Ferguson Law Enforcement: An ‘Occupying Force’ With ‘Special Rights’
By Tim Cushing | Techdirt | August 14, 2014
As we’ve covered in two previous stories here at Techdirt, Ferguson, Missouri is a mess. The events, which now include three days of cops vs. citizens, were set off by the shooting of an unarmed black man, Mike Brown.
The story behind the shooting is still clouded by contradictory accounts. Police say there was a “scuffle” and that Brown tried to grab the unnamed officer’s gun. The police chief points to the officer’s “facial swelling” as definitive proof of this narrative. The other story is that Brown was gunned down by a pissed off cop who didn’t like the fact that Brown didn’t immediately comply with his “get the fuck onto the sidewalk” request.
Here are two facts: Brown’s body was 35 feet away from the vehicle where the scuffle supposedly took place. Brown’s body was left unattended for hours before being removed by a police.
Here’s one more, not that it should matter, but it does: Mike Brown had no criminal record.
Even if he was a criminal, his killing wouldn’t be justified. But even the most die hard cop supporter has to wonder why a person with no criminal record would suddenly escalate a jaywalking beef to the point of trying to take an officer’s gun. That doesn’t add up. Nothing does, not when filtered through the source delivering its top down narrative.
Local law enforcement has gone into complete lock-down mode. It has detained journalists without explanation. It has fired tear gas at an Al Jazeera America camera crew. It has filled the streets with armored vehicles, police officers in combat fatigues and has done nothing to defuse the situation.
Beyond that, local law enforcement has done the following:
Enacted a no-fly zone over the town.
Told people they can’t protest after dark.
Refused to release the name of the officer who shot Mike Brown.
Refused to release Mike Brown’s autopsy results.
Instructed people to return to their homes to “avoid tear gas” and then fired tear gas into people’s yards.
It’s ugly all over and it’s a prime example of the “what could go wrong” with the steady militarization of the police. Law enforcement has rolled in like an invading force, with gunners peeking out of the top of armored cars and citizens confronted by multiple gun barrels everywhere they look.
The police department demands patience and understanding as it investigates the shooting. But it deserves none of that. For one, it’s handling of the situation has gone from bad to horrific and it shows little desire to scale back its aggression. Anil Dash at Medium points out that none of this needed to be handled this way.
It’s plain as day that the cops have no strategy, no end goal in Ferguson. There’s no leadership. They don’t even understand the situation that they’ve found themselves in.
Basic crowd management for a group that will not, or can not, disperse is to de-escalate. The rent-a-cops at a hippie music festival know exactly what to do when the sound cuts out, but somehow the heavily militarized police force in Ferguson missed the lesson. It’s a hot summer day? Well, then you hand out some water to folks. You even smile while you do it. No, the water shouldn’t be coming out of fire-hoses while you hold back your German Shepherds.
For that matter, take off the helmets, and holster your weapons. This is basic shit for police! Never point a gun at anything you are not willing to destroy. Don’t point an assault rifle at someone unless you intend to kill them. These are fundamentals of firearms safety that every 8-year-old who’s ever gone on a hunting trip learned.
Instead of being cops, they’re now an occupying force, setting new rules for public interaction, intimidating journalists and doing everything but ousting the population and taking over their dwellings.
This is the byproduct of militarization. No longer are they peace officers. They are now soldiers, fighting a war against their fellow citizens. Billions of dollars have been funneled into local law enforcement agencies by the DHS, giving them military tools, tactics and vehicles. And in Ferguson, we now see that every dollar of it was misspent. The local cops are geared up for a war, but they’re missing one piece of technology that could likely have cleared up the mystery surrounding Mike Brown’s shooting almost immediately.
The police department doesn’t have a single dashboard camera in operation. It owns both dash cams and body cams, but not a single one is in use.
