Tuesday, February 27, 2007

UN Rapporteur compares Israel to Apartheid South Africa


"The UN's Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, John Dugard, has issued a harshly critical report on Israel's human rights record in regards to its treatment of the Palestinians in occupied Palestine. "The international community, speaking through the United Nations, has identified three regimes as inimical to human rights - foreign occupation, apartheid and colonialism," Dugard says. In a report posted on the UN Human Rights Council's website, due to be tabled this week, the South African law professor accuses Israeli regime of all three. Below follows an excerpt of the report."

Click Here for the Full Report (pdf)

Chalmers Johnson: “Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic"


Democracy Now!
With Amy Goodman


"In his new book, CIA analyst, distinguished scholar, and best-selling author Chalmers Johnson argues that US military and economic overreach may actually lead to the nation's collapse as a constitutional republic. It's the last volume in his Blowback trilogy, following the best-selling "Blowback" and "The Sorrows of Empire." In those two, Johnson argued American clandestine and military activity has led to un-intended, but direct disaster here in the United States.

Chalmers Johnson is a retired professor of international relations at the University of California, San Diego. He is also President of the Japan Policy Research Institute. Johnson has written for several publications including Los Angeles Times, the London Review of Books, Harper's Magazine, and The Nation. In 2005, he was featured prominently in the award-winning documentary film, “Why We Fight.”

Chalmers Johnson joined me yesterday from San Diego. I began by asking him about the title of his book, “Nemesis.”......"

Click Here to Watch, Listen or Read Transcript

The Capitulation of Hamas, One Step at a Time. Celebrate Now!


Chief Windbag














Russian FM: Hamas vows to end attacks on Israel

"Hamas' political bureau chief Khaled Meshal has promised that the militant Palestinian group will end missile attacks and other violence against Israel, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Tuesday.

"Hamas should use its authority to stop violence including missile attacks against Israel," Lavrov said at a news conference after his meeting with Meshal. "We received confirmation that such steps will be taken," he added....."

And Now The Bad News.....


Cheney OK after Afghan blast; 23 killed

"BAGRAM, Afghanistan - A suicide bomber attacked the entrance to the main U.S. military base in Afghanistan on Tuesday during a visit by Vice President Dick Cheney, killing up to 23 people and wounding 20. Cheney was unhurt in the attack, which was claimed by the Taliban and was the closest that militants have come to a top U.S. official visiting Afghanistan. At least one U.S. soldier, an American contractor and a South Korean solder were among the dead, NATO said......."

Jumblatt seeks US military aid against Hezbollah


Al-Manar special report / Translated

"The head of the Democratic Gathering, Lebanese MP Walid Jumblatt continues his tour of US senior officials, on top of which is President George W. Bush. Jumblatt had "accidentally" met Bush for half an hour at the residence of US National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, accompanied by Telecommunication Minister Marwan Hmedeh and former MP Ghattas Khouri. Jumblatt made no statement at the end of the meeting. The Key February 14 figure also met former American Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and said in a lecture at the "American Enterprise" Institute that his visit to the US is to ask for political and military assistance against what he described as an indirect Syrian occupation of Lebanon, accusing Hezbollah of spearheading the Syrian influence in the country. For his part, Mahmoud Qomati of Hezbollah's political council said that any reply to Jumblatt would be futile. Speaking to the Lebanese News Agency, Qomati said that Jumblatt has sold his soul to the devil and undermined the effect of the Druz MP's position on the ongoing efforts to solve the political crisis in Lebanon."

Sy Hersh Blames Saudis for Neocon War Against the Shi’a of Iran, Lebanon


By Kurt Nimmo

".....As we know, the CIA organized the Afghan Mujahideen, with the assistance of Pakistan’s ISI and a large influx of Saudi money, and after the Soviets exited Afghanistan with their tails tucked, the Mujahidden splintered into the Taliban and “al-Qaeda,” the latter comprised of primarily Sunni Wahhabi fanatics.

Once again, the “al-Qaeda” myth will be put to the test, for Mr. Hersh tells us there are “at least three jihadist groups… connected at al-Qaeda” at work in Lebanon against the Shi’a, i.e., Hezbollah, and they are financed by the Saudi monarchy.

Rest assured, Saudi intelligence, Al Mukhabarat Al A’amah, does not act without explicit instructions from the United States. It is no mistake Turki bin Faisal al-Saud, former intelligence head, now comfortably ambassador to the United Kingdom and Ireland, was Osama bin Laden’s handler in Afghanistan, although the corporate media has turned mighty somersaults to make this relationship appear innocent, if not disappear altogether.

According to Hersh, none other than Bandar bin Sultan, known simply as Prince Bandar here in America, is behind this effort to pass out money to “tough” Sunni groups—apparently associated with “al-Qaeda,” thus connected to U.S. and Saudi intelligence—and tasking them with killing Shi’ites in Iran and Lebanon, much the same way the mythical al-Zarqawi killed Shi’ites in Iraq. It should be no surprise Bandar is so important to the Bush crime family and the neocons, he was informed of the decision to invade Iraq ahead of Secretary of State Colin Powell, or so claims the former military intelligence operative Bob Woodward.

