Another wonderful speech by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the United Nations, telling the world the truth about the U.S. Of course, the U.S., French, and British delegates walked out, lest they be embarrassed. Pure hypocrisy running to the exit doors...
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Friday, April 23, 2010
An Act Of War
Today, the House of Representatives voted on new sanctions against Iran. The sanctions would include companies around the world, not allowed to do business with Iran. I don't know how this could be enforced without a Naval blockade. Thus, the House today voted for war with Iran...
I live in a country with one of the most horrible governments the world has ever seen. Immoral scum criminals and gangsters. Here was the final tally today:
With a vote of 403-11, the vote saw only seven Democrats, Reps. Baird (WA), Moore (WI), Baldwin (WI), Blumenauer (OR), Kucinich (OH), Waters (CA) and McDermott (WA), and four Republicans, Reps. Flake (AZ), Jones (NC), Paul (TX) and Duncan (TN) oppose the measure. Three others, Reps. Lee (D – CA), Stark (D – CA), and Ellison (D – MN) voted “present.”
http://news.antiwar.com/2010/04/22/house-overwhelmingly-passes-iran-sanctions-bill/
And here is what Ron Paul said:
By Congressman Ron Paul
I live in a country with one of the most horrible governments the world has ever seen. Immoral scum criminals and gangsters. Here was the final tally today:
With a vote of 403-11, the vote saw only seven Democrats, Reps. Baird (WA), Moore (WI), Baldwin (WI), Blumenauer (OR), Kucinich (OH), Waters (CA) and McDermott (WA), and four Republicans, Reps. Flake (AZ), Jones (NC), Paul (TX) and Duncan (TN) oppose the measure. Three others, Reps. Lee (D – CA), Stark (D – CA), and Ellison (D – MN) voted “present.”
http://news.antiwar.com/2010/04/22/house-overwhelmingly-passes-iran-sanctions-bill/
And here is what Ron Paul said:
By Congressman Ron Paul
| Statement of Congressman Ron Paul - United States House of Representatives Statement on Motion to Instruct Conferees on HR 2194, Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability and Divestment Act - April 22, 2010 |
April 23, 2010 "United States House of Representatives" -- Mr. Speaker I rise in opposition to this motion to instruct House conferees on HR 2194, the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability and Divestment Act, and I rise in strong opposition again to the underlying bill and to its Senate version as well. I object to this entire push for war on Iran, however it is disguised. Listening to the debate on the Floor on this motion and the underlying bill it feels as if we are back in 2002 all over again: the same falsehoods and distortions used to push the United States into a disastrous and unnecessary one trillion dollar war on Iraq are being trotted out again to lead us to what will likely be an even more disastrous and costly war on Iran. The parallels are astonishing.
We hear war advocates today on the Floor scare-mongering about reports that in one year Iran will have missiles that can hit the United States. Where have we heard this bombast before? Anyone remember the claims that Iraqi drones were going to fly over the United States and attack us? These “drones” ended up being pure propaganda – the UN chief weapons inspector concluded in 2004 that there was no evidence that Saddam Hussein had ever developed unpiloted drones for use on enemy targets. Of course by then the propagandists had gotten their war so the truth did not matter much.
We hear war advocates on the floor today arguing that we cannot afford to sit around and wait for Iran to detonate a nuclear weapon. Where have we heard this before? Anyone remember then-Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice’s oft-repeated quip about Iraq: that we cannot wait for the smoking gun to appear as a mushroom cloud.
We need to see all this for what it is: Propaganda to speed us to war against Iran for the benefit of special interests.
Let us remember a few important things. Iran, a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, has never been found in violation of that treaty. Iran is not capable of enriching uranium to the necessary level to manufacture nuclear weapons. According to the entire US Intelligence Community, Iran is not currently working on a nuclear weapons program. These are facts, and to point them out does not make one a supporter or fan of the Iranian regime. Those pushing war on Iran will ignore or distort these facts to serve their agenda, though, so it is important and necessary to point them out.
Some of my well-intentioned colleagues may be tempted to vote for sanctions on Iran because they view this as a way to avoid war on Iran. I will ask them whether the sanctions on Iraq satisfied those pushing for war at that time. Or whether the application of ever-stronger sanctions in fact helped war advocates make their case for war on Iraq: as each round of new sanctions failed to “work” – to change the regime – war became the only remaining regime-change option.
This legislation, whether the House or Senate version, will lead us to war on Iran. The sanctions in this bill, and the blockade of Iran necessary to fully enforce them, are in themselves acts of war according to international law. A vote for sanctions on Iran is a vote for war against Iran. I urge my colleagues in the strongest terms to turn back from this unnecessary and counterproductive march to war.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
THE ANATOMY OF AMERICA’S DEFEAT IN AFGHANISTAN
by Mohammed Daud Miraki
With the long awaited decision by the Obama Administration in regards to the new strategy for Afghanistan, the situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated to the point that the US commanders started using the word ‘defeat’ in their report to Washington. The word defeat has rarely been uttered by military; however, Afghanistan is the exception, where defeat is a realistic outcome. There, defeat is a reality that all invaders have faced since the beginning when Pashtuns have inhabited this region. The Pashtuns’ resistance is one of multiple factors characterizing the Anatomy of US’s Defeat in Afghanistan, where the inevitability of defeat for the US and NATO appears to be a certainty.
FACTORS OF DEFEAT
American Military underestimated the Afghans (Pashtuns)
When the American troops landed in Khanabad Air Base in Uzbekistan, they were confident that the defeat of the Taliban and take over of Afghanistan was inevitable. Their behavior was typically American characterized with excessive over confidence totally oblivious of Afghan history. Characteristically, they did not expect to suffer significant casualties either; however, much to their dismay, American causality has become quite apparent The overconfidence of American military was detailed by a reporter of IWPR:
“…in October when the Americans began deploying at the airport,
they were gung-ho, telling their Uzbek counterparts that it would take no more than a month and a half to defeat the Taliban…”
The report continues:
“Uzbek army personnel working at the air base said scores of US casualties have been arriving there. From November 25 to Decemeber [sic] 2, an Uzbek orderly working with American medical staff said he had witnessed the arrival of four to five US helicopters - carrying between them 10-15 American casualties - each day.”
The wounded soldiers that had returned from Afghanistan were frustrated by the sudden change in their self-perceived invincibility. The frustrations of the wounded soldiers on the base played out in daily occurrences of shouting and name-callings. These were the same soldiers that had heroic mentality before entering Afghanistan.
Similar experiences were reported in other parts of Afghanistan. For example, during operation Anaconda in 2002, America had used massive firepower to subdue a Taliban Commander Saifu-r-Rahman Mansoor in Shah-e-Kot in Southeastern Afghanistan. The Americans thought they could destroy the Afghan resistance by having superior air-power. They learned this to be more a wishful thinking. In the days of the fighting, Pentagon made various extravagant claims of having destroyed Mansoor’s defenses and killing more than a thousand (1000) Taliban fighters. The facts were otherwise. The US forces went to the battle with a heroic mind set, but they were bitterly surprised when they sustained heavy losses and had lost 16 helicopters ranging from Apaches to Chinooks. The escalation reached a point of no return when 22 American Special Forces were caught alive. The heavy losses coupled with the captured soldiers started to take its toll on the US forces until March 10, 2002 when General Tommy Frank decided to pull back 400 troops to Bagram. The official explanation was that the conflict had ended for the most part while media reported that the troops suffered from battle fatigue. The truth was that the pull back was an attempt at building confidence aimed at convincing Taliban that American military is serious in seeking the release of the 22 Special Forces Commandos. The Taliban Commander, Maulana Mansoor demanded the release of all captives held at Guantanamo Bay in exchange for the 22 Special Forces soldiers.
