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Anti-war protest in Istanbul

Voltaire Network | October 9, 2012

For several months, impressive demonstrations against the war with Syria have taken place in Turkey, but only in the Arabic or Kurdish regions. On Thursday, October 4th 2012, for the first time, a massive demonstration streamed through Istanbul shouting “This war is not ours!”

The choice made by the Erdogan government to join NATO’s operations against Libya, and to support the covert war against Syria has brutally stunted Turkey’s economic growth.

Quite apart from the economic difficulties flogging the whole of society, certain sectors of the population feel particularly sympathetic towards the Syrian people and the regime in Damascus. This applies especially to one million Arabs, 15 million Kurds and an equal number of Alevis.

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October 10, 2012 Posted by | Militarism, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , , , | Leave a comment

Netanyahu was wrong about Iraq having nuclear weapons

So what makes him think he is right about Iran developing nuclear weapons?

Benjamin Netanyahu speaking to House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on September 12 2002.

The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is the main investigative committee in the U.S. House of Representatives.

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October 8, 2012 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Video, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel’s Dimona Nuclear Weapons Factory In 3D

October 7, 2012 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Video | | Leave a comment

Why I Dislike Israel

By PHILIP GIRALDI | CounterPunch | October 5, 2012

Even those pundits who seem to want to distance U.S. foreign policy from Tel Aviv’s demands and begin treating Israel like any other country sometimes feel compelled to make excuses and apologies before getting down to the nitty-gritty. The self-lacerating prologues generally describe how much the writer really has a lot of Jewish friends and how he or she thinks Israelis are great people and that Israel is a wonderful country before launching into what is usually a fairly mild critique.

Well, I don’t feel that way. I don’t like Israel very much. Whether or not I have Jewish friends does not define how I see Israel and is irrelevant to the argument. And as for the Israelis, when I was a CIA officer overseas, I certainly encountered many of them. Some were fine people and some were not so fine, just like the general run of people everywhere else in the world. But even the existence of good upstanding Israelis doesn’t alter the fact that the governments that they have elected are essentially part of a long-running criminal enterprise judging by the serial convictions of former presidents and prime ministers. Most recently, former President Moshe Katsav was convicted of rape, while almost every recent head of government, including the current one, has been investigated for corruption. Further, the Israeli government is a rogue regime by most international standards, engaging as it does in torture, arbitrary imprisonment, and continued occupation of territories seized by its military. Worse still, it has successfully manipulated my country, the United States, and has done terrible damage both to our political system and to the American people, a crime that I just cannot forgive, condone, or explain away.

Interfering in American electoral politics

The most recent outrage is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s direct interference in U.S. domestic politics through his appearance in a television ad appearing in Florida that serves as an endorsement of Republican candidate Mitt Romney. The Netanyahu ad and his involvement in the election has been widely reported in the media and has even been condemned by several leading Jewish congressmen, but it has elicited no response from either Obama or Romney. Both should be condemning in the strongest terms the completely unprecedented intervention by a foreign head of government in an American election. That they are saying nothing is a testament to the power that Israel and its friends in Congress and the media have over the U.S. political establishment. Romney might even privately approve of the ads, as he has basically promised to cede to Netanyahu the right to set the limits for U.S. policy in the Middle East.

Pushing us into war

And why is Benjamin Netanyahu in such a lather? It is because President Barack Obama will not concede to him a “red line” that would automatically trigger a U.S. attack on Iran. Consider for a moment the hubris of Netanyahu in demanding that Washington meet his conditions for going to war with Iran, a nation that for all its frequently described faults has not attacked anyone, has not threatened to attack anyone, and has not made the political decision to acquire a nuclear weapon in spite of what one reads in the U.S. press. At the U.N., Netanyahu’s chart showing a cartoon bomb with a sputtering fuse reminiscent of something that might have been employed by an anarchist in the 1870s failed to pass any credibility test even for the inevitable cheerleaders in the U.S. media. If the U.S. is to go to war based on a Netanyahu cartoon then it deserves everything it gets when the venture turns sour, most likely Iraq Redux, only 10 times worse.

Even more outrageous, and a lot less reported in the media, were the comments made by Patrick Clawson, director of research for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), an organization founded by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). WINEP is widely viewed as a major component of the Israel Lobby in Washington and is closely tied to the Israeli government, with which it communicates on a regular basis. Clawson heads WINEP’s Iran Security Initiative. At a briefing on Sept. 24 he said, “I frankly think that crisis initiation is really tough, and it’s very hard for me to see how the United States … uh … president can get us to war with Iran.… The traditional way America gets to war is what would be best for U.S. interests.”

