Peace Doesn’t Work, Obama Informs Nobel Committee
By Jason Ditz, December 10, 2009
President Barack Obama accepted his Nobel Peace Prize today, and as expected he acknowledged that even he isn’t clear why he got the prize, noting that there were millions of people more deserving.
But President Obama’s “acceptance speech” was far from an expression of contrition, spending most of the speech defending his War in Afghanistan as an inherently just war, and rambling on about all the other recent American wars and his ostensible justifications of them.
Then, in what must’ve been one of the least humble and least appropriate speeches ever given before the Nobel Committee, Obama declared non-violence to be impractical and insisted that the “limits of reason” meant that the American military would continue to have to be used for “moral” reasons.
In extolling the virtues of war while accepting what was supposed to be a prize for radical advocates of peace, President Obama had what could only be called one of the quintessential jerkass moments of American history, an embarrassing exhortation to the advocates of peace to accept violence as the one true way of solving the world’s problems.
Outdoing the Kafkaesque: Egypt’s new US designed underground Gaza wall
December 11, 2009 — People’s Geography
Just when you thought things could not become more Kafkaesque comes apparent confirmation that the US-backed Egyptian government is building an underground steel barrier designed to cut off one of the few lifelines sustaining the Gaza Ghetto, the tunnel economy. The BBC reports that the huge underground wall will be 10-11km (6-7 miles) long, will extend 18 metres below the surface and will take 18 months to complete. The project has been shrouded in secrecy with no official confirmation from the Egyptian government, but it is understood that the design is commissioned by US army engineers, at the behest of Israel, Ann Wright surmises.
The ‘impenetrable’ barrier is made of super-strength steel manufactured in the US, according to the BBC. It will likely not succeed in halting all smuggling but will force Palestinians to dig deeper.
Conditions are worsening in this nightmare siege. The Israeli regime has prevented EU officials from entering the besieged strip, Gaza’s water is contaminated and creating a public health disaster and the israeli blockade that prevents vital reconstruction continues unabated.
This is a new low in the levels of inhumanity, absurdity and wretchedness to which the Israeli regime, with active Egyptian and US ZOG complicity, are subjecting the beleaguered Palestinians of Gaza. Only a just political resolution will put an end to the tunnels.
On a note of black humour, Gilad Atzmon wrote a great satirical piece a few years ago, Operation Security Roof which is relevant here.
Retired US Army Reserve Colonel and former diplomat Ann Wright rightly castigates this development and calls it a laughing stock:
Just as the steel walls of the US Army Corps of Engineers at the base of the levees of New Orleans were unable to contain Hurricane Katrina, the US Army Corps of Engineers’ underground steel walls that will attempt to build an underground cage of Gaza will not be able to contain the survival spirit of the people of Gaza.
America’s super technology will again be laughed at by the world, as young men dedicated to the survival of their people, will again outwit technology by digging deeper, and most likely penetrating the “impenetrable” in some novel, simple, low-tech way.
See also:
Sound familiar? US refuses to allow UN inspectors to investigate its WMDs
By Agence France-Presse
December 9th, 2009
The United States said Wednesday that it remained opposed to international inspections of biological weapon sites, even though it stressed its commitment to a UN treaty covering such arms and invaded Iraq in part over its alleged stalling of — UN weapons inspectors.
“When it comes to the proliferation of bio weapons and the risk of an attack, the world community faces a greater threat,” Ellen Tauscher, US Under Secretary of State on arms control and international security told state members of the Biological Weapons Convention.
“While the United States remains concerned about state-sponsored biological warfare and proliferation, we are equally, if not more concerned, about an act of bioterrorism, due to the increased access to advances in the life sciences,” she added, stressing the importance of bolstering the treaty.
However, the new US administration is still against an additional protocol that would authorize international inspections of biological weapons sites.
“The Obama Administration will not seek to revive negotiations on a verification protocol to the Convention,” said Tauscher.
“We have carefully reviewed previous efforts to develop a verification protocol and have determined that a legally binding protocol would not achieve meaningful verification or greater security,” she added.
At BWC talks in 2001, the Bush administration scuttled negotiations for such a protocol, saying that intrusive checks could compromise US security and trade secrets.
Outlining the new US administration’s strategy on the issue, Tauscher said Washington believed that compliance to the treaty could be encouraged through “enhanced transparency… and pursuing compliance diplomacy to address concerns.”
The 1972 Biological Weapons Convention, signed by 163 countries, bans the development, production and reserves of biological weapons.
