The Obama Justice Department is in theater mode, again, pretending to threaten the bankster class with criminal penalties – prison time! – for their manipulation of the global economy’s benchmark interest rates. The Justice Department claims to be building criminal and civil cases in the LIBOR scandal, which in sheer scope is the biggest fraud by international capital in history. But that’s all a front, a farce. Barack Obama has spent his entire presidency protecting Wall Street, starting with his rescue of George Bush’s bank bailout bill after it’s initial defeat in Congress, in the last days of Obama’s candidacy. He packed his administration with banksters, passed his own bailout and, in collaboration with the Federal Reserve, channeled at least $16 trillion dollars into the accounts of U.S. and even European banks – by far the greatest transfer of capital in the history of the world. Obama has reminded the banksters that it was he who saved them from the “pitchforks” of an outraged public. He pushed through Congress so-called financial reform legislation that left derivatives – the deadly instruments of mass financial destruction that were at the heart of the meltdown – untouched.
Wall Street may or may not remain loyal to Obama, but Obama has been loyal to Wall Street, the guys who gave him the campaign cash to become a viable candidate. His Attorney General, Eric Holder, a corporate lawyer to the core, is busily staging a pre-emptive LIBOR prosecution of bankers in order to shield them from legal action by a host of other government agencies and, ultimately, from the global universe of parties that have been harmed by the bankster’s schemes– a list that stretches to infinity. Holder’s job is to monopolize the LIBOR case, to the extent legally and humanly possible, grabbing jurisdiction and consolidating the cases against the banks with the aim of reaching a settlement that does not further destabilize the financial system.
Holder and his boss already pulled that trick earlier this year with settlement of the bank “robo-signing” scandal – a scheme that would have ranked as the “crime of the century” until LIBOR came along. A small group of state attorney generals were holding up an administration-brokered settlement that effectively gave the banksters immunity from prosecution, in return for a measly $25 billion payout. Obama used every power of his office to pressure the state law officers into line. The last one capitulated with a promise from Obama that a “special unit of prosecutors” would expand the investigation into abusive mortgages practices. You haven’t heard a peep about it, since.
Now Obama and Holder are playing the same diversionary game, making tough noises about criminal investigations of the LIBOR conspirators. But the Justice Department has already given immunity to Barclay’s Bank, of Britain, and to the Swiss banking giant UBS. More immunities will follow. The reason Eric Holder is staging criminal investigations is because that’s the only way he can protect the bankers, through immunities and by gradually narrowing the scope of the case. In the end, there will be settlements all around, and the banksters will move on to even more fantastic heights of criminality – thanks to the loyal, protective hands of President Obama.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.
July 18, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Deception, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | Eric Holder, London Interbank Offered Rate, Obama, UBS, United States Department of Justice, Wall Street |
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TEL AVIV: On Monday, student activists examined the remains of a Palestinian cemetery that had been uprooted and mostly destroyed to make space for a shopping center and new student dorms for Tel Aviv University (TAU).
A large part of TAU is built on land that used to be a Palestinian village, al-Sheikh Muwanniz, before the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. According Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi, the village’s 1948 population exceeded 2,000.
Despite an nonaggression agreement between the villagers and Haganah, the Jewish militia that later became the foundation for the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), Irgun, another Jewish militia, enacted a campaign of abductions that led to the disappearance of five village leaders in the tense months leading up to the war. Several nearby villages were razed, and eventually the majority of al-Sheikh Muwanniz fled. Most became refugees in the West Bank villages of Tulkarem and Qalqiya.
The construction of the dorms and shopping center began over eight months ago. The crew has blocked off two graves with plastic netting, one of which holds the remains of the village mukhtar, or leader. Cigarette butts have been tossed in the graves.
The activists took photos of the two semi-preserved graves and the bones which were uprooted. Several other bones, including a shattered fragment of a skull, were scattered across the construction site.
“There were definitely more than two graves here,” said Jabr, one of the students, as he carefully sifted through mounds of dirt and uncovered more bone shards, photographing each of them.
As the students left, two women were denied entrance to the site. “Both of our grandparents are buried here,” one said. “Our families are from al-Sheikh Muwanniz.”
They said they had not been notified that their relatives’ graves were being dug up, and that they only found out through Facebook two days ago, after the Al-Aqsa Foundation for Waqf and Heritage posted a notification.
“Well, they are building the new Museum of Tolerance on top of a Palestinian Muslim graveyard in Jerusalem,” Gaby, another TAU student, told Bikyamasr.com.
Activists told Bikyamasr.com that the destruction of al-Sheikh Muwanniz’s cemetery is consistent with the longstanding tradition of erasing Palestinian history. Tel Aviv University is often identified as a leftist bastion within Israeli society; the destruction of al-Sheikh Muwanniz’s cemetery, the activists charge, demonstrates that even mainstream Israeli liberalism depends on the suppression of the Palestinian historical narrative.
July 18, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Israel, Tel Aviv University, Walid Khalidi |
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Israel has a law that requires police and security officials to record their interrogations of suspects who are charged with crimes carrying a sentence of ten years or more. That sounds great, right? Just the way a democracy should work. But hold on. There’s a hole in the law big enough to drive a Mack truck through. Both the police and Shin Bet are exempt from this law as far as security detainees are concerned. In other words, in order to allow security personnel to use whatever means they wish, the Knesset permits them to have no recordings that might offer evidence of widely reported abuse and torture used against such prisoners.
The exemption was due to expire recently after it had initially been extended first for five years, then another four. But never fear, we won’t abandon our boys doing the dirty work on our behalf in the cells of Shabak. So the Knesset will extend the exemption for another three years, doing its duty on behalf of the secret police.
Here’s the reasoning (Hebrew) behind the exemption in all its fetid glory:
In the special circumstances of security investigations, which involve the fight against extremist, well-organized terror groups, documenting interrogations is liable to damage in a very real way the quality of security investigations, and thus the ability to deter terror threats.