Note that Clawson states his conviction that initiating a crisis to get the U.S. involved in a war with Iran and thereby fooling the American people into thinking that it is the right thing to do is actually a “U.S. interest.” He cites Pearl Harbor, Fort Sumter, the Lusitania, and the Gulf of Tonkin as models for how to get engaged. Which inevitably leads to Clawson’s solution: “if the Iranians aren’t going to compromise it would be best if someone else started the war … Iranian submarines periodically go down. Some day one of them may not come up…. We are in the game of using covert means against the Iranians. We could get nastier at that.” Clawson is clearly approving of Israel’s staging an incident that would lead to war, possibly even a false-flag operation carried out by Israel that would implicate the United States directly, or he is urging the White House to do the job itself.

Clawson not surprisingly has never served in the U.S. military and has a Ph.D. in economics from the New School for Social Research, which would at first glance seem to disqualify him from figuring out how to set up a covert operation to sink a submarine and thereby start a war. He might be seen as moderately ridiculous, but like many of his neoconservative colleagues he is well wired into the system. He writes regularly for The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal; appears on television as an “expert”; and is a colleague at WINEP of the ubiquitous Dennis Ross, sometimes called “Israel’s lawyer,” who was until recently President Obama’s point man on the Middle East. Clawson is a useful idiot who would be registered as an agent of the Israeli government if the Justice Department were doing its job, but instead he is feted as a man who tells it like it is in terms of American interests. The distortion of the foreign-policy decision-making in this country is something that can be attributed to Clawson and his host of fellow travelers, all of whom promote Israel’s perceived interests at the expense of the United States. And they do it with their eyes wide open.

Hate speech posing as free speech

I will deliberately avoid belaboring another Israel Firster Pamela Geller and her New York subway posters calling Palestinians savages and Israelis civilized, as I am sure the point has been made about how any lie that can serve the cause of Israel will be aggressively defended as “free speech.” A poster excoriating Jews or blacks in similar terms as “savages” would not have seen the light of day in New York City, another indication of the power of the Lobby and its friends to control the debate about the Middle East and game the system.

Spying

And then there are the reasons to dislike Israel and what it represents that go way back. In 1952′s Lavon Affair, the Israelis were prepared to blow up a U.S. Information Center in Alexandria and blame it on the Egyptians. In 1967, the Israelis attacked and nearly sank the USS Liberty, killing 34 crewmen, and then used their power over President Lyndon Johnson to block an investigation into what had occurred. In 1987, Jonathan Pollard was convicted of spying for Israel with investigators determining that he had been the most damaging spy in the history of the United States. In the 1960s, Israelis stole uranium from a lab in Pennsylvania to construct a secret nuclear arsenal. And the spying and theft of U.S. technology continues. Israel is the most active “friendly nation” when it comes to stealing U.S. secrets, and when its spies are caught, they are either sent home or, if they are Americans, receive a slap on the wrist.

Killing American citizens

And Israel gets away with killing American citizens — literally — in the cases of Rachel Corrie and Furkan Dogan of the Mavi Marmara. And let’s not forget Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians which has made the United States complicit in a crime against humanity. Tel Aviv has also played a key role in Washington’s going to war against Iraq, in promulgating a U.S.-led global war on terror against the Muslim world, and in crying wolf over Iran, all of which have served no U.S. interest. Through it all, Congress and the media are oblivious to what is taking place. Israel is a net recipient of over $123 billion in U.S. aid and continues to get $3 billion a year even though its per capita income is higher than that of Spain or Italy. No one questions anything having to do with Israel while Congress rubber-stamps resolution after resolution virtually promising to go to war on Israel’s behalf.

I have to admit that I don’t like what my own government is doing these days, but I like Israel even less and it is past time to do something about it. No more money, no more political support, no more tolerance of spying, and no more having to listen to demands for red lines to go to war. No more favorable press when the demented Benjamin Netanyahu holds up a cartoon at the U.N. The United States government exists to serve the American people, no more, no less, and it is time that our elected representatives begin to remember that fact.

Philip Giraldi is the executive director of the Council for the National Interest and a recognized authority on international security and counterterrorism issues. He is a former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer who served eighteen years overseas in Turkey, Italy, Germany, and Spain. He was Chief of Base in Barcelona from 1989 to 1992 designated as the Agency’s senior officer for Olympic Games support.

October 7, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, False Flag Terrorism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Turkey Hones Its Killing Skills

By Belén Fernández | Al Akhbar | October 6, 2012

On October 4, the Turkish daily Sözcü proclaimed on its website: “We hit Syria!”

Numerous Syrian soldiers were reported dead as a result of the hit, which took place in response to a Syrian mortar strike that killed a woman and four children, all from the same family, in the Turkish border town of Akçakale. The hit stands to be repeated now that the Turkish parliament has officially authorized future military action against its southern neighbor.

To some observers, this authorization may appear redundant. It is common knowledge that Turkey is playing host to anti-Syrian regime combatants, who stage incursions from Turkish territory, and, as the British Independent noted in June of this year:

“members of the loose assortment of rebel groups that comprises the FSA [Free Syrian Army] said they had received multiple shipments of arms including Kalashnikov assault rifles, BKC machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and anti-tank weaponry from Gulf countries and that Turkey was assisting in the delivery of the weapons.”

