Two weeks ago, shortly after the protests in Egypt started, the Israelis allowed some 800 Egyptian soldiers into the Sinai. They went to Sharm el-Sheik down on the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula on the Red Sea where the Israelis said they may be based. While the Israelis had allowed Egyptian police and security into the Sinai, this is the first time in thirty years that a contingent of the Egyptian army had been allowed in.
Two weeks later, Mubarak is ousted from power and he leaves Cairo and heads off, not overseas into exile as one might expect of a ruthless dictator ousted by popular revolution, but to Sharm el-Sheik – where the 800 Egyptian troops are now based.
While Mubarak has handed over power to the chiefs of the army ostensibly to oversee the transition to a democratic civilian government, one cannot blame the Egyptian people being more that bit wary of what is actually going on and maintaining their vigil in Tahrir Square.
The simple reality is this; apart from getting Mubarak to step down, nothing at all has really changed for the Egyptian people. They are no better off today in terms of having power for themselves than they were the before Mubarak left. All the people have are promises. Nothing else.
Before the protests, Mubarak the military man ran things. Now military men that worked for Mubarak – and are now, it seems, protecting him at his retreat at Sharm el-Sheik – are running things.
Given that Egyptian troops went to the Sinai right at the beginning of the protests and long before Mubarak left Cairo himself to go to the Sinai, one has to wonder if there was some collusion going on between the Israelis and the Egyptian government whereby the aging Mubarak at the first signs of serious discontent among the people would be eased out into comfortable retirement to live out his days at Sharm el-Sheik.
If that was the case, one then needs to ask; what were the contingency plans for the transition of power from the militarist president to the military and, far more importantly, what are the military’s plans for the future?
February 13, 2011
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Deception |
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In a February 3 Washington Post op-ed piece titled “Why Obama has to get Egypt right,” George Soros wrote that the U.S. president had “much to gain by moving out in front and siding with the public demand for dignity and democracy.” Notwithstanding the reasonableness of his advice, past experience suggests that the Hungarian-born hedge fund manager has something to gain himself from regime change in Cairo.
In his public memo to the president he helped elect, Soros noted that it was a “hopeful sign” that the Muslim Brotherhood was cooperating with Mohamed ElBaradei, whom he disinterestedly described as “the Nobel laureate who is seeking to run for president.” He neglected to mention, however, that up to ElBaradei’s January 27 return to crisis-torn Egypt, the former IAEA chief had been a member of the Board of Trustees of the International Crisis Group, which Soros, the thirty-fifth richest person in the world, helped create and finance.
The International Crisis Group describes itself as “an independent, non-profit, non-governmental organisation committed to preventing and resolving deadly conflict,” but self-descriptions can often be misleading. “The ICG is a fascinating case study of the way human rights organizations, governments and international corporations work hand in glove these days,” George Szamuely wrote of the influential think tank’s role in the Balkans. “‘Independent’ figures like Soros identify a ‘crisis’ demanding urgent government attention. Governments act on them and then parcel out the lucrative contracts to Soros and his pals.”
One of Soros’s more notorious “pals” is Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the jailed former head of Yukos Oil, who by the age of 32 had amassed assets worth more than $30 billion in the rigged post-Soviet “privatisation” of state-owned property. When the Jewish oligarch was arrested for tax evasion, embezzlement and fraud in 2003, Soros denounced the charges as “political persecution,” called for the expulsion of Russia from the G-8, and urged the West to intervene. Khodorkovsky’s partner in crime, Leonid Nevzlin, fled to Israel before he was found guilty in absentia of ordering the murders of several politicians and businesspeople that got in the way of Yukos’s expansion plans. Like Soros and Khodorkovsky, Nevzlin has since attempted to rebrand himself as a “philanthropist.”
Tel Aviv’s concerns about the loss of a friendly dictator next door, however, should be assuaged somewhat by the fact that ElBaradei could collaborate with the considerable number of Israel partisans at ICG. Former U.S. Congressman Stephen Solarz, who helped start the group, was once dubbed “the Israel lobby’s chief legislative tactician on Capitol Hill,” and in 1998 led a group of neoconservatives who urged President Clinton to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Fellow neocon Kenneth Adelman assured Americans in a 2002 Washington Post op-ed that the Israeli-induced invasion of Iraq would be a “cakewalk.” Even more reassuring for nervous Israelis must be the presence of Nahum Barnea, the prominent Israeli columnist who sharply criticised fellow journalists Gideon Levy, Amira Hass and Akiva Eldar for their “mission” of support for the Palestinians.
And among ICG’s elite international list of senior advisers—defined as “former Board Members (to the extent consistent with any other office they may be holding at the time) who maintain an association with Crisis Group, and whose advice and support are called on from time to time”—we find Shlomo Ben-Ami, former foreign minister of Israel; Stanley Fischer, governor of the Bank of Israel; and Shimon Peres, current president of Israel.
On the face of it, it seems hard to reconcile the substantial pro-Israel presence at ICG with Soros’s claims to be a “non-Zionist.” But things are seldom what they seem with Soros. Two years after the founding of J Street, it emerged that he had given substantial donations to the “pro-Israel, pro-peace” lobby. Not everyone is convinced by J Street’s claims to be a genuine alternative to AIPAC either. As one astute commentator put it, J Street is “little more than a spin-off of the existing Israel Lobby to make it more palatable to the liberal Democrats that make up the Obama Administration.”
Moreover, some of Israel’s most fervent advocates on Capitol Hill have received donations from Soros, who has become “one of the largest political-campaign contributors in American history.” In an interview with a conservative Jewish radio talk show, Senator Charles Schumer said he believed that HaShem (Orthodox Jewish term for “God”) gave him his name—which means “guardian”—so that he could fulfill his “very important” role in the U.S. Senate as a “guardian of Israel.”
Essentially filling the same role in the House of Representatives until 2008 was the late Congressman Tom Lantos, whom a former U.S. diplomat referred to as “the Hungarian-American guardian of Israel’s interests in Congress.” As co-chairman of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, Lantos knowingly deceived his co-chairman and the public about the identity of “Nayirah,” whose incubator atrocity story helped justify American intervention in the 1991 Gulf War. Lantos, who is said to have “shared a common drive for promoting democracy and human rights” with his close friend Soros, also championed the fugitive Nevzlin as an innocent victim of anti-Semitism.
“I hope President Obama will expeditiously support the people of Egypt,” Soros wrote in his Post op-ed. “My foundations are prepared to contribute what they can.” If the Egyptian people have as much sense as they have courage and determination, however, they will tell this self-described “committed advocate of democracy and open society” what to do with his “philanthropy”—and his Nobel laureate.
Maidhc Ó Cathail writes extensively on U.S. foreign policy and the Middle East. He also edits The Passionate Attachment blog.
February 12, 2011
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel |
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Frustrated by the utter lack of progress in the manifestly futile peace process with Israel, the American-backed Palestinian Authority (PA) has once again designated a date for holding general elections in the occupied territories of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.
But the organization of elections hedges to a large extent on Israeli consent. The Israeli occupation army, after all, still controls every nook and cranny of the West Bank, and it would be unimaginable to hold elections if the Israeli occupiers said “No.”
Hamas has also objected to the unilateral announcement in Ramallah, arguing that the holding of elections in the absence of basic civil liberties such as freedom of speech and expression would be a foolish and irresponsible act.
Hamas is correct. The West Bank is languishing under a police-state apparatus, with a nearly total absence of the rule of law as well as basic liberties, without which the organization of true elections would be meaningless.
The organization of elections would require the availability of basic rights and freedoms, including the freedom to hold rallies, meetings, do campaigning and electioneering without being suppressed and harassed by the police and other security agencies.
Needless to say, these rights and freedoms don’t exist in the West Bank today. Mendacious claims to the contrary don’t really warrant a refutation. The people and human rights organizations operating in the region know the truth too well.
Indeed, if a small child is caught raising a small green flag, bearing the Islamic article of faith, there is no god, but one God, and Muhammed is His Messenger, the child will be arrested, beaten and his family will be held accountable for the “crime” of raising Hamas’s banner aloft.
Some Palestinian officials might claim that for the duration of the elections and the immediate period preceding them, candidates and electoral lists would be able to do electioneering rather freely and that the elections themselves would be monitored by international observers.
