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.’

Related Links

Bradley Manning Charge Sheet 5th July, 2010 [.pdf]

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.

No, Nutanyahoo, East Jerusalem is Palestinian

Clinton admonishes Israeli perfidious land thievery, but will the US or any of the Quartet actually do anything? Unless the US is willing to apply tangible pressure, pigs might fly sooner.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying Jews have a right to live anywhere in Jerusalem, defended on Monday a settlement project that drew criticism from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Israeli bulldozers cleared the way for 20 new homes for Jews in East Jerusalem, an area captured by Israel in a 1967 war and which Palestinian want as the capital of a future state, by demolishing a derelict hotel on Sunday.

Clinton, in Abu Dhabi on a tour of U.S. Gulf Arab allies, called the Israeli action a “disturbing development” and said it “undermines peace efforts to achieve the two-state solution.”

A statement issued by Netanyahu’s office made no direct reference to Clinton’s criticism, but said “there should be no expectation that the State of Israel will impose a ban on Jews purchasing private property in Jerusalem.”

Here’s the EU report on East Jerusalem, which still clings to the illusion that two states are possible:

EU East Jerusalem 2010 by Angela Godfrey-Goldstein

In Haaretz, Carlo Strenger comments:

All they seem to care about is to establish their patriotism through ‘Judaizing’ Jerusalem and other areas; to grab another building from Palestinians; to show how “Jewish” they are by proposing anti-Arab legislation and by attacking NGOs that try to protect Israel the liberal democracy.

The frenzy of the ‘Judaization’ of Jerusalem has now crossed the tipping point where the international community is no longer willing to just stand by. A while ago 26 former EU leaders, many of whom during their careers had been staunch friends of Israel, asked for sanctions against Israel. This has now been followed by a call of EU consuls to recognize East Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital; to place observers at each venue where Israel wants to destroy Palestinian buildings.

The ominous signs that Israel will soon be under great international pressure are mounting, and proposals for specific steps of boycott and sanctions are taking shape. One is to deny Israelis who live in the West Bank entry to the EU, and to forbid the sale of any Israeli products from the West Bank.

Palestine / Israel Links

Daily Israeli Crimes Against Humanity
Farmer ‘killed by Israeli fire’ in Gaza – more like Israel fascists executed another innocent civilian
Angry Arab says that after Bill Clinton got in, Arabists were ‘eliminated’ from State Dep’t
Remnick takes another step– the occupation is ‘deeply wrong’

Wikileaks Links

Greenwald on the climate of fear created by the US in reaction to Wikileaks : “People who spout pieties are never targeted with censorship, since there’s nothing to censor. Only those whose views are threatening or marginalized are subjected to such measures.”

Gun-toting US Searches For Answers

In that most racist US state of Arizona, there is yet another mass slaying using guns, this time courtesy of bigoted, ignorant political rhetoric and elitist health system which is largely inaccessible to the poor, in a peculiar society which regards mentally ill people inappropriately as culpable for their actions rather than in need of medical help.

Suspect Jared was noticed in school as weird – he was refused readmission to his college unless he was medically evaluated. His Youtube and MySpace postings are patently those of a depressive and delusional individual. Why did no one deliver him the medical assistance he so obviously needed? Why was he able to obtain a firearm?

In a nation where hate speech is protected, incitement of prejudice, racism and bigotry by politicians is manifold. When leaders set an horrific example, those most vulnerable to suggestion, people with psychiatric dis-abilities, tend to follow reflexively.

Racism, elitism, prejudice and bigotry are diseases of the point of view, with politicians as primary vectors.

Related Links

The Politicized Mind
Sarah Palin Has NOT Deleted ‘Reload’ Tweet Or Facebook Note
Jared Loughner’s Alleged YouTube Video Reveals Possible Clues Behind Giffords Shooting
A sampling of the Arizona shooting suspect’s social-media postings
Police ‘actively pursuing’ second person in Tucson shooting
Man linked to Giffords shooting rampage called ‘very disturbed’
Arizona Tea Partier: We Need to Be Careful About What We Say
Live Blog: Representative Giffords Shot
Arizona Sheriff Clarence Dupnik Explains Why He’s Against New Immigration Law
The US Senate is a complete joke (and what to do about it)
In Attack’s Wake, Political Repercussions
The Patriot Act
America’s Left far too blinded by inaction and fear
CIA and Australia
My day in the courtroom of Judge John Roll, who lived and died in Arizona’s climate of hate
Study finds left-wing brain, right-wing brain
The Cloudy Logic of ‘Political’ Shootings
Dep’t of Homeland Security suggests anti-Semitism may be motive for assassination attempt in Arizona
The Conservative Constitution of the United States
Giffords Among U.S. Gun Culture’s Latest Victims
Sick – Ray Stevens – God Save Arizona
Arizona shooting puts political rhetoric in the crosshairs
Questions about mental illness, access to guns follow Arizona shooting
On mental illness and crime
Jared Loughner Attack on Gabrielle Giffords: America’s Mental Health Breakdown

