Arab League Silences Libyan TV
By Thomas C. Mountain | Sri Lanka Guardian | May 19, 2011
The new supremo of the Arab League kept his promise, the first he was to make, and has chopped off the head of Libyan television, so to speak, by blocking any further Libyan government satellite television broadcast by the middle east and Africa’s most watched network, Arabsat.
By the time I arrived home for lunch on Tuesday, May 17 and my thrice daily dose of Al Jammahariya TV all five Libyan government satellite channels had gone dark.
No more splinted, bandaged and sewn back together Libyan children clutching Muammar Gaddafi’s picture with one cast encased arm while the other is raised in that signature Libyan clenched fist salute.
No more images of blood splattered bed sheets in pediatric wards where victims of previous bombings were shredded by flying glass blown in on them from NATO bombs next door.
No more scenes of Muammar Gaddafi driving through the smoke shrouded streets of Tripoli standing in the open sunroof of a SUV, almost daring NATO to do its worst.
And no more press conferences with Libyan Imams standing side by side with their Christian brethren, raging at the world for allowing the NATO crusaders to slaughter men of peace who had gathered to try and end the bloodshed of Libyan against Libyan.
I cant say I was surprised when the ax dropped for I had been wondering for months now that those that only know “rule by force” in the Arab world didn’t realize how much damage they were inflicting on themselves by allowing their subjects to see what the USA and NATO’s wrath had wrought on a long peaceful Arab people in North Africa.
Arab Awakening? No, the revolution in the third world is Arabsat via satellite dishes popping up like mushrooms all over Africa, south Asia and the middle east. With hundreds of channels to choose from including the likes of Al Manar of Hezbollah, Al Jammahariya from Libya, and of course, the unchallenged elephant on the airwaves, Al Jazeera, broadcasting from the home of an absolute monarch, the Emir of Qatar.
Twitter, Facebook and the internet in general has little meaning to those Egyptians from the poorest of the most desperately poor neighborhoods of Cairo who were the first to pour into Tahir Square in protest against the hated Mubarak regime. When one cannot afford to buy your daily bread or sugar for your morning tea life quickly becomes unendurable and those of enough means to own a laptop find fertile ground for their Facebook based protests. And even if the internet and cell phone service is cut, somewhere in even the most squalid slums and shantytowns there will be a satellite dish and a television screen showing the exploding anger of those like themselves who have nothing left to lose.
Arab street or Arab sheep? Satellite news channels can inform or disinform. One must only see how the Libyan rebels hit the big time to see how dangerous the propaganda arms of hereditary rulers can be, especially when their message falls on ears only to eager for change, any change, no matter the disastrous consequences for themselves and their neighbors.
Still, there is something about seeing with ones own eyes and hearing with ones own ears that allows one to try to best judge what is and what isn’t true. After a lifetime of strictly controlled propaganda, we finally have a choice, maybe limited, but a choice of what propaganda we would try and digest. An important part of that choice is gone now that Libyan TV is off the satellite airwaves.
So farewell to the battle cries of the foes of the NATO crusaders, the voice of Libya for LIbyans one might say, axed by the new Prince of the Arab League. I for one, will miss you.
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Thomas C. Mountain can be reached at thomascmountain@yahoo.com
Haifa university prevents Arab MK Zoabi from delivering lecture
Palestine Information Center – 16/05/2011
HAIFA — The Haifa university administration disallowed a lecture for Arab MK Hanin Zoabi on the occasion of Nakba under the title of “No to racism on Nakba anniversary”.
The administration, which cancelled another earlier lecture for Sheikh Raed Salah the leader of the Islamic movement in 1948 occupied Palestine, prohibited all activities for the Arab students.
The students branch of Zoabi’s party in the university said that the administration’s practice had turned into a routine, vowing to protest the practice and not to remain silent.