However, that is not enough. We all know that in order to hold true representative elections, equal opportunities must be given to all contenders, a condition that is conspicuously absent in the West Bank.
More to the point, we all know that most of the Islamist people who might contest the elections are already behind bars, either in PA or Israeli jails, and held without charge or trial, mostly on concocted and frivolous charge that have nothing to do with any genuine violation.
Indeed, in any other country that respects itself, the lengthy incarceration of people because of their ideology would be considered a taboo.
In addition to hounding and imprisoning people because of their thoughts, the PA has taken over or deliberately ruined hundreds of Islamic institutions, including Zakat committees, schools, orphanages, social and athletic clubs as well as health institutions.
In some instances, the PA has totally illegally seized businesses and workshops, thus depriving entire families of their source of livelihood.
Hence, one might wonder how genuine elections could be held under the existing abnormal conditions, this is unless the PA is planning to rig the elections by hook or by crook in order to compensate and avenge its electoral defeat of 2006.
The PA says it will be willing to allow international observers to monitor the elections. However, the presence of international observers by itself wouldn’t create an ideal atmosphere for transparent elections.
I am talking about pre-election preparations, such as campaigning and holding rallies in a free environment.
True, the PA might allow one or two weeks of free and unfettered campaigning, but this short period would be utterly insufficient to make the transition from a police-state atmosphere to freedom where all political groups and parties, including Hamas, are given an equal opportunity.
Obviously, the PA decision to hold elections has been taken under pressure from a few leftist and liberal parties with little weight in the Palestinian streets. These parties hope that in the absence of Hamas’s participation in the elections, they would be able to obtain a significant chunk of the people’s vote.
The rationale of these parties is that people disgruntled and disillusioned with the Fatah rule, and they are certainly many, would give their votes to these parties.
Unfortunately, considerations having to do with national Palestinian interest seem to come a distant second after the above-mentioned parties’ short-sighted expediency.
The PA decision to hold elections is in no way an expression of a commitment to democracy. In fact, Fatah, the political and security backbone of the PA, has never showed a genuine commitment to democracy, neither under the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat nor under the current leader Mahmoud Abbas.
In fact, Fatah and democracy have always seemed an eternal oxymoron. Arafat, for example, held all the reins, controlled all the money and took all the decisions. His successor, Abu Mazen, allowed the Fatah-dominated security agencies to take over and dissolve democratically-elected institutions all over the West Bank.
It is widely believed that the election decision is related to two important developments that really shook and shocked Fatah to the core, prompting the movement to try rather desperately to enhance its public standing:
First, the recent revelation by al-Jazeera TV network of documents showing the extent of concessions to Israel by Palestinian negotiators. The revelations infuriated and embarrassed the PA, prompting PA leaders to accuse the pan-Arab network of waging an all-out war on the Ramallah regime in cahoots with Israel.
The so-called Palestinian Papers showed Palestinian leaders as “liars” who tell their people one thing with regard to Palestinian national constants on such paramount issues as Jerusalem and the right of return for the refugees, but tell their Israeli counterparts an entirely different thing.
This scandalous exposition of the true stands of PA negotiators seems to have seriously undermined the public standing of the PA leadership. Hence, the quest to seek a renewed popularity.
The other factor contributing to the election decision has to do with ground-shaking events in Egypt, which are also shaking the PLO regime to the core. The tyrannical regime of Hosni Mubarak has always been viewed as the PLO leadership’s ultimate insurance policy in the Arab world. Its possible disappearance therefore and especially the emergence of a new regime in Cairo in which the pro-Hamas Muslim Brotherhood plays a certain role is a real nightmare for Fatah, the PA and PLO combined.
Hence, the decision to hold elections in the hope of neutralizing any possible ramifications of the Egyptian revolution, e.g. strengthening Hamas and enhancing its bargaining position vis-à-vis Fatah.
There is no doubt that holding elections is a positive thing to do in ordinary circumstances. However, when holding election obscures and hinders greater national goals, such as freedom from a foreign occupation, it becomes an impeder rather than a facilitator of true nation-building.
February 11, 2011
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Deception |
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I’ve been a Cornell Staff member for about thirty years, and pretty much every work day, I work with metal. Mostly machining, but also, bending, shearing, welding, annealing, heating, heat treating, etc.. One thing I’ve learned through my experience, is that gradually heated steel loses its strength gradually, not instantly. Since WTC7’s free fall and symmetric drop displayed all the characteristics of a controlled demolition, and none of a fire induced collapse, I’ve always been skeptical of the government’s “explanation” – that gradual heating of parts of the steel frame due to limited office fires caused WTC7’s drop.
Now that free fall acceleration has been well documented and finally acknowledged by government hired researchers at the NIST, this explanation also seems to be at odds with the findings of Sir Isaac Newton. With that in mind, for the past year or so, I’ve been trying to solicit opinions regarding WTC7’s free fall and symmetric drop from professors in Cornell’s engineering department. All of my initial email inquiries were ignored, and followup inquiries produced only one response, which was limited to a few words of condescension and sarcasm. None of the professors would address the actual research and evidence I provided, or respond to my questions. Brief, polite, and detailed phone messages were also ignored.
So, I decided to submit a guest column to Cornell’s student run paper, The Cornell Daily Sun. Again, my first submission was ignored, but my followup submission did receive a reply, which stated only that my piece would not not be published. No reason was given. I explained to the editors that I would be willing to make some changes if there are some key words or phrases that prompted the censorship, but no explanation for the censorship was forthcoming. I find censorship at a University particularly troubling, since this is an institution where the free and open exchange of ideas, information, and knowledge are not only encouraged, but the very reason for the institution’s existence.
My hope now is that members of the 9-11 Truth community will contact the Cornell Daily Sun by email and phone, and politely explain why 9-11 Truth is such and important and relevant topic, and that by censoring the open discussion of the facts related to 9-11-01,and perpetuating the government’s 9-11 myth, the Sun is also perpetuating the government’s 9-11 wars – wars that come with a very heavy price, in lives, taxpayer dollars, and our economic stability. And of course, these wars reduce rather than increase global security.
The editors at the Sun can be reached as follows:
Keenan Weatherford, editor in chief: editor@cornellsun.com
Tony Manfred, associate editor: associate-editor@cornellsun.com
The phone number at the Sun is 607-273-3606
Here is my censored guest column. If you decide to contact the Sun, please let me know.
Thanks,
Henry Hansteen
9-11-01: Myth vs Physics 10-15-10
Over the past few years, I’ve probably sent a dozen or so emails to Cornell engineering professors, asking them what I believe are clear and reasonable questions. Most of the professors do not reply at all, a few replied just to tell me that they are unable to answer my questions, and one reply was spiced with condescension and sarcasm. I have to say that I’m a bit disappointed in them. My Grandfather was a Cornell Professor, and he left me with a much different impression . The question is basically this – what can and what can’t cause a 47 story, hurricane and earth quake resistant, steel framed high rise to suddenly crush itself with near perfect symmetry, while accelerating at a rate that is indistinguishable from free fall? That’s what video evidence, government hired researchers from the NIST, and independent 9-11 truth researchers all agree took place on 9-11-01 when World Trade Center 7 dropped. The entire perimeter frame transitioned from standing straight to accelerating downward at the same rate it would have fallen through air. This building was supported by over forty massive interconnected steel columns that extended from bedrock to the roof, and the vast majority of them were never even exposed to any fire. According to the government’s final report, issued by NIST in November of 2008, structural damage from debris impacts didn’t contribute to WTC7’s free fall and symmetric drop. It is now blamed on nothing but ordinary office fires that occupied only a few floors in a small area of the building. The steel frame was designed to easily support several times the weight of the building. Like all steel framed high rises, it was designed with incredible reserve strength.
