US | KADAITCHA

January 28, 2011December 11, 2020

Freedom Dominoes Falling

From Tunisia, to Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Algeria, Jordan and Yemen, people are rising up against the waning US empire’s puppet dictators while the US pays begrudging lip service to their struggle or like Biden, sacrifices the democratic aspirations of Egyptians to Israel and US geopolitical scheming (he means resources and militarisation). The price, once again for empire, is worth it? After all, these are only brown people who happen to be living where the resources which the US covets are situated. Several patronising US blogocrats of various shades of white supremacy have expressed less than admirable support for the courageous Egyptian people – surely these annoying foreign brown people should wait until the empire tells them it is convenient for them to pursue regime change, the government leaders they acquire after the revolution may be even more unappealing than their current torturous US allied villains. For neocon Laurent Murawiec afficionados, the dream of Egypt being the ‘prize’ for empire is surely now a nightmare.

Latuff Later, @PJCrowley tweeted “We are concerned that communication services, including the Internet, social media and even this #tweet, are being blocked in #Egypt.” #

The people’s demonstrations express heartfelt grassroots impatience to be rid of oppression – an impetus echoed also by Iranians attempting to dislodge their current repressive nexus. In Egypt,

At least four persons have died so far, 600 have been arrested and many more injured. Protests are flaring up in Cairo, 6th of October City, Suez, Mahalla al-Kubra and Alexandria.

“Young people are standing in the way of heavily armed armored vehicles and stopping them. People are genuinely frustrated,” Khaled al-Balashy, editor-in-chief of al-Badil newspaper told IPS.

“That was the first time I see people literally sacrificing their lives in face of police brutality,” al-Balashy said. “They think nothing worse could happen to them. This is unprecedented. And the changes will be equally unprecedented. It is a matter of time.”

Diaa Rashwan, an analyst with the semi-official al-Ahram Center for Strategic Studies noted that the protests are now calling for regime change, not for the usual government benefits or reduction in food prices.

In contrast the people of Palestine continue to struggle against a despicable tripartite adversary which includes the leaders of the Palestine Authority collaborator, imposed upon them by the US for its own and its zionist crony’s benefit.

… the administration at least twice threatened to cut funding to the Palestinian Authority if elections were called and anyone other than Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad remained in power.

And it actively works with Israeli and Palestinian security services to deny the democratic will of Palestinians.

What is clear, then, is that Obama not only prefers the status quo, but the United States will actively subvert democracy in order to ensure that governments that will follow its policies remain in power.

If the administration has taken such an anti-democratic line with Palestinians, imagine how it must feel about the protests that have just exploded in Egypt, where substantive democratic change and a truly representative government would no doubt be far less amenable to US policies and strategic objectives regarding Israel and the war on terror than is Mubarak’s.

Faced with the overwhelming calumny and injustice of its oppressors evidenced in the Palestine Papers, dispossessed Palestinians are steadfast, continuing to insist on their rights.

For Amar al-Masaid, 28, history was something he lived with every day. “Our country was taken by force,” he said, amid jumbo boxes of cornflakes, tins of spam and chocolate Santa Clauses in his family’s shop. “They invaded us. They are a colonial power. We will never make any compromise. We will never sell our land. It would be better to stay with the Jews under occupation that give up our rights.”

His family had fled from Deir Aban in 1948; his father still has the deeds to the land they lost. “If you ask a little baby in these camps where their home is, they will answer you,” he said.

On cue, seven-year-old Dahoud and his sister Ranim, five, arrived to buy dried coconut, sent by their mother. Where did they come from? “Palestine,” said the boy; his sister whispered “Al-Maliha,” an Arab village south of Jerusalem until 1948, now home to a huge Israeli shopping mall and sports stadium.

According al-Masaid, the refugees live in a prison. Look around you, he said gesturing at the wall looming a couple of hundred yards away.

Nearby, 63-year-old Mousa al-Masaid, wearing a red-and-white keffiyeh, was passionately dismissive about the recent disclosures of negotiations. “I don’t care what they say on al-Jazeera,” he said. “All I care about is going back to my homeland. You want me to give up my land for peace? To hell with peace! I would rather live under the rule of monkeys than give up my land for peace.”

The Palestinian negotiators did not represent him, he said, and had no right to bargain away his homeland on his behalf.

Free Palestine!

At this moment

The offices of the Palestinian ambassador to the UK have been occupied by a group of students who are demanding new Palestinian national council elections.

At 1pm today, around a dozen Palestinian students from a number of British universities arrived at the Palestinian general delegation to the UK in Hammersmith, west London.

Although they had made an appointment to see the ambassador, Professor Manuel Hassassian, they arrived in large numbers and with computers and banners.

A spokesman for the students said they had been moved to stage a peaceful sit-in by the release of leaked Palestinian papers over the last few days.

“The documents confirmed what we had known all along — that they are out of touch with the people,” the spokesman said.

As well as calling for new elections, the students — from Oxford, SOAS, LSE, City and Westminster universities — are demanding a more inclusive political process that reflects and engages all Palestinians.

