Who are the Warmongers?
11/23/11
Nahida Izzat, Exiled Palestinian
JINSA: The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs
Did you ever ponder about the question: Who is promoting America's wars?
MF Global Looted Customer Accounts
11/22/11
The market as we know it, no longer exists. The entire
system has been utterly destroyed by the MFG collapse.
Wall Street's business model is grand theft. Jon Corzine was MF Global's CEO. Earlier he headed Goldman Sachs, America's premiere racketeering organization.
He also was one of legions of corrupt politicians as US senator and New Jersey governor. His extreme, longstanding criminality warrants putting him in prison for life. No restitution can reverse his harm. It's true also for many others like him.
Before its collapse, MF Global (MFG) faced a run on its holdings. On October 31, it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
On November 19, Reuters said the firm "moved hundreds of millions of dollars in customer money from its US brokerage unit to Bank of New York Mellon Corp. in August, just months before filing for bankruptcy...."
In other words, MFG lawlessly looted customer accounts. It used client money for its own purposes to speculate, as well as cover debt obligations and losses. At issue is grand theft.
In fact, it's one of the most brazen acts in memory in a business notorious for outrageous criminality. What ever's gotten away with incentivizes Wall Street crooks to steal more. Why not! At most, they're slap on the wrist punishments mock rule of law justice.
Obama Must Condemn Egyptian Military
11/22/11
Medea Benjamin & Jodie Evans
As we watch the Egyptian police and military viciously attack democracy activists on the streets of Cairo, using U.S. weapons, it is outrageous that the Obama Administration has failed to issue a strong condemnation of this latest attempt to crush a revolution that has inspired people around the world, including millions of Americans.
During the fateful 18 days in January and February when Egyptians took to the streets by the millions to topple the brutal Mubarak dictatorship, President Obama remained largely silent, refusing to call directly for democracy until it was clear that young Egyptians were about to topple the dictator’s three-decade-long rule.
In the months since then, as thousands of Egyptians have been attacked, imprisoned, sexually assaulted and murdered by their government, the United States has not merely remained silent, but has continued to provide crucial diplomatic, economic and military aid to the regime responsible for these crimes.
The latest Egyptian protests were sparked by growing anger over signs that the military leadership plans to hold on to power indefinitely. The military rulers say they will relinquish power once presidential elections are held, but have refused to commit to a plan and a timetable for handing over power to a democratically elected government.
The first of many rounds of voting for parliament is scheduled to begin November 28, but the military has not agreed to form a new government based on these elections. Moreover, it is trying to limit any civilian government from having control over the military’s budget. And it has postponed a presidential election to an indefinite time late in 2012 or in 2013.
Now that the façade of a democratic transition has been ripped away and Egyptians are once again battling the military government in Tahrir Square for the future of their country, with at least 35 civilians killed since Saturday. The Obama administration remains as quiet as it was in the early days of the revolution. Such silence is both morally indefensible and politically and strategically disastrous for the United States.
The AIPAC Caucus in the United Nations
11/22/11
Knesset Speaker Mr. Rivlin exchanges gifts with Deputy Prime Minister
Samiu Vaipulu in an historical delegation to Tonga [April, 2011] (TMN)
After all, if almost 100 U.S. senators and over 90 percent of members of the House of Representatives can be cajoled and bribed by Israel, nations smaller and poorer than Israel are easy marks for Israeli pressure.
Recent votes in the United Nations and United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) provide evidence that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and its affiliates not only own and operate most of the members of the U.S. Congress but also many of the UN delegations of its member states.
Israel, known for its aggressive stance toward U.S. senators and representatives who fail to adhere to its line, has also managed to intimidate, with the help of its U.S., Canadian, British, Australian, and New Zealand lobbies, a number of small nations to support Israel against the statehood and UN membership aspirations of Palestine. In the U.S. House of Representatives, over 400 members are owned by the Israel Lobby while in the Senate, Israel’s control is practically 100 percent. Sizeable Israel lobbies also exist in the British and Canadian Houses of Commons and the Australian parliament.
Clearly, the Israelis and their lobbies have created a small bloc of nations that back Israel on every issue concerning Palestine. This bloc has been created by political pressure brought by mainly wealthy Jewish contributors to the major political parties of the United States, Canada, Australia, United Kingdom, and New Zealand, nations that also make up the English-speaking alliance of intelligence agencies.
Israel Steps Up Police State Crackdowns
11/22/11
Israeli police spokesperson: several activists were detained
as the police dispersed an "illegal gathering".
