No comment called for....
From FDL The Seminal:
"One thing I’ve learned in my long life: There is a value gained by experience that cannot be gleaned from the writings of others, no matter how intellectually advanced those may be.
Daniel Ellsberg, leaker of The Pentagon Papers in the 1970s, gives in this YouTube clip his experience-produced gems of wisdom about the Afghan War that I hope President Obama takes foremost in consideration in making the critical, history making decision before him now. Must 58,000 of our soldiers die, over 100,000 be wounded, multitudes of Afghans be killed, wounded and made refugees before reality dawns on the decision makers? What does it tell us of those who refuse to learn from history’s lessons?"
Go here to watch the video.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Student expelled to Gaza Strip - by force
As if it isn't bad enough that the Israelis prevent the free movement of Palestinians - those wretched border crossings and checkpoints - and limits access to water to the Palestinians and even school books and materials to enter Gaza, now it resorts to actually expelling Palestinians, by force, to Gaza.
The Independent reports on what can only be described as appalling and disgraceful behaviour by the Israelis - and certainly not in any way reflective of the sort of country which proclaims, as a Jewish State, that it is a "light unto the Nations".
"A Palestinian student has been handcuffed, blindfolded and forcibly expelled to the Gaza Strip by Israeli troops just two months before she was due to graduate from university.
Berlanty Azzam, 21, who was studying for a business degree at Bethlehem University, said she was coming home in a shared taxi from a job interview in Ramallah on Wednesday when soldiers at the "Container" checkpoint took her identity card and that of another passenger with a Gaza address.
After six hours of waiting, soldiers told her she would be taken to a detention centre in the southern West Bank, and she was handcuffed and blindfolded, she said."
The Independent reports on what can only be described as appalling and disgraceful behaviour by the Israelis - and certainly not in any way reflective of the sort of country which proclaims, as a Jewish State, that it is a "light unto the Nations".
"A Palestinian student has been handcuffed, blindfolded and forcibly expelled to the Gaza Strip by Israeli troops just two months before she was due to graduate from university.
Berlanty Azzam, 21, who was studying for a business degree at Bethlehem University, said she was coming home in a shared taxi from a job interview in Ramallah on Wednesday when soldiers at the "Container" checkpoint took her identity card and that of another passenger with a Gaza address.
After six hours of waiting, soldiers told her she would be taken to a detention centre in the southern West Bank, and she was handcuffed and blindfolded, she said."
Friday, October 30, 2009
And you call this a civilised world?
Daniel Goldhagen broadens the indictment he leveled in his book "Hitler’s Willing Executioners" in his latest book, "Worse than War: Genocide, Eliminationism, and the Ongoing Assault on Humanity".
In what appears to be a searing, and depressing, book - as reviewed on Tablet - the reviewer writes, in part quoting Goldhagen:
“The number of people who have been mass murdered [in the 20th century] is, conservatively estimated, 83 million,” he writes early on. “When purposeful famine is included, the number becomes 127 million, and if the higher estimates are correct the total number of victims of mass murder may be 175 million or more.” This means than between 2 and 4 percent of all deaths in the last century were due to genocidal violence—and that is not including deaths in “ordinary” warfare."
And we claim that we live in a civilised world!........and then there is the now familiar refrain at the end of WW2 "never again".
In what appears to be a searing, and depressing, book - as reviewed on Tablet - the reviewer writes, in part quoting Goldhagen:
“The number of people who have been mass murdered [in the 20th century] is, conservatively estimated, 83 million,” he writes early on. “When purposeful famine is included, the number becomes 127 million, and if the higher estimates are correct the total number of victims of mass murder may be 175 million or more.” This means than between 2 and 4 percent of all deaths in the last century were due to genocidal violence—and that is not including deaths in “ordinary” warfare."
And we claim that we live in a civilised world!........and then there is the now familiar refrain at the end of WW2 "never again".
History repeating itself [again!]
Glenn Greenwald makes a compelling point with respect to the Afghan War in his latest piece on Salon:
"I'm traveling still today, but I wanted to note an amazing Op-Ed that was referenced in a book I'm reading: the Op-Ed is by Nikolai Lanine, published in The Toronto Globe and Mail in November, 2006. Lanine was drafted into the Russian Army at the age of 18 and spent several years as part of the Russian occupying force in Afghanistan. Thereafter, he moved to Canada, and in 2006, his wife's first cousin, a medic in the Canadian Army, was killed in Afghanistan. Lanine wrote this column after attending his funeral, and recounted what he and his comrades in the Russian Army believed they were doing in Afghanistan:
I identified with the Canadian soldiers at the funeral mourning the loss of their friend. Like them, I went to Afghanistan believing in "fighting terrorism" and "liberating Afghans." During my first mission, we were protecting refugees escaping an area that was under attack by the mujahedeen. I was deeply affected by their misery, and by the poverty and suffering of the Afghan people in general. In my mind, our presence was "helping Afghans," particularly with educating women and children. My combat unit participated in "humanitarian aid" - accompanying doctors and delivering food, fuel, clothing, school and other supplies to Afghan villages.
It was only later that I began to wonder: Did that aid justify our aggression ?"
Continue reading here.
"I'm traveling still today, but I wanted to note an amazing Op-Ed that was referenced in a book I'm reading: the Op-Ed is by Nikolai Lanine, published in The Toronto Globe and Mail in November, 2006. Lanine was drafted into the Russian Army at the age of 18 and spent several years as part of the Russian occupying force in Afghanistan. Thereafter, he moved to Canada, and in 2006, his wife's first cousin, a medic in the Canadian Army, was killed in Afghanistan. Lanine wrote this column after attending his funeral, and recounted what he and his comrades in the Russian Army believed they were doing in Afghanistan:
I identified with the Canadian soldiers at the funeral mourning the loss of their friend. Like them, I went to Afghanistan believing in "fighting terrorism" and "liberating Afghans." During my first mission, we were protecting refugees escaping an area that was under attack by the mujahedeen. I was deeply affected by their misery, and by the poverty and suffering of the Afghan people in general. In my mind, our presence was "helping Afghans," particularly with educating women and children. My combat unit participated in "humanitarian aid" - accompanying doctors and delivering food, fuel, clothing, school and other supplies to Afghan villages.
It was only later that I began to wonder: Did that aid justify our aggression ?"
Continue reading here.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Obama: Twelve months on, the star falls back to earth
There is more than criticism of Obama in the US. He is now constantly the butt of pure unadulterated bile, vitriol and plain lies.
But how is he doing as his first 12 months in office approaches? The Independent's David Usborne gives his analysis and assessment:
".......... President Obama, who seems, one year on from his election, to be hovering in the view of most Americans between competent and fumbling, notwithstanding the high esteem in which he is still held abroad and, of course, in the minds of the Nobel committee.
What is certain is that the almost-mad expectations placed on Obama that unusually warm night in Chicago's Grant Park when he delivered his victory speech last November, have given way now to a general unease about his performance in office. For sure, he has mostly avoided calamity. Not getting the Olympics for Chicago doesn't count. Nor is his administration in disarray or anything close to it. (Mr Clinton had barely arrived in office before he was instantly engulfed in mini-scandals.)"
But how is he doing as his first 12 months in office approaches? The Independent's David Usborne gives his analysis and assessment:
".......... President Obama, who seems, one year on from his election, to be hovering in the view of most Americans between competent and fumbling, notwithstanding the high esteem in which he is still held abroad and, of course, in the minds of the Nobel committee.
What is certain is that the almost-mad expectations placed on Obama that unusually warm night in Chicago's Grant Park when he delivered his victory speech last November, have given way now to a general unease about his performance in office. For sure, he has mostly avoided calamity. Not getting the Olympics for Chicago doesn't count. Nor is his administration in disarray or anything close to it. (Mr Clinton had barely arrived in office before he was instantly engulfed in mini-scandals.)"
Another Report [this time Amnesty International], another condemnation!
The criticisms of Israel for a whole host of reasons continue unabated. If it's not the Goldstone Report its Care International, Oxfam, the UN, Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International.
Needless to say Israel dismisses them all. Basically, according to the Israelis, the Reports on whatever by these well-respected organisations are baseless or simply wrong. All of them?
Now the next Report, this time from Amnesty International [again] has just hit the desk - critical of Israel's restrictions on Palestinians of access to water.
The Independent reports in "Israel accused of denying Palestinians access to water":
"Israel is accused today of denying the West Bank and Gaza access to adequate water through a "total" and "discriminatory" control that enables its own people to consume four times as much as the Palestinians.
An Amnesty International report paints a picture of many Palestinian families struggling – and often failing – to secure enough water for drinking, cleaning, and agriculture while Israelis, including residents of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, have all they need for lush, irrigated farmland, swimming pools and gardens.
Amnesty also suggests that taxpayers in countries who donate aid to the Palestinians are facing unnecessarily high costs to meet severe water shortages because their governments are unwilling to challenge "the most unreasonable" restrictions imposed by Israel on Palestinian access to the regionally scarce resource.
It claims the 450,000 settlers who have taken up residence in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since the Six-Day War in 1967 consume as much as or more than the 2.3 million Palestinians living in the West Bank. It says the overall Palestinian per capita consumption of 70 litres per day compares with the WHO recommended level of 100 litres and Israeli consumption of 300.
The report adds that between 180,000 and 200,000 Palestinians living in rural communities – especially in the Israeli controlled "Area C" which comprises 60 per cent of the West Bank – have no access to running water. According to Amnesty, the Israeli military "often" prevents them from accessing rainwater – for example by destroying water-harvesting cisterns or even confiscating water tankers.
At the same time the report highlights the unequal distribution of water from the mountain aquifer which is the principal groundwater resource for both communities, most of which is located in the West Bank, and from which Israel draws 80 per cent. It also points out that using water for Israel's supplies from the River Jordan – as Jordan does, and Syria and Lebanon do further upstream – before the river reaches the West Bank, deprives Palestinians of any access to the river's water."
Needless to say Israel dismisses them all. Basically, according to the Israelis, the Reports on whatever by these well-respected organisations are baseless or simply wrong. All of them?
Now the next Report, this time from Amnesty International [again] has just hit the desk - critical of Israel's restrictions on Palestinians of access to water.
The Independent reports in "Israel accused of denying Palestinians access to water":
"Israel is accused today of denying the West Bank and Gaza access to adequate water through a "total" and "discriminatory" control that enables its own people to consume four times as much as the Palestinians.
An Amnesty International report paints a picture of many Palestinian families struggling – and often failing – to secure enough water for drinking, cleaning, and agriculture while Israelis, including residents of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, have all they need for lush, irrigated farmland, swimming pools and gardens.
Amnesty also suggests that taxpayers in countries who donate aid to the Palestinians are facing unnecessarily high costs to meet severe water shortages because their governments are unwilling to challenge "the most unreasonable" restrictions imposed by Israel on Palestinian access to the regionally scarce resource.
It claims the 450,000 settlers who have taken up residence in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since the Six-Day War in 1967 consume as much as or more than the 2.3 million Palestinians living in the West Bank. It says the overall Palestinian per capita consumption of 70 litres per day compares with the WHO recommended level of 100 litres and Israeli consumption of 300.
The report adds that between 180,000 and 200,000 Palestinians living in rural communities – especially in the Israeli controlled "Area C" which comprises 60 per cent of the West Bank – have no access to running water. According to Amnesty, the Israeli military "often" prevents them from accessing rainwater – for example by destroying water-harvesting cisterns or even confiscating water tankers.
At the same time the report highlights the unequal distribution of water from the mountain aquifer which is the principal groundwater resource for both communities, most of which is located in the West Bank, and from which Israel draws 80 per cent. It also points out that using water for Israel's supplies from the River Jordan – as Jordan does, and Syria and Lebanon do further upstream – before the river reaches the West Bank, deprives Palestinians of any access to the river's water."
Newspapers' Readership Drop Isn't All Bad News
The "news" for newspapers has almost invariably been bad. Dying has been the operative word - if not dead already, as in many American cities.
The latest audit figures for the circulation of newspapers in the US doesn't give one heart that the world of newspapers is going to improve any time soon. Just to the contrary!
However, the Atlantic Wire has a take on how falling circulations might just turn out to be a positive:
"The Audit Bureau of Circulations reports that newspaper circulation in America has dropped 10.6% from last year, dragging newspaper audiences to their lowest point since World War II. On cue, bloggers are once again heralding the death of newspapers. (This familiar cry gains potency when you see how far circulation has fallen over twenty years.) But there's reason to believe that sinking readership may be less a death knell than part of the industry's evolving business strategy. Newspapers may be better off printing fewer copies for fewer, wealthier customers in the long run. Why?"
Read on here.
The latest audit figures for the circulation of newspapers in the US doesn't give one heart that the world of newspapers is going to improve any time soon. Just to the contrary!