What it does have in full working condition (along with its war toys) is a handful of rights that only law enforcement officers possess. These rights aren’t found in the Constitution and the only way to access them is to be a cop. Citizens don’t have this extra layer of protection. Ken White at Popehat :
If you are arrested for shooting someone, the police will use everything in their power — lies, false friendship, fear, coercion — to get you to make a statement immediately. That’s because they know that the statement is likely to be useful to the prosecution: either it will incriminate you, or it will lock you into one version of events before you’ve had an opportunity to speak with an adviser or see the evidence against you. You won’t have time to make up a story or conform it to the evidence or get your head straight.
But what if a police officer shoots someone? Oh, that’s different. Then police unions and officials push for delays and opportunities to review evidence before any interview of the officer. Last December, after a video showed that a cop lied about his shooting of a suspect, the Dallas Police issued a new policy requiring a 72-hour delay after a shooting before an officer can be interviewed, and an opportunity for the officer to review the videos or witness statements about the incident. Has Dallas changed its policy to offer such courtesies to citizens arrested for crimes? Don’t be ridiculous. If you or I shoot someone, the police will not delay our interrogation until it is personally convenient…
The police department has not released the name of the shooter. Because he’s one of the insiders. As has been pointed out by several people, we know the names of everyone charged with looting-related felonies in Ferguson. But we still don’t know who shot Mike Brown. The police chief wants to protect the officer and his family, but law enforcement agencies will not return that favor should a citizen kill someone. And they will unleash entire police departments to destroy you if you shoot a cop. If you’re still alive enough to give a statement, your name will be prominently displayed everywhere. Your family will be harassed by cops and citizens. Death threats will make their way through phone lines and into the mailbox. But only cops are immunized against this by policies backed by police unions and government officials.
If anyone is still wondering what happens when you increase police power (with protective policies and secondhand war machines) while decreasing accountability, Ferguson is your answer. And it’s only the most visible indicator. Around the nation, it’s more of the same — but seething under the surface.
Israel bans human rights NGO broadcast on Gaza children
Press TV – August 14, 2014
An Israeli court has banned the broadcast of Israeli human rights NGO B’Tselem that listed the names of Palestinian children killed during Israel’s month-long offensive in the Gaza Strip.
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court rejected B’Tselem’s appeal to overturn a decision by the Israel Broadcast Authority to ban a broadcast produced by the NGO, saying it is of political nature.
The broadcast listed the names of children killed in the war in the besieged enclave.
“The hidden objective of the broadcast… is to get the public to make the government stop the (Israeli army operation) in Gaza, due to civilian deaths and children in particular,” the judges’ decision read, adding, “The broadcast is clearly not meant for informative purposes only,” it added.
Israel launched the latest war against the coastal enclave on July 8, killing at least 1,962 Palestinians, including 470 children, and wounding at least 10,100 others.
On Wednesday, Israel and the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas agreed to extend a temporary truce in Gaza for five more days as Israeli and Palestinian negotiators continued talks to reach a long-term deal in the Egyptian capital Cairo.
On Thursday, Khalil al-Haya, a senior member of the Hamas delegation at the talks, said any deal with the Israel regime must include Palestinian’s demand to end the blockade of the Gaza Strip.
Israel launched the latest war against the blockaded Gaza Strip on July 8. Nearly 1,962 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have so far lost their lives and at least 10,100 have been injured in the Israeli war.
The militarization of police agencies from Ferguson to the Middle East
By Roqayah Chamseddine | Al-Akhbar | August 14, 2014
The arming of US police agencies with military-grade weaponry and tactics can be traced back, at the very least, to the creation of the paramilitary “Special Weapons and Tactics” Unit (SWAT) in 1967. In Overkill: Rise of Paramilitary Policing journalist Radley Balko notes that what inspired the heavily militarized SWAT team of today was “a specialized force in Delano, California, made up of crowd control officers, riot police, and snipers, assembled to counter the farm worker uprisings led by Cesar Chavez.” Balko writes in August 2013 for The Wall Street Journal that by 1975 from this first experimental SWAT unit grew to “approximately 500 such units. Today, there are thousands. According to surveys conducted by criminologist Peter Kraska of Eastern Kentucky University, just 13 percent of towns between 25,000 and 50,000 people had a SWAT team in 1983. By 2005, the figure was up to 80 percent.”
