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British Authorities Arrest Sheikh Raed Salah

Al-Manar – June 29, 2011

The British authorities arrested head of the Islamic Movement in the occupied territories Sheikh Raed Salah Wednesday 1:00 a.m., claiming that he was banned from entering the UK.

Salah had been in UK for three days. He gave one lecture in London and was scheduled to give another one Wednesday before the British Parliament.

Salah’s lawyer Farouq Bajwa pointed out that the arrested was not informed about the ban decision that came out last week, and did not attempt to conceal his identity when entering Britain.

On the other hand, Palestinian Solidarity Campaign director Sarah Coloborne condemned the action, and was quoted as saying that “Salah was the leader of a legitimate political organization. He rejected all forms of racism, including anti-Semitism.”

June 29, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | Leave a comment

Trial Begins: Did New Orleans Media Contribute to Police Violence After Hurricane Katrina?

By Jordan Flaherty | Truthout | 24 June 2011

Jury selection began June 22 in what observers have called the most important trial New Orleans has seen in a generation. It concerns a shocking case of police brutality that has already redefined this city’s relationship to its police department, and radically rewritten the official narrative of what happened in the chaotic days after Hurricane Katrina. Five police officers are facing charges of shooting unarmed African-Americans in cold blood, killing two and wounding four, and then conspiring to hide evidence. Five officers who participated in the conspiracy have already pleaded guilty and agreed to testify against their fellow officers.

The shootings occurred on September 4, 2005, as two families were fleeing Katrina’s floodwaters, crossing New Orleans’ Danziger Bridge to get to dry land. Officers, who apparently heard a radio report about shootings in the area, drove up, leapt out of their vehicle and began firing. Ronald Madison, a mentally challenged man, was shot in the back at least six times, then reportedly stomped and kicked by an officer until he was dead. His brother Lance Madison was arrested on false charges. James Brissette, a high school student, was shot seven times and died at the scene. Susan Bartholomew, 38, was wounded so badly her arm was shot off of her body. Jose Holmes Jr. was shot several times, then, as he lay bleeding, an officer stood over him and fired point blank at his stomach. Two other relatives of Bartholomew were also badly wounded.

Danziger is one of at least nine recent incidents involving the New Orleans Police Department being investigated by the US Justice Department, several of which took place in the days after the city was flooded. Officers have recently been convicted by federal prosecutors in two other high-profile trials. In April, two officers were found guilty in the beating of death of Raymond Robair, a handyman from the Treme neighborhood. In December, a jury convicted three officers and acquitted two in killing Henry Glover, a 31-year-old from New Orleans’ West Bank neighborhood, and burning his body.

From Survivors to Looters

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, people around the world felt sympathy for New Orleans. They saw images of residents trapped on rooftops by floodwaters, needing rescue by boat and helicopter. But then stories began to come out about looters and gangs among the survivors and the official response shifted from humanitarian aid to military operation. Then-Gov. Kathleen Blanco sent in National Guard troops, announcing. “They have M-16s and are locked and loaded. These troops know how to shoot and kill and I expect they will.” Warren Riley – at that time the second in charge of the police department – reportedly ordered officers to “take the city back and shoot looters.”

In the following days, several civilians – almost all of them African-American – were killed under suspicious circumstances in incidents involving police and white vigilantes. For years, family members and advocates called for official investigations and were rebuffed. “Right after the hurricane there were individuals and organizations trying to talk about what happened on Danziger,” says Dana Kaplan, executive director of Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana (JJPL), a legal and advocacy organization based in New Orleans. “But their voices were marginalized.”

There is evidence that local media could have done a better job. Alex Brandon, a photographer for New Orleans’ Times-Picayune newspaper, who later went on to work for Associated Press, testified in the Glover trial that he knew details about the police killings that he didn’t reveal. “He saw things and heard things that proved to be useful in a criminal investigation. He didn’t report them as news,” wrote Picayune columnist Jarvis DeBerry after the Glover trial concluded.

