Thursday, March 29, 2012

Are you disturbed by the news that Oz looks like getting dragged even deeper into the criminal US war machine by allowing a US drone base on Australian soil (Cocos Islands)?


US drones are engaged in CIA extra-judicial targeted assassinations in many countries around the world, which actually kills far more innocent men, women and children ("collateral damage"!) than most people realize, thus creating even more enemies.


Do Australians really think that implicating us even more directly in this criminal behaviour is in our personal or national interest?

Australia has long been used and abused by hosting some of the most important US military bases on our territory, which means compromising our foreign policy independence.

Australia continues to participate in the criminal war of aggression and occupation in Afghanistan, sold to the public by lies as usual.


And now the first of many more US Marines have just  arrived at their new base in Darwin, with far-reaching consequences that we may come to regret.


Sadly, Australia continues its pathetic bi-partisan subservience to the evil imperialist war machine under Prime Minister Julia ("All the way with USA war crimes") Gillard.


Where is the public response to all this?  Or have Australians been raised like mushrooms, kept in the dark and fed bullshit, by a dumbed-down mass media?

I feel ashamed as an Australian!

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

March 27, 2012 "Information Clearing House" --- 

The March 11 Massacre of the 17 Afghan citizens, including at least nine children and four women, raises many fundamental issues about the nature of a colonial war, the practices of a colonial army engaged in a prolonged (eleven-year) occupation and the character of an imperial state as it commits war crimes and increasingly relies on arbitrary dictatorial measures to secure public compliance and suppress dissent.

After the cold-blooded murder of the 17 Afghan villagers in Kandahar Province the US military and the ever-complicit Obama regime constructed an elaborate cover-up, exposing the Administration up to charges of conspiracy to suppress the essential facts, falsify data and obstruct justice: All are grounds for criminal prosecution and impeachment.

This massacre is just one of several hundred committed by US armed forces according to the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai. It could ruin the Obama presidency, by putting him on trial for conspiracy to obstruct justice and arguably send him to jail for war crimes.

Obama’s deliberate lies about the events surrounding the massacre and the fundamental responsibility of the high military command for the crimes committed by its troops underscores the breakdown of the occupation of Afghanistan, the very centerpiece of Obama’s war policy. 

The President of the United States has personally played a major role in the cover-up. From a political vantage point, the executive conspiracy charge has wider and deeper implications than the massacre itself, as horrible as it is.

The Massacre, the ‘Official’ Story (1st version) and the Cover-Up

According to the US military command in Afghanistan and the Obama regime, at 3am on March 11, 2012 a deranged soldier walked off a Special Forces Base in rural Kandahar Province and without command authority entered two villages (two miles apart), shot and killed 17 unarmed civilians, mostly women and children and wounded an unspecified number of villagers; then he doused their bodies with gasoline, set them on fire and hiked back to base to surrender himself to his commanders. 

This ‘surrender’, the Pentagon claims, was recorded on video and no less than the President of the United States, Barack Obama, vouched for its authenticity as conclusive proof for the story of a lone, unbalanced mass murderer. The military command quickly whisked the initially unnamed murderer out of the Afghanistan to the maximum security federal prison in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas and only then identified the madman as a 38-year old, multi-decorated, 11-year army veteran, Staff Sgt. Robert Bales. The US has rejected all attempts by the Afghan President, the Afghan Army Chief and members of the Afghan Parliament to interview Sgt Bales, gather testimony and bring the suspect to trial in Afghanistan.

According to an independent Afghan parliamentary investigation led by Sayed Ishaq Gillami, and initial investigations by General Sher Mohammed Karimi of the Afghan Army, who interviewed residents of the two villages, there are significant contradictions in the US military’s and President Obama’s “official story”. 

Eye witnesses have testified that up to 20 soldiers were involved, aided by a helicopter. What they described was typical of a US Special Forces’ night time raid, which involved the systematic breaking down of doors, rousing the sleeping families and shooting Afghan victims.

Gordon Duff, senior editor of Veterans Today, finds the villagers’ version of events quite plausible for the following reasons: The villages, where the murders occurred, were two miles apart, making it highly unlikely that a lone, fully armed solder could haul a multi-gallon jerry can of gasoline from his base to the first sleeping village, break down the doors of one or more homes, commit the murders, douse and burn his victims and then proceed on foot two miles further on to the second village, shoot, kill and burn the next set of unarmed villagers and then walk back to his base and surrender.

It makes far more sense that a heavily armed group of Special Forces troops, engaged in village ‘pacification’ operations, left their base in military vehicles, passed through the gate in the wee hours of the morning, on a routine official operation, authorized by the bases military command and something went wrong. 

What was supposed to have been a typical midnight assault on a “pacified” village in search of Taliban supporters, turned into the mass murder of children and their mothers in bed with virtually no adult males (husbands, fathers, uncles or brothers) present to protect them. Typically, all Afghan farmers keep weapons in their homes, but these villages had been disarmed by the Special Forces and the adult men had either been detained in earlier sweeps or were in hiding from just such brutal operations in the expectation that their wives and children would not be attacked.