However, the Atlantic Wire has a take on how falling circulations might just turn out to be a positive:
"The Audit Bureau of Circulations reports that newspaper circulation in America has dropped 10.6% from last year, dragging newspaper audiences to their lowest point since World War II. On cue, bloggers are once again heralding the death of newspapers. (This familiar cry gains potency when you see how far circulation has fallen over twenty years.) But there's reason to believe that sinking readership may be less a death knell than part of the industry's evolving business strategy. Newspapers may be better off printing fewer copies for fewer, wealthier customers in the long run. Why?"
Read on here.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Chomsky....at the Commonwealth Club, San Francisco
He's over 80 and has written or contributed to 95 books. At one time he was the most cited living academic, a Vietnam activist and a thorn in the side of Reagan. Today he is also critical of 'the left' with dire warnings.Noam Chomsky is as astute and interesting as ever. Fortunately the ABC [Australia] in its BackgroundBriefing program had an interview with Chomsky recorded at the Commonwealth Club, San Francisco.
Go here to either listen or download the audio.
An inside view of Sri Lanka and its Tamils
"When Muthu Kumaran returned to Sri Lanka in February 2007, he had hoped, even expected, that his Tamil people were about to win independence.
An Australian citizen and civil engineer, he wanted to be there when a Tamil state was established, freed from majority Sinhalese rule, and he wanted to lend his expertise in water management, too.
Instead, the father of two from Sydney's west would endure the brutal reality of the Sri Lankan government's final push to wipe out the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the militant Tamil Tigers.
Kumaran was not only swept up in the renewed hostilities of a 25-year civil war, he was also detained in one of the notorious internment camps that are still home to nearly 300,000 Tamils.
He returned to Australia in the first week of August this year, having managed to buy his way out of the largest military-run camp in Sri Lanka, at Manik Farm. And with so many Tamils still detained in their homeland, and the Rudd government wrestling with how best to cope with those who have escaped and are seeking asylum in Australia, Kumaran has decided to speak out about his experience and the plight of his people.
"People need to know, the international community needs to know, what it is happening in Sri Lanka," Kumaran tells Focus.
"The US, Britain, Australia, they talk about democracy and human rights. Well, they cannot keep their eyes closed to these things."
So begins an extensive piece in The Australian - by someone who has been in Sri Lanka and can report, accurately, on what is happening there and provides an insight of what the Sri Lankans are doing to their Tamil community. Sri Lanka seems to have taken a leaf out of Israel's book and obscured and hidden what is happening in its country by denying access to journalists or following the line of simple denials and accusing Tamils of being terrorists.
Read the piece, in full, here.
An Australian citizen and civil engineer, he wanted to be there when a Tamil state was established, freed from majority Sinhalese rule, and he wanted to lend his expertise in water management, too.
Instead, the father of two from Sydney's west would endure the brutal reality of the Sri Lankan government's final push to wipe out the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the militant Tamil Tigers.
Kumaran was not only swept up in the renewed hostilities of a 25-year civil war, he was also detained in one of the notorious internment camps that are still home to nearly 300,000 Tamils.
He returned to Australia in the first week of August this year, having managed to buy his way out of the largest military-run camp in Sri Lanka, at Manik Farm. And with so many Tamils still detained in their homeland, and the Rudd government wrestling with how best to cope with those who have escaped and are seeking asylum in Australia, Kumaran has decided to speak out about his experience and the plight of his people.
"People need to know, the international community needs to know, what it is happening in Sri Lanka," Kumaran tells Focus.
"The US, Britain, Australia, they talk about democracy and human rights. Well, they cannot keep their eyes closed to these things."
So begins an extensive piece in The Australian - by someone who has been in Sri Lanka and can report, accurately, on what is happening there and provides an insight of what the Sri Lankans are doing to their Tamil community. Sri Lanka seems to have taken a leaf out of Israel's book and obscured and hidden what is happening in its country by denying access to journalists or following the line of simple denials and accusing Tamils of being terrorists.
Read the piece, in full, here.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Eureka! A positive newspaper story
The "news" about newpapers - or rather, their death or the slow decline toward extinction - continues daily.
How gratifying, then, to read of a newspaper which is proving so very positive on many levels. The LA Times reports in "Dalit women find their voice through a newspaper":
"Indian tribal and so-called untouchable women, overcoming social hurdles, write and run their own weekly newspaper in northern India. Their own stories are as compelling as their reports."
And:
"The pen, it's sometimes said, is mightier than the sword. For these women, it's also a ticket to respect.
Khabar Lahariya, or "News Waves," is India's first newspaper written, read and run by tribal women and those from the Dalit, or so-called untouchable, caste.
While most readers know only of the politics, crime or education news in the 8-page weekly, each of the writers has a story of her own about struggling against life's harsh challenges.
Many of the dozen or so women on staff were beaten or sexually abused as children, married off young, endured abusive marriages and fought mightily for an education and a divorce. Often, the newspaper provides them with a voice on important issues for the first time in their lives along with a sense of confidence and purpose."
How gratifying, then, to read of a newspaper which is proving so very positive on many levels. The LA Times reports in "Dalit women find their voice through a newspaper":
"Indian tribal and so-called untouchable women, overcoming social hurdles, write and run their own weekly newspaper in northern India. Their own stories are as compelling as their reports."
And:
"The pen, it's sometimes said, is mightier than the sword. For these women, it's also a ticket to respect.
Khabar Lahariya, or "News Waves," is India's first newspaper written, read and run by tribal women and those from the Dalit, or so-called untouchable, caste.
While most readers know only of the politics, crime or education news in the 8-page weekly, each of the writers has a story of her own about struggling against life's harsh challenges.
Many of the dozen or so women on staff were beaten or sexually abused as children, married off young, endured abusive marriages and fought mightily for an education and a divorce. Often, the newspaper provides them with a voice on important issues for the first time in their lives along with a sense of confidence and purpose."
Who is the true owner of antiquities?
The on-going tussle between the Brits and the Greeks about the return from the British Museum of the Elgin Marbles continues to rage - with no sign of any resolution.
Of course one country holding on to the artifacts or historical things of another is not new, nor the resistance to return the item held. With the opening of another landmark museum in Berlin, a dispute has broken out between Egypt and Germany, as The NY Times reports in "When Ancient Artifacts Become Political Pawns":
"As thousands lined up to catch a glimpse of Nefertiti at the newly reopened Neues Museum here, another skirmish erupted in the culture wars. Egypt’s chief archaeologist, Zahi Hawass, announced that his country wanted its queen handed back forthwith, unless Germany could prove that the 3,500-year-old bust of Akhenaten’s wife wasn’t spirited illegally out of Egypt nearly a century ago.
“We’re not treasure hunters,” Mr. Hawass told Spiegel Online. “If it’s proven clearly that the work was not stolen,” he said. “there shouldn’t be any problem.”
Then he said he was sure the work had been stolen.
Globalization, it turns out, has only intensified, not diminished, cultural differences among nations. The forces of nationalism love to exploit culture because it’s symbolic, economically potent and couches identity politics in a legal context that tends to pit David against Goliath."
Monday, October 26, 2009
Worthy praise for a notable winner
Amira Hass, an Israeli Jewess, has for years lived in and reported from Gaza and fearlessly criticised Israel for its actions. Her journalism and integrity has been without peer.
She has been now, rightly, been honoured with the International Women's Media Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award.
The Guardian editorialises:
"Only Amira Hass could have received the International Women's Media Foundation lifetime achievement award by saying her life as a journalist had been a failure. By her standards maybe, but then she sets them high. If her aim is to stop successive Israeli governments lying about what they do in the occupied territories, then it is true that the language laundromat, as she once put it, keeps on turning. But make no mistake, the Haaretz columnist fully deserves this award. She is the only Israeli journalist to have lived in and reported from Gaza and Ramallah for much of the last two decades. In describing the effects of the occupation on the lives of Palestinians, she has been pilloried by Israelis and fallen foul of Hamas. Her moral anchor is firmly rooted in painful collective memories. Her mother survived a concentration camp and her father the ghettos of Romania and Ukraine. "What luck my parents are dead," Hass wrote at the height of the Gaza operation in January. Her parents could not stand the noise of Israeli jet fighters flying over the Palestinian refugee camps in 1982, and nor could they have tolerated going about their daily chores in Tel Aviv with the knowledge of what was going on in their name in Gaza: "They knew what it meant to close people behind barbed-wire fences in a small area." Only a Jew can invert the "never again" logic of the Holocaust that is used to justify Israel's least justifiable actions. It is that very experience, Hass argues, that should teach Israel to behave differently."
For more on Amira Hass, go to an interview with her the other day on Democracy Now.
She has been now, rightly, been honoured with the International Women's Media Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award.
The Guardian editorialises:
"Only Amira Hass could have received the International Women's Media Foundation lifetime achievement award by saying her life as a journalist had been a failure. By her standards maybe, but then she sets them high. If her aim is to stop successive Israeli governments lying about what they do in the occupied territories, then it is true that the language laundromat, as she once put it, keeps on turning. But make no mistake, the Haaretz columnist fully deserves this award. She is the only Israeli journalist to have lived in and reported from Gaza and Ramallah for much of the last two decades. In describing the effects of the occupation on the lives of Palestinians, she has been pilloried by Israelis and fallen foul of Hamas. Her moral anchor is firmly rooted in painful collective memories. Her mother survived a concentration camp and her father the ghettos of Romania and Ukraine. "What luck my parents are dead," Hass wrote at the height of the Gaza operation in January. Her parents could not stand the noise of Israeli jet fighters flying over the Palestinian refugee camps in 1982, and nor could they have tolerated going about their daily chores in Tel Aviv with the knowledge of what was going on in their name in Gaza: "They knew what it meant to close people behind barbed-wire fences in a small area." Only a Jew can invert the "never again" logic of the Holocaust that is used to justify Israel's least justifiable actions. It is that very experience, Hass argues, that should teach Israel to behave differently."
For more on Amira Hass, go to an interview with her the other day on Democracy Now.
Fox certainly doesn't qualify as a news organisation
The Sun King, Rupert Murdoch, might fancy himself as a media mogul or baron [why is it that politicians care what he says or thinks about anything?] but one thing is for certain - his Fox News doesn't remotely qualify as a news organisation.
As AlterNet says in "8 Reasons Fox Is Not a News Organization":
"PR for the GOP? Yes. Platform for right-wing hatemongers? Definitely. But a news organization? Definitely not."
And:
"Since Obama's election, the cable channel's hosts and paid analysts have launched a full frontal assault on the president, smearing his nominees, calling him a racist and suggesting that his administration was trying to persuade disabled veterans to off themselves."
As AlterNet says in "8 Reasons Fox Is Not a News Organization":
"PR for the GOP? Yes. Platform for right-wing hatemongers? Definitely. But a news organization? Definitely not."
And:
"Since Obama's election, the cable channel's hosts and paid analysts have launched a full frontal assault on the president, smearing his nominees, calling him a racist and suggesting that his administration was trying to persuade disabled veterans to off themselves."
Sunday, October 25, 2009
The First Visual Proof of the Horrors of Modern Wafare
There are plenty of photos of what the Allies found at concentration camps at the end of WW2, the invasion of Normandy, the trenches in France in WW1, but rarely "proof" of the manifestations of war.
The Nation in "A Witness to Total War" provides an intriguing insight into what is described as the "first visual proof of the horrors of modern warfare":
"When Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, the only American, and in fact the only neutral filmmaker in the country, was Julien Bryan. He arrived in Warsaw in early September with a cache of roughly an hour's worth of 35mm motion-picture negative. Given open access to the city by the mayor, he filmed day and night for two weeks, documenting Warsaw's destruction and Germany's inexorable advance. Back in New York he assembled the footage into a ten-minute newsreel called Siege. Released in February 1940, the film became for many viewers their first glimpses into Nazi tactics, the first visual proof of the horrors of modern warfare."
The Nation in "A Witness to Total War" provides an intriguing insight into what is described as the "first visual proof of the horrors of modern warfare":
"When Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, the only American, and in fact the only neutral filmmaker in the country, was Julien Bryan. He arrived in Warsaw in early September with a cache of roughly an hour's worth of 35mm motion-picture negative. Given open access to the city by the mayor, he filmed day and night for two weeks, documenting Warsaw's destruction and Germany's inexorable advance. Back in New York he assembled the footage into a ten-minute newsreel called Siege. Released in February 1940, the film became for many viewers their first glimpses into Nazi tactics, the first visual proof of the horrors of modern warfare."
Cyber Resistance
It is probably something those not serving in the military haven't even thought about, but cyberspace and technology provides a means, not previously available, for communication across borders and around the world. It also provides for what is described as "cyber resistance".
truthout sheds light on this newish phenomenon:
"If technology has transformed warfare into a spectacle of shock and awe, its contribution to the cause of dissent has been no less remarkable. It has enabled solidarities across borders and facilitated networks and forums dedicated to impartial communication of ground realities beyond the sanitized projection of mainstream news. True, technological advances have not brought an end to either occupation, but it has certainly helped alternative voices and views to be heard.
During the Vietnam War, over 100 underground newspapers, run by soldiers themselves, sprouted across the United States. The modern version of this has taken root within the Internet, largely in the form of blogs.
