Can we have our Nobel Peace Prize back, please? We got most of our decisions wrong. We should have laid much more emphasis on abolishing the military and outlawing wars, but we didn't. Such is the message about to go out to the more undeserving winners of one of the world's most coveted awards. More than half the Nobel Peace Prizes awarded since 1946 have been awarded illegally, says Fredrik Heffermehl, a Norwegian lawyer and peace activist, because they do not follow the expressed will of the millionaire inventor of dynamite. He says all but one of 10 prizes awarded since 1999 are illegitimate under Norwegian and Swedish law. Mr Heffermehl's verdict, which caused controversy when it was set out in his book Nobels Vilje (Nobel's Will) published in Norwegian in 2008, is likely to stir up passionate discussion next month when Greenwood Press publishes "The Nobel Peace Prize: What Nobel Really Wanted".

Mr Heffermehl's book emphasises that Nobel's will concentrated on rewarding the struggle to end wars through an international order based on law and abolition of military forces. Few of the recent winners can be seen to have engaged in that struggle. Among those awards he names as illegitimate are: Mother Teresa (1979); Lech Walesa (1983); Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin (1994); Iranian human rights activist Shirin Ebadi (2003); Kenyan environmentalist Wangari Maathai (2004); and Al Gore (2007). The will, dated 27 November 1895, disbursed large sums to various relatives, friends and servants before leaving the bulk of the estate to establishing the awards that bear his name. The relevant sentence setting out the terms of what he called a prize for the "champions of peace" is: "One part to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses."

David Cameron used a visit to Turkey to make his strongest intervention yet in the intractable Middle East conflict today when he likened the experience of Palestinians in the blockaded Gaza strip to that of a "prison camp". Although he has made similar remarks before, his decision to repeat them on a world stage in Turkey, whose relations with Israel have deteriorated sharply since it mounted a deadly assault on the Gaza flotilla, gave them much greater diplomatic significance. Cameron's comments, in a speech to business leaders in Ankara, prompted the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to issue another strong condemnation of how Israel dealt with the flotilla. Erdogan likened the behaviour of Israeli commandos, who shot dead nine Turkish pro-Palestinian activists, to Somali pirates.

A pro-Palestinian American group [USTOGAZA] has reportedly initiated a humanitarian campaign to sail an aid vessel to the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip. The "US Boat to Gaza" has begun attracting funds for the purchase of the vessel, Israeli newspaper The Jerusalem Post wrote on Monday. The vessel, which could carry 40 to 60 crewmembers, is expected to depart in autumn with the ultimate aim of challenging the four-year-long Israeli siege on the Gaza Strip. The Israeli-imposed restrictions have deprived the 1.5-million Palestinian residents of the impoverished coastal sliver of food, fuel and other necessities.

"...together we will contribute to the great effort to end the blockade of Gaza and the illegal occupation of Palestine",

the organizers have said on their website. The boat is reportedly to be named as "The Audacity of Hope," synonymous with President Barack Obama's popular book. The Indypendent: Activists Launch Campaign for U.S. Boat to Gaza. Indian Express: Indian ship to join anti-Gaza blockade campaign.

Maureen Dowd points out wisely that the Obama administration is too white. There are only two blacks in the administration, she says. Israel lobbyist Mitchell Bard points out all the Jews in the Obama administration:

David Axelrod (2009- ) Senior Advisor to the President; Jared Bernstein (2009- ) Chief Economist and Economic Policy Advisor to the Vice President; Rahm Emanuel (2009- ) Chief of Staff; Lee Feinstein (2009- ) Foreign Policy Advisor; Gary Gensler (2009- ) Chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission; Elena Kagan (2009- ) Solicitor General of the United States; Ronald Klain (2009- ) Chief of Staff to the Vice President; Jack Lew (2009- ) Deputy Secretary of State; Eric Lynn (2009- ) Middle East Policy Advisor; Peter Orszag (2009- ) Director of the Office of Management and Budget; Dennis Ross (2009- ) Special Advisor for the Gulf and Southwest Asia to the Secretary of State; Mara Rudman (2009- ) Foreign Policy Advisor; Mary Schapiro (2009- ) Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission; Dan Shapiro (2009- ) Head of Middle East desk at the National Security Council; James B. Steinberg (2009- ) Deputy Secretary of State; Lawrence Summers (2009- ) Director National Economic Council; Mona Sutphen (2009- ) Deputy White House Chief of Staff

[That's 17 people if you'd care to count. -What if Obama had had 17 black Americans or 17 Muslims in his administration instead?]