Whatever triggered the mass murder of mothers and children in their nightclothes in those villages in Kandahar, one thing is clear: the President of the United States conspired with the US military command to obstruct justice in the cover-up of a heinous war crime, a felony punishable with impeachment

When the implausibility first ‘official’ story became embarrassingly evident to the most superficial observer, the Obama ‘cover-up’ crew released a new version on March 26: According to the revised version of events, the lone, deranged Sgt. Bales committed the first massacre in the early morning hours of March 11, walked back to base for breakfast and lunch and then walked out again to a second village for another round of mass murder – before returning and turning himself in to his commander posing for the video. 

Why the Obama Cover-Up: Military Demoralization and the Iran War

Why would President Obama engage in such a clumsy cover-up further eroding US relations with the Afghan President Karzai, the Afghan military and especially the Afghan people? Why would he risk charges of conspiracy to protect war criminals by insisting on an easily refutable cover-up?

The story of the alleged assassin, Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, provides some leads about the larger crisis facing the imperial military. Bales is a ‘decorated’ soldier rewarded for his three tours of combat duty in Iraq and his more recent Afghan assignment where he would have participated in similar types of Special Pacification Operations among civilians in the countryside in Afghanistan. 

In the days after news of the massacre leaked out, a furious Afghan President Karzai claimed that “hundreds” of similar massacres had been perpetrated by US and NATO forces and had gone unreported in the Western media and unpunished. Karzai has repeatedly called for an end to US Special Forces’ night raids on sleeping villages. But, until now, there had been no need for a US Presidential cover-up up. 

With the approaching US withdrawal from Afghanistan and the growing expressions of militant Afghan nationalism, the Obama regime must hide the true nature of the occupation. 

Washington’s Afghan clients can no longer ignore US war crimes against innocent children and women and other non-combatants. This is especially true in the so-called ‘pacified’ villages where the adult Afghani men have already been arrested in sweeps or driven into hiding and with the few remaining, disarmed and ‘under the control’ of the US Special Forces.

Considering even the US official story, why would the Special Forces commanders in charge of the Sgt. Bales base ignore the loud bursts of gunfire and screams of women and children in a village within 100 meters of its perimeter at 3 am? According to their official version, the base command only became aware of the massacres when Sgt. Bales walked back to base, raised his hands high for a video-op and confessed to killing and desecrating the bodies of 17, mostly children and women. 

Obama has tried to sell the ‘confession’ video as proof of the ‘official version’ of events to a skeptical Afghan President Karzai who contemptuously demanded the ‘alleged’ video be turned over for a detailed examination for authenticity. Obama’s refusal to release the video tends to confirm his role in the cover-up. Obama’s contention that a ‘lone unbalanced gunman’ committed the crime is completely self-serving and exposes serious and deep structural problems with the war in Afghanistan. 
 
US combat troops in Afghanistan are demoralized and angry because their military commanders have marched them into a cul de sac – a dead end. They are engaged in a long, losing war where every dead US soldier is accompanied by scores who are maimed, blinded and mentally traumatized. 

In Obama’s war, the wounded are patched up and recycled back into the same meat grinder in an increasingly hostile environment, where rape, torture, maiming and murder become their only ‘recreation’. Sgt. Bales was coerced into multiple tours of duty in Iraq and then shipped off to Afghanistan, contrary to his expectations of a promotion and an end to overseas combat assignments.

There is a huge gap between the world of the political warlords in Washington and their accomplices among the warmongering ‘lobbies’ and that of the soldiers who risk their lives in imperial wars of occupation. These dispensable soldiers are repeatedly deployed to brutal colonial wars thousands of miles from their homes to confront an ‘enemy’ they cannot possibly understand. They end up brutalizing the families, friends, neighbors and compatriots of the elusive Afghan anti-colonial fighters – who are everywhere. 

Back in Washington none of the political war-mongers ever experience the pain and suffering of a prolonged war, which for any soldier on the battlefield, is ever present, everywhere. 

Soldiers, like Sgt. Bales, operate in a very hostile environment where, a roadside bomb or a grenade thrown from a motorcycle, or even a ‘trusted’ Afghan ally, who might turn his gun on his US ‘mentors,’ are omnipresent threats to their ever returning home in one piece. 

Obama has to conspire with the Pentagon in covering up this mass murder, defending the officers in charge of these ‘pacified’ villages, because there are no alternatives, no back-ups, no new recruits eager to engage in the 12th year of war in Afghanistan. There are only the re-cycled killers, willing to pursue their career in ‘Special Forces’ involving ‘kill and destroy’ operations. 

Furthermore, Obama cannot rely on the international allies who are rushing to withdraw their own troops from this quagmire. And Obama has a problem with his allied Afghan warlords and kleptocrats, who managed to run off with over $4.5 billion dollars in 2011 (half of the entire state budget) (Financial Times, 3/19/12, p. 1). 

President Obama cannot allow an entire garrison, including their commanding officer to be put on trial for the war crimes in this massacre. Holding anyone, besides the hapless Sgt. Bales, accountable for the massacre would incite a general rebellion within the armed forces, or, at a minimum, further demoralize the elite Special Forces who are expected to man these long-term engagements after the regulars withdraw, which in the case of Afghanistan could last until 2024.