Palestine / Israel Links

Hamas urges militant groups to stop attacking Israel – but who will urge Israel to stop attacking and besieging Gaza?
The myth of “Good Israel” vs. “Bad Israel”
Israel Prize laureates join academic boycott of settlement university
Think Before You Send That Message: Big Brother Is Watching
The IDF’s bag of lies – Instead of working toward revealing the truth behind the recent death of an anti-fence demonstrator the IDF is behaving like the propaganda ministry of an authoritarian regime.
Revolutionary Guards in the Knesset
Is Lieberman the New Israeli Mainstream?
Three injured at Bil’in protest commemorating woman killed by tear gas last week
Violations Against Children Dec 10 (DCIP)
Academics oppose West Bank college, alleging apartheid
Israel demolishes historic hotel
Otherwise Occupied / When lawbreaking runs in the family
Don’t bother petitioning the High Court
Bibi promised, Bibi delivers

Wikileaks Links

Swedish Pundit Assails WikiLeaks, Downplays Rove Ties
The Excuse is Wikileaks. The Object is Freedom of Speech. The Subject is Authoritarianism.
David Pitchford suit against Julian Assange
Weapons of Murdoch’s Mass Deception: Time to Turn to Alternative Media
Milwaukee man’s website mirrors suspect’s conspiracy statements – see here

Other Links

The Hidden Australia – A secret recent History of the Whitlam Dismissal
Edge of darkness: will flooding in Qld cause load shedding at power stations?

Are we not human? not according to Israel and Amerikkka

Today’s post preserves two nauseating vignettes, of crimes against humanity by Zionist and Amerikkkan flunkeys, with hearts frozen against those whom they palpably regard as less than human, less deserving of consideration provided to their own elites.

The first is Anas Saleh, a “20-year old Gaza resident, who died on 1 January 2011 from a liver disease in Shifa Hospital in Gaza”.

Although the patient was in a critical medical condition, which was known to the Israeli authorities, Israel prevented his exit from Gaza for lifesaving medical treatment. Adalah Attorney Fatmeh El-Ajou filed the complaint on behalf of the victim whose case was followed and documented by PHR-I and Al Mezan.

The human rights organizations argue in the complaint that the denial of an exit permit in these circumstances is an act against the legal obligation to provide medical treatment to save the life of the patient, an act which brought about, or at least hastened, the death of the deceased.

The aforementioned act, or failure, raises the suspicion of manslaughter (section 298 of the penal law, 1977), and/or causing death by negligence (sections 304 and 309 (4) of the penal law, 1977) and responsibility for helpless person and violation of obligation of perant or of responsible person (sections 322 and 337 of the penal law).

In September 2010, Anas Saleh was diagnosed with a liver disease, Budd Chiari Syndrome (a clinical syndrome resulting from obstruction of the veins in the liver). Due to a lack of appropriate medical treatment in the Gaza Strip health system, his condition deteriorated into acute liver failure and hepatitis.

The patient was referred for lifesaving medical treatment to Muqassed Hospital in East Jerusalem, and a hospital referral and appointment were in his possession for 26 December 2010. On 13 December 2010 the family presented a request, via the Palestinian Liaison Office, to the Israeli authorities in order to obtain an exit permit from Gaza.

Thirteen days later, on 26 December 2010, the patient’s hospital appointment date, the army informed the Palestinian Liaison Office that the patient must appear for interrogation by the Israel Security Agency (ISA or Shabak) on 30 December 2010 to further consider his request. However, on that date the patient was already unconscious, in a comatose state, and could not appear at the interrogation.

This information was forwarded, according to the Palestinian health coordinator, to the Israeli military on that same day, with a request to speed up the request procedure and to issue an exit permit from Gaza urgently.

Paradoxically, despite the ISA continued to insist that the patient appear for questioning. According to the father’s testimony, on 28 December 2010 he received a telephone call from a man who introduced himself as an ISA representative, and requested that his ill son present himself for questioning on the following day. The father informed him that his son was in a coma and asked that he be allowed to leave for medical treatment without delay.