Former Orleans Parish District Attorney Eddie Jordan, who led an initial investigation of the Danziger officers, believes an indifferent local media bears partial responsibility for the years of cover-up. “They were looking for heroes,” he says. “They had a cozy relationship with the police. They got tips from the police; they were in bed with the police. It was an atmosphere of tolerance for atrocities from the police. They abdicated their responsibility to be critical in their reporting. If a few people got killed that was a small price to pay.”

Family members and advocates tried to get the stories of police violence out through protests, press conferences, and other means. Peoples Hurricane Relief Fund, an organization dedicated to justice in reconstruction, held a tribunal in 2006 where they presented accusations of police violence – among other charges – to a panel of international judges, including members of Parliament from seven countries. Activists even brought charges to the United Nations, filing a shadow report in February 2008 with the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in Geneva. But it was not until late 2008 that a journalist named AC Thompson did what the local media failed to do and investigated these stories in detail. “It’s unfortunate that it took a national publication to really dig to the root,” says Kaplan, referring to Thompson’s work. “In New Orleans, the criminal justice system has been so corrupt for so long, that things that should be shocking didn’t seem to be raising the kind of broad community outrage that they should have.”

In 2009, after years of pressure from activists and the national attention brought on by Thompson’s reporting, the US Justice Department decided to look into the accusations of police violence. This has led to one of the most wide-ranging investigations of a police department in recent US history. Dozens of officers are facing lengthy prison terms and corruption charges have reached to the very top of the department.

The Danziger trial is expected to last two months. Kenneth Bowen, Robert Gisevius, Anthony Villavaso and Robert Faulcon, the officers involved in the shooting, could receive life sentences if convicted. Sgt. Arthur Kaufman, who was not on the bridge, is charged only in the conspiracy and could receive a maximum of 120 years. Justice Department investigations of other incidents are continuing and it is likely that some form of federal oversight of the department will be announced in the coming months.

June 27, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

Black Panther’s Posthumous Writings Cover Activism’s Risks, Rewards

By Eleanor J. Bader | Truthout | Book Review

“The War Before: The True Story of Becoming a Black Panther, Keeping the Faith in Prison & Fighting for Those Left Behind”
Safiya Bukhari
Feminist Press
New York, 2010 

Everyone wants to leave a legacy, whether through procreation or by creating a tangible testament to their existence. For some, it’s art, music, storytelling or writing. For others it’s the founding of an organization or the creation of a product.

For Black Panther Safiya Bukhari, who died in 2003, the bequest included an ongoing community organization, the Jericho Movement to free US political prisoners; a daughter and grandchild; and an astute collection of essays written to encourage the always-uphill battle to win freedom and equality for the world’s disenfranchised and impoverished people.

In “The War Before,” a collection of 22 edited commentaries, Bukhari gives readers a sense of what it was like to be a Panther and captures the exhilaration of establishing free breakfast programs and health centers in low-income communities of color. She also explores Panther excesses, from rigid rules to over-the-top posturing and pontificating. At the same time, the anthology reminds would-be or burned-out activists of the sheer joy that comes from resisting civic wrongs.

It’s an important, inspiring book.

That said, there are small lapses in which rhetoric dominates, and some topics – such as the split between East Coast and West Coast Panthers that was fomented by the US counterintelligence program, or Cointelpro – could have been more fully discussed.

Still, “The War Before” is a fascinating look at the making of an activist, and it captures the spirit of a tumultuous era in which thousands joined Bukhari in believing that a domestic insurrection was not just possible, but imminent.

Editor and former political prisoner Laura Whitehorn’s introduction to the book gives readers a bit of the backstory. Among the tidbits presented are these: Bukhari – originally named Bernice Jones – was reared in the Bronx, one of ten children in a devoutly Christian, middle-class household. In college, she joined the Eta Alpha Mu sorority and, as part of her initiation, was required to travel to Harlem. There, she and several friends encountered a member of the Black Panther Party (BPP) selling newspapers, and learned of the feeding program that had been established. “The women went to the church where the breakfasts were offered, to see for themselves,” Whitehorn reports. “Safiya liked what she saw and kept coming back. It was at that time that she began to notice how badly the community was treated by the police.”