Meanwhile, as the US forces encountered stiff resistance, it claimed to be fighting against a force of 1000 fighters when in reality there were 100 Afghan fighters, 120 Uzbek, and 30 Arab fighters. The US claimed to have killed 700 of 1000 Taliban/Al-Qaida fighters:
“U.S. military spokesmen estimate 700 out of roughly 1,000 Islamic extremists have been killed in the past nine days of fighting, which has cost the lives of eight Americans and three allied Afghans.”
The number of Taliban and foreign fighters killed stood at 88 (mostly Uzbek including 8 Arabs) while the number of US, British and others were much higher. Different media sources reported different numbers in regards to US losses. For example, the Russian online newspaper Strana.Ru on April 8, 2002, reported that the US lost 100 Special Forces and four Apache helicopters. However, data obtained from the battlefield put the casualty figure at 228 killed. From this figure 186 Americans killed in the battle, 22 prisoners executed when the US refused to release Guantanamo prisoners and 20 British SAS were killed when their vehicles were ambushed. The 186 killed Americans included those that were on-board helicopters. The total number of helicopters shot was 16 out of which two Chinook and 6 Apaches were totally destroyed and the remaining crash landed. The Canadians and Australians killed were reported as victims of friendly fire.
Read the rest of this superb essay here:
http://shahamat1.org/english/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1423:the-anatomy-of-americas-defeat-in-afghanistan&catid=2:articles&Itemid=3Tuesday, April 13, 2010
War is peace. Ignorance is strength
This John Pilger essay is one of his best.
written in October, 2009
"Barack Obama, winner of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, is planning another war to add to his impressive record. In Afghanistan, his agents routinely extinguish wedding parties, farmers and construction workers with weapons such as the innovative Hellfire missile, which sucks the air out of your lungs. According to the UN, 338,000 Afghan infants are dying under the Obama-led alliance, which permits only $29 per head annually to be spent on medical care.
Within weeks of his inauguration, Obama started a new war in Pakistan, causing more than a million people to flee their homes. In threatening Iran – which his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, said she was prepared to “obliterate” – Obama lied that the Iranians were covering up a “secret nuclear facility”, knowing that it had already been reported to the International Atomic Energy Authority. In colluding with the only nuclear-armed power in the Middle East, he bribed the Palestinian Authority to suppress a UN judgment that Israel had committed crimes against humanity in its assault on Gaza – crimes made possible with US weapons whose shipment Obama secretly approved before his inauguration.
At home, the man of peace has approved a military budget exceeding that of any year since the end of the Second World War while presiding over a new kind of domestic repression. During the recent G20 meeting in Pittsburgh, hosted by Obama, militarised police attacked peaceful protesters with something called the Long-Range Acoustic Device, not seen before on US streets. Mounted in the turret of a small tank, it blasted a piercing noise as tear gas and pepper gas were fired indiscriminately. It is part of a new arsenal of “crowd-control munitions” supplied by military contractors such as Raytheon. In Obama’s Pentagon-controlled “national security state”, the concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay, which he promised to close, remains open, and “rendition”, secret assassinations and torture continue.
The Nobel Peace Prize-winner’s latest war is largely secret. On 15 July, Washington finalised a deal with Colombia that gives the US seven giant military bases. “The idea,” reported the Associated Press, “is to make Colombia a regional hub for Pentagon operations... nearly half the continent can be covered by a C-17 [military transport] without refuelling”, which “helps achieve the regional engagement strategy”.
Translated, this means Obama is planning a “rollback” of the independence and democracy that the people of Bolivia, Venezuela, Ecuador and Paraguay have achieved against the odds, along with a historic regional co-operation that rejects the notion of a US “sphere of influence”. The Colombian regime, which backs death squads and has the continent’s worst human rights record, has received US military support second in scale only to Israel. Britain provides military training. Guided by US military satellites, Colombian paramilitaries now infiltrate Venezuela with the goal of overthrowing the democratic government of Hugo Chávez, which George W Bush failed to do in 2002.
Obama’s war on peace and democracy in Latin America follows a style he has demonstrated since the coup against the democratic president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, in June. Zelaya had increased the minimum wage, granted subsidies to small farmers, cut back interest rates and reduced poverty. He planned to break a US pharmaceutical monopoly and manufacture cheap generic drugs. Although Obama has called for Zelaya’s reinstatement, he refuses to condemn the coup-makers and to recall the US ambassador or the US troops who train the Honduran forces determined to crush a popular resistance. Zelaya has been repeatedly refused a meeting with Obama, who has approved an IMF loan of $164m to the illegal regime. The message is clear and familiar: thugs can act with impunity on behalf of the US.
Obama, the smooth operator from Chicago via Harvard, was enlisted to restore what he calls “leadership” throughout the world. The Nobel Prize committee’s decision is the kind of cloying reverse racism that has beatified the man for no reason other than he is a member of a minority and attractive to liberal sensibilities, if not to the Afghan children he kills. This is the Call of Obama. It is not unlike a dog whistle: inaudible to most, irresistible to the besotted and boneheaded. “When Obama walks into a room,” gushed George Clooney, “you want to follow him somewhere, anywhere.”
The great voice of black liberation Frantz Fanon understood this. In The Wretched of the Earth, he described the “intermediary [whose] mission has nothing to do with transforming the nation: it consists, prosaically, of being the transmission line between the nation and a capitalism, rampant though camouflaged”. Because political debate has become so debased in our media monoculture – Blair or Brown; Brown or Cameron – race, gender and class can be used as seductive tools of propaganda and diversion. In Obama’s case, what matters, as Fanon pointed out in an earlier era, is not the intermediary’s “historic” elevation, but the class he serves. After all, Bush’s inner circle was probably the most multiracial in presidential history. There was Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, Clarence Thomas, all dutifully serving an extreme and dangerous power.
Britain has seen its own Obama-like mysticism. The day after Blair was elected in 1997, the Observer predicted that he would create “new worldwide rules on human rights” while the Guardian rejoiced at the “breathless pace [as] the floodgates of change burst open”. When Obama was elected last November, Denis MacShane MP, a devotee of Blair’s bloodbaths, unwittingly warned us: “I shut my eyes when I listen to this guy and it could be Tony. He is doing the same thing that we did in 1997.”"
written in October, 2009
"Barack Obama, winner of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, is planning another war to add to his impressive record. In Afghanistan, his agents routinely extinguish wedding parties, farmers and construction workers with weapons such as the innovative Hellfire missile, which sucks the air out of your lungs. According to the UN, 338,000 Afghan infants are dying under the Obama-led alliance, which permits only $29 per head annually to be spent on medical care.
Within weeks of his inauguration, Obama started a new war in Pakistan, causing more than a million people to flee their homes. In threatening Iran – which his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, said she was prepared to “obliterate” – Obama lied that the Iranians were covering up a “secret nuclear facility”, knowing that it had already been reported to the International Atomic Energy Authority. In colluding with the only nuclear-armed power in the Middle East, he bribed the Palestinian Authority to suppress a UN judgment that Israel had committed crimes against humanity in its assault on Gaza – crimes made possible with US weapons whose shipment Obama secretly approved before his inauguration.
At home, the man of peace has approved a military budget exceeding that of any year since the end of the Second World War while presiding over a new kind of domestic repression. During the recent G20 meeting in Pittsburgh, hosted by Obama, militarised police attacked peaceful protesters with something called the Long-Range Acoustic Device, not seen before on US streets. Mounted in the turret of a small tank, it blasted a piercing noise as tear gas and pepper gas were fired indiscriminately. It is part of a new arsenal of “crowd-control munitions” supplied by military contractors such as Raytheon. In Obama’s Pentagon-controlled “national security state”, the concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay, which he promised to close, remains open, and “rendition”, secret assassinations and torture continue.