Throughout this process, medical documents substantiating the patient’s medical condition were transmitted to the Israeli authorities. A final medical document confirming the patient’s critical condition was sent on 29 December 2010.

The patient died in Shifa Hospital in Gaza 1 January 2011 at 18:00 (6 pm). Until today, no response to the request has been issued by the Israeli authorities.

UPDATE

Border guards bar infant from Jerusalem for medical treatment

Israeli soldiers deployed at the Zaytoun checkpoint east of Jerusalem turned away a mother and child with a medical permit to enter the city, on the grounds that the 18-month-old child was not her legitimate son.

Soldiers told Umm Mohammed that her son Mohammad Kahlil Abu Dahuk was in fact a Gaza resident, and could not enter Jerusalem for treatment at the Makassed Hospital, where he was referred for blood work.

Umm Mohammed is a West Bank resident living in Jericho, where her infant son was being treated for a blood disorder at the Jericho Government Hospital.

The Abu Dahud family told Ma’an on Thursday, shortly after the mother and child were refused access to the hospital, that they were refused entry for no reason. Mohammed, his mother said, was registered on her own identity card, being to young to receive his own.

“He has been on the records since he was born,” his father said, condemning the border guards who turned his wife away.

Head of Jericho hospital Naser A’nani confirmed that he had referred the child to the hospital and filed the necessary paperwork for a medical permit to be issued. He said the child needed to see a specialist, and referred him to the larger hospital in Jerusalem.

A spokesman for the Israeli border guards, who operate the checkpoint, said he would look into the claim in the coming days.

Israel has prevented many Palestinians from receiving needed medical treatment. In 2010, Israel denied travel for medical purposes to 635 Gazan people, and delayed travel for a further 1,710 people. The Al Mezan Center for Human Rights report below is essential reading to understand the horrifying extent of the inhumanity of zionists toward Palestinians, whom they consider untermenschen.

Al Mezan: Gaza Patients Ac… by paola pisi

The other unfortunate person is Gulet Mohamed, an 18-year-old American citizen whose family is Somalian. Glenn Greenwald relates that whilst abroad for education and holidays, Gulet was snatched, imprisoned then tortured by Kuwaiti officials.

At all times, Mohamed traveled on an American passport and had valid visas for all the countries he visited. He has never been arrested nor — until two weeks ago — was he ever involved with law enforcement in any way, including the entire time he lived in the U.S.

Approximately two weeks ago (on December 20), Mohamed went to the airport in Kuwait to have his visa renewed, as he had done every three months without incident for the last year. This time, however, he was told by the visa officer that his name had been marked in the computer, and after waiting five hours, he was taken into a room and interrogated by officials who refused to identify themselves. They then handcuffed and blindfolded him and drove him to some other locale. That was the start of a two-week-long, still ongoing nightmare during which he was imprisoned for a week in an unknown location by unknown captors, relentlessly interrogated, and severely beaten and threatened with even worse forms of torture.


Mohamed says he was repeatedly beaten with a stick on the bottom of his feet and his palms, hit in the face, and hung from the ceiling. He also says his captors threatened him with both the arrest of his mother and electric shock, and told him that he should forget his family.

He still does not know why he was detained and beaten, nor does he know what is happening to him now. Indeed, although Mazzetti writes that he was detained and beaten by Kuwait captors, Mohamed actually has no idea who was responsible, and told me that at least some of the people interrogating him spoke English. He has been told that he will be deported back to the U.S., but is now on a no-fly list and has no idea when he will be released. American officials told Mazzetti that “Mr. Mohamed is on a no-fly list and, for now at least, cannot return to the United States.” He’s been charged with no crime and presented with no evidence of any wrongdoing.

Independent of all that, the U.S. Government has an obligation to protect its own citizens. Mohamed described to me how both embassy officials and the FBI expressed zero interest in the torture to which he had been subjected during his detention. The U.S. Government has said nothing about this matter, and refused to comment about Mohamed’s treatment to The New York Times.

All of this underscores the rapidly expanding powers the U.S. Government and law enforcement agents within the country are seizing without a shred of due process. For the government to put an American citizen on the no-fly list while he’s traveling outside the U.S. is tantamount to barring him from entering his own country — a draconian punishment, involuntary exile, meted out without any due process. In June, the ACLU filed a lawsuit on behalf of several citizens and legal residents who — like Gulet Mohammed — have been literally stranded abroad and barred from returning with no hearing, simply by being placed secretly on the no-fly list. Add to that the growing seizures of the laptops and other electronic equipment of American citizens re-entering the country without any warrants — or even yesterday’s ruling from the California Supreme Court that police officers can search and seize someone’s cell phone without a warrant when arresting them — and (even leaving aside the administration’s ongoing due-process-free prison camps and assassination programs) these are pure police state tactics.