“We are ready to stay as long as necessary until our message has been received and understood,” he said.

The ambassador, whose office has been occupied, has asked the students to leave the room but has told them they are welcome to remain in the building.

“They told me they wanted to hold a sit-in in my office. I told them: ‘You’re welcome. This is your embassy. This is your home’,” he said.

Hassassian also said he had agreed to pass their demands on to the Palestinian government, but needed his office back if he was to relay them.

“We are being very hospitable and we hope that they respect our hospitality,” he said.

Two Metropolitan police officers entered the embassy a little after 4pm, and chatted to the ambassador and protesters.

The Palestinian students have issued a demand for the Palestinian Liberation Organisation to be restored “as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people”.

Egyptian slogans
What the herd is saying in Egypt
Egypt Unemployment Rate 2010 – 9.4%
African National Congress manual
Egypt: An Internet Black Hole
Palestinian students claim right “to participate in shaping of our destiny”
Guardian Journalist Arrested and Beaten Alongside Protesters in Egypt Secretly Records Ordeal ‘In Egypt, running battles between police and anti-government protesters continued into the early hours of Thursday morning. Police have arrested up to 1,200 people, including a number of journalists. Among them was Guardian reporter, Jack Shenker. He was arrested and beaten by plainclothes police on Tuesday night and shoved into a truck with dozens of other people. He managed to keep his dictaphone with him and recorded what was happening as the truck carried them outside of Cairo.’
Police alone can’t keep rulers in power. Egypt’s battle is on
The Palestine Papers and the “Gaza coup”
Egypt braces itself for biggest day of protests yet
Mohamed ElBaradei lands in Cairo: ‘There’s no going back’
State Dep’t says democracy is OK for Tunisia but not Egypt because of Israel
Emergency Response Plan: EGYPT
Egypt shuts down the internet on eve of protest as the world community gathers
Joe Biden says Egypt’s Mubarak no dictator, he shouldn’t step down…
Once again: new Khaled Said in Alexandria. Elsayed Belal was tortured to death by Egyptian police.
Counternarcotics and Law Enforcement Country Program: Egypt
What if this was Iran?
http://twitpic.com/3u0d48
Translated Excerpts from Egyptian Activists’ Action Plan
The Birth of the New Middle East
OPERATION EGYPT – ANONYMOUS PRESS RELEASE – 26/01/2011
The US role as Israel’s enabler : George Mitchell’s message means the United States is out of touch with Palestinian realities. by Mark Perry and Ali Abunimah
Streisand me! is a service by the proud people of the internet. This is a meeting place and resource page for everyone who want to participate in the creation of a censorship resistant internet.
Egypt: Internet down, police counterterror unit up
How to open blocked Facebook, Twitter and any website.
The Internet goes dark in Egypt
U.S. cables: Mubarak still a vital ally
Biden: see no good, hear no good, speak no good
Biden to Israelis: Mideast status quo unsustainable – ‘”The demographic realities make it difficult for Israel to be a Jewish homeland and a democratic country,” said Biden in his speech to foreign dignitaries, Israeli officials and students at Tel Aviv University. “The status quo is not sustainable.” ‘
Police alone can’t keep rulers in power. Egypt’s battle is on
Egyptian Activists’ Action Plan: Translated
The Internet goes dark in Egypt
Internet traffic graph
URGENT-Internet down all over Egypt | Urgent Call to Protest
Emergency Response Plan: EGYPT
Be careful what you wish for in Arab world – Cordesman drivel
Egypt: We are with you
SUBJECT: SENATOR KERRY’S MEETING WITH QATAR’S PRIME MINISTER
Israeli Minister: Mubarak regime will prevail in Egypt, despite protests
When Egypt turned off the internet
http://yfrog.com/h4fogp
Egypt, Internet cut off. A massacre will follow. Please help.
Egypt’s ElBaradei under house arrest
20 Egypt opposition members detained
http://yfrog.com/h2p5jdxj
Israel Fears Regime Change in Egypt
Interview with Hossam el-Hamalawy : Professor Mark LeVine interviews journalist and blogger Hossam el-Hamalawy on the situation in Egypt.
The devil they knew is a bogy no more – Paul McGeough quotes Ibish – why???
Muslim Brotherhood demands of Mubarak

@SultanAlQassemi Hassan Nafaa on Al Jazeera Arabic “The only replies from the govt were on the security front, no political concessions were offered” #Jan25 #

@SultanAlQassemi Hassan Nafaa “What we want is for President Mubarak to announce he will not run again for presidency or appoint his son as president” #Jan25 #

@SultanAlQassemi Hassan Nafaa “We want the parliament to be reformed. We want to hear Mubarak say ‘I understand your demands & we will comply'” #Jan25 #

@SultanAlQassemi FYI: Hassan Nafaa is Professor & Chairman of the Political Science department at Cairo University & anti-inheritance of power campaigner #

@SultanAlQassemi Poetry #Jan25 “O Security Officers, who will you protect when the Pashas flee Egypt like others have done? Carry two sheilds instead of one” #

@SultanAlQassemi Poetry of #Jan25 “And he wants to appoint his genius son for us as well? After 30 years!” Tamim Al Bargouthi poetry on Al Jazeera Mubasher. #

RT @ummhajarforpal: All known ways 2 stay online in #Egypt + HOWTO make gasmask http://wp.me/p16sn9-2QP #jan25 #bloggers Please RB & RT!!!

