Relocating Guantánamo
Silence of the Lamb-like Lawyers
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS | 12-22-09
Obama’s dwindling band of true believers has taken heart that their man has finally delivered on one of his many promises–the closing of the Guantanamo prison. But the prison is not being closed. It is being moved to Illinois, if the Republicans permit.
In truth, Obama has handed his supporters another defeat. Closing Guantanamo meant ceasing to hold people in violation of our legal principles of habeas corpus and due process and ceasing to torture them in violation of US and international laws.
All Obama would be doing would be moving 100 people, against whom the US government is unable to bring a case, from the prison in Guantanamo to a prison in Thomson, Illinois.
Are the residents of Thomson despondent that the US government has chosen their town as the site on which to continue its blatant violation of US legal principles? No, the residents are happy. It means jobs.
The hapless prisoners had a better chance of obtaining release from Guantanamo. Now the prisoners are up against two US senators, a US representative, a mayor, and a state governor who have a vested interest in the prisoners’ permanent detention in order to protect the new prison jobs in the hamlet devastated by unemployment.
Neither the public nor the media have ever shown any interest in how the detainees came to be incarcerated. Most of the detainees were unprotected people who were captured by Afghan war lords and sold to the Americans as “terrorists” in order to collect a proffered bounty. It was enough for the public and the media that the Defense Secretary at the time, Donald Rumsfeld, declared the Guantanamo detainees to be the “780 most dangerous people on earth.”
The vast majority have been released after years of abuse. The 100 who are slated to be removed to Illinois have apparently been so badly abused that the US government is afraid to release them because of the testimony the prisoners could give to human rights organizations and foreign media about their mistreatment.
Our British allies are showing more moral conscience than Americans are able to muster. Former PM Tony Blair, who provided cover for President Bush’s illegal invasion of Iraq, is being damned for his crimes by UK officialdom testifying before the Chilcot Inquiry.
The London Times on December 14 summed up the case against Blair in a headline: “Intoxicated by Power, Blair Tricked Us Into War.” Two days later the British First Post declared: “War Crime Case Against Tony Blair Now Rock-solid.” In an unguarded moment Blair let it slip that he favored a conspiracy for war regardless of the validity of the excuse [weapons of mass destruction] used to justify the invasion.
The movement to bring Blair to trial as a war criminal is gathering steam. Writing in the First Post Neil Clark reported: “There is widespread contempt for a man [Blair] who has made millions [his reward from the Bush regime] while Iraqis die in their hundreds of thousands due to the havoc unleashed by the illegal invasion, and who, with breathtaking arrogance, seems to regard himself as above the rules of international law.” Clark notes that the West’s practice of shipping Serbian and African leaders off to the War Crimes Tribunal, while exempting itself, is wearing thin.
In the US, of course, there is no such attempt to hold to account Bush, Cheney, Condi Rice, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and the large number of war criminals that comprised the Bush Regime. Indeed, Obama, whom Republicans love to hate, has gone out of his way to protect the Bush cohort from being held accountable.
Here in Great Moral America we only hold accountable celebrities and politicians for their sexual indiscretions. Tiger Woods is paying a bigger price for his girlfriends than Bush or Cheney will ever pay for the deaths and ruined lives of millions of people. The consulting company, Accenture Plc, which based its marketing program on Tiger Woods, has removed Woods from its Web site. Gillette announced that the company is dropping Woods from its print and broadcast ads. AT&T says it is re-evaluating the company’s relationship with Woods.
Apparently, Americans regard sexual infidelity as far more serious than invading countries on the basis of false charges and deception, invasions that have caused the deaths and displacement of millions of innocent people. Remember, the House impeached President Clinton not for his war crimes in Serbia, but for lying about his affair with Monica Lewinsky.
Americans are more upset by Tiger Woods’ sexual affairs than they are by the Bush and Obama administrations’ destruction of US civil liberty. Americans don’t seem to mind that “their” government for the last 8 years has resorted to the detention practices of 1,000 years ago–simply grab a person and throw him into a dungeon forever without bringing charges and obtaining a conviction.
According to polls, Americans support torture, a violation of both US and international law, and Americans don’t mind that their government violates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and spies on them without obtaining warrants from a court. Apparently, the brave citizens of the “sole remaining superpower” are so afraid of terrorists that they are content to give up liberty for safety, an impossible feat.
With stunning insouciance, Americans have given up the rule of law that protected their liberty. The silence of law schools and bar associations indicates that the age of liberty has passed. In short, the American people support tyranny. And that’s where they are headed.
