Maggie Lorraine
Resisting Occupation

Just yesterday, Prime Minister Netanyahu demanded that the Palestinian Authority recognize Israel as a Jewish state in exchange for Israeli compliance with international law. Shortly after, State Department spokesman Philip Crowley illuminated the United State's official position on the proposal, explaining, "We recognize the special nature of the Israeli State. It is a state for the Jewish people." While President Obama's views on the institutionalization of Israel's ethnic character are of no surprise, such an outright endorsement of Netanyahu's insult to the PA stands in stark contrast with the vision of the United States as impartial mediator the American public has been spoon-fed over the past few months.

If the admission of offering military, financial and political concessions in exchange for a partial extension of the so-called settlement "freeze" hadn't done enough to destroy the Obama Administration's credibility in the peace process, this was surely the final blow. How could any casual observer continue to believe Obama had the interests of both parties at heart while simultaneously lauding Netanyahu's inanity as even remotely legitimate?

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Stephen Lendman

Since first awarded in 1901, Nobel Peace recognition went to 98 individuals and 23 organizations. Last year, another war criminal won, Barack Obama, one among many previous ones. A earlier article on the Nobel Committee's long and inglorious tradition may be accessed through THIS link.

Nearly always, politics, not merit, determines awards. Consider past winners, including Henry Kissinger, three Israeli war criminals (Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin, and Menachem Begin), the Dalai Lama (a past and likely current CIA asset), Elie Wiesel (a hawkish Islamophobe), Kofi Annan (a reliable imperial stooge), and Al Gore, (another war criminal, neoliberal extremist, and no friend of the earth), a previous article on him may be accessed through THIS link.

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Xymphora

"I know this was murder. By Americans. Probably to protect CIA drug smuggling operations. -I'm sure many may say this is just a 'conspiracy theory', and at best we can never know what happened. I seriously beg to differ. "

"British aid worker murdered by Taliban during rescue operation" I knew this story was bullshit when I first read it. Initial debriefings of the 'crack US troops' involved somehow missed the little incident of throwing a grenade into the area where they thought Norgrove was being held. The story of how the evil Taliban killed her with a suicide vest started to sprout more and more details with the retelling. Suddenly, somebody looked at a tape of the incident (the fact it is a NATO operation probably meant the Americans couldn't hide the tape from the British), saw the grenade being thrown, and the world turned upside down.

This was supposedly a rescue mission. Who throws a grenade into a place where a hostage is being held? This is simply too moronic to blame on the baseline stupidity of the American soldier. They wanted her dead. Why? Probably the usual reason: she knew too much, or at least might have known too much. The most likely explanation by far was that she was in the hands of the drug warlords who operate with the CIA, and thus might have had stories to tell which the CIA didn't want told.

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Pavol Stracansky
Inter Press Service

A prisoner who sliced open his sto-
mach in protest at brutal jail condi-
tions in Kazakhstan

Horrific protests that have seen hundreds of inmates slice their stomachs open over conditions in jails in Kazakhstan are set to continue as the UN accuses the Central Asian country of trying to mask the real state of its prison system.

Convicts have said that torture, beatings and rapes are common in prisons and that the only option left to them to highlight their plight to the outside world is brutal self-mutilation.

Tanja Niemeier, political advisor who was part of a delegation led by European MP Joe Higgins to Kazakhstan last month which met with former prisoners, told IPS: "Protests are still going on and it looks like they will, unfortunately, continue and more people will self-mutilate. It is the only way they have of protesting at the desperate conditions they face.

"Officials have tried to say that the situation is improving. But it is not. Things are very grim."

Kazakhstan, a resource-rich former Soviet state in Central Asia ruled since 1991 by autocratic President Nursultan Nazarbayev, has faced international criticism for its human rights record for years. Abuses of fundamental freedoms have been documented at all levels of society.

But some of the most severe criticism has been levelled at the penal system, and particularly over torture in jails.

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