This issue has implications far beyond Afghanistan: Obama has developed his entire new counter-insurgency strategy centered on the easy entry and bloody exits of US Special Forces targeting over seventy-five countries. The Special Forces figure prominently in Obama’s military preparations for Syria and Iran, which have been developed at the behest of his Zionist overlords.

In the final analysis, the entire imperial military apparatus of the Obama regime, while formidable on paper, depends on the ‘Special Operations’ formations. As such, they are the centerpiece of the new imperial warfare, developed as a response to the demands for reduced ground forces, budgetary constraints and growing domestic discontent. 

Their ‘actions’ are designed to leave no witnesses and no embarrassments. They may be the butchers of children, women and unarmed civilians but they are the White House’s butchers.

Despite all their crimes and cover-ups, the Obama regime’s priority is to defend the empire with whatever personnel is available at his disposal. So while Sgt. Bales is in Leavenworth, the Afghan elite cry injustice, the families in Kandahar mourn their dead and the Taliban plan their revenge.

On the domestic front, Obama faces strong popular opposition to the costly unending wars, which have destroyed the US economy, and growing anger and demoralization in the armed forces. 

As a result of the massive popular discontent among the American people with politicians of both parties who have recklessly sent troops into anachronistic colonial wars, which serve the interest of foreign powers, the President has issued an executive decree, allowing him to assume dictatorial powers in order to militarize the entire economy, its resources and its work force. 

On March 16, 2012 Barak Obama issued an Executive Order-National Defense Resource Preparedness in order to sustain the global empire.

Clearly prolonged colonial wars cannot be sustained through the consent of the citizens and such wars cannot be prosecuted according to military manuals and the Geneva Conventions. 

At this point, only Presidential ‘rule by decree’ can secure compliance of the citizens at home and only massacres and cover-ups can sustain the colonial occupations abroad. 

But these are desperate and temporary: When the extreme measures have run their course there will be nothing to fall back on and nothing can save the president of a collapsing empire from the revolt of its citizens and soldiers


James Petras, a former Professor of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York, owns a 50-year membership in the class struggle, is an adviser to the landless and jobless in Brazil and Argentina, and is co-author of Globalization Unmasked (Zed Books). 



Saturday, March 24, 2012

 
 

By War Criminals Watch
War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity
 
March 22, 2012 "Information Clearing House" ---  

The brutality with which the US government exercises its “war on terror” is condemned both by the court of international public opinion and by the principles of international law governing human rights. 

The wars of aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan and the torture of detainees are clearly defined as war crimes by the UN Declaration of Human Rights, the Geneva Conventions, the Convention against Torture and other treaties to which the United States is a signatory. 

Under the cover of "national security," other countries in the region have been drawn into the on-going wars.

The Principles of International Law, recognized in the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal and in the Judgment of the Tribunal, provide no defense for war crimes. Similarly, the Convention Against Torture, which defines torture as a war crime, provides that no exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.

Therefore, the prohibition on war crimes is absolute, not relative, meaning that there is no justification for war crimes despite the particular circumstances in respective countries. 

U.S. Justice Robert Jackson proclaimed at Nuremberg: “No grievances or policies will justify resort to aggressive war. It is utterly renounced and condemned as an instrument of policy. The same applies to other war crimes as well. The war crimes of one’s opponents are no justification for one’s own."

War Criminals Watch was founded to ensure that prosecutions of high officials of the Bush administration and subsequent administrations who are guilty of "high crimes and misdemeanors" take place. Key officials must be held accountable and prosecuted for the crimes they stand accused, in world public opinion, of having committed. Editorialists may demand action. Even some politicians may call for it. 

But only an energized and politically active public can make those prosecutions happen. War criminals must be publicly shamed and prevented from occupying powerful or influential positions within our society. As in other cases where authorities have gone beyond US and international law as well as the laws of decency, only a public accounting will restore lawful conduct. 

And only the public can demand that these criminal policies stop now! We have an obligation not only to prosecute war crimes and crimes against humanity after they occur but, in our millions, to stop the shameful policies which allow them to continue.

Former Bush officials now have new roles in society: professor, lawyer, corporate manager, etc., etc. Some have moved on into the Obama administration where current officials pursue many of the same policies. It is our responsibility to call them out and to demand that these criminal activities cease and that legal proceedings take place and in a timely fashion.
It was thought by many that President Obama would put a stop to the madness, to the wars, to the Bush administration’s nightmarish approach to national security. 