In War Comes Home: The Excessive Militarization of American Policing, published in June 2014 by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), it is reported that federal programs “are arming state and local law enforcement agencies with the weapons and tactics of war with almost no public discussion or oversight.” One such policy is the Department of Defense (DoD) Excess Property Program, or the 1033 Program, which “provides surplus DoD military equipment to state and local civilian law enforcement agencies for use in counter-narcotics and counter-terrorism operations, and to enhance officer safety.” Items provided by the DoD include, but are not limited to, mine-resistant ambush protected armored vehicles, aircrafts, grenade launchers, countless machine guns, magazines, bomb suits, forced entry tools and units of surveillance.
In the small city of Ferguson, Missouri, an unarmed African American teenager, Michael Brown, was shot multiple times by a police officer on August 9. Witnesses say that the police officer had initiated a confrontation with Brown, and then physically assaulted him, as reported by Margaret Hartmann for New York Magazine :
“Brown’s friend, Dorin Johnson, says they were walking in the street when the officer pulled up and told them to “get the eff onto the sidewalk.” Johnson says the officer then reached “his arm out the window and grabbed my friend around the neck.” Witness Piaget Crenshaw said he saw the officer chasing Brown. “They shot him and he fell. He put his arms up to let them know that he was compliant and he was unarmed, and they shot him twice more and he fell to the ground and died.”
After the murder of Michael Brown, protests began to quickly take shape in Ferguson in response, not only at the scene of the crime but in front of the Ferguson Police Department headquarters. The police response to these protesters, many of whom literally had their hands raised above their heads while shouting “don’t shoot!”, was alarming – dogs were called, and heavily armed police officers lined up, intimidating the men, women and children of Ferguson. At least one police officer was recorded shouting, “Bring it, all you fucking animals! Bring it!” Extremely troubling was the implementation of a no-fly zone over Ferguson, meant “to stop media from flying over the area to film.”
The targeting of Black communities by law enforcement is historic and ubiquitous; it has long colored every aspect of life for even those indirectly impacted by police actions – when systematic racism meets a militarized police force the outcome is continued dehumanization of Black bodies, societal acceptance of black deaths at the hands of the police and a disastrous escalation, oftentimes with public approval, of violent tactics against the Black people and communities of color. Modern US police departments share a colonial history that gives context to police violence of today – recognizing this framework is essential when examining how police brutality has developed historically. From constables in the 1600s who made up a sort of “neighborhood watch,” wherein they would capture slaves and prevent them from organizing for payment, the slave patrols of the early 1700s, the brazen appointment of police officers by way of their political affiliations in the 1880’s and stop-and-frisk, adopted from English common law, we learn that not only is violence an inherent part of the institution itself but it is a necessary component which allows for the state to control its citizens, and it has emerged and developed in the most destructive of ways. Police officers are trained to use force and are given the most lethal of weapons in order for them to do so and, according to data presented in the June 2014 report by the ACLU, this violence is overwhelmingly directed towards people of color. “Sixty-one percent of all the people impacted by SWAT raids in drug cases were minorities” and a majority are Black:
“[W]hen the data was examined by agency (and with local population taken into consideration), racial disparities in SWAT deployments were extreme. As shown in the table and graph below, in every agency, Blacks were disproportionately more likely to be impacted by a SWAT raid than whites, sometimes substantially so. For example, in Allentown, Pennsylvania, Blacks were nearly 24 times more likely to be impacted by a SWAT raid than whites were, and in Huntington, West Virginia, Blacks were 37 times more likely. Further, in Ogden, Utah, Blacks were 40 times more likely to be impacted by a SWAT raid than whites were.”
Despite this, the focus on the actions of individual officers, while warranted, should not overwhelm the discourse – the data presented by the ACLU is not only an indictment of police officers alone but of the police institution itself. Police agencies have created an environment which not only employs violence against minorities but encourages violence against them.