Coincidentally, the Turkish parliament was already scheduled to vote this week on an extension of authorization for cross-border military action against another neighbor: Iraq, which plays host to combatants from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), who stage incursions into Turkey.

Iraq’s feelings on the matter were summed up by government spokesman Ali Dabbagh, quoted by Reuters as registering Iraqi opposition to a Turkish parliamentary extension and “reject[ion of] the presence of any foreign bases or troops on Iraqi territory and the incursion of any foreign military forces into Iraqi lands on the pretext of hunting down rebels.” According to Dabbagh, such behavior constitutes a “violation of Iraqi sovereignty and security.”

In the latest installment of regional double standards, the same sovereignty-and-security lingo has been trotted out by Turkey and its allies in condemnation of the Syrian strike on Akçakale. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s fulminations over the “abominable attack” on civilians may appear less righteous when we consider recent events in Turkish military history, such as the extermination of 35 Kurdish civilians over a span of 40 minutes in December of last year. The civilians, attacked in the vicinity of the Turkish-Iraqi border, were mistaken for PKK militants.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Turkish warplanes were aided in their mistake by US Predator and Israeli Heron drones. The participation of the latter technology is an ever-ironic reminder of Turkish-Israeli military collaboration, which continued even after Erdoğan’s 2009 performance at Davos, where he announced to Israel’s president Shimon Peres: “When it comes to killing, you know well how to kill.”

Indeed, Erdoğan was correct in this assessment, as Israel had recently wrapped up its latest exhibition of killing prowess in Gaza, where 1400 persons – primarily civilians – were eliminated in 22 days. The following year, Israel reiterated its homicidal abilities by slaughtering eight Turkish citizens and one Turkish-American on board the Mavi Marmara, part of the flotilla endeavoring to deliver humanitarian aid to the besieged Palestinian coastal enclave.

While the Mavi Marmara incident merely provoked an expression of “regret” from the US establishment, this week’s strike on Akçakale merited “outrage”, despite having produced approximately half the number of Turkish casualties than were killed on the ship. The Agence France-Presse quoted an email from Pentagon spokesman George Little specifying that “[t]his is yet another example of the depraved behavior of the Syrian regime, and why it must go.”

This is the same George Little, of course, who appears in the Wall Street Journal article weighing in on the drone-facilitated massacre of the 35 Kurds in north Iraq – who, it must be stressed, are far from the only innocent casualties of Turkish cross-border maneuvers:

“At the Pentagon, press secretary George Little said when asked about the strike, ‘Without commenting on matters of intelligence, the United States strongly values its enduring military relationship with Turkey’.”

After so many years of “collateral damage” and other euphemisms for mass killing in Iraq and Afghanistan, the duplicity of the imperial lexicon comes as no surprise. Tragic events are catalogued according to the identity of the perpetrators and victims: when Turkey kills Kurds it’s evidence of a valuable military relationship; when Syria kills Turks it’s depraved; when Israel kills anyone it’s in self-defense.

The upshot is that there are quite a few people who “know well how to kill” and that lexical acrobatics cheapen human life. As for Erdoğan’s assailing the Syrian regime for “carrying out massacres with heavy weapons against its own people,” a miraculous purging of hypocrisy from politics would require such critiques to be applied to other situations as well – like, say, ones in which Kurds obliterated by Turkish warplanes happen to be Turkish citizens.

Belén Fernández is the author of The Imperial Messenger: Thomas Friedman at Work, released by Verso in 2011.

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October 6, 2012 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

The US Government Today Has More Data On The Average American Than The Stasi Did On East Germans

From the surveillance-society dept, techdirt | October 3, 2012

We’ve written plenty about how the US government has been quite aggressive in spying on Americans. It has been helped along by a court system that doesn’t seem particularly concerned about the 4th Amendment and by the growing ability of private companies to have our data and to then share it with the government at will. Either way, in a radio interview, Wall Street Journal reporter Julia Angwin (who’s been one of the best at covering the surveillance state in the US) made a simple observation that puts much of this into context: the US surveillance regime has more data on the average American than the Stasi ever did on East Germans. And, of course, as we’ve already seen, much of that data seems to be collected illegally with little oversight… and with absolutely no security benefit.

To be fair, part of the reason for why this is happening is purely technical/practical. While the Stasi likely wanted more info and would have loved to have been able to tap into a digitally connected world like we have today, that just wasn’t possible. The fact that we have so much data about us in connected computers makes it an entirely different world. So, from a practical level, there’s a big difference.

That said, it still should be terrifying. Even if there are legitimate technical reasons for why the government has so much more data on us, it doesn’t change the simple fact (true both then and now) that such data is wide open to abuse, which inevitably happens. The ability of government officials to abuse access to information about you for questionable purposes is something that we should all be worried about. Even those who sometimes have the best of intentions seem to fall prey to the temptation to use such access in ways that strip away civil liberties and basic expectations of privacy. Unfortunately, the courts seem to have very little recognition of the scope of the issue, and there’s almost no incentive for Congress (and certainly the executive branch) to do anything at all to fix this.