The Nobel Peace Prize-winner’s latest war is largely secret. On 15 July, Washington finalised a deal with Colombia that gives the US seven giant military bases. “The idea,” reported the Associated Press, “is to make Colombia a regional hub for Pentagon operations... nearly half the continent can be covered by a C-17 [military transport] without refuelling”, which “helps achieve the regional engagement strategy”.
Translated, this means Obama is planning a “rollback” of the independence and democracy that the people of Bolivia, Venezuela, Ecuador and Paraguay have achieved against the odds, along with a historic regional co-operation that rejects the notion of a US “sphere of influence”. The Colombian regime, which backs death squads and has the continent’s worst human rights record, has received US military support second in scale only to Israel. Britain provides military training. Guided by US military satellites, Colombian paramilitaries now infiltrate Venezuela with the goal of overthrowing the democratic government of Hugo Chávez, which George W Bush failed to do in 2002.
Obama’s war on peace and democracy in Latin America follows a style he has demonstrated since the coup against the democratic president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, in June. Zelaya had increased the minimum wage, granted subsidies to small farmers, cut back interest rates and reduced poverty. He planned to break a US pharmaceutical monopoly and manufacture cheap generic drugs. Although Obama has called for Zelaya’s reinstatement, he refuses to condemn the coup-makers and to recall the US ambassador or the US troops who train the Honduran forces determined to crush a popular resistance. Zelaya has been repeatedly refused a meeting with Obama, who has approved an IMF loan of $164m to the illegal regime. The message is clear and familiar: thugs can act with impunity on behalf of the US.
Obama, the smooth operator from Chicago via Harvard, was enlisted to restore what he calls “leadership” throughout the world. The Nobel Prize committee’s decision is the kind of cloying reverse racism that has beatified the man for no reason other than he is a member of a minority and attractive to liberal sensibilities, if not to the Afghan children he kills. This is the Call of Obama. It is not unlike a dog whistle: inaudible to most, irresistible to the besotted and boneheaded. “When Obama walks into a room,” gushed George Clooney, “you want to follow him somewhere, anywhere.”
The great voice of black liberation Frantz Fanon understood this. In The Wretched of the Earth, he described the “intermediary [whose] mission has nothing to do with transforming the nation: it consists, prosaically, of being the transmission line between the nation and a capitalism, rampant though camouflaged”. Because political debate has become so debased in our media monoculture – Blair or Brown; Brown or Cameron – race, gender and class can be used as seductive tools of propaganda and diversion. In Obama’s case, what matters, as Fanon pointed out in an earlier era, is not the intermediary’s “historic” elevation, but the class he serves. After all, Bush’s inner circle was probably the most multiracial in presidential history. There was Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, Clarence Thomas, all dutifully serving an extreme and dangerous power.
Britain has seen its own Obama-like mysticism. The day after Blair was elected in 1997, the Observer predicted that he would create “new worldwide rules on human rights” while the Guardian rejoiced at the “breathless pace [as] the floodgates of change burst open”. When Obama was elected last November, Denis MacShane MP, a devotee of Blair’s bloodbaths, unwittingly warned us: “I shut my eyes when I listen to this guy and it could be Tony. He is doing the same thing that we did in 1997.”"
Monday, April 12, 2010
Venezuela deserves a fair hearing Monday, April 12, 2010 By Pablo Navarrete
"It is a little over 11 years since Hugo Chávez first assumed the presidency in Venezuela, following a landslide election victory that swept the country’s discredited traditional parties out of power. Since then, Chávez has presided over a radical and controversial process of reforms that has been increasingly vilified by the mainstream media – and the English-language media has been no exception.
Rightwing outlets, such as Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News channel, regularly refer to Chávez as a dictator, even though there have been 12 national elections during his time as president – most of which received unprecedented levels of scrutiny by international observers and were systematically deemed as free and fair.
More surprising for many has been the position taken towards the Chávez government by media outlets generally viewed as “liberal”. For example, the BBC has had its coverage of Venezuela questioned recently. In December 2009, researchers at the University of the West of England published the preliminary findings of a 10-year study.
Of 304 BBC reports concerning Venezuela published between 1998 and 2008, the researchers found that only three mentioned any of the Chavez government’s positive reforms – such as poverty reduction programmes that have more than halved the poverty rate from 46.5% in 1998 to 23% in 2009.
\Instead the BBC’s reporting has been characterised by insinuations that Chávez lacks electoral support, and even compared Chávez to Hitler in one instance."
Read the rest here:
http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=233877
Rightwing outlets, such as Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News channel, regularly refer to Chávez as a dictator, even though there have been 12 national elections during his time as president – most of which received unprecedented levels of scrutiny by international observers and were systematically deemed as free and fair.
More surprising for many has been the position taken towards the Chávez government by media outlets generally viewed as “liberal”. For example, the BBC has had its coverage of Venezuela questioned recently. In December 2009, researchers at the University of the West of England published the preliminary findings of a 10-year study.
Of 304 BBC reports concerning Venezuela published between 1998 and 2008, the researchers found that only three mentioned any of the Chavez government’s positive reforms – such as poverty reduction programmes that have more than halved the poverty rate from 46.5% in 1998 to 23% in 2009.
\Instead the BBC’s reporting has been characterised by insinuations that Chávez lacks electoral support, and even compared Chávez to Hitler in one instance."
Read the rest here:
http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=233877
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Saturday, April 10, 2010
JOHN PILGER
I want to concentrate on putting up, daily, John Pilger documentaries as I find them. One would do well in life in knowing the documented work of this man.
This interview, in Houston, Texas 2008, is a nice introduction to Pilger's way of thinking, and his importance as someone who actually gives a damn. Enjoy.
This interview, in Houston, Texas 2008, is a nice introduction to Pilger's way of thinking, and his importance as someone who actually gives a damn. Enjoy.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
“We Will Target and Kill U.S. Citizens Based on Lies and You Will Like It” – Says the New York Times
Here is a powerful essay that explodes with emotion. It's written by a gentleman named Scott Creighton. I wish I could write like this...
"As the American military’s credibility has been cast into the gutter by several recent stories which exposed one lie after the other after the other, the Obama administration is taking the unprecedented step to confirm they feel they have the right to kill any US citizen abroad they determine poses a threat to their imperial agenda… based solely on their say-so.
Secret evidence and the White House’s authorization is enough to arbitrarily kill US citizens under the regime of the Peace Prize “winning” Barack Obama. They state that they want to kill Awlaki, a popular anti-American dissident living in Yemen, because his rhetoric has turned to taking an active hand in orchestrating violence. They don’t offer any proof of this nor do they even state who this violence is directed toward. In fact they offer up no more actual specifics other than to say “he knows what he did”
“The danger Awlaki poses to this country is no longer confined to words,” said an American official, who like other current and former officials interviewed for this article spoke of the classified counterterrorism measures on the condition of anonymity. “He’s gotten involved in plots.” New York Times
In a move that is increasingly less remarkable as the days go by, the New York Times cites an unnamed source and ”secret evidence” as justification for stripping a US citizen of his civil liberties and quite probably his life. In terms of propaganda, the New York Times knows no equal. Not only do they pass this off as an acceptable practice, but they expertly weave into the fabric of the story the way YOU AND I ARE SUPPOSED TO FEEL ABOUT IT.
The official added: “The United States works, exactly as the American people expect, to overcome threats to their security, and this individual — through his own actions — has become one. Awlaki knows what he’s done, and he knows he won’t be met with handshakes and flowers. None of this should surprise anyone.” New York Times
None of this should surprise you, says the New York Times, after all, this is what you expect.
It’s brilliant propaganda which I am sure it will set the tone for this week’s talking points on both sides of the artificial political divide.