Just like Army PFC Bradley Manning, who leaked to Wikileaks and was turned in by one of the group's hacker associates, and now faces decades in jail. These old Chaos Computer Club hackers cut a deal long ago with intelligence and law enforcement rather than be thrown behind bars. Wikileaks is a clever intel community snare but Washington's top investigative journalists see through the trap. In May, PFC Bradley Manning, a former intelligence analyst in Iraq, was arrested on charges of leaking the video and other documents to Wikileaks, after confiding in former hacker Adrian Lamo, who turned him in. While publishing classified documents isn’t a crime in the U.S., press reports indicate the government is concerned that Wikileaks will publish tens of thousands of sensitive State Department cables that Manning purportedly also provided Wikileaks. In chats with Lamo, Manning claimed to have given Wikileaks a database of 260,000 cables; Manning has been formally charged with downloading over 150,000 cables, and leaking more than 50 classified cables. AWIP: Wikileaks obtained and multiple sources are now reporting on a huge cache of documents related to the US war in Afghanistan. The Guardian: Afghanistan war logs: Massive leak of secret files exposes truth of occupation.

NYT: Wikileaks: Pakistan state spy services meet directly with the Taliban to organize networks of militant groups against American soldiers in Afghanistan and assassinate Afghan leaders, all to ensure their US war on terror funding. Antiwar: Assange: WikiLeaks Has 15,000 More Documents ‘Under Review’.

[Editor's Comment:] It is easy to see that all of this Pakistal/Taliban stuff dovetails neatly with the US war campaign in Pakistan. -Is Wikileaks a DoD/CIA black operation? If it is, this would effectively ruin the trust necessary for whistleblowers to come forward. As for the ones that do come forward, the DoD/CIA could take them down, one by one. -Intel is a murky business...

Doubts summed up:

1. Wikileaks is straight & the docs published genuine
2. Wikileaks is straight but some docs are not genuine
3. Wikileaks is not straight and is a spider's web/black op (created by/taken over by the DoD and the CIA)

We would probably have to read a fair number of the 92000 documents to try and find out what the truth of the matter is. Some of the documents clearly are very damaging to both Pakistan and the US.

AWIP/Chris Floyd: Leaky Vessels: Wikileaks "Revelations" Will Comfort Warmongers, Confirm Conventional Wisdom. [T]hese reports are being treated as if they are the "grim truth" behind the shining picture of official propaganda. But what do these stories in the NYT and Guardian actually "reveal"? Let's see:

● That the occupation forces kill lots of civilians at checkpoints and botched raids, then lie about it afterward.
● That these killings make Afghans angry and fuel the insurgency.
● That elements of Pakistani intelligence are involved with some elements of the many resistance groups known collectively (and incorrectly) in the West as the Taliban.
● That the Americans are using more and more robot drones to kill people.
● That the Americans are running death squads in Afghanistan aimed at Taliban leaders.
● That Afghan officials are corrupt, and that Afghan police and military forces are woefully inadequate.

Is there anything in these breathless new recitations that we did not already know?

Kev Boyle: WIKILEAKS/WIKIPEDIA: TRUTH serving LIES (with CIA/MOSSAD oversight)
Again, innocent people get murdered by coalition troops. Evil...embarrassing....but tell us something we didn't know. We know that the powers-that-be are determined to control both sides of every argument. They lead the opposition against themselves. That's why "Stop The War" will not even MENTION 9/11 Truth and exclude from the ranks of their leadership anyone who wants to raise reasonable questions about the events of 9/11. Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is 'annoyed' by 9/11 truth. That there IN ITSELF makes him, to any sensible person, a placeman of the security services. This, like the StopTheWar position, is called a 'limited hangout'.

Elvis of Terror: Sightings of Osama bin Laden: Daily Telegraph + Daily Mail + The BBC + The Guardian

AWIP: From the grave: "Bin Laden" warns US of more attacks

Find all the current Wikileaks Mirrors here. Helpful, if the main site - wikileaks.org - is down.

The United States has assured its allies in South Asia that it has no plans to quit the region and will stay engaged with Afghanistan as well. The assurance followed reports in the US media that President Barack Obama’s intention to start withdrawing American troops from Afghanistan from July next year had unsettled the entire region, causing South Asian nations to prepare themselves for a post-withdrawal scenario.