Israel never embraced democratic values. More than ever today that's true. Many Jews understand. As a result, they're voting with their feet and leaving.
Gideon Levy remarked that "(i)t's really an irony of history, because Israel was established to become a shelter to the Jewish people. Now Europe becomes a shelter for the Jews living in Israel."
So does America. New millennium exodus has a whole new meaning. Last year, Haaretz writer Bradley Burston headlined, "I envy the people who hate Israel," saying:
"....this is not the same country I moved to, so long ago. I learned when I first came that Israel was not the country I'd thought I was moving to."
Now it's worse than ever because "Israel at its highest level has taken an executive decision. Unable to beat the forces who want to see Israel as one of the world's primary pariah states, it has resolved to join them" and succeeded.
With its paymaster/partner America, it's out in front leading. Growing numbers know it, Jews and non-Jews alike. A 2008 Menachem Begin Heritage Center survey showed 59% of Israelis consider leaving by inquiring about foreign citizenship and second passports. Growing numbers hold them.
In 2005, the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics said 650,000 Israelis away for over a year haven't returned. Most were Jews.
Moreover, as greater numbers leave, most remaining are ideologically committed. Many of them are fanatics. Others are indifferent, aging, unable to leave, or aren't sure where to go. Emigrating abroad isn't simple. Cost is a factor. Uprooting takes a toll. So does adjusting.
Nonetheless, growing numbers leave because social injustice is official policy. So is state terror. Israel's a regional menace, a belligerent modern-day Sparta, a rogue pariah endangering its own people like others. As a result, many Israelis fear living in the eye of the storm. Daily examples show why.
Egyptian Military Power Grab
11/21/11
Bodies are piling up in Cairo. Click on image to enlarge.
Last February, euphoric celebrations followed Mubarak's ouster. Across the Middle East and North Africa, people rejoiced.
Activist Saed Karazon told AFP:
"What happened in Egypt is not only for the Egyptian people, it is for all Arabs. The whole Arab world is going to change."
A month earlier, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fled Tunisia for Saudi Arabia following weeks of violent protests. A Tunis student said, "It's wonderful. Two dictators have fallen in less than a month."
In Cairo, Egyptians waved flags, held banners, and chanted, "Yesterday Tunisia. Today Egypt, and tomorrow Yemenis will break their chains."
In fact, Yemeni and Bahraini "chains" brutalize street protesters daily - arresting, detaining, torturing and shooting them.
Through mid-November, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights said 1,500 are imprisoned, 40 killed, 180 lawlessly sentenced by military tribunals, and 90 journalists targeted for doing their job.
On November 7, Yemen Examiner.com's Jane Novak headlined, "Yemen: one thousand protesters in prison, many tortured," saying:
The Yemeni National Organization for Defending Rights and Freedoms (HOOD) said over 1,000 protesters "disappeared" incommunicado in prison.
HOOD Executive Director Abdul Rahman Barman said:
"(T)he number of imprisoned youths is on the rise, and the world must stand against the government for the sake of humanity. These youths are being tortured and attacked fiercely. Some leave government custody with their minds lost from the torture."
Washington and key NATO partners say nothing about daily Yemeni and Bahrini atrocities, as well as others committed regularly by despotic Arab League allies.
At the same time, they rail against Syria and Iran. Wanting regime change, they replicated Libya's model in Syrian cities. Perhaps Iran's next. The road to Tehran runs through Damascus.
They also support Egypt's military junta stranglehold on power, enforcing it by brute force. More on that below.
The threat of dictatorship in Greece
11/21/11
From the student uprising at the Athens Polytechnic that
led to the collapse off the 7-year dictatorship in Greece
The installation by the banks and major imperialist powers of a “national unity” government in Greece that includes members of the fascistic LAOS party, as well as the designation of the right-wing New Democracy party to head the defense ministry, must be taken as a serious warning to the Greek and international working class.
Thirty-eight years after student protests at the Polytechnic in Athens on November 17, 1973, whose bloody suppression ultimately brought down the US-backed junta of the colonels, finance capital is again considering the imposition of military rule or fascist dictatorship to suppress the workers.
Ousted PASOK Prime Minister George Papandreou had mobilized the army to suppress strikes against the austerity measures he was carrying out at the behest of the banks and European institutions. In August 2010, soldiers broke the strike by truckers against the deregulation of their profession. In October of this year, the government placed striking refuse workers under military discipline and forced them back to work.
On February 4, 2011, Athens News Agency reported that the army’s 71st airborne brigade had staged a mock battle with anti-austerity protesters. The exercise included methods for controlling “feuding parties” as well as “conflict deterrence” and “crowd evacuation.”
There is a barely concealed debate within the ruling class over whether to scrap all democratic procedures and move openly towards authoritarian rule. In May, a CIA report declared that a coup in Greece was a possibility. In September, retired army officers rioted, after which the Association of Support and Cooperation of the State Armed Forces, the professional association of full-time soldiers, warned Papandreou in a letter that the army was following his policies “with increased concern.” Defense Minister Panos Beglitis denounced the officers for acting as “a state within a state.”
Shortly before Papandreou resigned, he and Beglitis sacked the entire General Staff of the armed forces, leading to widespread suspicions that a coup had been narrowly averted. This followed a massive two-day general strike and new demands from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund that Athens impose even more sweeping layoffs and wage and pension cuts. It preceded the furious reaction of the financial markets to Papandreou’s proposal for a popular referendum on the new austerity measures.
All of the sacked military chiefs had been appointed by the previous New Democracy government. Now New Democracy is once again in charge of defense, and the new defense minister, Dimitris Avramopoulos, has pledged to reverse the sackings.
PA must end security coordination with Israel now
11/21/11
"The apartheid Israeli regime decided last week to freeze the transfer of tax and customs revenue levied by Israel on behalf of the Palestinian Authority." (PA)
The illegal and immoral measure, which Israel resorts to rather routinely, is intended to bully the Ramallah leadership to capitulate to Zionist whims and blackmailing tactics.
Israel never stopped threatening to strangulate the PA economically and financially if the latter didn't succumb to the Israeli will.
The systematic Israeli blackmail of the PA is a disgraceful expression of the Oslo Accords and other subsequent accords and understandings between the pseudo autonomous authority and the Nazi-like Israeli occupation regime.
Needless to say, these scandalous agreements which effectively reduced the Palestinian regime-from the supposed equal partner envisioned in these so-called agreements-to a vanquished supplicant begging for virtually everything from the Israeli side, from travel permits to basic commodities without which any modern society wouldn't be able to function.
But the story doesn't end here, which reminds us of what the legendary Arab poet, Abu'ttayeb al-Mutannabi, said about slaves who cling to their masters while crying out for freedom:
Wa'inna domo'a la'yni ghodron berabbeha. Itha konna ithra al ghadereena jawariya.
(The tears of the eye betray a man if they keep running after the traitors.)
Hope not Hate? Truth not Lies more likely!
11/21/11
This weekend, Bradford TUC (Trade Union Council) joined the Israeli lobby’s attempt to silence me. This sort of thing is no surprise since my book ‘The Wandering Who?’ exposes the devastating continuum between Israel, Diaspora sayanim, Anti-Zionist Zionists (AZZ) and the influential and varied communities of Shabbos goyim[1]. So, is it a coincidence that last Shabbos (Sabbath) eve, Paul Meszaros Bradford TUC’s secretary and some of his fellow unionists got very busy indeed doing the Zionists’ bidding?
These Bradford Trade Unionists clearly had a case against me which was that, as Meszaros said in his letter to his comrades, “in our opinion, one that is shared by many commentators Atzmon is a Holocaust denier and anti-Semite.”
Strong words indeed, and words that one would expect to be accompanied by some concrete and conclusive evidence. Unfortunately this was not the case because, although Meszaros provided his comrades with some quoted ‘evidence’, he forgot to also supply them with any direct link to my original writing. And he had good reason for this omission. The document Meszaros provided for his comrades was a ‘fugazi’ – a fake.
Yes, as outrageous as it may sound, Meszaros asked his fellow unionists to judge my words on the basis of a compilation of carefully selected sentences from five different paragraphs carefully stitched together to look as if it was a single statement made by myself.
In Defense of Gilad Atzmon
11/19/11
Sarah Gillespie
Herodotus is an historian who trains you as you read. It is a process of asking, searching, collecting, doubting, striving, testing, blaming, and above all standing amazed at 'the strange things humans do’. (Poet and translator of ancient Greek, Anne Carson, Nox, 2011)
Gilad Atzmon’s intellectual expedition into the daunting terrain of Jewish identity politics has always evoked a storm of controversy. Still, when I first met Gilad, it was hard not to suspect he was exaggerating the extent of abuse he received from various UK pressure groups. Primarily, it’s not easy to wrap your head around the notion that a person can plausibly be branded as ‘a racist’ when they tour the world with a gypsy violinist, a black drummer, a Jewish bass player and a token English white boy on piano. However, as I began to understand the full complexities of Gilad’s arguments – a process, which, for me, required as much unlearning as it did learning – I reluctantly grasped the problem. And, to my utter horror, I also fathomed the full measure of pathological bile wielded against him. Indeed, some of it hemorrhaged in my direction.
After the 2009 Israeli assault on Gaza I organized a concert for ‘Medical Aid for Palestinians’ featuring iconic violinist Nigel Kennedy. Campaigners launched an onslaught from all sides - the right, the left, the Zionists and the anti-Zionists - individually and collectively, lobbied the owner of the venue, the director of MAP and myself, demanding that we cancel the event. Some even accused us of mobilising art to fund rocket attacks on Jews. I was shocked, upset and embarrassed that I had inadvertently dragged my friend, who owns the club, into such a shameful debacle.
After the concert (a huge success, btw.) I was labeled a Holocaust denier. Not only was this accusation ludicrous and totally unfounded it was potentially damaging to me. It is clear that in this culture, you could query the extent of the Holodomor, the Nakba or the annihilation of American Indians without raising much of an eyebrow in the public domain, but to do the same with the deaths of Jews in the Second World War is tantamount to career suicide. My lawyer advised me to get the accusation removed from the Internet but I think it best serves as a small, cyber monument to the preposterous and baseless sewage in which some people are content to swim.
Super Committee Deadlock: Heads They Win, Tails We Lose
11/19/11
It is no great surprise that with only days to go, the congressional “super committee,” given the herculean task of carving an additional $1.2 trillion out of the federal budget, has failed to reach agreement. Why should six Republicans and six Democrats with diametrically opposed views agree in a few weeks, when Congress couldn’t shake hands on it after months of wrangling, despite the guillotine blade of a federal default hanging over their heads?
Whether the super committee reaches agreement or not, however, the deficit hawks win. If they agree, either $1.2 trillion gets cut from the budget or taxes go up by that amount; and the committee co-chair has categorically stated taxes are not going up, so that means the budget will be cut. If agreement is not reached, $1.2 trillion in cuts automatically kick in, split evenly between domestic and military spending. Either way, the economy will wind up with $1.2 trillion less in the way purchasing power. The result will be to reduce demand, kill jobs, and put more people on the streets.
For the deficit hawks, however, it all seems to be going according to plan. The super committee is characterized as an emergency measure that was rushed through to avoid an arbitrarily imposed August deadline for freezing the debt ceiling, but it has actually been in the works for years. In 2009, it was called the “Bipartisan Task Force for Responsible Fiscal Action”. That plan died when its Senate sponsors, Judd Gregg and Kent Conrad, failed to secure 60 votes for passage in the Senate. The Gregg-Conrad bill was criticized as railroading through legislation that would unconstitutionally slash domestic services without congressional debate, but its task force would actually have been LESS autocratic than the super committee, which has sweeping powers and needs only a simple majority among its 12 members to prevail.
What has been forced out of the debate is whether cutting the budget is a good idea at all.
Messenger's Report at Vigil for Peace with Justice Outside Cornerstone Church, Nashville TN
11/19/11
Pastor Maury Davis's church website tells that "he was arrested at age eighteen for the crime of first-degree murder. Following his trial and conviction, he served eight and one-half years in the Texas Department of Corrections." He claims 3900 members at Cornerstone church, where he emphasizes that if Jesus can forgive him, anyone can be forgiven. We do not disagree.
It is not our business to judge God's work, but if indeed Maury Davis repented for killing just one middle-aged woman, why did he sponsor a "Preserving Freedom Conference," inside his church which openly promoted hatred and fear of Muslims. Most of the Conference participants openly called for preemptive war upon Iran. Nor is this the first Muslim bash Davis has sponsored, for Geert Wilders who is under criminal indictment for hate speech in his native Holland, was a guest in Cornerstone earlier this year, and beat the drum for war. Several of the speakers at Cornerstone, including Wilders, were cited as authorities in Anders Brievik's Manifesto, left behind as his logic to murdered upward to 90 Norwegian students in May.
Does Pastor Davis not know that killing is the purpose of war? I have reason to think he knows. Does Jesus repeatedly forgive those who go on killing, or encouraging others to kill time after time? We asked this question of Maury Davis in a letter delivered to him, and to most members of his staff by e-mail a week before the conference. Has Maury Davis repented of his sin if he calls for war that can not help but kill tens of thousands, most of whom will be every bit as innocent as was the woman he murdered 35 years ago for accidently spilling paint on his boots. Jesus' last words to a woman to whom He forgave of her sin of prostitution was, "sin no more." He did not say, sin some more. We understand from this Jesus forgiveness was conditional upon her repentance.
Criminalizing OWS Protesters
11/18/11
On November 14, the Northern California ACLU and National Lawyers Guild (NLG) sued the Oakland Police Department (OPD) in federal court for "egregious constitutional violations" against Occupy Oakland protesters.
A temporary restraining order was sought to stop them. On November 14, hundreds of riot gear clad police forcefully evicted encamped Oscar Grant Plaza protesters at 5:00AM. At a same day press conference, Mayor Jean Quan said:
"We have to bring the camp to an end."
The ACLU-NC and NLG sued OPD on behalf of videographer Timothy Scott Campbell. Other plaintiffs include Kerie Campbell, Marc McKinnie, Michael Siegel, and NLG Legal Observer Marcus Kryshka.
On November 2, all faced excessive force. Campbell said:
"I was filming police activity at Occupy Oakland because police should be accountable. Now I'm worried about my safety from police violence and about retaliation because I've been outspoken."
According to NLG attorney Rachel Lederman:
"OPD's unconstitutional actions against protesters were wholesale and flagrant violations of Oakland's Crowd Control Policy."
It strictly limits force and prohibits indiscriminate use of shot-filled beanbags and other projectiles against peaceful protesters and crowds.
In fact, authorities nationally want OWS demonstrations ended. On November 15, Occupy Wall Street.org countered, saying:
"You cannot evict an idea whose time has come. We are the 99%. We are everywhere. We are a global movement that is reclaiming our humanity and our future."
America's Media War on Syria
11/18/11
Replicating Libya's model, Western generated uprisings began in March. Since then, Syria's been ravaged by violence. Hundreds have been killed, many more injured.
Civilians and state security forces have been affected. Conflict rages daily. Casualties mount. Regime change is planned to establish another US client state.
At issue Washington's New Middle East agenda. One country at a time is ravaged toward achieving America's goal of unchallenged regional dominance to Russia's borders.
Constructive chaos aims to redraw regional lines according to US/Israeli/NATO geopolitical goals. All of it's been carefully planned, shifting from one target to the next.
Post-9/11, first Afghanistan in 2001, then Iraq, Libya, and now Syria
Previous articles mentioned General Wesley Clark's book titled, "Winning Modern Wars." In it he said Pentagon sources told him shortly after 9/11 that war plans were being prepared against Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Somalia, Sudan and Libya. Months earlier, they were finalized against Afghanistan.
Clark added:
"And what about the real sources of terrorists - US allies in the region like Egypt, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia? Wasn't it repressive policies of the first, and the corruption and poverty of the second, that were generating many of the angry young men who became terrorists? And what of the radical ideology and direct funding spewing from Saudi Arabia?"
"It seemed that we were being taken into a strategy more likely to make us the enemy - encouraging what could look like a 'clash of civilizations' - not a good strategy for winning the war on terror."
Broadcast on FORA TV on October 3, 2007, Clark said America underwent a "policy coup" post-9/11. Hard-liners co-opted power with no public debate or acknowledgement.
New US drone regime
11/18/11
Frontier Post Editorial
Our people’s lives are very dear to us. Our tribal children are no less lovely than the American children.
The CIA’s new rules for its illegal and audacious drone attacks in Pakistan in reality represent no whittling down in its arrogant adventurism against a sovereign independent state, as has it projected to be by the American media. It just reflects an outcome of a heated inter-agency wrangling of America, specifically a triumph of sorts of US secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s doctrine of “smart power”. For furthering the US interests abroad, she has been pressing for lesser reliance on its brute power projection and more on diplomatic and development assistance initiatives, with the state department playing the central role in the entire gamut of America’s foreign domain. By using her immense stature, clout and status, she has already wrested a pivotal position for the state department in interacting with Iraq after the withdrawal of all the US troops by this year’s end. And the new CIA drone attack regime manifests she has secured a more decisive voice of her department in the conduct of the assaults as well.
But will that be of any real significance or consolation to this country, whose sovereignty and territorial sanctity is trashed by this spy service of a heady superpower so brazenly and whose innocent civilians are killed and maimed in these unlawful drone attacks so tragically? No sensible person would say it would. The new rules may have invested the state department with greater say in deciding the attacks. These may have also stipulated advance warning of attacks to the Pakistani authorities. So what? The infringement of our sovereignty would continue with impunity. More woefully, the slaughter of our innocent, including our children and women, would keep going on blithely. Whether it is the “smart power” or the “brutish power”, it is all the same. The carnage of our children, women and even the elderly would see no real let-up in it. But who cares in those high places in Washington?