On Feb. 12th 2 men and 3 women were killed in a night raid by US Special Forces. Two of the women were pregnant. The soldiers involved used their knifes to dig the bullets out of the women and then a story was concocted that tried to say the women were already dead when they got there, victims of “honor killings”. The New York Times ran with that propaganda story and everything the military said at first about that story turned out to be a lie.
Wikileaks just released a video of an Apache helicopter gunship attack on a crowd of Iraqi civilians and two journalists from 2007 in New Baghdad. The video clearly shows civilians, most all of them unarmed, being targeted and killed in a brazenly callous manner. Then it shows a family in a van showing up to try to help one of the victims being targeted by the gunship and torn to shreds after US soldiers beg for permission to kill more unarmed people. In the front seat you can clearly see two small children. Twenty minutes later the same gunship targets an apartment complex and launches several hell-fire missiles into it even after watching at least 2 unarmed men walk in the front door and in spite of the fact that they can clearly see another innocent, unarmed man walking by the front door right before they fire. Entire families were killed in that building, not “insurgents”. The military covered up that story for years, lying about how the journalists died. Lying about how the children were wounded. Lying about how many victims were armed. Everything the military said about the incident turned out to be a flat-out lie.
The “Umar Fizzlepants” story lacked credibility since day one. Clearly it had been staged as cover for the fact that Obama had given the order to kill a US citizen in a country we aren’t even at war with. In the end, it turns out, that our own intelligence services had to admit that they “allowed” Umar Fizzlepants to board that flight, knowing full well he might be a terrorist. Of course, they didn’t just let him on the plane, they staged the whole thing. But the important part here is that we KNOW they lied about the entire thing right from the start.
Lies, Lies, Lies, and still more Lies. And now, they say we “expect” them to kill anyone they want, any US citizen included, based on nothing more than evidence we can’t see “for national security reasons” and their say-so.
Factor that in with the obviously fabricated recent case of the Hutaree 9, a “homegrown terrorism” plot which the JTTF and the FBI set in motion (and may be completely lying about since there is no recording released so far in which ANY of the suspects talks about killing cops), the McCain Liebermann “belligerent combatant” legislation in the senate and now also in the House, and you have the makings of a rather dangerous mixture of lies, violence, and illegal incarcerations targeting US citizens first and foremost. Jane Harmon, one of the sponsors of the first ”Homegrown Terrorist Act”, summed it up best at the end of the New York Times propaganda piece… certain US citizens are the number one threat to America…
At a panel discussion in Washington on Tuesday, Representative Jane Harman, Democrat of California and chairwoman of a House subcommittee on homeland security, called Mr. Awlaki “probably the person, the terrorist, who would be terrorist No. 1 in terms of threat against us.” New York Times
Now keep in mind, they went out of their way to make the point that they are targeting Awlaki for what he has “done” not just what he has “said” but at the same time they offer no proof of anything he has supposedly done. No proof what-so-ever. So is it all a lie? Why the hell would we believe ANYTHING they say? Are they really just targeting him for what he says? and if so, who is next? Hedges? Greenwald? William Black? Who?
Propaganda runs in terms of campaigns. Lines, talking points, and slogans are simply tools to support an overall agenda and if you can’t see the writing on the wall of this one, you need glasses.
At a time when then general population should be starting to come to at least some of the conclusions we “conspiracy theorists” came to years ago, that the US military is lying through their teeth about what is happening in Iraq and Afghanistan and the rest of their imperial campaign across the Middle East, the New York Times comes out and tells us that we should not only support it, but in fact we should “expect” US citizens to be killed or arrested for no other reason that some unidentified source’s say-so for reasons you and I will never know.
That’s fascism.
The Times is working to normalize the full-on fascist state developing right before our eyes."
http://willyloman.wordpress.com/
"As the American military’s credibility has been cast into the gutter by several recent stories which exposed one lie after the other after the other, the Obama administration is taking the unprecedented step to confirm they feel they have the right to kill any US citizen abroad they determine poses a threat to their imperial agenda… based solely on their say-so.
Secret evidence and the White House’s authorization is enough to arbitrarily kill US citizens under the regime of the Peace Prize “winning” Barack Obama. They state that they want to kill Awlaki, a popular anti-American dissident living in Yemen, because his rhetoric has turned to taking an active hand in orchestrating violence. They don’t offer any proof of this nor do they even state who this violence is directed toward. In fact they offer up no more actual specifics other than to say “he knows what he did”
“The danger Awlaki poses to this country is no longer confined to words,” said an American official, who like other current and former officials interviewed for this article spoke of the classified counterterrorism measures on the condition of anonymity. “He’s gotten involved in plots.” New York Times
In a move that is increasingly less remarkable as the days go by, the New York Times cites an unnamed source and ”secret evidence” as justification for stripping a US citizen of his civil liberties and quite probably his life. In terms of propaganda, the New York Times knows no equal. Not only do they pass this off as an acceptable practice, but they expertly weave into the fabric of the story the way YOU AND I ARE SUPPOSED TO FEEL ABOUT IT.
The official added: “The United States works, exactly as the American people expect, to overcome threats to their security, and this individual — through his own actions — has become one. Awlaki knows what he’s done, and he knows he won’t be met with handshakes and flowers. None of this should surprise anyone.” New York Times
None of this should surprise you, says the New York Times, after all, this is what you expect.
It’s brilliant propaganda which I am sure it will set the tone for this week’s talking points on both sides of the artificial political divide.
On Feb. 12th 2 men and 3 women were killed in a night raid by US Special Forces. Two of the women were pregnant. The soldiers involved used their knifes to dig the bullets out of the women and then a story was concocted that tried to say the women were already dead when they got there, victims of “honor killings”. The New York Times ran with that propaganda story and everything the military said at first about that story turned out to be a lie.
Wikileaks just released a video of an Apache helicopter gunship attack on a crowd of Iraqi civilians and two journalists from 2007 in New Baghdad. The video clearly shows civilians, most all of them unarmed, being targeted and killed in a brazenly callous manner. Then it shows a family in a van showing up to try to help one of the victims being targeted by the gunship and torn to shreds after US soldiers beg for permission to kill more unarmed people. In the front seat you can clearly see two small children. Twenty minutes later the same gunship targets an apartment complex and launches several hell-fire missiles into it even after watching at least 2 unarmed men walk in the front door and in spite of the fact that they can clearly see another innocent, unarmed man walking by the front door right before they fire. Entire families were killed in that building, not “insurgents”. The military covered up that story for years, lying about how the journalists died. Lying about how the children were wounded. Lying about how many victims were armed. Everything the military said about the incident turned out to be a flat-out lie.
The “Umar Fizzlepants” story lacked credibility since day one. Clearly it had been staged as cover for the fact that Obama had given the order to kill a US citizen in a country we aren’t even at war with. In the end, it turns out, that our own intelligence services had to admit that they “allowed” Umar Fizzlepants to board that flight, knowing full well he might be a terrorist. Of course, they didn’t just let him on the plane, they staged the whole thing. But the important part here is that we KNOW they lied about the entire thing right from the start.
Lies, Lies, Lies, and still more Lies. And now, they say we “expect” them to kill anyone they want, any US citizen included, based on nothing more than evidence we can’t see “for national security reasons” and their say-so.
