Occupation Soldiers Attack Nonviolent Protestors In Hebron
By Saed Bannoura – IMEMC & Agencies – October 03, 2010
Israeli soldiers attacked dozens of Palestinian, Israeli and International protestors who held a march in Hebron on Saturday evening demanding freedom of movement for the residents of Hebron. The protest was held near the Al Shuhada Street, one of many streets that are off-limits to the Palestinians in the city.
Israeli soldiers attacked reporters and attempted to move them away under the pretext that the area is a closed military zone. Troops also stationed themselves on top of several homes and used them as military towers.
The protest was organized by the Youth Coalition Against Settlements; it was held near a military roadblock at the southern entrance of the Al Shuhada Street. They carried Palestinian flags and signs demanding that Israel open the street, and stop all forms of racial discrimination against the Palestinians.
The protestors chanted slogans against the ongoing attacks carried out by soldiers and settlers in the city and its surrounding areas.
Hisham Sharabty, a local activist against settlements, stated that this nonviolent protest is an affirmation to the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, such as the right to Freedom of Movement.
Al Sharabty added that the Palestinians reject the resumption of direct talks with Israel while its settlement activities are ongoing, and that the Palestinian Authority went to the negotiation table on the principle of Land for Peace, therefore “it is unreasonable to hold talks while land theft is ongoing”.
He demanded the International Community apply pressure on Israel to oblige it to stop the construction and expansion of settlements and dismantle existing settlements in the occupied territories and occupied East Jerusalem.
The Al Shuhada Street has been off-limits to the Palestinians since 1994 as only Jewish settlers and soldiers are allowed to use it.
It is one of the most vital streets in the city as it is located in the center of Hebron and its closure separated the southern neighborhoods from the north; the army also ordered the closure of more than 500 stores since the year 2000.
The closure also isolated the center of the Old City of Hebron which led to the closure of more than 1000 stores.
There are at least 100 military roadblocks, gates and sealed roads in Hebron.
New Internet Censorship Bill Introduced
By Stephen Lendman | October 1, 2010
Like most others in Congress, Senator Patrick Leahy is no progressive. He voted to fund imperial wars, regressive Obamacare, Wall Street-friendly financial reform, and other pro-business measures, including agribusiness-empowering bills, harming small farmers and consumers.
Now he’s at it again. On September 20, he introduced S. 3804: Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA), “A bill to combat online infringement, and for other purposes.” Referred to committee, it awaits further action. In fact, it needs a dagger thrust in its heart to kill it.
According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Richard Esguerra:
If enacted, this bill lets the Attorney General and Justice Department “break the Internet one domain at a time – by requiring domain registrars/registries, ISPs, DNS providers, and others to block Internet users from reaching certain websites.”
Two online blacklists will be created:
— one for web sites the Attorney General may censor or block, and
— most disturbing, domain names the Justice Department decides (without judicial review) are “dedicated to infringing activities.”
The bill doesn’t mandate, but “strongly suggests” that second category domains be blocked “as well as providing legal immunity for Internet intermediaries and DNS operators” that do it willingly at the behest of authorities.
Without question, “tremendous pressure” will be applied to comply, the alternative perhaps being recrimination for refusing.
Though fairly short, COICA may dangerously impair free expression, “current Internet architecture, copyright doctrine, foreign policy,” and more. In 2010, “efforts to re-write copyright law (targeting) ‘piracy’ online” have been shown “to have unintended consequences.”
Like other 2009 and 2010 bills, COICA “is a censorship bill that runs roughshod over freedom of speech on the Internet,” an outrageous First Amendment violation by “tr(ying) to define a site ‘dedicated to infringing activities,’ (by) block(ing) a whole domain,” not that one part alone if legally proved, rather than by government edict.
The 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) “already gives copyright owners legal tools to remove infringing material piece-by-piece.” It also lets them get injunctions requiring ISPs block infringing offshore sites. Misusing these provisions “have had a tremendously damaging impact on fair use and free expression.”
If enacted, Leahy’s COICA will take a giant leap, “streamlin(ing) and vastly expand(ing)” existing damage. It’ll let the Attorney General shut down domains, including their “blog posts, images, backups, and files.” As a result, “legitimate, protected speech will be taken down in the name of copyright enforcement,” and basic Internet infrastructure will be undermined.
For example: when users enter web site URLs into their browsers, the domain name system server identifies their Internet location. COICA will let the Attorney General “prevent the players in (those) domain system(s), (possibly including your ISP) from telling you the truth about a website’s location.”
It’s also unclear what would be accessed – perhaps a message saying “a site or page could not be found, without explaining why? Would users receive some kind of notice,” possibly saying “the site they were seeking was made inaccessible at the behest of the government?”
COICA will force Internet “middlemen” to act like the “Internet doesn’t exist,” even though the site or page wanted “may otherwise be completely available and accessible.”
Like many other pre and post-9/11 bills, COICA is police state legislation. It says America “approves of unilateral Internet censorship,” no matter that it’s constitutionally illegal.
America is on a fast track toward despotism, civil liberties threatened by bills like COICA, mandating “Unilateral censorship of websites (Washington) doesn’t like….”
Moreover, its “poorly drafted definitions….threaten fair use online, endanger innovative backup services, and raises questions about how new (Internet intermediary) obligations….fit with existing US secondary liability rules and the DMCA copyright safe harbor regime.”
Also, it’s easy to get blacklisted because COICA streamlines the procedure for adding domains – “including a McCarthy-like (one) of public snitching.” Then, once on, it’s hard getting off, just like persons unfairly vilified struggle to regain their reputations, often without success.
COICA takes but doesn’t give in letting Washington “play an endless game of whack-a-mole, blocking one domain after another,” even though sophisticated users will figure out a way to access censored sites. Maybe them, but not ordinary ones denied free access to constitutionally protected information.
Bottom line – COICA lets Washington “suppress truthful speech and could block access to a wealth of non-infringing” material. It will do little to end online infringement, but plenty of constitutional damage, besides other vast erosion in recent years heading toward ending democratic freedoms unless public awareness gets aroused enough to stop it in time.
On September 29, Tech Daily Dose.nationaljournal.com reported possible COICA changes, “addressing some of the concerns raised by technology and public interest groups,” pertaining to online piracy and counterfeiting. COICA remains a work in progress. What emerges in final form demands close scrutiny.
Obama’s Proposal to End Online Privacy – Another Police State Measure if Enacted
Merriam-Webster defines a police state as follows:
“a political unit characterized by repressive government control of political, economic, and social life usually by an arbitrary exercise of power by police and especially secret police in place of regular operation of administrative and judicial organs of the government according to publicly known legal procedures.”