Progressives Still Love Obama
By Margaret Kimberley
December 9, 2009
Most Americans, regardless of political party affiliation, believe in the right of the state to control their lives and those of people around the globe. It is a sad commentary that such retrograde ways of thinking persist in the 21st century and it is especially sad when so-called progressives care as little about the rights of their fellow human beings as do conservatives. Those beliefs have been on truly terrifying display ever since President Barack Obama announced his plan to escalate war against the people of Afghanistan.
President Barack Obama appeared on national television a la George W. Bush, and mouthed Bushisms almost word for word. He claimed that America doesn’t want an empire when it keeps expanding the one it already has. He claimed that it is in the “vital interests” of the entire country to maintain the cycle of endless warfare. Before an audience of West Point cadets, a Bushesque backdrop par excellence, he told the world he planned to send an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan and accelerate the killing.
Liberals and progressives responded to the president’s speech the same way they respond to every other Obama policy decision. Most went along or made excuses for him. They made no attempt to analyze in any serious way or to question the premises upon which American foreign policy decisions are made. They may have expressed some small misgiving about the number of troops or the timetable for the killing to last, but very few have said that this escalation is wrong or that Obama should be opposed.
Like their countrymen, liberals believe in the inherent goodness and superiority of their nation and its government, a belief with absolutely no basis in historical or current reality. No people on earth have ever benefited from American interventions and Afghans are no exception. They have been killed in drone attacks and by bombings. The heroin trade flourishes far more than it ever did before the American occupation. Just as with the equally unlucky Iraqis, Afghans would send the United States packing if they could.
Former Obama supporters such as Tom Hayden and Michael Moore have rightly condemned the president’s plan and been met with scorn and ridicule. Both men are in a peculiar situation. They should be commended for their opposition to occupation, but their specious reasoning for supporting Obama in the first place should not be forgotten, and their still strong support for a corrupted Democratic Party should not be ignored. Moore’s exhortation to Obama doesn’t deserve the withering criticism it has received because it was frankly rather sad. “When we elected you we didn’t expect miracles. We didn’t even expect much change. But we expected some.” Moore lowered his expectations and Obama met them.
While Black Agenda Report and others engaged in critical analysis of the Obama campaign and made the case for true movement politics, Moore and Hayden assisted Barack Obama in lying about his intentions and motives. They were not merely naïve, they chose to spread the noxious doctrines of empire and occupation openly espoused by Obama and became willing partners to the policies they now oppose.
Black Agenda Report explained it all while Obama was still a candidate:
“Is Obama a liar? Of course he is. As a gifted orator, a superb word-smith, Obama’s slickness is purposeful – he means to fool people! However, so did many of the progressives that supported Obama, knowing perfectly well that his carefully chosen words were designed to hide more than they revealed. Such progressives lent their reputations to discourage criticism of Obama from other Leftists, or from the ‘expectant’ rank and file. Therefore, they are guilty of offenses against truth.” – BAR, July 8, 2008.
Tom Hayden remains irrelevant even as he attempts to throw off some of his shackles. Hayden still maintains a belief in the inherent goodness of Barack Obama and his intentions despite the lack of any justification for such loyalty. “This is not like the previous conflict with Bush and Cheney, who were easy to ridicule. Now this orphan of a war has a persuasive advocate, a formidable debater who will be arguing for support from the liberal center–one who wants to win back his Democratic base.”
If an abhorrent policy is well articulated by Hayden’s standards then apparently it is not so abhorrent after all. Why does Hayden ridicule Bush and Cheney but not the man who continues their policies? Where on earth does he get the idea that Obama is in any way interested in the Democratic Party’s base of supporters? Hayden and his ilk are far too easily impressed and even in opposition mode prove themselves to be utterly useless. “To be clear: I’ll support Obama down the road against Sarah Palin, Lou Dobbs or any of the pitchfork carriers for the pre-Obama era.” After giving sound reasons for opposing the Afghanistan policy, Hayden then proceeds to say that he will support Obama if Republicans keep saying mean things about him. He would be a lot happier now if he had supported a true peace candidate like Cynthia McKinney in the 2008 election.
While some liberals managed faint praise because the president promised the war would not be open ended, his cabinet and the military have been contradicting what the Obamaites claim to have heard their dear leader say.
Gen. David Petraeus: “There’s no timeline, no ramp, nothing like that.”