But the wars continue, including new attacks on additional populations and countries.
  • The war in Afghanistan has expanded with tens of thousands of additional troops as well as an equivalent number of private military contractors. The military strategy is under the direction of Gen. David Petraeus, an expert in "counterinsurgency." 
  •  
  • Drone strikes in Pakistan have continued and increased in numbers and intensity killing quickly growing numbers of Pakistani civilians, including women and children.
  •  
  • Several of those who have been accused of Bush-era war crimes continued into the Obama administration -- for example, McChrystal, Gates, Petraeus and Fredman, all of whom have been concerned with military and domestic"national security" issues.
  •  
  • Withdrawal from Iraq has faded into the future. When and if the troops do go, private military contractors, in increasing numbers, take their places and remain.
  •  
  • Billions have been spent on recruiting efforts to increase US military forces.
  •  
  • Obama has insisted on “moving forward” by avoiding the recognition of crimes committed by the Bush government, allowing the worst offenders of the Bush years to avoid prosecution. He has both granted amnesty to the CIA agents involved in torture and offered legal defense if anyone else were to prosecute them.
  •  
  • In February 2010 the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) issued its report on whether John Yoo and Jay Bybee should be held accountable for their actions associated with their role providing legal cover for torture, indefinite incarceration without trial, rendition, massive spying and other practices. DOJ found that they engaged in "intentional professional misconduct” by ignoring legal precedent and providing poor legal advice. But it did not hold them accountable for the crimes committed under the cover of their “legal” memos. Associate Deputy Attorney General David Margolis, downgraded the report’s conclusions to “poor judgment.” As a result, two slaps on the wrist are all that have emerged from an investigation into one of the darkest periods of modern US history.
  •  
  • Prisoners continue to be rendered to "black sites" in Afghanistan and possibly to other countries.
  •  
  • Prisoners are still enduring prolonged isolation, sleep and sensory deprivation and force-feeding. These techniques cause extreme mental anguish and permanent physical damage and are not permitted under international law. Make no mistake, the US still engages in torture. We know that solitary confinement is also taking place on US soil, as in these two cases with which we are most familiar.
    1. Syed Fahad Hashmi, a Muslim American student, was held for two and a half years in downtown Manhattan under Special Administrative Measures (SAMS) and subsequently in Colorado under the same conditions for at least another five months. “… Once accused of connections with terrorism or al Qaeda, apparently, the U.S. constitution and international human rights apparently do not apply. Torture by the U.S. is allowed. Pre-trial punishment is allowed. The presumption of innocence goes out the window. Counsel of choice is not allowed. Communication with news media not allowed.”
    2. Bradley Manning, accused of providing material to WikiLeaks, has been sitting completely alone in his cell for 23 out of 24 hours every day since late May 2001. Even inside his cell, his activities are heavily restricted: he’s banned from exercising, under constant surveillance and denied many of the most basic attributes of civilized imprisonment, including a pillow or sheets for his bed. He is forced to strip naked for inspections and, for the one hour per day when he is freed from isolation, he is barred from accessing any news or current events programs.
  •  
  • Guantanamo still has not been closed. It should be noted that 89 of the remaining 172 prisoners were cleared for release by the Guantánamo Review Task Force, a group of 60 officials and lawyers, from government departments and the intelligence agencies, who reviewed all the Guantánamo cases in 2009, but are going nowhere because they are Yemenis.
  •  
  • Prisoners in secret detention centers or "black sites" around the world are not allowed to gain access to courts, lawyers or even to know the charges or evidence against them.
  •  
  • And, a war of aggression against the sovereign state of Libya was unleashed on March 19, 2011 through manipulation, hypocrisy and lies about the situation, hiding behind “humanitarian” goals to secure large high-quality oil reserves.
Are these the changes we wanted to see? No. Is it really okay if Bush policies are carried out by Obama? No. Have the wars ended? No, they are being expanded. 

The Obama administration has condoned the Bush war crimes by not prosecuting Bush officials and by carrying many of them over into his administration. This makes Obama officials complicit with Bush war crimes.

People of conscience must insist on accountability for the actions of U.S. officials, no matter who is president. It is our obligation.


Copyright © 2012 War Criminals Watch. All Rights Reserved. 
War Criminals Watch is a project of World Can't Wait

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Ironies in American Justice and Political Cheerleading

By Glenn Greenwald

Yesterday, the Obama administration — which, in the past six months alone, has killed three American citizens in Yemen: Anwar Awlaki, Samir Khan, and Awlaki’s 16-year-old son Abdulrahman — smashed the limits of all known irony charts:     Continue




Afghanistan Massacre
No One Asked Their Names

By Qais Azimy

Mainstream media outlets channelled a significant amount of energy into uncovering the slightest detail about the accused soldier . But the victims became an anonymous footnote. Just the number 16. No one bothered to ask their ages, their hobbies, their aspirations. Worst of all, no one bothered to ask their names. Continue



Where Is The Outrage Over The Murder of a U.S. Citizen?

By Leonard Pitt

A U.S. citizen is dead and the U.S. government killed him. Without trial. Without due process. Without hesitation. And many of those who loudly deplored George W. Bush for smaller excesses seem content to allow Barack Obama this larger one. Continue



Syria and the Western Media:
Peddling Mythologies in the Garden of Good and Evil

By Matt Carr

Western journalists have learnt nothing from 10 years of spinning the '9/11' wars and have collectively abandoned their analytical and critical faculties when it comes to Syria. Continue



Dear Department of Justice:
Please Investigate Your Old Boss for Material Support of Terrorism!