Internet working in most 5 star hotels??

Palestine / Israel Links

Weekly Report On Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (20-26 January 2011)
Breaking: Settlers Kill Palestinian Near Iraq Burin
The rabbis of the devil
Obama must call Israeli settlements illegal
The Goldstone Report: more important than you think
THE PALESTINE PAPERS: MAKDISI – The Palestinian people betrayed 27Jan11
The EU and Israel committed themselves to establishing a partnership which provides for close political and mutually beneficial trade and investment relations together with economic, social, financial, civil scientific, technological and cultural cooperation.
The Palestine Papers: our red lines have been crossed
One doesn’t boycott the only free society in the Mideast -BHL rant

Wikileaks Links

WikiLeaks may put India in big trouble
Police arrest five over Anonymous WikiLeaks attacks
Pirate Party slams police over Anonymous arrests
WikiLeaks rival goes live as editors turn on Assange
09CAIRO1468, NDP INSIDER: MILITARY WILL ENSURE TRANSFER OF POWER
iewing cable 09CAIRO874, SCENESETTER: PRESIDENT MUBARAK’S VISIT TO

Other Links

January 24, 2011December 11, 2020

The Palestine Papers : Confirmation of Collaborative Rot

Al Jazeera’s ground-breaking scoop provides definitive confirmation of perfidy on the part of unrepresentative Palestinian ‘negotiators’ and of the falsity of the Israeli position. The Palestine Papers reveal that Israel shunned way more than generous settlement offers through which Palestinian leaders betrayed their people.

The Palestinian Authority proposed an unprecedented land swap to the Israeli government, offering to annex virtually all of the illegal Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem.

Not only did the Israeli government offer no concessions in return, but – as The Palestine Papers now reveal – it responded with an even more aggressive land swap: Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert wanted to annex more than 10% of the West Bank (including the major settlements in Ma’ale Adumim, Ariel and elsewhere), in exchange for sparsely-populated farmland along the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

The Israeli offer is documented in a Palestinian rendition of what’s colloquially called “the napkin map,” a rendering of which is revealed for the first time in The Palestine Papers.

Olmert met in mid-2008 with Mahmoud Abbas and showed him a map of the proposed swaps. Abbas was not allowed to keep a copy of the map, and so the 73-year-old Palestinian president had to sketch a copy by hand on a napkin.

And further:

The PA, in other words, never even really negotiated the issue; their representatives gave away almost everything to the Israelis, without pressuring them for concessions or compromise. Erekat seemed to realise this – perhaps belatedly – in a January 2010 meeting with [US president Barack] Obama’s adviser David Hale.

Erekat: Israelis want the two-state solution but they don’t trust. They want it more than you think, sometimes more than Palestinians. What is in that paper gives them the biggest Yerushalaim in Jewish history, symbolic number of refugees return, demilitarised state… what more can I give?

…
There is, in other words, seemingly no mutually acceptable policy for Ma’ale Adumim, Ariel, and other major West Bank settlements within a two-state solution – a fact the Bush administration was willing to acknowledge in July 2008.

Rice: I don’t think that any Israeli leader is going to cede Ma’ale Adumim.

Qurei: Or any Palestinian leader.

Rice: Then you won’t have a state!

Rice may prove to be correct: Two and a half years later, the parties are no closer to a solution on settlements, and the Israeli government may be gearing up to issue a “massive” new round of housing permits for illegal settlers in the West Bank.

Along with Al Jazeera, the Guardian also intends publishing the documents which it says show

* The scale of confidential concessions offered by Palestinian negotiators, including on the highly sensitive issue of the right of return of Palestinian refugees.
* How Israeli leaders privately asked for some Arab citizens to be transferred to a new Palestinian state.
* The intimate level of covert co-operation between Israeli security forces and the Palestinian Authority.
* The central role of British intelligence in drawing up a secret plan to crush Hamas in the Palestinian territories.
* How Palestinian Authority (PA) leaders were privately tipped off about Israel’s 2008-9 war in Gaza.

As well as the annexation of all East Jerusalem settlements except Har Homa, the Palestine papers show PLO leaders privately suggested swapping part of the flashpoint East Jerusalem Arab neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah for land elsewhere.

Most controversially, they also proposed a joint committee to take over the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount holy sites in Jerusalem’s Old City – the neuralgic issue that helped sink the Camp David talks in 2000 after Yasser Arafat refused to concede sovereignty around the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa mosques.

Desperately, the beleaguered Palestinian negotiators have attempted to ameliorate their irretrievable, exposed position:

Last night Erekat said the minutes of the meetings were “a bunch of lies and half truths”. Qureia told AP that “many parts of the documents were fabricated, as part of the incitement against the … Palestinian leadership”.