Many American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan have been confounded by the wall of censorship they confront, jointly constructed by the military and the corporate media. The Internet offered them a convenient and powerful channel through which to get their stories out to the public. Constrained by slow military mail service from Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention overt attempts by superiors to curtail their interaction with journalists, soldiers have long since taken to blogging, posting photographs and uploading videos online, all related to their experience of the occupations."
truthout sheds light on this newish phenomenon:
"If technology has transformed warfare into a spectacle of shock and awe, its contribution to the cause of dissent has been no less remarkable. It has enabled solidarities across borders and facilitated networks and forums dedicated to impartial communication of ground realities beyond the sanitized projection of mainstream news. True, technological advances have not brought an end to either occupation, but it has certainly helped alternative voices and views to be heard.
During the Vietnam War, over 100 underground newspapers, run by soldiers themselves, sprouted across the United States. The modern version of this has taken root within the Internet, largely in the form of blogs.
Many American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan have been confounded by the wall of censorship they confront, jointly constructed by the military and the corporate media. The Internet offered them a convenient and powerful channel through which to get their stories out to the public. Constrained by slow military mail service from Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention overt attempts by superiors to curtail their interaction with journalists, soldiers have long since taken to blogging, posting photographs and uploading videos online, all related to their experience of the occupations."
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Didn't you know.....coffee and tea are security risks
The Israelis are forever proclaiming what a moral army they have [the best in the world they boast] and how peace loving they are, etc. etc. Just not humane that's all!
Hard to believe, but as part of the blockade of Gaza coffee and tea hasn't been allowed into the territory - because, wait for it, they are security risks. Yes, you read that correctly.
Now - in a sign of generosity? - coffee and tea will be allowed in. Ma'an News Agency reports:
"Israel has decided to allow coffee and tea into the besieged Gaza Strip starting on Thursday, a Palestinian official said.
Nasser As-Sarraj, undersecretary of the Ministry of National Economy said that Palestinian authorities received word from Israel of the change in policy, which apparently removes coffee and tea from a list of banned items.
Israel bans imports of hundreds of specific items into Gaza as a part of its blockade of the territory which began in June 2007. The government says the materials are banned for security reasons.
The list includes such apparently harmless items as notebooks, pens and pencils, and concrete for construction. Smugglers profit from importing banned goods through underground tunnels from Egypt."
Hard to believe, but as part of the blockade of Gaza coffee and tea hasn't been allowed into the territory - because, wait for it, they are security risks. Yes, you read that correctly.
Now - in a sign of generosity? - coffee and tea will be allowed in. Ma'an News Agency reports:
"Israel has decided to allow coffee and tea into the besieged Gaza Strip starting on Thursday, a Palestinian official said.
Nasser As-Sarraj, undersecretary of the Ministry of National Economy said that Palestinian authorities received word from Israel of the change in policy, which apparently removes coffee and tea from a list of banned items.
Israel bans imports of hundreds of specific items into Gaza as a part of its blockade of the territory which began in June 2007. The government says the materials are banned for security reasons.
The list includes such apparently harmless items as notebooks, pens and pencils, and concrete for construction. Smugglers profit from importing banned goods through underground tunnels from Egypt."
Friday, October 23, 2009
Yes, 1.02 billion people hungry in the world
In a world so full of riches - that is, those lucky enough to be in the "right" countries and able to share the spoils - and which spends staggering sums in military hardware and on wars [think Iraq and Afghanistan], it is startling to read that 1.2 billion people have been hungry this year.
The NY Times reports in "Experts Worry as Population and Hunger Grow":
"Scientists and development experts across the globe are racing to increase food production by 50 percent over the next two decades to feed the world’s growing population, yet many doubt their chances despite a broad consensus that enough land, water and expertise exist.
The number of hungry people in the world rose to 1.02 billion this year, or nearly one in seven people, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, despite a 12-year concentrated effort to cut the number.
The global financial recession added at least 100 million people by depriving them of the means to buy enough food, but the numbers were inching up even before the crisis, the United Nations noted in a report last week."
The NY Times reports in "Experts Worry as Population and Hunger Grow":
"Scientists and development experts across the globe are racing to increase food production by 50 percent over the next two decades to feed the world’s growing population, yet many doubt their chances despite a broad consensus that enough land, water and expertise exist.
The number of hungry people in the world rose to 1.02 billion this year, or nearly one in seven people, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, despite a 12-year concentrated effort to cut the number.
The global financial recession added at least 100 million people by depriving them of the means to buy enough food, but the numbers were inching up even before the crisis, the United Nations noted in a report last week."
Conscience.....and guts!
To take on the Israeli Government and Army by refusing to do compulsory military service takes guts - especially if a woman. Many of those who have resisted doing military service have been imprisoned. Increasing numbers are defying the authorities. Many of the objectors compare Israel's actions to those of the erstwhile South African Government's apartheid regime.
Some objectors have, in fact, visited South Africa. Mondoweiss publishes a piece by one of the objectors to military service:
"The explosive reaction to our stay in South Africa is explained by the fact that Israelis are allergic to talk of South Africa. The spectre of Apartheid haunts the Israeli elite because they know that this is what exists, in modified form, in the occupied territories. Shulamit Aloni, our former education minister, said that Israel is “practicing its own, quite violent, form of Apartheid with the native Palestinian population.”
Michael Ben-Yair, a former attorney-general of Israel stated his view clearly that Israel is establishing, “an apartheid regime in the occupied territories”. Ami Ayalon, Israeli admiral and former internal security chief, said “Israel must decide quickly what sort of environment it wants to live in because the current model, which has some apartheid characteristics, is not compatible with Jewish principles.” The journalist Danny Rubinstein said at a UN conference in Brussels: “Israel today is an apartheid State with four different Palestinian groups: those in Gaza, East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Israeli Palestinians, each of which has a different status.” Even our leading newspaper Haaretz wrote an editorial last year saying, “The interim political situation in the territories has crystallized into a kind of apartheid that has been ongoing for 40 years”.
Some objectors have, in fact, visited South Africa. Mondoweiss publishes a piece by one of the objectors to military service:
"The explosive reaction to our stay in South Africa is explained by the fact that Israelis are allergic to talk of South Africa. The spectre of Apartheid haunts the Israeli elite because they know that this is what exists, in modified form, in the occupied territories. Shulamit Aloni, our former education minister, said that Israel is “practicing its own, quite violent, form of Apartheid with the native Palestinian population.”
Michael Ben-Yair, a former attorney-general of Israel stated his view clearly that Israel is establishing, “an apartheid regime in the occupied territories”. Ami Ayalon, Israeli admiral and former internal security chief, said “Israel must decide quickly what sort of environment it wants to live in because the current model, which has some apartheid characteristics, is not compatible with Jewish principles.” The journalist Danny Rubinstein said at a UN conference in Brussels: “Israel today is an apartheid State with four different Palestinian groups: those in Gaza, East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Israeli Palestinians, each of which has a different status.” Even our leading newspaper Haaretz wrote an editorial last year saying, “The interim political situation in the territories has crystallized into a kind of apartheid that has been ongoing for 40 years”.
You can stick it!
"We have to tolerate the inequality as a way to achieve greater prosperity and opportunity for all."
Mmmm! Comment made by a Goldman Sach executive at a conference in London......as explained in this piece on CommonDreams:
"Having received billions in bailouts, Wall Street is now primed to make so much bonus money, thus offending so many people, that the White House will reportedly order their executives to take up to 90 percent cuts in their pay in order to fend off the lynch mobs forming. Even so, an executive at Goldman Sachs - which has set aside $16.7 billion, an increase of 46 percent over last year, to pay its employees $527,192 each - had the gall to tell the rest of us to stuff it. Brian Griffiths was speaking at a London panel discussion. Its topic: "What is the place of morality in the marketplace?"
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Inching closer to the truth
One would hope that the old adage that the truth will eventually be out, will hopefully come to pass with regard to revealing, in full, the CIA's renditioning and torture practices - but not in the US, but via the decision in an English court case.
Scott Horton explains in "CIA Efforts to Keep Torture Secrets Suffer a Key Loss in British High Court" in Harper's Magazine:
"Britain’s High Court issued a decision on Friday directing that classified information shared by the CIA with British intelligence services concerning the torture and mistreatment of a former Guantánamo prisoner be made public. The case involves a 31-year-old Ethiopian, Binyam Mohamed, who was seized and held in the CIA’s extraordinary renditions program in Pakistan and Morocco before his transfer to the prison at Guantánamo. He was charged with conspiracy, with the charges apparently resting on statements by Abu Zubaydah, a prisoner now acknowledged to have been tortured by U.S. government officials. In October 2008, the Bush Administration withdrew the charges against Binyam Mohamed and started the process leading to his repatriation to Britain.
In British court proceedings, Binyam Mohamed described his gruesome torture following his seizure by the CIA and movement within its renditions system. He recounted how his penis was slashed with a scalpel by torturers in Morocco, and he noted the presence of British and American intelligence personnel throughout the process. In defending the process, the British Government was forced to acknowledge that it held intelligence reports from the American CIA that corroborated Binyam Mohamed’s accounts of torture. However, Foreign Secretary David Miliband strenuously objected to disclosure of this information, pointing to the “special relationship” between U.S. and U.K. intelligence services and Britain’s commitment not to disclose classified information secured from American counterparts without their permission. Miliband pointed to communications with the U.S. State Department noting that disclosure of the information would harm U.S. relations with British intelligence."
Scott Horton explains in "CIA Efforts to Keep Torture Secrets Suffer a Key Loss in British High Court" in Harper's Magazine:
"Britain’s High Court issued a decision on Friday directing that classified information shared by the CIA with British intelligence services concerning the torture and mistreatment of a former Guantánamo prisoner be made public. The case involves a 31-year-old Ethiopian, Binyam Mohamed, who was seized and held in the CIA’s extraordinary renditions program in Pakistan and Morocco before his transfer to the prison at Guantánamo. He was charged with conspiracy, with the charges apparently resting on statements by Abu Zubaydah, a prisoner now acknowledged to have been tortured by U.S. government officials. In October 2008, the Bush Administration withdrew the charges against Binyam Mohamed and started the process leading to his repatriation to Britain.
In British court proceedings, Binyam Mohamed described his gruesome torture following his seizure by the CIA and movement within its renditions system. He recounted how his penis was slashed with a scalpel by torturers in Morocco, and he noted the presence of British and American intelligence personnel throughout the process. In defending the process, the British Government was forced to acknowledge that it held intelligence reports from the American CIA that corroborated Binyam Mohamed’s accounts of torture. However, Foreign Secretary David Miliband strenuously objected to disclosure of this information, pointing to the “special relationship” between U.S. and U.K. intelligence services and Britain’s commitment not to disclose classified information secured from American counterparts without their permission. Miliband pointed to communications with the U.S. State Department noting that disclosure of the information would harm U.S. relations with British intelligence."
Afghanistan vs. Vietnam War Rages on in the Media
It's certainly a debate, raging or not, about what to do about Afghanistan. Stay the course, whatever that might be, or ramp things up? Obama is said to be debating what to do about US forces in the war-torn country.
Vanity Fair reports on a debate raging in the media about whether the Vietnam war should be compared to what is happening in Afghanistan:
"Is Afghanistan the new Vietnam? President Obama says no, but a rising chorus of critics seems to think otherwise. An entire page of yesterday’s op-ed section in the New York Times was dedicated to plucking policy and counterinsurgency lessons from America’s bloody years in Southeast Asia, and even Gordon M. Goldstein’s book about failed policy in Vietnam, Lessons in Disaster, is being passed around the White House these days. As popular support has sagged, nearly every media outlet has run a version of the Is-Afghanistan-Obama’s-Vietnam? story."
Vanity Fair reports on a debate raging in the media about whether the Vietnam war should be compared to what is happening in Afghanistan:
"Is Afghanistan the new Vietnam? President Obama says no, but a rising chorus of critics seems to think otherwise. An entire page of yesterday’s op-ed section in the New York Times was dedicated to plucking policy and counterinsurgency lessons from America’s bloody years in Southeast Asia, and even Gordon M. Goldstein’s book about failed policy in Vietnam, Lessons in Disaster, is being passed around the White House these days. As popular support has sagged, nearly every media outlet has run a version of the Is-Afghanistan-Obama’s-Vietnam? story."
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Time to work on Plan B
To say the least to read this piece by Stephen Walt [professor of international relations at Harvard] on his blog on FP - not 10 months into the Obama presidency - is depressing. For all the rhetoric and hype surrounding Obama much has been said but action has been sadly lacking. In fact, there is a growing disillusionment with Obama.
"If I were President Obama (now there's a scary thought!), I'd ask some smart people on my foreign policy team to start thinking hard about "Plan B." What's Plan B? It's the strategy that he's going to need when it becomes clear that his initial foreign policy initiatives didn't work. Obama's election and speechifying has done a lot to repair America's image around the world -- at least in the short term -- in part because that image had nowhere to go but up. But as just about everyone commented when he got the Nobel Peace Prize last week, his foreign policy record to date is long on promises but short on tangible achievements. Indeed, odds are that the first term will end without his achieving any of his major foreign policy goals.