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions. His new book, How the Economy was Lost, will be published next month by AK Press / CounterPunch. He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com
Aid groups say world powers betrayed Gaza
December 22, 2009
Bethlehem – Ma’an – The international community betrayed the people of Gaza by failing to end an Israeli blockade stymieing reconstruction efforts following last winter’s war, 16 aid and human rights groups said in a report released Tuesday.
The report Failing Gaza: No rebuilding, No recovery, No more excuses, alleges that the world’s powers, particularly the European Union, failed to ensure that aid pledged to Gaza actually reached its intended recipients.
Since the end of the three week military offensive dubbed Operation Cast Lead in January, Israel has allowed only 41 truckloads of construction materials into the Gaza Strip, the groups reported. All of those materials were destined for NGOs implementing piecemeal reconstruction efforts, or repairs to the electricity and sewage networks.
The groups sponsoring the report included Amnesty International, CAFOD, Christian Aid, Medical Aid for Palestinians, Mercy Corps and Oxfam International.
The report said thousands of truckloads of reconstruction materials are needed to rebuild the tens of thousands of homes, businesses, schools, mosques and other buildings destroyed and damaged during the war. As a result, thousands of Gaza residents are still living in tents, and the Strip’s economy remains in ruins.
“The wretched reality endured by 1.5 million people in Gaza should appall anybody with an ounce of humanity. Sick, traumatized and impoverished people are being collectively punished by a cruel, illegal policy imposed by the Israeli authorities,” Amnesty International UK Director Kate Allen said in a statement.
“Israel’s responsibility to protect its citizens does not give it the right to punish every man, woman and child of Gaza.”
She also said the world has an obligation to act to end the blockade: “All states are obliged under international law to intervene to put an end to this brutal blockade but their leaders are failing in this fundamental measure of their own humanity.” […]
The report notes that as the occupying power, Israel is responsible to safeguard the welfare of the population in Gaza. Absent funds from Israel, the international community offered to rebuild Gaza after the recent war.
International donors pledged four billion US dollars to rebuild Gaza at a conference in the Egyptian Red Sea resort town of Sharm Ash-Sheikh in March. Because of the ban on construction materials, virtually none of the aid has materialized. The EU accounted for 1 billion dollars of this figure.
The report faults the EU for failing to seek compensation from Israel for the destruction of facilities relating EU-funded projects in Gaza. The UN charged Israel 11.4 million for damages to its facilities.
UK drops terrorism charges against Libyan
A Libyan national who has been under restriction for the past six years in the United Kingdom on terrorism charges has won his long court battle against the UK Home Office and Security Services.
Faraj Hassan told Press TV over phone on Monday that his solicitors tried hard and finally succeed in convincing a High Court judge that he is not a terrorist threat to the United Kingdom.
“They couldn’t manage to fight this case. All the allegations they had against me were based on suspicions,” he said.
Hassan, 28, was arrested in 2002 shortly after he entered Britain. He spent 15 months in detention without trial before eventually being charged in 2003 under the UK Terrorism Act. He has been subject to a control order ever since.
“After spending months in detention I was told that they wanted to extradite me to Italy. I fought this case for approximately five years,” Hassan said.
“After my acquittal in absentia in Italy, the Italian government was not interested in me anymore, therefore I was released under strict conditions,” he told Press TV.
“Myself and my family were for two-and-a-half years isolated from the community, we were not allowed to use the basic things that any human being is entitled to such as mobile phones and internet,” the Libyan said about his lifestyle in the UK.
British Army ‘waterboarded’ suspects in 70s
Evidence casts doubt on guilt of man sentenced to hang for killing soldier
* Ian Cobain
* guardian.co.uk, Monday 21 December 2009 21.52 GMT
Evidence that the British army subjected prisoners in Northern Ireland to waterboarding during interrogations in the 1970s is emerging after one of the alleged victims launched an appeal against his conviction for murder.
Liam Holden became the last person in the United Kingdom to be sentenced to hang after being convicted in 1973 of the murder of a soldier, largely on the basis of an unsigned confession. His death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment and he spent 17 years behind bars.
The jury did not believe Holden’s insistence that he made the confession only because he had been held down by members of the Parachute Regiment, whom he says placed a towel over his face before pouring water from a bucket over his nose and mouth, giving him the impression that he was drowning.
But now the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) has referred Holden’s case to the court of appeal in Belfast after unearthing new evidence, and because of doubts about “the admissibility and reliability” of his confession. The commission says it believes “there is a real possibility” his conviction will be quashed. After a preliminary hearing earlier this month, Holden’s appeal was adjourned to the new year.