In other words: overt and covert hard-line control, maintained by loss of personal freedoms, civil liberties, and constitutional protections though legislation, pervasive surveillance, lawless privacy intrusions, and midnight or pre-dawn arrests on whatever grounds authorities charge against which there’s no defense.
In the last decade especially, America has recklessly gone that route, one government edict, pronouncement or congressional bill at a time. Obama has advanced the Bush agenda further for totalitarian control, including the right to imprison anyone for their beliefs, assassinate American citizens extrajudicially, and much more.
Since taking office, he’s done the impossible, compiling a worse record than his fiercest critics feared, exceeding Bush in militarism, harshness, lawlessness, and betrayal of the public trust. Besides waging imperial wars, he wrecked the American dream, and hardened a police state apparatus to protect privilege from progressive change. He also waged war on free expression, dissent, due process, judicial fairness and privacy rights.
He calls heroic activism “violent extremism” and persecutes Muslims for their faith and ethnicity. He says anti-war supporters are anti-American, providing “material support to terrorism,” a serious charge carrying 15 years imprisonment. It’s why former Reagan administration Assistant Treasury Secretary, Paul Craig Roberts, says “the Bush and Obama regimes” wrecked the country. “America, as people of my generation knew it, no longer exists.”
But wait, the worst is yet to come, including subverting privacy, what former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis called “the most comprehensive of rights, and the right most valued by a free people.” The Fourth Amendment and numerous laws embody it, requiring judicial warrants for most searches and seizures. Yet today’s sophisticated technology enables lawless intrusions, absent congressional legislation prohibiting them.
New legislation, however, may mandate them, according to an Electronic Frontier Foundation alert saying:
“an Obama Administration proposal (will) end online privacy as we know it by requiring all Internet communication service providers – from Facebook to Skype to your webmail provider – to rebuild their systems to give the government backdoor access to all of your private Internet communications.”
Planned legislation, so far not introduced or named is expected in 2011, the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) saying “Federal law enforcement and national security officials are preparing to seek sweeping new regulations for the Internet, arguing that their ability to wiretap criminal and terrorism suspects is ‘going dark’ as people increasingly communicate online instead of by telephone.”
CDT’s vice president, James Dempsey said:
“They are really asking for the authority to redesign services that take advantage of the unique, and now pervasive, architecture of the Internet. They basically want to turn back the clock and make Internet services function the way” telephones work, making them simple to wiretap the same way but do it online digitally.
Currently, the 1994 Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act requires broadband networks to have intercept capabilities to permit digital and cellphone surveillance. However, for encrypted messages, ISPs must be ordered to unscramble them because they’re not covered under the 1994 law. Further, providers can’t unscramble some encrypt messages between users.
As a result, proposals may include the following:
— mandate that communication services, including foreign-based ones doing business in America, have full unscrambling technology capabilities; and
— require peer-to-peer software communication developers to redesign their intercept capabilities.
These ideas not only fly in the face of a free society, they contradict a congressionally-ordered 1996 National Research Council report that found back door access bad government policy, its committee chair, Professor Kenneth W. Dam, saying:
“While the use of encryption technologies is not a panacea for all information security policies, we believe that….our recommendation would lead to enhanced protection and privacy for individuals and businesses in many areas, ranging from cellular and other wireless phone conversations to electronic transmission of sensitive business or financial documents.”
“It is true that the spread of encryption technologies will add to the burden of those in government who are charged with carrying out certain law enforcement and intelligence activities. But the many benefits to society of widespread commercial and private use of cryptography outweigh the disadvantages.”
Further, according to government records, encryption rarely subverts law enforcement, statistics showing few case examples. In 1998, crytography expert, Professor Matt Blaze, questioned the technical capabilities of back door access. Now he says:
“This seems like a far more baffling battle in a lot of ways. In the 1990s, the government was trying to prevent something necessary, good and inevitable. (Now) they are trying to roll back something that already happened and that people are relying on.”
Blaze added:
“We need to protect the country’s information infrastructure….So how do you reconcile that with the policy of discouraging encryption broadly,” or making it vulnerable to surveillance. Hackers and other experts have the same capabilities as government. Mandate back door access, and they’ll find a way to block or otherwise subvert it.
According to computer expert Peter Neumann:
“The arguments haven’t changed. 9/11 was something long predicted and it hasn’t changed the fact that if you are going to do massive surveillance using the ability to decrypt – even with warrants, it would have to be done with enormously careful oversight. Given we don’t have comp(uter) systems that are secure, the idea we will have adequate oversight is unattainable. Encryption has life-critical consequences.”
Current and possible new legislation worries organizations like the CDT and its efforts “to keep the Internet open, innovative and free,” what’s fast eroding in America and may soon entirely disappear. Apparently like Bush, Obama is committed to assuring it unless mass public outrage stops him. Even so, a kinder, gentler America “no longer exists.”
Some Final Comments
On September 27, Tech Daily Dose.nationaljournal.com writer Eliza Krigman headlined, “Net Neutrality Bill Gives FCC No New Rulemaking Power,” saying:
Leaked House Energy and Commerce Committee (chaired by so-called liberal Henry Waxman) draft bill information aims to subvert Net Neutrality, according to an unnamed source saying:
“This bill represents a giant retreat by some of those who claim to support net neutrality and sends the wrong signal to the FCC (that) will ultimately deal with this issue.”
If enacted, it will let cable and telecom giants establish, among other provisions, premium higher-priced lanes (two Internets), effectively destroying Net Neutrality, subverting the last free and open space. Dirty politics and back room deals put the Internet up for grabs to the highest bidders, creating a two-tiered system, besides blocking entry for those who can’t pay.
Waxman hopes for passage in the lame duck session. So far, efforts to advance Net Neutrality legislation have stalled, some congressional leaders saying anything this year is doubtful.
Post-election, cybersecurity will also come up in the form of a bill combining earlier ones introduced:
— S. 773: Cybersecurity Act of 2009, and
— S. 778: A bill to establish, within the Executive Office of the President, the Office of National Cybersecurity Advisor
Information on them can be accessed through the following link:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2009/11/struggle-for-net-neutrality.html
The revised measure will let Obama shut down parts of the Internet, as well as businesses and perhaps organizations, not complying with national emergency declared orders. Specifically, his order will last 30 days, renewable for another 60 before Congress may, if it wishes, intervene.
At issue, of course, is whether government can unconstitutionally regulate, restrict, censor or suppress online free expression, the direction Congress and the administration are heading.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com
Now the Government is X-Raying You While You Drive
By DAVE LINDORFF | Counterpunch | October 1, 2010
If you have been feeling uneasy about having to be X-rayed by a Transportation Security Administration goon who can look under your clothes every time you fly, consider this: at least you can say no, and agree to be subjected to an old-fashioned full-body search.