Hersh believes the neocons have made a “policy change,” deciding to put “pressure on the Shi’ites” through Sunni proxies and thus replicate the chaos and misery of Iraq in both Lebanon and Iran, referred to as the “Shi’ite Crescent,” according to the neocons. Hersh believes “his government” is “sitting back” while the Saudis run this operation—a delusional fantasy at best, as there is plenty of evidence “al-Qaeda” and “Sunni jihadists” are not renegade operations but rather under the control of U.S., British, Saudi, and Pakistani intelligence, the latter two acting as liaison offices passing out marching orders, as no self-respecting “jihadist” patsy would take an order directly from the CIA or the Pentagon......"

Big Oil in, stability out under new Iraqi law

By Antonia Juhasz and Raed Jarrar
Asia Times

"While debate rages in the United States about the military in Iraq, an equally important decision is being made inside Iraq - the future of its oil. A draft Iraqi law proposes to open the country's currently nationalized oil system to foreign corporate control. But emblematic of the flawed promotion of "democracy" by the administration of US President George W Bush, this new law is news to most Iraqi politicians.

A leaked copy of the proposed hydrocarbon law appeared on the Internet at the same time that it was introduced to the Iraqi Council of Ministers (cabinet). The law is expected to go to the Iraqi Council of Representatives within weeks. Yet the Internet version was the first look that most members of Iraq's Parliament had of the new law......

Many Iraqi oil experts are already referring to the draft law as the "Split Iraq Fund", arguing that it facilitates plans for splitting Iraq into three ethnic/religious regions. The experts believe that the law undermines the central government and shifts important decision-making and responsibilities to the regional entities. This shift could serve as the foundation for establishing three new independent states, which is the goal of a number of separatist leaders........"

US's Iraq oil grab is a done deal


By Pepe Escobar

"US President George W Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney might as well declare the Iraq war over and out. As far as they - and the humongous energy interests they defend - are concerned,only now is the mission really accomplished. More than half a trillion dollars spent and perhaps half a million Iraqis killed have come down to this.

On Monday, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's cabinet in Baghdad approved the draft of the new Iraqi oil law. The government regards it as "a major national project". The key point of the law is that Iraq's immense oil wealth (115 billion barrels of proven reserves, third in the world after Saudi Arabia and Iran) will be under the iron rule of a fuzzy "Federal Oil and Gas Council" boasting "a panel of oil experts from inside and outside Iraq". That is, nothing less than predominantly US Big Oil executives......

As if this were not enough, the law reduces in practice the role of Baghdad to a minimum. Oil wealth, in theory, will be distributed directly to Kurds in the north, Shi'ites in the south and Sunnis in the center. For all practical purposes, Iraq will be partitioned into three statelets.....

But there was not much to be debated. The law was in essence drafted, behind locked doors, by a US consulting firm hired by the Bush administration and then carefully retouched by Big Oil, the International Monetary Fund, former US deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz' World Bank, and the United States Agency for International Development. It's virtually a US law (its original language is English, not Arabic)......

No big Middle Eastern oil producer works with PSAs. Russia and Venezuela are renegotiating all of them. Bolivia nationalized its gas. Algeria and Indonesia have new rules for future contracts. But Iraq, of course, is not a sovereign country......

The Sunni Arab muqawama (resistance) certainly has other ideas - as in future rolling thunder against pipelines, refineries and Western personnel. Iraq's oil independence will not go down quietly - at least among Sunnis. On the same day the oil law was being approved, a powerful bomb at the Ministry of Municipalities killed at least 12 people and injured 42, including Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi. Mahdi has always been a feverish supporter of the oil law. He's a top official of the Shi'ite party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution of Iraq (SCIRI).

A whole case can be made of SCIRI delivering Iraq's Holy Grail to Bush/Cheney and Big Oil - in exchange for not being chased out of power by the Pentagon. Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the SCIRI's leader, is much more of a Bush ally than Maliki, who is from the Da'wa Party. No wonder SCIRI's Badr Organization and their death squads were never the target of Washington's wrath - unlike Muqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army (Muqtada is fiercely against the oil law). The SCIRI certainly listened to the White House, which has always made it very clear: any more funds to the Iraqi government are tied up with passing the oil law.

Bush and Cheney got their oily cake - and they will eat it, too (or be drenched in its glory). Mission accomplished: permanent, sprawling military bases on the eastern flank of the Arab nation and control of some of largest, untapped oil wealth on the planet - a key geostrategic goal of the New American Century. Now it's time to move east, bomb Iran, force regime change and - what else? - force PSAs down their Persian throats. "

Official politics in the west ignores public opinion at will


The government crisis in Italy over US bases and Afghanistan reflects the increasing gap in Europe between rulers and ruled

Tariq Ali
Tuesday February 27, 2007
The Guardian

"The states of western Europe continue to resist harmonisation. On the same day last week that the chicaneries of every antiquated careerist vying for the New Labour deputy leadership were made public, each justifying his or her grotesque decision to support the war and occupation of Iraq, the centre-left Italian government - not yet a year old - fell after a debate on foreign policy in the upper chamber.