An object can only accelerate at the rate of free fall if all of its gravitational energy is converted to motion, and none is used to move, bend, crush, or break other objects. Believing that WTC7’s massive steel frame could accelerate through itself at free fall while bending, breaking, and shearing tens of thousands of tons of undamaged structural steel is, in effect, little different than claiming that a car will accelerate down Buffalo Street hill at the same rate whether it’s on the open road or rolling directly through a long row of parked cars. I’ve heard a few people speculate about “buckling”, and how quickly a vertical steel column will fail once it has buckled. This theory doesn’t hold up to analysis, though. Video evidence shows that most of the steel columns in WTC7 were never exposed to any fire, so obviously, gradual heating could not have caused them all to fail at the same instant. Also, steel columns in the process of buckling still have far more structural integrity than air, and could not cause the entire structure to suddenly accelerate at free fall. And even if the entire structure had been engulfed in a raging inferno, the steel would lose it strength gradually, rather than instantly. Revisiting my auto analogy, auto bodies and frames are specifically engineered to buckle, because buckling absorbs tremendous amounts of energy, which rapidly reduces the speed of a vehicle during an impact, and would have reduced (or stopped) the rate of WTC7’s free fall and symmetric drop. The structural integrity of the parked cars is not reduced to that of air once they begin to buckle. This is true even if some of the parked cars are on fire. Gradual heating cannot reduce the integrity of steel to that of air in an instant, and neither office fires nor buckling can explain how the structural integrity of all of WTC7’s exterior columns vanished in an instant.
What can explain WTC7’s free fall and symmetric drop, along with the extremely high temperatures and the molten and vaporized steel? What can explain the instant, total, and simultaneous failure of all of WTC7’s steel columns in an instant, the government’s refusal to test for incendiaries of any type, and its rapid destruction of the forensic evidence? Demolition explains all the evidence, and a team of nine scientists have discovered highly refined military grade nano thermitic material in dust and steel samples. I suggest reading http://www.911research.com and http://www.911speakout.org for those interested in verifying the points I’ve made here. If you think the points I’ve made here are valid, please present them to Cornell’s engineering professors and encourage them to take get informed and take a stand. This is too important an issue to be ignored, and the price for perpetuating the government’s impossible 9-11 conspiracy theory and the resulting 9-11 wars is too high. There comes a time when silence is complicity.
February 10, 2011
Posted by aletho |
Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Science and Pseudo-Science |
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Computer programmers talk of garbage in, garbage out. While perhaps not precisely the right word for the data given and used by the Turkel Commission, the analogy holds reasonably well.
Turkel has heard from some of the great and the bad of Israel and looked at documents from Israeli sources but has only listened to two persons who were actually at the raid; both were passengers on the Mavi Marmara. True, there have been submissions from 38 soldiers who were interviewed by a go-between, while another 58 provided written evidence. But none has dared to appear before the commission in public nor were any identified by name, lest a future trip to Europe or even South America is cut short by the long arm of international law. (Only the BBC “Panorama” programme presenter Jane Corbin has met any of these soldiers so far. Going down to the docks after dark she met Lieutenant A, Sergeant Y and Captain R. Hiding from the daylight and the truth like pimps or drug dealers on the run, they represent the true face of the most shameful army in the world, skulking with the rats in the docklands.)
Turkel has complained that no other witnesses from the flotilla would appear, but omitted to explain why it was 11 weeks before the captain of the Mavi Marmara had been asked to attend, and three-and-a-half months before the Turkish embassy was asked to help provide witnesses. British nationals were asked only on 21 October to provide a synopsis in order that the commission might consider whether to call them as witnesses. They were given four days in which to do this, after Turkel had taken more than 16 weeks to make the demand. Their lawyer described it as a calculated snub … not a genuine effort to welcome their evidence. Nationals from other countries appear to have been ignored altogether. Arab-Israeli Member of the Knesset Hanin Zoabi has said she was also not given the opportunity to testify, telling Ynet News on 23 January: “The commission purposely and intentionally failed to summon the civilian and the only witness to see what happened out of fear her testimony would damage the harmony of the report.”
Turkel Commission vs UN fact-finding mission
There are now two reports on the subject. The first by the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) Fact-Finding Mission which was not allowed to meet any Israeli nor permitted access to any Israeli documents that were not in the public domain. However, it did interview 112 witnesses from the flotilla and received written statements from others. On 27 September it reported that grave violations of human rights law and international humanitarian law had been committed by Israeli personnel. In contrast the Israeli commission has heard only two first-hand accounts, and has relied on all-Israeli hearsay evidence and second-hand testimony along with official Israeli documents in order to conclude that “overall the actions undertaken were lawful and in conformity with international law”’
One can try to make excuses for Turkel. Perhaps the commission made a mistake when it wrote that the cargo ship Tali had weapons on board when it tried to reach Gaza in February 2009. (A contemporary account in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz quoted an Israeli military spokesperson saying there were no weapons on board.) Perhaps they were naïve to believe the Military Attorney-General’s perjurious story that the MV Dignity was in accidental collision with an Israeli gunboat (instead of the cruiser being rammed at speed three times). Maybe they had seen only the current Ministry of Foreign Affairs graph of missiles fired from the Gaza Strip and not the previous one which had accurately shown that only 12 rockets were fired from the Strip for the four months between the beginning of July and 4 November 2008.(Nevertheless, they blamed Gazan militants for the breakdown of the ceasefire in December 2008, ignoring reports by Amnesty International that the ceasefire effectively ended when Israeli forces killed six Palestinian militants on 4 November.)
Ignoring expert testimony
But one can no longer suspend disbelief when Turkel refuses to believe its own ears. On 13 October three delegates from Physicians for Human Rights-Israel with experience of working in Gaza appeared before the commission. From among these detailed personal testimonies the commission heard that:
- CT and MRI machines for oncology have been denied entry as dual-use technology despite not being connected to any source of radioactive isotopes.
- A broken MRI scanner in Shifna hospital cannot be sent away to be repaired.
- The crossings policy is causing grave damage to the provision of a minimally adequate medical response to the Gazan population.
- It is not correct to say that medications entered Gaza freely before the flotilla.
- It is not correct to say that beyond the dual-use items there was entry for essential medical equipment.
- Dr Mustapha Yassin said that he is no longer allowed to take kneecaps into Gaza for orthopaedic surgery (as he has done previously) and that in consequence these operations are no longer possible.
Ran Yaron also told the commission:
Since September 2007, as a result of the Israeli cabinet’s declaration of Gaza as a hostile entity, we have been witness to a worsening of the crossings policy and to a deterioration in the functioning of the health system in Gaza.
Nonetheless, Turkel’s report states in section 82, p.87:
No evidence was presented before the commission to the effect that Israel prevents the passage of medical supplies apart from those included in the list of materials whose entry into the Gaza Strip is prohibited for security reasons.
Footnote 303 adds:
Civilian Policy Regarding Gaza Strip – Regarding the Claims of Human Rights Organizations, Dated 31.10.2010, supra note 217, Appendix A; More accurately, the restrictions stem from three sources – the instructions of the Israeli Ministry of Health, the instructions of the Israeli Ministry of Industry and Commerce, and the supervisory orders on defence export.
There was not much hope then that the commission would look at data from other independent organizations concerned about the state of Gaza’s economy and infrastructure. For example, Gisha, an Israeli organization that challenges restrictions on Palestinian movement, has reported power outages of up to 12 hours a day, and six hours a day on average; the freezing of thousands of spare parts for the electricity and water networks in Israeli and West bank warehouses; and the lack of desalination for drinking water contaminated by seawater and a sewage system near to collapse. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) told the UNHRC Mission that “Abject poverty” among refugees has tripled since the imposition of the blockade from 100,000 to 300,000 and 61 per cent of households are food insecure. The International Commission for the Red Cross has written of the dire situation in Gaza in which the population suffers from unemployment, poverty and warfare while the quality of the health care system has reached an all-time low.
A myopicTurkel Commission merely reported:
…considerable evidence was presented to the commission to show that Israel allows the passage of objects essential for the survival of the civilian population and that it provides humanitarian aid as required by the rules of international humanitarian law in those areas that human rights organizations identify as a source of concern.
Basically it would have us believe that the blockade is not responsible for any of Gaza’s problems, although it does quote Professor Shabtai Rosenne (who was a member of the commission until his death in September) that crippling an enemy’s external trade was a legitimate objective of armed conflict. The professor was, however, writing in 1946. Three years later, in 1949, the Fourth Geneva Convention was adopted and such policies were outlawed. Turkel it would seem needs to update its knowledge to accommodate developments in international law over the last 60 years.