No opt-out for the latest in anti-terror technology though, with reports just out in Forbes Magazine and the Christian Science Monitor that the Homeland Security Department has purchased 500 mobil X-ray vans called ZBVs that can scan cars, trucks and homes without the drivers even knowing that they’re being zapped.
These vans, made by a Massachusetts company called American Science & Engineering, are fitted out with what are called Z Backscatter X-ray devices, which aim a focussed X-ray beam that reportedly has the capability of penetrating 14 inches of steel.
In theory, the device is supposed to be safe for human targets, because it is operated at a distance, and because the beam is weakened by penetrating the metal of a vehicle before it reaches a person. But the flaws in this kind of reassuring safety calculus are readily apparent in a photo of a small truck carrying contraband that accompanies the Christian Science Monitor story. The X-ray image, after penetrating the truck cab’s metal body, clearly shows the contraband behind the driver’s seat, but it also just as clearly shows the shadowy outline of the driver of the pickup. Worse yet, even his window is half-way down, so there is no shielding at all of the X-rays hitting his head.
We can expect these mobil X-ray vans to be proliferating around the country soon, if they’re not out there already, but they may be hard to spot. As American Science & Engineering says in a note to investors on the company website:
A breakthrough in X-ray detection technology, AS&E’s Z Backscatter Van is the number one selling non-intrusive mobile inspection system on the market. The ZBV system is a low-cost, highly mobile screening system built into a commercially available delivery van.
Prof. Peter Rez, a physicist at Arizona State University who specializes in X-ray technology, and who has been doing research on backscatter X-ray dosages, says that if used properly, the radiation doses received by targeted persons would be very minute, but then he notes that if the government begins a major campaign of surreptitious X-raying on highways and at locations of security concern (the machines are already being used at major sporting events like the Superbowl), there have to be concerns about whether the machines are being maintained in proper working condition (driving them around on America’s run-down highways is subjecting the machines to quite a beating), and about whether the operators are using them properly.
This is even the case with airport X-ray machines, he says, where the doses are very low, but the actual beam is quite powerful. Since X-ray beams cannot be focused, two moving mechanical parts are used, including a spinning wheel with a small series of holes in it, so that what reaches the targeted individual is just short bursts of X-rays. If either of those moving mechanical parts broke down while a person was being zapped, though, Rez says the person would be “fried” by a major X-ray exposure. “I was assured by the government that the machines have a fail-safe system so they shut down instantly if the moving parts fail,” he says, “but BP had a fail-safe system too, and we saw how well that worked. For my part, I wouldn’t go through an X-ray scanner unless they could show me a very low documented failure rate!”
Arjun Makhijani, an engineer and physicist with the Institute of Energy and Environmental Research in Maryland, also points out that any safety studies for the backscatter machines are referring to their effect on average adults. But if the government is scanning moving vehicles on a highway, or looking inside trailers, for example to spot smuggled immigrants (the metal-piercing backscatter machines are being installed at border crossings on the Mexican border), there is no way to know when they are exposing children or the fetuses of pregnant women, both of which populations are far more vulnerable to damage from ionizing radiation than an average adult.
Americans in Atlanta got a taste of this latest government intrusion into their lives when Homeland Security last Tuesday ran what it called a “counterterrorism operation” not prompted by any specific threat. They set up one of their ZBV vans on I-20 and snarled traffic for hours while all trailer trucks were stopped and scanned by Homeland Security personnel.
The US military has been operating backscanner X-ray machines on the streets of New York, where it has been aiming the devices even at pedestrians. One location where this was done was outside the United Nations building on 1st Avenue in Manhattan.
The mobile X-ray vans are only the latest step in a steady march by the American government towards a total national security state, where citizens can expect to be monitored in everything they do. Cities are installing video cameras all over the place, allegedly to fight crime and catch drivers who run red lights or speed. And just last week, the Obama administration announced that it was seeking to expand monitoring of communications to include non-phone systems like Skype and Google Phone, and that it would require internet communications providers to provide it with customer messages, even encrypted ones.
What makes the new mobile X-ray campaign even worse is that, like the airport X-ray machines, they are unlikely to work as advertised. For example, as Prof. Rez notes, the one thing that the airport X-ray devices cannot detect is liquid or semi-liquid explosives! He notes for example, that plastic explosive, like C-4, can easily be molded to look like a roll of fat on the body in an X-ray. Similarly, once criminals or a would-be terrorists know that the government has mobile X-ray vans on the highways, they can just stay to secondary roads, or disguise their bomb materials to look like something ordinary.
In other words, we all get zapped for nothing.
Says IEER’s Makhijani, “I know there can be a legitimate concern about security, but all this is happening in secret. We really need to open things up, so we know how these things work, what the dosages are, how they are being used and maintained, and we especially need to have a thoughtful public discussion about whether we really want this kind of thing to be done.”
DAVE LINDORFF is a founding member of ThisCantBeHappening!, the new independent, collectively-owned, journalist-run online newspaper. His work, and that of colleagues John Grant, Linn Washington and Charles Young, may be found at http://www.thiscantbehappening.net
Assassinating Americans, Secretly
By Jacob G. Hornberger | September 24, 2010
The Justice Department’s motion to dismiss the ACLU’s lawsuit in the Anwar al-Awlaki case confirms, once again, that when it comes to civil liberties, the Obama administration is no different from the Bush administration, and in fact is arguably much worse.
The al-Awlaki case involves President Obama’s order authorizing his military and paramilitary forces (i.e., the CIA) to assassinate al-Awlaki, an American citizen. The proposed assassination is being justified under the Bush-Obama “war on terrorism.”
No warrants. No grand jury indictments. No jury trials. No due process of law. Simply, assassination.
The assassination power now being wielded against al-Awlaki isn’t limited to him. The U.S. military and the CIA can now assassinate any American they want. All they need is the president’s authorization; and, according to him, he doesn’t have to answer to anyone, including Congress and the courts.
Moreover, this omnipotent power to take out Americans is not limited to Americans living overseas, as al-Awlaki is doing. Remember the point that Bush made, which Obama has enthusiastically embraced: that the entire world, including the United States, is the battlefield in the perpetual, worldwide “war on terrorism” that the U.S. Empire is waging.
That means that the president now has the power to label any American he wants right here in the United States as a terrorist and issue the order to his forces: “Take him out, now, with bullets, bombs, or drones.”
Does Obama need congressional authority before he assassinates Americans? Nope. The notion is that, like Bush, he’s engaged in a real war, just like World War I or World War II and, therefore, he has the authority to kill Americans who, he claims, are supposedly fighting on the other side.