However Palestinian former negotiator, Diana Buttu, called on Erekat to resign following the revelations. “Saeb must step down and if he doesn’t it will only serve to show just how out of touch and unrepresentative the negotiators are,” she said.

In Haaretz, after Erekat is exposed as a traitor to the Palestinian people by the Palestine papers, he has the temerity to call Lieberman’s ‘map‘ a joke.

The current Likud platform, recommended reading, evidences the fact that Israel under Nutanyahoo has no intention of ceding a Palestinian state despite any of his stern blither – and indeed why relinquish a inch when talk of peace talks can delay resolution indefinitely, creating a facade that ‘something’ is being done, while Israel continues to steal more Palestinian land and oppress Palestinians, with the unmitigated support of its supine neocoloniser, the US. Israel’s leaders’ whines about “peace and security” echoed by its US consorts are always a cover for ziofascist expansionism and ethnic cleansing.

Even the lack of a US veto of the forthcoming UN Security Council Resolution to censure settlement growth is unlikely to restrain the avaricious Israelis, for what punishment has been visited on them by western governments for their contravention of the previous 28 UNSC resolutions of which they are in breach?

Ali Abunimah, who is analysing the Palestine Papers for Al Jazeera and will be commenting on them further this week spells out the bottom line in Electronic Intifada:

“The cover has finally been blown on a ‘peace process’ where there has been no transparency, honesty or accountability to the Palestinian people by those who claimed to negotiate in their name. What saddened me most as I reviewed hundreds of documents was to see how Palestinian negotiators — with no mandate from the Palestinian people — viewed the basic rights and interests of the Palestinian people not as objectives to be secured, but as obstacles to be fudged or mere bargaining chips to be frittered away to secure a ‘deal’ that could save the skins of the Palestinian Authority at almost any price.”
…

“What we can discern immediately from these documents is that the US-brokered negotiations, especially under the Obama administration, can never lead to the restoration of Palestinian rights and that the two-state solution is basically dead. In the long term, we will have to ask how the peace process charade, revealed in these papers, was allowed to continue for so long as Israel continued its relentless colonization of Palestinian land and the Palestinian Authority that was supposed to be a step on the road to freedom become a sophisticated tool of continued Israeli occupation.”

Tariq Ali affirms:

Many PLO supporters in Palestine must be weeping as they watch al-Jazeera and take in the scale of the betrayal and the utter cynicism of their leaders. Now we know why the Israel/US/EU nexus was so keen to disregard the outcome of the Palestinian elections and try to destroy Hamas militarily.

The two-state solution is now dead and buried by Israel and the PLO. Impossible for anyone (even the BBC) to pretend that there can be an independent Palestinian state. A long crapulent depression is bound to envelop occupied Palestine, but whether Israel likes it or not there will one day be a single state in the region, probably by the end of this century. That is the only possible solution, apart from genocide.

Tariq is unrealistic here, I think – by demographic pressures alone, one state would come about much sooner than the end of this century.

Thus, once again, the battle comes down to a principled struggle for equal rights for all – the end of Israeli apartheid and jewish ethnonationalist hegemony in historic Palestine. Given the Palestine Papers’ affirmation of Israel’s bad faith in ‘peace’ negotiations and complicity of the US with Israel’s intransigence, the rationale for boycotts, divestments and sanctions of Israel is affirmed once again.

Related Links

The Al Jazeera leaks that will bury the Middle East peace process
The Palestinian papers: Pleading for a fig leaf
The “napkin map” revealed
Palestinians rebuffed over Jerusalem offer
Palestine papers: Browse the documents
‘Palestinians agreed to cede nearly all Jewish areas of East Jerusalem’
Maan Newsagency cover for the Palestine Papers
The Palestine Papers: Secret Papers Reveal Slow Death of Middle East Peace Process
@DidiRemez IDF Radio: Olmert aide says J’lem #PalestinePapers correct; Weisglas gives PA another kiss of death by calling it “best PAL leadership ever” #
@Falasteeni: Now Abed Yasser mocking Aljazeera for emulating Wikileaks. I mock you for emulating Zionism, traitor. #PalestinePapers #
@avinunu: PA’s Abed Rabbo more or less directly and personally blaming Emir of Qatar for release of #palestinepapers #
@avinunu: PA’s Abed Rabbo is now launching a full-scale attack on Qatar and its Emir, who have nothing to do with #palestinepapers #
Documents reveal PA offered Israel “biggest Yerushalayim” in history
@MaxBlumenthal Erekat apologized publicly to Israel even after they rejected “the biggest Yerushalyim ever.” Remember this? http://bit.ly/fEgTNE #
This seemingly endless and ugly game of the peace process is now finally over
The Palestine Papers: An end to the myth of Israel’s generosity
Rashid Khalidi: Leaked “Palestine Papers” Underscore Weakness of Palestinian Authority, Rejectionism of Israel and U.S.