The rationale continues that the blockade is a legal means of safeguarding Israel’s security since it has not caused starvation or prevented the passage of objects essential to survival or the passage of medical supplies. In this respect, Turkel finds it regrettable that the Israeli legal system is not recognized internationally as the instrument for satisfying the rule of law. This, of course, is the same system whose Supreme Court declared in 2005 that the opinion of the International Court of Justice (with regard to the apartheid wall) was not legally binding in Israel.
In concluding this section, Turkel considered Israeli announcements for easing the blockade but declared itself unable to assess the effects. However, a scathing report published jointly by 25 charities on 30 November 2010 – Dashed Hopes: Continuation of the Gaza Blockade – had no such misgivings. It described how there had been a failure to accelerate imports of construction materials which had prevented reconstruction projects and impacted severely on education within the Strip. The easing had also had no effect on exports or on movement for Palestinians through the Israeli crossings. The report called for an immediate unconditional and complete lifting of the blockade.
Section B of the Turkel Commission’s report covers the raid, overstating the violence encountered by the commandos while denying any wrongdoing on their part. It is true that Turkish militants prepared for a fight and cut bars from the ships railings against the orders of the captain. Nor has it been disputed that soldiers were badly roughed up, pushed over the side of the upper deck and taken captive. The reasons have never been given. Turkel has suggested it may have been a deliberate attempt to capture the soldiers, and that this amounted to an act of combat. What happened afterward is difficult to discern. The soldiers’ accounts, which are exaggerated and unreliable, say that they were frequently beaten and only had minimal medical attention. The reporter Şefik Dinç confirms that they were beaten while in custody.
Other photographs clearly show that Murat Akinan, having helped to subdue one of the soldiers, then led him downstairs to the doctor and remonstrated with a photographer trying to film him. The medical team had very little equipment and the doctor was unable to stitch up the soldier’s cut on his head because he did not have a needle and thread. The level of violence versus the level of protection that the soldiers were subject to is difficult to assess. It appears there may have been some mistreatment, but that genuine attempts were also made to treat them well. Many of those who later suffered in Israeli custody have told of much worse treatment.
Turkel’s report is Israel’s submission to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon’s Panel of Inquiry, which is due to resume its deliberations in New York by the middle of February. It was supposed to have been submitted in September at the same time as one from Turkey. The Turkish submission was presented on time but Turkey agreed to keep the report suppressed while the Israeli report was still in preparation. In the meantime, a copy was made available to Israel. Israel’s report was also supposed to have remained confidential but instead has been released with much publicity but without the courtesy of giving the Turks an advance copy.
Turkish report
Naturally angered, Turkey has released interim copies of their report, which have not been widely reported in the Western media. The three parts of it can be accessed here:
The report describes the shooting of two passengers from the first helicopter before any commando attempted to exit the helicopter, along with the deaths of nine people, most of whom suffered multiple gunshot wounds. It also refers to the humiliation, abuse and torture of the passengers during their detention on the ship and at Ashdod. Property was unlawfully seized and evidence tampered with or destroyed. Israel had also cleaned the bodies of those killed and cleaned up the Mavi Marmara in order to hamper meaningful forensic investigations. The report considers that the blockade violates international law and that the ships carrying humanitarian cargo should have been exempt from attack under international law. It concludes by calling for reparations from Israel for its violations of its international obligations.
There will be much for the UN Panel to consider and they are likely to be severely hampered by a lack of expertise in international law. They may conclude that the actions of some of the Turkish charity IHH personnel were provocative but it is to be hoped that that they will be able to distinguish between the facts of the severe hardship suffered in Gaza that Turkish nationals went to alleviate and the fabrications that have been regurgitated by Turkel.
February 8, 2011
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes |
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The mystery of American Raymond A. Davis, currently imprisoned in the custody of local police in Lahore, Pakistan and charged with the Jan. 27 murder of two young men, whom he allegedly shot eight times with pinpoint accuracy through his car windshield, is growing increasingly murky. Also growing is the anger among Pakistanis that the US is trying to spring him from a Punjab jail by claiming diplomatic immunity. On Feb. 4, there were massive demonstrations, especially in Lahore, demanding that Davis be held for trial, an indication of the level of public anger at talk of granting him immunity.
Davis (whose identity was first denied and later confirmed by the US Embassy in Islamabad), and the embassy have claimed that he was hired as an employee of a US security company called Hyperion Protective Consultants, LLC, which was said to be located at 5100 North Lane in Orlando, Florida. Business cards for Hyperion were found on Davis by arresting officers.
However CounterPunch has investigated and discovered the following information:
First, there is not and never has been any such company located at the 5100 North Lane address. It is only an empty storefront, with empty shelves along one wall and an empty counter on the opposite wall, with just a lone used Coke cup sitting on it. A leasing agency sign is on the window. A receptionist at the IB Green & Associates rental agency located in Leesburg, Florida, said that her agency, which handles the property, part of a desolate-looking strip mall of mostly empty storefronts, has never leased to a Hyperion Protective Consultants. She added, “In fact, until recently, we had for several years occupied that address ourselves.”
The Florida Secretary of State’s office, meanwhile, which requires all Florida companies, including LLSs (limited liability partnerships), to register, has no record, current or lapsed, of a Hyperion Protective Consultants, LLC, and there is only one company with the name Hyperion registered at all in the state. It is Hyperion Communications, a company based in W. Palm Beach, that has no connection with Davis or with security-related activities.
The non-existent Hyperion Protective Consultants does have a website (www.hyperion-protective.com), but one of the phone numbers listed doesn’t work, an 800 number produces a recorded answer offering information about how to deal with or fend off bank foreclosures, and a third number with an Orlando exchange goes to a recording giving Hyperion’s corporate name and asking the caller to leave a message. Efforts to contact anyone on that line were unsuccessful. The local phone company says there is no public listing for Hyperion Protective Consultants–a rather unusual situation for a legitimate business operation.
Pakistani journalists have been speculating that Davis is either a CIA agent or is working as a contractor for some private mercenary firm–possibly Xe, the reincarnation of Blackwater. They are not alone in their suspicions. Jeff Stein, writing in the Washington Post on January 27, suggested after interviewing Fred Burton, a veteran of the State Department’s counter-terrorism Security Service, that Davis may have been involved in intelligence activity, either as a CIA employee under embassy cover or as a contract worker at the time of the shootings. Burton, who currently works with Stratfor, an Austin, TX-based “global intelligence” firm, even speculates that the shootings may have been a “spy meeting gone awry,” and not, as US Embassy and State Department officials are claiming, a case of an attempted robbery or car-jacking.
Even the information about what actually transpired is sketchy at this point. American media reports have Davis driving in Mozang, a busy commercial section of Lahore, and being approached by two threatening men on motorcycles. The US says he fired in self-defense, through his windshield with his Beretta pistol, remarkably hitting both men four times and killing both. He then exited his car and photographed both victims with his cell phone, before being arrested by local Lahore police. Davis, 36, reportedly a former Special Forces officer, was promptly jailed on two counts of murder, and despite protests by the US Embassy and the State Department that he is a “consular official” responsible for “security,” he continues to be held pending trial.
What has not been reported in the US media, but which reporter Shaukat Qadir of the Pakistani Express Tribune, says has been stated by Lahore police authorities, is that the two dead motorcyclists were each shot two times, “probably the fatal shots,” in the back by Davis. They were also both shot twice from the front. Such ballistics don’t mesh nicely with a protestation of self-defense.
Also left unmentioned in the US media is what else was found in Davis’ possession. Lahore police say that in addition to the Beretta he was still holding, and three cell phones retrieved from his pockets, they found a loaded Glock pistol in his car, along with three full magazines, and a “small telescope.” Again, heavy arms for a consular security officer not even in the act of guarding any embassy personnel, and what’s with the telescope? Also unmentioned in US accounts: his car was not an embassy vehicle, but was a local rental car.
American news reports say that a “consular vehicle” sped to Davis’ aid after the shooting incident and killed another motorcyclist enroute, before speeding away. The driver of that car is being sought by Lahore prosecutors but has not been identified or produced by US Embassy officials. According to Lahore police, however, the car in question, rather than coming to Davis’s aid, actually had been accompanying Davis’s sedan, and when the shooting happened, it “sped away,” killing the third motorcyclist as it raced off. Again a substantially different story that raises more questions about what this drive into the Mozang district was all about.