Israeli soldier shoots photographer
Press TV – May 17, 2011
An Israeli soldier has deliberately shot Palestinian photographer Mohammad Othman as he was covering protests in the Gaza Strip, says Reporters Without Borders.
The group said on Tuesday that Othman was clearly identifiable as a journalist at the time of the shooting and was deliberately targeted on Sunday.
The photographer was covering demonstrations near the Erez crossing in northern Gaza Strip.
On Sunday, thousands of Palestinians staged protests to mark the anniversary of the Nakba Day or “day of the catastrophe,” May 15, 1948, when Palestine was occupied by Israel.
Israeli Apache helicopters and F-16 fighter planes flew over the demonstrators, whereas troops fired tank shells near marching protesters on the border crossing.
Medical sources and Othman’s family told AFP on Tuesday that he was still in hospital in a “critical but stable” condition.
“He underwent an operation early this morning to remove a piece of shrapnel from his spine,” said Adham Abu Selmiya, a spokesman for the medical services in Gaza.
A doctor said the 26-year-old Othman was shot in the arm and was hit in the chest by shrapnel, which entered his lungs and spine.
‘Bahraini government hits social networkers’
PressTVGlobalNews on May 15, 2011
President of Bahrain’s Center for Human Rights Nabeel Rajab says the Bahraini regime has dismissed people from their jobs for sending information of the government’s harsh crackdown on protesters via social networks.
An interview with President of Bahrain’s Center for Human Rights, Nabeel Rajab
Italy’s Great Nuclear Swindle
The Radioactive Dictatorship of Silvio Berlusconi
By MICHAEL LEONARDI – CounterPunch – May 13, 2011
Italy’s democracy is in tatters as Silvio Berlusconi and his ruling right-wing coalition work to block a citizen’s referendum that would repeal the decision of the Berlusconi government to return to nuclear energy production on the peninsula. Italy has not produced nuclear energy since 1990 and recent polls indicate that more than 75 % of Italians are opposed to nuclear energy production. The referendum in question is on the ballot for the 12th and 13th of June, although a recent call by the Berlusconi government for a one year moratorium on the relaunch of nuclear energy in Italy threatens to push the referendum off the ballot through a last minute legal ruling. The campaign to bring this referendum to a vote was spearheaded by opposition political party Italia Dei Valori (Italy of Values) which led a broad based coalition of citizen and environmental groups to gather the 500,000 signatures needed to get the referendum on the ballot.
Italy is the only G8 country that does not produce nuclear energy. It has been free of functioning nuclear power plants since 1990 but does receive around 10% of its electricity from nuclear energy generated in France and Germany. Citizens successfully passed a referendum in 1987, one year after the catastrophic Chernobyl accident, that called for the phasing out and suspension of nuclear energy production. In 1987 Italy had two operating nuclear plants and has had four operational reactors in its history. In 2007 while campaigning for his third election, Berlusconi announced his intentions to return to nuclear energy production in Italy as a strategic part of a national energy policy.
Back in 2007 Berlusconi wasn’t the only one who supported a return to nuclear energy. Important elements of the newly formed Democratic Party also voiced their support for a return to nuclear power. A wikileaks cable 07ROME2438 revealed that Pier Luigi Bersani, the current secretary of the Italian Democratic Party who in 2007 was serving as Economic Development Minister for the Romano Prodi led Center Left coalition government, opened the door for Italy’s return to atomic energy by forging the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership agreement with then US energy secretary Samuel Bodman. At that time Bersani stated that “a return to nuclear energy was not excluded by the 1987 referendum” and that it was his hope that the agreement forged between the Prodi and Bush administrations would “help lead to a change in attitude from the Italian people toward nuclear energy.” Walter Veltroni, the ex-mayor of Rome who was the newly formed Democratic Party’s first candidate for president against Berlusconi in 2008, also voiced his openness to the idea of returning to Nuclear Energy production.