Factor that in with the obviously fabricated recent case of the Hutaree 9, a “homegrown terrorism” plot which the JTTF and the FBI set in motion (and may be completely lying about since there is no recording released so far in which ANY of the suspects talks about killing cops), the McCain Liebermann “belligerent combatant” legislation in the senate and now also in the House, and you have the makings of a rather dangerous mixture of lies, violence, and illegal incarcerations targeting US citizens first and foremost. Jane Harmon, one of the sponsors of the first ”Homegrown Terrorist Act”, summed it up best at the end of the New York Times propaganda piece… certain US citizens are the number one threat to America…
At a panel discussion in Washington on Tuesday, Representative Jane Harman, Democrat of California and chairwoman of a House subcommittee on homeland security, called Mr. Awlaki “probably the person, the terrorist, who would be terrorist No. 1 in terms of threat against us.” New York Times
Now keep in mind, they went out of their way to make the point that they are targeting Awlaki for what he has “done” not just what he has “said” but at the same time they offer no proof of anything he has supposedly done. No proof what-so-ever. So is it all a lie? Why the hell would we believe ANYTHING they say? Are they really just targeting him for what he says? and if so, who is next? Hedges? Greenwald? William Black? Who?
Propaganda runs in terms of campaigns. Lines, talking points, and slogans are simply tools to support an overall agenda and if you can’t see the writing on the wall of this one, you need glasses.
At a time when then general population should be starting to come to at least some of the conclusions we “conspiracy theorists” came to years ago, that the US military is lying through their teeth about what is happening in Iraq and Afghanistan and the rest of their imperial campaign across the Middle East, the New York Times comes out and tells us that we should not only support it, but in fact we should “expect” US citizens to be killed or arrested for no other reason that some unidentified source’s say-so for reasons you and I will never know.
That’s fascism.
The Times is working to normalize the full-on fascist state developing right before our eyes."
http://willyloman.wordpress.com/
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
U.S. Human Rights Record
VI. On U.S. Violations of Human Rights against Other Nations
The United States with its strong military power has pursued hegemony in the world, trampling upon the sovereignty of other countries and trespassing their human rights.
The wars of Iraq and Afghanistan have placed heavy burden on American people and brought tremendous casualties and property losses to the people of Iraq and Afghanistan. The war in Iraq has led to the death of more than 1million Iraqi civilians, rendered an equal number of people homeless and incurred huge economic losses. In Afghanistan, incidents of the U.S. army killing innocent people still keep occurring. Five Afghan farmers were killed in a U.S. air strike when they were loading cucumbers into a van on August 5, 2009 (http://www.rawa.org). On June 8, the U.S. Department of Defense admitted that the U.S. raid on Taliban on May 5 caused death of Afghan civilians as the military failed to abide by due procedures. The Afghan authorities have identified 147 civilian victims, including women and children, while a U.S. officer put the death toll under 30 (The Philadelphia Inquirer, June 9, 2009).
Prisoner abuse is one of the biggest human rights scandals of the United States. A report presented to the 10th meeting of Human Rights Council of the United Nations in 2009 by its Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism showed that the United States has pursued a comprehensive set of practices including special deportation, long-term and secret detentions and acts violating the United Nations Convention against Torture. The rapporteur also said, in a report submitted to the 64th General Assembly of the United Nations, that the United States and its private contractors tortured male Muslims detained in Iraq and other places by stacking the naked prisoners in pyramid formation, coercing the homosexual sexual behaviors and stripping them in stark nakedness (The Washington Post, April 7, 2009). The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has begun interrogation by torture since 2002. The U.S. government lawyers disclosed that since 2001, CIA has destroyed 92 videotapes relating to the interrogation to suspected terrorists, 12 of them including the use of torture (The Washington Post, March 3, 2009). The CIA interrogators used a handgun and an electric drill to frighten a captured al-Qaeda commander into giving up information (The Washington Post, August 22, 2009). The U.S. Justice Department memos revealed the CIA kept prisoners shackled in a standing position for as long as 180 hours, more than a dozen of them deprived of sleep for at least 48 hours, three for more than 96 hours, and one for the nearly eight-day maximum. Another seemed to endorse sleep deprivation for 11 days, stated on one memo (http://www.chron.com). The CIA interrogators used waterboarding 183 times against the accused 9/11 major plotter Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and 83 times against suspected Al-Qaeda leader Abu Zubaydah (The New York Times, April 20, 2009). A freed Guantanamo prisoner said he experienced the "medieval" torture at Guantanamo Bay and in a secret CIA prison in Kabul (AFP, London, March 7, 2009). In June 2006, three Guantanamo Bay inmates could have been suffocated to death during interrogation on the same evening and their deaths passed off as suicides by hanging, revealed by a six-month joint investigation for Harpers Magazine and NBC News in 2009 (www.guardian.co.uk, January 18, 2010). A Somali named Mohamed Saleban Bare, jailed at Guantanamo Bay for eight years, told AFP the prison was "hell on earth" and some of his colleagues lost sight and limbs and others ended up mentally disturbed (AFP, Hargisa, Somali, December 21, 2009). A 31-year-old Yemeni detainee at Guantanamo Bay who had been on a long hunger strike apparently committed suicide in 2009 after four prior suicide deaths beginning at 2002 (The New York Times, June 3, 2009). The U.S. government held more than 600 prisoners at Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan. A United Nations report singled out the Bagram detention facility for criticism, saying some ex-detainees allege being subjected to severe torture, even sexual abuse, and some prisoners put under detention for as long as five years. It also reported that some were held in cages containing 15 to 20 men and that two detainees died in questionable circumstances while in custody (IPS, New York, February 25, 2009). An investigation by U.S. Justice Department showed 2,000 Taliban surrendered combatants were suffocated to death by the U.S. army-controlled Afghan armed forces (http://www.yourpolicicsusa.com, July 16, 2009).
Full Text of Human Rights Record of the United States in 2009
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2010-03/12/c_13208219_10.htmSunday, March 7, 2010
Ahmadinejad: 9/11 a big lie, pretext to occupy Afghanistan
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad insists the capitalist system, established by Israelis, is on verge of collapse, adding that the 9/11 was a set-up to occupy Afghanistan and wage a so-called 'war on terror.'
The president described the September 11, 2001 destruction of the twin World Trade Center buildings in New York as a preconceived "scenario and a sophisticated intelligence measure" and emphasized that the 9/11 incident was a "big lie intended to serve as a pretext for fighting terrorism and setting the grounds for sending troops to Afghanistan."
"Depredation, bullying and killing the reality of humanity are the outcomes of the capitalist way of thinking," Ahmadinejad said on Saturday.
Read the rest of the article at Presstv:
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=120195§ionid=351020101
The president described the September 11, 2001 destruction of the twin World Trade Center buildings in New York as a preconceived "scenario and a sophisticated intelligence measure" and emphasized that the 9/11 incident was a "big lie intended to serve as a pretext for fighting terrorism and setting the grounds for sending troops to Afghanistan."
"Depredation, bullying and killing the reality of humanity are the outcomes of the capitalist way of thinking," Ahmadinejad said on Saturday.
Read the rest of the article at Presstv:
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=120195§ionid=351020101
Saturday, March 6, 2010
My Position
Let us understand where I belong in the question of "Jewishness", before anyone gets the absurd notion that I may be 'on their side'.
You must understand, I come from the notion of choice--FREEDOM. One chooses what they do and say. To construct some excuse for my free choices is absurd. Genealogical reasons of being and doing are left to the world of horoscopes and other predetermination s I find to be comical, and lamentable.
The free, individual being can NOT be categorized. One should dismiss fate, destiny, instinct and any other innate claims which undermine the understanding of conscious, free Being.
I don't support the idea of putting crazy thinking in some special place called 'religion', and making that place respectable. At best, religious thought leads to reflection, but this is rare. The reason is simply that when people gather together under the pretense of blindly following some mystical Being, no good can come of it. People will believe in whatever they wish, but it does not help society, at all, to make these private wishes and hopes a public value.
My point of view is not particularly "secular humanism", for I don't put humans in a privileged place in this world or in my thinking. My view is logical positivist on metaphysical matters, and empathetic concerning free beings, animal-inclusive.