Not a word about damaging the quality of Israeli democracy since it’s taken a back seat to security from almost day one of the existence of the State.
The Shin Bet chief of investigations, who was present at the Knesset deliberation, wove this nice fairy tale for the assembled solons:
Shin Bet investigations are overseen and documented from the beginning to the end [note he doesn’t say how they’re documented, in what form, etc.]. We’re not talking about damaging anyone’s human rights, but rather protecting our methods. The exemption is necessary so that our enemies don’t learn our investigative methods.
So get this, Shin Bet interrogations are the equivalent of work product and mustn’t be revealed because to do so would allow Israel’s enemies to learn how it ‘persuades’ prisoners to give it the information it demands. Presumably, that would enable terror groups to prepare their cadre for such interrogations in order to withstand them. Not a word about the possibility that such recordings would reveal the nasty quasi-criminal enterprise that the security agencies conduct on behalf of the State. Lest you think the previous sentence was hyperbolic, go back and read this post about a provoked prison riot which the prison security service put down with brutal force, ending with the murder of a prisoner who wasn’t even engaging in protest. Now, recall that the commander who oversaw this exercise wasn’t disciplined or even investigated. In fact, he was promoted for doing his job so well.
Israeli human rights NGOs dutifully raised their voices (Hebrew) in opposition. But they were drowned out by the swelling chorus of support for any and all methods used to beat confessions and information out of detainees. Here are some of their wise, but unheeded words:
The need for recording security interrogations is greater because of the need for certainty that a confession is valid and because of the critical importance of ensuring that the investigation was conducted properly, preventing the use of improper methods. Prisoner populations are the most likely to be exposed to the danger of degrading or inhumane conditions, including the use of physical or emotional violence up to and including outright torture. Recording interrogations can aid greatly in determining the credibility of complaints of improper acts. It can supply objective specific documentation regarding the conduct of an investigation, either supporting or refuting the charges of the detainees.
Like voices crying out in the wilderness. They speak but there is no one to hear. In fact, the existence of the NGOs, though an inconvenience for the authorities, allows them to tell the world: we are a democracy; look at how our NGOs freely criticize us; what more can you ask of us?
There are those who’ve questioned my contention here that security prisoners like Dirar Abusisi, Ameer Makhoul, Mustafa Dirani, and others have been tortured during their interrogations. They’ve done this despite the fact that defense lawyers have described in detail the sleep deprivation, loud noises, being tied to a chair for long periods, anal penetration, and worse. Now, I’ll throw it back in their face: if you’re confident there is no such abuse, protest the lack of documentation of the interrogations. If you don’t then you’re little more than a hypocrite because the video or audio tape would prove your claim. Without it, you have nothing, not a leg to stand on.
Any of you American’s out there reading this, don’t get any big ideas about how superior our legal system is to Israel’s (though given the horrid record of the Obama administration it’s hard to see how anyone would believe this). Remember the videotapes of brutal waterboarding by CIA inquisitors that were destroyed when word began to leak out that they existed? Remember Jose Rodriguez, the CIA officer who destroyed them, who wasn’t even investigated, let alone punished for obstruction of justice?
We are no better than Israel in this, which is what makes it all the more tragic.
July 17, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | Ameer Makhoul, Central Intelligence Agency, Israel, Knesset, Mustafa Dirani, Shin Bet, Tikun Olam (blog) |
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In April 2011 – Turkish President Abdullah Gul in a New York Times Op-Ed, warned both Benjamin Netanyahu and Barack Obama that the “Arab Revolution is aimed at Israel”. However, later events in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Syria proved that Abdullah Gul was totally wrong.
Last week, Gabriel M. Scheinmann, a visiting Fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), admitted that the Zionist entity is in fact the winner of the so-called “Arab Spring”.
“The so-called “Arab Spring” has, paradoxically, made Israel stronger as Israel’s enemies have turned on each other. While Arab capitals burn, Jerusalem has calmly and carefully steeled itself against the possible immediate deleterious effects, building fences along its Egyptian and Jordanian borders and accelerating the deployment of its Iron Dome anti-missile system,” wrote Scheinmann. He then added: “Even as it rightly plans for the changes wrought by the “Arab Spring”, Israel should also recognize that as the Middle East convulses, it is more likely to be left alone. As Alawites battle Arab Sunnis and Kurds in Syria, as Kurds target Turks in Turkey, as the Imazighen fight Arabs in Libya, as the Army contends with Islamists in Egypt, and as Sunnis and Christians confront Shiites in Lebanon, people don’t have the time, energy, or resources to fight the Jews in Israel. The more the region tears itself apart, the more Israel floats to the top, unscathed economically, militarily, or diplomatically. While an Islamist ascent is undesirable, the intervening disorder only makes Israel stronger.”
Karen DeYoung, in Gen. Colin Powell’s biography, ‘SOLDIER: The life of Colin Powell’, has quoted Powell twice saying that “the Iraq war was the product of Donald Rumsfeld’s absorption in the “JINSA crowd.” By the way, Dick Cheney was on JINSA’s Board of Advisors before becoming vice president, where he was joined by Ledeen, Feith, Perle, James Woolsey, and John Bolton.
Both AIPAC and JINSA are behind Washington’s regime change in Tehran.” So far the Israel lobby has failed to make its dream come true, as Vali Nasr, author of The Shia Revival, wrote: “The wars of 2001 and 2003 have fundamentally changed the Middle East to Iran’s advantage.”
Lebanon’s interior minister, retired Maj. Gen. Marwan Charbel in a recent interview with RT has claimed that the Zionist entity is the only country which has benefited from the so-called “Arab Spring”.
The so-called “Arab Spring” is the defacto working of Zionist elements in the United States. The brainchild is within the Israel-Firsters, and by extension the Zionist entity.
July 17, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Arab Spring, Egypt, Israel, Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, Middle East, New York Times, Syria, United States |
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A recently-released Pentagon report admits to interrogating Guantanamo Bay prisoners after administering mind-altering treatments to them – often forcibly against their will – but stresses it was not done for the purposes of interrogation.