However, the account that Holden gave at his trial is remarkably similar to those that have emerged since the CIA began using waterboarding techniques while interrogating al-Qaida suspects during the so-called war on terror.
Lawyers who have taken up his case have identified a second man who gave a similar account of being waterboarded after being arrested by detectives of the Royal Ulster Constabulary and questioned about the murder of a police constable. In a statement to a doctor in April 1978, this man said officers had put a towel over his face and poured water over his nose and mouth, and that “this was frightening and was repeated on a number of occasions”. He was eventually released without charge. The CCRC also has a statement taken from a third man who says he was waterboarded by the British army in the early 70s.
All of the allegations of waterboarding come from a period after March 1972, when the then prime minister, Ted Heath, banned five other notorious torture methods which were subsequently condemned by the European court of human rights as being inhuman and degrading.
Holden, a Roman Catholic, was 19 and a chef when he was detained during a raid by soldiers of the Parachute Regiment on his parents’ home in the Ballymurphy area of west Belfast in October 1972. Apparently acting on a tipoff from an informer, the soldiers accused Holden of being the sniper who, a month earlier, had shot dead Private Frank Bell of the regiment’s 2nd Battalion. Bell had just turned 18 and had joined the regiment six weeks earlier. He was the 100th British soldier to die in Northern Ireland that year.
When Holden came to trial in April 1973 he told the jury he had been playing cards with his brother and two friends in a public place at the time Bell was shot. He said that after being arrested in his bed the soldiers had taken him to their base on Black Mountain, west of Belfast, where he was beaten, burned with a cigarette lighter, hooded and threatened with execution.
Holden also gave a detailed account of being waterboarded, although he did not use that term. In a court report published the following day, the Belfast Telegraph said the defendant told the jury that he had been pushed into a cubicle where he was held down by six men, that a towel was placed over his head, and that water was then poured slowly over his face from a bucket. “It nearly put me unconscious,” Holden was quoted as saying. “It nearly drowned me and stopped me from breathing. This went on for a minute.” A short while later he was subjected to the same treatment again, he said.
A sergeant from the Parachute Regiment and a British army captain told the court that Holden had confessed to the shooting during an “interview”. The unnamed sergeant said Holden had wanted to confess to the murder because “he wanted to get it off his chest”, while the officer said the teenager had told him that he had left the IRA a short while later because he felt such remorse.
The jury took less than 75 minutes to convict Holden of capital murder, and the judge, Sir Robert Lowry, told him: “The sentence of the court is that you will suffer death in the manner authorised by law.” The then Northern Ireland secretary, William Whitelaw, commuted the sentence the following month, and the death penalty was abolished in Northern Ireland shortly afterwards. Holden did not appeal, however, with relatives saying at the time that he believed his trial had been “rigged” and a “farce”.
He was eventually released from prison in 1989.
Holden’s solicitor, Patricia Coyle, said: “At trial Mr Holden gave compelling evidence that the alleged confession was obtained by the army using water torture. He spent 17 years in jail. He is looking forward to the court hearing his appeal.”
The new evidence that the CCRC has submitted to the court of appeal is being kept secret. The CCRC is unwilling to discuss this material, other than to say that it has not yet been disclosed at the request of the public body from which it was obtained. Holden’s lawyers are now asking for it to be disclosed.
The Ministry of Defence said it was unable to confirm whether British service personnel had received instruction in waterboarding techniques as part of their counterinterrogation training at that time, and it would not disclose whether personnel currently receive such instruction “for reasons of operational security”.
There is evidence that such instruction has been given, however. In 2005 Rod Richard, the former Welsh Office minister, told a Welsh newspaper that he had been waterboarded during his counterinterrogation training as a Royal Marines officer in the late 60s.
The Guardian has spoken to a former Royal Marines officer who says that he and his fellow officers and their men were all waterboarded at the end of their escape and evasion training at Lympstone, Devon, in the late 60s and early 70s. “You were tied to a chair and they would tip you over on your back, put a towel over your face and pour water over you. I can’t recall what we called it – not waterboarding – but it produced a drowning sensation and it was pretty unpleasant.”
Seven months before Holden was detained by British soldiers, the Heath government had publicly repudiated and banned five “interrogation techniques”. RUC officers had learned the techniques – hooding, sleep deprivation, starvation and the use of stress positions and noise – from British military intelligence officers, but Heath assured the Commons that they “will not be used in future as an aid to interrogation”.
