03/14/12

Permalink Poll: Majority of Americans don't want Israel to attack Iran

A majority of Americans do not want Israel to attack Iranian nuclear facilities, and believe that Iran could rebuild its nuclear program in less than five years if it were attacked, according to a new University of Maryland poll.

Iran says its nuclear program is purely for peaceful purposes, but suspicion over what Iran is doing has stirred debate about launching an attack. The U.S. says it will stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, but Israeli officials say a military strike would be justified if Iran is seen to be gaining the capability to make them. To gauge how Americans felt about an attack, more than 700 people were polled about whether they believed that Israel should strike Iran to stop its nuclear program. Only 1 in 4 favored the idea. “Americans think a military strike against Iran’s nuclear program is not likely to produce much benefit or to be low in cost,” the University of Maryland Anwar Sadat Chair and the Program on International Policy Attitudes found. “Less than half believe that a strike would weaken the Iranian government.” Less than 1 in 5 polled thought that an Israeli strike would delay Iran from developing nuclear capabilities for more than five years. Only 1 in 7 thought the U.S. should encourage Israel to strike. Instead, 69% of the Americans who were polled said the U.S. should continue to pursue negotiations with Iran, with a large majority saying it should act primarily through the United Nations Security Council.

Jim Lobe: Little US Popular Support for Israeli Attack on Iran

Russia Today: US Iran ultimatum: Yield now or be attacked by year’s end - VideoThe US wants Russia to deliver a message to Iran: Tehran has one last chance for talks. If it is wasted, an attack will happen in a matter of months, according to Russian diplomatic sources. The threat was voiced by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during a meeting with her Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov in New York on Monday, a diplomatic insider told Kommersant daily. “The invasion will happen before year’s end. The Israelis are de facto blackmailing Obama. They’ve put him in this interesting position – either he supports the war or looses the support of the Jewish lobby,” the diplomat told the Russian newspaper.
Larry Derfner: How Netanyahu tries to bully American presidents


Permalink Afghanistan shooting murders: Leon Panetta flies in for surprise visit

US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta flew into Afghanistan on Wednesday at a fraught moment in the war after a shooting rampage by a US soldier raised fears of an anti-American backlash. - In an unannounced but already scheduled visit, Panetta landed in southern Afghanistan at the Camp Bastion military base. The trip comes in the wake of Sunday's shooting spree that left 16 Afghans dead, most of them women and children. Tensions were running high a day after suspected Taliban insurgents opened fire on an Afghan government delegation attending a memorial service for the civilians who were murdered.

PressTV: Pentagon chief arrives in Afghanistan amid anti-US fury


Permalink American Morlocks: Another Civilian Massacre and the Savagery of Our Soldiers

The killing has continued unabated for over ten years and is routinely ignored by the mainstream media, which choose instead to praise American soldiers for their duty, their heroism, and their sacrifice.

Just last month, on February 8, 2012, a NATO air strike killed several children in the eastern Kapinsa province of Afghanistan, with "young Afghans of varying ages" identified among the casualties. Similar strikes were responsible for the murders of nearly 200 civilians last year alone. Furthermore, in less than ten months from 2010 to early 2011, well over 1,500 Afghan civilians were killed by U.S. and NATO forces in night raids, a brutal occupation tactic that has been embraced - along with drone attacks - by Barack Obama. According to a September 2011 study by the Open Society Foundation, “An estimated 12 to 20 night raids now occur per night, resulting in thousands of detentions per year, many of whom are non-combatants." These raids produce heavy civilian casualties and often target the wrong people.

Ross Caputi: The systemic atrocity of Afghanistan's occupation - Is there a morally significant difference between murder, like the Panjwai massacre, and collateral damage? Ask Afghan civilians.


Permalink CIA concerned about possible trial of Iraq's Vice President al-Hashemi

The director of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), David Petraeus, has expressed concerns about the possible trial of Iraqi Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi on charges of involvement in terrorist activities. - Hashemi is accused of ordering attacks and deadly bombings against innocent Iraqi civilians as well as government and security officials over the past years, including a November 2011 car bombing in the capital Baghdad that apparently targeted Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. [This would suggest that Tareq al-Hashemi may have been CIA's terrorist in Iraq, right? He now probably is "dead man walking".]


Permalink In China, Human Costs Are Built Into an iPad

The explosion ripped through Building A5 on a Friday evening last May, an eruption of fire and noise that twisted metal pipes as if they were discarded straws. - When workers in the cafeteria ran outside, they saw black smoke pouring from shattered windows. It came from the area where employees polished thousands of iPad cases a day. Two people were killed immediately, and over a dozen others hurt. As the injured were rushed into ambulances, one in particular stood out. His features had been smeared by the blast, scrubbed by heat and violence until a mat of red and black had replaced his mouth and nose. When workers in the cafeteria ran outside, they saw black smoke pouring from shattered windows. It came from the area where employees polished thousands of iPad cases a day. Two people were killed immediately, and over a dozen others hurt. As the injured were rushed into ambulances, one in particular stood out. His features had been smeared by the blast, scrubbed by heat and violence until a mat of red and black had replaced his mouth and nose.