It was not Iraq that was at issue here. Unlike New Labour (protected by undemocratic electoral laws and MPs unmoved by the suffering in Iraq), all of the Italian left and 80% of the population opposed that war. The dispute concerned two issues: Operation Enduring Freedom - the satirical self-description of the Nato occupation of Afghanistan - and the expansion of the US military base in Vicenza in northern Italy......

Nor is this just an Italian disease. The fact that the leaders of the Refounded Communist party cave in to the Washington consensus in return for government posts reflects a far wider problem. Increasingly, official politics in the west ignores public opinion at will. Britain is a striking example. Mass hostility to Blair's wars and the replacement of Trident barely finds an echo in parliament. The BBC had to be neutered and only 12 Labour MPs managed to vote for an inquiry into British involvement in Iraq. It is the increasing distance between rulers and ruled that threatens the functioning of democracy and leads to desperation."

Windbag du Jour: Ismail Radwan, Hamas Spokesman

Monday, February 26, 2007

We are accused of terrorism


By Nizar Kabbani

"......We are accused of terrorism…
If we refuse death…
By the bulldozers of "Israel"…
Digging in our soil…
Our history…Our Gospels…
Our Qur’an…
The remnants of our prophets…
If this is our crime
How beautiful is terrorism…

We are accused of terrorism…
If we refuse our extinction…
By Mongols… Zionists… Barbarians…
If we throw a stone on a window of the Security Council…
Seized by the Czars of our time…

We are accused of terrorism…
If we refuse to…
Extend our hand to…
America…
Against human cultures…
Which is without a culture…
Against human civilization…
Which is without a civilization…
America is a gigantic building…
Without walls…......."

One Last Check on The Puppets Before The Storm


Lining Up The Stooges Before The Attack on Iran

Watch Seymour Hersh


A MUST WATCH

"Explosive" new Hersh scoop: Bush funneling money to Al Qaeda-related groups [VIDEO]

"So what could possibly be more "EXPLOSIVE" and "DEPRESSING" than the fact that the president is having a 24 hour attack plan drawn up for targets in Iran?

Why, funding anti-Shiite Sunnis linked to Al Qaeda without Congressional approval and without appropriate appropriation, of course....."

Clich Here to Watch

UK doubles naval presence in Persian Gulf


"Britain’s senior naval officer in the Persian Gulf has revealed that Royal Navy deployments in the region have doubled since October in a build-up that matches the rapid escalation of American maritime firepower.

Commodore Keith Winstanley, who serves as deputy commander of coalition maritime operations for US Central Command, has told The Daily Telegraph that British trade and strategic interests dictate the necessity of a high and sustained commitment to patrol the seas around the Middle East. “If you look at the UK component we have almost doubled it,” he said in an interview aboard HMS Sutherland in Mina al-Salman port.

“Most of these ships are here on training missions but there is no doubt that we could use the warfighting capabilities they possess.”

Cdre Winstanley said there was a message for Iran in the expansion of the coalition fleet in the waters of the Persian Gulf, Sea of Oman and Arabian Sea.

More ships on patrol would have strategic effects that went beyond the operational benefits of increased patrols....."

This is the Extent of Palestinian Resistance in the West Bank Today. Don't Laugh, This Took Only 40 Years to Accomplish.

Windbag du Jour: Yousef Rizqa, Hamas' "Information Minister"

Talking Points for the Next War

by Michael T. Klare and Tom Engelhardt

"Sometime this spring or summer, barring an unexpected turnaround by Tehran, President Bush is likely to go on national television and announce that he has ordered American ships and aircraft to strike at military targets inside Iran. We must still sit through several months of soap opera at the United Nations in New York and assorted foreign capitals before this comes to pass, and it is always possible that a diplomatic breakthrough will occur – let it be so! – but I am convinced that Bush has already decided an attack is his only option and the rest is a charade he must go through to satisfy his European allies. The proof of this, I believe, lies half-hidden in recent public statements of his, which, if pieced together, provide a casus belli, or formal list of justifications, for going to war......

So we can expect several months of fruitless diplomacy at the United Nations in which the United States may achieve slightly more severe economic sanctions under Chapter 41 but not approval for military action under Chapter 42. Bush knows that this is the inevitable outcome, and so I am convinced that, in his various speeches and meetings with reporters, he is already preparing the way for a future address to the nation. In it, he will speak somberly of a tireless American effort to secure a meaningful resolution from the United Nations on Iran with real teeth in it and his deep disappointment that no such resolution has been not forthcoming. He will also point out that, despite the heroic efforts of American diplomats as well as military commanders in Iraq, Iran continues to pose a vital and unchecked threat to American security in Iraq, in the region, and even – via its nuclear program – in the wider world.

Further diplomacy, he will insist, appears futile and yet Iran must be stopped. Hence, he will say, "I have made the unavoidable decision to eliminate this vital threat through direct military action," and will announce – in language eerily reminiscent of his address to the nation on March 19, 2003 – that a massive air offensive against Iran has already been underway for several hours. "