National Security Adviser James Jones: “It is not a cliff. It is a glide slope. And so certainly, the president has also said we are not leaving Afghanistan.”
Defense Secretary Robert Gates: “Well, first of all, I don’t consider this an exit strategy. And I try to avoid using that term. I think this is a transition.”
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: “We’re not talking about an exit strategy or a drop dead deadline.”
Not that the words from the horses’ mouths will matter very much. Moore and Hayden will still sing the president’s praises and Afghans and Americans will keep dying. There are still Progressives for Obama, and the world is much worse off as a result.
Margaret Kimberley’s Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgandaReport.com.
Pakistan: ‘Blackwater’ men nabbed, released
By Ashraf Javed | December 09, 2009 | The Nation
LAHORE – Security agencies arrested four suspected members of notorious Blackwater agency while they were trying to force their entry into the Cantonment Area here on Tuesday evening, sources informed. However, they were released two hours later on the intervention of the US Consulate.
According to well-placed sources, the officials of security agencies intercepted three vehicles with tinted glasses near Sherpao Bridge, as security was on high alert, a day after twin bomb blasts hit Moon Market, Lahore’s leading shopping mall, leaving more than 54 people dead and 150 others wounded.
The arrested suspects, believed to be Cobra operatives, failed to produce authentic identification or their purpose for entering into the most sensitive area during cross-questioning with the security agency officials. The sources revealed that the suspects were apparently foreigners and they had no proper travel documents. However, the suspects refused to go with the security agencies for further interrogation and started arguing with security agency personnel, creating a terrible traffic mess at the leading artery of the City. Hundreds of motorists remained trapped in the traffic mess for about two hours.
The news of arrest of members of notorious and private spy agency, Blackwater, spread in the City like fire as people stared calling one another to share the development.
Meanwhile, on the intervention of the US Consulate, law enforcement agencies released the vehicles after Consulate personnel arrived and produced documents.
It is important to mention here that whenever the security agencies nab such private spies, they are released on the intervention of the US Embassy or Consulate.
When contacted, a spokesperson for US Consulate, Jami Dragon, admitted that the vehicles were
impounded for some hours belonged to the US Consulate Lahore.
He said that three diplomatic vehicles of the Consulate were stopped at a check-post for routine checks in Cantonment area, which later were released when the some US Consulate staff members reached the spot and produced documents and identification.
Ironically, Jami Dragon very naively said that he did not know about the law and regulations regarding prohibition on the use of tinted glass in Pakistan.
The spokesman did not know whether the vehicles were taken to any other place. However he said, the check took a couple of hours, for which he said, he did not know the reason.
Obama wants suit against Yoo dismissed
By Bob Egelko, San Francisco Chronicle
December 8, 2009
SAN FRANCISCO — The Obama administration has asked an appeals court to dismiss a lawsuit accusing former Bush administration attorney John Yoo of authorizing the torture of a terrorism suspect, saying federal law does not allow damage claims against lawyers who advise the president on national security issues.
Such lawsuits ask courts to second-guess presidential decisions and pose “the risk of deterring full and frank advice regarding the military’s detention and treatment of those determined to be enemies during an armed conflict,” Justice Department lawyers said Thursday in arguments to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.
Other sanctions are available for government lawyers who commit misconduct, the department said. It noted that its Office of Professional Responsibility has been investigating Yoo’s advice to former President George W. Bush since 2004 and has the power to recommend professional discipline or even criminal prosecution.
The office has not made its conclusions public. However, The Chronicle and other media reported in May that the office will recommend that Yoo be referred to the bar association for possible discipline, but that he not be prosecuted.
Yoo, a UC Berkeley law professor, worked for the Justice Department from 2001 to 2003. He was the author of a 2002 memo that said rough treatment of captives amounts to torture only if it causes the same level of pain as “organ failure, impairment of bodily function or even death.” The memo also said the president may have the power to authorize torture of enemy combatants.
In the current lawsuit, Jose Padilla, now serving a 17-year sentence for conspiring to aid Islamic extremist groups, accuses Yoo of devising legal theories that justified what he claims was his illegal detention and abusive interrogation.
The Justice Department represented Yoo until June, when a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that the suit could proceed. The department then bowed out, citing unspecified conflicts, and was replaced by a government-paid private lawyer.
Yoo’s new attorney, Miguel Estrada, argued for dismissal in a filing last month, saying the case interfered with presidential war-making authority and threatened to “open the floodgates to politically motivated lawsuits” against government officials. The Justice Department’s filing Thursday endorsed the request for dismissal but offered narrower arguments, noting its continuing investigation of Yoo.
