The Republican Jewish Coalition has placed the following advertisement in the US Jewish press:
If “defenders of freedom” are using Lieberman as their new hero, they’re getting rather desperate.
Monthly Archive for March, 2007
While Iraqi President Jalal Talabani has admitted that the “American liberation of Iraq … has turned into an occupation, with tragic consequences on the country”, the reality in Fallujah is horrifying:
Iraqis in the volatile al-Anbar province west of Baghdad are reporting regular killings carried out by U.S. forces that many believe are part of a ‘genocidal’ strategy.
Since the mysterious explosion at the Shia al-Askari shrine in Samara in February last year, more than 100 Iraqis have been killed daily on average, without any forceful action by the Iraqi government and the U.S. military to stop the killings.
U.S. troops and Iraqi security forces working with them are also executing people seized during home raids and other operations, residents say.
“Seventeen young men were found executed after they were arrested by U.S. troops and Fallujah police,” 40-year-old Yassen of Fallujah told IPS. “My two sons have been detained by police, and I am terrified that they will have the same fate. They are only 17 and 18 years old.”
Residents of Fallujah say the local police detention centre holds hundreds of men, who have had no legal representation.
Others are killed by random fire that has long become routine for U.S. and Iraqi soldiers. Sa’ad, a 25-year-old from the al-Thubbat area of western Fallujah was killed in such firing.
“The poor guy kept running home every time he saw U.S. soldiers,” a man from his neighbourhood, speaking on condition of anonymity, told IPS. “He used to say: Go inside or the Americans will kill you.” Sa’ad is said by neighbours to have developed a mental disability.
He was recently shot and killed by U.S. soldiers when they opened fire after their patrol was struck by a roadside bomb.
It’s amazing what nonsense journalists will sprout after taking a free trip to Israel. Case study number one, Sydney Morning Herald columnist Paul Sheehan:
“…No question we will see another Kristallnacht because the Nazis are rising around the world”.
Nazis are rising? Real Nazis? Or Iranian ones? Or perhaps he’s referring to al-Qaeda. Or Hamas. Or Hizbollah.
Or perhaps he’s just been brain-washed by those highly efficient IDF Powerpoint presentations.
Since the capture of the British sailors by Iran, some interesting revelations have come to light.
Tony Blair is adamant that the soldiers were captured on the Iraqi side of the border. Former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray tells us something different:
The British Government has published a map showing the coordinates of the incident, well within an Iran/Iraq maritime border. The mainstream media and even the blogosphere has bought this hook, line and sinker.
But there are two colossal problems.
A) The Iran/Iraq maritime boundary shown on the British government map does not exist. It has been drawn up by the British Government. Only Iraq and Iran can agree their bilateral boundary, and they never have done this in the Gulf, only inside the Shatt because there it is the land border too. This published boundary is a fake with no legal force.
B) Accepting the British coordinates for the position of both HMS Cornwall and the incident, both were closer to Iranian land than Iraqi land. Go on, print out the map and measure it. Which underlines the point that the British produced border is not a reliable one.
None of which changes the fact that the Iranians, having made their point, should have handed back the captives immediately. I pray they do so before this thing spirals out of control. But by producing a fake map of the Iran/Iraq boundary, notably unfavourable to Iran, we can only harden the Iranian position.
Of course, the British media has been ablaze with vitriol aimed at the Iranians, with rumours that British troops surrounded the Iranian embassy in Basra and fired into the air. The word is that this was the 6th incursion into Iranian waters by the British, not a single incident.
Conspiracy theories have been sparked by the fact that the female member of the team, Seaman Specialist Faye Turney, was interviewed only hours before the British were captured. The timing seems strangely convenient.
During a revealing interview on The BBC’s Newsnight programme last night, Diplomatic Editor, Mark Urban, explained how unlikely it is that such an event could actually happen. The area where this event supposedly took place was well within the Radar Scope of HMS Cornwall, not to mention a whole host of other vessels: which were all mysteriously absent at the moment when the Iranian interception party appeared on the scene.