Palestine / Israel Links

Water authority discloses Israeli crime on Gaza’s water supply
Israel to end Gaza electricity, water dependency – more foul play by Nutanyahoo afoot
“Who Owns Jerusalem” – A CAMERA Hoax Approved for MCLE Credit – CAMERA’s Latest Scam: The San Remo Irrelevancy and the Occupied Palestinian Territory
E-mail to the California State Bar on the “Who Owns Jerusalem” Hoax
Israelis Learn to Love the New Berlin
Lieberman’s “solution” : Palestinians will be forced to live on 13% of their original land
Support for anti-apartheid council
Boycott vote in Sydney suburb sparks media furor, death threats
Israel: New laws expose ‘democracy’
Obama will not veto UN resolution condemning Israeli settlements – of course, we will believe it when we see it.
The zioshill Turkel Commission decides Gaza is not being collectively punished. Zionists are accustomed to inventing past, present and future.
Jan. 25: Take Action to Protest FBI and Grand Jury Repression!
FBI targets U.S. Palestine activists
UN has duty to speak out for human rights, Ban says at Holocaust event
The Turkel Commission is fighting yesterday’s war
Obama will not veto UN resolution condemning Israeli settlements – Debkafile pushing propaganda again?
Dutch FM mulls slashing funding for anti-Israel charity – desperate Steinberg fighting his duplicitous lawfare campaign
Settlement issue isn’t Israel’s problem, it’s Obama’s
Water authority discloses Israeli crime on Gaza’s water supply
Lying to Australians for the Israeli government – Michael Brull exposes the collaboration with Israel’s crimes perpetrated by the Australian government and the media shills for Israel.
West Bank settlements threaten Palestinian existence
The Gaza Flotilla Public Commission Report in Full
Timeline: Palestine-Israel conflict
Wikileaks’ Israel cables show US complicity – ‘In contrast to what the US government says in public, the cables also show that it is fully aware that the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks it pushes cannot succeed, as “there is too wide a gap between the maximum offer any Israeli prime minister could make and the minimum terms any Palestinian leader could accept and [politically] survive”.’
on Hamas
Walk-out in Protest of an IDF soldier speaker at the University of Western Ontario
Israel’s Mavi Marmara report is whitewash
Lieberman’s map of future Palestinian borders is a joke
Palestinians find freedom in the surf of Gaza – ‘there are 40 surfers in the Gaza Strip, who share just 15 surfboards between them.’
Turkey’s interim report on Israeli attack
Israeli soldiers ordered to ‘cleanse’ Gaza

Other Links

Alleged abuse at Iraqi detention center prompts oversight concerns
Place against Empire: Understanding Indigenous Anti-Colonialism
The US “Rethinks” the UN Declaration on Indigenous Rights, Maybe
U.S. may cut economic ties with Lebanon if Hezbollah-linked PM chosen
Rights group says democracies ignore abuses

January 18, 2011December 11, 2020

Iran : Current Convenient Existential Threat for Ziostan

In an article unwisely gloating about the success of the Stuxnet hit on Iranian nuclear energy development, Yossi Melman in Haaretz gets one thing right:

Israel will not attack Iran. At least not in the next few years. It will not attack, first and foremost, because the United States opposes such a move. Israel has never taken any independent step on a strategic issue of global importance without first coordinating or consulting with its allies, or at least without reaching the conclusion that the move would be received favorably in Washington.

Also in Haaretz, examining Barak’s defection from the Labor Party, Aluf Benn opines in contrast with Melman:

Ehud Barak and Benjamin Netanyahu share a worldview. Both enjoy smoking cigars and reading biographies of Winston Churchill. Both consider Israel a Western bastion in the heart of a hostile Muslim world. Both do not trust the Arabs and believe that there is “no partner” on the Palestinian side. And both consider the Iranian nuclear program a major threat to Israel and support a military operation against it.
…

The press conference of former Mossad chief Meir Dagan undermined the view of Barak and Netanyahu: If the timetable for an Iranian bomb has been pushed back to 2015, there is no need to send the bombers to Natanz this year. But they have not given in. Barak’s political-security chief at the Defense Ministry, Amos Gilad, was quick to warn that the Iranian timetable is even shorter, and Dagan took back some of his statements yesterday at the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, apparently under pressure by the prime minister.

Netanyahu and Barak have hinted over the past two weeks that Israel is on the verge of a surprising diplomatic move. In his address to foreign reporters, Netanyahu promised that in 2011 “the truth will emerge” about who really wants peace in the region.

Well, Nutanyahoo, we have just seen who wants democracy in the region, and it isn’t you – for you, arab democracy is also a threat. Yet while people’s rights are being trampled, there will not be peace. Anyone who has actually experienced the fascist boot on their neck knows this. Therefore Nutanyahoo really doesn’t want peace either. Ziostan is at 144th position on the Global Peace Index. The Dark Prince mistakes peace for the sinister calm that follows genocide of Palestinians and home demolitions, whilst manufacturing convenient exaggerated threats from neighbours with no intention of attacking Ziostan. Thus Ziostanian militarism and its totalitarian drive for expansionism is sustained, the neocolonial defence industry is happy, Ziostan retains a preemptive claim on victimhood and support from Ziostan’s neocolonial sponsors and Ziostan-first lobby is ensured.