To be more specific, I'd bet that all of the following statements are true in 2012.
1. There won't be a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians, and Israel will still be occupying the West Bank and controlling the Gaza Strip. More and more people are going to conclude that "two states for two peoples" is no longer possible, and that great Cairo speech will increasingly look like hollow rhetoric.
2. The United States will still have tens of thousands of troops in Afghanistan. Victory will not be within sight.
3. Substantial U.S. personnel will remain in Iraq (relabeled as "training missions"), and the political situation will remain fragile at best.
4. The clerical regime in Iran will still be in power, will still be enriching nuclear material, will still insist on its right to control the full nuclear fuel cycle, and will still be deeply suspicious of the United States. Iran won't have an actual nuclear weapon by then, but it will be closer to being able to make one if it wishes.
5. There won't be a new climate change agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol.
6. Little progress will have been made toward reducing the number of nuclear weapons in the world. The United States and Russia may complete a new strategic arms agreement by then, but both states will still have thousands of nuclear warheads in their stockpiles. None of the nine current nuclear weapons states will have disarmed, and I wouldn't be surprised if the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is still unratified three years from now."
"If I were President Obama (now there's a scary thought!), I'd ask some smart people on my foreign policy team to start thinking hard about "Plan B." What's Plan B? It's the strategy that he's going to need when it becomes clear that his initial foreign policy initiatives didn't work. Obama's election and speechifying has done a lot to repair America's image around the world -- at least in the short term -- in part because that image had nowhere to go but up. But as just about everyone commented when he got the Nobel Peace Prize last week, his foreign policy record to date is long on promises but short on tangible achievements. Indeed, odds are that the first term will end without his achieving any of his major foreign policy goals.
To be more specific, I'd bet that all of the following statements are true in 2012.
1. There won't be a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians, and Israel will still be occupying the West Bank and controlling the Gaza Strip. More and more people are going to conclude that "two states for two peoples" is no longer possible, and that great Cairo speech will increasingly look like hollow rhetoric.
2. The United States will still have tens of thousands of troops in Afghanistan. Victory will not be within sight.
3. Substantial U.S. personnel will remain in Iraq (relabeled as "training missions"), and the political situation will remain fragile at best.
4. The clerical regime in Iran will still be in power, will still be enriching nuclear material, will still insist on its right to control the full nuclear fuel cycle, and will still be deeply suspicious of the United States. Iran won't have an actual nuclear weapon by then, but it will be closer to being able to make one if it wishes.
5. There won't be a new climate change agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol.
6. Little progress will have been made toward reducing the number of nuclear weapons in the world. The United States and Russia may complete a new strategic arms agreement by then, but both states will still have thousands of nuclear warheads in their stockpiles. None of the nine current nuclear weapons states will have disarmed, and I wouldn't be surprised if the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is still unratified three years from now."
A plea for our planet......home for all of us
Chris Hedges, former NY Times Bureau chief in Jerusalem, is hardly your rabid young lefty marching to the barricades.....
In his latest piece for truthdig "A Reality Check From the Brink of Extinction" he paints a grim picture for the world if something isn't done to curb corporations and what they do to cause climate change and warming as we are already seeing it happen. And it will only get worse.
"The latest studies show polar ice caps are melting at a record rate and that within a decade the Arctic will be an open sea during summers. This does not give us much time. White ice and snow reflect 80 percent of sunlight back to space, while dark water reflects only 20 percent, absorbing a much larger heat load. Scientists warn that the loss of the ice will dramatically change winds and sea currents around the world. And the rapidly melting permafrost is unleashing methane chimneys from the ocean floor along the Russian coastline. Methane is a greenhouse gas 25 times more toxic than carbon dioxide, and some scientists have speculated that the release of huge quantities of methane into the atmosphere could asphyxiate the human species. The rising sea levels, which will swallow countries such as Bangladesh and the Marshall Islands and turn cities like New Orleans into a new Atlantis, will combine with severe droughts, horrific storms and flooding to eventually dislocate over a billion people. The effects will be suffering, disease and death on a scale unseen in human history.
We can save groves of trees, protect endangered species and clean up rivers, all of which is good, but to leave the corporations unchallenged would mean our efforts would be wasted. These personal adjustments and environmental crusades can too easily become a badge of moral purity, an excuse for inaction. They can absolve us from the harder task of confronting the power of corporations.
The damage to the environment by human households is minuscule next to the damage done by corporations. Municipalities and individuals use 10 percent of the nation’s water while the other 90 percent is consumed by agriculture and industry. Individual consumption of energy accounts for about a quarter of all energy consumption; the other 75 percent is consumed by corporations. Municipal waste accounts for only 3 percent of total waste production in the United States. We can, and should, live more simply, but it will not be enough if we do not radically transform the economic structure of the industrial world."
Dire warning indeed!
In his latest piece for truthdig "A Reality Check From the Brink of Extinction" he paints a grim picture for the world if something isn't done to curb corporations and what they do to cause climate change and warming as we are already seeing it happen. And it will only get worse.
"The latest studies show polar ice caps are melting at a record rate and that within a decade the Arctic will be an open sea during summers. This does not give us much time. White ice and snow reflect 80 percent of sunlight back to space, while dark water reflects only 20 percent, absorbing a much larger heat load. Scientists warn that the loss of the ice will dramatically change winds and sea currents around the world. And the rapidly melting permafrost is unleashing methane chimneys from the ocean floor along the Russian coastline. Methane is a greenhouse gas 25 times more toxic than carbon dioxide, and some scientists have speculated that the release of huge quantities of methane into the atmosphere could asphyxiate the human species. The rising sea levels, which will swallow countries such as Bangladesh and the Marshall Islands and turn cities like New Orleans into a new Atlantis, will combine with severe droughts, horrific storms and flooding to eventually dislocate over a billion people. The effects will be suffering, disease and death on a scale unseen in human history.
We can save groves of trees, protect endangered species and clean up rivers, all of which is good, but to leave the corporations unchallenged would mean our efforts would be wasted. These personal adjustments and environmental crusades can too easily become a badge of moral purity, an excuse for inaction. They can absolve us from the harder task of confronting the power of corporations.
The damage to the environment by human households is minuscule next to the damage done by corporations. Municipalities and individuals use 10 percent of the nation’s water while the other 90 percent is consumed by agriculture and industry. Individual consumption of energy accounts for about a quarter of all energy consumption; the other 75 percent is consumed by corporations. Municipal waste accounts for only 3 percent of total waste production in the United States. We can, and should, live more simply, but it will not be enough if we do not radically transform the economic structure of the industrial world."
Dire warning indeed!
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Shackled.....during birth?
The Americans are forever "lecturing" others about democracy, the rule of law and a decent society for all people of the country.
What to make then of what must, surely, be regarded as a barbaric practice still on the statute book in 40 of the US States? The NY Times explains in an editorial:
"The practice of keeping female prisoners in shackles while they give birth is barbaric. But it remains legal in more than 40 states, and advocates of prisoners’ rights say it is all too common. A federal appeals court has now found that the shackling of an Arkansas inmate may have violated the Constitution — but the margin was uncomfortably close."
What to make then of what must, surely, be regarded as a barbaric practice still on the statute book in 40 of the US States? The NY Times explains in an editorial:
"The practice of keeping female prisoners in shackles while they give birth is barbaric. But it remains legal in more than 40 states, and advocates of prisoners’ rights say it is all too common. A federal appeals court has now found that the shackling of an Arkansas inmate may have violated the Constitution — but the margin was uncomfortably close."
Children imprisoned
That the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the blockade of Gaza is widespread and manifests itself in many different ways is nothing new, but this piece "Children of the Occupation" from The Nation reveals just one more aspect of the occupation which is truly horrendous......the imprisonment of children:
"According to a recent report by Defense for Children International (DCI), "The ill-treatment and torture of Palestinian children by Israeli authorities is widespread, systematic and institutionalised." During interrogation children as young as 12 are often subject to solitary confinement, sleep deprivation and painful shackling for long periods of time. One boy was told, "I will shoot you in the head if you don't confess and stick your head in a bucket full of water until you choke and die." Another yielded after a knife was held to his neck. One 15-year-old, after being shot and arrested, was deceived into signing a confession written in Hebrew while still in the hospital, after officers convinced him it was an approval form for his operation".
"According to a recent report by Defense for Children International (DCI), "The ill-treatment and torture of Palestinian children by Israeli authorities is widespread, systematic and institutionalised." During interrogation children as young as 12 are often subject to solitary confinement, sleep deprivation and painful shackling for long periods of time. One boy was told, "I will shoot you in the head if you don't confess and stick your head in a bucket full of water until you choke and die." Another yielded after a knife was held to his neck. One 15-year-old, after being shot and arrested, was deceived into signing a confession written in Hebrew while still in the hospital, after officers convinced him it was an approval form for his operation".
Monday, October 19, 2009
Where climate change is deadly real
We all know that some countries are already being being affected by climate change. Sceptics may scoff, but as this report on CommonDreams so graphically explains, the effects of climate change and global warming can be serious......deadly in fact!
"To document the drastic effects of global warming produced by the world's richest people on the world's poorest people, British punk artist Jamie Hewlett went with Oxfam members to Bangladesh - which is 80% floodplain, makes up 10% of south Asia but sees 90% of its water pass through to the sea. Hewlett drew and photographed the island flood villages of Char Atra, where people, mostly women, are learning to survive ever-worse monsoons and floods for months at a time. Pictures and more here. Hewlett describes kids drawing houses washed away and swimming to school with books on their heads. We in the West cannot know what it's like, he says, but he's trying.
"The flood's their bogeyman. But they deal with it. It's part of their lives. How would we react if we knew you could lose a child every time you open the front door?"
The wake-up call is there - and real!
Sunday, October 18, 2009
One dominant issue, one dominant country
Turkey revoked an invitation to Israel to join in military exercises a few days ago. It cited Israel's actions in Gaza for doing so. What did the US do? It pulled out! Pathetic as that obviously is, the message to countries in the region is clear. Israel and the US are tied together at the hip and America will, forever, have difficulties in being seen as an honest broker in any peace negotiations.
Stephen Walt, professor of international relations at Harvard,in his blog on FP, tries to put the whole thing into perspective:
"Israel's defenders often claim that it is a major strategic asset for the United States, but Israel's pariah status within the region reduces its strategic value significantly. It explains why Israel could not participate in the 1991 or 2003 wars with Iraq, and why it is difficult for Arab governments who share Israel's concerns about Iran to openly collaborate with Israel or United States to address that issue. And make no mistake: The occupation is now the main barrier to Israel's full acceptance within the region, as the 2007 Arab League peace plan makes clear. If the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were resolved and Israel had normal relations with the Arab world, then the United States would not pay a diplomatic price for backing Israel so strongly and Israel could join forces with us (and with other regional powers) when common challenges arose. Ending the occupation would also safeguard Israel's relations with countries like Turkey, instead of undermining them. In addition to its obvious human costs, in short, the occupation is a strategic liability for Israel and the United States.
Barack Obama spoke the truth when he said that a "two-state solution is in Israel's interest, the Palestinians' interest, America's interest, and the world's interest." Unfortunately, the U.S. president's actions to date have not brought that goal any closer. In the meantime, those who continue to oppose any effort to use U.S. leverage to bring about a two-state solution are unwittingly harming the two countries they care about most."
Stephen Walt, professor of international relations at Harvard,in his blog on FP, tries to put the whole thing into perspective:
"Israel's defenders often claim that it is a major strategic asset for the United States, but Israel's pariah status within the region reduces its strategic value significantly. It explains why Israel could not participate in the 1991 or 2003 wars with Iraq, and why it is difficult for Arab governments who share Israel's concerns about Iran to openly collaborate with Israel or United States to address that issue. And make no mistake: The occupation is now the main barrier to Israel's full acceptance within the region, as the 2007 Arab League peace plan makes clear. If the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were resolved and Israel had normal relations with the Arab world, then the United States would not pay a diplomatic price for backing Israel so strongly and Israel could join forces with us (and with other regional powers) when common challenges arose. Ending the occupation would also safeguard Israel's relations with countries like Turkey, instead of undermining them. In addition to its obvious human costs, in short, the occupation is a strategic liability for Israel and the United States.
Barack Obama spoke the truth when he said that a "two-state solution is in Israel's interest, the Palestinians' interest, America's interest, and the world's interest." Unfortunately, the U.S. president's actions to date have not brought that goal any closer. In the meantime, those who continue to oppose any effort to use U.S. leverage to bring about a two-state solution are unwittingly harming the two countries they care about most."
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Totally out of wack!
