots dropped white phosphorus bombs with the intention of incinerating all evidence. The entire North Pole lit up and Santa and Prancer could be seen in the distance on a huge block of ice drifting off into the dark sea, the ice everywhere cracked and weakened by the effects of white phosphorus.

Within in a few hours, the beating sound of a black helicopter approached Santa and Prancer. The elf, from his hiding place in a snowdrift, could only make out intermittent sounds across the howling coldness, but it seems armed men emerged from the helicopter, shot Prancer and shackled Santa, shoving him into the dark, beating machine. The elf heard a word that sounded like Guantanamo and Santa has not been heard from since. Reports of his fate reached the International Red Cross and organizations like Amnesty International, leading to inquiries, but these have been met only with silence from American authorities.

December 17, 2014 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance | | Leave a comment

Russia ‘forced to accept’ €1.86bn compensation for former shareholders of oil giant

RT | December 17, 2014

Russia has agreed to pay €1.86 billion in compensation to former Yukos shareholders after the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) refused its appeal, said Russian Justice Minister Aleksandr Konovalov.

“The judges have made the decision. We are forced to accept it. We believe it is unreasonable, but there’s nothing we can do,” said Konovalov as quoted by RIA.

At the same time he said Russia is not obliged to abide by the decisions of the ECHR, adding that the enforcement of decisions is ‘goodwill’ on the part of a member country of the Council of Europe.

“Life will show to what extent this decision will be enforced in Russia,” he said.

On Tuesday the ECHR ruled against the Ministry of Justice appeal to overturn the July 2014 decision. The court then ordered Russia to pay the compensation.

Russia must now pay €1.86 billion (US$2.51 billion) to the former shareholders of Russia’s once largest private oil company for unfair tax proceedings, which allegedly led to the liquidation of Yukos in 2007.

The compensation sum was calculated on the basis of fines imposed on Yukos by the Ministry of Taxes and Assessments in 2000 and 2001 following a tax audit. A part of the seven percent execution fee levied against the company was included as well.

Another ruling by the International Arbitration Court in the Netherlands has ended a decade long case brought by former Yukos shareholders which ordered Russia to pay about $50 billion in damages.

The Yukos oil company existed from 1993 to 2007. In August 2006 it was declared bankrupt at the request of a syndicate of foreign banks to which Yukos owed about $500 million. Later this debt was purchased by Rosneft. In 2007 the company’s property was sold at auction to cover its debts. Yukos was dissolved on November 21, 2007.

READ MORE:

Russia ordered to pay $2.5 bn to Yukos shareholders

‘Mega-arbitration’: Court orders Russia to pay $50bn in Yukos case

December 17, 2014 Posted by | Economics | , | Leave a comment

Voices From The Ghosts of Vietnam Are Being Heard Again: Which Should We Listen To?

By Danny Schechter | teleSUR | December 15, 2014

It’s been nearly 40 years since what the American media called “The Fall of Saigon” and the Vietnamese referred to as the Liberation. I saw it then as the Fall of Washington.

The ghosts of Vietnam are back, thanks to two filmmakers with very different takes. The first is Rory Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy’s youngest daughter. Her one-sided account has already been nominated for an Oscar. The second is Tiana, an American of South Vietnamese origin, who made the film, From Hollywood To Hanoi, years ago to promote reconciliation between our two countries.

Tiana is finishing a movie called The General and Me, on her unlikely conversations (for someone from a virulently anti-communist family) with North Vietnam’s legendary and late General, Vo Nguyen Giap, a.k.a the “Red Napoleon,“ a.k.a the man whose military doctrines defeated the French Army, and later, the Pentagon’s brutal Vietnamization strategy.

Giap created the Vietnamese resistance Army at Ho Chi Minh’s request in 1944, and without training, became a military genius. Tiana has two other self-promoted US “geniuses” in her movie too: pathetic walk-ons by former US General William Westmoreland, and an arrogant ex-Defense Secretary, Robert MacNamara, who could not conceal his contempt for her.

Rory’s highly-hyped and well-funded movie depicts footage we have seen before of the hurried evacuation of US soldiers and some of their Vietnamese conscripts in a long and bloody war that was lost almost from its earliest days.

Rather than look at the reasons for that loss, Rory has, with support from HBO and PBS’s American Experience series, tried to present a heroic picture of Americans in their last days in Saigon, coping with a Mad Ambassador and in some cases rebelling against US policy.