There were subsequently unconfirmed allegations that the British army had experimented with other methods of torture, including electric shocks, and the use of drugs. Towards the end of the decade, Amnesty International was reporting that terrorism suspects were again being mistreated, this time by RUC detectives, “with sufficient frequency to warrant the establishment of a public inquiry”.
A number of Republican former prisoners have told the Guardian that waterboarding was used as a form of punishment, as well as a means of extracting confessions.
Where is the Palestinian Gandhi? In Israeli prison, of course!
By Jo Ehrlich | December 21, 2009
Palestinian Joke #134
Question: Where can Israel find the Palestinian Gandhi?
Answer: Exactly where they put him, in administrative detention.
Not that I’m in any way playing into the Palestinian Gandhi dialogue, I think its actually pretty diversionary/racist. But sometimes you have to laugh in order not to cry right?
Jamal Juma’, the director of the Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign, also known as Stop the Wall, was summoned for interrogation on the night of December 15th. Jamal has been detained by the Israeli military and has not had access to a lawyer since the 16th of December. I was in the Stop the Wall Office on the 15th of December. I said hi to Jamal. I’ve met him on a couple of occasions. He is a quiet man with a commanding presence.
I read the news of his arrest last night, sitting in the home of another non-violent Palestinian activist, Musa Abu Maria of the Palestine Solidarity Project. He was not surprised to hear about Jamal’s arrest. He told me the story of his first arrest and time in prison. An IDF commander showed up at his home and asked him to come with him for a few hours to talk over a cup of tea. Musa asked if he could have a minute to say goodbye to his family. He knew what tea and talk were code words for. He was nineteen years old.
If past actions set precedence and they do. Jamal will likely not be charged with any crime (because he has not committed one) but will be held in prison for a long time (interrogated, tortured) without charges. Israel does this through a process called administrative detention that allows the state to hold Palestinians for periods of three months at a time (renewable indefinitely) without charges.
Mohammad Othman, another Stop the Wall executive member has been detained by Israel since September. His first administrative detention order expires this week. Jamal is set to be brought in front of a judge today.
Mohammad, Jamal and many of the scores of other Palestinian’s with orders of administrative detention, are in Israeli prisons not because they have committed a crime but because they are non-violent anti-occupation activists. Israel has begun to understand that non-violent activism in Palestine is a serious threat to the occupation. Those engaged in non-violent struggle often have an excellent analysis, they are determined and they are gaining traction domestically and platforms for spreading their message internationally. It scares the shit out of Israel so it is not surprising that they are responding with repressive military actions. This is a military occupation and it maintains itself by using the tactics military oppression.
Resistance fighters engage advancing IOF troops in Gaza
| 21/12/2009 – 10:52 AM |
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BEIT HANUN, (PIC)– Palestinian resistance fighters engaged special Israeli forces east of Beit Hanun town in northern Gaza Strip at dawn Monday, local sources told the PIC reporter. They added that the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) infiltrated late Sunday night near the Beit Hanun (Erez) crossing amidst intensified over flights of warplanes. The PIC reporter said that more than 20 IOF armored vehicles infiltrated into the area while similar moves were reported in eastern Gaza city. Local sources noted that IOF tanks east of Gaza fired three shells at civilian homes that fell in cultivated land lots and inflicted only material damage. In the West Bank, the IOF soldiers detained Hamas leader Sheikh Yousef Abul Rub, a teacher and preacher, in Jalbun village, east of Jenin, in a raid that lasted for a few hours. Eyewitnesses said that IOF soldiers broke into the Sheikh’s home and remained there for two hours during which they interrogated its residents. They added that the soldiers then took Abul Rub, 45, blindfolded in one of their vehicles as other soldiers combed the vicinity of his home for hours. Abul Rub was only recently released from PA prisons in Jenin where he was detained on six separate occasions. He was also detained in Israeli jails on several occasions. |
Ahmadinejad to seek UN compensation for WWII
Press TV – December 19, 2009 07:45:26 GMT
Iranian workers are forced by occupying troops to load their own requisitioned trains during the Second World War.
Iran’s president says he will soon write to the UN Secretary-General asking for his country to be compensated for World War II damages.
“We will seek compensation for World War II damages. I have assigned a team to calculate the costs,” Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said at a Friday press conference in the Danish capital.
“I will write a letter to the UN Secretary-General [Ban Ki-moon] asking for Iran to be compensated for the damages,” he added, pointing out that such a move is necessary to ensure that justice was served.