My political persuasion is not anarchism, because if free beings choose government, I see no reason not to have one. But I don't choose autocracies, oligarchies, or fascists. So most present governments I am against.
The sick, twisted way in which science and technology has been misused as predetermination excuses for free being's choices, and for advances in weapons, allows me to support Darwin and Einstein, for example, while separating their theorizing from the misuse that comes from it.
Now. On the question of "Jewishness". This equates with christian-ness, Muslim-ness, and so on.
I don't think much of "race". It's an interpretation of data, based solely on superficial, perceived differences between conscious beings. A 'race' is just some designated grouping of conscious beings, which has acquired the presupposition that these differences are in accordance with what is deemed 'empirical evidence'. This is not so. For instance, color, the skin shades, are as diverse as the individuals in the 'group'. Indeed, the color of one's skin varies through their entire body. The color of one's skin may change with the environment that one exists in. There is no such thing as a black, brown, yellow, or white person. That is puerile. What accounts for the groupings of individuals is merely a statistical game played by academics with an agenda. Sociologists who wish to write a paper within the boundaries of sociology. It is the error of collectivity, where the unique individual is supplanted by the group.
The declarations of a genealogical history dating back to the Israelites of the past stories of their Torah is absurd.
And what of blood? What kind of silliness is this? The percentage of blood one has, making them akin to another is as ridiculous to me as pigmentation.
To be a Jew, one simply has to declare it so. So goes the Muslim, and the christian. It is a chosen group which one wishes to belong to. That is all. No amount of fascist designating, group initiation imposing, or subversive whining can make one choose whether or not to be a Jew, if one does not wish to be. Someone may have a tattoo from Auschwitz, hold a membership card of the ADL, write a book gushing about AIPAC, and their mother died swearing to her grave that she was a jew, it does not matter. If one no longer wants to be a Jew, then they are not a Jew. What makes a person a Jew is clearly the individual's choice to be called one. That is all. That is their choice. Same for the Muslim, the christian, and the Hindu. It is the individual's choice to proceed with belonging to that group or not.
We have a nation in Israel, with their eugenic inclination, fascist leanings, and propaganda program, as well as their intolerance, which finds a definite parallel with the German state in the 1930s. Just as the United State's comparisons with the Roman empire have been made quite often recently, so the Jewish state's comparison with Nazi Germany is easy to see, and quite rightly used as a criticism.
When people scream about Jews being essentially evil, I am against every part of that claim. What we have is individuals supporting the oppression of others. As previously stated, free individual beings make free choices. The application of Occam's razor in not realistic in the matter of disregarding individual responsibility, and replacing it with the simple statement 'They're all responsible'.
I am against all who would support a state that does such horrible things as the Israeli state and the United States are doing. I think disclosing the continuous news items pertaining to the actions, and policies of these two States, as well as others, will be morally worthwhile before I pass away.
You must understand, I come from the notion of choice--FREEDOM. One chooses what they do and say. To construct some excuse for my free choices is absurd. Genealogical reasons of being and doing are left to the world of horoscopes and other predetermination s I find to be comical, and lamentable.
The free, individual being can NOT be categorized. One should dismiss fate, destiny, instinct and any other innate claims which undermine the understanding of conscious, free Being.
I don't support the idea of putting crazy thinking in some special place called 'religion', and making that place respectable. At best, religious thought leads to reflection, but this is rare. The reason is simply that when people gather together under the pretense of blindly following some mystical Being, no good can come of it. People will believe in whatever they wish, but it does not help society, at all, to make these private wishes and hopes a public value.
My point of view is not particularly "secular humanism", for I don't put humans in a privileged place in this world or in my thinking. My view is logical positivist on metaphysical matters, and empathetic concerning free beings, animal-inclusive.
My political persuasion is not anarchism, because if free beings choose government, I see no reason not to have one. But I don't choose autocracies, oligarchies, or fascists. So most present governments I am against.
The sick, twisted way in which science and technology has been misused as predetermination excuses for free being's choices, and for advances in weapons, allows me to support Darwin and Einstein, for example, while separating their theorizing from the misuse that comes from it.
Now. On the question of "Jewishness". This equates with christian-ness, Muslim-ness, and so on.
I don't think much of "race". It's an interpretation of data, based solely on superficial, perceived differences between conscious beings. A 'race' is just some designated grouping of conscious beings, which has acquired the presupposition that these differences are in accordance with what is deemed 'empirical evidence'. This is not so. For instance, color, the skin shades, are as diverse as the individuals in the 'group'. Indeed, the color of one's skin varies through their entire body. The color of one's skin may change with the environment that one exists in. There is no such thing as a black, brown, yellow, or white person. That is puerile. What accounts for the groupings of individuals is merely a statistical game played by academics with an agenda. Sociologists who wish to write a paper within the boundaries of sociology. It is the error of collectivity, where the unique individual is supplanted by the group.
The declarations of a genealogical history dating back to the Israelites of the past stories of their Torah is absurd.
And what of blood? What kind of silliness is this? The percentage of blood one has, making them akin to another is as ridiculous to me as pigmentation.
To be a Jew, one simply has to declare it so. So goes the Muslim, and the christian. It is a chosen group which one wishes to belong to. That is all. No amount of fascist designating, group initiation imposing, or subversive whining can make one choose whether or not to be a Jew, if one does not wish to be. Someone may have a tattoo from Auschwitz, hold a membership card of the ADL, write a book gushing about AIPAC, and their mother died swearing to her grave that she was a jew, it does not matter. If one no longer wants to be a Jew, then they are not a Jew. What makes a person a Jew is clearly the individual's choice to be called one. That is all. That is their choice. Same for the Muslim, the christian, and the Hindu. It is the individual's choice to proceed with belonging to that group or not.
We have a nation in Israel, with their eugenic inclination, fascist leanings, and propaganda program, as well as their intolerance, which finds a definite parallel with the German state in the 1930s. Just as the United State's comparisons with the Roman empire have been made quite often recently, so the Jewish state's comparison with Nazi Germany is easy to see, and quite rightly used as a criticism.
When people scream about Jews being essentially evil, I am against every part of that claim. What we have is individuals supporting the oppression of others. As previously stated, free individual beings make free choices. The application of Occam's razor in not realistic in the matter of disregarding individual responsibility, and replacing it with the simple statement 'They're all responsible'.
I am against all who would support a state that does such horrible things as the Israeli state and the United States are doing. I think disclosing the continuous news items pertaining to the actions, and policies of these two States, as well as others, will be morally worthwhile before I pass away.
Friday, March 5, 2010
The Occupation of Palestine
This is a very good documentary. It shows just how bad the state-media in the U.S. is, when "reporting" the horror of the Israeli occupation of Palestine.
Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land: Media & the Israel-Palestine Conflict
Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land: Media & the Israel-Palestine Conflict
Thursday, March 4, 2010
It's "Israeli Apartheid Week". It's time to unite against the continued crimes of Israel and the U.S.
US has vetoed dozens of UN Security Council resolutions to shield Israel from criticism
In addition to a long list of UN General Assembly resolutions that Israel has not complied with, there is also a long list of Security Council resolutions that the United States has vetoed to shield Israel from criticism by the Security Council over the Zionist state’s barbaric actions against the Palestinian people and the Arab states. Here is a partial list of US vetoes, in chronological order.
On September 10, 1972, the United States vetoed a Security Council resolution condemning Israel’s unprovoked attacks against Southern Lebanon and Syria. Thirteen Council members (including four of the five permanent members with veto powers and nine of the ten non-permanent members who are elected by the General Assembly for two-year terms starting on January 1 with five replaced each year) voted for the resolution. One non-permanent member abstained from voting. The United States was the only Council member that voted against the resolution, thereby vetoing it.