Hard to come to grips with this financial "scene" in the US....as Democracy Now reports:
"The Dow Jones Industrial Average has topped 10,000 for the first time in a year, as JPMorgan Chase reported massive profits in the third quarter. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that major US banks and securities firms are on pace to pay their employees about $140 billion this year—a record high. But on Main Street, foreclosures are also at record levels, and the official unemployment rate is expected to top ten percent."
Democracy Now spoke to former bank regulator William Black, author of "The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One" - which can be heard here.
"The Dow Jones Industrial Average has topped 10,000 for the first time in a year, as JPMorgan Chase reported massive profits in the third quarter. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that major US banks and securities firms are on pace to pay their employees about $140 billion this year—a record high. But on Main Street, foreclosures are also at record levels, and the official unemployment rate is expected to top ten percent."
Democracy Now spoke to former bank regulator William Black, author of "The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One" - which can be heard here.
Friday, October 16, 2009
A [misnomer] "peace" process going nowhere
There has been so much talk about Middle East peace talks - all said to be part of some process! - but in reality it's all a myth. Good for news headlines and great for the Israelis who continue growing settlements and pushing back any settlement whilst, in effect, nothing is happening to resolve the ongoing conflict.
Obama may have got his Nobel Peace prize - although hard to see for what - but next week he will hear from his Secretary of State and Special Envoy to the Middle East that any peace process [a misnomer in any event] is actually regressing - as The Washington Post reports:
"A political crisis for the Palestinian Authority and growing doubts about American mediation have deeply undercut chances that Israeli-Palestinian peace talks will resume in the near future, according to officials and analysts on both sides.
After nine months of shuttle diplomacy by U.S. special envoy George J. Mitchell, the gap between Israeli and Palestinian leaders appears to have grown, and it now includes not only a dispute over Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank, but also renewed tension over Jerusalem, disagreement over the framework for the talks and controversy over a U.N. report on alleged war crimes during Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip last winter.
When Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Mitchell report to the White House next week on the administration's goal of restarting the peace talks, they will be describing a situation that has arguably regressed, particularly in the three weeks since a high-level session in New York involving President Obama, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas."
Obama may have got his Nobel Peace prize - although hard to see for what - but next week he will hear from his Secretary of State and Special Envoy to the Middle East that any peace process [a misnomer in any event] is actually regressing - as The Washington Post reports:
"A political crisis for the Palestinian Authority and growing doubts about American mediation have deeply undercut chances that Israeli-Palestinian peace talks will resume in the near future, according to officials and analysts on both sides.
After nine months of shuttle diplomacy by U.S. special envoy George J. Mitchell, the gap between Israeli and Palestinian leaders appears to have grown, and it now includes not only a dispute over Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank, but also renewed tension over Jerusalem, disagreement over the framework for the talks and controversy over a U.N. report on alleged war crimes during Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip last winter.
When Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Mitchell report to the White House next week on the administration's goal of restarting the peace talks, they will be describing a situation that has arguably regressed, particularly in the three weeks since a high-level session in New York involving President Obama, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas."
Actually who are we fighting in the Taliban?
As things go from bad to worse in Afghanistan a very pertinent question is asked in a piece on CounterPunch - who, actually are the Taliban "we" are fighting?:
"With US and NATO commanders on the battlefield of Afghanistan calling for more troops, how best to defeat the Taliban is being hotly debated by Washington’s policy-makers and their media pundits. Yet, nowhere are the types of questions posed by Arundhati Roy (the acclaimed Indian novelist and social activist) on a recent visit to Pakistan to be heard in the mainstream US discourse. Clarifying the purpose of her trip during an address at the Karachi Press Club, she stated, “I’m here to understand what you mean when you say Taliban…Do you mean a militant? Do you mean an ideology? Exactly what is it that is being fought?”
The reason that such questions are not frequently addressed in the US mainstream seems patently clear. The answers require one to move beyond the atrocities of ‘9/11’ and such pat ideas as the ‘threat’ posed the ‘civilized world’ by the Taliban/al-Qaida ‘militant’ and their ‘ideology,’ as well as the ‘human rights’ and ‘anti-woman’ abuses they perpetrate in their ‘Muslim’ homelands. In fact, Roy’s questions require the respondent to first and foremost recall that precursors to the Taliban - groups and leaders with similar ideologies and methods, including Usama bin Laden – were wholehearted supported by the US, with Saudi Arabian and Pakistani assistance, during the 1980’s, when fighting the USSR and its Afghani ally, the Najibullah regime. Of course, acknowledging that the Taliban-style ‘militant’ was an ally and his ‘ideology’ was considered an asset, not to be fought but nurtured and supported, is no great revelation."
"With US and NATO commanders on the battlefield of Afghanistan calling for more troops, how best to defeat the Taliban is being hotly debated by Washington’s policy-makers and their media pundits. Yet, nowhere are the types of questions posed by Arundhati Roy (the acclaimed Indian novelist and social activist) on a recent visit to Pakistan to be heard in the mainstream US discourse. Clarifying the purpose of her trip during an address at the Karachi Press Club, she stated, “I’m here to understand what you mean when you say Taliban…Do you mean a militant? Do you mean an ideology? Exactly what is it that is being fought?”
The reason that such questions are not frequently addressed in the US mainstream seems patently clear. The answers require one to move beyond the atrocities of ‘9/11’ and such pat ideas as the ‘threat’ posed the ‘civilized world’ by the Taliban/al-Qaida ‘militant’ and their ‘ideology,’ as well as the ‘human rights’ and ‘anti-woman’ abuses they perpetrate in their ‘Muslim’ homelands. In fact, Roy’s questions require the respondent to first and foremost recall that precursors to the Taliban - groups and leaders with similar ideologies and methods, including Usama bin Laden – were wholehearted supported by the US, with Saudi Arabian and Pakistani assistance, during the 1980’s, when fighting the USSR and its Afghani ally, the Najibullah regime. Of course, acknowledging that the Taliban-style ‘militant’ was an ally and his ‘ideology’ was considered an asset, not to be fought but nurtured and supported, is no great revelation."
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
The obstacles to peace
There is always talk of those settlers in Israel. The impression conveyed, or the image, is of a disparate group of people [probably in ramshackle housing or tents or caravans] out there somewhere on Palestinian land. The reality, some 300,000 people, is quite different. In the occupied territories there are fully developed and built-up towns of up to 60,000 people.
Middle East Report Online provides a background to these so-called settlers [in reality, occupiers]:
"At first glance, it is hard to explain the success of the West Bank settlers. Numerically, excluding the 200,000 settlers in illegally annexed East Jerusalem, they constitute just 4 percent of Israel’s population, and are often resented by the rest for the disproportionate share of the national wealth they consume. A mere 1 percent live in the heartland of the putative Palestinian state, east of the separation barrier that Israel has built in the West Bank. Of these, thousands, most of them secular, have expressed interest in moving westward in return for financial incentives. Some -- uncomfortable with geographic isolation, fears of violence and the mounting religiosity of the settler movement -- have already left. Relocating the remainder seems a small price to pay for sparing Israel the worldwide opprobrium that comes with maintaining and advancing the settlement project.
Yet internally, the settler movement is -- in the words of a former West Bank army commander -- “Israel’s most powerful lobby.” Fearful of additional Amona-style faceoffs with Zionism’s foremost ideologues, few Israeli politicians dare confront the movement. It is growing fast: The drift of the secular-minded out of the West Bank (though not East Jerusalem) has been more than compensated for by the movement’s burgeoning hard core of national-religious activists, who from the outset have promoted Jewish settlement throughout the biblical Land of Israel as a sacred duty. In addition, the movement has coopted Israel’s ultra-Orthodox and traditionally non-Zionist communities, desperate for room for their large families. In so doing, the settlers have jettisoned the slowest-growing sector of Israeli society, secular Jews, and conjoined the two fastest to their project. The West Bank settler population, again excluding occupied East Jerusalem, has tripled from 105,000 on the eve of the Oslo agreement in 1992 to over 300,000 today."
Middle East Report Online provides a background to these so-called settlers [in reality, occupiers]:
"At first glance, it is hard to explain the success of the West Bank settlers. Numerically, excluding the 200,000 settlers in illegally annexed East Jerusalem, they constitute just 4 percent of Israel’s population, and are often resented by the rest for the disproportionate share of the national wealth they consume. A mere 1 percent live in the heartland of the putative Palestinian state, east of the separation barrier that Israel has built in the West Bank. Of these, thousands, most of them secular, have expressed interest in moving westward in return for financial incentives. Some -- uncomfortable with geographic isolation, fears of violence and the mounting religiosity of the settler movement -- have already left. Relocating the remainder seems a small price to pay for sparing Israel the worldwide opprobrium that comes with maintaining and advancing the settlement project.
Yet internally, the settler movement is -- in the words of a former West Bank army commander -- “Israel’s most powerful lobby.” Fearful of additional Amona-style faceoffs with Zionism’s foremost ideologues, few Israeli politicians dare confront the movement. It is growing fast: The drift of the secular-minded out of the West Bank (though not East Jerusalem) has been more than compensated for by the movement’s burgeoning hard core of national-religious activists, who from the outset have promoted Jewish settlement throughout the biblical Land of Israel as a sacred duty. In addition, the movement has coopted Israel’s ultra-Orthodox and traditionally non-Zionist communities, desperate for room for their large families. In so doing, the settlers have jettisoned the slowest-growing sector of Israeli society, secular Jews, and conjoined the two fastest to their project. The West Bank settler population, again excluding occupied East Jerusalem, has tripled from 105,000 on the eve of the Oslo agreement in 1992 to over 300,000 today."
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
UN: Millions will starve as rich nations cut food aid funding
World full of riches and rich people and countries. So one might imagine......except the UN reports, and warns, that the cut back in funding for food aid will result in millions of people starving. Just reflect on that alongside the obscene sums spent on armaments around the world.....
The Guardian reports:
"Tens of millions of the world's poor will have their food rations cut or cancelled in the next few weeks because rich countries have slashed aid funding.
The result, says Josette Sheeran, head of the UN's World Food Programme (WFP), could be the "loss of a generation" of children to malnutrition, food riots and political destabilisation. "We are facing a silent tsunami," said Sheeran in an exclusive interview with the Observer. "A humanitarian disaster is unrolling." The WFP feeds nearly 100 million people a year.
Food riots in more than 20 countries last year persuaded rich countries to give a record $5bn to the WFP to help avert a global food crisis brought on by record oil prices and the growth of biofuel crops. But new data seen by the Observer show that food aid is now at its lowest in 20 years. Countries have offered only $2.7bn in the first 10 months of 2009.
The US, by far the world's biggest contributor to food aid, has so far pledged $800m less than in 2008; Saudi Arabia has paid only $10m in 2009 compared with $500m in 2008; and the EU has given $130m less. Britain's promise of $69m (£43.5m) this year is nearly $100m (£63m) less than 2008, and, if nothing more is given, will be its lowest contribution since 2001.
"Even under our best scenarios, we will end the year $2bn short," said Sheeran. "Many of our funders do not feel that they need to give on the level of last year. They think the world food crisis is over, but in 80% of countries food prices are actually higher than one year ago."
The Guardian reports:
"Tens of millions of the world's poor will have their food rations cut or cancelled in the next few weeks because rich countries have slashed aid funding.
The result, says Josette Sheeran, head of the UN's World Food Programme (WFP), could be the "loss of a generation" of children to malnutrition, food riots and political destabilisation. "We are facing a silent tsunami," said Sheeran in an exclusive interview with the Observer. "A humanitarian disaster is unrolling." The WFP feeds nearly 100 million people a year.
Food riots in more than 20 countries last year persuaded rich countries to give a record $5bn to the WFP to help avert a global food crisis brought on by record oil prices and the growth of biofuel crops. But new data seen by the Observer show that food aid is now at its lowest in 20 years. Countries have offered only $2.7bn in the first 10 months of 2009.
The US, by far the world's biggest contributor to food aid, has so far pledged $800m less than in 2008; Saudi Arabia has paid only $10m in 2009 compared with $500m in 2008; and the EU has given $130m less. Britain's promise of $69m (£43.5m) this year is nearly $100m (£63m) less than 2008, and, if nothing more is given, will be its lowest contribution since 2001.
"Even under our best scenarios, we will end the year $2bn short," said Sheeran. "Many of our funders do not feel that they need to give on the level of last year. They think the world food crisis is over, but in 80% of countries food prices are actually higher than one year ago."
Old-fashioned paper v technology
MPS being at the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival - a real treat! - has, predictably in discussions and panels raised the thorny question of what life does the book, as we know it, still have in it. With devices like the Kindle and iphone, etc now available - and Apple said to release a Tablet early next year - many are suggesting that what has been the traditional way to read a book, is on the way out.
Jane Sullivan, writing on the National Times in "The future of books"makes it very clear where she stands:
"One of my favourite whizz-bang gadgets is a thing called the Book. No, not iBook, e-book, m-book or anything like that. Just a handy-sized collection of bound pages and type. It looks and feels good, it responds to touch. I can take it anywhere and be transported in an instant to an astounding virtual world."