By Coleen Rowley
Former FBI Special Agent

We might have just helped you bag another material supporter of terrorism this week! And you'll never believe who the culprit is!
Continue



In Case You Missed It
The Fourth World War

Video Documentary

Despite the titanic struggles of dispossessed peoples around the world, the wealth of nations continues to reside in fewer and fewer hands. The economies of poor countries collapse under vicious IMF policies, and capitalism's global 'clubs' thrive ever and ever upward. Meanwhile, people keep struggling, ultimately downward. Continue



Syrian Rebels are Foreign-backed Terrorists

By Tony Cartalucci

Latest terrorist attack in Damascus illustrates illegitimacy of both Syria's rebels & the UN/NATO backing them. Continue



Rape and Murder in Afghanistan

By Stephen Lendman

Major media scoundrels whitewashed the crimes by shamelessly blaming one soldier to absolve others, and most of all, higher-ups responsible for permitting a culture that condones and encourages them. Continue




Murder Is Not an Anomaly in War

By Chris Hedges

The scale of our state-sponsored murder is masked from public view. Continue



The Ground Truth : The Human Cost Of War
Sometimes the greatest act of courage is to tell the truth


Video Documentary

"The Ground Truth" is a documentary that should be watched by everyone who has a friend, relative or loved one who's served--or is about to serve--in Iraq and Afghanistan. Continue



Social Media Scam Alert:
Top Ten Ways to Tell Kony is Phony

By Bruce A. Dixon

Kony 2012 is not a search for justice. Kony 2012 is a corporate-style PR and psy-ops campaign, a cynical hoax engineered to justify US and Western military intervention to control the incredibly lucrative oil, mineral, water and strategic resources of the heart of Africa.  Continue
  

Sunday, March 11, 2012

The Bloody Road to Damascus
The Triple Alliance’s War on a Sovereign State


By James Petras
There is clear and overwhelming evidence that the uprising to overthrow President Assad of Syria is a violent, power grab led by foreign-supported fighters...

A Western military victory in Syria will merely feed the rising frenzy of militarism. It will encourage the West, Riyadh and Israel to provoke a new civil war in Lebanon. After demolishing Syria, the Washington-EU-Riyadh-Tel Aviv axes will move on to a far bloodier confrontation with Iran.

The horrific destruction of Iraq, followed by Libya’s post-war collapse provides a terrifying template of what is in store for the people of Syria: A precipitous collapse of their living standards, the fragmentation of their country, ethnic cleansing, rule by sectarian and fundamentalist gangs, and total insecurity of life and property.

Just as the “left” and “progressives” declared the brutal savaging of Libya to be the “revolutionary struggle of insurgent democrats” and then walked away, washing their hands of the bloody aftermath of ethnic violence against black Libyans, they repeat the same calls for military intervention against Syria. 

The same liberals, progressives, socialists and Marxists who are calling on the West to intervene in Syria’s “humanitarian crises” from their cafes and offices in Manhattan and Paris, will lose all interest in the bloody orgy of their victorious mercenaries after Damascus, Aleppo, and other Syrian cities have been bombed by NATO into submission.





10 Myths about Iran Driving the Insane Push for War
And Why They're Dead Wrong


By Jasmin Ramsey
Israeli officials and GOP candidates spout nonsense about Iran.  Here's the truth. Continue





America Gone Stupid Over Iran
Making The Same "Mistake" Twice


By Lawrence Davidson
...The politicians appear to be out for blood. One wonders how many dead and maimed bodies will satisfy them?...


So let us get this straight. It seems there are two worlds. The real world of facts and evidence and the unreal world of fantasy.  

Our political leaders and their advisers are, apparently, stuck in the unreal one. Their words, and their policies, are built on the assumptions of this fantasy world. They go to war and kill people based on beliefs that are demonstrably false. 

And the rest of us?  

Most of us are stuck in our own local niches and beyond them we do not know what is real or unreal. So we rely on others to tell us what to believe. Who are the others? They just happen to be our political leaders, their advisers, and follow-the-leader media commentators. Well, that makes a nice little circle. And, a fatal one at that.



Friday, March 09, 2012


by BAR editor and senior consultant Margaret Kimberley
Call a Georgetown law student a slut, and the liberal universe goes into supernova. Destroy Somalia and Libya, or obliterate due process of law, and the same people just yawn. Attorney General Eric Holder “asserts that the president can in fact decide to kill anyone he wants, as long as he claims that person is a terrorist.” Liberals love the guy.

Freedom Rider: Liberal Whores
by BAR editor and senior consultant Margaret Kimberley

They are people of easy virtue, they don’t really have any principles and they sell themselves pretty cheaply.”
If liberals are good for anything, it is being outraged about all the wrong things. If one were to measure the amount of media debate in the past week, the conclusion might be that a law student being called a slut was the worst thing happening in the nation and the world. Liberals can’t be bothered to protest against war, even if they did so during the Bush administration, or indefinite detention, or targeted killings, or drone strikes, or the destruction of Libya or Somalia.
Rush Limbaugh, a man who would have to have been invented if he didn’t exist, called law student Sandra Fluke, a “slut” and a “whore” after she testified in favor of religious institutions being required to include contraception in their health care plans.
The liberals then lost their collective minds. There was no limit to their ire. One would have thought that Rush Limbaugh was killing Afghan children with drones, or torturing black Libyans, or planning to attack Iran. Of course, Limbaugh has absolutely no power to do any of those things. He is a celebrity, a media personality who advocates the right wing point of view. He is a sexist and a racist, but he has no power to take anyone’s life. That is Barack Obama‘s job.
Obama, like all American presidents, is among the slickest politicians of all time, but he is certainly no fool. He knew that Limbaugh handed him a political gift and he ran with it. Obama personally telephoned the aggrieved young woman while his liberal sycophants demanded that advertisers drop Limbaugh’s program. Republicans joined in the beat down and admonished the erstwhile standard bearer for his offensive language. Limbaugh was political toast, and Obama was king.