On July 26, 1973, the United States vetoed a Security Council resolution affirming the rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination, statehood and equal protections under international law. Thirteen Council members (including three permanent members, with China absent, and all ten elected members) voted for the resolution. The United States was the only member that voted against the resolution, thereby vetoing it.
On December 8, 1975, the United States vetoed a Security Council resolution condemning Israel’s air strikes and attacks in Southern Lebanon and its murder of innocent civilians. Thirteen Council members (including four permanent members and nine elected members) voted for the resolution. One elected member abstained from voting. The United States was the only member that voted against the resolution, thereby vetoing it. By vetoing the resolution, the US was, in effect, condoning Israel’s murder of innocent civilians in Southern Lebanon.
On January 26, 1976, the United States vetoed a Security Council resolution calling for the self-determination of the Palestinian people. Nine Council members (including four permanent members and five elected members) voted for the resolution. Three elected members abstained from voting. Two elected members were absent. The United States was the only member that voted against the resolution, thereby vetoing it.
On March 25, 1976, the United States vetoed a Security Council resolution deploring Israel’s altering of the status of Jerusalem (occupied al-Quds), which is recognised as an international city by most world nations and the United Nations. The United States was the only Council member that voted against the resolution, thereby vetoing it.
On June 29, 1976, the United States vetoed a Security Council resolution affirming the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people. Ten Council members (permanent and elected) voted for the resolution, with four abstentions. The United States was the only member that voted against the resolution, thereby vetoing it.
On April 30, 1980, the United States vetoed a Security Council resolution endorsing self-determination for the Palestinian people. Ten Council members (permanent and elected) voted for the resolution, with four abstentions. The United States was the only member that voted against the resolution, thereby vetoing it.
On January 20,1982, the United States vetoed a Security Council resolution demanding Israel’s withdrawal from Syria’s Golan Heights, which has been under illegal Israeli occupation since the Arab-Israeli war of 1967 (a war, it should be remembered, that was started by Israel). Nine council members (permanent and elected) voted for the resolution, with four abstentions. One member was absent. The United States was the only member that voted against the resolution, thereby vetoing it.
In addition to the Golan Heights Israel remained in illegal occupation of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula from 1967 until 1979, when the territory was returned to Egypt under the terms of the Camp David Accords. Israel also remained in illegal occupation of the Palestinian Gaza Strip and the West Bank for many years, and still makes periodic illegal military incursions into both territories. It has cut off the Gaza Strip’s contacts with the outside world, shattered the Strip’s economy by banning the export of its products, cut off electricity supplies and prevented Gaza’s inhabitants from working in Israel.
The Zionist state has also built a massive barrier around the West Bank, turning it into a besieged ghetto, in blatant violation of a July 2004 ruling by the International Court of Justice at The Hague directing Israel to immediately cease construction of the wall and dismantle the sections that had already been built by then. Ignoring the ICJ ruling and widespread international condemnation of the wall, Israel has continued to press ahead with its construction. The wall, which now almost completely encircles the West Bank, has divided the Palestinian territory into a series of ghettoes.
Israel has also built dozens of illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank, ignoring repeated calls by the international community to dismantle the settlements. In violation of the West Bank’s rights as a lower riparian territory, Israel has also illegally diverted water flows from rivers and underground water channels from the West Bank to Israeli territory, causing serious damage to the West Bank’s agriculture and leaving many of its farmers virtually destitute.
All this has been done without a squeak of protest from the United States. Nor has the US ever put any pressure on Israel to mend its ways and stop its barbaric actions against the Palestinian people. On the contrary, the US continues to be Israel’s staunchest ally and gives it over $ 4 billion a year in economic and military aid – most of it in the form of grants that do not have to be re-paid. Since 1980, the US has given Israel a total of more than $ 100 billion in economic and military aid.
On April 2, 1982, the United States vetoed a Security Council resolution condemning Israel’s mistreatment of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip and its refusal to abide by Geneva Convention protocols of civilised nations. The United States was the only Council member that voted against the resolution, thereby vetoing it.
On April 20, 1982, the United States vetoed a Security Council resolution condemning an Israeli soldier who shot 11 Muslim worshippers on the Temple Mount of the Harm-al-Sharif near the Al-Aqsa Mosque in the Old City of Jerusalem (occupied Al-Quds). The United States was the only Council member that voted against the resolution, thereby vetoing it. In doing so, what the US was, in effect, saying was that it was ‘okay’ for Israeli soldiers to shoot Muslim worshippers.
And, yet, many US commentators continue to ask: “Why do they (the Muslims) hate us?” Such commentators should know that it is not the American people that Muslims hate but the foreign policy of successive US governments.
On June 18, 1982, the United States vetoed a Security Council resolution that urged sanctions against Israel if it did not withdraw from its invasion of Lebanon. The United States was the only Council member that voted against the resolution, thereby vetoing it.
During the course of Israel’s unprovoked invasion of Lebanon, the Zionist state laid siege to Beirut and subjected the city to a massive artillery bombardment for eight long months, reducing much of the city to rubble. Israel eventually withdrew from Northern Lebanon, but continued to illegally occupy Southern Lebanon for nearly twenty long years.
Moreover, the Israeli forces, which were led by then-Israeli Defence Minister General Aerial Sharon (later prime minister of Israel) stood by and did nothing while Israeli-backed Lebanese Christian Falangist militias massacred over 800 Muslim Lebanese civilians in the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps. The massacre earned Sharon the sobriquet of “the Butcher of Sabra and Shatilla.”
In the late-1990s, when Sharon was prime minister, he ordered Israeli army builldozers to demolish the West Bank Palestinian refugee camp of Jenin, leaving scores of Palestinian refugees, including women and children, buried alive under the rubble. That horrific action earned Sharon the additional epithet of “the Butcher of Jenin.”
In the summer of 2006, Israel again invaded Lebanon and subjected it to a massive aerial and artillery bombardment, killing over 1,000 Lebanese civilians in the process, destroying much of the country’s infrastructure, and sending several hundred thousand Lebanese civilians fleeing out of the country to take refuge in neighbouring Syria.
The list of US vetoes of Security Council resolutions critical of Israel goes on and on...
http://www.defence.pk/forums/world-affairs/14631-us-has-vetoed-dozens-un-security-council-resolutions-shield-israel-critici.html
Here is a documentary of the 2006 attack on Lebanon:
Lebanon - Fog of War . Shocking Documentary About Lebanon War & Qana
In addition to a long list of UN General Assembly resolutions that Israel has not complied with, there is also a long list of Security Council resolutions that the United States has vetoed to shield Israel from criticism by the Security Council over the Zionist state’s barbaric actions against the Palestinian people and the Arab states. Here is a partial list of US vetoes, in chronological order.
On September 10, 1972, the United States vetoed a Security Council resolution condemning Israel’s unprovoked attacks against Southern Lebanon and Syria. Thirteen Council members (including four of the five permanent members with veto powers and nine of the ten non-permanent members who are elected by the General Assembly for two-year terms starting on January 1 with five replaced each year) voted for the resolution. One non-permanent member abstained from voting. The United States was the only Council member that voted against the resolution, thereby vetoing it.
On July 26, 1973, the United States vetoed a Security Council resolution affirming the rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination, statehood and equal protections under international law. Thirteen Council members (including three permanent members, with China absent, and all ten elected members) voted for the resolution. The United States was the only member that voted against the resolution, thereby vetoing it.
On December 8, 1975, the United States vetoed a Security Council resolution condemning Israel’s air strikes and attacks in Southern Lebanon and its murder of innocent civilians. Thirteen Council members (including four permanent members and nine elected members) voted for the resolution. One elected member abstained from voting. The United States was the only member that voted against the resolution, thereby vetoing it. By vetoing the resolution, the US was, in effect, condoning Israel’s murder of innocent civilians in Southern Lebanon.