Permalink 6.8-magnitude quake hits off east coast of Japan's Honshu, tsunami warning in effect

An earthquake measuring 6.8 on the Richter scale jolted off the east coast of Honshu, Japan at 18:09 p.m. local time (0908 GMT) on Wednesday, said the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA). The epicenter, with a depth of 10.00 km, was initially determined to be at 40.7000 degrees north latitude and 145.2000 degrees east longitude. According to the agency, tsunami warnings or advisories are currently in effect. Tsunami measuring 50 centimeters high is expected to reach coastal areas of such prefectures as northeastern Aomori and Iwate at around 18:40 p.m. local time.

Russia Today: Tsunami alert as 6.8 earthquake hits Japan


Permalink Hunger and homelessness on the rise in Greece

The social devastation of Greece over the past three years has led to a drastic increase in homelessness and hunger.

It is officially estimated that a third of Greeks now live below the poverty line, but things are much worse in reality. According to the national statistics bureau ELSTAT, more than 3 million (27.7 percent) of Greece’s 11 million people were already on the edge of poverty or social exclusion in 2010, at the start of the crisis. Since then, the conditions of life for millions have worsened immeasurably. Mass unemployment is now permanent, with the official jobless rate at 21 percent. For the first time, more than 50 percent of youth are without a job. More than 500,000 people have no income whatsoever in what was, until a few years ago, a nation with rising living standards. So desperate is the situation that some 500,000 people have left the country. With 1,000 people a day being made unemployed, along with a never-ending onslaught on wages and benefits, an ever widening layer of society is now known as the “new homeless.”


Permalink Israel is planning to demolish "illegal" solar panels that are the only source of electricity for Palestinians in West Bank villages

Two large solar panels jut out of the barren landscape near Imneizil in the Hebron hills. The hi-tech structures sit incongruously alongside the tents and rough stone buildings of the Palestinian village, but they are fundamental to life here: they provide electricity. Imneizil is not connected to the national electricity grid. Nor are the vast majority of Palestinian communities in Area C, the 62% of the West Bank controlled by Israel. The solar energy has replaced expensive and clunky oil-powered generators. According to the Israeli authorities, these solar panels – along with six others in nearby villages – are "illegal" and have been slated for demolition.

Nihad Moor, 25, has three small children. The family live in a two-room tent kitted out with a fridge, TV and very old computer. She also has a small electric butter churn, which she uses to supplement her husband's small income from sheep farming. "The kids get sick all the time. At the moment, because of a change in the weather, they all have colds. Without electricity I wouldn't even be able to see to help them when they need to use the [outdoor] toilet at night," Moor says. "I don't want to imagine what life would be like here if [the panels] were demolished."


Permalink Israeli Army Uproots Farmlands Near Hebron

Israeli soldiers uprooted, on Tuesday, Palestinian farmlands that belong to local residents of the Al-Majnouna area, south of Hebron, in the southern part of the West Bank. - Resident Mohammad Amro told the Palestinian information center that army bulldozers uprooted trees and farmlands in order to expand a military base located at the top of Musharraf Mountain, south of Hebron. Amro added that the army illegally confiscated the private Palestinian lands, installed a monitoring tower, and launched a surveillance balloon to monitor the area from the sky. Earlier, the army destroyed pools built dozens of years ago in order to collect rain water to be used in agriculture in the area, known for its fertile soil.

PIC: Jewish settlers steal 250 olive trees
IMEMC: Settlers Expand Hebron Settlement


Permalink Stemple to be put to death after board denies clemency request

OKLAHOMA CITY - Barring any successful last-minute appeals, Timothy Shaun Stemple will be put to death [...] for the 1996 killing of his wife in Tulsa County.

That was the ruling from the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board at a hearing Friday. The board denied Stemple's final clemency request on a 4-1 vote, with board member Currie Ballard the sole vote for commuting the sentence to life without parole. Stemple is to be executed by lethal injection March 15 at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. His last appeal was denied by the U.S. Supreme Court on Jan. 9. Stemple, 46, was convicted in 1997 of killing Trisha Stemple by severely beating her with a baseball bat wrapped in cellophane and running her over with a pickup truck along the side of U.S. 75 between 81st and 91st streets Oct. 24, 1996. According to testimony given during the trial, Shaun Stemple planned with meticulous detail the death of his wife of 11 years to collect a $950,000 life insurance policy. Shaun Stemple has maintained his innocence. Shaun and Trisha Stemple's daughter asked the board to spare her father's life. FREESHAUN.COM (website)

VG: «Norske» Timothy skal henrettes torsdag: - Vil gjenforenes med kona mi


Permalink 'Impeach Obama' Bill: Use of military without Congress approval 'high crime'

An American military attack on Syria could effectively lead to the impeachment of President Barack Obama. Congressmen say that any war without congressional authorization would be “unconstitutional”. - Republican Representative Walter B. Jones Jr. has come up with the resolution demanding Obama’s impeachment in case his administration starts another military action without the approval of Congress. This came as a reaction to the American Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announcing that in order to carry out the offensive, the US military needs permission from the UN and NATO alone. Jones’s resolution states that the prime authority to rule on the attack is the US Congress, but not international bodies be it NATO or UN.

“Expressing the sense of congress that the use of offensive military force by a president without prior and clear authorization of an Act of Congress constitutes an impeachable high crime and misdemeanor under Article II, Section 4 of the constitution,” Jones’s resolution said.

In an exchange which occurred at the session of the Senate Armed Services Committee, US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said that in case Obama administration decides to strike Syria, it would merely “inform” Congress after the decision has been made.


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