Padilla, a U.S. citizen, was arrested in Chicago in 2002 and accused of plotting with al Qaeda to detonate a radioactive “dirty bomb.” He was held for three years and eight months in a Navy brig, where, according to his suit, he was subjected to sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation and stress positions, kept for lengthy periods in darkness and blinding light, and threatened with death to himself and his family.
He was then removed from the brig, charged with and convicted of taking part in an unrelated conspiracy to provide money and supplies to extremist groups.
Padilla’s suit says Yoo approved his detention in the brig and provided the legal cover for his allegedly abusive treatment. U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White refused to dismiss the case in June.
The Justice Department’s filing Thursday said Padilla is asking the courts to determine the legality of Yoo’s advice, Bush’s decision to detain Padilla, the conditions of his confinement and the methods of his interrogation – all “matters of war and national security” that are beyond judicial authority.
E-mail Bob Egelko at begelko@sfchronicle.com.
Will the Last “Progressive for Obama” Please Turn Out the Lights?
12/09/2009
by BAR executive editor Glen FordThe U.S. peace “movement,” much of which “comes and goes” as often as Boy George’s “Karma Chameleon,” has finally discovered that its presumed perch in Barack Obama’s tree was untenable, if not wholly imaginary. To be sure, “Progressives for Obama” and other assorted delusional groupings were always squatters in the Obama camp – but they were the only ones who didn’t know it. How embarrassing it would have been, back during the campaign, had the lost little lefties realized that Obama’s imperial soul mates were laughing at them from a disdainful distance, knowing full well the path their bought-and-paid-for president would soon be traveling. How would the Obama peacenik groupies have preserved their sense of self-worth – much less their arrogant smugness – had they realized the absolute contempt in which they were held by their hero’s funders and packagers – and no doubt by the Object of Adulation, himself?With the president’s hearty embrace on December 1 of not only current U.S. aggressions in South Asia but the entirety of the glorious rise of U.S. global hegemony since the end of World War Two, it should now be clear to even the most dense among self-styled “progressives” that Obama was never worth a damn. To Obama, the world-terrorizing nuclear arms race against the Soviets, the savage assaults on countries emerging from colonialism, the death of millions in the quest to make the world safe for corporations, the spread of the global drug trade under management of U.S. intelligence services – all this can be summed up as: “The United States of America has underwritten global security for over six decades, a time that, for all its problems, has seen walls come down, markets open, billions lifted from poverty, unparalleled scientific progress, and advancing frontiers of human liberty.”
Obama lives and breathes American Manifest Destiny – which means, as a non-white person, he is profoundly mentally unbalanced. But any lefty worth her/his salt should have known that. Obama’s yearly talks to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, the regional equivalent of the Council on Foreign Affairs, were models of imperial-speak, totally consistent with his West Point performance. Beginning years ago, he repeatedly declared that, as president, he would draw a line in the sands (or mountains) of Afghanistan – which is something only militarist, imperialist pigs draw in other people’s countries. He warned everyone that, under the Bin-Ladin-Might-Be-There Doctrine, he would refuse to respect the sovereignty of Pakistan. And he has ceaselessly lied about his actions and intentions in Iraq – a key qualification for the job of imperial U.S. president.
Still, there seems to be a soggy cloud hanging over some self-styled anti-war circles, as if Obama’s most recent display of rabid war mongering, American Manifest Destiny-ism was a tragedy for and betrayal of the “movement.” And I suppose that those confused souls who believed that they were doing “movement” work while engaged in Obama groupy-ism for the last several years, might feel that some kind of tragedy had occurred. And they might be right, in that the absence of an anti-war movement during the campaign years undoubtedly encouraged Obama in his warlike proclivities. As a result, hundreds of thousands will undoubtedly die, because American “progressives” forsook their duty to humanity for reasons no more defensible than those a teenage girl would give for following a shallow but “hot” celebrity around from city to city.
Let’s make it plain: Obama didn’t do anything to the “movement.” Most especially, he did not fool anyone in the “movement.” Rather, people who claimed to be in the “movement” fooled themselves and then proceeded to fool lots of other people into thinking that Obama-work was “movement”-work – when events have shown it was the opposite.