Rinse and repeat. Iraq yesterday, Iran today, then who’s next to be demonised by Ziostan from the ‘hostile sea of Arabs’ which surround it, regarded as undeserving of rights the Ziostanian ruling elite take for granted?

Palestine / Israel Links

Ex-IAEA chief: west ‘hyping’ Iran nuclear threat
Military strike on Iran is what unites Netanyahu and Barak
What a Joke – as if the US will permit the UN to make a decision for Israel. Before the UN makes a decision for us : Israeli rejection of a fair American peace proposal is liable to accelerate a decision by the UN General Assembly and to exacerbate the internal conflict in Israel.
Bulldozes from the Jewish National Fund demolished the Bedouin village for Al-Arakib for the ninth time yesterday and today.
Strength in numbers
Israel’s ‘Labor’ Party implodes : Barak Leaving Labor: Rats Leaving Sinking Ship
Gaza Diary day 24: visiting the Samounis
We Have a Dream – My Palestinian Partner and I’s Plea for Peace
More ‘Talk of Peace Talks’ hasbara : Netanyahu aides: Labor Party split will help advance peace talks with Palestinians
Did pop star Paradis cancel Israel concert over politics?
#BDS: Vanessa, n’y va pas!
To Exist is To Resist
Top UNRWA officials resign
A Gaza family’s tragedy
Gaza: Life and death in the buffer zone
MK praises resolve of Al-Araqib village

Tunisia

Long live the Autonomous Popular Resistance in Tunisia!
Cablegate And Tunisia : Suha And Laila
Tunisia: How the US got it wrong
Long live the Autonomous Popular Resistance in Tunisia!
To the tyrants of the Arab world…
Tunisia and reshaping the Arab world

Wikileaks Links

Whistleblower Rudolf Elmer hands over Swiss bank documents

Other Links

How blogging and hip-hop are undermining the US military from within
Our world is addicted to risk to fund our lifestyle
Rome told bishops not to report abuse
Secret inquiries into secret crimes – ‘The news over the weekend that Prime Minister Julia Gillard has asked the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security (the IGIS) to inquire into new claims that the Australian government was complicit in a CIA rendition to Egypt (where he was tortured) of former Guantanamo Bay detainee and Australian citizen Mamdouh Habib should be met with some scepticism.’
Tribute to Patrice Lumumba On The 50th Anniversary Of His Assassination
Child detentions ‘unlawful’, High Court to be told

January 16, 2011December 11, 2020

US War Criminals : Where are they now? Madeleine Albright

Madeleine Albright - The Price Is Ongoing — The Price Is Ongoing

From an August 09 Wikileaks cable, Madeleine Albright, apologist for US genocide in Iraq, was once more elevated, this time within NATO:

(U) According to Rasmussen the twelve individuals were chosen in order represent a broad range of Allies, as well as to bring a broad range of skills and expertise to the job.
They are:

– Madeleine Albright as Chair of the Experts Group, the United States, former Secretary of State

To recap on Albright’s sociopathic admission:

Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price–we think the price is worth it.

–60 Minutes (5/12/96)

The disgraceful US sanctions and its successive wars of plunder and aggression against Iraq have been highlighted through Wikileaks’ publication of the relevant cable chronicling April Glaspie’s duplicitous ‘Green Light’ to Saddam. A year after the deranged Albright made her appalling statement, she was confirmed by the US Senate as Clinton’s Secretary of State.

Sheldon Richman adequately disposes of Albright’s bleating attempt to recant in her autobiography:

Albright has just published her memoirs, Madam Secretary, in which she clarifies her statement. Here’s what she writes:

I must have been crazy; I should have answered the question by reframing it and pointing out the inherent flaws in the premise behind it. Saddam Hussein could have prevented any child from suffering simply by meeting his obligations…. As soon as I had spoken, I wished for the power to freeze time and take back those words. My reply had been a terrible mistake, hasty, clumsy and wrong. Nothing matters more than the lives of innocent people. I had fallen into the trap and said something I simply did not mean. That was no one’s fault but my own. (p. 275)

In the paragraph before this one she complains about the 60 Minutes report because “little effort was made to explain Saddam’s culpability, his misuse of Iraqi resources, or the fact that we were not embargoing medicine or food.”

When one reviews the facts, it is clear that Albright’s explanation is woefully inadequate. First, it contains an apparent contradiction. She says food and medicine were not embargoed, but then she says Saddam Hussein could have avoided the suffering “simply by meeting his obligations.” Does that mean more food would have been available had Hussein done what the U.S. government wanted? If so, weren’t American officials at least partly responsible for the harm done to the Iraqi people? Hussein certainly did not let his people starve. The New York Times and Washington Post have reported that in answer to the sanctions, Saddam Hussein maintained an elaborate food-rationing program for rich and poor, presumably to hold the loyalty of the Iraqi people, which the sanctions were supposedly intended to dissolve. Iraqis are reported to be reluctant to give up the program even though Hussein is gone and the sanctions are over.