Since Fukushima Bersani and his fellow Democrats have been much more subdued about their support for Nuclear Energy and they have voiced strong opposition to the current government’s plan for the construction of new reactors. The Democrats have joined the chorus of the Green Party, Italia Dei Valori and scores of citizens groups in calling Berlusconi’s attempts to block the referendum a “theft” and a “deceptive attempt to hinder the democratic process.” Fukushima has inspired renewed vigor in the antinuclear movement and worked to sway public opinion in opposition to nuclear power that had become increasingly split over the past few years.
Following Berlusconi’s election victory in 2008 and his return to power for the third time since 1994, Italy’s new minister of economic development Claudio Scajola — before being forced out of office by a corruption scandal involving bribery and fraud in 2010 — announced that the government had scheduled the start of construction for the first new Italian nuclear power plant by 2013. On February the 24th of 2009, an agreement between France and Italy was signed allowing Italy to share in France’s expertise in the area of nuclear power station design. On July 9th 2009 the Italian legislature passed an energy bill covering the establishment of a Nuclear Regulatory Agency and giving the government six months to select sites for new plants. These sites have never been finalized. On the 3rd of August 2009, Italy’s energy giant Enel and Eletricite de France established a joint venture Sviluppo Nucleare Italia Srl for studying the feasibility of building at least four reactors using a design of French reactor builder Areva — the worlds largest nuclear energy company. These energy oligarchs, with Berlusconi as their champion, are doing everything in their power to preserve their multi-billion dollar investment in a nuclear future.
To this end Berlusconi’s council of ministers announced a one year moratorium on all questions relating to the research and activation of sites for new nuclear plants in Italy on the 24rd of March 2011, less than two weeks from the earthquake in Japan and subsequent Fukushima nuclear disaster. This move was immediately met with skepticism from Italy’s antinuclear movement and opposition political parties and was seen as a poorly veiled attempt to block the June referendum. On April 26th, the 25th anniversary of the catastrophic Chernobyl accident, Berlusconi held a press conference with French president Nikolay Sarkozy in Rome. At this press conference Berlusconi made his radioactive intentions clear for all. “We are absolutely convinced that nuclear energy is the future for the whole world,” he said. He went on to detail how recent polls showed that the referendum to block nuclear power for decades to come could pass at this time and that by temporarily suspending Italy’s return to nuclear program the issue would be revisited when the Italian voters had been “calmed down” and returned to the realization that Nuclear Energy was the most viable and safe way to produce electricity. He went on to explain how the “leftists and ecologists” had manipulated the emotions of the Italian voters after Chernobyl and penalized the Italian people who have to pay higher electric rates than France that operates 58 nuclear power plants. Berlusconi explained that the “situation in Japan had scared the Italian voters” and that the “inevitable return to nuclear power in Italy” would not be abandoned nor would the collaborations between Enel and Eletricite de France.
Now with Germany and Japan announcing the phasing out of their Nuclear programs and the scrapping of plans for the construction of new reactors, it would seem like political suicide to barge full steam ahead with a pro nuclear stance, but this is Italy and Berlusconi is still at the command. Berlusconi is now in control of all the major television outlets, including the state owned RAI, so getting the word out to the voters that there will be a vote on the 12th and 13th of June is proving difficult, and the heavy hand of State censorship has been wielded. At the annual May Day concert in Rome, sponsored by Italy’s two largest labor unions and televised on the state run RAI, the performing artists were required to sign a waiver agreeing not to speak about the upcoming referendums or risk a fine of over ten thousand euros. This left a bitter taste in the mouths of many of the attendees of this May Day celebration as news surfaced almost immediately that the state media outlet had censored the event.