Urban and host Jeremy Paxman conclude that The Royal Navy were, at the very least, grossly negligent in their duty of policing The Shat Al Arab/International Waterways.
So was a trap set for the Iranians?
What kind of society has Israel become? A bitterly divided and racist one, according to a new study:
Over half of the Jewish population in Israel believes the marriage of a Jewish woman to an Arab man is equal to national treason, according to a recent survey by the Geocartography Institute.
The survey, which was conducted for the Center Against Racism, also found that over 75 percent of participants did not approve of apartment buildings being shared between Arabs and Jews. Sixty percent of participants said they would not allow an Arab to visit their home.
Five hundred Jewish men and women participated in the poll, which was published Tuesday.
According to the survey, racism against Arabs in Israel has seen a sharp rise since a similar survey was conducted two years ago.
In 2006, 247 racist acts against Arabs were reported, as opposed to 225 one year prior.
About 40 percent of participants agreed that “Arabs should have their right to vote for Knesset revoked”. The number was 55 percent lower in the previous survey. Also, over half of the participants agreed that Israel should encourage its Arab citizens to immigrate from the country.
Over half of the participants said they would not want to work under the direct management of an Arab, and 55 percent said “Arabs and Jews should be separated at entertainment sites”.
Participants were asked what they felt when they overheard someone speaking Arabic. Thirty-one percent said they felt hatred, while 50 percent said they felt fear.
Over 56 percent of participants said they believed that Israel’s Arab citizens posed both a security and a demographic threat to the country.
When asked what they thought of Arab culture, over 37 percent replied, “The Arab culture is inferior.”
Zionists may claim that Israel is the Middle East’s only democracy, but it seems that many Israelis would rather all Arabs left the country entirely.
When it comes to discussing Israel/Palestine, politicians the world over are notoriously reticent to speak the truth about facts on the ground. In Australia, the only Jewish Federal MP, Michael Danby, seems incapable of mounting an argument that is more sophisticated than repeating press releases from the Israeli Foreign Ministry. Both major sides in politics are desperate to maintain the rehearsed lines to keep the Americans happy and what better way to do that than to uncritically praise the superpower’s leading client state, Israel?
Enter Michael Forshaw, a NSW Labor MP. After an undistinguished career and only occasional uninformed comments about Israel, he rose in the Senate yesterday and launched a tirade on anti-Semitism (page 38 onwards). His speech read like comments prepared for him by the Zionist lobby, such was its wilful ignorance. For example:
…What is very disturbing is the growing trend today towards anti-Semitism and demonising Israel and Jews under the guise of academic research and/or political analysis and debate.
He cited statements by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Mearsheimer/Walt Israel lobby paper and yours truly. My public statements on the pernicious effects of the lobby, its tendency to bully opponents and attempts to silence criticism of Israeli crimes was all condemned:
Mr Loewenstein’s allegations are absolutely ridiculous. They are also hypocritical. Firstly, the very fact that Mr Loewenstein’s article appeared in the Australian newspaper, and that his book, published subsequently, has gained such prominence in the public debate and in the media, including the Jewish media in this country, demonstrates the fallacy of his argument. Following publication of his book by Melbourne University Publishing, Mr Loewenstein received nationwide coverage in both the printed and electronic media. The coverage of this debate went on for weeks, so it is ludicrous to argue that he has somehow been prevented from debating these issues and from having his views heard.
The debate about Israel’s policies, the US’s policies and the Middle Eastern conflicts is very much alive in this country, just as it is in the United States and throughout the Western world. It is very much alive, particularly in the state of Israel itself, which is a strong democracy, albeit one that has been under constant threat for all of its existence. The evidence of that debate stands in stark contrast to most Islamic and Arab nations. I note that my colleague Senator Stephens earlier this year raised in the Senate the plight of Mr Salah Choudhury. Mr Choudhury is a journalist in Bangladesh who had the temerity to write an article criticising Islamic extremism and supporting interfaith dialogue, particularly between Christians, Muslims and Jews. He is now on trial for sedition in Bangladesh.