The report by the inspector general of the US Department of Defense obtained by truth-out.org under the Freedom of Information Act, found that some Gitmo inmates were questioned while receiving prescribed psychoactive treatments.
The Pentagon has tried to justify the facility staff’s actions, saying that “nowhere in the medical records did we find any evidence of mind-altering drugs being administered for the purpose of interrogation,” as the report states on page 13.
“The detainees were not given drugs as a means to facilitate interrogation,” insisted Pentagon spokesman Army Lt. Col. Todd Breasseale.
But the report does admit that “certain detainees, diagnosed as having serious mental health conditions being treated with psychoactive medications on a continuing basis, were interrogated.”
The inspector general also notes that “numerous” inmates have complained of being medicated against their will, but adds that wardens have used treatments known as “chemical restraints” to quell the aggressive individuals.
“Some detainees were involuntarily medicated to help control serious mental illnesses,” says a former commander of the Joint Medical Group at Guantanamo.
The report further admits that drugs administered “could impair an individual’s ability to provide accurate information.”
The medication under question, known as Haldol, has been used for over 50 years, and is often administered in psychiatric wards. Several side effects including depression, suicidal behavior and heart attacks are known to exist.
The Pentagon spokesman has refused to comment about how often such substances are used at the detention center, where the US has locked up nearly 170 men, writes the Washington Post.
Being drugged-up changes nothing?
After reviewing the report, David Remes, an attorney of one of the detainees, sounded an alarm saying that there is a vast possibility that statements and evidence obtained from those using psychoactive medication cannot be used in order to justify charging detainees held at the base.
The revelations in the study have raised numerous concerns among human rights activists.
“The inspector general’s report confirms that detainees whose mental deterioration and suffering was so great as to lead to psychosis and attempts at self-harm were given anti-psychotic medication and subjected to further interrogation,” Leonard Rubenstein, a medical ethicist at Johns Hopkins Center for Public Health and Human Rights, told truth-out.org.
However, some stipulate that evidence obtained through these methods would hold up in court.
Shayana Kadidal, from the Center for Constitutional Rights says that under the system set up by the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, any statements detainees made during these interrogations would be presumed accurate “even if detainees took medication that could produce unreliable information.”
Kadidal added that “the burden ends up falling upon the detainee to prove what was said wasn’t accurate if they were challenging their detention in habeas corpus proceedings.”
July 13, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | Freedom of Information Act, Guantanamo Bay detention camp, Pentagon, Psychoactive drug, United States, United States Department of Defense |
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In a UK Telegraph article today, Sir John Sawers, Britain’s head of the Secret Intelligence Service, known as MI6, was reported as telling an audience of public servants that the Americans were so keen to get intelligence after 9/11 that would fit their propaganda that they resorted to torture in order to ‘get the right answer’.
Sawers told the gathering
There’s always a danger that, as a bunch of secret squirrels, you can get involved in something that takes you down a pathway where you end up in the wrong place.
The Americans have done that over their interrogation techniques after 9/11. They got so obsessed with getting a right answer that they drifted into an area that kind of amounted to torture.
One has to wonder what the ‘right answer’ was that they were seeking. Could it be that it was one that fitted in with their version of the events of 9/11? Is this why Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was subjected to over 180 incidents of waterboarding torture in March 2003 in the course of which he confessed to having been the principal architect of the 9/11 attacks on behalf of al Qaeda?
And, just to tie in al Qaeda with a few other ‘terrorist’ loose ends, was it this obsession with ‘getting the right answer’ that also led to Mohammed confessing also to many other terrorist plots over the last twenty years, including the 1993 World Trade Center bombings, Operation Bojinka, which was an attempted 2002 attack on the US Bank Tower in Los Angeles, the Bali nightclub bombings, the attempted blowing up of American Airlines Flight 63, the so-called Millennium Plot, and the murder of Daniel Pearl?
“Obsessed with getting a right answer”?
Aren’t we all!
July 13, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Subjugation - Torture | al-Qaeda, John Sawers, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, United States |
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Syria appears to be entering an even more chaotic and dangerous period in its civil war now that Israeli officials are concocting potential threats that must be addressed by Israeli intervention. The latest series of stories derives from U.S. and Israeli intelligence circles and suggests that Syria has a “vast stockpile” (Wall Street Journal) or “hundreds of tons” (Rupert Murdoch’s Sky News) of chemical weapons that could fall into the hands of Al Qaeda, Iran’s ayatollahs or God knows who, should Bashar al-Assad’s regime fall. Naturally, Israel would have to protect its interests and intervene to prevent this from happening:
Hundreds of tonnes of Syria’s stockpile of deadly nerve gas could fall into the hands of terrorist groups if the regime of Bashar al-Assad falls apart amid widening concerns that Israel could go to war to try to stop this ‘Doomsday threat‘.
The fact that this would give Israel a further opportunity to tweak its Iranian enemy and ensure the installation of a pro-Israel puppet regime in Syria would of course be entirely incidental and unintentional.
The Sky News report in particular seems to be pure garbage, claiming to know the locations of all chemical warfare labs in the country plus additional storage sites. The report provides no attribution or source, not even an anonymous one. According to Sky, Al Qaeda is not only active in Syria, but has specifically told its member to get their hands on chemical weapons. Again no quotations or source offered to bolster the claim. To hear Sky tell it, missiles filled with Sarin and other potent nerve gases are sitting on launching pads waiting either for Assad to launch them or for the rebels to get their fingers on the button. And of course the rockets can hit “any location in Israel,” the required hysteria inducing phrase harkening back to Saddam’s SCUDs and other visions of Zionist apocalypse.
Here is former Mossad chief Danny Yatom nicely hitting all the grace notes of hasbara interventionism :
Israel is deeply concerned that Assad may deliberately give Hezbollah chemical weapons – or that they could end up in the hands of other terror groups. In either case, this could lead to a regional war, Danny Yatom, the former head of Mossad warned.