There’s at least one big problem, however, with the Bush-Obama formulation of their “war on terrorism”: Terrorism is a federal crime. It’s on the books as a federal crime. It’s listed in the U.S. Code as a federal crime.
Thus, it’s not surprising that dozens of terrorism cases have been brought in the federal courts. Why wouldn’t they be? Since the U.S. Code, which defines federal criminal offenses, lists terrorism among the many federal crimes, it stands to reason that suspected terrorists are brought to court to face federal terrorism charges.
As I have long pointed out, however, what the Bush administration did after 9/11 is simply announce that federal officials now had the option of treating terrorism as either a federal crime or as an act of war, whichever way they want to go.
As I have also long pointed out, not only does the Constitution not permit such an option to be exercised, it would be difficult to find a better example of a violation of the rule of law and equal treatment under law than that. Either terrorism is a crime (which it is) or it’s an act of war (which it is not). To permit U.S. officials to choose one way or the other is the epitome of arbitrary, discretionary, ad hoc, totalitarian power.
Does an American have the right to secure judicial review to prevent his assassination? Not according to Barack Obama.
The ACLU sued on behalf of al-Awlaki’s father seeking a federal court injunction against the assassination. Barack Obama ordered his Justice Department to seek an immediate dismissal of the suit.
His justification? The “state secrets doctrine,” a doctrine found nowhere in the Constitution. Obama is arguing that to permit the suit to continue would mean that people would learn the details of his assassination program and the standards by which Americans and others are targeted for assassination. That would jeopardize national security, says Obama.
So there you have it. We now live in a country in which the military and the CIA can now assassinate Americans, on authorization of the president, who doesn’t have to explain to anyone the standards for such assassinations.
That’s what now passes for a “free” country — the omnipotent, non-reviewable power of the ruler and his military and paramilitary forces to assassinate their own people.
Exactly who are the masters and who are the servants in such a society?
President Barack “Midnight Raid” Obama: End Your Wars at Home and Abroad
By Glen Ford | Black Agenda Report | September 29, 2010
Last week’s FBI raids in the Twin Cities, Chicago and Durham, North Carolina amount to a declaration of war on the activist Left, in which grand juries are deployed as omnibus weapons of political persecution under an infinitely expandable anti-terrorism rationale. The constitutional lawyer in the White House has tossed the founding document into the National Security State shredder, as he prepares for global capitalism’s High Noon encounter with – anyone and everyone that resists.
A government that claims the right to kill U.S. citizens without even a whiff of due process and for reasons that are secret to the public and to the victim, has broken with every notion of the rule of law since the Magna Carta. The Obama Justice Department has spent every available hour since Inauguration Day building upon George Bush’s fascist logic in an attempt to fashion a flawless Orwellian police state doctrine in which secrecy and security are entwined like a strand of DNA. For targets not marked for oblivion, there awaits a grand jury with boundless powers to ensnare anyone, absolutely anyone.
The scope of information demanded of some of last week’s FBI victims – demands with which no one can fully comply, such as all records of domestic as well as foreign travel since the year 2000, or a list of all “contacts” that might somehow have bearing on the conflict in Colombia or the Mideast – is naked proof that the intent is to smother, entangle and utterly demobilize the target. The Obama administration is constructing a legal minefield in which any honest activist can be charged with lying to federal officers or a grand jury by commission or omission – each count of which is punishable by years in prison.
It is not brave, but prudent and self-protective, to refuse to discuss one’s political work or opinions or much of anything at all with FBI agents, as was reportedly the case with all of the recently targeted individuals. But grand juries are places where rights are butchered, and we can clearly see the broad outlines of a mass prosecution strategy unfolding, in which grand juries are the engines of political destruction. As Ron Jacobs wrote in Counterpunch, “There is a grand jury being convened in October 2010 with the intention of perhaps charging some of the people (and maybe others) subpoenaed on September 24. These raids are an attempt by the federal government to criminalize antiwar organizing.”
This is much more serious than merely “harassing” the anti-war movement. The Obama regime would not be going to so much trouble to systematically negate the Constitution just for the fun of it. They have a serious offensive in mind, which may have already begun.
U.S. intelligence services know perfectly well that activists like those raided last week barely have the material resources to put out slim periodicals or keep web sites updated. They cannot possibly provide “material support” to “terrorists” unless political statements against war (or silence in a grand jury) can be construed as, somehow, “support” for those the U.S. government deems terroristic. If the aim is to push anti-war and other social activists to the very edge of the cliff, where they will either shut down or fall into the carefully constructed legal abyss – that’s not harassment, that’s a campaign to “neutralize” the Left, in COINTELPRO terms.
As Black Workers for Justice stated, “We’ve seen these FBI and government raids and attacks on African American leaders and activists during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., and members of the Black Panther Party, among others, were assassinated, jailed, beaten and driven into political exile for leading demonstrations and speaking out against racism, U.S. wars and other injustices…. Those who profit from these wars and U.S. support for oppressive governments like Israel and Colombia hope that by having a Black President, it will discourage African Americans from speaking out in protest against these raids, and against attacks on other social justice fighters. Dr. King said that during times like these, ‘We must break our silence!’”
Or, as the Freedom Socialist Party and Radical Women put it, in a joint statement, “the Obama administration is continuing COINTELPRO-type operations the FBI used in the ’60s and ’70s to divide the movements and smash dissent.”
A friend reminded me that, just as Nixon was thought to be the only U.S. president that could have pulled off the “opening” to China, based on his well-earned reputation as an arch anti-communist, so the First Black President might be the one that unleashes the 21st century police state in all its techno-horror. A Black president with a degree in constitutional law, who can still no do no wrong in the delusional eyes of strong majorities of African Americans, some of whom would remain in his corner even if Obama, himself, knocked down their doors in the wee hours of the morning.
If it is legal for Obama to kill Americans in total secrecy and impunity, with no explanation or even acknowledgment necessary, surely it is a lesser affront to an irrelevant Constitution to strangle the Left with grand juries.
Even Obamite-ridden United for Peace and Justice is upset, although not enough to confront the president, directly. The FBI is “a recidivist agency whose abuses have unfortunately recurred throughout its history,” said UFPJ, lamely. So, this is a problem of one agency, disconnected from the larger administration? What about Obama, the boss-man? The UFPJ will be cheering him and the Democrats on Saturday, October 2, as head of the official “peace table” at the NAACP and Big Labor’s mass rally in Washington, while the United National Anti-War Committee (UNAC), the Black is Back Coalition and tens of thousands of folks that demand an immediate end to U.S. wars of aggression, bailouts of Wall Street, mass Black incarceration, a multi-million jobs public employment program and a halt to U.S. aid to Israel, will form a distinct and separate contingent. By their demands, ye shall know them.