By early 1969, Jones/Bukhari was hooked. She dropped out of school and began working in the Harlem BPP office, immersing herself in the study of political theory and learning to do community organizing. She also got involved with comrade Robert Webb and gave birth to a daughter. “In those years,” Whitehorn writes, “revolutionaries usually saw ourselves as too busy making revolution to engage in standard family life.”

As the year progressed, the demands on the cadre became more intense, and after BPP members Fred Hampton and Mark Clark were murdered in December 1969 – killed by government agents hell-bent on destroying the BPP – many activists, including Bukhari, concluded that underground organizations were needed. Placing her daughter with her mother, Bukhari vanished. Whitehorn chronicles what happened next:

In December 1973, [Bukhari] was arrested and charged with plotting to break prisoners out of New York City jails…. The charges were soon dismissed. Then she was hit with a subpoena to testify before a grand jury that was preparing charges against other Black radicals. She couldn’t bring herself to testify against her political associates. Safiya left her family and friends to continue her work underground. She stayed under for almost two years, until 1975, when she was arrested at the scene of a grocery store shooting in Norfolk, Virginia.

Bukhari was ultimately convicted and sentenced to 40 years. While imprisoned, her health began to deteriorate, but her requests for medical care were ignored. She somehow escaped from the prison in late 1976. Although she got the health care she needed while on the lam, she was eventually recaptured, and spent the next four years in solitary confinement. Finally, after eight years and eight months, she was granted parole and released in 1983.

Bukhari’s attention subsequently turned to publicizing the existence of political prisoners here at home. She also worked to develop support networks for those locked inside. Her essays on this topic are searing.

So are her reflections on the BPP, written with the obvious benefit of hindsight. In “On The Question of Sexism Within the Black Panther Party,” she places male chauvinism in a wider context. “The destruction of our culture, which started with the stealing of our language, religion, and children, was completed when we began to measure our own worth by how many women the Black man could pleasure at a time and how many children we could have,” she writes. “Since Black men had been stripped of their manhood in every way but the ability to pleasure women and make babies, the sexual act soon became the standard by which the Black man measured his manhood. This is the root of the sexism that is plaguing our community.”

This is not to say that Bukhari condoned sexist behavior. She didn’t. Among the Party’s Eight Points of Attention, she continues, was the injunction that men should not “take liberties with women.” That this was part of the written mandate impressed Bukhari, and she notes that BPP women often worked “right alongside men, being assigned sections to organize just like the men, and receiving the same training as men.” Nonetheless, she recognized that many male Panthers “brought their sexist attitudes into the organization.” Worse, she was highly aware of the fact that they were rarely, if ever, ordered to change their ways.

While Bukhari did not consider herself a feminist, the presumption of male superiority rankled her, and she fought it at every turn. Then again, her standards for everyone – male and female – were extremely high, and when people failed to meet her expectations she sought to understand the psychological and material factors that made it difficult for them to do so.

In “We Too Are Veterans: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and the Black Panther Party,” she lambastes the government repression that not only left many Panthers dead, but also led to psychic trauma in those who survived. “We had not just mouthed the words ‘revolution in our lifetime,’ but had believed them,” she confesses. “We sincerely believed the Black Panther Party would lead us to victory.” Instead, activists like Clark and Hampton, Timothy “Red” Adams, Fred Bennett, Alprentice “Bunchy” Carter, John Huggins, Little Bobby Hutton, Twymon Myers, Sandra Pratt, Robert Webb, and Anthony “Kimu” White were murdered. This reality, in addition to “the constant shoot-outs, the infiltration and set-ups that left you leery of strangers or of anyone getting too close or acting too friendly,” took a terrible toll on the BPP members left to bear witness, Bukhari concludes.

“As I looked over the list of PTSD symptoms, I recognized myself,” she writes. “And the first step in resolving the problem is recognizing that it exists.”

Indeed. To her credit, Bukhari refused to wallow in bitterness and chose to focus her energies on the self-help that comes from fighting back. As the founder of the Jericho Movement , a coalition of religious and secular groups working to win amnesty for US political prisoners, Bukhari worked tirelessly to plan rallies, protests and speaking tours before her untimely death.

Mumia Abu-Jamal’s touching afterword posits Bukhari as someone who never lost sight of the big picture. She knew, he writes, that “it comes down to organizing. It comes down to the people.”