“The conventional wisdom should be that we cannot exclude a non-conventional attack on Israel. We would have to pre-empt in order to prevent it. We need to be prepared to launch even military attacks… and military attacks mean maybe a deterioration to war,” he told Sky News.
Though on its face, Yatom is advocating for Israeli intervention, it’s also possible he’s playing the not so subtle game of pressuring the U.S. and its allies to act by threatening to act if they don’t do so first. The operative thinking would be saying to the Americans: if you don’t do something, we will; since you won’t like how we’ll handle this, you better take care of it yourself.”
Israel seems to be laying down its marker and saying it too has an interest in determining the nature of the next Syrian regime. Israel will go to very great lengths to ensure it does not have a proto-Iranian regime on its front doorstep, even to the extent of directly intervening. All of which would be devastating not just for Syria, but for the entire region. Israeli “intervention” into affairs in Iran, Lebanon and Gaza has greatly destabilized those countries and wreaked general mayhem. More of this sort of “help” the Middle East does not need.
Here’s more unfounded hysteria on behalf of interventionism:
There are widespread fears that a Gaddafi-style collapse of Syria into chaos, would mean that chemical weapons would spread around the globe.
Yes, of course widespread fears. So widespread we don’t even have to tell you who specifically is afraid and of what. People, we’ve seen this movie before and it was a stinker the first time. Do we need to see it again to know just how bad the sequel is? The original was called Bush Brings You Iraqi WMD. Remember those mushrooms clouds Condi Rice pictured for your visual delectation? Isn’t it a bit like having déjà vu all over again, to paraphrase Yogi Berra?
No less a Hero of Zion than Yair Naveh, IDF deputy chief of staff, is also getting into the act:
Major general Yair Naveh, the deputy chief of staff of the Israeli Defence Force, recently warned a private congregation at a Jerusalem synagogue that Syria’s chemical weapons posed a mortal threat to the Jewish State.
“As for Syria, we all hear the news … (if) Syrians … behave this way to their people it is clear … how they will behave towards us – to our sons – when they get the opportunity against us, with the largest chemical weapons arsenal in the world, with missiles and rockets that cover all of Israel”.
Naveh is also quoted more extensively in this AFP article. If the name sounds familiar, this is the same Yair Naveh who ordered the execution of unarmed Palestinians in contravention of Israeli Supreme Court rulings. News of which was leaked by Anat Kamm to Uri Blau, all of which landed both of them in court (and her in prison), while Naveh earned a promotion for his trouble.
Though the WSJ is also a Murdoch media trophy, it has slightly higher standards and actually notes how problematic this entire issue can be:
Because of the faulty intelligence about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction that were used to justify the Iraq war, U.S. officials are extremely cautious about using reports of Mr. Assad’s chemical stockpiles to support military intervention.
But note that this is precisely what the WSJ, Sky, and similar media reports are doing: ratcheting up pressure for regime change. The war hawk camp in the Obama administration makes no bones about this and beats the drums of war using every available weapon to do so:
“The regime has a plan for ethnic cleansing, and we must come to terms with this,” the first U.S. official said. “There is no diplomatic solution.”
But the statement simply has no basis either in fact or even in fantasy. But “ethnic cleansing” does have such a nice genocidal ring to it. Just the thing to rouse the quiescent world from its moral slumber.
Unnamed “opposition leaders” (and you know how reliable those folks have been lately) further buttress the ethnic cleansing meme:
Opposition leaders maintain there are increasing indications that the Damascus regime is trying to cleanse strategic areas, such as Hama and Homs, of Sunnis in order to set up an ethnic state that could be defended by the Assads’ Allawite [sic] ethnic minority.
No word on who these opposition leaders are or what the “increasing indications” specifically are. Of course not. What do you expect? Facts, evidence. C’mon.
To be clear, I harbor no affection for Assad and his regime. If there was an effective way to end his rule and guarantee the Syrian people would have a genuine representative government–I’d be all for it. But as it is, Syria is likely to get a domestic version of Ahmad Chalabi, rather than a real Syrian nationalist patriot to run its government. At least, that’s what I fear will happen if the west and Israel try to cast their typical spell on the country, bringing the “birth pangs of a new Middle East” as Israel did to Lebanon in 2006 (remember Condi’s infamous line?).
July 13, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Danny Yatom, Israel, Middle East, Mossad, Sky News, Syria, Yair Naveh |
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Dozens of civilians were killed and wounded when terrorists overran the village of al-Treimsa in Hama Countryside yesterday, SANA news agency reported.
“The terrorists, according to eye witnesses who appeared on Syrian TV to narrate the reality of events on the ground, ransacked, destroyed and burned scores of the village houses before the competent authorities arrived to the village,” SANA said.
Abo Arif al-Khalid, an eye witness from the targeted village, stated in a phone call to Syrian TV, that the village of al-Treimsa lived a nightmare when armed terrorist groups attacked it and opened random fire on its inhabitants and houses, killing more than 50 persons, and exploding houses, among which was the house of his cousin, it added.
A woman and her child were killed by the terrorists before the eyes of all the people there, added Abo Arif al-Khalid, regretting the absence of the Syrian Army or security personnel from the village.
”Had the Army or security personnel existed in the village, the terrorists wouldn’t have been able to overrun the village and perpetrate their massacres,” cried al-Khalid.
The security units, in response to al-Treimsa inhabitants’ pleas, clashed with the terrorists, inflicting massive losses upon them, capturing scores of them, confiscating their weapons, among which were Israeli-made machineguns, SANA revealed.
Three security personnel were martyred during the clashes, according to SANA reporter in Hama.
Meanwhile, an information source cited by SANA blasted the news circulated by some bloody media outlets, like al-Jazeera and al-Arabyia, as a bid to manipulate public opinion against Syria and its people and to bring foreign intervention in Syria on the eve of a UN Security Council session.