As of now the referendum to block Nuclear Power is still on the ballot. Only a last minute ruling by the Supreme Court could remove it, and the Berlusconi government is banking on this decision as a result of their so-called nuclear moratorium. The antinuclear referendum is accompanied on the June ballot by two other referendums, one to repeal the Berlusconi government’s attempts to privatize water and the other to repeal a law called “legittimo impedimento” which was passed by the Right wing majority in order to protect Berlusconi from prosecution by giving him and members of parliament immunity from prosecution while serving in office. Each of these referendums required the gathering of half a million valid signatures and will need the high participation of 50 % plus 1 eligible voters to reach the mandated quorum in order to be considered valid. No legislative referendum has been able to reach this quorum in over a decade. Now the Berlusconi government is also trying to block the vote to keep water publicly owned. In recent legislation they created a new Water Authority in an attempt to legally block this referendum as well. While it is evident to the engaged and politically active citizenry that the Berlusconi government is pulling out all the stops to block the democratic process, the masses who get their information from Berlusconi’s private and state run television empire are being kept in the dark. No news on the referendums is reported unless it is it is very late at night or the early hours of the morning.
To publicize these referendums the citizens are taking to the streets, leafleting, using creative direct action and social networking on the internet to spread the news and get out the vote. On May 9th Greenpeace activists unfurled a large banner from Mussolini’s balcony on Palazzo Venezia in Rome. The banner includes a caricature of Berlusconi saying “Italians, I decide your future” and a call for Italians to vote on the Nuclear Referndum. Angelo Bonelli, President of the Italian Green Party, summed it up like this: “The referendums will be voted on anyway, despite the fact that the thieves of democracy have returned to action. The attempts of the government to steal the democratic rights of the Italian people to vote against nuclear energy and the privatization of water will not succeed.” On the 12th and 13th of June, the Italian people can change the course of their future by voting yes to say no to nuclear energy and the privatization of their water resources.
~
Michael Leonardi splits his time between Ohio and Italy. He can be reached at mikeleonardi@hotmail.com
Israeli Police deploy in preparation for Nakba Day
Ma’an – 13/05/2011
BETHLEHEM — Israeli police will limit the number of Muslim worshipers in Jerusalem on Friday, in accordance with special deployment in preparation for Nakba Day.
Only men aged 45 and older with Israeli ID cards will be allowed to enter the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, police announced. No restrictions will be placed on women, they said.
Israeli Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch told public radio that police would “thin out the number of worshipers at the Temple Mount” — Israel’s term for the compound inside the walled Old City which houses the Al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock.
The move to limit access to what is the third holiest site in Islam after Mecca and Medina, came as the Palestinians were poised to begin a series of marches and demonstrations in the run up to Nakba Day, which will be commemorated on Sunday.
Activists behind a website called “The Third Intifada” have also called for a new uprising, which would see thousands of Palestinians march towards Israeli checkpoints, and refugees towards homes from which they fled or were forced out of when Israel was created in 1948.
Palestinian refugees are also expected to stage rallies and demonstrations in Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.
Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld confirmed that some restrictions would be in force during the Friday prayers but he was not immediately able to give details.
Israel on Tuesday celebrated the 63rd anniversary of its creation, marking the date according to the Hebrew calendar.
Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza and Israel and abroad, who mourn the day as the “Nakba” or “catastrophe,” are to stage three days of rallies and protests starting on Friday.
But Aharonovitch told the radio he believed the anniversary would pass quietly, and Israeli news website Ynet quoted him as saying he had instructed the security forces “to exercise restraint and avoid using force.”
More than 760,000 Palestinians — estimated today to number 4.8 million with their descendants — were pushed into exile or driven out of their homes in the conflict surrounding Israel’s creation.
Around 160,000 Palestinians, who remained in Israel after 1948, now number around 1.36 million people, or 20 percent of the country’s population.
Successive Israeli governments have refused to allow the Palestinian refugees to return to homes they fled from or were forced out of in 1948 for fear that a massive influx would threaten the Jewish majority in Israel, which now counts some 5.8 million Jewish citizens.
Bahrain arrests freelance photographer
Press TV – May 12, 2011
Mohammad Salman al-Sheikh, freelance photographer
Saudi-backed Bahraini forces have arrested a prominent freelance photographer as the Manama regime continues its brutal crackdown on anti-government protesters.
The Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights (BYSHR) said on Wednesday that Mohammad Salman al-Sheikh was arrested the previous day in his apartment in the town of Sanabis.
Al-Sheikh, who heads Bahrain’s Society of Photography, is the winner of more than 13 international awards. His most important prize was a silver medal in international competition titled “Slovenia Exposed” in 2009.
He is also a member of the international organizations of photography.
BYSHR is deeply concerned about the arrest of al-Sheikh and has called on international organizations to act urgently to protect him.
Saudi-backed regime forces have detained more than a thousand opposition activists since the anti-government protests erupted in mid-February.
Bahraini regime forces have also raided dozens of mosques, schools, sacred sites and even graves in persisting efforts to suppress protesters.
Protesters are demanding an end to the rule of the Al Khalifa dynasty.
Taxpayer funded BBC censors “Palestine” from rap song
WPN | May 10, 2011
The Palestine Solidarity Campaign has issued this important statement regarding the BBC.
BBC Radio 1xtra has removed the word ‘ Palestine ’ when playing a song by artist, Mic Righteous. In an extraordinary act of censorship, the word was filtered out of a recording as Mic Righteous sang the words ‘Free Palestine’, part of his song ‘Fire in the Booth’.
The censorship took place on the BBC show, Hip Hop M1X with Charlie Sloth, and the BBC has since issued a statement saying: ‘All BBC programmes have a responsibility to be impartial when dealing with controversial subjects…and an edit was made in this instance to ensure that impartiality was not compromised.’
Listen to the recording, with edit, here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00f15g4
There are several questions to be asked here of the BBC:
Is the word ‘ Palestine ’ controversial only when used in songs, or will the BBC be deleting it from all its programming?
Is the word ‘ Israel ’ similarly controversial?
How does the BBC decide what is a controversial subject? Which other news subjects does it deem to be controversial and worthy of BBC edits?
As a news organisation, how can the BBC report on news when it feels it has to censor ‘controversial subjects’ in order to maintain impartiality? All political news, by its nature, is controversial and excites a range of viewpoints – there is no consensus on anything political. Why is the BBC making this decision only over Palestine ? This in itself reveals the partiality of the BBC.
Is the BBC aware that Palestine is a geographical area and therefore can’t be controversial? If Palestinian leaders declare a sovereign Palestinian state in September, how will the BBC report on this if it considers the word ‘ Palestine ’ too controversial to be mentioned?
Is the BBC aware that the word ‘ Palestine ’ is recognised and used freely by MPs, and even by the Prime Minister, David Cameron?
When the band, The Special A.K.A, released its song ‘Free Nelson Mandela’ in 1984, why were the words ‘Nelson Mandela’ not censored by BBC radio? Apartheid in South Africa was a controversial subject, and Mandela was still considered a terrorist by the UK and US governments.
While the BBC may have appeared to make itself look utterly ridiculous with this edit, the action itself reveals its ingrained bias against Palestine and is a serious matter.
It follows the BBC’s refusal to screen the DEC Appeal during Israel’s air, land and sea assault on a besieged Gaza in 2008/9, and its screening of the one-sided Panorama programme Death in the Med last August, which even the BBC’s own complaints panel found breached its guidelines on accuracy and impartiality in several instances.
You can take the following actions:
Write to the BBC via the complaints form on its website, and ask for a reply: https://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/forms/
Leave a message on the BBC’s message board under the Charlie Sloth programme: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00f15g4
Write a letter for publication to the Radio Times: radio.times@bbc.co.uk By post: Radio Times, Media Centre, 201 Wood Lane, London W12 7TQ
Get as much publicity for this song as possible – ask your local radio station, community radio station, hospital radio, student campus radio etc to play it
Write to the BBC and demand it plays the song without an edit: radio1.enquiries@bbc.co.uk Write also to your local BBC radio station.