Present-day US law enforcement as an institution has cooperated with a long list of state agencies which are integral components of the larger machinery of government as well as international police forces. The joint training between the United States and Israel is one such example. In May 2010, 50 retired US admirals and generals vigorously argued that Israel is a security asset in a letter to President Obama, that “American police and law enforcement officials have reaped the benefit of close cooperation with Israeli professionals in the areas of domestic counter-terrorism practices and first response to terrorist attacks,” they wrote in part. In 2010, the Anti-Defamation League publicized that it had sponsored 15 senior law enforcement officials – including from the FBI, NYPD and Boston Police – to take part in an intensive “counter-terrorism training mission” in Israel so that they could share “information, strategies and tactics,” then again in 2011 and 2013. This program, which was first established in 2003, has sent over 115 state, federal and local law enforcement executives to Israel. In 2013, members of a US bomb squad from Arizona, including a US deputy, traveled to Israel for training which included “going to a West Bank outpost with the Israeli National Police bomb squad… learning about port inspections as they relate to counter explosives and counter IED operations.”
One of the reasons for this training? “To improve techniques and tactics they use along the US-Mexico border.”
The ADL is not the only organization boasting of this militarized US-Israel partnership. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has an entire publication dedicated to this “strategic partnership,” noting that “Israel has worked with multiple American agencies, including the FBI, NYPD, LAPD, and the Washington, D.C. Police Department.” According to the pamphlet not only have the U.S. Capitol Police undergone training in “Israeli counterterrorism techniques” but the partnership between these two colonial entities is far reaching, even beyond the scope of traditional law enforcement, with FEMA and the National Guard “often [traveling] to Israel to participate in Israeli homeland security drills.” The United States is not only learning from the brutality of the Israeli occupation forces but sharing their knowledge with other nations. The Middle Eastern Law Enforcement Training Center, which is co-sponsored by the FBI and the U.A.E. at the Dubai Police Academy, where FBI agents offer special training courses that “[involve] many aspects of law enforcement, including ways to combat white-collar crime, violent crime, forensics and counter-terrorism.” The United States also conducts military exchange programs in places like Egypt where US forces and Egyptian forces take part in joint military exercises, and offers FBI training to Egypt’s secret police who “routinely tortured detainees and suppressed political opposition” according to victim testimony.
Police institutions, which continue to work and expand under the guise of law while merging with the most prominent characters behind war-making, including the arms industry, lobbyists, and politicians, demand that communities, most often those of color, surrender what little autonomy they have so that they may receive “protection.” That they are ever permitted to collect on this guardianship is of no consequence because these institutions define protection and determine, for everyone, what is a most satisfactory response to any and all actions on the part of the community members.
Black men and women have long fought, with their blood, for the decentralization and democratization of the police and the right of their communities to determine their future without threat of police brutality – the Black Panther’s Ten Point Program, written in 1966, is a clear-cut example. “We Want An Immediate End To Police Brutality And Murder Of Black People,” the program reads in part. “We believe we can end police brutality in our Black community by organizing Black self-defense groups that are dedicated to defending our Black community from racist police oppression and brutality.” An article in the Palm Beach Post, published in 1969, reads “Decentralized Police Sought By Black Panthers”:
“Six intense Black Panthers have come in out of the West as advance men for a national conference which will drumbeat a simplistic theme – decentralize the police systems of big cities, place the cops under neighborhood control and give each community its own police commissioner.”
US police forces uphold white supremacy with their racist implementation of violence, where in places like Ogden, Utah, Black people “were 40 times more likely to be impacted by a SWAT raid than whites were,” according to the ACLU. These forces work towards the preservation of capitalism, and the police, as an institution, use elitism, violence and authoritarianism in order to preserve the state.
Decentralization is not only possible but proving to be a necessary process in order to dismantle the structuralized and militarized brutality that communities of color face at the hands of racist paramilitary police forces. The police have proven that they are not accountable to the communities they allegedly “serve and protect,” and so in order to implement restorative justice the institution itself should be dismantled and replaced with an organization that is transparent, represents the diversity of these communities and which, most importantly, is limited in regards to the scope of the organization’s power.