(I have loved some of Rory’s work before, but this had ideological agenda written all over it.)

These two films, all these years later, mirror the cultural and political divides of the times with one film, in effect, rationalizing the war, and portraying the American military as compassionate, and the other, for one of the first times, offering views from the other side that Americans never heard.

Even if her Uncle JFK did escalate the war, despite his back and forth doubts, a member of the Kennedy Family is still treated as a cultural icon in a culture that can’t remember details of what happened yesterday, much less forty year ago. Rory’s work has been acclaimed; Tiana’s has not yet been seen. She labels the forgetting deliberate, what she calls, “Nam-Nesia.”

Gerald Perry writes in Arts Fuse:

“The mushy reviews of Last Days in Vietnam (a 94% Rotten Tomatoes approval rating) are extraordinarily similar. They praise filmmaker Rory Kennedy for documenting a forgotten moment of American history, the chaotic days in 1975 when the US raced to leave Saigon and South Vietnam steps ahead of the advancing North Vietnamese Army. And the critics are pumped up with pride at the stories Kennedy has uncovered of brave and noble American soldiers and a few anti-establishment American diplomats who helped evacuate many South Vietnamese–by boat, plane, and helicopter–who presumably would be enslaved or murdered by the Communist North Vietnamese.

What hardly anyone observed is that Kennedy, daughter of peacenik Robert Kennedy, is offering a flag-waving whitewash of the war in Vietnam. The North Vietnamese are characterized, with no exceptions, as Isis-like warriors murdering all their opposition on the way from Hanoi to Saigon. And, after entering Saigon, annihilating those who oppose them, or sending their enemies to re-education camps. The South Vietnamese? This amazed me: there is not any mention of the much-documented corruption of the various puppet governments, and of the South Vietnamese army as a coercive instrument of torture and killings. Each South Vietnamese ex-soldier who is interviewed is allowed to tell his shiny story, including a high-ranking officer. There’s no blood attached to any of them.”

This did not surprise me. In 1976, the anniversary of the American Revolution, I published a small book featuring the views of Vietnam’s top military strategists including General Vo Nguyen Giap called “How We Won The War.” It was based on articles I wrote in the aftermath of the defeat of the US–backed Saigon military in 1975. Predictably, it got no pickup. There were many post-mortems about what we did wrong but, few if any, about what they did right.

Surely, that story is historically more significant than how we cut tail and ran.

I wrote then:

“The American press was never much help in our efforts to find out more about those remarkable Vietnamese people who have now managed to out-organize, out fight, and defeat a succession of U.S. backed regimes. When the US media did recognize the other side’s existence, they did so with disdain, distortion and denigration… the U.S. never came to terms the fact it was defending a government which had no support and attempting to crush one that did.”

A group of LA-based film critics later wrote to PBS: “Rory Kennedy’s egregiously unbalanced, out-of-context, dubiously propagandistic Last Days in Vietnam is currently in theatrical release, a production of the PBS series, An American Experience. We are appalled by the extraordinarily one-sided nature of Kennedy’s rewrite of history that only shows the U.S. government’s and the Republic of Vietnam’s side of the story, and never offers the points of view of the millions of Americans who opposed the war and of those who fought on the side of the National Liberation Front and North Vietnam.”

So much for “balance!”

The protest was all for naught. Public Television retreated into its archive of knee-jerk form letters and responded to criticisms of one program with a defense that cited all the programs they ran, most decades old, while announcing that a new multi-million dollar series on Vietnam by their always well-funded doc superstar, Ken Burns, is in the works. Typical!

They avoided details like these:

  • Rory focused on the story of efforts to save allied officers and their families in a Saigon (“Arvin”) Army known for its corruption and brutality.
  • It cited atrocities allegedly committed by the Communists like the “Hue Massacre,” an event thoroughly investigated and exposed as false by US Vietnam Scholar Gareth Porter.
  • It cited violations of the Paris Peace agreement by the North without mentioning the many more egregious and concealed violations by the US-backed South Vietnamese forces.
  • It showed the madness and mania of US Ambassador Graham Martin as if he was an exception to a history of earlier US officials who escalated the war with massive casualties. It offered no historical context or background
  • It implied that all the people of Saigon would be butchered or imprisoned; that was not the case.
  • It referenced escaping ships racing to ConSon Island without mentioning that that Island off the coast of Saigon hosted, like Guantanamo does today, brutal prison camps filled with “tiger cages” where Vietnamese opponents of the military regime were kept, killed and tortured.