The Bukhari that Abu-Jamal recalls knew that the movement was bigger than any one person, but still understood that one person could get the ball rolling and make an impact. Those who knew her, he adds, frequently commented that she was the hardest-working person they’d ever met.

“The War Before” will remind Bukhari’s friends and family of what the planet lost when Safiya died eight years ago at age 53. Likewise, it is sure to stir those who are reading her words for the first time.

June 26, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | Leave a comment

The Challenge of Gaza Flotilla: Radical Political Agenda

By Richard Irvine | Palestine Chronicle | June 24, 2011

Recently I often think I have entered a parallel universe. One where the illegal is legal; the victim the criminal; where Goliath defends himself from David.

Palestinians have of course endured this experience for the last 100 years, but in recent weeks Israel’s denunciations of the upcoming Gaza Flotilla, coming on the heels of its pious condemnation of the dead refugees on the Golan Heights have stretched incredulity to breaking point.

When Israel killed 14 unarmed refugees on Nakba Day and then out did itself in a repeat performance three weeks later, I expected the international community to speak out; to condemn, to reiterate the promise of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that everyone has the right to leave and return to their own country. I waited in vain.

Over the mumblings of the Quartet, and Ban Ki-moon’s pathetic call for “restraint,” the most strident voice of course was Israel’s. Outraged at having to kill unarmed civilians, the turkey shoot of refugees became transformed into a defence of Israeli sovereignty, the refugees aggressors – guilty of the egregious provocation of attempting to exercise their human rights.

Today, as the Gaza Flotilla approaches, the same transformation of unarmed activists into dangerous and irresponsible extremists is already well under way. Whilst Israel rehearses its naval operations, it also ratchets up its diplomatic and media offensive. Israel’s UN Ambassador, Ron Prosor, ominously repeats the language used before last year’s massacre; declaring the flotilla “a provocation” and calling upon the international community to do all in its power to prevent it.

Omitted of course from this discourse is the statement from the International Committee of the Red Cross that the blockade is illegal; or that from the former head of UNRWA in Gaza, John Ging, who last year called for activists to break the blockade. Indeed, forgotten already is the fact that Israel’s previous assault upon the Mavi Marmara was both illegal, and, according to the UN Human Rights Council report, murderous.

In other words, all the objective legal context necessary for the public and the international community to judge the actions of the activists and Israel is absent. Instead what is presented is a narrative of Israel under attack – indeed of Israel under siege. As Proser says, “The goal of the flotilla is not to give humanitarian aid but to provoke and aid a radical political agenda.”

That radical agenda being the enforcement of international and human rights law.

And of course Israel has had its successes. The Turkish charity IHH has pulled out of the flotilla, most probably under pressure from the Turkish government which in light of the Syrian uprising appears keen to repair relationships with Israel. Even more concerning however has been the pusillanimous appeal by Ban Ki-moon to Middle East states to do everything they can to prevent the flotilla (28/05/2011).

Similarly Israel’s champions in the media have not been slow to trumpet the statements of its politicians and smear the flotilla activists as far leftists, anti-Semites or terrorists; Israeli Admiral Eliezer Marom calling it “a hate flotilla whose only goals are to clash with IDF soldiers, create media provocation and to delegitimize the State of Israel.” (Ha’aretz, 19/06/2011)

Sadly, amongst all this media storm, what is being delegitimized here is not Israel but international law. To my knowledge, no country has issued a statement warning Israel not to attack it citizens, but several have warned their citizens not to take part in the flotilla and to avoid all travel to Gaza. This sends an ominous message. In the event of an Israeli attack it puts the blame for activist casualties on the activists themselves. In effect it is governments diplomatically washing their hands whilst giving Israel a readymade alibi to be as violent as it chooses. A phenomenon, which in the context of Gaza, is anything but unusual.

Yet International Humanitarian Law requires that all States both “respect and ensure respect” for the laws of war; the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that all States promote “universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms.” Therefore, when governments wash their hands of Gaza and of the activists who are seeking to aid its people, they are also washing their hands of these commitments.