Roqayah Chamseddine is a Sydney based Lebanese-American journalist and commentator. She tweets @roqchams and writes ‘Letters From the Underground.‘
Death toll in Ukraine conflict doubles in 2 weeks, reaches 2,086 – UN
People in Lugansk carry the bodies of those killed during an artillery attack on the city (RIA Novosti / Valery Melnikov)
RT | August 13, 2014
The number of killed and wounded in eastern Ukraine has doubled to 2,086 over the last two weeks, according to the UN’s “very conservative estimates”.
“This corresponds to a clear escalating trend,” UN human rights spokeswoman Cecile Pouilly told Reuters in response to a query.
Over 60 people have been killed or wounded every day, Pouilly added.
Almost 5,000 have been wounded.
The figures comprise Ukrainian military, self-defense forces, and civilians. However, those are “very conservative estimates,” Pouilly said.
The Ukraine crisis has been widely described as a humanitarian catastrophe. According to the UN’s latest estimates, over 110,000 people have been internally displaced in the conflict. Moscow has reported that 730,000 people have fled across the border into Russia.
In Donetsk alone, more than 1,000 people have been left homeless due to the fighting, according to the city administration. In Lugansk, another regional center, 250,000 people can’t leave the city and have been without water, electricity, and communications for over a week.
Teen Killed By An Explosive Dropped By The Army Near Tubas
By Saed Bannoura | IMEMC & Agencies | August 12, 2014
Palestinian medical sources reported, Monday, that a Palestinian teen has been killed, and his brother was wounded, by an explosive charge dropped by the army near the central West Bank city of Tubas.
The sources said Mohammad Mo’tasem Abu Eshtayya, 17 years of age, was killed, and his brother Yousef was injured. They were herding their sheep in Palestinian grazing lands in the Northern Plains of the occupied West Bank.
The slain Palestinian, and his wounded brother, were moved to the Tubas Governmental Hospital, while the Palestinian Police initiated an investigation into the issue.
Although the area where the explosion took place is used as a grazing area, and dozens of shepherds live there, it is frequently used by the Israeli army as a “training zone”, where the soldiers use live ammunition, explosives and shells.
Dozens of casualties have been reported in similar incidents in the area, as well in other areas in the occupied West Bank, including the outskirts of Hebron and the Palestinian Plains of the West Bank, as the Israeli military conducts training in those areas in direct violation of International Law.
On Monday at night, Israeli sources said an explosive charge detonated near an Israeli military vehicle near the former Homesh Israeli settlement, southwest of the northern West Bank city of Nablus.
The army reported no injuries, and said it invaded the area, and initiated a search campaign.
Also on Monday at night, one Palestinian was shot and injured by Israeli army fire after the army invaded Tulkarem, in the northern part of the West Bank.
SOS: Hospital Ships Needed to Save Gaza’s Children
By Franklin Lamb | Al-Manar | August 12, 2014
The statistics are just beginning to be analyzed—by UN agencies and a myriad of NGO’s whose mandates include salvaging young lives from the nearly incalculable ravages of the five-week (and counting) Zionist aggression upon Gaza. It is of course the third aggression in six years against the 1.8 million Palestinians, sardine-canned into what is increasingly referred to as history’s largest open air prison, but the outcome this time is looking particularly cruel and grim.
As the Netanyahu regime announced (on 8/10/14) that its attacks on Gaza would continue, increasing numbers of obscene calls—for Israel to “finish the job” and “go all the way” etc.—are floating in the Zionist state’s malodorous public echo-chamber, emanating from such figures as the Knesset’s deputy speaker, who advocates driving Palestinians into the Sinai desert and resettling Gaza with Jews.
In Khuza’a “the Israeli military had trapped at least 32 people in a home and then prevented the Red Cross from evacuating them before shelling the area,” reported Lebanese-American journalist Roqayah Chamseddine. Hoping for safe haven, the people in the house sought refuge in the basement of a neighbor’s home, where they found additional families already inside.
“By that point we were 120 people, 10 men and the rest women and children,” Kamel al-Najjar recalled for Human Rights Watch.
After dawn and without warning (no polite leaflets or knocks on the roof apparently), Israel struck the house, killing three people and wounding 15 others.