Ahmadinejad told the reporters that the countries that won the Second World War had inflicted a lot of damage on Iran by invading the country and using its resources.
The president added that while the former Soviet Union, the United States and Britain received compensation after the conflict, Iran had been given nothing to make up for the suffering its people had endured.
“During this period, the Iranian people were subjected to a great deal of pressure and the country suffered a great deal of damages but Iran was not paid any compensation,” Ahmadinejad explained.
At the start of World War II, Iran declared its neutrality, but the country was soon invaded by both Britain and the Soviet Union on August 26, 1941 in Operation Countenance.
Iran’s refusal to give into Allied demands and expel all German nationals from the country was the excuse they needed to occupy the country. Within months of the invasion Iran became known as “The Bridge of Victory” to the Allies.
When invading the Soviet Union in 1941, the Allies urgently needed to transport war materiel across Iran to the Soviet Union.
The effects of the war, however, were very catastrophic for Iran. Food and other essential items were scarce and severe inflation imposed great hardship on the lower and middle classes as the needs of foreign troops were prioritized.
“Not only was Iran deprived of any compensation for World War II, but 10 years later, the Americans even went as far as arranging a coup to reverse a popular uprising that had led to the nationalization of oil,” said Ahmadinejad.
In 1953, Washington orchestrated a coup against the popular and democratically-elected Iranian prime minister of the time, Mohammad Mosaddeq, whose efforts led to the nationalization of the country’s oil industry.
Almost half a century later, former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright acknowledged the pivotal role that the US played in the coup, coming closer than any other American diplomat to apologizing for the intervention.
“The Eisenhower administration believed its actions were justified for strategic reasons… But the coup was clearly a setback for Iran’s political development. And it is easy to see now why many Iranians continue to resent this intervention by America,” she said in March 2000.
Ahmadinejad who had travelled to Copenhagen to take part in the Climate Change Summit, returned to Iran on Saturday morning.
“It is time for us to put an end to this occupation”
Hassan Mousa and Jody McIntyre writing from Nilin, occupied West Bank, Live from Palestine, 18 December 2009
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Hassan Mousa being arrested during a demonstration at the wall. (Activestills) |
Situated just west of Ramallah, the Palestinian village of Nilin has lost huge swathes of land to Israel’s settlements and its wall in the occupied West Bank. In a year and a half of resisting construction of the wall, five villagers have been murdered by the Israeli military while demonstrating. Hassan Mousa is a coordinator of the Nilin Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements and the uncle of Ahmed Mousa, an 11-year-old boy who was the first villager from Nilin to be killed by the Israeli army.
The following is Hassan Mousa’s story as told to The Electronic Intifada contributor Jody McIntyre:
On 29 July 2008, while the apartheid wall was still in the planning stages, there was an evening demonstration here in Nilin. We wanted to send a message to the Israeli settlers who were already living on and stealing our land, that this wall is being built at your request, so you must pressure your government to stop construction, and put an end to the suffering of the Palestinians living here. We knew that they were saying the wall was being built for security, but we believe that it is purely a land grab and an extension of the existing illegal settlements built on our land since 1967. So that was the message of the demonstration, that you can never have security while others are suffering.
At the time, there was no real presence of soldiers, just a single jeep parked far away from the place of the demonstrators. When they suddenly heard the sound of the demonstration coming toward the planned site of the wall, the jeep drove up very close. The young people started moving the children and old people back toward the village, as they were understandably concerned for their well-being.
As my nephew Ahmed was walking back his sandal slipped off his foot. He put his bag down to get it but the bullet was faster. According to eye-witnesses, three soldiers got out of the jeep; the first shot a sound bomb, the second shot a round of rubber-coated steel bullets, and the third shot directly at the head of my nephew with a live bullet. He was shot deliberately. The people nearby tried to rescue him — they said that while they were carrying him toward the ambulance, pieces of his brain slipped down onto their shoulders. It was a serious experience for them … they couldn’t understand how brutal and savage the soldiers had been, to kill a ten-year-old child.
Ahmed died immediately, but the paramedics needed to wait until they arrived at the hospital for an official confirmation. When the news of his death came out in the media, the Israeli army announced that there had been a case of killing in Nilin, but that it had been a result of internal conflict between families in the village. They actually said that he was killed by another Palestinian!
The Palestinian Authority decided to conduct an autopsy, and it was found that he was killed by a live bullet. After that, the army admitted to killing him, but didn’t bother to give a reason. We are in the process of taking the army to court now.