Davis has so far not said why he was driving, heavily armed, without anyone else in his vehicle, in a private rental car in a business section of Lahore where foreign embassy staff would not normally be seen. He is reportedly remaining silent and is leaving all statements to the US Embassy.
The US claim that Davis has diplomatic immunity hinges first and foremost on whether he is actually a “functionary” of the consulate. According to Lahore police investigators, he was arrested carrying a regular US passport, which had a business visa, not a diplomatic visa. The US reportedly only later supplied a diplomatic passport carrying a diplomatic visa that had been obtained not in the US before his departure, but in Islamabad, the country’s capital.
(Note: It is not unusual, though it is not publicly advertised, for the US State Department to issue duplicate passports to certain Americans. When I was working for Business Week magazine in Hong Kong in the early 1990s, and was dispatched often into China on reporting assignments, my bureau chief advised me that I could take a letter signed by her to the US Consulate in Hong Kong and request a second passport. One would be used exclusively to enter China posing as a tourist. The other would be used for going in officially as a journalist. The reason for this subterfuge, which was supported by the State Department, was that once Chinese visa officials have spotted a Chinese “journalist” visa stamped in a passport, they would never again allow that person to enter the country without first obtaining such a visa. The problem is that a journalist visa places strict limits on a reporter’s independent travel and access to sources. As a tourist, however, the same reporter could – illegally — travel freely and report without being accompanied by meddling foreign affairs office “handlers.”)
Considerable US pressure is currently being brought to bear on the Pakistani national government to hand over Davis to the US, and the country’s Interior Minister yesterday issued a statement accepting that Davis was a consular official as claimed by the US. But Punjab state authorities are not cooperating, and so far the national government is saying it is up to local authorities and the courts to decide whether his alleged crime of murder would, even if he is a legitimate consular employee, override a claim of diplomatic immunity.
Under Pakistani law, only actual consular functionaries, not service workers at embassy and consulate, have diplomatic status. Furthermore, no immunity would apply in the case of “serious” crimes–and certainly murder is as serious as it gets.
The US media have been uncritically quoting the State Department as saying that Pakistan is “violating” the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations of 1963 by holding Davis in jail on murder charges. Those reporters should check the actual document.
Section II, Article 41 of the treaty, in its first paragraph regarding the “Personal inviolability of consular officers,” states:
“Consular officers shall not be liable to arrest or detention pending trial, except in the case of a grave crime and pursuant to a decision by the competent judicial authority.”
In other words, the prosecutorial, police and judicial authorities in Lahore and the state of Punjab are doing exactly what they are supposed to do in holding Davis on murder charges, pending a judicial determination concerning whether or not he can properly claim diplomatic immunity.
The US claim that Pakistan is violating the convention is simply nonsense.
There is also the matter of double standards. The US routinely violates the Vienna Diplomatic Accord that governs international diplomatic rights. For example, the same convention requires countries that arrest, jail and prosecute foreigners for crimes to promptly notify the person’s home country embassy, and to grant that embassy the right to provide legal counsel. Yet the US has arrested, charged with murder, and executed many foreign nationals without ever notifying their embassies of their legal jeopardy, and has, on a number of occasions, even gone ahead with executions after a convict’s home country has learned of the situation and requested a stay and a retrial with an embassy-provided defense attorney. The US, in 1997, also prosecuted, over the objections of the government of Georgia, a Georgian embassy diplomat charged with the murder of a 16-year-old girl.
Apparently diplomatic immunity has more to do with the relative power of the government in question and of the embassy in question than with the simple words in a treaty.
It remains to be seen whether Davis will ever actually stand trial in Pakistan. The US is pushing hard in Islamabad for his release. On the other hand, his arrest and detention, and the pressure by the US Embassy to spring him, are leading to an outpouring of rage among Pakistanis at a very volatile time, with the Middle East facing a wave of popular uprisings against US-backed autocracies, and with Pakistan itself, increasingly a powder keg, being bombed by US rocket-firing pilotless drone aircraft.
Some Pakistani publications, meanwhile, are speculating that Davis, beyond simple spying, may have been involved in subversive activities in the country, possibly linked to the wave of terror bombings that have been destabilizing the central government. They note that both of the slain motorcyclists (the third dead man appears to have been an innocent victim of the incident) were themselves armed with pistols, though neither had apparently drawn his weapon.
A State Department official, contacted by Counterpunch, refused to provide any details about the nature of Davis’ employment, or to offer an explanation for Hyperion Protective Consultants LLC’s fictitious address, and its lack of registration with the Florida Secretary of State’s office.
Davis is currently scheduled for a court date on Feb. 11 to consider the issue of whether or not he has immunity from prosecution.
Dave Lindorff is the founder of the online alternative newspaper ThisCantBeHappening! at www.thiscantbehappening.net
February 8, 2011
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Introduction
To understand the Obama regime’s policy toward Egypt, the Mubarak dictatorship and the popular uprising it is essential to locate it in an historical context.
The essential point is that Washington, after several decades of being deeply embedded in the state structures of the Arab dictatorships, from Tunisia through Morocco, Egypt, Yemen, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority, is attempting to re-orient its policies to incorporate and/or graft liberal-electoral politicians onto the existing power configurations.
While most commentators and journalists spill tons of ink about the “dilemmas” of US power, the novelty of the Egyptian events and Washington’s day to day policy pronouncements, there are ample historical precedents which are essential to understand the strategic direction of Obama’s policies.
Historical Background
US foreign policy has a long history of installing, financing, arming and backing dictatorial regimes which back its imperial policies and interests as long as they retain control over their people.
In the past, Republican and Democratic presidents worked closely for over 30 years with the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic; installed the autocratic Diem regime in pre-revolutionary Vietnam in the 1950’s; collaborated with two generations of Somoza family terror regimes in Nicaragua; financed and promoted the military coup in Cuba 1952, Brazil 1964, Chile in 1973, and in Argentina in 1976 and the subsequent repressive regimes. When popular upheavals challenged these US backed dictatorships, and a social as well as political revolution appeared likely to succeed, Washington responded with a three track policy: publically criticizing the human rights violations and advocating democratic reforms; privately signaling continued support to the ruler; and thirdly, seeking an elite alternative which could substitute for the incumbent and preserve the state apparatus, the economic system and support US strategic imperial interests.
For the US there are no strategic relationships only permanent imperial interests, name preservation of the client state. The dictatorships assume that their relationships with Washington is strategic: hence the shock and dismay when they are sacrificed to save the state apparatus. Fearing revolution, Washington has had reluctant client despots, unwilling to move on, assassinated (Trujillo and Diem). Some are provided sanctuaries abroad (Somoza, Batista), others are pressured into power-sharing (Pinochet) or appointed as visiting scholars to Harvard, Georgetown or some other “prestigious” academic posting.
The Washington calculus on when to reshuffle the regime is based on an estimate of the capacity of the dictator to weather the political uprising, the strength and loyalty of the armed forces and the availability of a pliable replacement. The risk of waiting too long, of sticking with the dictator, is that the uprising radicalizes: the ensuing change sweeps away both the regime and the state apparatus, turning a political uprising into a social revolution. Just such a ‘miscalculation’ occurred in 1959 in the run-up to the Cuban revolution, when Washing stood by Batista and was not able to present a viable pro US alternative coalition linked to the old state apparatus. A similar miscalculation occurred in Nicaragua, when President Carter, while criticizing Somoza, stayed the course, and stood passively by as the regime was overthrown and the revolutionary forces destroyed the US and Israeli trained military, secret police and intelligence apparatus, and went on to nationalize US property and develop an independent foreign policy.
Washington moved with greater initiative, in Latin America in the 1980’s. It promoted negotiated electoral transitions which replaced dictators with pliable neo-liberal electoral politicians, who pledged to preserve the existing state apparatus, defend the privileged foreign and domestic elites and back US regional and international policies.
Past Lessons and Present Policies:
Obama has been extremely hesitant to oust Mubarak for several reasons, even as the movement grows in number and anti-Washington sentiment deepens. The White House has many clients around the world – including Honduras, Mexico, Indonesia, Jordan and Algeria – who believe they have a strategic relationship with Washington and would lose confidence in their future if Mubarak was dumped.