The toll of the war on Gaza’s children has been “catastrophic,” according to UN agencies. At least 450 have been killed, and those not having their physical bodies buried have found their innocence entombed. It is another casualty in the war—a war against all things daring to live and resist in Gaza. According to Chamseddine:child slaughtering:
“Israel has forced the children of Gaza to lay flowers atop headstones, and watch helplessly as coffins that are filled with not only their most beloved family members, teachers, neighbors, and friends but also their most treasured memories, lullabies, lessons learned and those that will never come, descend into the belly of the earth. Their lips will memorize and form prayers for the dead and the stars that defied the siege that flickered freely high above them will be snatched from their skies,”
Increasingly it is being heard from Gazans that “Israel has stolen everything beautiful in our lives,” and Israel’s barbarity confirms this sentiment.
Middle East analysts point out that it is difficult to recall a time in modern history when there has been so much sustained slaughter of this region’s civilian population, with more than two-thirds of the victims being women and children. For the past year, UN agencies and other humanitarian organizations have lamented a simple reality—that there is not a sufficient level of international aid to save lives and treat those in need of emergency and longer term medical care.
But now something is changing.
The horrors we have just witnessed, especially with respect to traumas inflicted on children, is producing, as should be the case, a major and rapidly growing international focus on salvaging young lives. Descriptions and evaluations of the consequences of Gaza wars are being published and urgently discussed. Some analysts and government officials, including Pentagon planners, are calling for a ‘Medical Marshall Plan,’ to save Gaza’s children. One proposed first step is the dispatching of a humanitarian support group of hospital ships that would sail to Gaza without further delay.
What can and must be done, by the United States and other countries with the naval and medical capacity to do so, is to organize a Hospital Ship flotilla to break the siege of Gaza, to anchor offshore, and to begin caring for the medical needs of all, with a special focus on children and their psychological well-being. Call it a Mercy Mission. Initially it could include the following countries—all well known for their hospital ships with up-and-running medical staffs: the USA, UK, France, China, Russia, Spain, Argentina, and Australia. Within this group of nations are ships with hundreds of patient beds and fully stocked pharmacies. Moreover, it is a group not likely to be interfered with by those who have imposed the inhumane blockade of Gaza (and of course it even includes some of their collaborators in the region), but perhaps most importantly, every country on the list possesses one or more hospital ships that are fully staffed and available to act.
France is reportedly ready to join such an effort and is also working on a related crisis—in Iraq, where it plans delivery of first aid equipment “in the coming hours,” according to the office of Francois Hollande. The French president has “reaffirmed the will of France to stand by the side of civilian victims of continued attacks” in Iraq, and his spokesmen said that “France will do the same thing for Gaza.”
“The European Union is called upon to also take necessary measures with great urgency to respond to immediate humanitarian needs,” the spokesman added.
Hundreds of EU citizens, with their specialized skills in fields of pediatric medicine and child psychology, are reportedly ready to help the children of Gaza. Two fully stocked and staffed American medical ships, the USNS Mercy and the USNS Comfort, could contribute greatly to the effort. Each ship’s hospital is a full floating medical treatment facility, containing 12 fully equipped operating rooms, a 1,000-bed patient capacity, digital radiological services, medical laboratory, pharmacy, optometry lab, and intensive care ward; each also has a dental clinic with full services, CT scanner, and two oxygen-producing plants.
Helicopter landing decks are available as well, for patient transports, and the ships also have side ports that could take on patients from Gaza fishing boats and other crafts at sea. In addition to these two mammoth-sized medical vessels, dozens of other US Navy ships also have hospitals on board. For example, in one year, the medical department of the USS George Washington handled over 15,000 out-patient visits, drew almost 27,000 lab samples, filled almost 10,000 prescriptions, took about 2,300 x-rays, and performed 65 surgical operations—and nearly 100 other US ships are capable of doing the same.