Perry asks:

“Where in this documentary are the anti-war voices of those who were American soldiers in Vietnam and became disillusioned by the terrible things we did there? Who in this film speaks of our random bombing of North Vietnam? Of the massacre at My Lai? And for the CIA, where is mention of the heinous tortures of South Vietnamese under CIA director William Colby? As for Kissinger, it’s madly frustrating to see his self-serving rhetoric go completely unchallenged. Where are you, Errol Morris, when needed? Instead, the world’s number one war criminal at large (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Chile, etc.) is a welcome and honored guest to this documentary commissioned by PBS’s American Experience.”

And, on and on!

It’s been 40 years. What have we learned? The Obama Administration, aided by our Secretary of State, a Vietnamese speaker no less, named John Kerry, once the leader of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, had turned into an apologist for the American role in the war, and an arms salesman to Vietnam which fears the Chinese today more than the Americans.

Whose voice should we listen to? Rory Kennedy with her slick and costly archive-footage based mockumentary of history, or Tiana who is struggling to bring Vietnamese voices and a deliberately buried history to life?

Why are these Vietnam films always—“AAU—all About Us?”

December 17, 2014 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , | 1 Comment

Washington Fines German Bank for its Dealings With Cuba

Prensa Latina | December 16, 2014

Berlin – The second largest German financial institution, Commerzbank AG, was fined by the US government for a billion dollars for conducting business with Cuba.

The Financial Times said this Tuesday that the German company is headquartered in Frankfurt and is the second largest in the country after the Deutsche Bank, which is listed as the fifth most powerful bank in the world.

Commerzbank AG is obliged to disburse a penalty of one billion dollars, according to US provisions establishing penalties for bank agents having made transactions linked to Cuba through US branches.

According to the Financial Times, the German institution agreed last September to pay 650 million dollars after being accused of conducting financial transactions with Cuba, Iran, Sudan and other countries sanctioned by the United States.

The report adds that Washington launched a full-scale investigation against European banks, potential violators of the sanctions regime.

Some of the European banks investigated by the United States are the German Deutsche Bank, the French Crédit Agricole and Société Générale of France, and the Italian UniCredit SpA.

The New York Times published on July 9 that the Treasury Department fined Commerzbank more than 500 million dollars for making transfers through its subsidiaries toward Cuba, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Myanmar, Iran and Sudan.

Havana constantly denounces United States’ extraterritorial sanctions against it, with economic entities from almost all over the world joining the Cuban protest.

December 17, 2014 Posted by | War Crimes | , , , | 1 Comment

Nuclear ultimatum: Scottish National Party challenges Labour on Trident

RT | December 16, 2014

The Scottish National Party (SNP) will only support a Labour government in a hung parliament after the May 2015 general election if they agree to scrap Britain’s nuclear weapons program, Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said.

Sturgeon ruled out a formal coalition with Labour, but suggested the SNP would support the party if they agreed to some “hard conditions.”

A recent YouGov poll highlights the SNP’s growing popularity in Scotland following September’s independence referendum, while Labour support in its historic heartland appears to be dwindling.

While the SNP currently have only five MPs in the House of Commons in Westminster, the party’s surge in support could see them playing a key role in making or breaking a government if no party gains a majority in the May election.

Sturgeon was speaking at a press conference on Monday following face-to-face talks with Prime Minister David Cameron. During the talks Cameron agreed to allow the Scottish Parliament to lower the voting age to 16 in time for the election.

Sturgeon told assembled press she remains staunchly opposed to nuclear weapons on principle, but also argues it makes no economic sense to pursue Trident in the future.

“You add into that at the moment this economic lunacy at a time when services are under pressure, you’re facing the extent and scale of public sector cuts over the next few years, to be spending £100 billion on a new generation of nuclear weapons that even many military experts now say are not required.”

Speaking alongside the leaders of the Green Party and Welsh nationalists Plaid Cymru, Sturgeon also attacked the Westminster parties for continuing austerity policies which hit the vulnerable hardest.

“But despite the deeply damaging impacts of failed austerity, the Tories and Labour have made crystal clear their determination to carry on regardless.

“And after four years propping up the Tories, the Lib Dems have no credibility. It is time for a new approach to UK politics – and for our parties to use our influence to bring about progressive change at Westminster,” she said.

Sturgeon was elected SNP leader and First Minister in November following Alex Salmond’s resignation. During the build up to the independence referendum Sturgeon served as Deputy First Minister and has served as an SNP member of the Scottish Parliament since 1999.