Secondly, the highly influential leading pro-Israel organizations in the US (AIPAC, the Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organizations) and their army of scribes have mobilized congressional leaders to pressure the White House to continue backing Mubarak, as Israel is the prime beneficiary of a dictator who is at the throat of the Egyptians (and Palestinians) and at the feet of the Jewish state.
As a result the Obama regime has moved slowly, under fear and pressure of the growing Egyptian popular movement. It searches for an alternative political formula that removes Mubarak, retains and strengthens the political power of the state apparatus and incorporates a civilian electoral alternative as a means of demobilizing and de-radicalizing the vast popular movement.
The major obstacle to ousting Mubarak is that a major sector of the state apparatus, especially the 325,000 Central Security Forces and the 60,000 National Guard are directly under the Interior Ministry and Mubarak. Secondly, top Generals in the Army (468,500 members) have buttressed Mubarak for 30 years and have been enriched by their control over very lucrative companies in a wide range of fields. They will not support any civilian ‘coalition’ that calls into question their economic privileges and power to set the political parameters of any electoral system. The supreme commander of the Egyptian military is a longtime client of the US and a willing collaborator with Israel.
Obama is resolutely in favor of collaborating with and ensuring the preservation of these coercive bodies.But he also needs to convince them to replace Mubarak and allow for a new regime which can defuse the mass movement which is increasingly opposed to US hegemony and subservience to Israel. Obama will do everything necessary to retain the cohesion of the state and avoid any splits which might lead to a mass movement – soldier alliance which could convert the uprising into a revolution.
Washington has opened talks with the most conservative liberal and clerical sectors of the anti-Mubarak movement. At first it tried to convince them to negotiate with Mubarak – a dead end position which was rejected by all sectors of the opposition, top and bottom. Then Obama tried to sell a phony “promise” from Mubarak that he would not run in the elections, nine months later.
The movement and its leaders rejected that proposal also. So Obama raised the rhetoric for ‘immediate changes’ but without any substantive measures backing it up. To convince Obama of his continued power base, Mubarak sent his formidable thug-lumpen secret police to violently seize the streets from the movement. A test of strength: the Army stood by; the assault raised the ante of a civil war, with radical consequences. Washington and the E.U. pressured the Mubarak regime to back off – for now. But the image of a pro-democracy military was tarnished, as killings and injuries multiplied in the thousands.
As the pressure of the movement intensifies, Obama cross pressured by the pro Mubarak Israel Lobby and its Congressional entourage on the one hand, and on the other by knowledgeable advisors who call on him to follow past practices and move decisively to sacrifice the regime to save the state while the liberal-clerical electoral option is still on the table.
But Obama hesitates and like a wary crustacean, he moves sideways and backwards, believing his own grandiloquent rhetoric is a substitute for action … hoping that sooner or later, the uprising will end with Mubarakism without Mubarak: a regime able to demobilize the popular movements and willing to promote elections which result in elected officials following the general line of their predecessor.
Nevertheless, there are many uncertainties in a political reshuffle: a democratic citizenry, 83% unfavorable to Washington, will possess the experience of struggle and freedom to call for a realignment of policy, especially to cease being a policeman enforcing the Israeli blockage of Gaza, and providing support for US puppets in North Africa, Lebanon, Yemen, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Secondly free elections will open debate and increase pressure for greater social spending, the expropriation of the seventy billion dollar empire of the Mubarek clan and the crony capitalists who pillage the economy. The masses will demand a reallocation of public expenditure from the overblown coercive apparatus to productive, job generating employment. A limited political opening may lead to a second round, in which new social and political conflicts will divide the anti-Mubarak forces, a conflict between the advocates of social democracy and elite backers of neo-liberal electoralism. The anti-dictatorial moment is only the first phase of a prolonged struggle toward definitive emancipation not only in Egypt but throughout the Arab world. The outcome depends on the degree to which the masses develop their own independent organization and leaders.
February 7, 2011
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Five of Norway’s largest PR firms have said ‘no’ to offers to improve Israel’s global public relations campaign, reported the Norwegian newspaper Dagens Naæringsliv.
Israel is attempting to widen its global public relations campaign by hiring foreign PR firm to improve its reputation abroad. With the increasing threat being posed by the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, and the publicity surrounding Israelis human rights violations in the occupied Palestinian Territory, Israel has contacted public relations specialists in Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, the Czech Republic and Norway for help.
The project, for which each firm would be paid around 3.5 million USD annually, is to help Israel promote its vision in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as well as prevent the international boycott, amongst other things.
“Israel is an highly controversial project,” Sigurd Grytten, the PR firm Burson-Marsteller’s Managing Director, told the paper.
Statements by heads of the public relations agencies Geelmuyden.Keise, Gambit H&K, Apeland Informasjon, and First House range from “difficult”, to “no comment”. Only one agency, Kreab, has said it might consider the assignment.
In response, Aviad Ivri, Counselor at the Israeli embassy in Oslo, said, “It’s no secret that Israel has a reputation problem.”
Norway has a growing boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement. The country’s Government Pension Fund Global recently divested from two Israeli companies, Africa Israel Investments and Danya Cebus, due to their involvement in the construction of illegal settlements in the West Bank.
“Several United Nations Security Council resolutions and an International Court of Justice advisory opinion have concluded that the construction of Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territory is prohibited under the [Geneva] Convention,” said Norway’s Minister of Finance Sigbjørn Johnsen at the time of the much-publicized divestment.
What’s more late 2010, Israel accused the Norwegian government of funding and encouraging blatant anti-Israel incitement. The accusations were based on reports that a local Norwegian municipality is funding a trip for students to New York in order to take part in the “Gaza Monologues” play, and view an exhibition by Norwegian artists.
The play, which “deals with the suffering of children in Gaza as a result of the Israeli occupation,” was written by a Palestinian playwright from Gaza, and was presented at the United Nations headquarters. The Norwegian government responded to the Israeli accusation, saying that the Norwegian government supports freedom of expression and will not be intervening in the arts.
February 6, 2011
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There is debate about the precise role of Egypt in US Middle East “strategy”, if the word can be used. Stanford historian Joel Beinin, in an interview by Justin Elliott in Salon, claimed that the Arab states, including Egypt, shared equally the US-Israeli animus against Iran.
“And most recently, Mubarak, along with King Abdullah II of Jordan and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, has been gung-ho for attacking Iran. We know that from the WikiLeaks documents…”
But Historian Gareth Porter and journalist Jim Lobe argue that Saudi Arabia does not share Israel’s enthusiasm for military action. Commenting on the NYT coverage of the Wikileaks cables, they wrote, “Actual Wiki Cables Belie NYT’s Version of Saudi Gulf States’ Stance on Iran”:
“In fact, the cables show that most Gulf Arab regimes – including Saudi Arabia itself – have been seriously concerned about the consequences of a strike against Iran for their own security, in sharp contrast to Israel’s open advocacy of such a strike. They also show the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait expressing that concern with greater urgency in the past two years than previously”
They cite veteran diplomat Chas Freeman and journalist Thomas Lipman as saying that even an approval of military action would fit the pattern of Arab states telling the US what it wants to hear. This applies a fortiori to Egypt, which has no Shia population and is much farther from Iran.
Sasan Fayazmanesh, US-Iranian economist and scholar of the US-Iran relationship, has also skewered the MSM for misconstruing the Wikileaks cables on Iran, and shown the degree to which the US anti-Iran animus is driven by and for Israel. Fayazmanesh writes:
According to this policy, the US would exert pressure on its client states in the Persian Gulf so that they would distance themselves from Iran and get behind Israel. Before becoming president, Barak Obama stated this policy in a speech delivered at the 2007 AIPAC conference (the speech was actually written by Dennis Ross, James B. Steinberg, who is currently the Deputy Secretary of State, and former American Ambassador to Israel Daniel Kurtzer). Obama stated: We have “to persuade other nations, such as Saudi Arabia, to recognize common interests with Israel in dealing with Iran.” Once Obama became president, this policy was enforced vigorously.
Gareth Porter feels that “The main function of the U.S. client state relationship with Egypt was to allow Israel to avoid coming to terms with Palestinian demands.” He argues that “the present strategic crisis can only be resolved by a…historical accommodation… with the ‘resistance bloc’ in the Middle East.”, that is, “Iran, Iraq, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas.”