And:
"I can’t begin to get my head around what might happen in a thousand years, but I know one thing about now. We human beings are devices wired for story. We love a good narrative and we will take it in whatever form is the most reasonably-priced and reader-friendly. The electronic screen has come to stay, but for the long-haul read, it’s still true that nothing beats the old-fashioned book."
Jane Sullivan, writing on the National Times in "The future of books"makes it very clear where she stands:
"One of my favourite whizz-bang gadgets is a thing called the Book. No, not iBook, e-book, m-book or anything like that. Just a handy-sized collection of bound pages and type. It looks and feels good, it responds to touch. I can take it anywhere and be transported in an instant to an astounding virtual world."
And:
"I can’t begin to get my head around what might happen in a thousand years, but I know one thing about now. We human beings are devices wired for story. We love a good narrative and we will take it in whatever form is the most reasonably-priced and reader-friendly. The electronic screen has come to stay, but for the long-haul read, it’s still true that nothing beats the old-fashioned book."
Monday, October 12, 2009
The same culprits at it again
"Let’s be clear: Those who demanded that America divert its troops and treasure from Afghanistan to Iraq in 2002 and 2003 — when there was no Qaeda presence in Iraq — bear responsibility for the chaos in Afghanistan that ensued. Now they have the nerve to imperiously and tardily demand that America increase its 68,000-strong presence in Afghanistan to clean up their mess — even though the number of Qaeda insurgents there has dwindled to fewer than 100, according to the president’s national security adviser, Gen. James Jones.
But why let facts get in the way? Just as these hawks insisted that Iraq was “the central front in the war on terror” when the central front was Afghanistan, so they insist that Afghanistan is the central front now that it has migrated to Pakistan. When the day comes for them to anoint Pakistan as the central front, it will be proof positive that Al Qaeda has consolidated its hold on Somalia and Yemen."
So writes op-ed columnist for The NY Times Frank Rich in his latest piece "Two Wrongs Make Another Fiasco".
It makes for depressing reading to consider that the very same people who got the US, and the rest of the world, into the Iraq mess are now seeking to ramp up things on the Afghanistan War front - with an eye towards Pakistan to boot!
But why let facts get in the way? Just as these hawks insisted that Iraq was “the central front in the war on terror” when the central front was Afghanistan, so they insist that Afghanistan is the central front now that it has migrated to Pakistan. When the day comes for them to anoint Pakistan as the central front, it will be proof positive that Al Qaeda has consolidated its hold on Somalia and Yemen."
So writes op-ed columnist for The NY Times Frank Rich in his latest piece "Two Wrongs Make Another Fiasco".
It makes for depressing reading to consider that the very same people who got the US, and the rest of the world, into the Iraq mess are now seeking to ramp up things on the Afghanistan War front - with an eye towards Pakistan to boot!
Well overdue apologies called for
Who can forget all the arrows fired at the Clintons during their 8 years in the White aside?- and that was without the tawdry Lewinsky affair.
Now it seems that much of the flak was simply not true.
Joe Conason explains in a piece " Time for the media to fess up" on Salon:
"Better late than never" isn't always true, but public candor from people and institutions that have misled us for many years can be refreshing -- and sometimes even liberating.
Prodded by recent events -- including publication of "The Clinton Tapes," historian Taylor Branch's fascinating account of his contemporaneous private conversations with President Bill Clinton; the unwholesome reappearance of healthcare reform nemesis Betsy McCaughey; and perhaps even the death of retired New York Times Op-Ed columnist William Safire -- certain media myth-makers of the Clinton era have suddenly uttered startling acknowledgments and even a grudging confession or two.
At this late date, it is scarcely radical to suggest that Whitewater and all the other "scandals" deployed by the Washington press corps to besiege the Clinton White House (before the Lewinsky affair) were without substance. In the pages of the New York Times and the Washington Post, which created and promoted those stories, even such media mandarins as Thomas Friedman and Evan Thomas now casually assure us that they were overblown, even "bogus." And former New Republic editor Andrew Sullivan today admits that the famous takedown of the Clinton healthcare reforms he published in 1994, Betsy McCaughey's "No Exit," was essentially a fake too.
Belated as those affirmations are, by more than a decade, they may still matter -- if only because they arrive at a time when the mainstream media is just beginning to descend into some of the same bad habits that plagued us during the last Democratic presidency and the far right is already talking impeachment."
Now it seems that much of the flak was simply not true.
Joe Conason explains in a piece " Time for the media to fess up" on Salon:
"Better late than never" isn't always true, but public candor from people and institutions that have misled us for many years can be refreshing -- and sometimes even liberating.
Prodded by recent events -- including publication of "The Clinton Tapes," historian Taylor Branch's fascinating account of his contemporaneous private conversations with President Bill Clinton; the unwholesome reappearance of healthcare reform nemesis Betsy McCaughey; and perhaps even the death of retired New York Times Op-Ed columnist William Safire -- certain media myth-makers of the Clinton era have suddenly uttered startling acknowledgments and even a grudging confession or two.
At this late date, it is scarcely radical to suggest that Whitewater and all the other "scandals" deployed by the Washington press corps to besiege the Clinton White House (before the Lewinsky affair) were without substance. In the pages of the New York Times and the Washington Post, which created and promoted those stories, even such media mandarins as Thomas Friedman and Evan Thomas now casually assure us that they were overblown, even "bogus." And former New Republic editor Andrew Sullivan today admits that the famous takedown of the Clinton healthcare reforms he published in 1994, Betsy McCaughey's "No Exit," was essentially a fake too.
Belated as those affirmations are, by more than a decade, they may still matter -- if only because they arrive at a time when the mainstream media is just beginning to descend into some of the same bad habits that plagued us during the last Democratic presidency and the far right is already talking impeachment."
Deal with it!
The seemingly ongoing "struggle" between the West and Islam needs to be seen in context. There isn't one, but even if there is, Muslims now make up one quarter of the world's population - as a Demographic Report by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life reveals. Muslims can't simply be ignored!
"A comprehensive demographic study of more than 200 countries finds that there are 1.57 billion Muslims of all ages living in the world today, representing 23% of an estimated 2009 world population of 6.8 billion.
While Muslims are found on all five inhabited continents, more than 60% of the global Muslim population is in Asia and about 20% is in the Middle East and North Africa. However, the Middle East-North Africa region has the highest percentage of Muslim-majority countries. Indeed, more than half of the 20 countries and territories1 in that region have populations that are approximately 95% Muslim or greater.
More than 300 million Muslims, or one-fifth of the world's Muslim population, live in countries where Islam is not the majority religion. These minority Muslim populations are often quite large. India, for example, has the third-largest population of Muslims worldwide. China has more Muslims than Syria, while Russia is home to more Muslims than Jordan and Libya combined.
Of the total Muslim population, 10-13% are Shia Muslims and 87-90% are Sunni Muslims. Most Shias (between 68% and 80%) live in just four countries: Iran, Pakistan, India and Iraq."
"A comprehensive demographic study of more than 200 countries finds that there are 1.57 billion Muslims of all ages living in the world today, representing 23% of an estimated 2009 world population of 6.8 billion.
While Muslims are found on all five inhabited continents, more than 60% of the global Muslim population is in Asia and about 20% is in the Middle East and North Africa. However, the Middle East-North Africa region has the highest percentage of Muslim-majority countries. Indeed, more than half of the 20 countries and territories1 in that region have populations that are approximately 95% Muslim or greater.
More than 300 million Muslims, or one-fifth of the world's Muslim population, live in countries where Islam is not the majority religion. These minority Muslim populations are often quite large. India, for example, has the third-largest population of Muslims worldwide. China has more Muslims than Syria, while Russia is home to more Muslims than Jordan and Libya combined.
Of the total Muslim population, 10-13% are Shia Muslims and 87-90% are Sunni Muslims. Most Shias (between 68% and 80%) live in just four countries: Iran, Pakistan, India and Iraq."
Sunday, October 11, 2009
'Anne Frank: The Book, The Life, The Afterlife' by Francine Prose
"Last week, a video went up on YouTube that shows the only motion picture images ever taken of Anne Frank. It's just a quick glimpse, a few seconds of film.
A newlywed couple leaves an Amsterdam apartment building. People hover on the sidewalk, watching them go. Then the camera pans upward -- and there, gazing down from a balcony, is Anne Frank.
The date is July 22, 1941. She's 12 years old. It's a year before she and her family will go into hiding, less than four years before she will die of typhus at Bergen-Belsen in the waning days of World War II. We watch her watching, watch her look back over her shoulder, quick and coltish, as if in response to someone inside."
So begins a piece and book review on Anne Frank in The LA Times - who would, had she lived, turned 80 this year.
Read the full piece here.
A newlywed couple leaves an Amsterdam apartment building. People hover on the sidewalk, watching them go. Then the camera pans upward -- and there, gazing down from a balcony, is Anne Frank.
The date is July 22, 1941. She's 12 years old. It's a year before she and her family will go into hiding, less than four years before she will die of typhus at Bergen-Belsen in the waning days of World War II. We watch her watching, watch her look back over her shoulder, quick and coltish, as if in response to someone inside."
So begins a piece and book review on Anne Frank in The LA Times - who would, had she lived, turned 80 this year.
Read the full piece here.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
One very odd Prize winner
In his 1895 will, Alfred Nobel stipulated that the peace prize should go "to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses."
Based on that criteria there is no way that Obama remotely qualified for the Nobel Peace Prize. Track record?- nil! Prospectively? - maybe!
The Nation makes the points well about the surprising choice:
"Obama doesn't deserve the prize, yet.
Yes, the president has said he wants a world free of nuclear weapons, but as Jonathan Schell wrote in our pages, he has a long way to go before that vision becomes reality. That path must include the US Senate ratifying the comprehensive test ban treaty, and even a full court press from the White House can't guarantee that will happen this fall.
Then there's the matter of Obama's multilateralism and partnering with the UN. As Naomi Klein pointed out, the Obama administration, like its predecessor, boycotted the UN Durban anti-racism conference, using the flap over language on Israel-Palestine as an excuse to duck the actual issues about racial justice the conference cautiously raised. As for climate change, Obama has yet to commit to attending the December climate change conference in Copenhagen, and if that jaunt to Denmark is going to succeed in reducing carbon emissions, the US will have to bring a lot more to the table than it is currently offering.
I could go on: fully closing Gitmo and restoring civil liberties and compliance with the Geneva Conventions; negotiating with Iran in good faith; withdrawing from Iraq and, of course, withdrawal from Afghanistan. Escalation, or even maintaining the status quo there, would alone discredit this award in history's eyes."
Obama got a nice vote of confidence from the Norwegians for his promises. But now, he has to actually earn the Nobel with his deeds. That will be hard to do if his administration continues to send such mixed signals on international cooperation and diplomacy.
Based on that criteria there is no way that Obama remotely qualified for the Nobel Peace Prize. Track record?- nil! Prospectively? - maybe!
The Nation makes the points well about the surprising choice:
"Obama doesn't deserve the prize, yet.
Yes, the president has said he wants a world free of nuclear weapons, but as Jonathan Schell wrote in our pages, he has a long way to go before that vision becomes reality. That path must include the US Senate ratifying the comprehensive test ban treaty, and even a full court press from the White House can't guarantee that will happen this fall.
Then there's the matter of Obama's multilateralism and partnering with the UN. As Naomi Klein pointed out, the Obama administration, like its predecessor, boycotted the UN Durban anti-racism conference, using the flap over language on Israel-Palestine as an excuse to duck the actual issues about racial justice the conference cautiously raised. As for climate change, Obama has yet to commit to attending the December climate change conference in Copenhagen, and if that jaunt to Denmark is going to succeed in reducing carbon emissions, the US will have to bring a lot more to the table than it is currently offering.
I could go on: fully closing Gitmo and restoring civil liberties and compliance with the Geneva Conventions; negotiating with Iran in good faith; withdrawing from Iraq and, of course, withdrawal from Afghanistan. Escalation, or even maintaining the status quo there, would alone discredit this award in history's eyes."
Obama got a nice vote of confidence from the Norwegians for his promises. But now, he has to actually earn the Nobel with his deeds. That will be hard to do if his administration continues to send such mixed signals on international cooperation and diplomacy.
"Where did we get the gall to decide the fate of another people?"
Gideon Levy, an op-ed writer for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, has been a strident critic of Israel's policies in relation to the Palestinians, the West Bank and Gaza. MPS would describe him as almost being Israel's conscience! Be that as it may, in his latest piece "Only gall and nothing more" he raises a very critical question...."where did we get the gall to decide the fate of another people?"
As he writes:
"About an hour's drive from us, the unbelievably cruel reality continues. Everything is done there in the name of us all, supposedly, and in the name of security, supposedly. And here among us there is either distorted discourse or non-discourse.
Nothing will change as long as this state of affairs continues. A recent report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs draws a shocking picture of what is happening in Gaza. For example, 75 percent of its inhabitants, more than 1 million people, are suffering from nutritional deficiencies, 90 percent must live through power blackouts for four to eight hours every day, 40 percent of those who apply to leave for medical treatment are refused by Israel and 140,000 inhabitants are unemployed.