July 13, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | Syria, Syrian Arab News Agency, Terrorism, United Nations Security Council |
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The conclusion of a report of a Japanese parliamentary panel issued last week that the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster was rooted in government-industry “collusion” and thus was “man-made” is mirrored throughout the world. The “regulatory capture” cited by the panel is the pattern among nuclear agencies right up to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
“The Fukushima nuclear power plant accident was the result of collusion between the government, the regulators and Tepco [Tokyo Electric Power Company, the owner of the six Fukushima plants] and the lack of governance by said parties,” said the 641-page report of The Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission released on July 5.
“They effectively betrayed the nation’s right to be safe from nuclear accidents. Therefore, we conclude that the accident was clearly ‘man-made,’” said the report of the panel established by the National Diet or parliament of Japan.
“We believe the root causes were the organizational and regulatory system that supported faulty rationales for decisions and actions,” it went on. “Across the board, the commission found ignorance and arrogance unforgivable for anyone or any organization that deals with nuclear power.” It said nuclear regulators in Japan and Tepco “all failed to correctly develop the most basic safety requirements.”
The chairman of the 10-member panel, Kiyoshi Kurokawa, a medical doctor, declared in the report’s introduction: “It was a profoundly man-made disaster—that could and should have been foreseen and prevented.”
He also placed blame on cultural traits in Japan. “What must be admitted—very painfully,” wrote Dr. Kurokawa, “is that this was a disaster ‘Made in Japan.’ Its fundamental causes are to be found in the ingrained conventions of Japanese culture; our reflexive obedience; our reluctance to question authority; our devotion to ‘sticking with the programme’; our groupism; and our insularity.”
In fact, the nuclear regulatory situation in Japan is the rule globally.
In the United States, for example, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and its predecessor agency, the Atomic Energy Commission, never denied a construction or operating license for a nuclear power plant anywhere, anytime. The NRC has been busy in recent times not only giving the go-ahead to new nuclear power plant construction in the U.S. but extending the operating licenses of most of the 104 existing plants from 40 to 60 years—although they were only designed to run for 40 years. That’s because radioactivity embrittles their metal components and degrades other parts after 40 years making the plants unsafe to operate. And the NRC is now considering extending their licenses for 80 years.
Moreover, the NRC’s chairman, Gregory Jaczko, recently resigned in the face of an assault on him by the nuclear industry and his four fellow NRC members led by William D. Magwood, IV. Magwood is typical of most NRC and AEC commissioners through the decades—a zealous promoter of nuclear power. He came to the NRC after running Advanced Energy Strategies through which he served as a consultant to various companies involved with nuclear power including many in Japan—among them Tepco.
Before that, Magwood served as director of nuclear energy for the U.S. Department of Energy. He “led the creation,” according to his NRC biography, of DOE programs pushing nuclear power, “Nuclear Power 2010” and “Generation IV.” Prior to that, he worked for the Edison Electric Institute and Westinghouse, a major nuclear power plant manufacturer.
Jaczko, although a supporter of nuclear power, with a Ph.D. in physics, repeatedly called for the NRC to apply “lessons learned” from the Fukushima disaster to its rules and actions—upsetting the industry and the other four NRC commissioners. As Jaczko declared in February as the other four NRC commissioners first approved the construction of new nuclear plants since Fukushima, giving the go-ahead to two plants in Georgia: “I cannot support issuing this license as if Fukushima had never happened.”
The NRC was set up to be an independent regulator of nuclear power to replace the AEC which was established by Congress under the Atomic Energy Act of 1946. The AEC was given the dual missions of promoting and regulating nuclear power—a conflict of interest, Congress realized in 1974, so it eliminated the AEC and created the NRC as regulator and, later, the Department of Energy as promoter of nuclear power. But both the NRC and DOE have ended up pushing nuclear power with revolving doors between them and the government’s national nuclear laboratories—and the nuclear industry.
The International Atomic Energy Agency was established as an international version of the AEC by the United Nations after a speech made at it by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1953 in which he espoused “Atoms for Peace.” Its dual missions are serving as a monitor of nuclear technology globally while also seeking “to accelerate and enlarge the contribution of atomic energy to peace, health and prosperity throughout the world.”
Its first director general was Sterling Cole who as a U.S. congressman was a big booster of nuclear power. Later came Hans Blix after he led a move in his native Sweden against an effort to close nuclear plants there. Blix was outspoken in seeking to spread nuclear power internationally calling for “resolute response by government, acting individually or together as in the [IAE] Agency.”
Blix’s long-time IAEA second-in command was Morris Rosen—formerly of the AEC and before that the nuclear division of General Electric (which manufactured the Fukushima plants)—who said after the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster: “There is very little doubt that nuclear power is a rather benign industrial enterprise and we may have to expect catastrophic accidents from time to time.”
Mohamed ElBaradei of Egypt followed Blix, and as he told an “International Conference on Nuclear Power for the 21st Century” organized by the IAEA in 2005: “There is clearly a sense of rising expectations for nuclear power.”
The current IAEA director general is Yukiya Amano of Japan. In Vienna at the heaquarters of the IAEA, marking the first anniversary of the Fukushima disaster in March, Amano said: “Nuclear power is now safer than it was a year ago.”
Really?
Shuya Nomura, a member of the Japanese investigation commission and a professor at the Chuo Law School, was quoted in the New York Times as saying that the panel’s report tried to “shed light on Japan’s wider structural problems, on the pus that pervades Japanese society.” And, noted the Times, he added, “This report contains hints on how Japanese society needs to change.”
Those “wider structural problems” are far wider than Japan—they are global. The “regulatory capture” cited in the Japanese panel’s report has occurred all over the world—with the nuclear industry and those promoting nuclear power in governments making sure that the nuclear foxes are in charge of the nuclear hen houses. The “pus that pervades Japanese society” is international. With some very important exceptions, people have not adequately taken on the nuclear authorities. And we all must. The nuclear promoters have set up a corrupt system to enable them to get their way with their deadly technology. They have lied, they have connived, they have distorted governments. The nuclear industry is thus allowed to do whatever it wants. The nuclear pushers must be firmly challenged and they and nuclear power must be stopped.