The second point I want to make is that whilst I have read many articles in the Australian media by commentators such as Mr Loewenstein, Professor Amin Saikal and others criticising Israel, I am still waiting to read an article by them criticising Ahmadinejad’s anti-Semitic attacks and calls for the destruction of the state of Israel. I very much doubt that those articles, if they have been written, have been censored or prevented from being published.
Thirdly, when it comes to pressure being applied to prevent public debate, the worst instance that I can recall was the call a couple of years ago by academics in the United Kingdom, supported by academics in this country and in other Western countries, for a boycott of Israel, Israeli academics and institutions. Indeed, in the United Kingdom, Jewish academics were sacked for the very fact that they were Jewish. When academics in a democratic country call for a boycott of academics in another democratic country simply because they are Jewish then we have a serious problem. I do not recall Mr Loewenstein ever condemning that action.
A tactic that is also used in criticising Israel is to use the language that is particularly pertinent to the Jewish experience. Israel has been accused of ethnic cleansing, of genocide, of war crimes, of apartheid and even of perpetrating a holocaust on the Palestinian people. That is absolute nonsense and it is anti-Semitic. When your country has been threatened with annihilation, when your people have experienced the Holocaust—the murder of six million Jews—is it any wonder that persons from that community will stand up and defend their country’s right to exist and their people’s right to peace and democracy in the face of anti-Semitism?
Senator Forshaw is clearly still high from his last all-expenses paid trip to Israel and its military machine. During last year’s Iranian Holocaust Denial conference, I regularly condemned the proceedings, as did many Iranians. I have not said I’m being silenced, but the ability of citizens to freely criticise Israel and its policies results in slander and abuse, usually from fellow Jews.
The Senator may think that it is “anti-Semitic” to say the Israeli occupation of Palestine is reminiscent of apartheid, but many distinguished figures would disagree (and I wonder how often Forshaw has actually seen inside the occupied territories further than his Israeli minders would allow him to travel.)
Israel is under constant international pressure because its behaviour is consistently illegal, immoral and counter-productive. The Senator, like so many talking-heads before him, may regard themselves as friends of Israel but they are in fact contributing to the country’s destruction.
Supporting the troops is the unrelenting catch phrase of the war party, yet the war party continues to behave like an abusive parent towards the troops:
TWO Australian soldiers who served in the first Iraq war have tested positive to depleted uranium (DU) contamination despite assurances from the Federal Government they had not been exposed, an anti-nuclear group said today.
Of course, warnings about the side effects of exposure to depleted uranium are nothing new, but the damage is exacerbated by the fact that governments either insist that the particulates are harmless, or they deny that symptoms experienced by affected veterans are related to exposure.
The abuse doesn’t end there.
A new scandal is emerging related to an anthrax vaccine administered to troops despite suspicions of adverse side effects.
Documents obtained by RAW STORY, including a participant’s agreement, case history and government documents, show that military medical personnel have known since at least 1998 that there are genetic triggers between illnesses and some required immunizations, including the anthrax vaccine. They also reveal the military knew and did not implement routine pre-screening which could help reduce vaccine-related illnesses.
With support like this, who needs enemies?
A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit against former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for the torture of prisoners in US custody overseas. The American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights First had brought the case on behalf of nine former prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan. The suit said Rumsfeld had tacitly or directly authorized a series of abuses including beatings, stabbings, shocks, burnings and sexual humiliation. In his dismissal ruling, U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan acknowledged the men had been tortured. But he said they do not have constitutional rights to seek redress and that government officials are immune.
The court accepted that the nine men who sued had been tortured – and detailed the torture in its ruling.
But Judge Thomas Hogan ruled the five Iraqis and four Afghans did not have US constitutional rights, and also that Mr Rumsfeld was immune from such suits.
In other words, the court recognized that torture had occurred to all nine men and that Rumsfeld was responsible.
U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan threw out a lawsuit brought on behalf of nine former prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan. He said Rumsfeld cannot be held personally responsible for actions taken in connection with his government job.
At least we can put to bed the carnard that Abu Graib was some kind of anomaly perpetrated by poorly trained grunts on night duty. After he left office, Rumsfeld posted a list of his achievements on the Pentagon website, under the heading, “Rumsfeld, six years of accomplishment,” which included developing new methods of interrogation – new methods of getting information from prisoners at Guantanamo.
You couldn’t make this stuff up. Rumsfeld actually regarded implementing torture as an accomplishment.
And they wonder, why do they hate us?
After “victory” has been declared in Iraq – shame about the ways in which the US and Iraqi authorities treat journalists – what do Islamist websites say about the conflict?
The invaluable Conflicts Forum regularly translates these sites and provides Western audience with an insight rarely given by our media:
The “Council Assembly of Mujahidin ” — the anti-American alliance in Iraq led by Al-Qaeda — declared on October 15, 2006, the establishment of an Islamic State of Iraq in the central and western regions of the country. There was little official reaction from international and regional governments — the only reaction came from President Bush when he said that the US will never allow such a project to be realized. But the facts on the ground are that the US can do little to stand in the way of the pursuit of such a project, and Al-Qaeda is not asking for permission.
The silence from regional governments towards such a declaration is not a sign of indifference. Commentators suggest that, on the contrary, this silence reflects a deep concern and worry about the Al-Qaeda project. [Source]
These commentators see an Islamic State of Iraq led by Al-Qaeda as more than a serious threat to the stability of countries like Jordan and Saudi Arabia, but as a threat to their existence. Al-Qaeda is viewed as waiting for the day when they will have access to any border with Israel, and it is well known that the Jordanian border is the longest and most strategic.
For Saudi Arabia, this new Islamic state is a threat because it will increase the influence of the pro-Al-Qaeda groups inside a country where the culture is already receptive to the influence of Al-Qaeda’s ideology.
For Israel, this might be a serious threat, not less than the Iranian atomic program but maybe more, since Israel understands that compromise and political negotiation may be possible with the Iranian government, but not with Al-Qaeda.
At least one Western independent website cares what Arabs are saying about their world.
For a country that tries so hard to prove that it is joined at the hip with the US, Israel has a strange way of demonstrating its affection sometimes.
Condoleezza Rice received a humiliating snub from Israel yesterday when it refused her offer to act as negotiator between its government and the Palestinian authorities.
Poor Condi has been working so hard to try and kick start peace talks between the new Palestinian Unity Government and Israel, but Olmert is playing his cards close to his chest. He can’t reject talks completely, so he appears to be trying to buy time.
A US official said last night that Mr Olmert agreed to resume face-to-face talks with Mr Abbas in a possible move towards restarting substantive peace talks. The official said Mr Olmert and Mr Abbas would initially hold low-key “confidence-building” sessions in the wake of the moderate Palestinian leader’s new power-sharing deal with Hamas militants.
Whatever could Olmert have in mind?
Another shadow was cast over Ms Rice’s efforts by the arrival yesterday of 2,000 Jewish settlers at the northern West Bank settlement of Homesh evacuated in August 2005 under Ariel Sharon’s disengagement plan.
UDATE 1: Jonathan Freedland has written a fascinating article where he proposes that Israel is turning down a wonderful opporunity:
Now there is a chance to break the deadlock. The 22 member nations of the Arab League are meeting for two days in Riyadh, with the Arab-Israeli conflict high on their agenda. They are preparing to make a remarkable offer: if Israel withdraws to its 1967 borders, pulling out of the West Bank and Gaza, they will agree to a full and comprehensive peace, including normal relations, between the entire Arab world and Israel.
With this in mind, the only question is, what is stopping Israel from accepting the offer:
This, in case anyone has forgotten, is what Israel says it has yearned for since its creation 59 years ago, the acceptance of a Jewish state in the Middle East by its neighbours. What’s more, Israel has always feared that a separate accord with the Palestinians would not hold because the Palestinians would be too weak to make historic compromises – on, say, the holy sites of Jerusalem – alone. An accord with 22 Arab nations would remove all such worries. Any final settlement between Israel and the Palestinians would be underpinned, with the leading Muslim states giving their blessing to the concessions that would be required. And they would promise what Yasser Arafat never could: that the conflict was truly, finally, over.
Does it come down to the simple fact that the price is one that Israel’s leadership is not prepared to pay?
Rory O’Connor, Guardian Comment is Free, March 27:
Leave it to the New York Times to pronounce something “corrupt” and then wholeheartedly embrace it as “crucial”.
This week’s Sunday magazine piece by Max Frankel is the most recent and stunning example of the Times’ weird worldview. In a cover story, the paper’s former executive editor concludes that “the real lesson” of the recent Scooter Libby trial is that Washington’s “black market in information” – which the Times defines as “the messy and at times illicit traffic in secrets carried out among Washington officials and those who report on their doings” – is an evil necessary for democracy. “Leaks, backgrounders, favors, masked attribution: For decades, journalists and government officials have…manipulated one another and, to some extent, readers too,” the magazine noted. “It’s not pretty – as the Libby trial revealed. But it’s crucial.”
True, the trial provided a rare public glimpse at the corrupt nexus of Big Politics and Big Media – of which the Times is of course a charter member. While Frankel’s assessment that “it’s not pretty” is certainly sound, the rest of his analysis is unsurprisingly skewed. “Favors and masked attribution” do sound journalistically ugly and corrupt – as does “manipulating readers” – but the Washington back channel is certainly not crucial for anyone except perhaps the privileged players who participate in it. Moreover, it’s demonstrably bad for our democracy. (Witness the ongoing carnage in Iraq, which the Times manipulated many of its readers into supporting!) Only charter members of the Big Media club, which performed so shamefully during the run-up to both the war and the Libby trial, could conclude otherwise.
For those that haven’t yet heard the good news? We’re winning in Iraq!
… we can win in Iraq, we are winning in Iraq, and George Bush’s surge strategy is responsible for it. Not even the AP can ignore it* anymore:
According to the AP:
The US military has captured the leaders of a car-bombing ring blamed for killing hundreds of Iraqis.
The news came as the departing US ambassador said Americans are in ongoing talks with insurgent representatives to try to persuade them to turn against al-Qaeda.
Jules Crittenden chimes in to remind us that the AP, who secretly wants the terrorists to win, is underplaying the victory:
The AP in this article grudgingly leaves out the kind of helpful interpretative graphs that usually are added to explain how Sunni bombings threaten Shiites, who no longer feel safe because the Mahdi Army bolted, and all of this threatens the fragile surge, blah blah blah.
If you think that means we’re winning, wait until you hear this! We killed Zarqawi! And Uday and Qusay were killed too! And Saddam was captured, tried and executed! And these were all turning points that showed we were winning! Just like capturing those car bombers is a turning point.
As luck would have it, you can always count on Michael Ware to spoil the party.
George Soros may have become an outspoken critic of Israel and its aggressive lobby, but it appears he won’t be funding a counter-lobby to AIPAC:
Billionaire George Soros has no plans to put his money where his mouth is, a spokesman said Tuesday — two days after the philanthropist and political advocate assailed the pro-Israel lobby as a threat to Israeli and U.S. interests.
Rumors, rife since last October, that Soros would fund a dovish alternative to the influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee, quickened when Soros published a blistering attack on the lobby in the New York Review of Books this week. But Soros spokesman Michael Vachon rebutted the notion he would bankroll such an effort.
“He considered it,” said Vachon. “Many people wanted him to fund the effort. In the end he decided he should not be involved.
“On the other hand,” Vachon added, “Who can predict the future?”
These last comments suggest that perhaps Soros can still be convinced to invest in an organisation that challenges the militant Zionism that runs rampant across the US political spectrum.
Back in Australia, the Jewish community continues to amuse with its parochialism. A Jewish Greens MP won a seat in last week’s NSW election and a Zionist leader responds: “They are committed to allowing more Israelis to die, simply because they’re denying Israel the right of self-defence.” Yes, the Greens love terrorists, didn’t you know? The same Zionist brain also wants to tell the world that Israel is a peace-loving nation (shame about the expanding occupation and killing of Palestinian civilians.)
Perhaps the most pathetic recent missive has been this article by the deputy editor of Sydney’s Sun-Herald newspaper under the headline: “Why I refused to publish Loewenstein’s articles.” The only problem is I do write regularly for his paper. He did censor one article of mine on Israel last year for the most spurious of reasons, but as long as readers of the Jewish press thinks that he is standing up for Israel’s inherent worth.
It’s a shame that his knowledge of the conflict is so poor, therefore, such as this line: “And any positive behaviour from Israel, such as the Gaza withdrawal, is an inconvenient truth.” Imprisoning over one million Palestinians is “positive behaviour” in his Jewish mind.
The Zionist imagination is seriously lacking in understanding. After all, Israel is a poor little nation in the heart of an ugly, Arab Middle East, remember?
War apologists have uniformly condemned and worked overtime to try and debunk the findings of the Lancet Medical Jouranal’s study on both occasions that it published reports on excess deaths resulting from the Iraq war. Experts in statics and gathering such data have however been just as quick to defend the methods and results of that study. Indeed, the critics all but ignored the fact that the survey had been peer-reviewed.
Well, it appears that these included high ranking officials within the British military:
The British government was advised against publicly criticising a report estimating that 655,000 Iraqis had died due to the war, the BBC has learnt.
Iraqi Health Ministry figures put the toll at less than 10% of the total in the survey, published in the Lancet.
But the Ministry of Defence’s chief scientific adviser said the survey’s methods were “close to best practice” and the study design was “robust”.
Another expert agreed the method was “tried and tested”.
It’s easy to understand why the war party has been so determined to discredit the survey. With all the pre and post invasion rationales falling apart like pack of cards, the only altruistic reason for continuing the occupation is to prevent bloodshed, and this survey threatens to ridicule any pretense that the cure has been better than the illness.
As the hapless Bush administration again attempts to broker “peace” in the Middle East – perhaps Condi Rice would like to pressure Israel to stop expanding the occupation, though that’s about as likely as Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert expressing independence from Washington – Gideon Levy reminds the world of a few facts of life:
It is hard to understand how once again Israel manages to coerce the international community to dance to its tune. After it dragged the world into a futile boycott of Yasser Arafat, it now drags them into a boycott of Haniyeh, and thus only serves the desired aim of the government, which holds the key to ending the conflict: to reject any negotiations.
Europe and the United States must understand that the Palestinian unity government has created a partner. They must also understand that it is impossible to make peace with half the leadership and that it is precisely the presence of Hamas in the government that will ensure that every solution reached can be implemented.
Boycotting the elected prime minister only because this is what the rejectionist front in Israel and Washington want is an act of folly. A visit to the Palestinian Authority while boycotting the prime minister is pointless.
Democracy is an exalted value for the United States. Yet, when the PA became the only place in the Arab world in which free elections were held, the rest of the world turned its back on it. What does the world wish to signal to the Palestinians? That elections are a just mechanism, but only if the results are predetermined? This is a blatantly anti-democratic message for the budding Palestinian democracy. It is also a negative message with respect to nonviolence: Hamas, which adopted a cease-fire, is not receiving any political return.
Of course, if you’re a tired old Zionist who longs for the days of unreported Israeli brutality against the Palestinians, you’ll keep telling yourself that “alternative” Jewish voices – such as Independent Australian Jewish Voices – are threatening the Jewish state. It’s our dear friend, Isi Leibler:
Throughout the Diaspora there are alienated Jews on the fringe whose primary involvement in Jewish life is centered on undermining the Jewish state.
Now they are seeking to establish themselves as a respectable alternative Jewish voice. This is the price we are paying for having long buried our heads in the sand, failing to isolate from the mainstream Jews who dedicate themselves to delegitimizing and demonizing Israel.
The potential damage they are capable of inflicting upon us cannot be underestimated. Jews defaming their own people is hardly a new phenomenon. Their presence is evident throughout history from the age of antiquity on. In the Middle Ages, the most virulent promoters of anti-Semitism were Jewish converts. During the Emancipation period, Jews committed to universalism, socialism and other “isms” were inciting hatred against their kinsmen, as exemplified in the anti-Semitic outbursts of Karl Marx and the late 19th-century Russian Jewish social revolutionaries, who justified pogroms as a necessary lubricant to create a revolutionary climate.
Jewish self-haters were silent during the Holocaust era because the Nazis targeted all Jews. After the war, Jewish communists and their “progressive” fellow travelers reemerged as the most fervent apologists of Stalinist crimes. During the campaign to liberate Soviet Jewry, they denied Soviet anti-Semitism and defended – even applauded – state-sponsored anti-Semitic show-trials and executions of their kinsmen.
Like their contemporary successors, their effectiveness as spokesmen for our enemies was linked to the fact that they paraded their Jewish origins. However in contrast to today’s Jews who demonize Zion, they were considered pariahs by mainstream Jews and clearly perceived by non-Jews as outcasts from their own people.
Today those delegitimizing the Jewish state are frequently indulged in respectable Jewish circles. Some Jewish leaders have even suggested that a “pluralistic” community should not discriminate against anti-Israel “dissidents.”
Always remember, dear reader: no matter what Israel does to the Palestinians, no matter how much the settlements are expanding, and no matter how many Lebanese civilians were killed in last year’s war, “dissident” Jews are the real problem for Israeli PR. After all, playing the victim is so effective, isn’t it?
Over the weekend, The U.N. Security Council voted to impose new sanctions against Iran for its refusal to stop enriching uranium.
The U.N. Security Council unanimously voted Saturday to impose new sanctions against Iran for its refusal to stop enriching uranium — a move intended to show Tehran that defiance will leave it increasingly isolated.
While the UNSC resolution called for sanctions, the US ambassador to the UN made a very disturbing statement that Tehran had 60 days to comply or Washington would unilaterally impose further measures.
So in spite of the fact that the UN Security council has agreed to Washington’s wishes, the Bush Administration has decided to go it alone anyway.
Beyond the inevitable consequences of what these further measures might be, what this decision has also done is effectively trash the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Iran has followed the conditions of the NPT to the letter, and agreed to additional measures since 2003, yet the US has demonstrated that being a signatory to the NPT is futile unless you are in Washington’s good books.
Under the terms of the treaty, signatories are legally entitled to develop nuclear power plants and to produce the fuel to operate these reactors. Iran signed that treaty. So did the United States, but one of the benefits of being a superpower is being able to change the rules.
Compare this to the incredible hypocrisy John Bolton displayed when the issue of India’s nuclear power and weapons program was raised last year at the UN. Bolton defended India’s program, stating that it was legal because India were not signatories to the NPT at the time.
The Bush Administration’s short sightedness is truly astounding.
George W. Bush is so concerned that weapons of mass destruction will fall into the wrong hands that he’s going to roll back the entire global nonproliferation regime — 50 years in the making — so we can sleep safe at night.
Does the word Orwellian come to mind?
Scientists have created the world’s first human-sheep chimera – which has the body of a sheep and half-human organs.
The sheep have 15 per cent human cells and 85 per cent animal cells – and their evolution brings the prospect of animal organs being transplanted into humans one step closer.
Now if only they can pump out ten million of these.
The eloquence of actor Sean Penn at a recent anti-war rally in the US:
But now, we are encouraged to self-censor any words that might be perceived as inflammatory – if our belief is that this war should stop today. We cower as you point fingers telling us to “support our troops.” Well, you and the smarmy pundits in your pocket, those who bathe in the moisture of your soiled and bloodstained underwear, can take that noise and shove it. We will be snowed no more. Let’s make this crystal clear. We do support our troops in our stand, while you exploit them and their families. The verdict is in. You lied, connived, and exploited your own countrymen and most of all, our troops.
You Misters Bush and Cheney; you Ms. Rice are villainously and criminally obscene people, obscene human beings, incompetent even to fulfill your own self-serving agenda, while tragically neglectful and destructive of ours and our country’s. And I got a question for your daughters Mr. Bush. They’re not children anymore. Do they support your policy in Iraq? If they do, how dare they not be in uniform, while the children of the poor; black, white, Asian, Hispanic, and all the other American working men and women are slaughtered, maimed and flown back into this country under cover of darkness.
Now, because I’ve been on the streets of Baghdad during this occupational war, outside the Green Zone, without security, and you haven’t; I’ve met children there. In that country of 25 million, these children have now suffered minimally, a rainstorm of civilian death around and among them totaling the equivalent of two hundred September 11ths in just four years of war. Two hundred 9/11s. Two hundred 9/11s.
You want to rattle sabers toward Iran now? Let me tell you something about Iran, because I’ve been there and you haven’t. Iran is a great country. A great country. Does it have its haters? You bet. Just like the United States has its haters. Does it have a corrupt regime? You bet. Just like the United States has a corrupt regime. Does it want a nuclear weapon? Maybe. Do we have one? You bet. But the people of Iran are great people. And if we give that corrupt leadership, (by attacking Iran militarily) the opportunity to unify that great country in hatred against us, we’ll have been giving up one of our most promising future allies in decades. If you really know anything about Iran, you know exactly what I’m referring to. Of course your administration belittles diplomatic potential there, as those options rely on a credibility and geopolitical influence that you have aggressively squandered worldwide.
The US presence in Iraq is unique for a number of reasons, one of them being the number of female troops serving there.
This has resulted in the proportional escalation in sexual harassment that has taken place. Last year, Col. Janis Karpinski testified to the horrific conditions female recruits are subjected to. Female soldiers are instructed to be accompanied by someone when they visit latrines. Naturally this is extremely inconvenient when nature calls in the middle of the night.
Last week, Col. Janis Karpinski told a panel of judges at the Commission of Inquiry for Crimes against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration in New York that several women had died of dehydration because they refused to drink liquids late in the day. They were afraid of being assaulted or even raped by male soldiers if they had to use the women’s latrine after dark.
“Because the women were in fear of getting up in the darkness [to go to the latrine], they were not drinking liquids after 3 or 4 in the afternoon,” Karpinski testified, according to a report on Truthout.org. “In the 100 degree heat, they were dying of dehydration in their sleep.”
One of the most infamous stories is that of Suzanne Swift, a women who enlisted in the military. Having been sexually harassed and abused, she chose not to report for duty after leave, having had her complaints ignored by the authorities.
She was arrested and confined to base for going AWOL in 2006, after charges of sexual harassment and assault went unaddressed by the military. She says she was sexually harassed and abused by her commanders in Iraq and in the US.
Clearly, the treatment of women in the US military demands to be addressed. Most disturbing of all is that, if this is the way the military treat their own, it boggles the mind as to how they can possibly hope to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people.