Ahmed was a very active person among his friends, and loved by all. He was helpful and obedient to his parents. He never harmed anybody. For me, he was my favorite nephew, and his parents knew that. I used to tell them not to shout at him, because he was so sweet. His death truly affected me, and I have his poster displayed in my house. But the image of Ahmed is in my heart.
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| Ahmed Mousa being carried through his funeral. (Activestills) |
Ahmed’s mother was especially hurt by his loss. She was pregnant at the time. She already had four sons, and was hoping that God would bless her with a daughter. After the medical checkup she was told, “Congratulations, you will have a daughter.” But after he died, she said “Oh God! I want a son so I can name him Ahmed.” I told all the nurses in the town to be close to her after Ahmed’s death so she could keep her baby. It was very difficult for her, and she would often faint, completely unaware of her surroundings. But thanks to the women around her, she managed to overcome the problems and give birth to a beautiful daughter.
The news came to his brothers as a huge shock, because they had been playing together in their uncle’s house just an hour earlier. Ahmed told them he wanted to go home to take something from the fridge, left the house, and went towards the demonstration.
It was very difficult for his brothers. Sometimes they make a mistake and call one another Ahmed, because they are so familiar with his name. At first they couldn’t enter his room. At night they would dream about him, and wake up in the morning to tell their father that they had seen Ahmed and he was happy.
Now that time has passed they have gotten used to the idea of his death, but they keep his pictures on the walls of their room and on the computer. If you go to his house, you feel as if Ahmed is still present. He was very dear to them.
At the funeral, I told the people that Ahmed’s blood planted the seeds for thousands of people to follow in his footsteps, and more than a year and a half later, this has been proven. Four more have died since, because they decided to follow in his footsteps.
Killing Ahmed did not suppress our demonstrations, it made our demonstrations stronger. The Israeli army soon realized that the murder of Ahmed was a very basic mistake in Nilin.
The second martyr, Yousif Amira, was from the same neighborhood as Ahmed, and on the morning of Ahmed’s funeral he asked the people, “If I am martyred, will you make a huge funeral for me as you did for Ahmed?” That same day he was killed near the entrance of Nilin. He spent three days brain-dead, and then died. We accomplished his wish of a huge funeral, with sweets thrown from rooftops as his body was carried through the streets.
The blood of Ahmed has aroused a patriotic passion in Nilin and awareness that the wall is illegal and we must resist it. I believe that the killing of Ahmed will be the start of our victory in Nilin.
Almost 18 months after his death, the wall in Nilin is now complete. According to the Israeli military’s plans, it was supposed to be completed within six months, but we succeeded in delaying construction for another six. In the past we could get to the bulldozers that were digging on our land and stand in front of them. Sometimes we would get them to move back, sometimes the guys from the villages would break the bulldozers with stones and stop work for a long time.
At first the wall was built as a mesh and barbed wire fence, but they soon realized that it was useless. Here in Nilin, we have a practical way of resisting the wall, so we would reach the fence and cut it in many parts every Friday. So, after the killing of Akil Srour in June of this year, the fifth person to be killed during our nonviolent demonstrations, the army decided that they would stop invading the town as they had done in the past. Before, we would find the soldiers waiting for us in the trees 300 to 400 meters away from the wall, just to stop us from getting there. Instead, they decided to change the wall from a fence to concrete blocks. Nilin became the first village in the West Bank to have these concrete blocks — the concrete version of the wall was previously built in the main population centers, but never before in a village.
Despite this, we managed to damage the concrete wall twice. The army was in a state of shock. What is happening here is unnatural. The people of Nilin are not ordinary, and that is because of the high price we have paid for our resistance, and the suffering we have seen. It is the Israeli army’s aggression, and Israeli crimes, that makes the people more united and more determined to resist.
Now, they have tied all the concrete blocks together with a huge strip of iron and massive screws … again, this is the first place this has happened. They don’t want us to pull the wall down again, but I am sure the people are going to discover many miracles here. We will invent a way to damage the wall again.
Our hope is that the model of nonviolent resistance practiced here in Nilin can spread across Palestine. At the moment, we feel the massive presence of soldiers in Nilin, but if other villages and towns were having one demonstration per week, the number of soldiers would be distributed. The army would be in a state of confusion. We Palestinians have come to the conclusion that the Israeli government does not want peace, so it is time for us to put an end to this occupation.
Jody McIntyre is a journalist from the United Kingdom, currently living in the occupied West Bank village of Bilin. Jody has cerebral palsy, and travels in a wheelchair. He writes a blog for Ctrl.Alt.Shift, entitled “Life on Wheels,” which can be found at www.ctrlaltshift.co.uk. He can be reached at jody.mcintyre AT gmail DOT com.