Albright is being disingenuous. Although food wasn’t formally embargoed when the sanctions began in 1990, Iraq was hampered in importing it because initially Iraqi oil couldn’t be exported. No exports, no imports. The UN’s “oil for food” program, started six years later, after Hussein dropped his opposition, was supposed to remedy that. But it didn’t entirely. Counterpunch.org reported in 1999, “Proceeds from such oil sales are banked in New York…. Thirty-four percent is skimmed off for disbursement to outside parties with claims on Iraq, such as the Kuwaitis, as well as to meet the costs of the UN effort in Iraq. A further thirteen percent goes to meet the needs of the Kurdish autonomous area in the north.” With the remaining limited amount of money, the Iraqi government could order “food, medicine, medical equipment, infrastructure equipment to repair water and sanitation” and other things. But — and here’s the rub — the U.S. government could veto or delay any items ordered. And it did.

As Joy Gordon reported in the November 2001 Harper’s,

The United States has fought aggressively throughout the last decade to purposefully minimize the humanitarian goods that enter the country…. Since August 1991 the United States has blocked most purchases of materials necessary for Iraq to generate electricity, as well as equipment for radio, telephone, and other communications. Often restrictions have hinged on the withholding of a single essential element, rendering many approved items useless. For example, Iraq was allowed to purchase a sewage-treatment plant but was blocked from buying the generator necessary to run it; this in a country that has been pouring 300,000 tons of raw sewage daily into its rivers.

For Albright to say that food and medicine were not embargoed is to evade the fact that critical public-health needs could not be addressed because of the sanctions. Preventing a society from purifying its water and treating its sewage is a particularly brutal way to inflict harm, especially on its children. Disease was rampant, and infant mortality rose because of the sanctions. Let’s not forget that destruction of Iraq’s infrastructure was a deliberate aim of the U.S. bombing during the 1991 Gulf War.

No wonder two UN humanitarian coordinators quit over the sanctions. As one of them, Denis Halliday, said when he left in 1998, “I’ve been using the word ‘genocide’ because this is a deliberate policy to destroy the people of Iraq. I’m afraid I have no other view.”

Albright now writes that her answer to Stahl was “crazy” and that she regretted it “as soon as [she] had spoken.” Yet she did not take back her words between 1996 and Sept. 11, 2001. According to journalist Matt Welch, after being plagued by student protesters she “quietly” expressed regret for her statement in a speech at the University Southern California shortly after 9/11. But neither her office nor the Clinton administration issued a prominent clarification to the American people or the world. Could that be because her initial answer was sincere and that her belated apology was issued with her legacy in mind? We can be sure of one thing: word of her response spread throughout the Arab world. Maybe even among some of the 9/11 terrorists.

Albright resigned from her position on the NYSE Board in 2005 after the Grasso scandal.

Since the US has been caught redhanded spying on UN diplomats and others via Wikileaks cables, the ‘unparalled serpent’ Albright should hand in her jewelled bug brooch collection.

Future forecast – Albright should be in the dock at Le Hague, not wafting around Europe at lofty heights plotting more mass murder.

‘JONATHAN HOLMES: The Soviet Union was the main enemy in the ’70s and early ’80s. But there were others too. In 1979, a certain Saddam Hussein became dictator in Baghdad. That year in the Pentagon, Paul Wolfowitz was studying America’s war plans for the Persian Gulf. He and his assistant Dennis Ross warned that the new Iraqi leader could soon become a threat to the oil-rich Gulf States.

DENNIS ROSS, FORMER US MIDDLE EAST NEGOTIATOR: At that point, the Arab neighbours were looking at Iraq as a kind of bulwark against the Iranians. We were looking beyond that, saying, “Look, we’re not so sure that Iraq has such benign intentions towards its neighbours. And if it becomes very powerful, we’re going to find that it may use its power either directly or coercively.”

JONATHAN HOLMES: You actually recommended effectively setting up what became Central Command, didn’t you?

DENNIS ROSS: Absolutely. Much of what we subsequently did in the Gulf and the basis for what we even do today was drawn from that study which Paul directed.

JONATHAN HOLMES: But within a year, a much more dangerous challenge had appeared in the Gulf. The Iranian Revolution replaced America’s closest friend, the Shah, with a charismatic and implacable enemy, the Ayatollah Khomeini. As Saddam Hussein fought a bloody eight-year war against Iran, the Reagan Administration overcame its moral distaste for tyrants. He was treated as a favoured American ally.

PHYLLIS BENNIS, INSTITUTE FOR POLICY STUDIES: Throughout the1980s, it was United States resources from a…particularly from a country right here outside of Washington, DC, a small company called the American Type Culture Collection, that sold Iraq the seed stock for biological weapons, the seed stock for E. coli, for anthrax, for botulism, for a host of horrific diseases. And even at that time, it was known that Iraq had used chemical weapons against Iranian troops and against Kurdish civilians. And yet, Donald Rumsfeld, who was then a special envoy of President Reagan, went to Baghdad simply to shake hands with Saddam Hussein and urge the reopening of full diplomatic relations.’