So let’s see the Gaza Flotilla as the challenge it really is – it is not about whether a few ships can successfully reach Gaza; or about whether some tonnes of aid can be delivered; nor is it about the delegitimization of Israel – in fact, it is about the most fundamental issue of all – whether the rule of law or the rule of might should prevail. In the end its not just the siege of Gaza the flotilla activists are challenging, but the siege of international law. So yes I agree with Ron Proser, it is “a radical political agenda.”

~

Richard Irvine is a Belfast, Ireland-based writer.

June 24, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Egypt activists say revolution must go ‘back to basics’

AFP – June 24, 2011

CAIRO — Egyptian activists are calling for a massive rally on July 8 to ‘save the revolution’ that toppled Hosni Mubarak, urging politicians to drop debates on the timing of elections and focus on the basics.

In a Facebook page entitled “The 2nd revolution of anger”, activists say the fundamental demands of the uprising — to protect rights and freedoms — have not been met, and have instead become clouded by arguments on whether elections or a constitution should come first.

“To all rival political forces debating which should come first, constitution or elections, save your revolution first, save Egypt first. Our revolution is collapsing,” the activists said on their Facebook page, which has garnered over 55,000 members. … Full article

June 24, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Solidarity and Activism | Leave a comment

Four Decades of Cruelty and Inhumanity to U.S. Political Prisoners

By Glen Ford | Black Agenda Radio | June 23, 2011

For almost 40 years, Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace have been in solitary confinement at Louisiana’s infamous Angola State Prison, in what is thought to be the longest period of enforced solitude in America’s vast prison gulag. Amnesty International says their treatment is “cruel and inhumane and a violation of the US’s obligations under international law.” Woodfox is now 64 years old, and Wallace is 69. They are two of the original Angola 3, convicted of the murder of a prison guard in 1972. The other member of the trio, Robert King, was released after 29 years in solitary confinement after pleading guilty to a lesser charge.

Under the conditions of solitary confinement, Woodfox and Wallace are restricted to their tiny cells for 23 hours a day. Three times a week, for an hour, they are allowed to exercise in an outdoor cage, if weather permits. For 40 years, they have not been allowed access to work or to education. And there has been no legitimate review of their cases in all that time.

There was never any physical evidence of the men’s guilt, only the very questionable testimony of other inmates, one of whom was bribed by officials and another of whom retracted his testimony. Woodfox and Wallace and King have been subjected to the greatest cruelties Louisiana has to offer because they became political prisoners after entering Angola, when they formed a prison chapter of the Black Panther Party. One prison official says flatly, that “there’s been no rehabilitation” from “practicing Black Pantherism.” In other words, the prison considers their politics to be their crime.

Albert Woodfox’s conviction has twice been overturned by lower courts on the basis of racial discrimination, prosecutorial misconduct, inadequate defense and suppression of evidence. But the U.S. Court of Appeals decided that Woodfox’s fate was Louisiana’s business. Amnesty International demands only that the two elderly prisoners be released from solitary. Woodfox and Wallace, it should be pointed out, became political prisoners after initially being incarcerated for criminal offenses.

There are scores of U.S. political prisoners that have languished behind bars for three or four decades. The National Conference of Black Lawyers has been pressing for their outright release, especially those who were wrongfully imprisoned due to the FBI’s COINTELPRO operation, which sought to “neutralize” and destroy radical political activists and organizations – most notably the Black Panther Party. In the cases of those targeted by COINTELPRO, it was the federal government’s lawlessness that led to a lifetime in prison. Therefore, the U.S. government is obligated to free them. But the United States continues to deny that there is such a thing as a political prisoner within its borders. The Obama administration is always eager to claim that other countries are abusing their political prisoners. It also says it wants to play an active role in the Human Rights Council of the United Nations. But that will require the U.S. to answer charges that it imprisons people for political reasons, holds them under cruel and inhuman conditions, and that racism pervades its criminal justice system.

June 23, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture | Leave a comment

TSA Now Storming Public Places 8,000 Times a Year

By Tara Servatius | American Thinker | June 20, 2011

Americans must decide if, in the name of homeland security, they are willing to allow TSA operatives to storm public places in their communities with no warning, pat them down, and search their bags.  And they better decide quickly.