The Green Party was, in its anger, bold enough to mention the president’s name. “We demand that President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder order an end to ‘police state’ tactics by the FBI and other security agencies and that the Justice Department investigate the Sept. 24 raids,” said Theresa El-Amin, Green Party co-chair. “We demand that grand jury investigations and subpoenas in connection with the raids be canceled immediately. We demand that President Obama restore the rule of law and order all security agencies and police forces to cease spying on citizens without obtaining a warrant. We encourage everyone to protest the FBI’s lawless and outrageous actions as loudly as possible.”
Obama’s newest assault on the Left has generated new demands for the October 2 rally. The San Francisco Labor Council, after resolving that the FBI raids “are reminiscent of the Palmer Raids, McCarthy hearings, J. Edgar Hoover, and COINTELPRO, and mark a new and dangerous chapter in the protracted assault on the First Amendment rights of every union fighter, international solidarity activist or anti-war campaigner, which began with 9/11 and the USA Patriot Act,” put forward a demand to choke the pep rally out of labor’s Democratic cheerleaders: “that this Council urge the AFL-CIO to ensure that denunciation of the FBI raids is featured from the speakers’ platform at the October 2, 2010 One Nation march in Washington, DC, possibly by inviting one of those targeted by the raids, for example the SEIU chief steward whose home was raided, to speak at the rally.”
Will the NAACP and Big Labor allow it to happen? By their cowardices and betrayals, ye shall also know them.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.
Long Standing Impunity Challenges Argentina
4 Years Without Julio Lopez
By Marie Trigona – Upside Down World – 27 September 2010
Julio Lopez, Luciano Arruga, Silvia Suppo – three names recently listed the doleful roll call of Argentina’s victims of state repression, a legacy left over from the bloody 1976-1983 military dictatorship. These three names have left painful reminders of the paradigm of disappearances and how the social stigma of the crimes committed during the dictatorship has scarred Argentina and other nations which survived brutal military dictatorships.
Argentina recently commemorated the four year anniversary of the disappearance of Julio Lopez, to demand that the torture survivor and human rights activist be found alive. After four years of searching, marches, and impunity, the cries for justice and punishment seem to have found no response from an indifferent government which claims to defend human rights. Activists also demanded information on the whereabouts of Luciano Arruga, a 16-year-old who was forcefully disappeared in January, 2009 and investigation into the 2010 murder of Silvia Suppo, a human rights activist and torture survivor testifying in a landmark human rights trial.
Julio Lopez has been titled as the man disappeared twice. He last went missing four years ago on September 18, 2006 in his hometown of La Plata. He was disappeared on the day the that his perpetrator and former police chief Miguel Etchecolatz was sentenced to life in prison for crimes against humanity and genocide. Julio Lopez was absent from the courtroom, to witness the historic moment in the landmark trial having been abducted hours earlier.
Lopez was a key witness in the 2006 human rights trial in which Etchecolatz was found guilty of kidnapping, torture and murder of activists during the military dictatorship. Etchecolatz coordinated kidnappings and torture sessions in a network of clandestine detention centers in La Plata, 30 miles from Buenos Aires. In one of these torture centers, Lopez first met Etchecolatz during his detention from 1976-1979.
Julio Lopez is exactly where the repressors want him, in the abyss of impunity that the military have enjoyed for the past 34 years. Julio Lopez was never able to listen to the sentence of his repressors. He was kidnapped the day before his perpetrator Miguel Etchecolatz was sentenced to life in prison and Lopez became another disappeared.
“The forced disappearance of Lopez is called impunity,” wrote the human rights group HIJOS in a press release on the fourth anniversary of Lopez’s disappearance. Impunity for human rights abuses has been Argentina’s dark legacy. Since 1999, when the human rights trials were closed due to amnesty laws, the human rights group HIJOS went out into the streets and into former military officers’ neighborhoods to let the community know that they were living next to an individual who carried out abuses such as kidnapping, rape, torture and forced disappearances. On the fourth anniversary of Lopez’s disappearance HIJOS reminded the government of the results of letting the military go about their normal lives for more than a decade following the passage of amnesty protecting the military from criminal prosecution. “It is the consequence of nasty leftovers from the dictatorship which endured in democracy, added to the government’s lack of response to the seriousness of what occurred.”
Result of impunity
Now justice is possible in criminal courts, following the 2003 abolishment of amnesty laws that protected members of the military government from prosecution of human rights abuses. Many members under arrest were released in the 80’s when the amnesty law was passed. This amnesty allowed former armed forces members to maintain power and hold powerful positions such as judges and executives at private security firms. Etchecolatz was one such repressor who was put on trial and sentenced in the 80´s for abuses, specifically for 91 cases of torture, but later released. The former police chief conspired with local policemen to form right-wing, nationalist groups. “It was foreseeable that the repressors would not stand still when their time came to sit on the court room bench and answer to the courts and the Argentine people,” said the group HIJOS.
According to the human rights group CELS, more than 1,500 former members of the armed and security forces are facing charges of human rights abuses during the dictatorship. However, only 81 people have received sentences.
Meanwhile, the investigation into the disappearance of Julio Lopez has reached a deadlock. The government waited 19 months to consider Julio Lopez a case of forced disappearance. Authorities have also delayed investigation into communication to and from the Marcos Paz jail, where more than 40 repressors are currently under arrest and held under the same roof with the liberty to communicate with one another.
“It’s a combination of lack of response, complicity and covering up,” said Adriana Calvo at the march for Julio Lopez. No one has been investigated much less detained in the police investigation of the disappearance of Julio Lopez.
Witness Safety
“Lopez reminds us that the repressive apparatus has not been dismantled and the trials progress but witnesses and survivors testifying are in danger,” said Adriana Meyer, a journalist for the national newspaper Página/12. However, the government and the media have left the issue of witness safety from public spotlight.
The recent murder of Silvia Suppo, a key witness in a human rights trial on crimes committed during the Argentine dictatorship, has sparked fears for the safety of witnesses who testify publicly in the cases. Suppo, a torture survivor, was stabbed to death on March 29 at her crafts shop in the province of Santa Fe in an alleged robbery. In 2009, Suppo testified in a human rights trial against a former judge for his role in abuses during the dictatorship. Human Rights groups suspect that Suppo was killed to send a message to those still willing to testify as human rights trials progress.
For survivors there is a way to guarantee witnesses safety, for the trials to progress and for all of the repressors. “witness protection program is a mess. Witnesses in a human rights trial in La Plata have received isolated threats.,” said Carlos Zaidman, a torture survivor. “We believe that the only way to protect witnesses is for all of the repressors to be jailed. This has made is doubly important to testify. They haven’t stopped the struggle by disappearing 30,000 compañeros or by disappearing Lopez.”