[Seems like the CIA is adding fuel to the fire with this Wikileaks document -they obviously want a war between India and Pakistan:] Backing New Delhi’s finding that the ISI was actively involved in attacks on Indians working in Afghanistan, intelligence documents leaked on Sunday reveal that the Pakistani spy agency paid the Taliban and the Haqqani terror network to target Indian missions, road workers, doctors and engineers working in the country. US military documents, part of over 90,000 internal logs made public by website WikiLeaks, reveal that intelligence agencies received regular inputs on the ISI paying terror outfits to plan and execute attacks against Indian interests in Afghanistan. Rediff: Pakistan Taliban: "India is our domain, and we will attack to take possession of it...whether they are Hindus or Jews, they all are the same".

The Canadian military is rejecting a report released by WikiLeaks that suggests four Canadian soldiers who died in September 2006 in Afghanistan were killed by friendly fire from U.S. forces. The military maintains the four soldiers died in combat with the Taliban.

Former Pakistani spy agency chief Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul denied that he has any links to al Qaeda or Taliban insurgents and said he is willing to go to America to face any charges.

“Report of my physical involvement with al Qaeda or Taliban in planning attacks on American forces is completely baseless,” the former Inter-Services Intelligence chief said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. “I am not against America, but I am opposed to what the American forces are doing in Afghanistan.”

In the murky world of Pakistan army links with militants, it’s often difficult to ascertain whether former military officers like Mr. Gul are working with the tacit approval of current army personnel. Mr. Gul, however, does not work mainly in the shadows. He’s a regular presence on nightly TV talkshows, expounding his anti-American views. The ISI denied that Hamid Gul had continued to operate on behalf of the spy agency after officially leaving the organization two decades ago.

“He hasn’t worked for the ISI in any capacity since he left the organization,” said Zafar Iqbal, a spokesman for the ISI. “He doesn’t have any sanction from the ISI,” he added.

Gul, who served as director general of ISI from 1986 to 1989, had worked closely with the Central Intelligence Agency in organizing a covert war against the former Soviet Union forces in Afghanistan. Gul likes to call himself a “Muslim visionary” and has remained actively involved with Pakistani radical Islamic movements and Afghan Mujahideen leaders such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar since his retirement from the army in 1991. He has been a strong critic of America since then.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says the United States and Israel plan to attack two countries in the Middle East as part of a conspiracy to apply pressure on Iran.

"We have precise information that the Americans have devised a plot, according to which they seek to launch a psychological war on Iran," Ahmadinejad stated in an exclusive interview with Press TV on Monday. "They plan to attack at least two countries in the region within the next three months," he added.

He said the US seeks to achieve two main objectives with the scheme.

"First of all, they want to hamper Iran's progress and development since they are opposed to our growth, and secondly they want to save the Zionist regime because it has reached a dead-end and the Zionists believe they can be saved through a military confrontation," Ahmadinejad explained.

He also advised US President Barack Obama not to follow the policies of George W. Bush.

Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira, head of the Od Yosef Hai Yeshiva and author of "The King's Torah," was arrested early Monday morning at his home in the West Bank settlement of Yitzhar. His book describes how it is possible to kill non-Jews according to halakha (Jewish religious law). The preface of the book, which was published in November, states that it is forbidden to kill non-Jews - but the book then apparently describes the context in which it is permitted to do so. According to Shapira, it is permissible to kill a non-Jew who threatens Israel even if the person is classified as a Righteous Gentile. His book says that any gentile who supports war against Israel can also be killed. Killing the children of a leader in order to pressure him, the rabbi continues, is also permissible. In general, according to the book, it is okay to kill children if they "stand in the way - children are often doing this."

[Editor's Comment:] These ideas have gone mainstream long ago. The Israeli army has killed, tortured & maimed thousands of Palestinians for years, without this hairsplitting and quasi-religious verbiage. They should all be in prison, both the yeshiva lunatics and the bigwigs in the army. -A deep, dark dungeon with no escape possible.

An Israeli military helicopter carrying six Israeli soldiers and one Romanian crashed on Monday in mountainous terrain near Brasov, in central Romania. According to local sources, seven bodies had been recovered by rescue forces at the crash site by nighttime. The Israelis on board the chopper included four Israeli army pilots and two airborne mechanics. The Israeli occupation army released on Monday night the names of the six Israeli crew members. According to Bucharest media reports, the Romanian Defense Ministry said the helicopter, a CH-53 Sikorsky, crashed during Blue Sky 2010 – an 11-day joint Romanian-Israeli aviation exercise. The exercise began on July 18 and is set to conclude on July 29.

The international aid agency Oxfam demanded Monday that Israel compensate Palestinians in a northern Jordan Valley village after soldiers destroyed at least $29,000 of aid. In a statement, the charity said villagers in Al-Farisiya were forced into poverty when soldiers demolished 79 structures in the village, including homes, stables, sheds, water tanks, two tons of animal fodder, fertilizer and wheat. An initial assessment by Oxfam and other NGOs in the area calculated that the demolitions affected 113 Palestinians, half of them children and identified as some of the poorest in the area. Water tanks and irrigation pipes provided by Oxfam were among the damaged goods. Oxfam’s advocacy officer, Cara Flowers, said the area looked "a natural disaster had taken place,” adding that “With no access to shelter, water or fodder for their goat and sheep herds, an entire community is being forced to leave their land.”

When Louisiana residents ask marine toxicologist and community activist Riki Ott what she would do if she lived in the Gulf with children, she tells them she would leave immediately. "It's that bad. We need to start talking about who's going to pay for evacuations." In 1989, Ott, who lives in Cordova, Alaska, experienced firsthand the devastating effects of the Exxon Valdex oil disaster. For the past two months, she's been traveling back and forth between Louisiana and Florida to gather information about what's really happening and share the lessons she learned about long-term illnesses and deaths of cleanup workers and residents. In late May, she began meeting people in the Gulf with symptoms like headaches, dizziness, sore throats, burning eyes, rashes and blisters that are so deep, they're leaving scars. People are asking, "What's happening to me?" AWIP/Stephen Lendman: Growing Health Crisis in the Gulf.

'Scores die' in Afghan village raid. A Nato rocket attack on a village in Afghanistan last week killed 52 civilians, including women and children, the office of Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, has said in a statement. Based on reports from the Afghan National Directorate of Security, a house in Regey village in Sangin district of the southern Helmand province was hit with a rocket launched by Nato troops on Friday. Karzai has offered his condolences via telephone to the mourning families and called on Nato troops to "put into practice every possible measure to avoid harming civilians during military operations". The Afghan president has ordered the National Security Council to investigate the incident, Sediq Sediqqi, head of media relations at the presidency, said earlier. Reports surfaced on Saturday that a helicopter gunship fired on villagers who had been told by fighters to leave their homes as a firefight with troops from Nato's International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) was imminent. According to witness accounts, men, women and children fled to Regey village and were fired on from helicopter gunships as they took cover. Abdul Ghafar, 45, told AFP, a French press agency, that he lost "two daughters and one son and two sisters" in the attack. He and six other families fled to Regey, about 500 metres from their village of Ishaqzai, after being warned about the imminent battle, he said. PressTV: US-led forces kill 52 civilians.

The Chilcot inquiry confirms what most suspected - the reasons for war were bogus. In future, such decisions must be transparent. It was almost exactly eight years ago that the public beat of the Washington war drums became so loud and insistent that it could no longer be ignored. But we now know that for quite some time before July 2002 Tony Blair and George Bush had been engaged in a dialogue of the determined with regime change in Iraq at the top of their agenda. Before Chilcot, we had to rely on leaked documents such as telegrams from diplomats, accounts of meetings held round the sofa at No 10, and, for lawyers, the crown jewels of the Attorney General's written advice to the Prime Minister. The Hutton and Butler inquiries helped to fill in some of the blanks, though qualified by their restricted remits and security considerations. But slowly and with only occasional fanfare the whole sad, sorry story is being systematically laid out in evidence before the Chilcot inquiry. Chilcot has not been about surprises but rather about confirmation, less about revelation and more about corroboration of what we thought we knew. Sir John Chilcot has made it clear that his committee is not a court of law and that no findings of legality will be made but just by exposing to public scrutiny the process by which legal advice was tendered and disregarded, he has provided more than enough evidence in support of the proposition that military action against Iraq was illegal.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned Europe on Sunday not to join U.S. "plots" against Iran, saying that any cooperation with Washington will be regarded as hostile by the Iranian nation, the official IRNA news agency reported. The Americans have managed to persuade a part of Europe and Russia to join them in their latest anti-Iran scenario, Ahmadinejad made the remark in a festival in Tehran, according to IRNA. Any actions against Iran including disturbing Iranian airplanes or ships will be met with speedy responses from Iran, the Iranian president was quoted as saying. UN Security Council adopted last month a resolution on the Iranian nuclear issue, prohibiting Iran from investing abroad in nuclear and enrichment operations, imposing new restrictions on Iran's import of conventional arms and allowing the Iranian ships in the international water to be checked. On Thursday, the European Union agreed on sanctions against Iran's energy sector including its oil and gas industry. The agreement will come into effect if it is approved at the EU foreign ministers' meeting on Monday. PressTV: Iran deplores new EU sanctions.