Bus travelers were shocked when jackbooted TSA officers in black SWAT-style uniforms descended unannounced upon the Tampa Greyhound bus station in April with local, state and federal law enforcement agencies and federal bureaucrats in tow.

A news report by ABC Action News in Tampa showed passengers being given the signature pat downs Americans are used to watching the Transportation Security Administration screeners perform at our airports. Canine teams sniffed their bags and the buses they rode. Immigration officials hunted for large sums of cash as part of an anti-smuggling initiative.

The TSA clearly intends for these out-of-nowhere swarms by its officers at community transit centers, bus stops and public events to become a routine and accepted part of American life.

The TSA has conducted 8,000 of these security sweeps across the country in the past year alone, TSA chief John Pistole told a Senate committee June 14.  They are part of its VIPR (Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response) program, which targets public transit related places.

All of which is enough to make you wonder if we are watching the formation of the “civilian national security force” President Obama called for on the campaign trail “that is just as powerful, just as strong and just as well funded” as the military.

The VIPR swarm on Wednesday, the TSA’s largest so far, was such a shocking display of the agency’s power that it set the blogosphere abuzz.

In a massive flex of muscle most people didn’t know the TSA had, the agency led dozens of federal and state law enforcement agencies in a VIPR exercise that covered three states and 5,000 square miles. According to the Marietta Times, the sweep used reconnaissance aircraft and “multiple airborne assets, including Blackhawk helicopters and fixed wing aircraft as well as waterborne and surface teams.”

When did the TSA get this powerful? Last year, Pistole told USA Today he wanted to “take the TSA to the next level,” building it into a “national-security, counterterrorism organization, fully integrated into U.S. government efforts.”

What few people realize is how far Pistole has already come in his quest. This is apparently what that next level looks like. More than 300 law enforcement and military personnel swept through a 100-mile stretch of the Ohio Valley alone, examining the area’s industrial infrastructure, the Charleston Gazette reported.

Federal air marshals, the Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Coast Guard, the FBI, the Office of Homeland Security and two dozen other federal, state and local agencies teamed up to scour the state’s roads, bridges, water supply and transit centers under the TSA’s leadership.

What is remarkable about these security swarms is that they don’t just involve federal, state and local law enforcement officials. The TSA brings in squads of bureaucrats from state and federal agencies as well, everything from transportation departments to departments of natural resources.

The TSA had received no specific threats about the Tampa bus station before the April sweep, reporters were told.

They were there “to sort of invent the wheel in advance in case we have to if there ever is specific intelligence requiring us to be here,” said Gary Milano with the Department of Homeland Security in an ABC News Action television report. “This way us and our partners are ready to move in at a moment’s notice.”

Federal immigration officials from Customs and Border Patrol swept the station with the TSA, looking for “immigration violations, threats to national security” and “bulk cash smuggling.” (How the bulk cash smuggling investigation related to national security was never explained.)

“We’ll be back,” Milano told reporters. “We won’t say when we’ll be back. This way the bad guys are on notice we’ll be back.”

The TSA gave the same vague answers when asked about the three-state sweep this week. That sweep wasn’t in response to any specific security threat, either.

The purpose was to “have a visible presence and let people know we’re out here,” Michael Cleveland, federal security director for TSA operations in West Virginia told the Gazette. “It can be a deterrent.”

It might be — if Americans are willing to live this way.

Tara Servatius is a radio talk show host. Follow her @TaraServatius and on Facebook.

June 20, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

‘Obama lawyers worse than Bush’s’

Press TV – June 20, 2011

An analyst says George W. Bush’s lawyers threatened to resign en mass when placed in a situation similar to Barack Obama’s lawyers, who were overruled on the Libya war.

American lawyer, columnist, and author Glenn Greenwald says in 2007 lawyers in the Bush administration threatened to resign en mass over the National Security Agency’s (NSA) warrantless eavesdropping program, The Huffington Post reported.

Similar to how Obama ignored legal advice on his Libya war campaign being illegal without congressional approval Bush decided to reject the legal conclusions of his top lawyers and order NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program to continue.