I have another question: How will/would the BBC treat the Desmond Dekker former No. 1 single “Israelites” ? If they applied the same political censorship, there would be nothing left.
I tried to comment on the “song” (the tune is hard to whistle) but the BBC website was mysteriously “undergoing maintenance” and cannot be accessed.
This is a blatant case of pro-Israel bias in the BBC, always apparent, often covert, but in this case, astonishingly all too stark. The licence-payers should be aware of how their money is being spent.
At least as pertinent, is the fact that the BBC should realise its licence payers are adults, well able to make their own judgements on political partiality, and don’t need the BBC to do it for them.
Americans Are Living In 1984
By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts | LewRockwell.com | May 10, 2011
The White House’s “death of bin Laden” story has come apart at the seams. Will it make any difference that before 48 hours had passed the story had changed so much that it no longer bore any resemblance to President Obama’s Sunday evening broadcast and has lost all credibility?
So far it has made no difference to the once-fabled news organization, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), which on March 9, eight days later, is still repeating the propaganda that the SEALs killed bin Laden in his Pakistani compound, where bin Laden lived next door to the Pakistani Military Academy surrounded by the Pakistani army.
Not even the president of Pakistan finds the story implausible. The BBC reports that the president is launching a full-scale investigation of how bin Laden managed to live for years in an army garrison town without being noticed.
For most Americans the story began and ended with four words: “we got bin Laden.” The celebrations, the sweet taste of revenge, of triumph and victory over “the most dangerous man on the planet” are akin to the thrill experienced by sports fans when their football team defeats the unspeakable rival or their baseball team wins the World Series. No fan wants to hear the next day that it is not so, that it is all a mistake. If these Americans years from now come across a story that the killing of bin Laden was an orchestrated news event to boost other agendas, they will dismiss the report as the ravings of a pinko-liberal-commie.
Everyone knows we killed bin Laden. How could it be otherwise? We–the indispensable people, the virtuous nation, the world’s only superpower, the white hats– were destined to prevail. No other outcome was possible.
No one will notice that those who fabricated the story forgot to show the kidney dialysis machine that, somehow, kept bin Laden alive for a decade. No doctors were on the premises.
No one will remember that Fox News reported in December, 2001, that Osama bin Laden had passed away from his illnesses.
If bin Laden beat all odds and managed to live another decade to await, unarmed and undefended, the arrival of the Navy SEALS last week, how is it possible that the “terror mastermind,” who defeated not merely the CIA and FBI, but all 16 US intelligence agencies along with those of America’s European allies and Israel, the National Security Council, the Pentagon, NORAD, Air Traffic Control, airport security four times on the same morning, etc. etc., never enjoyed another success, not even a little, very minor one? What was the “terror mastermind” doing for a decade after 9/11?
The “death of bin Laden” serves too many agendas that cover the political spectrum for the obvious falsity of the story to be recognized by very many. Patriots are euphoric that America won over bin Laden. Progressives have seized on the story to excoriate the United States for extra-judicial murder that brutalizes us all. Some on the left-wing bought into the 9/11 story because of the emotional satisfaction they received from oppressed Arabs striking back at their imperialist oppressors. These left-wingers are delighted that it took the incompetent Americans an entire decade to find bin Laden, who was hiding in plain view. The American incompetence in finding bin Laden simply, in their minds, proves the incompetence of the US government, which failed to protect Americans against the 9/11 attack.
Those who ordered, and those who wrote, totally incompetent legal memos that torture was permissible under US and international law, thereby setting up George W. Bush and Dick Cheney for the possibility of prosecution, are riding the euphoria of bin Laden’s death by declaring that it was torture that led the American assassins to bin Laden. All of a sudden, torture, which had fallen back into the disrepute in which it had been for centuries, is again in the clear. Anything that leads to the elimination of bin Laden is a valid instrument.