A huge number of “movement” notables should be deeply humbled and, to varying degrees, ashamed at their lemming-like susceptibility to Obama’s…what? The two-year near-silence in the anti-war “movement” is proof, not of Obama’s Svengali-like powers (his imperialism is actually quite transparent), but of profound weaknesses in the “movement,” itself (which is why I’ve been putting the term in quotes).
I have a hunch that the worst of the paralyzing Obama-effect on “movement” politics is finally over – due mainly to Obama’s insistence on remaining true to the logic of imperialism and refusal to toss his groupies on the Left a straw to cling to, any further. [I hope you’re right Gary but what I’ve been seeing suggests we have a ways to go]
There is no need to name-the-names of the politically prodigal ones, many of whom are returning to some kind of oppositional activism [promoting Western supremacy and mass starvation of those that can’t afford the “costs” of the contrived AGW agenda in Copenhagen perhaps] now that their erstwhile idol is in full-spectrum war mode. Far better to quote Cynthia McKinney, the former Georgia congresswoman and Green Party presidential candidate, whose engagement with struggle is a constant:
“We have now reached the point where those who make and interpret current events think they can make us believe that war is for peace, ignorance is strength, slavery is freedom, and lies are the truth. Well, we know the truth, and we will not rest until every drone is stopped and no more bombs are dropped. We will not rest until peace is won. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said there comes a time when we do what we must because our ultimate measure is not where we stand in moments of comfort and convenience, but where we stand at times of challenge and controversy. At this time of challenge, we are clear: we will not give up and we will not stop.”
There are many “movement” notables who, in fact, did try in the recent past to peddle a banker’s best friend as a man of the people, a proponent of “race-neutrality” as an ally of oppressed minorities, and an imperial invader and occupier as something resembling a man of peace. Hopefully, they will make up for past misconduct and bad judgment through prodigious feats of activist productivity, including plenty of shouting at the White House on Saturday.
US silent on missing Iranian case
Press TV – December 9, 2009 06:02:02 GMT
After Iran said Washington and Riyadh are responsible for the abduction of an Iranian researcher in Saudi Arabia, the US State Department refuses to make any comment on the matter.
“We are aware of the Iranian claims,” department spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters on Tuesday. “I have no information on that.”
“I’m not going to say anything else,” he insisted.
Shahram Amiri, a researcher at the University of Malek Ashtar, went missing in the Saudi holy city of Medina while on a pilgrimage visit earlier this year.
He is among several Iranian nationals who Tehran says have been illegally detained by the US authorities.
On Tuesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki accused the US of abducting the researcher.
“Based on evidence that we have at our disposal, the Americans had a role in kidnapping Shahram Amiri,” Mottaki said.
“Therefore, we expect the US government to return him,” he added.
Earlier Tuesday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehman-Parast told Press TV that authorities in Riyadh have sent Amiri off to the United States.
Mehman-Parast said 11 Iranian nationals are currently held in detention in US prisons, adding that “Shahram Amiri is one of these detainees.”
The US revealed earlier in December that Amir-Hossein Ardebili, an Iranian national who went missing in Georgia two years ago, was being held in a prison in Philadelphia.
The Georgian government handed him over to the US authorities in 2008.
US-Japan talks on base row stalled: Tokyo
December 9, 2009
* Japanese foreign minister says Washington-Tokyo relations ‘are somewhat shaky’
* Unclear when next talks will be held
TOKYO: US-Japanese talks on resolving a festering row over an American military base have been put on hold until Tokyo clarifies its position, Japan’s foreign minister said on Tuesday. Relations between the two sides “are somewhat shaky”, Katsuya Okada told a press conference, adding that “it shouldn’t be that way”. The open question of where to relocate an Okinawa island Marine Corps airbase has soured Washington-Tokyo ties since a new centre-left government took power in Japan in September.
Unclear: Both sides have agreed to regular talks on the issue, but no new date was set after the most recent meeting on last Friday, Okada told reporters. “We don’t know when the next talks will be held,” he said, adding however that the talks “have not ended”.
The conservative Sankei daily has reported that US Ambassador John Roos, in his talks with Okada and Defence Minister Toshimi Kitazawa, “turned red with anger and raised his voice” over slow progress in resolving the dispute. Japan’s centre-left government under Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has rankled US officials by announcing a review of a 2006 pact under which the airbase would be moved from a city area to a coastal region of Okinawa. The US side is pushing for the existing plan to be implemented, saying it needs the US Marine Corps Futenma Air Station to be relocated as planned.