Karl Grossman, professor of journalism at the State University of New York/College of New York, is the author of the book, The Wrong Stuff: The Space’s Program’s Nuclear Threat to Our Planet. Grossman is an associate of the media watch group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR). He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion.
July 12, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Nuclear Power, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Fukushima, Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, Gregory Jaczko, International Atomic Energy Agency, NRC, Nuclear Regulatory Commission |
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I sent the following note to Amnesty on June 16 after it put out a detailed report on the conflict in Syria:
Dear Amnesty
In your most recent report on Syria you ask the UN Security Council to impose an arms embargo on the Syrian government. You ask for no such arms embargo on the Syrian rebels and only ask that the Security Council “request” of states who supply the rebels that they put “mechanisms” in place to prevent the arms from being used to violate human rights: <www.amnestyus…rce=W1206EDMNAP>.
In 2009, you asked for the Security Council to “to impose an immediate, comprehensive arms embargo on all parties to the conflict in Gaza” (my emphasis): <www.amnesty.o…mounts-20090115>.
Please explain why you think arming Palestinians is harmful to a peaceful resolution of the conflict in Gaza, while apparently believing that arming rebels in Syria is benign or perhaps even helpful.
Would you trust the Assad regime to arms rebels in foreign countries in such a way as prevent human rights abuses? What is it about the track record of the Saudi state or the US government that makes Amnesty believe that they would ever attempt to arm the Syrian rebels in such a way as to prevent human rights abuses — assuming such a feat is even possible?
I’ve rarely received replies to the numerous notes I’ve sent Amnesty over the years. I was surprised to see this one on July 4:
Dear Mr Emersberger,
Thank you for contacting Amnesty International. Please accept our apologies for the delay in responding to you.
You ask why there is not a call for a total arms embargo on supplies to all parties to the conflict in Syria, similar to the comprehensive arms embargo Amnesty International called for in 2009 in the context of the conflict in Gaza.
Amnesty International’s policy on the transfer of military, security and police equipment is that when we can make a reasonable assumption based on the available facts that a specific transfer or set of transfers will be used to contribute to serous [sic] violations or abuses of human rights, then Amnesty International can call for the cessation of that transfer or set of transfers. Our action is guided by what is likely to provide the greatest degree of human rights protection.
Amnesty International only calls for a total ban on all arms supplies if certain criteria are met, for example, when there is overwhelming evidence that arms provided have been used to commit crimes under international law on a systematic basis or mass scale. As such, I would like to emphasise that Amnesty International has been raising concerns with Hamas about deliberately targeting civilians and carrying out indiscriminate attacks for a decade. As early as 2002, we characterised the campaign of suicide bombings and other attacks on civilians by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups to be crimes against humanity. In the context of the 2009 Gaza conflict, we found that firing indiscriminate rockets at Israeli towns was a war crime.
Hence it is evident that these Palestinian armed groups have a proven track record, over many years, of consistently committing abuses involving the use of weapons, despite Amnesty International’s repeated expressions of concern. These groups have not only failed to address our concerns but persisted in perpetrating such abuses. Therefore, we called for a comprehensive arms embargo on these groups in order to prevent serious abuses in the future.
Following our research into the situation in Syrian, where the government forces have committed wide-spread and systematic violations of human rights and attacks amounting to crimes against humanity, Amnesty International believes that this criterion has also been met. Amnesty International began calling for an arms embargo on Syria in April 2011, when the Syrian authorities were repressing peaceful protestors, and before any armed opposition had developed. We are now clarifying that our intention with this call remains the complete halting of the flow of weapons, munitions, armaments and related equipment to the Syrian government forces and associated militia.
Based upon the evidence we have at our disposal, the abuses reported to have been committed by armed opposition groups in Syria have not yet reached the level where we would call for a total embargo on all arms in the same manner as we are doing with regard to the government.
However, in line with Amnesty International’s policy on arms transfers — whether to states or to other parties to a conflict — we call on governments which may be considering supplying the opposition with arms to protect the civilian population to first have in place the necessary mechanisms to ensure that any material to be supplied will not be used to commit serious human rights abuses and/or war crimes — in other words, to refrain from supplying any arms where there is a substantial risk that those arms are likely to be used to commit or facilitate such crimes or serious abuses.
The mechanisms should include a rigorous risk assessment and monitoring process, which would enable such arms transfers to be halted should evidence emerge that they are being used to carry out human rights abuses, or are being transferred or diverted to third parties. The mechanism should also include a system for limiting arms supplied to only those weapons, munitions and related equipment which are not inherently indiscriminate (e.g. no use of anti-personnel land mines or cluster bombs), and a system for ensuring that those who receive the arms are equipped with the practical knowledge and awareness of international human rights and humanitarian law to understand their obligation to uphold the relevant standards and their criminal liability under international humanitarian law should they fail to do so.
For us to conclude that a total embargo on arms supplies to the opposition is necessary, our research would need to show that the level of abuses committed by armed opposition groups had reached the requisite level of gravity. As mentioned above, our researchers are currently researching abuses by armed opposition groups, and we would, of course, not hesitate to make such a call for a total arms embargo on the opposition should our research show the situation warranted it.
But in the meantime, I would underline the importance of the requirement for effective mechanisms to be in place to ensure that any particular material to be supplied is not likely to be used to commit serious human rights abuses or war crimes.
I replied the same day:
Dear Amnesty:
Your reply to me states that “In the context of the 2009 Gaza conflict, we found that firing indiscriminate rockets at Israeli towns was a war crime.” Hence you called for total embargo on arms to both the Palestinians and the Israelis. In the case of Syria, you stated that “the abuses reported to have been committed by armed opposition groups in Syria have not yet reached the level where we would call for a total embargo on all arms in the same manner as we are doing with regard to the government.”