Just one example with respect to capacity is illustrative. In April of this year, the USNS Comfort—a converted 70,000-ton tanker—sailed from Norfolk, Virginia carrying 900 doctors, nurses, and engineers, including staff from the U.S. military, civilian agencies, non-government charities, and even foreign navies. The ship is designed to be deployed quickly for four month intensive full service medical assistance; yet similar capacities obtain in certain other US ships and in foreign navies as well. All of these resources must be put to immediate use to save Gaza’s children.
Looking at the longer term, the Pentagon should seriously consider ordering a sufficient number of catamaran transports and shallow-draft littoral ships to fill out the flotilla, vessels capable of delivering aid by sea via the relatively shallow Gaza coastline. The success of breaking the siege of Gaza will likely give impetus to a UN Security Council decision to construct a seaport for Gaza, perhaps with a shipping lane to Cyprus.
Similarly, the UK hospital ship, RFA Argus, designated as a ‘Primary Casualty Receiving Ship,’ is moored in Falmouth, England, and is also uniquely designed for this type of humanitarian crisis; and it, too, is reportedly ready to sail once given the green light by Downing Street.
Five Hospital ships are urgently needed along Gaza’s shoreline at the following locations: opposite Jabaliya and North Gaza, Gaza City, Deir al-Balah, Khan Younis, and Rafah, as shown in the map below:
Although attacking a hospital ship is clearly a war crime, the Israeli pattern of targeting medical facilities in Gaza is well known, and threats from the settler movement and the right wing Likud Party to “sink any ship that enters Gaza waters if judged to be aiding the terrorists” must be taken seriously. Yet one imagines the occupation regime would have to think carefully about sinking another US Navy vessel as it did in 1967 with the repeated bombing of the USS Liberty.
Instead of recycling raw combat power, the White House can best meet the demands of a war-weary American public through an emphasis on missions such as those the USNS Mercy and USNS Comfort are designed for. Poll after US public opinion poll reveal that Americans believe their humanitarian values are best reflected when our navy is tailored for delivering humanitarian aid to places like Gaza, and not by delivering munitions to occupying colonial regimes.
Kiev: Russia’s humanitarian convoy will not be allowed into Ukraine
RT | August 12, 2014
Kiev intends to hold up the internationally-supervised Russian humanitarian aid convoy meant for East Ukraine for at least a week, a spokesman for the Ukrainian military said.
Ukraine said the time is needed for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which is contributing to the Moscow-initiated mission, to establish where the aid should go in the Ukrainian region engulfed by civil war.
The convoy of 280 trucks dispatched on Tuesday “did not pass the ICRC certification,” Andrey Lysenko said.
Presidential aide Valery Chaliy said Kiev wants the entire cargo to be unloaded on the border and transferred to Red Cross vehicles.
“We will not allow any escort of the Russian Emergencies Ministry or Russian military,” he said. “Ukraine will take responsibility for this procedure.”
Lysenko claimed that the convoy consists of repainted military trucks and is accompanied by an S-300 air defense system, according to the news agency Ukraine National News.
He didn’t elaborate on why Russia would need to send a system that is meant to protect key strategic positions from enemy aircraft and missiles, but is useless in guarding a convoy of vehicles on the move.
The ICRC said it was informed by Moscow that the convoy had been dispatched, but had yet to receive detailed shipping lists and distribution plans.
“The situation is changing by the hour and right now we are not in a position to provide further details now as to how this operation could take place,” ICRC spokesperson Anastasiya Isyuk told RT.
Earlier, Moscow said that the humanitarian mission had been agreed by all parties concerned.
Russia has sent some 2,000 tons of aid to Ukraine, including food, medicine, sleeping bags and power generators.
The cargo is meant for the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, which have seriously suffered in more than three months of warfare, as Ukrainian troops used heavy artillery, bomber aircraft and tanks to advance on cities controlled by the militias.
Kiev earlier accused Moscow of trying to conduct a stealth invasion of Ukraine under a guise of humanitarian aid, saying that Russian troops would be posing as guards of the convoy while actually tasked with starting an offensive.
The narrative was supported by some western countries, which said that any humanitarian mission not backed by Kiev would be considered an attack on Ukraine’s sovereignty.