Hatoyama has left open the possibility of moving the base off the island or even out of the country, to lighten the burden on Okinawa, which hosts more than half of the 47,000 US troops based in Japan. He has said he would like to meet US President Barack Obama at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen to discuss the issue. Former US deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage, who worked under former president George W Bush, warned in a Tokyo forum on Tuesday, “I really worry that an agreement that took 10 years to negotiate might unravel.” afp
Copenhagen climate summit in disarray after ‘Danish text’ leak
- John Vidal in Copenhagen
- guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 8 December 2009 14.09 GMT
Photograph: Attila Kisbenedek/AFP/Getty Images
The UN Copenhagen climate talks are in disarray today after developing countries reacted furiously to leaked documents that show world leaders will next week be asked to sign an agreement that hands more power to rich countries and sidelines the UN’s role in all future climate change negotiations.
The document is also being interpreted by developing countries as setting unequal limits on per capita carbon emissions for developed and developing countries in 2050; meaning that people in rich countries would be permitted to emit nearly twice as much under the proposals.
The so-called Danish text, a secret draft agreement worked on by a group of individuals known as “the circle of commitment” – but understood to include the UK, US and Denmark – has only been shown to a handful of countries since it was finalised this week.
The agreement, leaked to the Guardian, is a departure from the Kyoto protocol‘s principle that rich nations, which have emitted the bulk of the CO2, should take on firm and binding commitments to reduce greenhouse gases, while poorer nations were not compelled to act. The draft hands effective control of climate change finance to the World Bank; would abandon the Kyoto protocol – the only legally binding treaty that the world has on emissions reductions; and would make any money to help poor countries adapt to climate change dependent on them taking a range of actions.
The document was described last night by one senior diplomat as “a very dangerous document for developing countries. It is a fundamental reworking of the UN balance of obligations. It is to be superimposed without discussion on the talks”.
A confidential analysis of the text by developing countries also seen by the Guardian shows deep unease over details of the text. In particular, it is understood to:
• Force developing countries to agree to specific emission cuts and measures that were not part of the original UN agreement;
• Divide poor countries further by creating a new category of developing countries called “the most vulnerable”;
• Weaken the UN’s role in handling climate finance;
• Not allow poor countries to emit more than 1.44 tonnes of carbon per person by 2050, while allowing rich countries to emit 2.67 tonnes.
Developing countries that have seen the text are understood to be furious that it is being promoted by rich countries without their knowledge and without discussion in the negotiations.
“It is being done in secret. Clearly the intention is to get [Barack] Obama and the leaders of other rich countries to muscle it through when they arrive next week. It effectively is the end of the UN process,” said one diplomat, who asked to remain nameless.
Antonio Hill, climate policy adviser for Oxfam International, said: “This is only a draft but it highlights the risk that when the big countries come together, the small ones get hurting. On every count the emission cuts need to be scaled up. It allows too many loopholes and does not suggest anything like the 40% cuts that science is saying is needed.”
Hill continued: “It proposes a green fund to be run by a board but the big risk is that it will run by the World Bank and the Global Environment Facility [a partnership of 10 agencies including the World Bank and the UN Environment Programme] and not the UN. That would be a step backwards, and it tries to put constraints on developing countries when none were negotiated in earlier UN climate talks.”
The text was intended by Denmark and rich countries to be a working framework, which would be adapted by countries over the next week. It is particularly inflammatory because it sidelines the UN negotiating process and suggests that rich countries are desperate for world leaders to have a text to work from when they arrive next week.
Few numbers or figures are included in the text because these would be filled in later by world leaders. However, it seeks to hold temperature rises to 2C and mentions the sum of $10bn a year to help poor countries adapt to climate change from 2012-15.
Imperial Democrats Line Up for War
by John V. Walsh – December 08, 2009
In a scene replicated all over the country, a small, dispirited crowd protested on Boston Common following Obama’s West Point declaration of more war on the unfortunate people of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Obama intends to out-Bush Bush on Af-Pak, which has finally thrown some cold water on his supporters.
The large printed placards ordered up for the demo called for an end to the war on Af-Pak, but only three scraggily handmade signs mentioned Obama. The speeches ordained by the organizers also made scant mention of Obama, with two exceptions, one from Vets Against the War and another from Military Families Speak Out. When one guy took advantage of an open mike, not readily yielded to him, to criticize both Obama and the antiwar leadership of United for Peace and Justice, “Progressive” Democrats of America, and their bedfellows, there was a quiet over the crowd. It was the only speech without at least token applause. One could only wonder where this “movement” was headed next.