Silence is impunity
For a democracy to flourish, impunity must end. While Argentina’s government has taken the lead in supporting efforts to try former military and police for rights abuses carried out during the junta years, justice has been slow. And the issue of Julio Lopez has entered an abyss of silence from the media and president.
Lopez’s family sent a letter to the president asking her to push for the investigation into the disappearance of Lopez so that the man who disappeared without a trace twice in his life doesn’t “become the first disappeared in democracy.”
This request has come too late as Argentina has a number of disappeared and thousands of victims of a state repressive apparatus still in tact. Julio Lopez, Miguel Bru and Luciano Arruga are just three of these disappeared in democracy. For democracy to avoid being disappeared, state repression must be abolished.
Julio Lopez presente!
Marie Trigona is an independent writer and radio producer based in Argentina. She can be reached through her blog www.mujereslibres.blogspot.com
The FBI Raids in Context
By RON JACOBS | Counterpunch | September 27, 2010
On September 24, 2010 the FBI raided several houses and a couple offices in Minneapolis/St. Paul, Chicago and North Carolina under the guise of looking for proof that the people living in those houses were involved with organizations that “lent material support to terrorists.” Ironically (or perhaps presciently) the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) also released an 88-page document titled The Policing of Political Speech: Constraints on Mass Dissent in the U.S on that day. Not content with criminalizing the representation provided by attorneys to those accused of fomenting terrorism, as in the case of Lynne Stewart, with these raids the Obama administration has stepped up the repression that became quite commonplace under George Bush.
In short, the government is attempting to criminalize the organizing of antiwar protests. Furthermore, it wants to make opposition to the the government’s assistance in repressing struggles for self-determination illegal. Other repressive actions by law enforcement against US citizens, including the sentencing of a videographer to 300 days in jail for trespass after he tried to film an unauthorized talk in Chicago and the acknowledgment by the Pittsburgh FBI office that it had spied on peace activists and used a private agency to help out, makes it clear that the PATRIOT Act and its excesses are alive and well under the Obama administration. Repression is a bipartisan activity, especially when it comes to the repression of the left.
These raids are a clear and vicious attempt to intimidate the antiwar movement. The grand jury is a fishing expedition, as evidenced (for example) by the warrant asking for papers from no determined time. This intimidation is a continuation of the harassment of the Twin Cities left/anarchist community that began before the 2008 Republican National Convention. As I recall, several organizers had their homes and offices raided prior to the convention. In addition, hundreds of protesters were arrested and many more were beaten by law enforcement thugs. Eight organizers were eventually charged with a variety of charges including conspiracy. As of September 25, 2010, three of those charged had all of their charges dropped and the rest face trial on October 25, 2010.
This is not just about the movement in the Twin Cities, however. The September 24 raids also took place in Chicago and North Carolina. There is a grand jury being convened in October 2010 with the intention of perhaps charging some of the people (and maybe others) subpoenaed on September 24. These raids are an attempt by the federal government to criminalize antiwar organizing. They are also an attempt to make support for the Palestinians and other people fighting for self-determination illegal.
The PATRIOT Act was passed on October 26, 2001. Since that passage, the level of law enforcement intimidation and outright repression increased quite dramatically. From little things like protesters being forced to protest in so-called free speech zones or face arrest to the recent approval of the assassination of US citizens by federal death squads, there has been a clear progression away from any concern for protecting civil liberties. Indeed, the concern for civil liberties is usually dismissed by politicians, judges, and other people in power almost as if they were some worthless costume trinkets from grandma’s jewelry box. As mentioned earlier, this harassment and repression is not new to US history. In addition to multiple murders of Black liberation activists, illegal surveillance, false imprisonment and other forms of harassment, the use of grand juries was essential to the repression of the antiwar and anti-racist movements of the 1960s and 1970s. As the NLG document points out, “from 1970-1973, over 100 grand juries in 84 cities subpoenaed over 1,000 activists.” However, nowadays there seems to be less resistance to it. Some of this can be attributed to the lack of press coverage, which is quite possibly intentional. Much of the lack of concern, however, can be attributed to the state of fear so many US residents live in. This is a testimony to the power of the mainstream media and its willingness to serve as the government’s propaganda wing.
To those who argue that the media don’t always support the government and then cite Fox News’ distaste for Obama or a liberal newspaper’s distaste for certain policies enacted under George Bush, let me point something out. Like the two mainstream political parties (and the occasional right wing third party movement like the Tea Party), even when different media outlets seem to be opposing each other, the reality is that none opposes the underlying assumptions demanded by the State. In fact, the only argument seems to be how better to effect the underlying plan of the American empire. The plan itself (or the rightness of the plan) is never seriously questioned.
The September 24, 2010 raids in the Twin Cities, Chicago and North Carolina may not seem like much, even to other antiwar organizers and leftists. The setting up of “free speech zones” may also appear minor. A grand jury fishing for supposed links to “terrorism” by antiwar activists may seem like no big deal. Violations of human rights in cases involving foreign nationals like Aafia Siddiqui (who was sentenced to 86 years after a trial that barely recognized her defense) do not even register on most Americans’ radar. Yet, it is the cumulative effect of all of these efforts at repression that we should be aware of. As James Madison wrote: “I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpation.”
If these seemingly minor encroachments on liberties we assume we have go unchallenged, how long might it be before assassinations and torture by the US military and their mercenary cohorts are carried out on US citizens? Oh wait, that’s already happening.
Ron Jacobs is author of The Way the Wind Blew: a history of the Weather Underground, which is just republished by Verso.
Palestinian AP Cameraman Deliberately Targeted, Beaten By The Army
Ma’an – September 26, 2010
HEBRON — Israeli forces assaulted and detained Associated Press photojournalist Nasser Shiyouki on Saturday as he covered the weekly anti-wall protest in Beit Ummar near Hebron, witnesses said.
An Israeli military spokeswoman said Shiyouki physically confronted forces and refused to adhere to soldiers’ requests to step back. She said the photographer was briefly detained, and that a report was filed with Israeli police, who would investigate the incident.
Clashes erupted between protestors and Israeli soldiers after dozens of Palestinian, Israeli and international activists rallied near Karmi Zur, an illegal Israeli settlement built on land confiscated from Beit Ummar and neighboring town Halhul. Demonstrators raised Palestinian flags and chanted anti-wall and anti-occupation slogans.
Locals said several protesters suffered from tear gas inhalation at the rally, while others were physically attacked by soldiers and sustained bruises.
The army spokeswoman said soldiers used riot dispersal mechanisms after demonstrators threw rocks at forces.
The weekly rally is organized by the national committee against the wall and the Palestine Solidarity Project.