Those, who want to increase the pressure on Pakistan to shut up about Americans murdering Pakistani citizens in Pakistan from the air and from troops on the ground, have gained a new club with which to beat the Pakistani government into submission: “you hid bin Laden from us.”
Those who want to continue to fatten the profits of the military/security complex and the powers of Homeland Security, such as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, use bin Laden’s second, or ninth, death as proof that America is being successful in its war on terror and that the war must continue on such a successful path until all enemies are slain.
Most ominous of all was the statement by the CIA director that bin Laden’s death would lead to new attacks on America and new 9/11s from al Qaeda seeking revenge. This warning, issued within a few hours of President Obama’s Sunday evening address, telegraphed the inevitable “al Qaeda” Internet posting that America would suffer new 9/11s for killing their leader.
If the Taliban knew in December 2001 that bin Laden was dead, does anyone think that al Qaeda didn’t know it? Indeed, no member of the public has any way of knowing if al Qaeda is anything more than a bogyman organization created by the CIA which issues “al Qaeda” announcements. The evidence that al Qaeda’s announcements are issued by the CIA is very strong. The various videos of bin Laden for the last nine years have been shown by experts to be fakes. Why would bin Laden issue a fake video? Why did bin Laden cease issuing videos and only issue audios? A person running a world-wide terrorist organization should be able to produce videos. He would also be surrounded by better protectors than a couple of women. Where was al Qaeda, which according to former Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld, consists of “the most dangerous, best-trained, vicious killers on the face of the earth.” Had these most dangerous men alive abandoned their leader?
The CIA director’s warning of future terrorist attacks, followed by a suspect “al Qaeda” threat of the same, suggests that if the American public continues to lose its enthusiasm for the governments open-ended wars, which are conducted at the expense of the US budget deficit, the dollar’s exchange value, inflation, Social Security, Medicare, income support programs, jobs, recovery, and so forth, “al Qaeda” will again outwit all 16 US intelligence agencies, those of our allies, NORAD, airport security, Air Traffic Control, etc. etc., and inflict the world’s only superpower with another humiliating defeat that will invigorate American support for “the war on terror.”
I believe that “al Qaeda” could blow up the White House or Congress or both and that the majority of Americans would fall for the story, just as the Germans, a better educated and more intelligent population, fell for the Reichstag Fire–as did a number of historians.
The reason I say this is that Americans have succumbed to propaganda that has conditioned them to believe that they are under attack by practically omnipotent adversaries. Proof of this is broadcast every day. For example, on March 9, I heard over National Public Radio in Atlanta that Emory University, a private university of some distinction, treated its 3,500 graduating class to a commencement address by Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Homeland Security.
This is the agency that has goons feeling the genitals of young children and adults and which has announced that it intends to expand this practice from air travelers to shopping malls, bus and train stations. That a serious university invited such a low-lifer, who clearly has no respect for American civil liberty and is devoid of any sort of sense of what is appropriate, to address a graduating class of southern elite is a clear indication that the Ministry of Truth has prevailed. Americans are living in George Orwell’s 1984.
For those who haven’t read Orwell’s classic prediction of our time, Big Brother, the government, could tell the “citizens” any lie and it was accepted unquestioningly. As a perceptive reader pointed out to me, we Americans, with our “free press,” are at this point today: “What is really alarming is the increasingly arrogant sloppiness of these lies, as though the government has become so profoundly confident of its ability to deceive people that they make virtually no effort to even appear credible.”
A people as gullible as Americans have no future.
Soldiers arrest Hamas leader at Jenin checkpoint
Ma’an – 07/05/2011
JENIN — Israel’s army arrested a Hamas leader Saturday in the occupied West Bank, prisoners advocates said.
Khaled Al-Haj, 45, was passing through a military checkpoint at the entrance of Araba when he was arrested, the Ahrar prisoners center said. Al-Haj served as a spokesman for Hamas, and he was recently released from prison.