Obama knew that Limbaugh handed him a political gift and he ran with it.”

What could happen if these same people used as much energy opposing policies that literally kill thousands of people around the world? Quite a lot would change, but they don’t take actions against people in power because they don’t really care about what they do.
At the same time that these angry and outraged citizens were claiming victory against a radio personality they ought to be ignoring, the attorney general of the United States publicly claimed that the president of the United States has the right to kill at will whenever he feels like it.
Eric Holder traveled to an august educational institution, Northwestern University, and told a group of law students that they should get any crazy ideas about civil liberties out of their little heads. Holder asserts that the president can in fact decide to kill anyone he wants, as long as he claims that person is a terrorist. He doesn’t have to bother with indictments, charges, court rooms and other such old fashioned notions. Anwar al-Awlaki and his teenage son were both American citizens and were both killed by their president because he and a secret panel said they should die.
In making the case against the constitutional requirement for due process, the chief law enforcement officer in the country says that, “Due process and judicial process are not one in the same.” If that statement seems strange, it is because it is a bold faced lie. Never before, not even in the Bush administration, did lawyers make such bizarre arguments. 

What could happen if these same people used as much energy opposing policies that literally kill thousands of people around the world?”

Despite being the attorney general, Holder is like middle level managers everywhere, saying that black is white or up is down if his boss says so. If his boss says that a person is a terrorist, then that person is dead and the rules will be changed to make it all very legal.
It is too bad that no one leapt to the defense of the Northwestern University law students who were forced to hear Holder’s offensive statements. There was no Sandra Fluke treatment for them. No one will call them and sympathize because they were exposed to vile language. In this case the offensive language came straight from the top, so if anyone was offended, well it is just too bad.
Perhaps liberals are sluts and whores. They are people of easy virtue, they don’t really have any principles and they sell themselves pretty cheaply. If Eric Holder isn’t a whore, then who is?
The same can be said for his boss too. No one becomes president without making the rounds on many a casting couch, the rich people’s casting couch. If they give the thumbs up, then the presidency is within reach. No one should be called a whore merely because they are sexually active. Selling oneself in order to be the head killer in chief on the planet is another matter. That is slut work of the very highest order.

Margaret Kimberley's Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR, and is widely reprinted elsewhere. She maintains a frequently updated blog as well as at http://freedomrider.blogspot.com. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgendaReport.com.

 http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/freedom-rider-liberal-whores
 

Thursday, March 01, 2012


If a bunch of street toughs decided to gang up and beat the crap out of some guy in the neighborhood because they feared he might be planning to buy a gun to protect his family, I think we’d all agree that the police would be right to bust that crew and charge them with conspiracy to commit the crime of assault and battery. 

If they went forward with their plan and actually did attack the guy, injuring or killing him in the process, we’d also all agree they should all be charged with assault and battery, attempted murder, or even first-degree murder if he died.

In international relations and international law, the same applies. 

Under the Nuremberg Principles, later incorporated into the United Nations Charter, to which the United States is a signatory, the planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression, which is defined as a war started against another nation that does not pose an imminent threat of attack on the aggressor nation or nations, is the highest of war crimes, for which the perpetrators are liable for the death penalty. 

Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of those above acts is an equally serious capital crime.

How then to explain the casual way that civilian and military leaders of the US and Israel are talking openly about plans and threats to attack Iran?

The supposed casus belli or justification for such an attack is that Iran, which has a uranium enrichment program underway which it claims is to produce nuclear fuel for its new nuclear reactor (a completely legal activity for any nation under international law), secretly plans to further enrich uranium to make an atomic bomb. 

Yet that is a process which, even if it were to be implemented, would not lead to an actual bomb suitable for testing for at least a year, and which would not give Iran a functioning, useable weapon for even longer. (US intelligence sources say that Iran at this point is not even trying to make a bomb!).

That alleged threat, even if it were real, doesn’t even come close to constituting an “imminent” threat of attack of the kind which might justify a pre-emptive strike on Iran, as is being publicly contemplated and threatened by the US and Israel.

The simple fact is that the president of the United States, Barack Obama, and his top generals and cabinet officers, are committing a war crime every time they threaten Iran with attack. 

The president is also committing a crime of conspiracy when he sends his generals to Israel, which is also committing the crime of threatening to attack Iran and planning to attack Iran. 

This is because by discussing options for an attack, or by providing Israel with the weapons and delivery systems it would need for such an attack, as the US is doing by sending Israel super large bunker-buster bombs and bomb-capable aircraft, they are furthering that conspiracy.

What is absolutely stunning is that this massive criminality at the highest levels of the US government is going on totally unchallenged by the US mainstream media. 

In an editorial on Feb. 3, the New York Times acknowledged that there was “no proof” that Iran has “made the decision to move from producing fuel to building a bomb.” Yet even so, the paper went on to warn against an Israeli and/or US attack on Iran, saying only that, “The costs of an Israeli military strike — with or without American support — would be huge,” and that it could “backfire.”

There is not one word in the Times or anywhere else in the corporate media about the reality that such an attack would constitute the commission of a supreme war crime.

President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the White House Press Secretary Jay Carney have all publicly warned that “all options” are “on the table” in dealing with Iran’s supposed threat to construct a nuclear weapon -- a clear reference to their being ready to attack Iran if necessary. 

Both the president and Defense (sic) Secretary Leon E. Panetta have vowed that the US “will not allow” Iran to develop a nuclear bomb,” which comes almost as close in threatening war, since Commander in Chief Obama and Defense Secretary Panetta have already stationed the requisite three Navy aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Arabia which military experts say would be necessary for any attack on Iran.

But all the war talk and saber rattling, the only debate in the US media seems to be over whether the US is really planning to attack Iran, or whether it would join in attacking Iran if Israel were to launch an attack, not on whether such an attack by either nation on Iran would constitute a horrific war crime.

There are polls, some of which show a majority of Americans to favor an attack on Iran by the US, but again, there are no pollsters asking Americans whether they think such an attack would be a crime against humanity.

I suppose we should not be surprised at this sorry state of affairs. After all, the most brutal war that the US engaged in since World War II, when it became the only nation to ever use atomic weapons, incinerating two large cities in Japan in the waning days of that conflict, was the Indochina War, and North Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia never posed the slightest threat to the United States. 

Nobody was tried , much less hung for that atrocity, though a string of American civilian and military leaders should have been. 

The 2003 invasion of Iraq, which also posed no conceivable threat to the US, was also clearly a war crime which should have sent President Bush and his grim-visaged regent, Vice President Dick Cheney, to the gallows, but they were never even indicted.

Never have the US media suggested that these past horrors were war crimes deserving prosecution (though at least the House Impeachment Committee did consider charging President Richard Nixon with a war crime for invading Cambodia).

So why should we expect things to be any different now?

Well, perhaps because the consequences of this latest war crime in the making could have far more serious consequences, even, than the Vietnam War and the Iraq War, not just for American military personnel, and not even just for America, but for the entire world.


Iran is decidedly not Iraq. It is a country of 74 million, not 24 million. It is a country with a long history and a strong national identity, not a group of disparate, feuding tribes and regions cobbled together by a departing colonial power as was Iraq. 

It also has strong backers -- both Russia and China, as well as neighboring Turkey and Pakistan--all of whom could and probably would rally to its aid in the event of an attack. 

The whole Islamic world would also likely rise up in support of Iran if it were attacked by Israel and the US. The likelihood of such a war remaining confined to Iran is almost nil.

As well, an attack on Iran would shut down oil shipments not just from Iran but from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states of Kuwait and the UAE, all of which have to ship out their oil through the narrow Strait of Hormuz. 

Even if that strait were not successfully closed by Iran, which owns half the width of the waterway, no insurance company would cover the tankers that would have to traverse it under threat of Iranian attack, so shipments would simply cease, causing a huge spike in oil prices and a collapse of the global economy. 

That alone could be enough to lead China, heavily dependent upon Iranian oil, to act in Iran’s defense -- something it could do by simply ratcheting up the tension level in its standing conflict with the “renegade island province” of Taiwan, which country the US is bound by law to defend.

One would think that the magnitude of the unknown and dangerous potential consequences of a criminal attack on Iran by the US and its client state Israel would lead at least some news organizations to look into the very legality of such an attack.

But no. Apparently calling the leaders of this nation criminals is beyond the imagining of the so-called chattering class and its paymasters.

I’ll do it here though:

President Obama and his key advisors, as well as Vice President Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Panetta, are all currently war criminals for threatening Iran with attack. And if the US does attack Iran, either on its own or in support of an Israeli attack, they will be even worse war criminals, and will be deserving of the same fate met by Japan’s Imperial Army General and Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, and by Nazi Germany’s Foreign Minister Joachim Von Ribbentrop and Field Marshall Wilhelm Keitel.
 

Dave Lindorff is an investigative reporter. He received two Project Censored awards in 2004 and 2011. www.thiscantbehappening.net


 
10 Ways AIPAC Undermines Democracy at Home and in the Middle East

"AIPAC has tremendous clout but its influence has been disastrous for U.S. foreign policy and U.S. democracy. 
Here are ten reasons why AIPAC is so dangerous. . .  "

By Medea Benjamin

February 29, 2012 "Information Clearing House" --- 
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is one of the most powerful lobby organizations in the country. 

On March 4-6, AIPAC will be holding its annual policy conference in Washington DC. The speakers include Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, U.S. President Barack Obama, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, Republican candidate Newt Gingrich and a host of other powerful politicians.

AIPAC has tremendous clout but its influence has been disastrous for U.S. foreign policy and U.S. democracy. Here are ten reasons why AIPAC is so dangerous.