The sine qua non of that accommodation is a just settlement of the Israel-Palestine issue, which is simply inconceivable in US politics. While the Israel lobby and the costs to the US of the “special relationship” are more visible than ever, there is no indication that its grip on power is slipping. The US has advised Mubarak not to stand for re-election in September. This would keep the regime in place and give the US months to manipulate the outcome. It is a colossal insult to the Egyptian people, and does not remotely reflect the interest of the US, but only of Israel and its US supporters.
Overcoming the lobby will take a struggle in US politics like the Civil War. If it doesn’t materialize, instead of a “historic accommodation with the ‘resistance bloc'” we may see even more historic violence, in a collision of the resistance, now including the
people of Egypt, with the immovable object of US-Israel relations.
February 2, 2011
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Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel |
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Syria in the cross-hairs
The Obama regime has been using its Government-Organized Non-Governmental Organizations (GONGOs) close to the CIA like Freedom House and the NED to remove or threaten the ugly puppet dictators in Tunisia and Egypt. Further “color revolutions” in Yemen, Algeria and Jordan are in the making. The aim of this US policy is clearly to replace these dictators with less repugnant US-friendly puppet ‘democracies’. Now Washington is trying to use the momentum of this process to stage a color regime change in Syria.
Internet activists and organizers in academia have been financed with over half a billion dollars through the State Department’s Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) program. Mass media and well known hasbara institutions are directing this campaign. On Monday CNN, which is close to the US regime, together with the Zionist propaganda organization MEMRI, called for an uprising in Syria. The Wall Street Journal, which is also close to the US regime, continued this campaign against Syria. And later, the U.S. news agency UPI campaigned for a dubious “Syrian revolution” Facebook group advocating for protests in Syria on Friday.
There is a vast difference between the revolutionary events in Tunisia and Egypt and the protests planned in Syria. While the abolition of US-backed dictators like Ben Ali and Mubarak could be viewed as progress in the fight for justice, a color revolution in Syria would be a big step backward. Though less democratic than Iran – where a Mossad backed color revolution attempt failed in 2009 – Syria is also a key pillar of resistance against the hegemony of the Zionist dominated US policy of aggression in the middle east.
Like many other countries in the middle east, Syria has had a lot of problems in recent decades. But these problems in Syria were primarily caused by it’s strong stance for the resistance against Zionism, by not obeying the orders of Tel-Aviv.
Precisely because of his very effective support for the resistance, Syrian president Bashir al-Assad is one of the most popular politicians among the Arab people. Due to the achievements of the steadfast resistance of Syria – and it’s ally Iran – the US is now forced to dismantle it’s ugliest puppet dictatorships in the middle east and let them be replaced by regimes closer to the people.
Should the Zionist-dominated US propaganda succeed in creating a short-term wave of public anger that ousts Assad, the US would not only be able to control Syria, but also have a free hand in installing pro-US puppet regimes in the other newly ‘color’ revolutionized Arab countries. These pseudo democratic puppet regimes modeled after the German pseudo democracy could more easily be forced to submit to the kleptomaniac Zionist terror regime.
For these reasons, it is important for all those longing for real change in the middle east, and finally the world, to support Syria now and defend it against US sponsored soft war attempts. The only way to reach lasting and just peace in the middle east is to resist, until the Zionist apartheid state of Israel ends all occupation and is transformed into a state of all it’s citizens.
Update, March 29, 2011:
Elliot Abrams’ Plan For Syria
February 2, 2011
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The people of Egypt have had enough of a failed dictatorship masquerading as a democracy. As events unfold, we’re seeing a cautionary message entering the corporate media coverage of this event. Having never exposed the dire conditions that prompted the massive protests and demands for change, we’re now told that this could negatively impact oil supplies, the stock market, and anti-terror efforts. No foundation for the claims was provided but they’re repeated regularly on CNN, the NBCs, Fox, and the print media.
Thus, a false dilemma is created for the public: support the right of people to determine their own fate or protect your safety and the current standard of living, as it were.
Egypt’s oppressive tyranny
Eighty million Egyptians have suffered under an oppressive regime for thirty years. President Hosni Murbark became Egypt’s president and dictator in 1981 after the assassination of the late President Answer Sadat in 1981. Sadat had just completed a peace treaty with Israel. Since then, Mubarak has ruled through emergency law for all but 18 months. Using this law, the government has the, “right to arrest people without charge, detain prisoners indefinitely, limit freedom of expression and assembly, and maintain a special security court.” The Egyptian parliament extended for two years in May 2010. For those who get too far out of line, there are the famous torture facilities of the national police.
The Egyptian revolution followed the successful peoples uprising in Tunisia just days before. The Egyptian economy has not performed for the people. The majority of Egyptians live in substandard conditions and they see little reason for hope. Conditions were no better in Tunisia. Future hot spots for revolution, Algeria and Yemen, are equally bereft of the conditions that allow for human dignity – gainful employment, health, and safety.
Children are particularly hard hit, one-third of Egypt’s population. A recent UNISEF that, “Increases in child mortality and morbidity, child labour, child exploitation, violence against children and women and other forms of abuse, alongside declines in school attendance and the quality of education, nurture, care and emotional well-being, can all be traced to times of economic crisis.” (Harper et al, 2009). The Egyptian economic crisis has been devastating to children.
The conditions in Egypt are different from those in the United States in terms of income and material wealth. On a structural level, however, the class inequalities mirror those faced here. A robust stock market failed to translate into employment gains or basic benefits for the vast majority. Policies are friendly to businesses but discriminate against worker rights and unions. Privatization has sapped the public coffers.
While conditions were building up to a boiling point, the Egyptian Stock Exchange became a favorite for foreign investors. Somehow, the geniuses on Wall Street convinced President Mubarak to privatize and adopt a market economy [crony capitalism]. He did, the people suffered more, and the results led to the near universal demand that Mubarak step down. The globalization of crony capitalism has reached the point where the main stimulus is revolution.
The false dilemma
The coverage of Egypt’s revolution has been a bit timelier than the Tunisian affair, which the corporate media nearly missed. The initial focus was on events and the questions determining the survival of Hosni Mubarak. Who will win? There was no explanation of conditions prompting the protests. That would legitimize the protesters and foreclose media manipulation that may be needed to continue the three-decade support for the present dictatorship and oligarchy.
A Wall Street Journal article Sunday laid out the talking points for fear mongering and the false dilemma – support a peoples revolution? – take an oil shock and more terror.
US stocks are taking a big hit because of the revolution. We’re supposed to react by thinking, Is this really worth it? The recession may get worse.
“Anti-government protests in Egypt have affected world financial markets, with US stocks suffering the biggest one-day loss in six months.” Egyptian Unrest Has Repercussions in Global Economy Wall Street Journal (WSJ), January 30
The specific fear of oil price increases appears. Somehow, we’re asked to believe that a new government might say, all of a sudden, no more United States ships in the Suez Canal.
“In the short term, the biggest global economic worry remains oil prices. Egypt itself isn’t a big energy producer. But significant shipments of oil and petroleum products pass through Egypt each day on their way from the Mideast to European and U.S. markets.” WSJ 01/30
There is absolutely no basis for this. Therefore, the fabrication is deliberate and ill intended.
Then the Journal trots out an expert who draws a conclusion based on the unproven hypothetical. Once again, there is no basis for saying that there would be any shipping disruptions. Why would a new Egyptian government give up that income or pick a fight with a White House with a record of military aggression?
“If oil shipments through Egypt were disrupted, European supply — and global prices — would be affected tremendously, said Dalton Garis, an associate professor in petroleum-market behavior at the Petroleum Institute, an energy-research center in Abu Dhabi.” WSJ 01/30
The media is like a dog on point. They just can’t give up the notion that we’re headed for an oil shock.
“Apart from Egypt’s role as an energy transporter, fear that unrest could spread to bigger oil producers could exacerbate worries.” WSJ 01/30
Where is the information that would justify this fear?
Where is the explanation that accounts for this remarkable mass uprising?
Where are the questions about the three decades of neglect by several U.S. administrations and the requests by presidents Bush and perhaps Obama to carry out “renditions” [torture] in behalf of the United States.