FBI Launching Mass Raids of Antiwar Activists’ Homes
Obama replaces covert spying of the Bush era with overt intimidation
By Jason Ditz | Anti-war.com | September 24, 2010
The FBI is confirming that this morning they began a number of “raids” against the homes of antiwar activists, claiming that they are “seeking evidence relating to activities concerning the material support of terrorism.”
So far there do not appear to have been any arrests related to the raids nor, according to FBI spokesman Steve Warfield, are there any expected. He also insisted that there was “no imminent threat” related to the antiwar organization targeted. Some of the activists say they were ordered to appear before a grand jury, however.
The warrant against antiwar activist Mick Kelly’s home cited efforts to look into his ability to “pay for his own travel” to Palestine and Colombia and appeared to have been little more than a fishing expedition looking for possible links to “foreign terrorist organizations including but not limited to FARC, PFLP, and Hezbollah.” Kelly insists that the raids were about harassing antiwar organizers.
Officials said they were related to a Joint Terrorism Task Force investigation. The JTTF in Minneapolis has a long history of heavy-handed investigations against protest groups, including an attempt in 2008 to infiltrate a vegan potluck.
Most of the raids were conducted in Minneapolis and were related to antiwar leaders in that city. Other raids were also reported in Chicago, Michigan, and North Carolina. Many of the homes targeted in Minneapolis were related to the Marxist-Leninist group “Freedom Road Socialist Organization” (FRSO) but this was not the only group targeted.
According to Reuters, Chicago antiwar activist (and longtime gay rights activist) Andy Thayer was also targeted, which he attributed to “solidarity work, for speaking out on the issues of the day.”
CNN also listed the Palestine Solidarity Group, the Twin Cities Antiwar Committee, and Students for a Democratic Society as groups whose members were targeted. The Twin Cities Antiwar Committee’s office was also raided according to the group’s attorneys.
Israel: lawyer can’t accompany 14 year old sexual assault victim
DCI-Palestine and PCATI request investigation in assault case
Defence of Children International | 22 September 2010
On 20 September 2010, DCI-Palestine and the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) wrote to the Judge Advocate General’s office requesting an immediate investigation into the alleged assault of a 14-year-old boy in May 2010, in which an interrogator is alleged to have attached a set of car jump leads to the boy’s genitals.
DCI-Palestine and PCATI submitted complaints against the army and police in the case on 15 August 2010, and requested that the boy be accompanied by a lawyer of his choice throughout the investigation process. The request that the boy be accompanied by a lawyer is based on two factors:
-
Under Article 14 of the Rights of Victims of Crimes Law (2001) (Israel), victims of violent crime, including sex crimes, are entitled to be accompanied by a lawyer unless the investigating officer has reasonable grounds to believe that this will harm the investigation.
-
It is unreasonable to request a 14-year-old Palestinian child to attend an interview conducted by the Military Police, which must be considered as an integral part of the army and police force against whom the complaint is made. Further, the Military Police requested that the boy attend an interview with investigators at the Etzion facility, the same location where the alleged abuse is said to have taken place. The boy is understandably fearful of further contact with Israeli authorities. No less important is the consideration that the investigation must arrive at the truth while protecting the child from further trauma.
On 18 September 2010, DCI-Palestine was telephoned by the investigation authority and informed that if the boy insisted on being accompanied by a lawyer ‘the complaint will be archived and the process terminated.’ The only reason given as to why the boy can not be accompanied was that ‘the lawyer might affect the child’s testimony.’ However, no explanation or evidence was provided to support this suggestion, and the decision appears to be arbitrary and unreasonable.
In response, DCI-Palestine and PCATI have written to the Judge Advocate General requesting:
-
Acknowledgment in writing of receipt of the complaint dated 15 August 2010;
-
Reconsideration of the verbal advice not to permit the boy to be accompanied by a lawyer of his choice throughout the investigatory process; and
-
In the event that the investigatory authorities insist on preventing the boy from being accompanied by a lawyer, to provide comprehensive and detailed reasons in writing for the decision within 14 days.
Jerusalem remains on lockdown following clashes
JERUSALEM — Checkpoints were erected at the entrances to several Jerusalem neighborhoods on Friday, with soldiers preventing residents from leaving the areas in several cases, witnesses said.
Hundreds of police and border officers were deployed around the Old City, with 3,000 in total across East Jerusalem, officials estimated.
Israeli Police Commander in Chief Dudi Cohen reportedly decided to maintain the state of alert declared Friday morning in the city, extending it through the Jewish holiday of Sukkot.
The week earlier during the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, residents of the Palestinain neighborhoods of Jerusalem were also barred from moving from one area to another by car or walking through major roads.
Earlier in the day, Palestinians heading to the Old City for prayer at the Al-Aqsa Mosque faced tight restrictions, with men under 50 turned away on the grounds that security officials believed there was a risk of continued clashes if young men gathered.
Clashes erupted on Wednesday during a 1,000-strong funeral procession for Samer Sarhan, 28, one of two Palestinians killed by an Israeli settler guard early that morning.
On Friday, only three of the gates to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound were opened, as the Bab Hutta entrance remained closed for the third day in a row.
Checkpoints throughout the Old City saw soldiers stopping residents to check identity cards, and in some cases barring access to neighborhoods around the city.
West Bank crossings were sealed for the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, while extra closures were imposed on the East Jerusalem neighborhoods of Silwan, Al-Isawiya, Ras Al-Amoud, and the Shu’fat refugee camp, where clashes lasted late into Wednesday night, and continued periodically on Thursday.
Fatah officials detained
Israeli intelligence officers arrested two Fatah leaders from Silwan, identified as Ma’mun Al-A’basi, a member of Fatah in Jerusalem and appointee to the National Committee Against Expulsion, and Adnan Gheith, a party member.
Both were detained after Israeli forces entered their Jerusalem homes overnight, sources told Ma’an.
In the wake of the arrests, witnesses said checkpoints were installed at the entrances to Silwan and Wad Hilwa. Residents and goods were prevented from traveling in or out of the area.
Soldiers told residents that the barriers were erected following the injury of two officers on Thursday night during clashes.
Israeli media reports said the soldiers were transferred to hospital for treatment.
Silwan residents, barred from leaving the area for prayer at Al-Aqsa, are expected to gather at the protest tent for worship.
Aafia Siddiqui Sentenced: A Grievous Miscarriage of Justice
By Stephen Lendman | September 23, 2010
On September 23 in federal court, US District Court Judge Richard Berman sentenced political prisoner Aafia Siddiqui to 86 years in prison. Outrage most accurately expresses this gross miscarriage of justice, compounding what she’s already endured following her March 30, 2003 abduction, imprisonment, torture, prosecution, and conviction on bogus charges.