Soldiers had apparently installed the checkpoint to catch Al-Haj, specifically, the center said in a statement. Another person whose identity was not known was also taken to an unknown location, the prisoners group said.
An Israeli military spokeswoman had no immediate comment.
Al-Haj is considered a prominent party official. He served as the movement’s spokesman in Jenin and represented Hamas in the factional coordinating committee that eventually led to a unity deal last week.
He has spent years in Israeli custody, including three without charge under Israel’s “administrative detention” policy. It allows Israel to jail Palestinians for six-month periods which can be extended.
According to the Ahrar center, the arrests were intended to thwart the unity deal.
On Friday, Israel’s army arrested five Palestinians in the same area.
An undercover unit raided Jenin refugee camp and seized Islamic Jihad leader Bassam As-Saadi, who had recently been released from prison after completing an eight-year jail term.
Soldiers forced family members into one room while they searched the house and eventually departed with As-Saadi, who was bound before being taken to an unknown location, his wife told Ma’an.
Four residents of a village near Jenin were also seized. They were identified as Hasen Mustafa Jaradat, Hussein Rafiq Jaradat, and brothers Hussein and Munteser Ahmad Jaradat.
An undercover unit joined the army in the operation, witnesses said. They fired bullets and stun grenades at homes, and soldiers beat several residents after cuffing them outside their houses.
The operation came a day after soldiers stepped out of a Mercedes with Palestinian license plates at 2 a.m. and entered the home of an Islamic Jihad leader in Arraba village.
Tareq Qadan, an Islamic Jihad leader in the north, was taken from his home in his night clothes by five soldiers and shoved into the unmarked car parked outside the two-story building, witnesses said.
His sister said Qadan opened the door when he heard shouts from outside. As soon as the door opened, she said, “five soldiers broke into the house and took his wife into one room, and my brother outside.”
She added Qadan had asked to see his ailing mother before he was taken away, and to notify his brother that he should keep watch over the elderly woman: “They refused his request and took him in his pajamas.”
An Israeli military spokeswoman confirmed at the time that there was one arrest carried out in the village. She declined comment on the nature of the operation and alleged use of an unmarked vehicle.
Record Number of Americans Targeted by National Security Letters
By Julian Sanchez | CATO | May 6, 2011
The latest report to Congress on the Justice Department’s use of foreign intelligence surveillance powers has just been released, and it shows a truly stunning increase in the number of Americans whose sensitive phone, Internet, and banking records were obtained by the FBI — without judicial oversight — pursuant to National Security Letters. In 2009, a total of 14,788 NSL requests were issued targeting U.S. persons — a number that excludes requests for “basic subscriber information” as opposed to phone or e-mail logs — and 6,114 different Americans were affected by those demands for information. In 2010, the number of NSL requests targeting Americans rose to 24,287.
What’s really shocking, however, is the number of people affected. A whopping 14,212 American citizens and permanent residents had records of their financial, telephone, and online activity seized last year. The previous record, set in 2005, was 9,475. Were you one of those 14,212? If so, what did the FBI get? Thanks to the gag orders that come with NSLs, you will almost certainly never get to find out. But even if the Bureau decides there’s no reason to continue investigating you, whatever data they obtained — lists of phone numbers, credit card purchases, financial transactions, e-mail correspondents, or IP addresses visited — are likely to remain in a massive government database indefinitely
This pattern suggests that the Bureau is doing broader but shallower investigation — sweeping more people into the information vacuum, but issuing fewer requests per person, presumably because the results of the initial request provide few grounds for further scrutiny. Needless to say, the overwhelming majority of those people are not terrorists — and, indeed, are probably guilty of nothing more than a second- or third-degree connection to the subject of an investigation. Remember, as expiring Patriot Act provisions come up for re-authorization at the end of this month: These tools are fundamentally not about spying on terrorists. The government has always had ample power to do that. They’re about authority to spy on the innocent.
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