According to figures gathered by B’Tselem, a source I’m sure Amnesty considers very reliable, eight Israeli civilians, at most, were killed by Palestinian rocket fire or other weapons in the last 3 years.1
In Syria, one rebel attack alone, a very recent assault on a TV station killed seven civilians.2 Islamic extremists claimed responsibility for bombings in Damascus that killed 55 people in May, several weeks before your statement was published.3
These figures alone, nowhere near exhaustive in the case of the Syrian rebel groups, expose the remarkable double standard you have applied in calling for an arms embargo on Palestinians but not on Syrian rebels.
You also suggested in your reply that Hamas’ track record since 2002 justifies your call for an arms embargo on Palestinians. However, you ignored my questions regarding the track record of the states supporting the Syrian rebels. I ask again
“What is it about the track record of the Saudi state or the US government that makes Amnesty believe that they would ever attempt to arm the Syrian rebels in such a way as to prevent human rights abuses?”
I would refer you to your own reports on the Saudi and US governments over many years. The track record of both states is appalling and has been for decades — in the case of the USA, its record outside its own borders is especially gruesome.
Putting your double standard aside, do you think the US would ever back an arms embargo on Israel with no such embargo being applied to the Palestinians? Are the Syrian government’s supporters in Russia likely to support an arms embargo only on Syria?
Please note, I am not suggesting that Amnesty make a blanket denunciation of any effort by oppressed people to use violence in self defence, to overthrow a dictatorship, or to end a military occupation. However, if you think Saudi and US support for the Syrian rebels is not damaging to the human rights situation, then you should provide a great deal of evidence that you’ve thought through the consequences of such support. You haven’t done that.
The U.N.’s top human rights official, Navi Pillay, has stated
“The provision of arms to the Syrian government and to its opponents is fueling the violence. Any further militarization of the conflict must be avoided at all costs.”4
The UN has a well-documented institutional bias in favor of the USA and its allies. It appears that Amnesty’s bias is even worse.
After the UN called for arms to be cut off from all sides in Syria, my hunch was that Amnesty would soon follow suit. I doubted Amnesty would want to cling to a stance that even the UN rejects. As of July 5, my hunch has been proven wrong. A statement put out by Amnesty called for international “action” on Syria and reaffirmed its support for an arms embargo only on the Syrian government: <www.amnestyus…on-and-violence>.
Long before this recent Syria report, it’s been clear that Amnesty’s priorities and standards for evidence are biased in favor of the world’s most powerful and criminal states. I’ve reviewed in detail how this was shown in the way Amnesty responded to US-perpetrated (not simply US-backed) coup in Haiti in 2004.5
In April, Suzanne Nossel, Amnesty USA’s director, misrepresented an Iranian dissident by falsely claiming that the dissident had commented on an Iranian “nuclear weapons program.” Before being hired by Amnesty, Nossel supported the US invasion of Iraq and (three years after the illegal invasion of Iraq led to hundreds of thousands of deaths) advised the US government that the “military option cannot be off the table” in dealing with another “menacing state” — namely Iran.6 […]
Notes
1 According to B’Tselem, there were 3 Israeli civilians (inside Israel) killed by Palestinians during operation “Cast Lead” and another 5 Israeli civilians killed (again, inside Israel since these are the deaths that may be attributable to rocket fire at Israeli towns) since the end of “Cast Lead” early in 2009 until 2012: <old.btselem.o…ret_stat=during>; <old.btselem.o…eret_stat=after>.
2 Ian Black, “Syrian Violence Escalates as UN Prepares for Conference,” Guardian, June 27, 2012.
3 Damien Pearse and agencies, “Islamist Group al-Nusra Front Claims Responsibility for Damascus Bombings,” Guardian, May 12, 2012.
4 “U.N. Urges End to Arming of Rebels, Assad Forces,” July 3, 2012
5 Joe Emersberger, “Amnesty International’s Track Record in Haiti Since 2004,” HaitiAnalysis, February 7, 2007.
6 Joe Emersberger, “Amnesty U.S.A Director Says Iran Has a ‘Weapons Program’, Misrepresents Iranian Dissident,” ZBlogs, April 14, 2012.
7 Joe Emersberger, “Julian Assange Ordeal Is Exposing Major Problems with Amnesty and Human Rights Watch,” ZBlogs, June 21, 2012.
Joe Emersberger is an editor of HaitiAnalysis at haitianalysis.blogspot.com.
July 11, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Timeless or most popular | Amnesty International, Syria, United States |
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Since Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was diagnosed with cancer and a malignant tumor was removed from his pelvic region last June, all kinds of rumors, lies and speculations have circulated about his health. Most of the hype has come from known anti-Chavez media, such as the Miami Herald and several online blogs run by right-wing extremists like Bush’s former Assistant Secretary of State Roger Noriega, who’s been obsessed with Chavez for years. All cite unnamed sources who claim they have “insider information” about the Venezuelan head of state’s health. It’s been unsurprising that those media outlets, known for their decade-long distortions of Venezuela’s reality, would publish such falsities and morbid tales about President Chavez. But that a serious, veteran, investigative journalist, such as Dan Rather, would indulge in the necrophiliac story-telling about the Venezuelan President is truly disappointing.
Rather, who now runs his own show on HDNet, Dan Rather Reports, posted a report on Wednesday, May 30, claiming President Chavez’s health is “dire” and has “entered the end stage”. Rather also claims his unnamed “high-level” source, who he alleges is close to the Venezuelan President, told him Chavez won’t live “more than a couple of months at most”. In his brief report, which he calls an “exclusive”, Rather also bids in with his own biased language, calling the democratically-elected Venezuelan President a “dictator”.
What prompted Dan Rather to write such diatribe? Why would he join the ranks of Roger Noriega, the wretched Miami Herald and a slew of pseudo-journalists drooling over their morbid wet dreams of President Chavez’s failing health?