All these figures reflect a situation that has degenerated badly over the past year, and all of them stem from the siege in its third year. How many of us know this? How many of us does this touch at all, between the bar and the gym?"
As he writes:
"About an hour's drive from us, the unbelievably cruel reality continues. Everything is done there in the name of us all, supposedly, and in the name of security, supposedly. And here among us there is either distorted discourse or non-discourse.
Nothing will change as long as this state of affairs continues. A recent report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs draws a shocking picture of what is happening in Gaza. For example, 75 percent of its inhabitants, more than 1 million people, are suffering from nutritional deficiencies, 90 percent must live through power blackouts for four to eight hours every day, 40 percent of those who apply to leave for medical treatment are refused by Israel and 140,000 inhabitants are unemployed.
All these figures reflect a situation that has degenerated badly over the past year, and all of them stem from the siege in its third year. How many of us know this? How many of us does this touch at all, between the bar and the gym?"
Friday, October 09, 2009
Bombing Iran is the answer?
Let's hope that calmer heads prevail than the result of the Pew's Research Centre poll, as IPS reports in "Public Sceptical and Hawkish on Iran":
"Despite strong support for diplomatic engagement with Iran, most U.S. citizens believe such efforts will ultimately fail and that Washington should be prepared to use military force to prevent Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, according to a new poll released here Tuesday by the Pew Research Centre for the People and the Press.
Sixty-one percent of the 1,500 respondents interviewed by Pew said it was "more important to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, even if it means taking military action" than to "avoid military conflict", according to the survey, which was conducted over a five-day period ending Monday.
At the same time, 63 percent of respondents - an increase of nine percent since last time Pew posed the question, in 2006 - said they approved of Washington negotiating directly with Iran over the future of its nuclear programme, as it began doing last Thursday in Geneva where the two countries held their highest-level public talks in 30 years."
"Despite strong support for diplomatic engagement with Iran, most U.S. citizens believe such efforts will ultimately fail and that Washington should be prepared to use military force to prevent Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, according to a new poll released here Tuesday by the Pew Research Centre for the People and the Press.
Sixty-one percent of the 1,500 respondents interviewed by Pew said it was "more important to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, even if it means taking military action" than to "avoid military conflict", according to the survey, which was conducted over a five-day period ending Monday.
At the same time, 63 percent of respondents - an increase of nine percent since last time Pew posed the question, in 2006 - said they approved of Washington negotiating directly with Iran over the future of its nuclear programme, as it began doing last Thursday in Geneva where the two countries held their highest-level public talks in 30 years."
Justice hidden from sight - justice denied
The US will stand forever condemned by its critics if it doesn't make a clean breast of the torture that was carried out, officially, over the last years. Just the facts seeing the light of day would be a good start! It isn't gonna happen - as Glen Greenwald, lawyer and now op-ed writer for Salon, explains in "A Historian's Account of Democrats and Bush-Era War Crimes":
"The American Propsect's Adam Serwer notes that, yesterday, Sen. Joe Lieberman successfully inserted into the Homeland Security appropriations bill an amendment -- supported by the Obama White House -- to provide an exemption from the Freedom of Information Act's mandates by authorizing the Defense Secretary to suppress long-concealed photographs of detainee abuse. Two courts had ruled -- unanimously -- that the American people have the right to see these photographs under FOIA, a 40-year-old law championed by the Democrats in the LBJ era and long considered a crowning jewel in their legislative achievements. But this Lieberman amendment, which is now likely to pass, undermines all of that and -- as EBay founder Pierre Omidyar put it today -- its central purpose is to "legalize suppression" of evidence of American war crimes.
What made those detainee photographs so important from the start is that they depict brutal abuse well outside of the Abu Ghraib facility and thus reveal to Americans -- and the world -- that America's torture was not, as they've been constantly told, limited to rogue sadists at Abu Ghraib and the waterboarding of three bad guys. Instead, our torture regime was systematic, pervasive, brutal, fatal, and -- becuase it was the by-product of conscious policies set at the highest levels of government -- common across America's "War on Terror" detention regime. These photographs would have documented those vital facts; combated the false denials from torture apologists; fueled the momentum for accountability; and revealed, in graphic and unavoidable terms, what was truly done by America's government. But a Democratic-led Congress, at the urging of a Democratic President, are now taking extraordinary steps -- including an act of Congress which has no purpose other than to suppress evidence of America's war crimes -- to ensure that this evidence never sees the light of day."
"The American Propsect's Adam Serwer notes that, yesterday, Sen. Joe Lieberman successfully inserted into the Homeland Security appropriations bill an amendment -- supported by the Obama White House -- to provide an exemption from the Freedom of Information Act's mandates by authorizing the Defense Secretary to suppress long-concealed photographs of detainee abuse. Two courts had ruled -- unanimously -- that the American people have the right to see these photographs under FOIA, a 40-year-old law championed by the Democrats in the LBJ era and long considered a crowning jewel in their legislative achievements. But this Lieberman amendment, which is now likely to pass, undermines all of that and -- as EBay founder Pierre Omidyar put it today -- its central purpose is to "legalize suppression" of evidence of American war crimes.
What made those detainee photographs so important from the start is that they depict brutal abuse well outside of the Abu Ghraib facility and thus reveal to Americans -- and the world -- that America's torture was not, as they've been constantly told, limited to rogue sadists at Abu Ghraib and the waterboarding of three bad guys. Instead, our torture regime was systematic, pervasive, brutal, fatal, and -- becuase it was the by-product of conscious policies set at the highest levels of government -- common across America's "War on Terror" detention regime. These photographs would have documented those vital facts; combated the false denials from torture apologists; fueled the momentum for accountability; and revealed, in graphic and unavoidable terms, what was truly done by America's government. But a Democratic-led Congress, at the urging of a Democratic President, are now taking extraordinary steps -- including an act of Congress which has no purpose other than to suppress evidence of America's war crimes -- to ensure that this evidence never sees the light of day."
Losing the plot!
Hard to believe this, but read to what the Israeli ambassador to the UN had to say [in The New Republic] about the UN Goldstone report on the Gaza War:
"The Goldstone Report goes further than Ahmadinejad and the Holocaust deniers by stripping the Jews not only of the ability and the need but of the right to defend themselves. If a country can be pummeled by thousands of rockets and still not be justified in protecting its inhabitants, then at issue is not the methods by which that country survives but whether it can survive at all. But more insidiously, the report does not only hamstring Israel; it portrays the Jews as the deliberate murderers of innocents--as Nazis. And a Nazi state not only lacks the need and right to defend itself; it must rather be destroyed."
Is this hyperbole, fear-mongering, going over the top or has this man, and the country he represents, lost the plot?
"The Goldstone Report goes further than Ahmadinejad and the Holocaust deniers by stripping the Jews not only of the ability and the need but of the right to defend themselves. If a country can be pummeled by thousands of rockets and still not be justified in protecting its inhabitants, then at issue is not the methods by which that country survives but whether it can survive at all. But more insidiously, the report does not only hamstring Israel; it portrays the Jews as the deliberate murderers of innocents--as Nazis. And a Nazi state not only lacks the need and right to defend itself; it must rather be destroyed."
Is this hyperbole, fear-mongering, going over the top or has this man, and the country he represents, lost the plot?
The answer is pretty clear, isn't it?
"Imagine that the situation in Afghanistan were exactly what it is today -- a corrupt government in Kabul with dubious legitimacy, the Taliban gaining strength, al Qaeda's leaders still hiding out in northwest Pakistan, etc. -- except that the U.S. military wasn't there. And then ask yourself: would you be in favor of sending 100,000 or so American soldiers to fight and die there?"
Who is asking this important question? None other than Stephen Walt, professor of international relations at Harvard, in his latest piece on his blog on FP. He considers where things are at and questions whether the decision of Obama to stay the course as things stand now can succeed.
"My views on this subject are clear, so feel free to discount what follows. But I doubt we would be having a serious debate about sending a large number of troops to Afghanistan if we weren't there already. Instead, we would be treating Afghanistan the same way we treat most failed states. We'd express our concern, offer modest amounts of humanitarian assistance, we'd let the U.N. do its best, and if we thought al Qaeda was operating there, we'd go after them with special forces and Predators or other military assets. Just look at how we are currently dealing with Somalia or Yemen or Sudan and you get an idea of how we would be dealing with Afghanistan if were we not there already."
Who is asking this important question? None other than Stephen Walt, professor of international relations at Harvard, in his latest piece on his blog on FP. He considers where things are at and questions whether the decision of Obama to stay the course as things stand now can succeed.
"My views on this subject are clear, so feel free to discount what follows. But I doubt we would be having a serious debate about sending a large number of troops to Afghanistan if we weren't there already. Instead, we would be treating Afghanistan the same way we treat most failed states. We'd express our concern, offer modest amounts of humanitarian assistance, we'd let the U.N. do its best, and if we thought al Qaeda was operating there, we'd go after them with special forces and Predators or other military assets. Just look at how we are currently dealing with Somalia or Yemen or Sudan and you get an idea of how we would be dealing with Afghanistan if were we not there already."
Thursday, October 08, 2009
Robert Fisk: A financial revolution with profound political implications
If what Robert Fisk [veteran journalist, author and commentator on the Middle East] says in his latest piece in The Independent is correct, the dynamics of politics, especially as it effects the Middle East and its relationship with the US, is destined to change.
"The plan to de-dollarise the oil market, discussed both in public and in secret for at least two years and widely denied yesterday by the usual suspects – Saudi Arabia being, as expected, the first among them – reflects a growing resentment in the Middle East, Europe and in China at America's decades-long political as well as economic world dominance.
Nowhere has this more symbolic importance than in the Middle East, where the United Arab Emirates alone holds $900bn (£566bn) of dollar reserves and where Saudi Arabia has been quietly co-ordinating its defence, armaments and oil policies with the Russians since 2007.
This does not indicate a trade war with America – not yet – but Arab Gulf regimes have been growing increasingly restive at their economic as well as political dependence on Washington for many years. Of the $7.2 trillion in international reserves, $2.1trn is held by Arab countries – China holds about $2.3trn – and the nations interested in moving away from dollar-trading in oil are believed to hold over 80 per cent of international dollar reserves."
"The plan to de-dollarise the oil market, discussed both in public and in secret for at least two years and widely denied yesterday by the usual suspects – Saudi Arabia being, as expected, the first among them – reflects a growing resentment in the Middle East, Europe and in China at America's decades-long political as well as economic world dominance.
Nowhere has this more symbolic importance than in the Middle East, where the United Arab Emirates alone holds $900bn (£566bn) of dollar reserves and where Saudi Arabia has been quietly co-ordinating its defence, armaments and oil policies with the Russians since 2007.
This does not indicate a trade war with America – not yet – but Arab Gulf regimes have been growing increasingly restive at their economic as well as political dependence on Washington for many years. Of the $7.2 trillion in international reserves, $2.1trn is held by Arab countries – China holds about $2.3trn – and the nations interested in moving away from dollar-trading in oil are believed to hold over 80 per cent of international dollar reserves."
That Report stopped! Now we know.....
If this report from the Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv [reproduced by Norman Finkelstein on his web site] is correct, then we now know why the PA backed off - or otherwise agreed to - the UN Goldstone Report on the Gaza War going forward.
The PA would appear sorely condemned for its duplicitous role in events surrounding the Gaza War:
"A Palestinian press agency claims that the surprising decision by Palestinian Authority officials to postpone the discussion of the Goldstone report in the UN Human Rights Council is the result of an Israeli threat. According to a report by Shihab, the Palestinian Authority refused Israel’s demand that it withdraw its support for the harsh report, which Israel considered one-sided. Following this, Israeli figures showed the PA a series of tapes in which Palestinian Authority officials could be heard urging Israel to continue the operation in Gaza. Israel threatened to reveal the material to media outlets as well as to the UN and this, in turn, resulted in the Palestinian retreat. It was further claimed that the Palestinians were shown footage showing a meeting between Abu Mazen, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and then foreign minister Tzippi Livni. In the course of the meeting, according to the report, Abu Mazen attempted to convince Barak to continue the operation. Barak appeared hesitant whereas Abu Mazen was enthusiastic. In addition, a telephone conversation recording between Abed Al-Rahim, secretary general of the Palestinian Authority and director of Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi’s bureau was presented. The Palestinian senior official can be heard saying that now is the time to bring ground forces into the Jabalya and Shati refugee camps. “The fall of these two camps will bring about the fall of the Hamas regime in Gaza, and will cause them to wave a white flag,” says Abed Al-Rahim. According to the report, Dov Weissglas told Abed Al-Rahim that such a move could result in the deaths of thousands of civilians. “They all voted for Hamas,” says Abed Al-Rahim, “they chose their fate, not us.”
The PA would appear sorely condemned for its duplicitous role in events surrounding the Gaza War:
"A Palestinian press agency claims that the surprising decision by Palestinian Authority officials to postpone the discussion of the Goldstone report in the UN Human Rights Council is the result of an Israeli threat. According to a report by Shihab, the Palestinian Authority refused Israel’s demand that it withdraw its support for the harsh report, which Israel considered one-sided. Following this, Israeli figures showed the PA a series of tapes in which Palestinian Authority officials could be heard urging Israel to continue the operation in Gaza. Israel threatened to reveal the material to media outlets as well as to the UN and this, in turn, resulted in the Palestinian retreat. It was further claimed that the Palestinians were shown footage showing a meeting between Abu Mazen, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and then foreign minister Tzippi Livni. In the course of the meeting, according to the report, Abu Mazen attempted to convince Barak to continue the operation. Barak appeared hesitant whereas Abu Mazen was enthusiastic. In addition, a telephone conversation recording between Abed Al-Rahim, secretary general of the Palestinian Authority and director of Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi’s bureau was presented. The Palestinian senior official can be heard saying that now is the time to bring ground forces into the Jabalya and Shati refugee camps. “The fall of these two camps will bring about the fall of the Hamas regime in Gaza, and will cause them to wave a white flag,” says Abed Al-Rahim. According to the report, Dov Weissglas told Abed Al-Rahim that such a move could result in the deaths of thousands of civilians. “They all voted for Hamas,” says Abed Al-Rahim, “they chose their fate, not us.”
Wednesday, October 07, 2009
Images......and the Nobel Prize
On rare days in Zambia, the Zambezi River runs quietly, revealing a swimming hole at the top of Victoria Falls. Annie Griffiths Belt of National Geographic took this photo at sunset — and she calls it "one of the most beautiful" she has ever taken.
Annie Griffiths Belt's life and work have been transformed by the breakthroughs in fiber optics and digital data transmission made by this year's winners of the Nobel Prize in physics.
Read all about this remarkable photographer, here, who has harnessed technology to aid her in her work, in this piece on NPR.
The other ticking clock in Iran
All the news is directed to the threat emanating from Iran if it acquires a nuclear capacity. But, there is another threat ticking away in Iran which cannot be ignored.......missiles.
FP reports:
"The recent revelations about Iran's nuclear program -- centering on an enrichment facility buried in a mountain near the holy city of Qom -- have almost certainly intensified the sense of urgency among policymakers in Jerusalem. Even though the news has triggered a new round of high-stakes diplomacy (including an unusual bilateral meeting between Americans and Iranians), you can bet that Israeli military planning for an attack on the Islamic Republic's nuclear facilities has moved into overdrive. Yet there's another ticking clock the Israelis are worried about that hasn't been in the headlines quite so much.
For years now, Tehran has been working hard to acquire sophisticated Russian antiaircraft missiles that would make it far tougher for Israeli planes to stage a successful attack on Iranian nuclear facilities. One Israeli lawmaker, Zeev Elkin, even warned last week that delivering the missiles could even speed up the timing of an Israeli air raid. "I hope Moscow understands that the deliveries will at least speed up such events, if not trigger them," Elkin told the Russian daily Kommersant. Experts estimate that a working Iranian nuclear weapon is still probably at least a year away, depending on a host of contingencies. But the Russian missiles, which just might ensure that Iran's nuclear installations can be protected from attack, could be delivered at any time. So it's easy to understand why, right now, Israeli minds seem to be focused on the more urgent of these two ticking clocks."
Continue reading here.
FP reports:
"The recent revelations about Iran's nuclear program -- centering on an enrichment facility buried in a mountain near the holy city of Qom -- have almost certainly intensified the sense of urgency among policymakers in Jerusalem. Even though the news has triggered a new round of high-stakes diplomacy (including an unusual bilateral meeting between Americans and Iranians), you can bet that Israeli military planning for an attack on the Islamic Republic's nuclear facilities has moved into overdrive. Yet there's another ticking clock the Israelis are worried about that hasn't been in the headlines quite so much.
For years now, Tehran has been working hard to acquire sophisticated Russian antiaircraft missiles that would make it far tougher for Israeli planes to stage a successful attack on Iranian nuclear facilities. One Israeli lawmaker, Zeev Elkin, even warned last week that delivering the missiles could even speed up the timing of an Israeli air raid. "I hope Moscow understands that the deliveries will at least speed up such events, if not trigger them," Elkin told the Russian daily Kommersant. Experts estimate that a working Iranian nuclear weapon is still probably at least a year away, depending on a host of contingencies. But the Russian missiles, which just might ensure that Iran's nuclear installations can be protected from attack, could be delivered at any time. So it's easy to understand why, right now, Israeli minds seem to be focused on the more urgent of these two ticking clocks."
Continue reading here.
Iran, Israel, and the Muzzled US Press
Faramarz Farbod is a native of Iran and teaches politics at Moravian College in Bethlehem, PA, USA.
In a more than relevant piece "Iran, Israel, and the Muzzled US Press" on CommonDreams, Farbod reflects on Iran, the Middle East in general and Israel in particular - and asks more than pertinent questions, including how it is that Iran attracts sanctioning for not abiding by UN resolutions [whereas Israel does not] and why is it that the West, the US in particular, simply does not talk about Israel's nuclear arsenal.
"Iran must comply with United Nations resolutions," declared President Obama. Iran is "as defiant as ever" says a chorus of corporate employees otherwise known as mainstream journalists. Really! Is Iran defiant for testing missiles for its military? What military in the world fails to test missiles? Is Iran defiant for reporting the construction of a "secret underground" uranium enrichment plant at least a year in advance of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) obligations require it to?
Speaking of "defiance" in the neighborhood where Iran resides and failing to mention Israel requires levels of disingenuousness and obedience to state propaganda that baffle the mind. And all this at a time when arguably the most significant news item to come our way this month was the UN Human Rights Council's damning report (Goldstone Report) on Israeli crimes in the winter assault on Gaza. (Here is the Executive Summary of the report: www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/12session/A-HRC-12-48_ADVANCE1.pdf.) Can you imagine the deafening corporate media ruckus had the UN issued a 452-page report condemning Iran of war crimes and even possible crimes against humanity on a massive scale? Instead, what we get is near silence on the Goldstone Report and all the other facts on the ground, such as:
* Iran has signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) but Israel, Pakistan, and India have not;
* Israel just rejected the call by IAEA to join the NPT and open up its atomic sites to international inspection: the IAEA motion on September 18 expressing concern about "Israeli nuclear capabilities" was adopted by 49 votes to 45, with 16 abstentions; the US and the EU initially tried to block the vote, and then voted against it while Israel said it "will not co-operate in any matter with this resolution";
* Israel has had nuclear weapons for three decades, and not only refuses to sign the NPT, rejects international inspections, but also does not even acknowledge the existence of these weapons, and even has gone so far as to jail a nuclear scientist for years for exposing the fact;
* Israel in defiance of international law continues to threaten Iran with military attack;
* Israel stands in violation of international law on several other accounts regarding waging of brutal wars of aggression and invasions of Lebanon and Gaza and continuing its brutal policies of occupation, apartheid and ethnic cleansing of the hapless Palestinians."
In a more than relevant piece "Iran, Israel, and the Muzzled US Press" on CommonDreams, Farbod reflects on Iran, the Middle East in general and Israel in particular - and asks more than pertinent questions, including how it is that Iran attracts sanctioning for not abiding by UN resolutions [whereas Israel does not] and why is it that the West, the US in particular, simply does not talk about Israel's nuclear arsenal.
"Iran must comply with United Nations resolutions," declared President Obama. Iran is "as defiant as ever" says a chorus of corporate employees otherwise known as mainstream journalists. Really! Is Iran defiant for testing missiles for its military? What military in the world fails to test missiles? Is Iran defiant for reporting the construction of a "secret underground" uranium enrichment plant at least a year in advance of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) obligations require it to?
Speaking of "defiance" in the neighborhood where Iran resides and failing to mention Israel requires levels of disingenuousness and obedience to state propaganda that baffle the mind. And all this at a time when arguably the most significant news item to come our way this month was the UN Human Rights Council's damning report (Goldstone Report) on Israeli crimes in the winter assault on Gaza. (Here is the Executive Summary of the report: www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/12session/A-HRC-12-48_ADVANCE1.pdf.) Can you imagine the deafening corporate media ruckus had the UN issued a 452-page report condemning Iran of war crimes and even possible crimes against humanity on a massive scale? Instead, what we get is near silence on the Goldstone Report and all the other facts on the ground, such as:
* Iran has signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) but Israel, Pakistan, and India have not;
* Israel just rejected the call by IAEA to join the NPT and open up its atomic sites to international inspection: the IAEA motion on September 18 expressing concern about "Israeli nuclear capabilities" was adopted by 49 votes to 45, with 16 abstentions; the US and the EU initially tried to block the vote, and then voted against it while Israel said it "will not co-operate in any matter with this resolution";
* Israel has had nuclear weapons for three decades, and not only refuses to sign the NPT, rejects international inspections, but also does not even acknowledge the existence of these weapons, and even has gone so far as to jail a nuclear scientist for years for exposing the fact;
* Israel in defiance of international law continues to threaten Iran with military attack;
* Israel stands in violation of international law on several other accounts regarding waging of brutal wars of aggression and invasions of Lebanon and Gaza and continuing its brutal policies of occupation, apartheid and ethnic cleansing of the hapless Palestinians."
Tuesday, October 06, 2009
Er, not really "the worst of the worst"
Who can forget the rhetoric of the Bush Administration proclaiming that those held at Gitmo were "the worst of the worst?"
The facts, of course, were always different - as this piece from Harper's Magazine makes so very clear:
"For seven years, the Bush Administration told us that the prisoners held at Guantánamo were the “worst of the worst.” These are the kind of people who would chew through the hydraulic cables of a jet to try to bring it down, a breathless General Richard Myers once noted at a 2002 press conference. No one ever disputed that there were some dangerous figures at Guantánamo, particularly after President Bush decided on the eve of the 2006 midterm elections to move those held in CIA black sites to the naval station in Cuba. But was this true of the majority of the prisoners?
There was an odd discord between the rhetoric of the Bush Administration and their conduct. They continued to talk about the “worst of the worst,” and they relaunched it as a talking point almost from the start of the Obama Administration. But they also worked hard to release and repatriate a large number of detainees—it looks like roughly two thirds of the total—down to the end of their term. Seton Hall Law School students and faculty issued a series of impressive reports surveying the available evidence, and they suggested that perhaps as many as 80% of the total inmate population of Gitmo were innocent people, swept up as a result of generous bounty payments the United States offered to Afghan warlords and Pakistani security officials.
Now, as habeas corpus cases are processed, we finally have a basis to judge the Bush-Cheney claims about the Gitmo prisoners. The “judging” is being done by federal judges in Washington, nearly all of them conservative Republicans and quite a few appointed by George W. Bush himself. The results? The process is still ongoing. But at this moment, decisions have been rendered in 38 cases. The government was found to have had a tenable basis to hold eight Gitmo prisoners, and to have no basis in 30 cases. So far at least, the court judgments are remarkable in their coincidence with the numbers from the Seton Hall study. The judicial reviews—which have gotten far less press coverage than the scatter-shot attacks of Dick Cheney and his daughter–can be summarized this way: “Worst of the worst? Not so much.”
The facts, of course, were always different - as this piece from Harper's Magazine makes so very clear:
"For seven years, the Bush Administration told us that the prisoners held at Guantánamo were the “worst of the worst.” These are the kind of people who would chew through the hydraulic cables of a jet to try to bring it down, a breathless General Richard Myers once noted at a 2002 press conference. No one ever disputed that there were some dangerous figures at Guantánamo, particularly after President Bush decided on the eve of the 2006 midterm elections to move those held in CIA black sites to the naval station in Cuba. But was this true of the majority of the prisoners?
There was an odd discord between the rhetoric of the Bush Administration and their conduct. They continued to talk about the “worst of the worst,” and they relaunched it as a talking point almost from the start of the Obama Administration. But they also worked hard to release and repatriate a large number of detainees—it looks like roughly two thirds of the total—down to the end of their term. Seton Hall Law School students and faculty issued a series of impressive reports surveying the available evidence, and they suggested that perhaps as many as 80% of the total inmate population of Gitmo were innocent people, swept up as a result of generous bounty payments the United States offered to Afghan warlords and Pakistani security officials.
Now, as habeas corpus cases are processed, we finally have a basis to judge the Bush-Cheney claims about the Gitmo prisoners. The “judging” is being done by federal judges in Washington, nearly all of them conservative Republicans and quite a few appointed by George W. Bush himself. The results? The process is still ongoing. But at this moment, decisions have been rendered in 38 cases. The government was found to have had a tenable basis to hold eight Gitmo prisoners, and to have no basis in 30 cases. So far at least, the court judgments are remarkable in their coincidence with the numbers from the Seton Hall study. The judicial reviews—which have gotten far less press coverage than the scatter-shot attacks of Dick Cheney and his daughter–can be summarized this way: “Worst of the worst? Not so much.”
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