911-War Promises
Millions of people believe that evidence proves that Western intelligence services organized the hideous attacks on New York and Washington on 11 September 2001. Even the mainstream media have stopped defending the official version and now prefer to ignore the issue altogether.
Distrust in Western governments grows as the wars of aggression waged by the USA and NATO continue to be justified with these “false flag” operations. Ever harsher domestic laws are being passed to crush all outrage and resistance in Western populations; at the end of the day they aim to unleash the German military on German civilians, instead of allowing morality and ethics to flow into day-by-day policy-making.
That morality and ethics long ago stopped playing a part in political decision-making is shown by the use of internationally outlawed weapons in all the wars NATO has started. At best, one has heard of “depleted uranium” after seeing the film “Deadly Dust” by award-winning Frieder Wagner. But even that film is systemically blocked out and banished, although, or perhaps because, it shows the horrific consequences of the use of these uranium weapons.
Among those aghast at the actions of NATO and the complicity of Germany in such internationally illegal wars of aggression is Christoph Hörstel, for many years foreign correspondent and editorial head of the German public broadcasting network ARD. Of like mind is Giullietto Chiesa, a Member of the European Parliament, who slams the ignorance and disinterest of most of his fellow Members.
What they don’t know is explained in the film “War promises” by insiders and whistleblowers. Annie Machon was a spy with the British MI5 and reports on false flag operations, as do Andreas von Bülow and Jürgen Elsässer, who possess enormous insider knowledge from their membership of the parliamentary committee supervising the secret services, and want to bring it to the public.
Eight years after 9/11 millions of people have linked up through the Internet to jointly rebel against this criminal system. What was still dismissed as a wild conspiracy theory until just a few month ago is now regarded as proven, raising the question how we, the people, handle this situation, in which those who govern us have on their minds anything but our well-being.
Even in cases the U.S. wins, Guantanamo evidence is suspect
By Carol Rosenberg | Miami Herald | December 16, 2009
A federal judge ruled Wednesday that the United States is unlawfully imprisoning at Guantanamo a Yemeni once accused of training at an al Qaeda camp, just days after a different U.S. judge upheld the detention of another Guantanamo detainee who trained at the same camp.
But even in that order, the judge found the U.S. evidence was the result of coercion and abuse and should not be used “in any fashion, in any court.” The judge ruled that while the detention may have been legal, the government’s own records “do not give any evidence for his continued detention.”
Judge Ricardo Urbina’s ruling on Wednesday, still sealed at the U.S. District Court in Washington D.C., brought the so-called habeas corpus scorecard to 32 losses and nine victories for the Pentagon in its defense against challenges from detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Because the order was sealed, lawyers declined to explain Urbina’s order to free Saeed Hatim, 33, who had been held at Guantanamo since June 2002.
“We are reviewing the decision and considering options,” said Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd.
Long-time Guantanamo defense attorney David Remes, who argued for release in August based on the Pentagon record, and called no witnesses, said the ruling “once more demonstrates the thinness of the government’s evidence against these men.”
Of the Guantanamo detainees, Remes said, “That’s why they’ve won four out of five cases that have been decided so far.”
Defense Department documents alleged that Hatim left his native Yemen before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, was inspired to join Muslims waging a jihad in Chechnya and trained at the al Farouq paramilitary camp in Afghanistan.
The ruling followed by two days Judge Thomas F. Hogan’s finding that another Yemeni, Musa’ab al Madhwani, 29, was lawfully detained as “part of a member of al Qaeda or related terrorist groups.”
Hogan ruled in favor of the Pentagon, but sounded reluctant to do so. He said Madhwani was no longer a threat to the United States and that some of the evidence against him came from triple hearsay and coerced confessions.
He said the government built its case on documents it discovered only at the last minute.
“As the law’s written I have no choice” but to uphold Madhwani’s continued detention, Hogan said. But Hogan quickly pointed out that that doesn’t mean he thinks Madhwani should continue to be detained. In fact, he said, the government’s records “do not give any basis for his continued detention.”
“I see nothing in the record that the petitioner poses any greater threat than the dozens of detainees . . . who have been transferred or cleared for transfer. In fact, his record is a lot less threatening,” he said in a ruling from the bench, according to a transcript of the hearing.
Hogan said he heard four days of testimony this fall, including Madhwani himself, who testified by a closed-circuit television feed in a closed-door hearing.