The SNP ultimatum will be an added challenge for Scottish Labour’s new leader Jim Murphy, who was elected to the position on 13 December. Increasing support for the SNP means Murphy’s own seat could be vulnerable, SNP Deputy Leader Stewart Hosie told STV News.

“Mr Murphy spent two years campaigning side by side with the Tories in Scotland, and in that sense he is part of Labour’s problem in Scotland, not the solution,” Hosie said.

With Labour unlikely to abandon Trident as a condition of a shared power arrangement, the party faces an uphill battle to secure seats in a nation which appears to be turning its back on them.

December 17, 2014 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , , , | 1 Comment

Promoting the Apocalypse

You’ll be dead before you know it

By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • December 16, 2014

If you read a major newspaper on a regular basis you will no doubt have seen the full page ads placed by defense contractors. The ads generally are anodyne, featuring ubiquitous flags and eagles while praising America’s soldiers and war fighting capabilities, sometimes to include a description of a new weapon or weapons system. That a company whose very existence depends on government contracts would feel sufficiently emboldened to turn around and spend substantial sums that themselves derive from the American taxpayer to promote its wares in an attempt to obtain still more of a hopefully increasing defense pie smacks of insensitivity to say the least. I for one find the ads highly offensive, an insult to the taxpayer.

Some might argue that that is how capitalism works and there is no better system to replace it but such an assertion ignores the fact that competition among defense contractors, though fierce at times, is largely a fiction as all the major companies are on the receiving end of huge multi-year government contracts with built in cost overruns and guaranteed production lines. They also operate a revolving door whereby former senior officers and Pentagon officials like Rumsfeld and Cheney move out to the private sector, get rich, and then return to government in policy making positions. It is more like the worst form of crony capitalism than Adam Smith. Most large companies have decentralized their production facilities so that they have a workforce presence in as many states and congressional districts as possible, making it unlikely that they will ever be lacking contracts.

President and former General Dwight D. Eisenhower called it all a military-industrial complex and warned that “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”He reportedly wanted to call it a military-industrial-congressional complex but demurred on including the nation’s legislature as he wanted it to get on board in bucking the trend towards creating a permanent warfare state. In that he was unsuccessful.

Today Eisenhower might well want to add “think tank” to his description of the problem. Insidious, and largely hidden from public sight, is the funding of institutes and foundations that promote a pro-war agenda which benefits both the organizations in question and the contractors who seek to promote what is euphemistically referred to as a pro-defense agenda. As Lockheed cannot directly call for more war without raising obvious concerns it instead uses its allies in various foundations and institutes to contrive the intellectual justifications that lead to the same conclusion. These self-described experts are in turn picked up by the media and their messages are fed to a larger audience, creating unassailable groupthink on national security policy.

This de facto industrial, foundational and media alliance explains the persistence of a neocon foreign policy in Washington in spite of the numerous failures on the ground since 9/11. Defense contractors Northrop Grumman and Lockheed have long been the principal source of funding for groups like the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). AEI has somewhat faded from public view since the heady days when Dick Cheney and others from the Bush White House would appear to make major pronouncements on foreign policy and national security but it is still a major player among Washington think tanks. It is neocon controlled in its foreign and defense policy under the leadership of Australia born Daniele Pletka, whose most recent work is “The CIA Report is too tainted to matter.” The current offerings on the AEI website include a conversation with Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and an article explaining “Waterboarding’s role in identifying a terrorist”.

There are a number of other foundations that benefit from inside the beltway contractor largesse. The Kagans’ Institute for the Study of War, the Hudson Institute, the Heritage Foundation and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies all have large budgets, large staffs, and all embrace a generally neoconnish foreign policy, which means acceptance of a form of interventionist globalism by the United States as the so-called “leader of the free world” and international policeman.

A recent gathering in Washington illustrates precisely how the system works, with one hand washing the other. On December 3 rd the Foreign Policy Initiative hosted a day long forum on “A World in Crisis: the Need for American Leadership.” Lest there be any confusion about the conclusions that might be reached in such a gathering the title tells the casual observer everything needed to understand what one might expect. Pasty faced peace creeps would not be welcome.