1. AIPAC is lobbying Congress to promote a military confrontation with Iran. AIPAC – like the Israeli government – is demanding that the U.S. attack Iran militarily to prevent Iran from having the technological capacity to produce nuclear weapons, even though U.S. officials say Iran isn’t trying to build a weapon (and even though Israel has hundreds of undeclared nuclear weapons). AIPAC has successfully lobbied the U.S. government to adopt crippling economic sanctions on Iran, including trying to cut off Iran’s oil exports, despite the fact that these sanctions raise the price of gas and threaten the U.S. economy.

2. AIPAC promotes Israeli policies that are in direct opposition to international law. These include the establishment of colonies (settlements) in the Occupied West Bank and the confiscation of Palestinian land in its construction of the 26-foot high concrete “separation barrier” running through the West Bank. The support of these illegal practices makes to impossible to achieve a solution to the Israel/Palestine conflict.

3. AIPAC’s call for unconditional support for the Israeli government threatens our national security. The United States’ one-sided support of Israel, demanded by AIPAC, has significantly increased anti-American sentiment throughout the Middle East, thus endangering our troops and sowing the seeds of more possible terrorist attacks against us. Gen. David Petraeus on March 16, 2010 admitted that the U.S./Palestine conflict “foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception of U.S. favoritism for Israel.” He also said that “Arab anger over the Palestinian question limits the strength and depth of U.S. partnerships with governments and peoples in the [region] and weakens the legitimacy of moderate regimes in the Arab world. Meanwhile, al-Qaeda and other militant groups exploit that anger to mobilize support.”

4. AIPAC undermines American support for democracy movements in the Arab world. AIPAC looks at the entire Arab world through the lens of Israeli government interests, not the democratic aspirations of the Arab people. It has therefore supported corrupt, repressive regimes that are friendly to the Israeli government, such as Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak. Events now unfolding in the Middle East should convince U.S. policy-makers of the need to break from AIPAC’s grip and instead support democratic forces in the Arab world.

5. AIPAC makes the U.S. a pariah at the UN. AIPAC describes the UN as a body hostile to the State of Israel and has pressured the U.S. government to oppose resolutions calling Israel to account. Since 1972, the US has vetoed 44 UN Security Council resolutions condemning Israel’s actions against the Palestinians. President Obama continues that policy. Under Obama, the US vetoed UN censure of the savage Israeli assault on Gaza in January 2009 in which about 1400 Palestinians were killed; a 2011 resolution calling for a halt to the illegal Israeli West Bank settlements even though this was  stated U.S. policy; a 2011 resolution calling for Israel to cease obstructing the work of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees; and another resolution calling for an end to illegal Israeli settlement building in East Jerusalem and the occupied Golan Heights.

6. AIPAC attacks politicians who question unconditional support of Israel. AIPAC demands that Congress to rubber stamp legislation drafted by AIPAC staff. It keeps a record of how members of Congress vote and this record is used by donors to make contributions to the politicians who score well. Members of Congress who fail to support AIPAC legislation have been targeted for defeat in re-election bids. These include Senators Adlai Stevenson III and Charles H. Percy, and Representatives Paul Findley, Pete McCloskey, Cynthia McKinney, and Earl F. Hilliard. AIPAC’s overwhelmingly disproportionate influence on Congress subverts our democratic system.

7.  AIPAC attempts to silence all criticism of Israel by labeling critics as “anti-Semitic,” “de-legitimizers” or “self-hating Jews.” Journalists, think tanks, students and professors have been accused of anti-Semitism for merely taking stands critical of Israeli government policies. These attacks stifle the critical discussions and debates that are at the heart of democratic policy-making. The recent attacks on staffers at the Center for American Progress is but one example of AIPAC efforts to crush all dissent.

8. AIPAC feeds U.S. government officials a distorted view of the Israel/Palestine conflict. AIPAC takes U.S. representatives on sugar-coated trips to Israel. In 2011, AIPAC took one out of very five members of Congress—and many of  their spouses—on a free junket to Israel to see precisely what the Israeli government wanted them to see. It is illegal for lobby groups to take Congresspeople on trips, but AIPAC gets around the law by creating a bogus educational group, AIEF, to “organize” the trips for them. AIEF has the same office address as AIPAC and the same staff. These trips help cement the ties between AIPAC and Congress, furthering their undue influence.

9. AIPAC lobbies for billions of U.S. taxdollars to go to Israel instead of rebuilding America. While our country is reeling from a prolonged financial crisis, AIPAC is pushing for no cuts in military funds for Israel, a wealthy nation. With communities across the nation slashing budgets for teachers, firefighters and police, AIPAC pushes for over $3 billion a year to Israel.

10. Money to Israel takes funds from world’s poor. Israel has the 24th largest economy in the world, but thanks to AIPAC, it gets more U.S. taxdollars than any other country. At a time when the foreign aid budget is being slashed, keeping the lion’s share of foreign assistance for Israel meaning taking funds from critical programs to feed, provide shelter and offer emergency assistance to the world’s poorest people.

The bottom line is that AIPAC, which is a de facto agent for a foreign government, has influence on U.S. policy out of all proportion to the number of Americans who support its policies. When a small group like this has disproportionate power, that hurts everyone—including Israelis and American Jews.

From stopping a catastrophic war with Iran to finally solving the Israel/Palestine conflict, an essential starting point is breaking AIPAC’s grip on U.S. policy.








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