The judge admitted 260 exhibits to the record to conclude that the captive traveled to train and have “some association to alleged al Qaeda operatives.”
He called Madhwani a young, under-educated religiously vulnerable “hapless individual” but said the grounds for continued detention amount to this: “[He] voluntarily trained with al Qaeda for 25 days, and then traveled, associated and lived with members of al Qaeda for an entire year.”
Hogan also recited, for the record, what has become a familiar narrative of physical and mental abuse, solitary confinement and sensory deprivation in U.S. detention, notably at the Dark Prison in Afghanistan, adding that Justice Department attorneys did not refute the claims.
Madhwani was captured Sept. 11, 2002 in Pakistan, the judge said, noting his interrogations in Pakistan and Afghanistan “were coerced and should not be admitted — in any fashion in any court.”
IDF raids Naalin photographer’s home
Ali Waked | YNet News | 16 December 2009
Family members of a girl who shot a video showing an Israel Defense Forces soldier firing a rubber bullet at a bound Palestinian in the West Bank village of Naalin last year say the army has been harassing them ever since.
The relatives told Ynet that a massive IDF force raided their house on Wednesday night and left behind a lot of damage. The girl’s father and brother were then summoned for investigation.
An IDF official claimed, however, that the soldiers arrived to arrest a man suspected of rioting and that the incident had nothing to do with the videotape.
The girl’s family members said that soldiers arrived at their house at around 3:30 am. “They broke the windows of our car, which was parked outside, and did not leave one whole glass inside the house. They destroyed and ruined everything,” said the girl’s brother, Arafat Canaan.
“They used a loudspeaker and shouted, ‘We are the IDF, we are the IDF,’ without giving any warning, without telling us what they want.”
‘They did not leave one whole glass (Photo: Activestills)
According to the brother, his mother fainted during the raid, the soldiers attacked his father, forcibly removed two of his brothers from the house and cuffed them in the yard. He said a third brother, who was outside the house, was detained for six hours until the end of the raid.
Arafat added that dogs were brought into the house and caused destruction. He said he believes this was another attempt by the army to avenge the tape. “If they wanted to arrest, they would come and arrest. But to destroy an entire house only to leave behind a letter summoning me and my brother to meet with a Shin Bet officer? This proves they are driven by feelings of vengefulness over that affair.”
‘Soldiers were following orders’
The brother said that his sister documented the destruction caused by the soldiers and their entry into the house, and that the soldiers had threatened her not to film the incident. Arafat himself documents the anti-fence demonstrations in Naalin and says the soldiers’ arrival in the night was meant to also terrify him and make him stop filming the demonstrations and the army’s activity in the village.
IDF sources confirmed that a special force arrived at the house in Naalin in the night in order to arrest one of the family members on suspicion of causing repeated disturbances. A commotion broke out in the area during the detention.
The sources clarified, however, that the soldiers were following orders and were trying not to disrupt the other family members’ lives. The sources also clarified that the arrest had nothing to do with the video shot by one of the family members about a year and a half ago during an ant-fence rally.
It should be noted that the girl’s father was arrested several days after the video’s publication. He was accused of causing disturbances in the area, taking part in a demonstration, violating a closed military zone order and assaulting a soldier with a stick. He was released several days later, after a military judge accused the prosecution of acting unprofessionally.
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MMR (Measles, Mumps and Rubella) – Vaccine Risk Statement
MMR Vaccine (Measles, Mumps, and Rubella) Is It Safer Than Measles, Mumps and Rubella?
Physicians for Informed Consent | December 2024
… It has not been proven that the MMR vaccine is safer than measles, mumps, and rubella. The vaccine package insert raises questions about safety testing for cancer, genetic mutations, and impaired fertility. Although VAERS tracks some adverse events, it is too inaccurate to measure against the risk of measles, mumps, and rubella. Clinical trials do not have the ability to detect less common adverse reactions, and epidemiological studies are limited by the effects of chance and possible confounders. Safety studies of the MMR vaccine are particularly lacking in statistical power. A review of more than 60 MMR vaccine studies conducted for the Cochrane Library states, “The design and reporting of safety outcomes in MMR vaccine studies, both pre- and post-marketing, are largely inadequate.”19 Because permanent sequelae (aftereffects) from measles, mumps, and rubella are so rare (especially in children with normal levels of vitamin A and infected after birth),6,15-17 the level of accuracy of the research studies available is insufficient to rule out the possibility that the MMR vaccine causes greater death or permanent disability than measles, mumps, and rubella. – Read full article
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