A clue came if one listened to the buzz on the sidelines. It was all about another election, the Democratic Party primary today to fill the Senate seat of the late Ted Kennedy. Each of the candidates has taken up an antiwar mantra as the polls have shown that the people of Massachusetts want no more of this game of empire in Central Asia. Michael Capuano, congressional representative from the Cambridge/Somerville/Boston area, had the early lead in establishing his antiwar bona fides, since he did vote against the Iraq war in his early days in Congress. But is he really a dove? Are Democrats with antiwar constituencies like Capuano’s in Cambridge genuinely against war and empire? The answer is no, and every now and then a vote comes along that shows how it all works.
One such crucial vote came in the winter of 2007, shortly after the Democrats took control of the House in the 2006 elections on a tidal wave of antiwar sentiment. Bush was at that time requesting another supplement for the wars on Central Asia, and the Democrats had inserted a dreaded “timeline” into the appropriation bill. This led the Republicans to vote against the bill, and if they were joined by enough Democrats, then funding of the wars would end at that moment: a golden opportunity if ever there was one. Faced with this potential debacle, Nancy Pelosi scrambled to get all the Democrats to vote for the bill to fund the war. Every vote was needed. What did Capuano do? What did other “antiwar” Democrats of the Massachusetts delegation do? The entire delegation voted for the bill, as Pelosi instructed, including Michael Capuano, James McGovern, Barney Frank – every member of the the most “liberal” delegation in Congress. There were only nine Democrats who stood up to Pelosi that day, including Dennis Kucinich, Maxine Waters, Lynne Woolsey, and Barbara Lee. If the bill had had only one more opponent, the funding would have been cut off, so close was the vote. But that lone vote did not materialize from Massachusetts. So the funding bill passed, and the war was alive and well.
That is the way the game is played. So long as the war machine does not need the votes of congressmen with strong antiwar constituencies, these representatives are free to cast a vote to mollify their voters. But when the chips are down and every vote is needed, the charade is called to a halt and these counterfeit progressives cast their votes as instructed by Pelosi or whatever gauleiter happens to be in charge at the moment. Thus the empire rules by demanding loyalty to one of the two War Parties over the will of antiwar constituents. Of course, this emerges even more clearly in presidential elections, when each and every Democrat, even the nine mavericks of winter 2007 – Kucinich, Woolsey, Waters, et al. – line up to dutifully support pro-war candidates such as Kerry or Obama.
As the late Eugene McCarthy pointed out in 1968 in the snows of New Hampshire, drawing on the words of Daniel Webster, wars of empire continue because the people’s “representatives” put loyalty to party over loyalty to the people and to principle. Thus the Vietnam War ground on, and thus does the U.S. empire’s deadly game in Central Asia continue.
Is President Obama an Enemy of the Jews?
By Sami Jamil Jadallah • Dec 7th, 2009 at 9:31
Even before he was elected president, Barack Obama faced relentless and vicious attacks of mainstream American Jewish organizations and leadership with claims of being Muslim in secret, of lacking the born American credential among many other claims, including being anti-Israel even though as a senator he was one of the most ardent supporters of Israel and always voted in favor of Israel on all bills drafted by AIPAC and passed by the US Senate.
I think it is necessary here to inform the readers that the Jewish community and leadership of Chicago were the early sponsors and mentors for then local politician Obama, with Penny Pritzker of the “Hyatt Hotels” as key supporters together with Joan Harris-Leading the well known Chicago philanthropists, Lestor Crown of the Jewish Federation, David Axelrod who managed Obama’s win of the White House to the president’s Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, the son of an Israeli member of the Jewish terrorist group “Irgun”, in addition to key support from Hollywood moguls the likes of Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and Jeffery Katzenberg, and not withstanding the testimony of Alon Pinkas of the Jerusalem Post “Obama’s voting record on issues pertaining to Israel is impeccable” to be seconded by Haaretz US correspondent Shmuel Rosner “Obama supports Israel, period”.
This attack continued after his election and recently this attack became more and more vicious after his speech in Cairo and after his demands (which he quickly withdrew and retreated from) that Israel freeze its programs of settlements building in Palestinian occupied territories. Such attacks are spearheaded by senior members of Netanyahu’s Likud party and their supporters and influential and powerful sponsors in the in the United States among mainstream Jewish leadership and organizations, whose power and influence go beyond formulations of US foreign policy and goes to domestic issues through the stranglehold they have over members of Congress.