Earlier articles explained her case in detail, accessed through the following links:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2008/12/abduction-secret-detention-torture-and.html
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/02/aafia-siddiqui-victimized-by-american.html
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/03/aafia-siddiqui-victimized-by-american.html
In modern times, she’s one of American depravity’s most aggrieved victims, now given a virtual life sentence for a crime she didn’t and couldn’t have committed, explained in the above articles.
In recent months, she’s been in New York’s Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in maximum security solitary confinement, during her trial, conviction and September 23 sentencing. Importantly, her life was effectively destroyed by years of horrific tortures, repeated rapings, and other abuses in Bagram Prison at America’s Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan.
Addressing the court, said said “I’m not paranoid. I’m not mentally ill. I don’t agree with” anyone saying so, though it’s hard imagining why not after years of horrific brutalization. A Pakistani/American scientist, years of torture and abuse destroyed her persona, yet somehow she survived and endured more stress from prosecution, a travesty of a trial, conviction and sentencing.
Reporting on the court’s decision, the BBC repeated government lies, including her possessing bomb making instructions to blow up New York landmarks – “evidence that she was a potentially dangerous terrorist.” Yet her indictment was on totally different charges – preposterous ones accusing her of the following:
In the presence of two FBI agents, two Army interpreters, and three US Army officers, this frail 110 pound woman allegedly assaulted three of them, seized one of their rifles, opened fire at close range, hit no one, yet she alone was severely wounded.
At trial, no credible evidence was presented. The charges were concocted and bogus. None accused her of plotting to blow up New York or any other landmarks or facilities.
Yet proceedings were carefully orchestrated. Witnesses were enlisted, pressured, coerced, and/or bribed to cooperate. Jurors were then intimidated to convict, her attorney Elaine Whitfield Sharp, saying their verdict was “based on fear, not fact.” No evidence was presented except claims government prosecutors invented to convict.
The International Tribune also highlighted today’s proceedings, headlining “Dr. Aafia sentenced to 86 years imprisonment,” saying:
It was on seven counts “for allegedly firing at US troops in Afghanistan.” After the announcement, protests erupted across Pakistan. In Karachi, civil society and political party workers rallied “in front of the Karachi Press Club….ask(ing) the federal government” to intervene on her behalf.
Jamaat-e-Islami, PASBAN, Defense of Human Rights, and other civil society members marched toward the US Embassy, expressing outrage and demanding she be released “as a goodwill gesture.”
“Advisor to Sindh Chief Minister Ms. Sharmila Farooqui asked the United States to release (her) on humanitarian (grounds) as a goodwill gesture to Pakistan….Now is the time for the US to show goodness and pardon a Pakistani woman who is innocent.”
Farooqui said Aafia was wrongly abducted, then handed over to US authorities. She’s “an innocent woman,” outrageously treated, convicted and sentenced.
Explaining further she said:
“In Islam and Pakistan, handing over a woman to foreign countries is a sin, but it is a pity that an innocent woman was mercilessly given in(to the) hands of the (previous) US” government.
She also urged international human rights organizations to actively pursue her release.
A Final Comment
At issue is 9/11 truth, the subsequent bogus “war on terror” based on a lie, America’s war on Islam that followed against Iraq, Afghanistan, and Muslim Americans, victimized for political advantage. Aafia is perhaps its most aggrieved living victim, her persona destroyed and life ended by a virtual life sentence unless clemency or world pressure saves her.
Her case should incite everyone’s moral outrage. It also reveals America’s true face, its rogue agenda, targeting Muslims for their faith and ethnicity, making us all equally vulnerable.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com
Featured Video
Why the U.S. Should Pull Back From the First Island Chain
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
Only 19.7% of Americans agree with US State Dept on Israeli settlements
… Most American adults of voting age don’t appear willing to reject the applicability of international law to Israel’s ongoing colonization of occupied territories in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Golan Heights. … Full article
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Jennifer Kavanagh: Why the U.S. Should Pull Back From the First Island Chain
- Yemen denounces international community’s silence on Saudi aggression, siege
- UAE and Saudi Arabia move toward renewed coordination against Sanaa
- How Iran’s two-week retaliatory strikes exposed cracks in US military architecture in Persian Gulf
- The mother of all propaganda: Why the hype over US MOAB strike against Iran is nothing but theater
- Iran says it possesses technology behind US 14-ton GBU bunker-buster
- Trump asks Iran not to retaliate after he strikes Pickaxe Mountain – w/ Prof. Marandi
- Vice President J.D. Vance’s Deceptive ‘Antiwar’ Campaign Speech
- Iran: Palestinians’ rights must not be compromised in Gaza’s future; US, Israel to blame for Hormuz situation
- Ongoing tales of Syrian chemical weapons
- If Americans Knew
- Israeli rabbi permits occupiers to steal Palestinian olive harvest in West Bank
- Netanyahu’s spin on latest settler attack is laughable – Daily Update
- Israeli soldiers debunk Israel’s talking points
- In West Bank, Israeli settlers are totally out of control – Daily Update
- NPR investigation finds evidence of widespread fraud at mall kiosks tied to Israeli skincare brand
- Tucker Carlson exposes Israeli Lies about the Oct 7th attack, Charlie Kirk, and the U.S.
- Israel has detained thousands of Palestinian children since Oct 7th – over half spent time in solitary, many uncharged
- Israeli Analysis: Is Netanyahu Planning an ‘October Surprise’ Attack Before Israel’s Election?
- Israeli settlers brutally attack Palestinians and Washington Post female photographer, 65
- Words Have Changed, Occupation Continues: The Reality of the Gaza Ceasefire
- No Tricks Zone
- Predictions Made By Renowned Climate Proifessor Over Past Decades Have Been Proven To Be Poor
- New Study Suggests Large Regions Of The Pacific Ocean Have Been Cooling For The Last 80 Years
- Germany’s Green Energy Debacle: High Energy Costs Force Kahla Porzellan to Close After 182 Years!
- New Study: 50 Years Of The Most Aggressive ‘Net Zero’ Policies Can Only Affect The Global Climate By 0.03°C
- US September “Heat” Was No Record…Many Records Set Decades Ago
- Latest European Green Energy Debacle; Portugal’s Largest Flagship Solar Park Insolvent!
- Green Energy Debacle: German Expert Professor Fritz Vahrenholt Warns Of Severe Economic And Social Consequences
- Two More Paleo Reconstructions Affirm Meters-Higher Sea Levels Across Ireland, Brazil 7000-6000 Years Ago
- New Study: Earth And Venus Surface Warmth Largely Explained By Convection And Lapse Rate, Not CO2 Or Radiation
- 2025 Nature Paper Claiming Worsening Global Drought Gets RETRACTED …Heavily Flawed