Russia dismissed the accusations as nonsense.
In another media briefing on Monday evening, Lysenko stated that the humanitarian convoy to Ukraine was organized “under an agreement between [President] Petro Poroshenko and the Red Cross,” and that Russia “wants to present this mission as its own initiative” as a publicity stunt.
Background : On the brink of survival: No electricity, water, communications in besieged Lugansk, E. Ukraine
Egypt imposes incapacitating conditions on relief convoys delivering aid to Gaza
MEMO | August 11, 2014
An official Egyptian document has revealed that Egyptian authorities are imposing incapacitating conditions on relief convoys seeking to deliver medical and food aid to Gaza through the Rafah border crossing.
The document addressed the “regulatory rules for the entry of aid convoys to the Gaza Strip through the Rafah border crossing at this stage.”
The document, which was handed by the Egyptian authorities to the Arab branches of the Red Cross and Red Crescent organisations during their latest meeting in Jordan, stated that the Egyptian authorities have obliged relief organisations seeking to deliver aid to Gaza to submit a request to Egypt through the foreign ministries of the countries in which they operate. The request should include a list of the aid items that the organisations plan to take into Gaza through Rafah.
Relief agencies must then wait for the approval of the Egyptian foreign ministry before they start sending aid to Gaza.
The document specified that aid items must arrive at either the Ismailiya Airport or at Port Said. Aid agencies are required to pay the cost of unloading and shipping the food and medical aid items in any of the two locations.
Relief agencies are banned from providing construction material, gas cylinders, fuel, or funds into Gaza, according to the document, which also notified the Red Cross and Red Crescent that only a limited number of persons will be allowed to accompany the aid items into Gaza.
The document further stressed that journalists who seek to cross to Gaza must provide their names and passport information to the Egyptian authorities beforehand, and they must obtain approval from their countries’ foreign ministries or Cairo embassies. However, Egypt reserves the right to refuse people entry into Gaza through the Rafah crossing without specifying the reasons for this decision.
With regards medical teams, the document noted that doctors are required to submit requests to their countries’ foreign ministries and coordinate with the Palestinian Health Ministry in Ramallah before they can obtain the Egyptian authorities’ approval to enter Gaza.
The head of the Algerian Red Crescent Saida Benhabyles, who is also a former minister, said in a press conference held in the Algerian capital that the Egyptian authorities want to put the logo of the Egyptian Red Crescent along with the logo of any aid or relief agency delivering aid into Gaza.
Benhabyles announced that, due to the Egyptian conditions, the Algerian Red Crescent had to cancel a donation campaign that had aimed to deliver blood to Gaza.
European spyware tech used against Bahrainis: Reports
Press TV – August 10, 2014
A German-British surveillance company has assisted the Bahraini regime in spying on anti-regime activists in the Persian Gulf country, reports say.
According to reports, Gamma International provided the Al Khalifa regime with the FinFisher spyware.
German media reported that by using the malicious spyware, the Bahraini regime has managed to hack into 77 computers belonging to opposition leaders, imprisoned politicians, journalists, human rights lawyers, and activists who took part in the Bahraini uprising which began in mid-February 2011.
The surveillance software is said to be capable of remotely switching on and recording a computer’s webcam feed. It can also make a copy of Skype conversations.
Security researchers believe that Gamma International’s technology is being used by other oppressive regimes around the world against journalists and activists.
Gamma had previously said that its spyware was used to target criminals and terrorists and that the company had not done business with Bahrain. The Bahraini regime has regularly rejected reports that it spies on political activists.
Since mid-February 2011, thousands of pro-democracy protesters have staged numerous demonstrations in the streets of Bahrain, calling for the Al Khalifa royal family to relinquish power.
On March 14, 2011, troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates invaded the country to assist the Bahraini regime in its crackdown on the peaceful protesters.
According to local sources, scores of people have been killed and hundreds arrested.
Physicians for Human Rights says doctors and nurses have been detained, tortured, or disappeared because they have “evidence of atrocities committed by the authorities, security forces, and riot police” in the crackdown on anti-government protesters.
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