On January 26, 1976, the United States vetoed a Security Council resolution calling for the self-determination of the Palestinian people. Nine Council members (including four permanent members and five elected members) voted for the resolution. Three elected members abstained from voting. Two elected members were absent. The United States was the only member that voted against the resolution, thereby vetoing it.
On March 25, 1976, the United States vetoed a Security Council resolution deploring Israel’s altering of the status of Jerusalem (occupied al-Quds), which is recognised as an international city by most world nations and the United Nations. The United States was the only Council member that voted against the resolution, thereby vetoing it.
On June 29, 1976, the United States vetoed a Security Council resolution affirming the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people. Ten Council members (permanent and elected) voted for the resolution, with four abstentions. The United States was the only member that voted against the resolution, thereby vetoing it.
On April 30, 1980, the United States vetoed a Security Council resolution endorsing self-determination for the Palestinian people. Ten Council members (permanent and elected) voted for the resolution, with four abstentions. The United States was the only member that voted against the resolution, thereby vetoing it.
On January 20,1982, the United States vetoed a Security Council resolution demanding Israel’s withdrawal from Syria’s Golan Heights, which has been under illegal Israeli occupation since the Arab-Israeli war of 1967 (a war, it should be remembered, that was started by Israel). Nine council members (permanent and elected) voted for the resolution, with four abstentions. One member was absent. The United States was the only member that voted against the resolution, thereby vetoing it.
In addition to the Golan Heights Israel remained in illegal occupation of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula from 1967 until 1979, when the territory was returned to Egypt under the terms of the Camp David Accords. Israel also remained in illegal occupation of the Palestinian Gaza Strip and the West Bank for many years, and still makes periodic illegal military incursions into both territories. It has cut off the Gaza Strip’s contacts with the outside world, shattered the Strip’s economy by banning the export of its products, cut off electricity supplies and prevented Gaza’s inhabitants from working in Israel.
The Zionist state has also built a massive barrier around the West Bank, turning it into a besieged ghetto, in blatant violation of a July 2004 ruling by the International Court of Justice at The Hague directing Israel to immediately cease construction of the wall and dismantle the sections that had already been built by then. Ignoring the ICJ ruling and widespread international condemnation of the wall, Israel has continued to press ahead with its construction. The wall, which now almost completely encircles the West Bank, has divided the Palestinian territory into a series of ghettoes.
Israel has also built dozens of illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank, ignoring repeated calls by the international community to dismantle the settlements. In violation of the West Bank’s rights as a lower riparian territory, Israel has also illegally diverted water flows from rivers and underground water channels from the West Bank to Israeli territory, causing serious damage to the West Bank’s agriculture and leaving many of its farmers virtually destitute.
All this has been done without a squeak of protest from the United States. Nor has the US ever put any pressure on Israel to mend its ways and stop its barbaric actions against the Palestinian people. On the contrary, the US continues to be Israel’s staunchest ally and gives it over $ 4 billion a year in economic and military aid – most of it in the form of grants that do not have to be re-paid. Since 1980, the US has given Israel a total of more than $ 100 billion in economic and military aid.
On April 2, 1982, the United States vetoed a Security Council resolution condemning Israel’s mistreatment of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip and its refusal to abide by Geneva Convention protocols of civilised nations. The United States was the only Council member that voted against the resolution, thereby vetoing it.
On April 20, 1982, the United States vetoed a Security Council resolution condemning an Israeli soldier who shot 11 Muslim worshippers on the Temple Mount of the Harm-al-Sharif near the Al-Aqsa Mosque in the Old City of Jerusalem (occupied Al-Quds). The United States was the only Council member that voted against the resolution, thereby vetoing it. In doing so, what the US was, in effect, saying was that it was ‘okay’ for Israeli soldiers to shoot Muslim worshippers.
And, yet, many US commentators continue to ask: “Why do they (the Muslims) hate us?” Such commentators should know that it is not the American people that Muslims hate but the foreign policy of successive US governments.
On June 18, 1982, the United States vetoed a Security Council resolution that urged sanctions against Israel if it did not withdraw from its invasion of Lebanon. The United States was the only Council member that voted against the resolution, thereby vetoing it.
During the course of Israel’s unprovoked invasion of Lebanon, the Zionist state laid siege to Beirut and subjected the city to a massive artillery bombardment for eight long months, reducing much of the city to rubble. Israel eventually withdrew from Northern Lebanon, but continued to illegally occupy Southern Lebanon for nearly twenty long years.
Moreover, the Israeli forces, which were led by then-Israeli Defence Minister General Aerial Sharon (later prime minister of Israel) stood by and did nothing while Israeli-backed Lebanese Christian Falangist militias massacred over 800 Muslim Lebanese civilians in the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps. The massacre earned Sharon the sobriquet of “the Butcher of Sabra and Shatilla.”
In the late-1990s, when Sharon was prime minister, he ordered Israeli army builldozers to demolish the West Bank Palestinian refugee camp of Jenin, leaving scores of Palestinian refugees, including women and children, buried alive under the rubble. That horrific action earned Sharon the additional epithet of “the Butcher of Jenin.”
In the summer of 2006, Israel again invaded Lebanon and subjected it to a massive aerial and artillery bombardment, killing over 1,000 Lebanese civilians in the process, destroying much of the country’s infrastructure, and sending several hundred thousand Lebanese civilians fleeing out of the country to take refuge in neighbouring Syria.
The list of US vetoes of Security Council resolutions critical of Israel goes on and on...
http://www.defence.pk/forums/world-affairs/14631-us-has-vetoed-dozens-un-security-council-resolutions-shield-israel-critici.html
Here is a documentary of the 2006 attack on Lebanon:
Lebanon - Fog of War . Shocking Documentary About Lebanon War & Qana
Monday, March 1, 2010
Bombs all over the place...
Below, is a documentary showing the reporting that took place before, during and after September 11th, 2001. Very interesting how much doubt even the major media reporting instills into that event when assembled together like the film below does. It's well worth your time.
Friday, February 26, 2010
I am the only one in the room, but my T.V. is talking to someone else...
The U.S. wants to control Iranian oil, put a military base in Iran, control their banks, control the drug trade in the middle east, and basically have control over the entire middle east region just like the hungry, greedy, people we are. But we know this already. So the nuclear issue is a point of sale, but to whom? We know what the U.S. government wants with Iran, so who is the media speaking to about Iranian nuclear weapons?
Isn't it just a moments reflection which allows us to see that the Iranian nuclear movie is based on a true story, perhaps, but, is only an illusion. For Iran has more right than almost any country on earth, presently, to have nuclear weapons as a deterrent to invasion from the U.S. The U.S. does not invade countries which actually have weapons of mass destruction. Pakistan? No. Pakistan's military allows the U.S. to murder people in it's borders for various reasons. Pakistan has not been "invaded" by the U.S. It co-operates with the U.S., as well as other countries, in one of the more complex 'games' in the world today.
So who does the media in the U.S., stage their ridiculous rhetoric for?
Isn't it just a moments reflection which allows us to see that the Iranian nuclear movie is based on a true story, perhaps, but, is only an illusion. For Iran has more right than almost any country on earth, presently, to have nuclear weapons as a deterrent to invasion from the U.S. The U.S. does not invade countries which actually have weapons of mass destruction. Pakistan? No. Pakistan's military allows the U.S. to murder people in it's borders for various reasons. Pakistan has not been "invaded" by the U.S. It co-operates with the U.S., as well as other countries, in one of the more complex 'games' in the world today.
So who does the media in the U.S., stage their ridiculous rhetoric for?
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)