When you support a tyrant who oppresses his/her people, you risk the antipathy of the people when they gain control.
Apparently, our ruling class hasn’t paid any attention to recent history. For years, successive US regimes supported dictatorial rule in South America. The dictators are gone, left leaning governments are in place, and no one is lining up to punish the United States.
The real concern about change in Egypt is all about control. The elite of the US and Europe may encounter a leader who isn’t in their pocket, doesn’t care whether or not he or she is invited to Davos, and actually seeks the benefit of the vast majority of citizens rather than the crony capitalist network also known as the global economy.
Michael Collins is a writer in the DC area who researches and comments on the corruptions of the new millennium. His articles focus on the financial manipulations of The Money Party, the abuse of power by government, and features on elections and election fraud. His articles can be found here. His website is called The Money Party.
Copyright © 1998-2007 Online Journal
February 2, 2011
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Soon after Pakistan appeared on the world map as a sovereign country, it was placed in the US sphere of influence. From the signing of the Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement with the United States in 1954 to Musharraf’s blind subservience to the US, the incompetent Pakistani rulers have effectively turned Pakistan and US relations into the relationship between the vassal and suzerain state; with Pakistani rulers’ abject submissiveness, Pakistan’s sovereignty has been very much reduced to flag waving and singing the national anthem.
General Musharraf during ten years of his rule pushed Pakistan to a new low in subservience to the US In his constant bid to prove his unwavering loyalty, Musharraf, in his docile act of obedience, sold Pakistani and foreign citizens to the US for a bounty of $5,000 to 5 million per head. These people were kidnapped and hunted in flagrant contravention of Pakistani and international laws, handed over to the US without any charge, concrete evidence or due judicial process, and then they were thrown in the torture pit of Guantanamo Bay. Musharraf, without feeling a single iota of guilt, says in his memoir, “We have captured 689 and handed over 369 to the United States. We have earned bounties totaling millions of dollars. Those who habitually accuse us of ‘not doing enough’ in the war on terror should simply ask the CIA how much prize money it has paid to the government of Pakistan. Here, I will tell the stories of just a few of the most significant man-hunts…” This is perhaps the first instance in civilized history that a head of state abducted and sold his own people for prize money and was proud of it and unabashedly mentioned it in his memoirs.
Among the many ills that Musharraf inflicted on Pakistan, he allowed the personnel of the US intelligence agencies and mercenaries from American private military companies (Blackwater, Halliburton, DynCorp, etc) to operate all over Pakistan in search of Al Qaeda leaders. Today, it is well known, that hundreds of US armed operatives freely roam on the streets of Pakistani cities. Whether as a mistake or unintentional utterance, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates in an interview admitted Blackwater’s presence in Pakistan. Not only did the Musharraf regime allow American mercenary presence in the country but he also waived the visa requirement for them; they come and go as they please, without visa or traveling documents. Often, they are escorted off the plane into a waiting car on the tarmac.
Pakistan’s newspaper Nawa-e Waqt in its editorial writes, “The Blackwater operatives, who committed heinous and inhuman crimes in Iraq, come wherever they please in Pakistan without visa or travel document. They keep on roaming around in vehicles with fake number plates with dangerous weapons. These U.S. officials point guns at the security people if asked to reveal their identity. During a few minutes debate, there is a series of phone calls from the high officials, and they, who consider Pakistan as their playground, are allowed to go with honor (How Much Dignity is Left?”, Nawa-e Waqt, January 18, 2010, translated from Urdu). It is also claimed by many and cannot be dismissed easily that Dr. Aafia Siddiqui was abducted independently by Americans mercenaries from Karachi and then transferred to Afghanistan.
Pakistan’s government, Musharraf’s and the present PPP regime, has turned a blind eye and keeps mum to US mercenaries violating the country’s sovereignty and assassinating its citizens. However, the recent murder of two Pakistanis by a U.S. “diplomat” Raymond Davis on a busy street of Lahore in full view of the public forced the Pakistani government to arrest the American suspect. After the shooting and killing Davis called the consulate for help, a Land Cruiser, came to the scene. The driver of the Land Cruiser went the wrong way down a one-way street and ran over a man on a motorcycle, killing a third person. The driver of the get-away vehicle and four passengers who came to rescue Davis fled the scene and are still at large. Despite repeated requests the US Consulate is not revealing any information about the driver who killed a motorcyclist. The murder incident and the aborted attempt to rescue and help the suspect flee has, once again, brought to the forefront the presence and criminal activities of secretly fielded American mercenaries in Pakistan.
The US authorities claim that the name of the man arrested for the double murder is not Raymond Davis. The US State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said, “We have not released the identity of our employee at this point”; however, he denied the man’s name is Raymond Davis. The US Embassy in Pakistan says that the man in Pakistan’s custody is a diplomat with a valid US diplomat passport and visa. But the copies of passport and visa of Davis obtained by Dawn News show that his name is Raymond Alan Davis, his passport is not of a diplomat and he was not on diplomatic visa but he came to Pakistan on a business visa. The US first claimed that Davis is a “Technical Adviser” and “Counselor”. Later his designation is changed to “functionary” of the US Consulate. However, ABC News says, Davis is an employee of Hyperion Protective Consultants LLC, a private security company based in Orlando, Florida.
Davis’ claim that he killed the two men in self-defense is spoiled when one considers that all the bullet wounds were found in the back of the dead bodies. Also, no shot was fired from the guns recovered on the bodies of the dead Pakistanis. His other claim that he is immune from arrest and prosecution by the virtue of his diplomatic status is also proven empty, as neither his passport nor the visa is diplomatic. If indeed Davis is a diplomat and enjoys diplomatic immunity, the US, on ethical grounds, should waive the immunity and let the judicial process take its course. It would only raise US prestige. If Davis truly acted in self-defense, he would be acquitted.
The Washington Post in its report of January 27 puts a new twist to the already complicated storyline, and even adds a dose of suspense. Here is what the Post says, “A senior former U.S. diplomatic security agent suggested Thursday that the American involved in a fatal shootout in Lahore, Pakistan, was the victim of a spy meeting gone awry, not the target of a robbery or car-jacking attempt.” The Post quoted Fred Burton, a former deputy chief of the US Diplomatic Security Service’s counter-terrorism division who worked on several major terrorism cases in the 1980s and 1990s, as saying: “It looks like an informant meet gone bad more than a car-jacking attempt.”
If we consider what a diplomat fluent in Urdu with automatic weapons and a large sum of money in a rented car was doing in the part of town that has been scene of terror bombing, Burton’s theory of “an informant meet gone bad” appears highly credible. Diplomats do not travel in a locally rented car and go cruising with large sums of money and automatic weapons in the not so desirable part of the town. It is very plausible that Davis was on a mission and the mission went awry. Pakistanis strongly suspects U.S. hands in the terror bombings in their country.
At the end of the day, the US will get its way; Pakistan’s servile administration under US pressure will let Davis go free. There will be some clamor in the press and anti US demonstrations on the streets but all will be forgotten and forgiven soon. The other likely scenario: to appease the Pakistani public, the US may release Dr. Aafia Siddique; a Pakistani neuroscientist who the US says has ties to Al Qaeda members, sentenced in the US to 86 years in prison for attempted murder, in exchange for the release of Raymond Davis. It is highly unlikely, rather unimaginable, that the trial will go to its end, and if Davis is found guilty that he will serve the full sentence in a Pakistani jail. The US is not Pakistan, and Raymond Davis is not Pakistani Aafia Siddique, who was sold and forgotten and abandoned by her Pakistani rulers.
If Raymond Davis goes free, after murdering two Pakistanis in broad daylight, without judicial process, it would be yet another abject surrender by the Pakistani government to the will of the US.
© 2011 Abdul-Majid Jaffry
February 1, 2011
Posted by aletho |
Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Timeless or most popular |
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There is a vast difference between the revolutionary events in Tunisia and Egypt and the protests planned in Syria. While the abolition of US-backed dictators like Ben Ali and Mubarak could be viewed as progress in the fight for justice, a color revolution in Syria would be a big step backward. Though less democratic than Iran – where a Mossad backed color revolution attempt failed in 2009 – Syria is also a key pillar of resistance against the hegemony of the Zionist dominated US policy of aggression in the middle east.
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