October 5, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

The Make-Believe Crisis in Iran

By PATRICK FOY | CounterPunch | October 5, 2012

What if the White House were deliberately misleading America and the world about a major foreign policy issue involving war and peace, would it not be something worth investigating? What if, on top of that, the US Congress and Senate were going along with the subterfuge, remaining silent and not questioning it in the slightest? Wouldn’t that phenomenon be remarkable?

What if the mainstream news media, both television and print, were also enabling the same White House campaign of misrepresentation? Would this not be even more shocking? Should not a free press be checking the facts, asking basic questions, instead of blindly parroting a government party line which could be little more than war propaganda?

If you guessed I am describing Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program, hyped at every opportunity by the Obama White House and the Congress and by the Republicans and Mitt Romney, you would be on target. The nonstop campaign of harassing and demonizing Tehran, premised upon the existential threat supposedly posed by an Iranian atomic bomb, is a determined bipartisan affair in Washington.

Every Tom, Dick and Jane has a stake in the game, the only difference being the extent to which a particular Tom, Dick and Jane is willing to proclaim his or her outrage and commit the United States to punitive action, ranging from ruinous economic sanctions to a bunker-busting military assault in tandem with our dauntless nuclearized ally[sic], Israel.

True, this scenario has been in place for years and is becoming tedious, but we now seem to have arrived at a new plateau of mass hysteria thanks to the 2012 U.S. Presidential campaign. Why? In a word, leverage. The leverage to determine who gets elected in Washington and under what conditions. I am referring in part to a foreign leader who is acting in concert with his American lobbyists and financial backers.

As part of this electioneering process, extravagant commitments have been extracted from craven American officials to further the interests and expand the greater territorial ambitions of the nuclear-armed foreign entity at issue, in exchange for campaign contributions and votes. Nothing new here, but I am getting ahead of myself.

Let me dramatize the problem with a recent example. I have not spoken with John McLaughlin in over ten years, but I believe we remain on good terms. I watch his weekly Washington-based show, the McLaughlin Group, to hear in particular what Patrick Buchanan has to say about the week’s events. The Group remains informative and a partial antidote to the mainstream media. McLaughlin often wanders off the MSM reservation, but never too far.

Last Friday, September 28th, something occurred on the program which blew this fake Iranian crisis sky high. Issue One was, naturally, the interminable and largely irrelevant 2012 Presidential campaign. Issue Two was Iran and Bibi Netanyahu’s speech the day before, at the UN General Assembly, in which he explained why the world must set “red lines” to Iran’s enrichment of uranium to halt its quest for an atomic bomb.

Two days prior to Bibi’s speech, President Barack Obama had proclaimed from the same dais: “… America wants to resolve this issue through diplomacy… there is still time and space to do so. But that time is not unlimited… Make no mistake: a nuclear-armed Iran is not a challenge that can be contained… And that is why the United States will do what we must to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.” Where’s the daylight between the two?

John McLaughlin turned to Mort Zuckerman for a comment. Zuckerman repeated the party line that the development of an Iranian nuclear bomb would be an existential threat to Israel which must be stopped. As in all such pronouncements, just like those of Barack and Bibi at the UN, the indisputable assumption was that the Iranians are, of course, working to build The Bomb. Then Buchanan weighed in with this bombshell:

“But John, Iran has no nuclear weapons program. There is no nuclear weapons program according to 16 United States intelligence agencies in 2007, reaffirmed in 2011. Even the Israelis are now saying we think the Americans were right. They don’t have a nuclear weapons program. The Ayatollah [Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei] has said nuclear weapons on Iran’s part would be immoral, unjust and un-Islamic. So why are we now considering talking about a war on a country to deprive it of weapons of mass destruction it does not have?

So I’m thinking, whoa, we have arrived at the Emperor-has-no-clothes moment. It is out in the open at last. Buchanan has challenged the undeniable: the premise that Tehran has a program underway to build The Bomb. What’s more, he has done it by pointing to the conclusions of the U.S. Government itself, as embodied in its 16 intelligence agencies. Buchanan did not rely upon his own research or idle speculation. He cited the best available conclusions of the U.S. intelligence community.

All right, this is not new information. I wrote an article about it in 2007 for Taki’s Magazine when the news first broke regarding the National Intelligence Estimate. The NIE was a true revelation back then as well as a wake-up call. It demonstrated that Dick Cheney and G.W. Bush and their Neoconservative foreign-policy brain trust were actively deceiving their fellow-Americans by attempting to entice the country into yet another war, on top of Iraq, under false premises.

It was assumed at the time that the NIE ended this deceit and that the project to smack Iran could not go forward. How could it? There were no nuclear weapons in Iran and no program underway to develop them, just like there had been no WMD in Iraq when Operation Iraqi Freedom was launched at the beginning of 2003. Now we knew. The 2007 NIE was reaffirmed in a 2011 NIE update. The Neoconservatives had a cow. Where was the threat needed to start another conflict and continue their undertaking to remake the Middle East?

Please note, however, that during the interim since Peace Prize Obama was handed the torch in 2008, no one in the Executive Branch–not Obama or Hillary Clinton, and no one on Capitol Hill–dares mention these NIE conclusions. It is as if they do not exist. Only the disinformation from misguided and suborned office-holders matters. At the end of the day, only that counts, not reality. In essence, Peace Prize Obama and the Democrats have continued, under different packaging, the same Neoconized foreign policy of Dick Cheney and the Republicans. The question you might ask yourself is, why?

What was the reaction to Buchanan’s assertions? For me, the reaction of his fellow panelists was more interesting and eye-opening than what Buchanan actually said. You could have expected the Group to react in horror at Buchanan’s denial of what everyone else in Washington was taking for granted. But no, that is not what happened. No one challenged Buchanan. No one challenged the veracity of his pronouncement.

Not Mort Zuckerman, a former chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. Zuckerman is one of the top Zionists in the country and a personal friend of Netanyahu. Not Rich Lowry, the editor of the Neoconservative outlet, National Review, which competes with the Weekly Standard and Commentary for warmongering and American exceptionalism. And not the liberal columnist and professional Democrat, Eleanor Clift, who idolizes Obama. And not the former Jesuit priest and host, John McLaughlin.

All of them simply ignored what Buchanan had said, did not address it, even though its implications blew the legs out from under long-standing U.S. foreign policy and reduced the speeches of Barack and Bibi at the UN to nonsense.

The only reason I can think of why Zuckerman, Lowry, Clift and McLaughlin did not confront Buchanan is that they knew what Buchanan had said was the truth. To enter into a discussion with Buchanan would be to acknowledge the possibility that his view might be correct. This would reveal that a colossal con game was underway in which both political parties and the press were enablers.

The principal con man in this game would be the President of the United States, followed by his Secretary of State. The victims of the con game would be the American people, just like they were under Bush and Cheney. And of course the Iranians, who now must cope with crippling economic sanctions for no legitimate reason. The larger question remains, why is this happening? Why is the deception continuing from one Administration to the next? Cui bono?

PATRICK FOY is an essayist and short story writer as well as a former altar boy. He graduated from Canterbury School in New Milford, Connecticut and from Columbia University in New York City, where he studied English literature, European history and American diplomatic history. His work can be found at www.PatrickFoyDossier.com.

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October 5, 2012 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Agent Orange – Vietnam

July 2004
The use of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War means that for many the war never ended. They’re still suffering the effects of chemical warfare.

Produced by ABC Australia

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October 4, 2012 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, Video, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Former Member of Parliament joins ship to Gaza: ‘Time for Canadian politicians and people to speak up’

By Jim Manly | Rabble | October 4, 2012

Former Member of Parliament joins ship to Gaza: 'Time for Canadian politicians and people to speak up'

I look forward to joining the Estelle on its voyage from Naples to Gaza and I am aware of my responsibility as the only Canadian on this international crew of volunteers.

We want to bring a message of solidarity for the Palestinians of Gaza and to remind them that they are not alone in the struggle.

While we will be carrying a cargo of humanitarian aid, the basic goal of our trip is to continue pressuring the Israeli government to lift the blockade of Gaza. International aid is not a solution but a symptom of the problem whereby Israel keeps Gaza from developing its own economy.

We are firmly committed to non-violent resistance but the movement behind the Freedom flotilla will not quit until the Israelis lift the blockade.

Growing public opinion around the world recognizes that the Israeli blockade is not only illegal under International Law, it is also morally wrong. The blockade deliberately denies 1.6 million people of the essentials of life: adequate food, water, and shelter. It denies people the right to make a living through international trade and even trade with their fellow Palestinians in the Occupied West Bank. It denies them the freedom to live with dignity.

If we believe in human rights we must be prepared to take a stand when these rights are so flagrantly violated. It is time for Canadian politicians and the Canadian people to speak up against this illegal and inhuman blockade.

As part of Canada’s contribution, the Estelle will be carrying an anchor for Gaza’s Ark, which, like the Estelle, is a project of the international Freedom Flotilla Coalition. The Gaza Ark project is rebuilding a boat within Gaza to carry Palestinian goods to the outside world. In this way it will challenge the blockade from the inside just as the Estelle and other boats challenge it from outside.

While I want to thank you for your interest and support, I know that even more the Palestinians of Gaza thank you for your support and solidarity.

Jim Manly is a retired United Church minister who served as a New Democratic Party Member of Parliament from 1980-88, representing Cowichan-Malahat-the Islands, a BC Coastal riding.  As MP, he was NDP critic for Indian Affairs and later critic for Fisheries and also International Development.  As a United Church minister, Jim served mostly British Columbia congregations and has been active in the Church’s social justice work in Canada and the Americas. Ordained in 1957, he retired in 1997.  He lives near Nanaimo, B.C. with his wife, Eva, and together they continue to be active in a number of areas including United Network for a Just Peace in Palestine and Israel (UNJPPI), and Mid-Islanders for Justice and Peace in the Middle East. This past spring he and Eva took part in a Pilgrimage of Solidarity to the Occupied Territory of the Palestinian West Bank.

The Canadian Boat to Gaza blog

The Canadian Boat to Gaza blog will keep you up to date on fundraising and organizing efforts in support of the ‘Tahrir’, a Canadian boat which is currently part of the ‘Freedom Waves to Gaza’. Bloggers will report from on board the Tahrir and on support activities in Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, Hamilton, London, Vancouver, Victoria and many points in between.

Canadian civil society has a responsibility to fight the illegal Israeli blockade of Gaza and to expose the Canadian government’s unjustified support for Israel. The time has come to send a Canadian boat to challenge the blockade of Gaza, in coordination with similar international efforts. Check out the Boat to Gaza’s website at http://tahrir.ca or follow us at twitter.com/CanadaBoatGaza.

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October 4, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Is Your Child Mentally Ill?

“Yes,” According to Big Pharma Funded Doctors

By MARTHA ROSENBERG | CounterPunch | October 3, 2012

How has Big Pharma managed to get so many children on expensive drug cocktails for “mental illness”? Drugs that they may not even need?

Big Pharma has spent millions on public relations campaigns that tell parents, teachers and clinicians to dose children at the first sign of problems. It knows if parents treat their kids early they will never know if the kids needed the drugs in the first place and whether residual problems are “mental illness” or drug side effects. The kids will also probably be life long customers because parents will be afraid to take them off the drugs. No wonder Pharma tells parents not to wait for “excessive energy” or “mood swings” to go away in the awareness campaigns. Ka-ching.

One “prescribe early” campaign for the atypical antipsychotic Risperdal uses a macabre abandoned wallet, a teddy bear, and keys on a barren street “to reposition a drug that was being used too late to achieve its maximum benefits,” said its advertising agency, Torre Lazur McCann. Brand managers for Seroquel, a competing antipsychotic, even considered creating Winnie-the-Pooh characters like Tigger (bipolar) and Eeyore (depressed) to sell Seroquel, according to published reports, at an AstraZeneca sales meeting. Parents say they have seen toys emblazoned with Seroquel logos.

Only one child in ten thousand has pediatric schizophrenia—some say one in thirty thousand—but that doesn’t stop Gabriele Masi, MD, with the Stella Maris Institute for Child and Adolescent Neuropsychiatry at the University of Pisa in Italy from portraying it as a public health problem. In an article titled “Children with Schizophrenia: Clinical Picture and Pharmacological Treatment,” in the journal CNS Drugs, Masi writes, “Awareness of childhood- onset schizophrenia is rapidly increasing, with a more precise definition now available of the clinical picture and early signs, the outcome and the treatment strategies.”

Symptoms of childhood schizophrenia include “social deficits” and “delusions . . . related to childhood themes,” writes Masi. What child doesn’t have “social deficits”? Do delusions include imaginary playmates? Masi lambastes the “hesitancy on the part of clinicians to make a diagnosis of schizophrenia,” instead of prescribing early. Masi has received research funding from Eli Lilly, served as an advisor for Shire and been on speakers bureaus for Sanofi Aventis, AstraZeneca, GSK, and Janssen, all of which manufacture many of the leading psychiatric drugs for children, according to the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.

It’s tempting to ridicule Pharma funded doctors who find mental illness and even relapses and “treatment resistance” in people who have been on the planet for forty months. But pathologizing three-year-olds isn’t funny. Both four-year-old Rebecca Riley of Hull, Massachusetts, and three-year- old Destiny Hager of Council Grove, Kansas, died in 2006 from psychiatric drugs that included Geodon and Seroquel to treat their “bipolar disorders.” And in 2009, seven-year-old Gabriel Myers of Broward County, Florida, a child in a state facility, hung himself while on Symbyax, a pill that combines Zyprexa and Prozac. If it weren’t for Big Pharma’s prescribe early campaigns, these children, and others, might still be alive.

Martha Rosenberg’s is an investigative health reporter. She is the author of  Born With A Junk Food Deficiency: How Flaks, Quacks and Hacks Pimp The Public Health (Prometheus).

October 3, 2012 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , | Leave a comment

NAM calls for total abolition of chemical weapons

Mehr News Agency | October 2, 2012

TEHRAN – During a speech at the United Nations Headquarters in New York on Monday, Iran and other members of the Non-Aligned Movement that are parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention called for the total eradication of all chemical weapons throughout the world.

The speech was delivered by Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi on behalf of the state members of NAM that are parties to the CWC during the OPCW (Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons) High-Level Meeting on “Fifteen Years of the Chemical Weapons Convention: Celebrating Success, Committing to the Future.”

Iran assumed the rotating presidency of NAM for a three-year term on August 30.

Following is the text of Salehi’s speech:

Mr. Chairman,

1. I am honored to speak on behalf of the state members of the Non-Aligned Movement that are parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). This important meeting represents an opportunity to further support the long-term objectives of the convention.

2. NAM states parties to the CWC recognize the important role the CWC has played over the last 15 years in the prevention of proliferation and total destruction of all chemical weapons, which is a significant contribution to the maintenance of international peace and security.

3. NAM states parties to the CWC reaffirm the Final Document of the 16th Summit of Heads of State or Governments of NAM held from 26-31 August 2012 in Tehran, which contains their principled positions on various important issues in relation to the CWC.

4. Mindful of the threat posed to humankind by the existing weapons of mass destruction, particularly nuclear weapons and underlining the need for the total elimination of such weapons, we reaffirm the need to prevent the emergence of new types of weapons of mass destruction, and therefore supports the necessity of monitoring the situation and triggering international action as required.

5. In our view, CWC is one of the very few disarmament multilateral treaties banning a whole category of weapons of mass destruction. Consequently, we believe that the effective contribution of the convention to international and regional peace and security would be enhanced through universal adherence to the convention. In this context, NAM states parties to the CWC invite all non-parties, in particular those states whose non-adherence has given rise to serious concerns, to accede to the convention as soon as possible with a view to achieve its universality.

6. NAM states parties to the CWC reaffirm that the effective contribution of the convention to international and regional peace and security can be enhanced through its full implementation, and in this context encourage all states parties that have not yet done so to engage with the Technical Secretariat of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons on the steps that need to be undertaken for the national implementation of the convention.

7. NAM states parties to the CWC reaffirm the importance of international cooperation in the field of chemical activities for purposes not prohibited under the convention, and in this connection call on the developed countries to promote international cooperation for the benefit of states parties through the transfer of technology, material, and equipment for peaceful purposes in the chemical field and the removal of all and to prevent any discriminatory restrictions as they are contrary to the letter and spirit of the convention. They further reiterate their conviction that facilitation of and participation in the fullest possible exchanges and enhanced international cooperation in the field of peaceful chemical activities, aimed at facilitating economic and social development, is a vital element in strengthening implementation of the convention.

8. In the view of the NAM states parties to the CWC, 15 years of operation of the convention has demonstrated that developing countries who are states parties to the CWC have implemented their obligations in good faith. They reiterate their strong call to developed countries to promote international cooperation and to fulfill the solemn undertakings given at the time of the convention’s adoption for removal of unwarranted restrictions in the field of trade in chemicals, equipment, and related technologies for peaceful purposes.

9. NAM states parties to the CWC express serious concern that certain possessor states parties could not comply with their obligations regarding the total destruction of chemical weapons stockpiles within the final extended deadline of 29 April 2012. While stressing that such cases of non-compliance endanger the credibility and integrity of the convention, they urge all possessor state parties to take every necessary measure with a view to achieving, under verification by (the) OPCW, complete destruction of their chemical weapons in the shortest time possible in order to (ensure) their compliance with the convention thus upholding its credibility and integrity. They further express disappointment that, to date, the obligation of total destruction of all chemical weapons has not been met, and reaffirm that verification of the destruction of all the remaining chemical weapons stockpiles as well as old chemical weapons and abandoned chemical weapons shall continue to be the top priorities of the OPCW.

10. NAM states parties to the CWC reaffirm that the implementation of Article X of the CWC on assistance and protection against chemical weapons make a significant contribution to countering the threats of use of chemical weapons. They stress the importance of achieving and maintaining a high level of readiness of the OPCW to provide timely and needed assistance and protection against use or threat of use of chemical weapons, including assistance to the victims of chemical weapons.

11. NAM states parties to the CWC welcome the decision on components of an agreed framework for the full implementation of Article XI adopted at the 16th Conference of the States Parties of the CWC and consider it a positive step towards achieving the goal of the full, effective, and non-discriminatory implementation of Article XI.

12. NAM states parties to the CWC declare their firm conviction that international support to provide special care and assistance to all victims suffering the effects of exposure to chemical weapons is an immediate humanitarian need that requires urgent attention, and in this context, they welcome the establishment of an International Support Network for Victims of Chemical Weapons and a voluntary Trust Fund for this purpose. They call upon the Technical Secretariat to expeditiously operationalize the network, and in this context encourage the states parties to contribute to the voluntary trust fund of the network.

13. In closing, NAM states parties to the CWC express their strong commitment to continue their efforts on the universalization and effective implementation of the CWC. Let us all join hands and work together to help realize peace and well-being everywhere.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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October 3, 2012 Posted by | Militarism, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | | Leave a comment

Israel’s Refugee Pawns

By JONATHAN COOK | CounterPunch | October 2, 2012

Nazareth – In the shadow of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s theatrics at the United Nations last week, armed with his cartoon Iranian bomb, Israeli officials launched a quieter, but equally combative, initiative to extinguish whatever hopes have survived of reviving the peace process.

For the first time in its history, Israel is seeking to equate millions of Palestinians in refugee camps across the Middle East with millions of Israeli citizens descended from Jews who, before Israel’s establishment in 1948, lived in Arab countries.

According to Israel’s deputy foreign minister, Danny Ayalon, whose parents were originally from Iraq and who has been leading the government campaign, nearly a million Jews fled countries such as Iraq, Egypt, Morocco and Yemen. That figure exceeds the generally accepted number of 750,000 Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war.

Israel’s goal is transparent: it hopes the international community can be persuaded that the suffering of Palestinian refugees is effectively cancelled out by the experiences of “Jewish refugees”. If nothing can be done for Arab Jews all these years later, then Palestinians should expect no restitution either.

Over the past few weeks that has been the message implicit in a social media campaign called “I am a refugee”, which includes YouTube videos in which Jews tell of being terrorised while living in Arab states after 1948. Ayalon has even announced plans for a new day of national commemoration, Jewish Refugee Day.

This month, the Israeli foreign ministry and US Jewish organisations formally launched the initiative, staging a conference in New York a few days before the opening sessions of the General Assembly.

Israel’s choice of arena – the UN – is not accidental. The campaign is chiefly designed to stifle the move announced by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in his General Assembly speech last week to begin seeking UN status for Palestine as a non-member state.

After opposition from the US forced the Palestinians to abort their bid for statehood at the UN Security Council last year, Abbas is expected to delay making his new request until November, after the US presidential election campaign to avoid embarrassing President Barack Obama.

Abbas’s move has spurred Israel to take the offensive.

Anyone who doubts that the Israeli government’s concern for Arab Jews is entirely cynical only has to trace the campaign’s provenance. It was considered for the first time in 2009, when Netanyahu was forced – under pressure from Obama – to deliver a speech backing Palestinian statehood.

Immediately afterwards, Netanyahu asked the National Security Council, whose role includes assessing strategic threats posed by the Palestinians, to weigh the merits of championing the Arab Jews’ case in international forums.

The NSC’s advice is that Arab Jews, known in Israel as Mizrahim and comprising a small majority of the total Jewish population, should be made a core issue in the peace process. As Israel knows, that creates a permanent stumbling block to an agreement.

The NSC has proposed impossible demands: contrition from all Arab states before a peace deal with the Palestinians can be reached; a decoupling of refugee status and the right of return; and the right of Arab Jews to greater compensation than Palestinian refugees, based on their superior wealth.

Israel is working on other fronts too to undermine the case for Palestinian refugees. Its US lobbyists are demanding that UNRWA, the UN agency for the refugees, be dismantled.

Bipartisan pressure is mounting in the US Congress to count as refugees only Palestinians personally displaced from their homes in 1948, stripping millions of descendants of their status. While another – and seemingly contradictory – legislative move would insist on Arab Jews being granted the same refugee status as Palestinians.

The Palestinians are deeply opposed to any linkage between Arab Jews and Palestinian refugees. Not least, they argue, they cannot be held responsible for what took place in other countries. Justice for Palestinian refugees is entirely separate from justice for Arab Jews.

Moreover, many, if not most, Arab Jews left their homelands voluntarily, unlike Palestinians, to begin a new life in Israel. Even where tensions forced Jews to flee, such as in Iraq, it is hard to know who was always behind the ethnic strife. There is strong evidence that Israel’s Mossad spy agency waged false-flag operations in Arab states to fuel the fear and hostility needed to drive Arab Jews towards Israel.

Likewise, Israel’s claim that it has a right to represent Arab Jews collectively and lay claim to compensation on their behalf ignores the reality that Israel was compensated handsomely for absorbing Jews, both through massive post-war reparations from countries such as Germany and through billions of dollars in annual handouts from the United States.

But there is a more fundamental reason to be sceptical of this campaign. Classifying Arab Jews as “refugees” skewers the central justification used by Zionists for Israel’s creation: that it is the natural homeland for all Jews, and the only place where they can be safe. As a former Israeli MP, Ran Hacohen, once observed: “I came at the behest of Zionism, due to the pull that this land exerts, and due to the idea of redemption. Nobody is going to define me as a refugee.”

Netanyahu’s government is making a deeply anti-Zionist argument, one it has been forced to adopt because of its own intransigence in the peace process.

Its refusal to countenance a small Palestinian state in the 1967 borders means the global community feels compelled to reassess the events of 1948. For most Arab Jews, that period is now a closed chapter. For most Palestinian refugees, it is still an open wound.

October 2, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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