Israel officials like Minister Limor Livnat labeled Obama’s administration as “terrible”, with Yossi Naim head of the Beit Aryeh regional council threatening Obama with his declaration ”I announce to you Obama: You won’t be able to stop us”. With many leading Israeli and American Jewish leaders charging that Obama by his calls for freezing Israeli settlements is promoting “ethnic cleansing of Jews and jeopardizing Israeli security”. It seems Israeli security is built on land theft.
The Jewish settlers’ leadership and their political and financial sponsors within mainstream American Jewish community and in Congress are spearheading the anti-Obama campaign. An American Jewish leadership and community that is never grateful to the United States for half of century of political, military, financial and legal support that enabled Israel to commit the kinds of crimes it is committing on a daily basis since the ‘67 War, committing war crimes in Gaza and in Lebanon, with the use of cluster and phosphorous bombs on civilian targets and using American-supplied weapons to bomb and kill civilian targets, with the United States providing the Veto power that so far has enabled Israel to get away with murder and violations of international and humanitarian laws.
Not only does the United States provide political and legal cover for Israeli crimes, it also allows and in fact supports the illegal settlements and criminal settlers through tax exemptions of American Jewish organizations, groups, individuals even synagogues that fund the criminal and terrorist activities of Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank and in East Jerusalem. One of the key Israeli organizations that receives US tax exempt funds is “The Task Force to Save the Nation and the Land” which gave cash awards of NIS 20,000 to each Israeli soldier who lifted signs that read, ”The Shimshon Battalion does not evict from Homesh” a month ago at the Western Wall, gave NIS 1,800 to solider Tzach Kortz for shooting a Palestinian near Kiryat Arba and that gives NIS 1,000 each day to every soldier who publicly demonstrates their opposition to Israeli evacuations from the West Bank, gives NIS 1,000 for each day soldiers spend in military prisons for disobeying orders of military commanders that comes to dealing with Jewish settlers. The list goes on and on with hundreds of American Jewish groups, rich and powerful business leaders supporting the Israeli Jewish settlers’ movements and the crimes and terror they commit on a daily basis against the people of Al-Khalil/Hebron, against Palestinian towns and villages burning and uprooting centuries-old olive trees, poisoning water wells and killing of livestock, not to mention killing and murdering of Palestinian villagers. This is in contrast to the microscopic scrutiny that mosques, Muslim and Arab charities are subjected to on a daily basis from US law enforcement agencies.
The failure of the United States government to enforce its laws related to export of and use of American weapons against civilian targets and its failure to look into and revoke the tax exemption statutes of many of the American Jewish organizations that actively support and fund Jewish terrorism in Palestinian territories shows that President Obama is not an enemy of the Jews but a very good friend of Israel and its criminal policies in the Occupied Territories, otherwise he could order his attorney general to look into and investigate funding of Jewish settlers’ groups and organizations, perhaps issue executive orders that revoke tax exemption status of American Jewish organizations that fund and sponsor Jewish terrorism.
However all of that support by the Obama’s administration is never enough to satisfy power and political greed of the American Jewish leadership and community. They have succeeded in derailing the nomination of Chaz Freeman to chair the National Intelligence Council citing his “anti-Israeli leanings” and now are after former senator Chuck Hagel as President Obama’s intelligence aid and his lack of being pro-Israel. It seems and in the words of Natsha Mozgovaya writing in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, “Every appointee to the American government must endure a thorough background check by the American Jewish community”. That is the way it is in the United States, what really counts are Israel and the American Jewish community and the hell with the United States and its national and security interests. The litmus tests of public service in the United States is not loyalty to the US or long-term service but loyalty to Israel and its supporters in the United States, supporters and sponsors who corrupted our election laws and financing, corrupted both the executive and Legislative branch and are now on the way to corrupting the judicial branch and perhaps undermining and corrupting the soul of our nation’s strength; the United States Constitution.
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From the Archives
Registered Israeli foreign agent driving contrived campus antisemitism crisis
By Wyatt Reed | The Grayzone | December 17, 2023
Lawsuits accusing top US universities of harboring antisemitism all originate from one source: a corporate law firm that fielded the pro-settler ex-US ambassador to Israel, and which was registered as a foreign agent of an Israeli principal as recently as 2021.
The firm now represents professional Israel lobby activists posing as victimized “Jewish students” and seeking to crush the free speech rights of Palestine solidarity activists. … continue
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