In the Republican’s case, however, several top administration lawyers, including, FBI Director Robert Mueller, threatened to resign en masse if Bush continued with the illegal spying program.

Earlier this week, Obama overruled top White House lawyers by deciding to argue that US military operations in Libya do not require congressional approval. However, his lawyers failed to take any decisive action.

Obama rejected the legal advice of Pentagon general counsel lawyer Jeh Johnson and the head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, Caroline Krass, in concluding that his administration was not in violation of the 1973 War Powers Resolution (WPR) by continuing its operation in Libya beyond 90 days, The New York Times reported on Friday.

Obama argued that the US military in Libya is only active in support roles and its actions do not amount to “hostilities,” therefore it is not in violation of the WPR despite having extended US operations in Libya to more than 90 days without seeking congress’s approval.

June 20, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | Leave a comment

Protest organizer jailed by Israeli court for year

Ma’an – 20/06/2011

RAMALLAH — The Ofer Israeli military court sentenced popular protest coordinator Naji At-Tamimi to one year of imprisonment and a fine of 10,000 shekels ($2,914), his colleagues said.

Naji and Basem At-Tamimi were taken by Israeli forces from their homes in April and held without charge.

Naji was charged with inciting and participating in rallies and organizing demonstrations against Israeli land confiscation and settlement building. Israel has declared such demonstrations illegal.

In a statement released shortly after the sentencing was handed down, the Popular Struggle Committee in Nabi Saleh, where Naji is from, said it rejected Israel’s characterization of the protests as illegal, and said it considered the sentencing of Tamimi for his role in the protests as a “violation of the law,” noting it prevented Palestinians from defending their property.

The committee questioned the “international silence” on the issue, recalling European Union expressions of concern over the jailing of Bil’in activist Abdallah Abu Rahma, and condemnation from the international rights group Amnesty International.

The sentencing, the statement said, “will not curb us from our mission,” and demanded the release of the organizer.

June 20, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | Leave a comment

Journalist Rasha Azab faces charges for criticising Egypt’s ruling military

Ahram Online | 19 Jun 2011

Al Fagr newspaper journalist, Rasha Azab is accused of libel by Egypt’s ruling military, who claim she published incorrect information with the aim to incite public opinion against them.

Azab, as well as Adel Hammouda, the weekly paper’s editor in chief, have been summoned by military prosecution Sunday morning (the start of the work week in Egypt) after Azab published an article in which she detailed the alleged violations by the military police against the protestors in March. Azab claims that she, herself, was subjected to torture last March.

Tens of activists and journalists gathered today in Nasr City outside the military prosecution headquarters in solidarity with Azab and Hammouda.

The protestors condemned the summoning of the journalists, clamouring that it compromises freedom of speech, especially that this is not the first time that a journalist is questioned by the military.

June 19, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | Leave a comment

Israeli undercover agents boast of killing Palestinians on TV

Ma’an – 19/06/2011

JERUSALEM — Undercover Israeli intelligence officers appeared on national television Saturday to talk about assassinating Palestinians in a program broadcast on Israel’s Channel 10.

Oren Beaton presented a photo album of Palestinians he killed during his time as a commander of an undercover Israeli unit operating in the northern West Bank city of Nablus.

Beaton explained that he kept photos of his victims.

“This is a photo of a Palestinian young man called Basim Subeih who I killed. This is another young man. I shredded his body, and the photo shows the remnants of his body,” he said.

The TV program also featured an undercover agent referred to as “D”, who openly admitted killing “wanted Palestinians.”

He complained of suffering from post traumatic stress disorder and said that the state had rejected his demands for compensation.

The Channel 10 presenter appealed to the Israeli government to meet the agent’s demands.

“Those are the Shin Bet agents we only hear about and never see, and thanks to them we live safely,” she said.

The report was filmed in the Palestinian territories, and showed agents wandering around the streets of Ar-Ram in occupied East Jerusalem with handguns under their shirts, illustrating that the agents were still operating in Palestinian cities.

The agents, who speak fluent Arabic, are shown surrounded by masked Palestinian collaborators secretly deployed to the area to protect them.