What is apparent is that Rather was quick to the gun to “break” his “exclusive” story. Just the day before, President Chavez hosted a cabinet meeting broadcast live on television that lasted more than four hours. The Venezuelan head of state appeared energized, optimistic and focused on his duties, and even sang a few heartfelt songs, as is custom for the eclectic and charismatic Chavez. He reaffirmed his candidacy for the October 7th presidential elections. (Yes, Venezuela is a democracy!) That’s a far cry from being on his “death bed”, as Rather implies.
President Chavez does have cancer. He’s been the first to inform on his health, and has been open about his treatment and recovery since his first operation last June to remove the initial tumor. Chavez then underwent five sessions of chemotherapy – four of which were done in Cuba. He was recuperating well and even played host to a major historical summit in Caracas last December to inaugurate the newly-formed Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), in which all 33 nations in the region are represented.
But in early February, Chavez announced that a second, smaller tumor had been detected in the same area in his pelvic region, and had to be removed. He again returned to Cuba for surgery, and subsequently received several rounds of radiation therapy. According to Chavez, there was no metastasis, nor were any of his organs affected. On May 11, he returned to Venezuela after completing the treatment and expressed his optimism for recovery. “I’m on the plane… Heading for the Venezuelan fatherland. With more optimism than ever! We will live and we will conquer!” Chavez said that day in a message on Twitter.
Since then, the Venezuelan President has participated in several televised meetings and called in to different news programs to discuss his policies and provide updates on his health. He has admitted he can no longer be the “work horse” he was before, and now must limit himself to an 8-hour workday, ensuring he keeps his diet and sleep in check. But previous to his health scare, Chavez was a super-President, appearing on television in public events for hours – sometimes even eight hours – and participating in three to four activities daily, often in different parts of the country. He barely slept and drank excessive amounts of black, sugary coffee. He worked until the wee hours of the morning and listened to every voice, attended every request. His level of energy was extreme, as was his anxiety and commitment to continue rebuilding Venezuela and ensuring his policies reduced poverty and provided for the most needy.
Now, as Chavez runs for his third full term, his pace is no longer extreme, but it’s certainly on par or above his counterparts. Even throughout his cancer treatments, President Chavez was on top of his duties, informing the public via television and Twitter about budgetary issues and new projects underway. He never dropped the ball, despite the severity of his situation.
Chavez has cancer, and he is fighting it hard, with the same strength he has used to propel his nation forward, often against the toughest obstacles. But President Chavez is not “out of the game”, as Dan Rather morbidly implies. Polls show him with double-digit leads over the opposition presidential candidate, Henrique Capriles Radonski, a neoconservative known for his violent role in the April 2002 coup d’etat against Chavez. A majority of Venezuelans know – and love – President Chavez for his immense humanity and his passionate commitment to improving their lives. And they will vote for him again.
Dan Rather has always emphasized the necessity of “courage” in reporting, yet he shows cowardice and sloppy ambition by racing to publish unconfirmed reports on President Chavez’s health, and by touting slanderous epithets to describe the Venezuelan head of state. He also shows a complete lack of respect for President Chavez’s humanity by perpetuating gruesome rumors about his mortality. Mr. Rather appears to have left his journalist ethics and principles behind, and has chosen – at least in this case – to be a pawn of yellow journalism.
Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez has declared that he has overcome his illness, dismissing allegations that any physical ailment will affect his campaigning for the country’s upcoming elections.
“Free, free, totally free,” Chavez told reporters at a four-hour press conference on Monday when asked if he was still afflicted with cancer.
“Thanks to God, I am here and every day I feel [I am] in [a] better physical condition, and I really don’t think this expression ‘physical restrictions’… will be a factor in the campaign,” he told the conference. … Full article
July 10, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Deception | Dan Rather, Henrique Capriles Radonski, Hugo Chávez, Miami Herald, Venezuela |
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Anonymous and related hacktivists have claimed that they provided the 2.5 million emails to WikiLeaks. Anonymous and WikiLeaks have cooperated before.
Just after WikiLeaks began releasing the data from the Syria files, Anonymous hacktivists claimed responsibility for accessing the information and passing it on to the whistleblower organization. While WikiLeaks continues to release the sensitive emails on a daily basis, Anonymous has thus far refrained from speaking of the sources of the information.
However in an Anonymous press release they state that in February of this year, hacktivists from Anonymous Syria, AntiSec and the People’s Liberation Army apparently worked day and night “to create a breach of multiple domains and dozens of servers inside Syria.”
Their press statement reads:
While the United Nations sat back and theorized on the situation in Syria, Anonymous took action. Assisting bloggers, protesters and activists in avoiding surveillance, disseminating media, interfering with regime communications and networks, monitoring the Syrian internet for disruptions or attempts at surveillance – and waging a relentless information and psychological campaign against Assad and his murderous and genocidal government. When world governments would not send so much as a single bandaid worth of medical supplies to the protesters in Syria. …
I just have to separate the part below out from the rest of the article. How in cahoots are the so called hacktivists with the NATO war/destabilization machine?
“… it was a team of six European Anons who donned back-packs and walked almost 400 pounds worth of medical supplies over the border (What border would that be ? Why that would be the Turkish border! How convenient. So the European Anons came across with the NATO backed rebels!) along with ten pounds of chocolate candy for the children. (Yah because that would be a priority, right? But, aren’t they sweet? Wonder how it was the 10 lbs of chocolate didn’t melt? LOL! Wonder what else the “Anons from Europe” brought with them? Cash? ) and into Idib, Syria – risking their very lives to assist our dear freedom seeking brothers and sisters inside Syria. And as long as the tyrant remains defiantly in power, Anonymous will continue to work relentlessly day and night – from every country and every timezone, to assist the courageous freedom fighters and activists in Syria. We Are Anonymous – We Are Everywhere – We Are Legion – We Never Forget – We Never Forgive
This is not the first time that WikiLeaks and Anonymous have worked together. In December last year, Anonymous hacked five million emails from the private security firm Stratfor. These emails were then passed on to WikiLeaks who published them in February of this year under the release name The Global Intelligence Files.
July 10, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | Stratfor, Syria, WikiLeaks |
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