Text: Condoleezza Rice at the Republican National Convention

RICE: And tonight, we gather to acknowledge this remarkable truth: The future belongs to liberty, fueled by markets in trade, protected by the rule of law and propelled by the fundamental rights of the individual. Information and knowledge can no longer be bottled up by the state. Prosperity flows to those who can tap the genius of their people.
…
George W. Bush will never allow America and our allies to be blackmailed. And make no mistake about it, blackmail is what the outlaw states seeking long-range ballistic missiles have in mind.

Today’s Palestine / Israel Links

Chomsky: who says Israeli apartheid can’t last forever?
South African Jewish group prepares war-crimes charges against Livni in advance of visit
Israel Tests on Worm Called Crucial in Iran Nuclear Delay
Israël : Vanessa Paradis annule son concert à Tel Aviv

Today’s Wikileaks Links

Assange: Wikileaks timing “no coincidence”
Swiss whistleblower Rudolf Elmer plans to hand over offshore banking secrets of the rich and famous to WikiLeaks

Other Links

Combat in Our Genes?

January 13, 2011December 11, 2020

Song for Bradley Manning

The Chair of the US House Committee on Homeland Security shows why Wikileaks is essential. His words are simply repellent and fascistic.

WikiLeaks today condemned calls from the chair of the House Committee on Homeland Security to “strangle the viability” of WikiLeaks by placing the publisher and its editor-in-chief, Julian Assange, on a US “enemies list” normally reserved for terrorists and dictators.

Placement on the US “Specially Designated National and Blocked Persons List” would criminalize US companies who deal with WikiLeaks or its editor. “The U.S. government simply cannot continue its ineffective piecemeal approach of responding in the aftermath of Wikileaks’ damage,” King wrote in a letter to the Secretary of the US Treasury, Geithner. “The U.S. government should be making every effort to strangle the viability of Assange’s organization.”

’The Homeland Security Committee chair Peter T. King wants to put a Cuban style trade embargo around the truth—forced on US citizens at the point of a gun,’ said Julian Assange.

’WikiLeaks is a publishing organization. It is time to cut through the bluster. There is no allegation by the US government or any other party, that WikiLeaks has hurt anyone, at any time during its four-year publishing history, as a result of anything it has published. Very few news organizations can say as much.’

’WikiLeaks has “terrorized” politicians from Kenya to Kansas over the last four years. Quite a few have lost office as a result. That doesn’t mean we are “terrorists”—it means we doing our job. We intend to “terrorize” Peter King, Hillary Clinton, corrupt CEOs and all the rest for many years to come, because that is what the people of the world demand.’

King noted that some U.S. companies had voluntarily cut off ties to Wikileaks, but that a New York publisher had recently agreed to pay Assange for an autobiography. Assange has said the eventual book royalties would help ’keep Wikileaks afloat’.

’By targeting WikiLeaks and the US publisher Knopf for economic censorship, King reveals his abiding hatred for the US constitution. When the founding fathers wrote, “Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press”, they did not provide an exception for blustering fools like Peter T. King.’

Today’s Wikileaks Links

Exclusive Interview: Julian Assange on Murdoch, Manning and the threat from China
Wikileaks volunteer detained and searched (again) by US agents
Welcome to AnonOps Network
Wikileaks: Publication of Twitter data may violate EU law
I’ve got secret files on Murdoch as ‘insurance’, claims Assange
“WikiLeaks condemns US embargo move”
The Media’s Continuing War On Wikileaks

Today’s Palestine / Israel Links

Rabbi: Sins led to woman’s murder
Israeli ambulances refuse to enter ‘unrecognized’ Palestinian villages
Iran says US, Israel ‘sabotaged’ Lebanon govt
Israeli troops capture Lebanese man: army
Torture by Israel : 1999 to the present
The Holocaust, Palestine and the Arab World: Gilbert Achcar interviewed
Israel’s Orthodox Rabbis: ‘Palestinians to the Ovens!’
Thirteen homes and three school buildings destroyed by Israeli forces
DANKNER: Decline to brutality – I am ashamed
Israeli FM’s visit protested in Greece
Erdogan says Israeli FM is despicable

Other Links

What if Tunisia had a revolution, but nobody watched?
Police Stopped Loughner’s Car on Day of Shooting
The social significance of the Arizona massacre
Mayhem Spreads in Tunisia; Curfew Decreed
Soldiers on the streets as Tunisian violence reaches capital
Tomgram: William Hartung, Lockheed Martin’s Shadow Government
Steve Bell on Sarah Palin’s ‘blood libel’
Tunisia in turmoil
Letters from Tunisia
Ghetts, the census and Guantánamo Bay
Flood shark sightings have residents on edge
The CIA File on Luis Posada Carriles
How Haiti was abandoned : the broken promises of support for Haiti from the world’s most powerful governments–and the neoliberal agenda they are pursuing instead.