FPI is a non-partisan tax exempt “educational” foundation that benefits from significant support from defense contractors. It is a cookie cutter operation reminiscent of so many others inside the beltway, reliably pro-Israel and pro-intervention. It’s mission statement includes: “Continued U.S. engagement–diplomatic, economic, and military—in the world and rejection of policies that would lead us down the path to isolationism; robust support for America’s democratic allies and opposition to rogue regimes that threaten American interests; a strong military with the defense budget needed to ensure that America is ready to confront the threats of the 21st century.”

FPI’s board of directors reads like a neocon dream team: Bill Kristol, Eric Edelman, Dan Senor and Robert Kagan. Kristol is the son of neocon godfather Irving Kristol and is himself the Editor in Chief of The Weekly Standard while Edelman succeeded Doug Feith as head of the Pentagon’s office of Special Plans which did so much good work in Iraq, Senor was the Iraq Coalition Provisional Authority press spokesman and Robert Kagan is one of the infamous Kagan clan which is now leaning towards supporting a Hillary “the Hawk” Clinton run for president. He is also the husband of Victoria Nuland who has done yeoman’s work in attempt to start a war with Russia.

The “Crisis” forum was “presented by Raytheon,” which means it funded the effort. The gathering was held at the Newseum in Washington DC, a no expenses spared venue that incorporates sweeping views over the Mall and Capitol Building. Raytheon has an annual revenue of $25 billion, 90% of which comes from defense contracts. The speakers did not include anyone skeptical of US military engagement worldwide. In addition to Kristol, Edelman and Kagan they included Senator Bob Corker, Fred Hiatt of the Washington Post, Senator elect Tom Cotton, Senator John McCain, Kimberly Kagan of the Institute for the Study of War, David J. Kramer of the McCain Institute, FPI fellow James Kirchick and Senator Ted Cruz.

Cotton, who is remarkable for his hawkishness even among Republican hawks, wasted no time in making his position clear, that it is past time to “put an end” to the negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program. “I hope that Congress’ role will be to put an end to these negotiations. Iran is getting everything it wants in slow motion so why would they ever reach a final agreement? I think the adults in Congress need to step in early in the new year. The White House can’t conduct an end run around Congress.” Rep. Mike Pompeo, who also participated in the discussion with Cotton, recommended that the United States and its partners currently supporting Iraq should also think of striking Iran’s nuclear capabilities. “In an unclassified setting, it is under 2,000 sorties to destroy the Iranian nuclear capacity. This is not an insurmountable task for the coalition forces.”

The first panel discussion was on “Stopping Iran’s Nuclear Ambitions.” It was followed by “National Security Leadership in a New Congress,” “Providing for the Common Defense,” “Restoring American Leadership,” “The Middle East in Chaos,” “Putin’s Challenge to the West,” “America in a Changing World,” and “Rebuilding the American Defense Consensus.” Many of the presentations are available on the FPI website and some have also been reported elsewhere, including on ABC news.

The message that the forum delivered is that America is a nation that is under threat from all directions, which is, of course, utter nonsense. The United States might well be nearly universally hated, particularly after the recent release of the Senate report on CIA torture, but that hatred does not necessarily equate to any actionable threat. Iran, Russia and the “chaotic” Arabs are, of course, largely to blame but the underlying message is that the United States has to exercise leadership a.k.a. overseas interventions and focus on rebuilding its defenses, which means more military spending. Raytheon would directly benefit from all of the above. It is perhaps telling that Afghanistan was not part of the discussion and Iraq and Syria only surfaced in that they were described as failed policies because the United States had not intervened either long or hard enough. Russia and Putin are, of course, the flavor of the week for the interventionists and memories of Munich 1938 were evoked by several speakers who clearly want to have a second shot at Adolph Hitler.

I don’t have a solution for the defense contractor funding of neoconnish right wing groups that want more wars, but it is certainly an issue that informed Americans should be aware of. Many of the “threats” that are constantly being promoted by the Washington intelligentsia are little more than fictions concocted to keep the cash flowing, both to the selfsame experts and to those who build the guns, bullets and bombs. Whenever an op-ed appears in a newspaper advocating a tough line overseas check out the author and his or her affiliation. Odds are it will be someone from the American Enterprise Institute or from the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies who has real skin in the game as his or her livelihood depends on artfully packaging and selling a crummy product. Maybe someday when Americans come to their senses all these people will go away and will find real jobs in which they have to actually do something, but I wouldn’t want to be too optimistic about that prospect as they will likely slink back to their elite universities where they will be required to do absolutely nothing but bloviate.

December 17, 2014 Posted by | Corruption, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment