Antony Loewenstein

Blogger Andrew Sullivan, recently made aware of the disastrous and destructive actions of radical Jews and hardline Zionists, gets it in one:

Peter Beinart heralds it in:

“Ever since 9/11, according to opinion polls, Republicans have worried more about terrorism than have Democrats. Initially, this fear translated into overwhelming support for military action abroad. But as Republicans (like everyone else) have grown tired and embittered by America’s wars, they have turned their anxiety inward, lured by the same idea that attracted Palmer and the McCarthyites: that America could guarantee its safety on the cheap by ferreting out the real threat, which resides within.”

They have found the new communism. It’s called Islam. But I fear, unlike Peter, that they have not tired of wars, just counter-insurgencies, and will never support actual withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan ever, because it reveals “weakness” in the war they want to escalate rather than defuse, and to use for domestic purposes rather than to understand and win.

I also predict that a military attack on another Muslim country, Iran, will be the next outward expression of this new McCarthyism. And if Israel does it, it will be used by the neocon and Palinite right as a sign that Obama was too Muslim and too weak and too un-American to do it himself. The script is pretty obvious. What the neocons have to do first is kill off the peace process to pave the way for the Greater Israel Palin supports and believes in. Watch them do it.

Reclaiming what is theirs:

Israel’s foreign Ministry has acquired the @Israel username on Twitter, the social networking site, from the Spanish owner of adult porn sites.

The Spaniard, who now lives in Miami, Florida, is called Israel Melendez and he set up the account for free in 2007, when Twitter was still a relatively new phenomenon.

An intimate look at the tunnels running from Gaza to Egypt screened last weekend on Australia’s SBS Dateline.

It’s a dirty and dangerous business and continues to serve the people of Gaza, providing a life-line during the stifling Israeli blockade.

Another day, another revelation of Murdoch shamelessness in Britain:

Sienna Miller was today expected to become the latest public figure to join the legal assault on Scotland Yard and the News of the World over the phone-hacking scandal.

Lawyers for the actor, whose private life has long been a tabloid staple, said she was ready to join the former deputy prime minister John Prescott and others in asking the courts for a judicial review of the police‘s conduct of the case.

Sources at the News of the World said she had taken the first step towards suing the paper for invading her privacy by allegedly listening to her voicemail messages.

The legal moves came after Miller, 28, discovered that the paper’s private investigator, Glenn Mulcaire, had procured her mobile phone numbers, account number and secret PIN code, needed to intercept the voicemail of the minority of people who change the factory settings on their phones.

It also emerged today that Sean Hoare, a former News of the World journalist who told the New York Times and the BBC about hacking at the paper under Coulson, has been interviewed by police under caution. Lawyers said this indicated he was being treated by police as a suspect. “An interview under caution would follow someone being arrested as a suspect, except in the most exceptional circumstances,” said Peter Lodder QC, a criminal barrister.

Paul McMullan, a second former News of the World staffer who told the Guardian that hacking was rife at the paper, was also contacted by detectives and told that they would like to question him under caution.

Who says the Israelis don’t want peace?

They do.

Lessons in corrupt contracting (and something increasingly relied upon by Western allies in Iraq):

The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad paid millions to a government contractor for meals and snacks that nobody ate, according to a new internal State Department report.

The State Department’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) found that the embassy overpaid by over $2 million, including over $1 million in snacks alone. The funds went to contractor KBR, the former subsidiary of Halliburton that runs food service for the over 1,500 employees of the world’s largest embassy complex.

“KBR’s headcount records from meals consumed do not match dining facility account records, and OIG was unable to reconcile the difference. These discrepancies suggest that in FY 2009 there were $2.23 million in unsupported food costs,” the report stated.

A significant part of the discrepancy was due to how people are counted when they stop by what’s called the “Grab-n-Go” snack stands at the embassy. This resulted in $970,000 dollars paid to KBR it didn’t deserve, the report explained.

This is pretty extraordinary (and therefore has received no mainstream media coverage).

Feryal Ali Gauhar, Pakistani actress, filmmaker, writer and human rights activist, appears on Democracy Now! and reveals the real role of the US in Pakistan after the devastating floods:

…But it is well known, if not acknowledged by—particularly by the state, that the base for the drones, where they’re housed before they are automated, is in Pakistan. The current government has literally gone blue in the face denying that.
But I just happened to stumble across a contractor—and that’s not the Blackwater contractor—the contractor who built the base, who inadvertently, actually, spoke about it. But he was speaking about it in a different context, and that context was the fact that he was there at the time of the flooding—and, you know, this is the worst catastrophe to have hit any state since apparently biblical times. So, he actually mentioned to me that the River Indus, which is one of the largest rivers in the world, carrying now a volume of water which has not been known in contemporary history, was breached on the left bank deliberately in order to protect the base, which is on the right bank. And the breaching caused, consequentially, the inundation of an entire district, which resulted in the displacement of millions, not thousands, but millions, because we have 170 million people in the country, and this particular district is one of the most densely populated. So, yes, there is a connect between, you know, what is considered to be a natural disaster, but then the management of that disaster is not natural at all.

…

AMY GOODMAN: We had reports that both the water was diverted, which flooded further Pakistanis, and also that the US military had to refuse to allow it to be used as a staging base for aid.

FERYAL ALI GAUHAR: Also, also true. Yes, that is also true, and which makes it even more ironic that, you know, in this so-called battle for hearts and minds—I mean, we all know that, you know, the agenda behind this very poetic sort of, you know, expression of hearts and minds, the agenda is really of violence and imperialism. And it is even more ironic that we have had many state—many visits by important personages from the United States government, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. And, you know, there is this desperate sort of a need to reach out to the Pakistani people. And the flood almost seems to have presented itself as an opportunity for American foreign policy to be accepted more readily by Pakistani people in exchange for relief. And, you know, relief consists of food aid, as well as shelter. But the irony is that, you know, while there is a physical military presence in the country, that is cordoned off and cannot be used for humanitarian purposes.

So American forces and helicopters have actually been flying in from the Seventh Fleet into Pakistan and from other locations, possibly even from Afghanistan, because in 2005 during the colossal earthquake, which cost us 75,000 lives, we did have a diversion of the particular kinds of helicopters, which are the large—I think they’re called the Chinook, which was diverted from Afghanistan, from the duties there, which, again, is ironic—I mean, I just find things all connected—which is again ironic because at the time of Hurricane Katrina, the National Guard, who was supposed to have been protecting the American people, the National Guard was engaged in Afghanistan at that time, or in Iraq, one of the two countries. So, you know, you have this ongoing irony, series of ironies, where the state is meant to protect the people; it’s actually protecting only its own interests at the expense of the people.

What better way to show affection for an occupied nation? Hire thugs to protect a space that only exists due to the Australian government’s desperate desire to join the Bush administration into the country in 2003:

The Defence Department plans to fully privatise security at Australia’s Baghdad embassy by the end of the year, after quietly outsourcing most of the guard duties to Chilean paramilitary and army veterans, the ABC can reveal.

Senior army sources say 60 Chilean contractors work 12-hour shifts at the embassy – almost twice as long as the Australian Defence Force (ADF) allows its personnel to be on duty for in summer months.

The men are paid $2,200 a month, the equivalent of Australia’s minimum wage, to guard the front gate and man machine gun nests, security cameras and alarm systems.

The Chilean contractors are overseen by a former Australian serviceman and employed by Australian private contractor Unity Resources Group (URG).

URG, which won the $9 million government contract already in place and would be expected to secure any future contracts, was founded by former Special Air Service (SAS) commander Gordon Conroy and several other Australian veterans.

The Government is supposed to publish all government contracts on a public tender registry but the embassy deal has never been declared.

A statement from the Department of Finance explained that contracts can only be suppressed by the chief executive of a department if they believe “that the information is genuinely sensitive and harm is likely to be caused by its disclosure”.

A senior Army officer who spoke to the ABC says Australian soldiers still conduct just one security duty at the embassy: the personal security detail of the Head of Mission, Bob Tyson, and of visiting dignitaries if they leave the compound and travel through Baghdad.

It is this final function that the department plans to privatise by the end of the year.

But the moves have met resistance from within the embassy.

The ABC understands Mr Tyson has requested the Personal Security Detail stay in the hands of the ADF.

The presence of Chileans at the embassy has not been without incident.

On March 22, one of the men on perimeter duty was Esteban Lara Pina, a 35-year-old father of one. He had worked in Iraq for a number of employers since 2005 but his income had steadily declined as more and more willing men arrived in Baghdad.

Over time he developed what he called “psychological problems”. That day, standing in full view of the street, he took his weapon, pointed it at his own chest and fired.

Afterwards, the former Chilean army sergeant was airlifted to Amman, Jordan.

There he underwent six operations to save his life and eventually flew back to Santiago, Chile to recover with his family.

Since being put on a plane home from Jordan he has been unable to contact anyone from URG, from which he is trying to recover ongoing medical costs.

“They’ve never contacted me, not even to see how I am, and certainly not offered to help me in any way and I can’t get hold of them,” he said.

“I’ve been ill, I’ve had psychological problems from which I’m still recovering.”

In Chile, it is illegal to recruit men for private military work.

It seems that every few days sees a new BDS victory:

Britain’s unions have thrown their weight behind a campaign of disinvestment and boycott from companies which are profiting from Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territories.
Trade unions voted unanimously today at the TUC’s annual conference for a motion put forward by the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association (TSSA), seconded by the GMB, and supported by UNSION, PCS (the Public and Commercial Services Union) and the FBU (Fire Brigades’ Union).
The motion called for the General Council to work closely with the Palestine Solidarity Campaign to actively encourage affiliates, employers and pension funds to disinvest from, and boycott the goods of, companies who profit from illegal settlements, the Occupation and construction of the Apartheid Wall.
It condemned Israel’s blockade of the Palestinian territories, in particular Gaza, and the Israeli military’s deadly assault on aid ships carrying humanitarian supplies to Gaza in May. It also called for an immediate end to the siege on Gaza, and a full independent inquiry into the attack on the Turkish aid ship, the Mavi Marmara, which killed nine activists.
A separate General Council statement requires the TUC, which represents 6.5 million workers across the UK, to have a concrete programme for action in place by next month
Hugh Lanning, Chair of PSC, said: ‘This motion builds on that passed at last year’s conference to campaign for a boycott of goods from the illegal West Bank settlements. It is a massive step forward in the movement for justice for the Palestinian people, and reflects growing public anger at Israel’s aggression towards the Palestinians and those, such as the humanitarians on the Gaza aid flotilla, who try to help them.’
Mr Lanning added: ‘Trade unions were pivotal in helping to end Apartheid in South Africa and bring freedom to that country’s people. Today’s vote shows that Britain’s unions are prepared to stand up again in support of an oppressed people – this time the Palestinians – and help them to win their freedom. This is an historic moment for the union movement in the UK, and one that it can be proud of.’

This warms the heart. Jews and Muslims praying next to each other in the Bronx. It’s possible:

Iraqis still remain almost invisible when the war is being discussed. Far easier for the corporate press to interview a US general who blathers about something.

But Iraqi refugee schoolchildren are struggling in Syria and literally millions of Iraqis are displaced, abused and lost.

All these issues are addressed in my friend Mike Otterman’s recently released work, Erasing Iraq.

Guy Rundle reports in today’s Crikey that Julian Assange should be defended and supported by those who believe in human rights (and don’t want to back imperial wars in the Middle East or beyond):

The treatment of WikiLeaks’ spokesperson Julian Assange, facing investigations of harassment and rape, has been disgraceful, leading international human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson has said from London, and the Australian government should make a formal protest to the Swedish ambassador on behalf of Assange, an Australian citizen.

“Mr Assange has been the victim of utterly incompetent prosecutors who have severely damaged his rights — the rights that every person in Europe has granted to them under the European convention,” Robertson said, speaking exclusively to Crikey last week.

“The Australian government — now that we have a government — should carpet the Swedish ambassador and make a formal protest against the treatment of Assange.”

Assange, based in Sweden, faces charges of “harassment” arising from inquiries and complaints made by two women to the Swedish police in August, one a press officer for a faction of the Social Democratic Party. A charge of rape was also issued by a duty prosecutor at the country’s prosecution service, before being withdrawn 24 hours later.

The investigation of the rape charge was then reopened by Marianne Ny, head of Sweden’s prosecution service. The two complainants are on record as stating that they were not alleging r-pe charges against Assange, and the latter charges were only reopened after they hired prominent lawyer Claes Borgstrom, also a powerful figure in the ruling Social Democrat Party. Ny is a prominent advocate of extending the crime of rape and sexual assault in wider areas of sexual behaviour, and the rape investigation was reopened after Borgstrom approached her personally.

The charges against Assange came several weeks after WikiLeaks released a cache of nearly 80,000 US government documents covering ongoing Afghan war operations, revealing higher levels of civilian casualties at US-alliance hands, and a bleak picture of US progress in the war.

The timing of these events led many to speculate on the possibility that WikiLeaks’ highest profile figure may have been drawn into a sting based on Sweden’s comprehensive and wide-ranging s-x crime and harassment laws, as a way of splitting progressive support for the organisation. US counter-intelligence bureau documents have previously spoken of destroying WikiLeaks by attacking its existence as a “centre of trust” for diverse groups of activists and whistleblowers.

“Mr Assange may have been naïve but he is not a criminal,” Robertson remarked, and suggested that even if Swedish prosecutors proceeded with charges, higher authorities would come to his aid.

“In due course I predict that the European Court of Human Rights would uphold Assange’s position and order the Swedish government to compensate him. His lawyers should already be preparing for that eventuality.”

The Swedish prosecution service is due to make an announcement on its investigations this week. Meanwhile, WikiLeaks is preparing to release a new cache of documents on the Iraq war, and rumoured to number as high as 200,000. The release will be done in conjunction with the non-profit Bureau for Investigative Journalism, Newsweek, and other outlets.