Amerikkka and Israel are marching to hell together behind a familiar, sickening beat. Let’s decide not to follow their lead. Stand up and speak out for justice and freedom and reject totalitarianism in its new, frightening, morally depraved forms.

Bilin demo theme - Courtesy Joseph DanaPalestine / Israel Links

Outgoing Mossad chief, Dagan : Iran won’t have nuclear capability before 2015 “The Israeli intelligence community’s assessments of Iran’s nuclear capability have changed during Dagan’s tenure. In 2003, Israeli intelligence officials thought Iran would have its first bomb by 2007. In 2007, they thought it would be 2009, and a year later they put it at 2011. Now the date has moved to 2015. These adjustments were not the result of mistaken evaluations, but due to the difficulties Iran has encountered in advancing its program, largely because of the Mossad’s efforts.” Yeah, right – hence the plethora of assassinations in Iran of nuclear scientists by Mossad killers.

Amr Qawasme, 65, shot to death for unknown reason as soldiers raid house in Hebron area. ‘They put their hand to my mouth and a rifle to my head,’ man’s wife says. ‘I asked them, ‘What did you do?’ They asked me to shut up.’
The culture of the Israeli army and the murder of an elderly man in his sleep
Israelis admit killing innocent civilian in bed

End Georgia’s relationship with the Israeli police – stop human rights abuses now! get involved [.pdf]
In Ajami and Mas’ha, Evidence of the Continuing Nakba
Doing the work of the master, the last person who cares about equal rights : Mubarak asks Israel to build trust with Palestinians
Former Knesset speaker urges Israeli human rights groups to shun Knesset probe
Declaring Palestine: Revisiting Hope and Failure : Ramzy Baroud
Zionist settlers are blackshirts : Jericho teacher says settler car attempted to run down students
Palestinians look for early vote on UN resolution
After lobby effort PA releases 6 Hamas affiliates
More ziofascism : Israeli court releases J’lem official Adnan Ghaith on bail from secret charges
Amira Hass: Gaza on the edge of no return
Shas: Ahuva Tomer to blame for bus disaster
Video: Our Story By Dr. Mustafa Barghouti
Palestinians and another deadline… that is not sacred?
Forward: Israeli army doctors warned in ‘03 that CS gas in high concentrations could kill
Aiding Israel: Love thy neighbour
Get a clue, Baroness Ashton, “peace process” is code for more Israeli expansionism. Time for a justice process.
EU Rejects Israel’s Offer On Gaza Blockade
Israel slates 15 Jericho homes for demolition
When the Messiah comes, Israel will deport him
Israel’s killing zone in Gaza
Marching in bilin to the wall
Israeli ‘hasbara’ deployed versus former EU leaders
Fact-Checking Noah Pollak and the IDF’s Unofficial Spokespeople
Subhiya, mother of Jawaher Abu Rahmah who was killed last week, leading the memorial demo in Bil’in
On the wall now in bilin. Mass demonstration
Massive amount of people. Israeli mk getting coated with shit water in bilin
Massive gas in bilin. Injuries as well
Peer’s non-appearance a win for BDS campaign
#OperationPalestine: It’s Not Too Much To Act
‘Our politics are entangled’ – Today, at 80, Samuel Lewis, former U.S. envoy to Israel, says he worries about Israel’s current state of affairs but assures that ‘Israel is here to stay.’ What the hell is a ‘Jewish brain’?
Yossi Gurvitz’s photos from the Bil’in demo
Israel Soldier Beats Up Civilian & Shooting in Direct Formation

Wikileaks Links

WikiLeaks: Secret whaling deal plotted by US and Japan
Hollywood on aggressive Asia-Pacific IP law push
Bradley Manning: the forgotten man : Glenn Greenwald [Audio]
Douglas Feith, named by General Tommy Franks as “the stupidest fucking guy on the planet” is amongst the Bush Six, against whom criminal proceedings are being prepared by Spain for torture.
12 Angry Men – great poster of Bush’s legal thugs

Other Links

Erdogan renders military holding’s lobbying efforts ineffective
EU needs Turkey more than Turkey needs it, says Ba???
U.S. Employs Afghan War To Build Global NATO
Afghans consign another superpower to the dustbin of history
Getting things done
Opium Production in Afghanistan: Strong and Corrupt as Ever