The program provided previously unconfirmed details about the operational methods of undercover agents.

The report explained that officers conducted surveillance before an assassination, investigating the target’s friends and classmates.

Agents would even ask about the target’s favorite meals and habits at home, the report said.

In this way, agents would put together an image of the target’s behavior and routine.

Agent “D” said officers would then “seize the target and wait until the commander arrives to confirm his identity. Then we shoot him.”

This confirms previous accounts from Palestinians who have said they witnessed Israeli agents shooting Palestinians at point-blank range.

June 19, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Leave a comment

Bahrain’s Dictatorship and the Pentagon

By Jacob G. Hornberger | June 14, 2011

Sometimes it’s good to look at foreign dictatorships to see what the president and the U.S. military have done to our country. Consider, for example, the trial of 20 doctors that is currently taking place in Bahrain.

As most everyone knows, Bahrain is ruled by a brutal dictatorship, just as many other countries in the Middle East are. Bahrain is also besieged by anti-government demonstrations, just as other countries in the Middle East are. Like other dictatorships in the Middle East, Bahrain’s dictatorial regime is using brute force to suppress the protests.

What distinguishes the Bahrain dictatorship from, say, the Libyan or Syrian dictatorships, is that the U.S. government supports the dictatorship in Bahrain while opposing the Libyan and Syrian dictatorships. Thus, not only does U.S. foreign aid flow into the Bahrain dictatorship, the U.S. military also has a major base there.

The Bahrain dictatorship is accusing those 20 doctors of participating in anti-government protests in Bahrain. Guess what type of court the doctors are being tried in. You got it: a military tribunal, just like those employed by the Pentagon at Guantanamo Bay.

It probably won’t surprise you to know that the doctors are accusing Bahrain’s military of torturing them while in custody and forcing confessions out of them — and that the military is denying it.

The tribunal is actually a special national-security court that was established last March as part of the emergency rule that the dictatorship imposed on the country to deal with the anti-government protests. Emergency rule essentially means martial law, with the military wielding the power to protect “national security” by establishing “order and stability” within the country.

Not surprisingly, in previous prosecutions in Bahrain’s national-security court, defendants have been charged with “terrorism.” Moreover, since the trials pertain to “national security,” some of the proceedings have been held in secret.

Sound familiar?

Well, of course it does. All this is familiar ground for Americans, who have seen the Pentagon under both President Bush and President Obama engage in this same sort of conduct.

Consider, for example, the Pentagon’s military tribunals. Are they any different in principle from those employed in Bahrain? Consider also the circumstances under which the Pentagon’s tribunals came into existence — during the emergency known as 9/11.

As in Bahrain, many of the accused have been tortured by U.S. military personnel while in the custody of the military or the CIA. Of course, oftentimes the U.S. military authorities take the same position as their Bahrain counterparts — that they don’t torture and that the defendants are lying.

While the Bahrain dictatorship recently lifted its emergency rule, 11 years after the 9/11 attacks the U.S. military still wields the authority to take the American people (and foreigners) into custody as suspected terrorists in the global war on terrorism — the authority to them with water-boarding, sensory deprivation, and other “harsh-interrogation” techniques — and the authority to hold them indefinitely without trial. Why, the Pentagon and the CIA can now even assassinate Americans whom they label terrorists.

Indeed, about the same time that Bahrain was recently lifting its emergency rule, the U.S. Congress was renewing the USA Patriot Act for another four years. And yesterday, the New York Times reported that the FBI is expanding the authority of its 14,000 agents to monitor the activities of Americans who are even not suspected of breaking the law.

By the way, Bahrain and the United States aren’t the only ones to employ special courts to deal with acts of suspected terrorism. After the Reichstag Fire trials in which some of the accused terrorists were acquitted by the regular German courts, Adolf Hitler established what was known as the “People’s Court,” a special national-security court to deal with cases of terrorism and treason, one in which the chances of any suspected terrorist getting off were virtually nil.

Is it any wonder that the president and the Pentagon continue to partner with and support dictators in the Middle East? I don’t think so. When it comes to emergency dictatorial powers, they have lots in common.

June 16, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture | Leave a comment

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